The Ruins of the Earthquake

wanderings amongst the ruins

The Earth shook.

Then the Earth shook again.

Many lives lost. Many homes destroyed. Cities turned into ruins. The bones shivered with fear. The clouds of grief covered the land. And our planet-less ways of living and being became more obvious, complicated, painful…

Dear People,

It has been four months I did not pen Storyteller Stone¹. The Stone was rolling all over on its own. Perhaps hitting some of the mountains of my life that prevented me from writing and sharing the written word. I was silent here but I have been writing something, the second draft of Single Seed Tale (my eco fantasy novel) and entangling some story knots. Also to be honest, I was so disheartened and confused by the happenings in our planet, in Iran, in Ukraine, in Afghanistan and in my own country and patriarchal asylum, I could not summon the words to write and share here. They just went up in the air, vanish and did not want to leave marks. I respected.

some sand domes for the dead and dying, a grief offering to the Mediterranean Sea.

When the news of the earthquake reached my ears, I was away. I was wandering amongst the ruins of dear Greece, a land I have always loved yet never get to visit until February 2023. I was taking a very needed break and outing from Turkey, from my creative isolation with the last euro bills in my pocket and meeting with my dear friend and creative companion. Then the ruins of the recent earthquake and the ruins of the ancient civilisations forever collided in my life. Many cities collapsed, many lives lost and friends wrote from all around the world caring and sending love.

When I returned to the grieving country the day before my mother’s death anniversary, all kinds of feelings were etching my soul, insisting to be felt and known. I could not even hold onto the beauty I had devoured and the depth I had encountered. The destruction was so immense and wanted immediate attention. My father also fell around the time of the earthquake and broke a bone in his shoulder. My human father and my nation father share a birthday and they have been in a strange dance ever since I have known them. Blood ancestry is a curious organism.

After couple of days being back, I got really unwell because my people are unwell, my “ecosystem” is unwell and my country is unwell. There is an elected toxic father/patriarch above us, residing in a palace and not taking a single responsibility but screaming all the curses and insults at us, his human herd. You may know the tale! He likens himself to an authoritarian shepherd, therefore he needs a herd.

Right now, I am heartbroken. I am dreambroken. I long for awayness and wilderness… instead I am wandering amongst ruins within and without. That too is a wild task.

This region, this land has been bleeding all over us and instead of tending to its wounds we send more iron, more bricks, more men, more guns, more fights, more curses, more prayers to it… the very things that keep hurting and destroying. The land needs healing, hearing, touching, imagining and transforming. The land is human exhausted and harmed for so long. We need the harming to stop. We need help.

One cannot get out of rubble without the aid of others, that we got to understand. We need help to transform this madness. It truly hurts to feel so discardable. Life can be so cheap here. And we keep cheapening it with all the ways we treat ourselves, each other, our planet and our wild kin. I cannot tell you how heartwarming it was to see the solidarity amongst people when their government fell all kinds of short (as his usual) and also to see the other countries sending their humans for aid. Something in me admired our capacity to get together when a great disaster falls upon humanity…

Witnessing these moments of solidarity made me wonder how can we organise ourselves for our planet like this when species, entire ecosystems are collapsing? Can we be there for our planet also, can we become one family who strives to live in reciprocal relationship with their planet? What more emergency, what more urgency, what more disaster do we need to start working towards ecocentric relational living?

We live as if we do not live on a planet, we live as if we are not connected to each other and to a magnificent life story… Our senses, our emotions, our thinking, our imagining, all got so disconnected from our planet. It is truly “fascinating” how a species can become like this… It shows in the ways we create, we relate, we “share” our resources; in the ways we build our homes, our neighbourhoods, our lives, our relationships… I do not know, how long we can keep on ruining ourselves, one another and our planet. What I know is that it does not need to be like this, we can unbecome what we have become.

I have never been to those cities, nor I have sat with the land or their people (human and other-than-human), therefore I do not wish to write much about them… out of respect. And it is very hard to speak or write about earthquake… as it is so fresh, so near, so real and so violent. There is at least one more, a big one that is being expected in Istanbul (where I am) that they say it can hit anytime. I have lived two big earthquakes so far. The first and bigger one’s fear is still in my bones. It was in 1999 around 3 am and I was in this very house with my mom and maternal grandparents. That night I had not been sleeping because there was a knot in my being. I was awake watching Formula One (i think, or figure skating.) Then the fault spoke and the earth shook. The energy was wild. I could not stay within the concrete. I asked my family to leave the house. People were in shock. There was so much fear, death, grief all around. It is still one of the most crucial events in our lives here that changed many lives and life directions. Many promises were made after that disaster by our nation father, none kept. You may say we have a father issue. Yes, we do.

An earthquake is a loud announcement of the ground about being on a planet, living with a planet. A reality check, a reality shake, a reality wake. Much gets released.

There are many faults under our feet. The faults in our lands can feel too much yet it is not the fault of our planet. The faults shall not disappear. They too are needed. The way we live with our land, the way we relate must change, we all know that.

And after this shaking and ruining, I know I must relate and build differently. I will be exploring that with this spring… If I am to turn into ruins, I wish to find ways to turn into a beautiful one that hosts deep imagination and creativity. For that, I must build first, this time better, stronger, wiser. Otherwise what difference do I have from the very patriarchy and his rotten, corrupt men I criticise.

Knossos, Crete, 2023

Right now, I seem to have very little energy and life force in me. Because there are also things that feed off of me. This shall change when I can change my place and my ways in the world. There is an urgency in my being to shake my life off, to get the words, to get the stories out. So, at least they can be out there breathing and living a life when it hits again… so they don’t collapse because I failed to publish them and set them free. Perhaps I will not collapse also because one stone at a time, I will have built myself a sturdy yet flexible, rooted yet wandering creative life. My hands are still moving, my eyes are still seeing, my brain is still firing, my heart is still drumming, I have my planet holding me on this mad cosmic journey, so why not. I must create, write and connect even though it shakes, even though it hurts, even though it burns, even though it bleeds and perhaps because of them.

Ruins are wandering in me and I am wandering amongst the ruins… that mutual wandering must happen now. It is its unique time and space. Sometimes it is just that, letting the ruins ruin us, letting the ruins teach us, mature us, relate to us again and again.

From my ruins to yours, thank you for reading and being here.

With My Wild Love,

Gizem

P.S. One last thing, please consider donating -if you have not done already- to organisations that feel safe and right to you. Death and destruction asks for our coins. Even a small amount for you can turn into a significant contribution for the locals.

No matter where we are in the world, we are responsible for each other and our planet. Deep down, we all have connections to this burning and hurting region…

© Gizem Gizegen, 2023 Istanbul, ☉Pisces ☽ Cancer, ♄ Aquarius 29 degrees

1. Old name of Storytelling Planet.