“Shhhhhhhh”

I started writing this note on the plane on my way back home from Muscat.  I was feeling very relaxed. I think relaxed is an understatement. I was more like drugged! I don't know what it is but this city has an amazing energy that forces you to switch off. You're literally unable to use your mind or operate with the same speed you're used to.

Before getting out of the airport into the city you feel like the immigration officer has asked you to keep quiet ¨shhhhhhh.¨And I obeyed! I kept quiet. My mind was quiet all week! You can´t help it even if you´ve tried. 

With a coastline of 1700km, you can walk on the beach for hours!

The Omanis are happy people! Everything is slow and happens in slow motion. It reminded me of life in Amman in the 80's when the city was empty and life was simple.

Employees take three-hour lunch breaks. Deadline related panic is non-existent.


You walk by the Sultan's guest house and you see no security but one guard who greets you with a smile and asks you to take as many pictures as you want.

You feel as if people have meditated before leaving their homes in the morning!

Even Birds meditate on the beach there! They're not afraid. You can go near them to take a photo, they're not bothered. They probably don't know you're there because they're busy meditating!

When you've gotten a taste of life in Oman and compare it with your own life back home, you think to yourself is anything really worth it? Is it that easy to choose to switch back to slow motion and switch our mind off?

The first few days after I came back home I was still under the effect of the “Muscat drug.” My mind was still asleep and I wondered if I’d be able to maintain that wonderful feeling.


I remembered a book I read a couple of years ago called A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle and decided to pick it up and read it one more time in the hope of preserving in my heart what was left of the amazing energy I brought back home.

In the book Tolle talks about the energy field of different countries. He says that the overwhelmingly light energy of certain countries is related to their history devoid of violence.

“Certain countries in which many acts of collective violence were suffered or perpetrated have a heavier collective pain body than others. This is why older nations tend to have stronger pain-bodies. It is also why younger countries, such as Canada and Australia, and those that have remained more sheltered from the surrounding madness, such as Switzerland, tend to have lighter collective pain-bodies…If you’re sensitive enough, you can feel a heaviness in the energy field of certain countries as soon as you step off the plane.“

How’s that for a thought?

I felt the exact opposite the minute I set foot in Muscat. It was as if the whole population joined together to give me a week-long healing session!