A little miracle, a little knot, something a little sweet

In 1812, an invalid nun, Sister Anne Catherine Emmerich, awoke from sleep in her small village in Germany, her hands bleeding with the stigmata.  

Almost in a trance, she described the vision she’d just had which involved the Apostle John and the Virgin Mary travelling from Jerusalem to Ephesus.  Entrusted to care for Mary by Jesus as he was dying on the cross,  John brought Mary to Ephesus, where he was to preach.  There, Sister Anne said, he built her a house to see out her last days.  It was built near a spring, she said: it was rectangular, with a fireplace, an apse, and a rounded back wall.  

The house that Sister Anne described

Much later, a clergyman travelled to Ephesus after reading of the visions of Sister Anne.  He hiked far and long, until he came to a little house on the hill that local villagers had been venerating for aeons: believing it to be sacred.  

It fit the vision. 

He declared it the Meryemana, the house of the Blessed Virgin, according to the visions of Sister Anne.   Archeologists came and dated much of the newer construction to about 500 years later than Mary’s possible stay.  But the foundations and the lower walls were shown to be from the time of Mary, and the layout was exactly as Sister Anne had described.  Though Anne had never travelled.  

The inner sanctum 

So, they could not naysay the theory: allowing that it all might even be possible.

Tens of thousands of pilgrims visit the wee house and its tiny anteroom that Sister Anne said was Mary’s bedroom, each year.  A couple of Popes have called in recent times.    One even left his rosary beads.  

A wall of ribbons, prayers and pledges to Mary

The house is peaceful, interrupted only by bird chirrups, and the gentle tinkling of a spring as it drops over nearby rocks.  

On a wall in the anteroom soft lichen is growing, making a portrait: which looks much like the face of Mary.   

Though, I don’t think Sister Anne reported that as one of the miracles that made up her visions.  

Anne has been beatified.  

000OOO000

In Selçuk, we visited a carpet factory.  This is a terribly touristy thing to do, a trap we always manage to avoid when we come across them,  but this time we accidentally nodded at an entrance when we should not have; but we made a man happy, didn’t stay long, and were not enticed to buy. 

Carpet knots above; kilim weave below

And found it interesting.  

And we learned the difference between a carpet and a kilim.  A carpet is knotted; a kilim is woven.  

Turkish carpet makers are very proud of the double knots they use to create their carpets, believing them stronger than others made with only a single knot and a loop.   

Skilled carpet maker, working in silk

Silk is more expensive than wool; and here, silk cocoons are soaked prior to being wound into skeins to knot.    

Soaking silk cocoons

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By now it was time for a drink and a snack, so we tried our first Gözleme (Goes leh' meh).  

Cooked while you wait on the saç 

Gözleme is like fine phyllo, unleavened, rolled and stretched transparently thin, often using those long very thin spindle rollers and fine thin pincers to turn: filled with your choice of filling; dripped with fine strings of rich butter, then cooked on a convex shaped metal pan, called a saç, in Turkey. 

Drizzled with chocolate

We felt like something sweet, so ours was flavoured with chocolate. Perfect with çay.  

Everything is made right in front of you in Turkey.  And people are so delighted that you care about that.  

Mad foodies, the Turkish folk.  

ooo000ooo