Primavera arrived this week with her sun-golden hair, azure eyes, and fragrance of flowering cherries. She lit my heart. Today, however, she has withdrawn, hiding her countenance behind the overcast sky, shedding cold rain-tears, and silencing her voice of robin-songs as the wind howls the tale of enduring winter. I took a walk in the … Continue reading Shelley: If Winter Comes?
We welcomed the New Year on the shores of the Bosphorus. The fireworks' explosion of color and sound startled the flocks of seagulls that flew overhead. The late night fog swept in from the water into the land, enveloping the people's happiness, and ours, as if in a veil of mystic rapture. That was one … Continue reading Rumi: A Stringed Instrument
Istanbul thrives on its engagement with the Bosphorus, the natural strait that joins the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara. It is an intensely used waterway, both for the navigation of cargo ships and for public transportation. Istanbullus, the city's residents, travel by boat between various neighborhoods on the European and Asian shores of … Continue reading Navigating the Bosphorus with Orhan Pamuk
I have been gazing at the mosques of Istanbul--elegant, with grand semi-spherical domes and their lean minarets. These point heavenward, as if they could pierce the sky's grander azure dome. What do they mean, at least to me? One of Rumi's rubaiyat has given me the key to interpretation. They symbolize not ambition but liberation--that … Continue reading Rumi: Liberation
You walk among the spirits of flying dervishes and the whispers of their mystical joy on the anniversary of Rumi's death. How many lives have been loved, how many loves have been lived, how many flying hearts have turned and danced in his land since 17 December 1273? How many dances have been danced, how … Continue reading Rumi: Rubaiyat at Random
I find myself in the unexpected company of German poets. The other evening, as I walked about in Windsor Terrace, I saw that a neighbor had left several books on the stoop of her brownstone house. I browsed through them and selected two to bring home with me: Friedrich Hölderlin's Hymns and Fragments and Paul … Continue reading In the Company of German Poets
Se abre la roja flor de pasiflora. Bebe su néctar el amazilia tzácatl. Maravilla natural. Granadilla de monte o pasiflora (Passiflora vitifolia) Colibrí rabirrufo (Amazilia tzacatl). [Foto: JFP_Birds].
Silencio verde. En el bosque húmedo, ardor níveo. Flores y frutos blancos en el sotobosque, Sector Prusia del Parque Nacional Volcán Irazú, Costa Rica
Hice un retiro en Villa Zurquí, en las montañas de San Isidro de Heredia colindantes con el Parque Nacional Braulio Carrillo, para participar de un curso de meditación vipassana de tres días. La mayor parte del tiempo meditamos en grupo, bajo el embate de aguaceros y ventoleros de una tormenta tropical. La tormenta exterior se … Continue reading Villa Zurquí: Haikus
I have been biking to the piers at Sunset Park to read Siddhartha while facing the upper bay of the Hudson River's estuary. I knew that Siddhartha's encounter with the river would be the tale's most moving chapter for me. I wanted to prepare for it by contemplating, as I read, the ebb and flow … Continue reading Siddhartha by the River
