I have returned from Turkey to the Kootenays with a plethora of stories and stories within stories of a magic carpet journey that I wish to share with you. There were many reasons for me to do the journey in October and there was a guiding spirit to this one that was very very strong. I was disappointed that 3 of my friends from America changed their minds at the last minute and cancelled their trip for a variety of reasons, some political and some financial. Turkey is a country with a significant destiny on the earth at this time. It is perhaps the most enlightened of Islamic nations and may provide an antidote to fundamentalism. Turkey has hosted something like 33 different civilizations and offered Mount Ararat as a place where Noah's Ark came to rest. So you could say that Turkey is the place on our planet to make new beginnings and plant a vineyard ! We didn't make it to Avraham's cave in Urfa or Gurdjieff's Nisibis on this particular trip--that will have to wait for the next departure. However, the contact with the Mevlevi Sufis was heart-opening, thanks to the hospitality and love extended by my friend Isaya who cares for the Dervish Brothers Center in Konya. Uzeyir (Izaya) took my travelling companion Aliyana and myself to the tombs of Rumi, Shams Tabriz and Rumi's beloved cook ( who offered his feet to the fire and burnt his big toe in his devotion) and shared many teaching stories and moments of meditation with us from the heart of Mevlana. As it turns out , there is a Mevlevi Centre in Assisi in Italy and I have already recieved guidance to arrange a spiritual journey to Sardinia, Assisi and Damanhur for next summer. Should any of you be planning to go to Konya for the December celebration with the Whirling Dervishes, I would be happy to hear from you and share with you the whereabouts of friends in Turkey who would welcome you.

The spirit of Jelaluddin Rumi was with us for the complete journey -- in Istanbul at the carpet shops, in Antalya at the cafes for folkloric and haunting saz music, in the otherworldly landscapes of Cappadocia where Rumi walked with his scribe Hosamoddin and burst forth with his epic Mathnawi, and in the Caravanserai in Avanos where five Mevlevi dervishes performed the breathtaking Sema ceremony.

I have heard that thanks to the recent re-translations of Coleman Barks among others, Rumi's poetry is the best selling poetry in America. So we must be heartened by this and pray that the spirit of religious tolerance and generosity that Rumi kindled in 13th Century Anatolia will be rekindled in the 21st Century on Planet Earth. We have focussed great attention on our biosphere; it is time to give love and nurture to our ethnosphere. I want to encourage you to discover Rumi's teachings for our time from two treasuries: Jean Houston/s The Search for the Beloved and Coleman Barks ' The Soul of Rumi.

I read in an article in the Toronto Globe and Mail that there is concern in America that the new government in Turkey will depart from the secular ways of Ataturk that birthed the country that we know today. America has a vested interest in Turkey as a potential launching pad for military manouvres directed at Iraq. Astrologically this potential scenerio would happen after Ramadan and likely in January, 12 years or one Jupiter cycle from the timing of the Gulf War. Turkey has been a friend of America for some years now . However the number of visitors from America to Turkey has dwindled considerably thanks to Mr. Bush. Whether Turkey will lay down the red carpet for American troups is still to be determined...

So this leads us to the upcoming full moon on tuesday November 19th at 5:34pm PST at the 28th degree of Taurus with Sun at 28 degrees of Scorpio. These degrees are in resonance with the Pleiadian Star System and a nearby star that hosts the Watchers or a host of friendly guardian angels that inhabit Alpha Centauri. So the opportunity is there for lightworkers and benevolent friends of planet earth to broadcast a vibrational field that could defuse the polarization and fear that has been building up in the etheric body of our planet since 9/11.

So let me thank you in advance for participating in this full moon meditation and I invite you to visit www.treeoflifeschool.com where you will find an invitation to the upcoming Sedona Stargate Retreat ( Dec.18-23) and The Egypt Hall of Records Journey ( March 18-April 4th ). I plan to have the next installment of KAN out for Hanukkah on Dec.30th in time for us to tune in to the Solar Eclipse of Dec.3rd.