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
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 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
Sometimes reading takes us out "on a walk." For many years I had longed to return to the Egyptian-Lybian desert and to the hills of Tuscany by reading Michael Ondaatje's novel The English Patient (1992). About a month ago I was finally able to let Ondaatje's lyrical storytelling take me on that walk. I have … Continue reading The English Patient: Nationlessness and Namelessness
Daniel G. Campos 