[ j i m m y ]

breathe...

2012-01-26T15:21:00.001+02:00

barouk cedar reserve, lebanon / january, 2012 / nikon d300

music: patrick watson/ bright shiny lights/ close to paradise/ download

finding beauty in a broken world

2012-01-25T15:58:00.001+02:00

barouk cedar reserve, lebanon / january, 2012 / nikon d300

music: beirut/ vagabond/the rip tide/ download

the oak and the cypress

2012-01-08T22:13:00.000+02:00

"...sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
for only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
and stand together, yet not too near together:
for the pillars of the temple stand apart,
and the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow."

gibran; the prophet

distance no more

2012-01-08T18:24:00.000+02:00

dawn and dusk collide,
plus ou moins seven is right,
the fusion of light

[a haiku dating from march, 2011 -- adapting to the seven hour time difference between the east mediterranean and the eastern coast of the US was a delicious challenge that we embarked on for a full year. dusk and dawn often collided as we were both kissing the same sun simultaneously, bridging the distances by uniting through earth and light. thankfully, this is no more as we now both melt into each others' lips as the sun kisses us at every sunrise and every sunset].

life

2012-01-08T15:36:00.000+02:00

music: j.j. cale / rose in the garden / closer to you / download
artwork: december, 2011

keeping quiet

2012-01-08T03:03:00.000+02:00

Now we will count to twelve
And we will all keep still
For once on the face of the earth,
Let’s not speak in any language;
Let’s stop for a second,
And not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
Without rush, without engines;
We would all be together
In a sudden strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea
Would not harm whales
And the man gathering salt
Would not look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
Wars with gas, wars with fire,
Victories with no survivors,
Would put on clean clothes
And walk about with their brothers
In the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
With total inactivity.
Life is what it is about…

If we were not so single-minded
About keeping our lives moving,
And for once could do nothing,
Perhaps a huge silence
Might interrupt this sadness
Of never understanding ourselves
And of threatening ourselves with
Death.

Perhaps the earth can teach us
As when everything seems to be dead in winter
And later proves to be alive.

Now I’ll count up to twelve
And you keep quiet and I will go.

-Pablo Neruda

more than machinery, we need humanity

2011-12-15T12:58:00.000+02:00

"I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an Emperor - that's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone, if possible -- Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another; human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there's room for everyone and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone.

The way of life can be free and beautiful.

But we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost."

- excerpt from charlie chaplin's movie, "the great dictator"

like a map with no ocean

2011-12-11T22:48:00.001+02:00

qammoua, akkar, lebanon / october, 2011 / nikon d300

james blake / there's a limit to your love / james blake / download

sunrise, sunrise!

2011-12-01T17:25:00.000+02:00

hermel heights, lebanon / october, 2011 / nikon d300

the antlers / rolled together / burst apart / download

the body of my world

2011-12-01T13:00:00.000+02:00

hermel heights, lebanon / october, 2011 / nikon d300

the good life

2011-12-01T10:45:00.003+02:00

nothing beats a rural breakfast on a chilly morning at 2,200m altitude, having spent the night sleeping on the floor in a simple eco-lodge, and ahead of a hiking day in the rain. life is so simply and dazzlingly wonderful.

tree species of lebanon - first batch!

2011-11-30T10:59:00.001+02:00

this past year, we've been making an effort to research some of the most common tree species in lebanon! we've documented panels we've seen on trails and in nature reserves, been collecting information from local experts during our hikes, and looking through website and other references.

below is a list of common species that are found in lebanon in general. the list is based on a publication posted on the jabal moussa reserve website, and serves as a great starting point that we'll use and develop. so as we discover more species, we'll be building on that list and expanding it.

main tree species in lebanese forests:

syrian maple, found in eastern Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Cyprus and Israel. grows along coastal mountains.

greek strawberry tree is a small tree in the family Ericaceae, native to the Mediterranean region, the Middle East, and southwestern Asia.

syrian juniper, a species of juniper native to the eastern Mediterranean region from southern Greece, southern Turkey, western Syria, and Lebanon, growing on rocky sites from 800-1700 m altitude. it's the tallest species of juniper, forming a conical tree 10-25 m tall, exceptionally up to 40 m, and with a trunk up to 1-2 m thick--says wikipedia.

judas tree (fabaceae) a beautiful tree which we don't recall seeing anywhere yet.

azarole (or mediterranean medlar!)--yummy fruits and it's in the Rosaceae family.

south european flowering ash--i don't recall seeing this.

prickly juniper (also called prickly cedar, cade juniper, cade, or cade cedar!) --of the Cuppresaceae family.- it's endemic to the mediterranean, starting from Morocco, passing by France and into the East. according to wikipedia, "cade oil is the essential oil obtained through destructive distillation of the wood of this shrub. it is a dark, aromatic oil with a strong smoky smell which is used in some cosmetics and (traditional) skin treatment drugs, as well as incense."

bay laurel -Lauraceae- a classic. "it figures prominently in classical Greek, Roman, and Biblical culture"

the crab apple (for which there hardly seems to be any online reference). beautiful tree, its leaves seem similar to maple, just a bit more elongated. it's also from the Rosaceae family.

hop hornbeam amazing tree! it's in the Betulaceae family and it's known for its hard wood.

phillyrea evergreen flowering shrubs in the family Oleaceae (olive!) family, native to the Mediterranean region, the Canary Islands and Madeira.

syrian pear (locally called wild pear); used as rootstock to grow commercial pears, because it has the advantage to resist draught and arid situations and can grow in different types of soil. its fruit is small and not palatable. like other fruits, it's also of the Rosaceae family.

pistacia palaestina is a beautiful tree, common in the Levant region (especially Israel and Syria). It is called terebinth in English. it's from the Anacardiaceae family (an amazing family that includes cashew, mango, poison ivy and sumac!).

oriental plane, a large, deciduous tree of the Platanaceae family, known for its longevity and spreading crown. the name derives from its historical distribution eastward from the Balkans, where it was recognized in ancient Greek history and literature.

bear plum, a deciduous shrub. its flowers are hermaphrodite and are pollinated by insects.the species is common around the Mediterranean, and its of the Rosaceae family.

palestine oak is a "turkey oak", native to the eastern Mediterranean region and southwest Asia, from northern Algeria and Turkey east across the Middle East. it's an evergreen, with spiny-serrated leaves. Fagaceae (beech) family.

turkey oak (pseudo-cerris variety) is an oak native to southern Europe and Asia Minor. characterised by shoot buds surrounded by soft bristles, bristle-tipped leaf lobes, and acorns that usually mature in 18 months.

turkish gall, gall oak, lusitanian oak, or dyer's oak, is a species of oak native to Morocco, Portugal, and Spain. a source of commercial nutgalls. galls are produced by the infection from the insect Cynips gallae tinctoriae and are used for dyeing! used by Tamils for more than 2000 years.

wild service tree, or checker(s) tree, is a species of sorbus native to Europe covering west Europe into Asia Minor to the Caucasus and Alborz mountains. Rosaceae family.

styrax officinalis is a beautiful shrub native to southern Europe and the Middle East. of the Styracaceae family.

go - don't go

2011-10-16T07:37:00.000+03:00

'man has survived hitherto because he was too ignorant to know how to realize his wishes. now that he can realize them, he must either change them or perish' - william carlos williams

not buddha's words

2011-10-08T08:06:00.000+03:00

...but close enough

"No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new...

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

-- steve jobs

being (with you)

2011-10-04T21:56:00.000+03:00

barouk-bekaa trail, lebanon / october, 2011 / nikon d300

taller than trees

2011-10-03T23:20:00.000+03:00

muir woods, california / september, 2011 / lumix dmc-zs7

be ignited or be gone

2011-10-03T21:00:00.000+03:00

What I Have Learned So Far

Meditation is old and honorable, so why should I
not sit, every morning of my life, on the hillside,
looking into the shining world? Because, properly
attended to, delight, as well as havoc, is suggestion.
Can one be passionate about the just, the
ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit
to no labor in its cause? I don't think so.

All summations have a beginning, all effect has a
story, all kindness begins with the sown seed.
Thought buds toward radiance. The gospel of
light is the crossroads of— indolence, or action.

Be ignited, or be gone.

-Mary Oliver

:(

2011-10-03T20:30:00.000+03:00

"In terms of species extinction and threats, the greatest numbers of species affected and most severe threats are encountered in freshwater habitats. Freshwater ecosystems and biodiversity are the most vulnerable to human activities and environmental change because of the disproportionate richness of inland waters as a habitat for plants and animals. They currently support approximately 40% of the fish diversity and one quarter of the global vertebrate diversity. All this diversity is found within 0.1% of the world’s water, covering only about 0.8% of the Earth’s surface.

Causes of degradation of freshwater biodiversity are typically classified under five headings: overexploitation; water pollution; flow modification; destruction or degradation of habitat; and invasion by exotic species. Other environmental changes that are occurring on a global scale may cut across these categories. Examples include global warning and changing patterns of precipitation and stream flows and atmospheric deposition of pollutants.

Overexploitation primarily affects fish and some other vertebrates (reptiles and amphibians), whereas pollution, flow and habitat modification and exotic species are threats to all freshwater biodiversity. Most developed countries have made progress in controlling water pollution from domestic and industrial point sources but diffuse pollution from multiple sources in rural and urban areas remains a difficult practical and policy challenge. In particular, the problem of nutrient enrichment and other chemical pollutants used in farming or by rural and urban households.

Modifications to flows are common and almost universal, tending to be most severe in locations where the undisturbed or natural flow regime is itself highly variable."

-excerpt from course on water resource management

wilderness is you

2011-10-03T07:03:00.000+03:00

muir woods, california / september, 2011 / lumix dmc-zs7

pillars of earth and light

2011-10-02T21:30:00.000+03:00

muir woods, california / september, 2011 / lumix dmc-zs7

the million colors of sunset

2011-10-02T06:10:00.000+03:00

muir woods, california / september, 2011 / lumix dmc-zs7

life is the silver lining

2011-10-01T23:36:00.001+03:00

muir woods, california / september, 2011 / lumix dmc-zs7

unrehearsed autumn rhapsody

2011-09-29T22:59:00.000+03:00

drowning in the amber melodies of an evening’s call for prayer. this remote town’s uncertain melancholy is calling. a sea of sticky summer honey invites me to drown my soul in its dense, fatal goodness. it wants to suck me away into the killer guts of this existence.

i’m struggling. autumn's dance draws upon my dwindling energy, and embellishes its pastel repertoire, adding shimmer to its earthy décor.

a sunset daze, an inviting spiderweb, hypnotizing, pulling me closer with droplets of sparkly rain. crystallized pearls of goodness that entrap me. a stream of unconsciousness rushes through my body. and a flow of tie dyed memories.

autumn is species and colors. and bittersweet pain. fire-spitting dragons. gold-dust dragonflies flapping their watery wings. tree frogs and happy fatal stings of an earth-color spider.

i’m fighting the free fall this september, and i'm winning. my silver lining is the shimmer of a web's thread, waiting to entangle me, to free me. i’m floating on a falling leaf.

wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world

2011-09-13T07:49:00.000+03:00

jurd el hermel - september, 2011 - nikon d300

mumford and sons / the cave / sigh no more / download

shasta daisy

2011-09-04T20:51:00.001+03:00

Dragonflies Mating - Robert Hass

1.

The people who lived here before us
also loved these high mountain meadows on summer mornings.
They made their way up here in easy stages
when heat began to dry the valleys out,
following the berry harvest probably and the pine buds:
climbing and making camp and gathering,
then breaking camp and climbing and making camp and gathering.
A few miles a day. They sent out the children
to dig up bulbs of the mariposa lilies that they liked to roast
at night by the fire where they sat talking about how this year
was different from last year. Told stories,
knew where they were on earth from the names,
owl moon, bear moon, gooseberry moon.

2.

Jaime de Angulo (1934) was talking to a Channel Island Indian
in a Santa Barbara bar. You tell me how your people said
the world was made. Well, the guy said, Coyote was on the mountain
and he had to pee. Wait a minute, Jaime said,
I was talking to a Pomo the other day and he said
Red Fox made the world. They say Red Fox, the guy shrugged,
we say Coyote. So, he had to pee
and he didn’t want to drown anybody, so he turned toward the place
where the ocean would be. Wait a minute, Jaime said,
if there were no people yet, how could he drown anybody?
The Channelleño got a funny look on his face. You know,
he said, when I was a kid, I wondered about that,
and I asked my father. We were living up toward Santa Ynez.
He was sitting on a bench in the yard shaving down fence posts
with an ax, and I said, how come Coyote was worried about people
when he had to pee and there were no people? The guy laughed.
And my old man looked up at me with this funny smile
and said, You know, when I was a kid, I wondered about that.

3.

Thinking about that story just now, early morning heat,
first day in the mountains, I remembered stories about sick Indians
and—in the same thought—standing on the free throw line.

St. Raphael’s parish, where the northern-most of the missions
had been, was founded as a hospital, was named for the angel
in the scriptures who healed the blind man with a fish

he laid across his eyes.—I wouldn’t mind being that age again,
hearing those stories, eyes turned upward toward the young nun
in her white, fresh-smelling, immaculately laundered robes.—

The Franciscan priests who brought their faith in God
across the Atlantic, brought with the baroque statues and metalwork crosses
and elaborately embroidered cloaks, influenza and syphilis and the coughing disease.

Which is why we settled an almost empty California.
There were drawings in the mission museum of the long, dark wards
full of small brown people, wasted, coughing into blankets,

the saintly Franciscan fathers moving patiently among them.
It would, Sister Marietta said, have broken your hearts to see it.
They meant so well, she said, and such a terrible thing

came here with their love. And I remembered how I hated it
after school—because I loved basketball practice more than anything
on earth—that I never knew if my mother was going to show up

well into one of those weeks of drinking she disappeared into,
and humiliate me in front of my classmates with her bright, confident eyes,
and slurred, though carefully pronounced words, and the appalling

impromptu sets of mismatched clothes she was given to
when she had the dim idea of making a good impression in that state.
Sometimes from the gym floor with its sweet, heady smell of varnish

I’d see her in the entryway looking for me, and I’d bounce
the ball two or three times, study the orange rim as if it were,
which it was, the true level of the world, the one sure thing

the power in my hands could summon. I’d bounce the ball
once more, feel the grain of the leather in my fingertips and shoot.
It was a perfect thing; it was almost like killing her.

4.

When we say “mother” in poems,
we usually mean some woman in her late twenties
or early thirties trying to raise a child.

We use this particular noun
to secure the pathos of the child’s point of view
and to hold her responsible.

5.

If you’re afraid now?
Fear is a teacher.
Sometimes you thought that
Nothing could reach her,
Nothing can reach you.
Wouldn’t you rather
Sit by the river, sit
On the dead bank,
Deader than winter,
Where all the roots gape?

6.

This morning in the early sun,
steam rising from the pond the color of smoky topaz,
a pair of delicate, copper-red, needle-fine insects
are mating in the unopened crown of a Shasta daisy
just outside your door. The green flowerheads look like wombs
or the upright, supplicant bulbs of a vegetal pre-erection.
The insect lovers seem to be transferring the cosmos into each other
by attaching at the tail, holding utterly still, and quivering intently.

I think (on what evidence?) that they are different from us.
That they mate and are done with mating.
They don’t carry all this half-mated longing up out of childhood
and then go looking for it everywhere.
And so, I think, they can’t wound each other the way we do.
They don’t go through life dizzy or groggy with their hunger,
kill with it, smear it on everything, though it is perhaps also true
that nothing happens to them quite like what happens to us
when the blue-backed swallow dips swiftly toward the green pond
and the pond’s green-and-blue reflected swallow marries it a moment
in the reflected sky and the heart goes out to the end of the rope
it has been throwing into abyss after abyss, and a singing shimmers
from every color the morning has risen into.

My insect instructors have stilled, they are probably stuck together
in some bliss and minute pulse of after-longing
evolution worked out to suck the last juice of the world
into the receiver body. They can’t separate probably
until it is done.

i smell autumn and my soul opens

2011-09-04T09:36:00.001+03:00

tannourine summits, lebanon / august, 2011 / nikon d300

shaded

2011-09-01T07:05:00.000+03:00

tannourine cedar reserve / august, 2011 / nikon d300

a little big bang

2011-08-31T16:35:00.000+03:00

tannourine cedar reserve, lebanon / august, 2011 / nikon d300

gaia

2011-08-31T06:45:00.001+03:00

tannourine cedar reserve, lebanon / august, 2011 / nikon d300

when infinity is too restrictive

2011-08-30T23:08:00.001+03:00

tannourine cedar reserve / august 2011 / nikon d300

japan

2011-08-30T15:57:00.000+03:00

today i pass the time reading
a favorite haiku,
saying the few words over and over.

it feels like eating
the same small, perfect grape
again and again.

i walk through the house reciting it
and leave its letters falling
through the air of every room.

i stand by the big silence of the piano and say it.
i say it in front of a painting of the sea.
i tap out its rhythm on an empty shelf.

i listen to myself saying it,
then i say it without listening,
then i hear it without saying it.

and when the dog looks up at me,
i kneel down on the floor
and whisper it into each of his long white ears.

it's the one about the one-ton
temple bell
with the moth sleeping on its surface,

and every time i say it, i feel the excruciating
pressure of the moth
on the surface of the iron bell.

when i say it at the window,
the bell is the world
and i am the moth resting there.

when i say it at the mirror,
i am the heavy bell
and the moth is life with its papery wings.

and later, when i say it to you in the dark,
you are the bell, and i
am the tongue of the bell, ringing you,

and the moth has flown
from its line
and moves like a hinge in the air above our bed.

-billy collins

two happy lovers make one bread

2011-08-30T15:14:00.010+03:00

XLVIII
two happy lovers make one bread,
a single moon drop in the grass.
walking, they cast two shadows that flow together;
waking, they leave one sun empty in their bed.

of all the possible truths, they chose the day;
they held it, not with ropes but with an aroma.
They did not shred the peace; they did not shatter words;
their happiness is a transparent tower.

the air and wine accompany the lovers.
the night delights them with its joyous petals.
they have a right to all the carnations.

two happy lovers, without an ending, with no death,
they are born, they die, many times while they live:
they have the eternal life of the Natural.

-pablo neruda

this week, majda and i finished making the Sunflower Seed Rye Bread from Peter Reinhart's "Bread Baker's Apprentice". a fascinating exercise of passionate, nerdy epicurian perseverance. it took us a whole week to prepare: sourdough wild yeast starter, then barm, which then evolves into a bread starter, then the soaker, then the bread. it's made with whole wheat flour, whole rye flour, toasted sunflower seeds, yeast, salt and water.

this is our very first attempt at preparing a sophisticated bread from scratch. the result is awesome, with a comfortable room for enhancement, which is the most exciting thing about the process!

we tried to imitate a steam oven while baking it, following Reinhart's recommendation, and obtained a nice crust (again, with a lot of room for enhancement!). we're having it with pesto and cheese, as an accompaniment to mediterranean salads, or with a drizzle of honey.

lebanon / august, 2011 / nikon d300

"and you were waking, day was breaking a panoply of song"

2011-08-30T14:44:00.001+03:00

tannourine cedar reserve, lebanon / august, 2011 / nikon d300

here's a hymn to welcome in the day
heralding a summer's early sway
and all the bulbs all coming in to begin
the thrushes bleating battle with the wrens
disrupts my reverie again
- the decemberists

gitan/gitane

2011-08-06T12:02:00.001+03:00

chefchaeoun, morocco / august, 2011 / nikon d300

on the inadaptability of bureaucracy to environmental matters

2011-08-05T16:35:00.001+03:00

i think that environment specialists sitting in fancy corporate offices and preaching environmental bureaucracy to field personnel like parrots, are nothing but bureaucratic slaves, totally disconnected from this world's realities.

and i think that "environmental compliance" is a deeply disturbing term that, just like other outdated industrial-era concepts, adopts a mechanistic, lowest-common-denominator approach to resolving complex environmental matters. "compliance" is better left for accounting, robotic tasks, and the like. applying bureaucratic compliance to environmental matters totally disregards the preciousness of the environment, and its ever evolving nature as a context-specific set of realities that emerge from a living planet or system.

rif bliss

2011-08-05T12:39:00.004+03:00

chefchaouen, morocco / august, 2011 / nikon d300

ode to mediocrity

2011-08-04T17:44:00.002+03:00

casablanca airport has no water dispensers, atm machines, and its restaurants don’t accept credit cards despite the card reader sitting next to register and the proud sign: ‘credit cards accepted here’.

i’m hungry, thirsty, and the plane took off after sitting on the runway for 45 minutes.

the smell of food just woke me up and i’m considering whether to venture into the usual dabbling experience or to spare myself the whole process. should i reach out and grab that tray or just forego of the thrill of having a load of reheated food shoved in my lap, complementing the misery offered by the front passenger’s reclined seat and the side passengers’ elbows on each side.

- chicken or fish?
- none, thanks

stuck in a death row of seats i’m trying to come to terms with the fact that my life will very probably end today. this vintage 737-700 looks like it’s more than ready to sink deep into the depths of the mediterranean. that is if i survive the death-by-gucci thanks to the stench of the lebanese fashionista next to me.

all this frustration aside, i’m posting this today to proudly announce that i have finally promoted royal air maroc to the royal status of one of the world’s crummiest airlines.

see, air maroc possesses a stellar capacity to disappoint. they’ve managed to do so to me across every aspect of their business, and in more ways than one; systematically late departures and arrivals. dysfunctioning website. unannounced changes in departure and arrival dates on already-confirmed tickets. irresponsive local offices. bad service on board. loud music playing on longhaul flights. you name it, they’ve bloody done it!

and i must say, as a frequent traveller, i’m really hard to disappoint. my tolerance for bullshit spans across a decade of travels with local and regional airlines including buddha air, yemenia, al arabia, egypt air, al jazeera, fly asia, and heaps others. but i’ve got to admit, air maroc were fast to impress. they’re my new favorite inshallah airline.

my happy days with air maroc started last march on their website where beirut didn’t figure on the destination list. don’t ask why. trying to call their local office in beirut didn’t help either. an answering machine transfers the call then hangs up. no point in trying again. i tried for a week, several times a day. to put it simply, air maroc beirut don’t pick up the phone, no matter what time of day you call, no matter how many times you do it, or how desperate you are. if they exist at all, these moppets must be so damn busy all day doing fuck-all.

i finally bought my ticket through expedia, but upon arrival to the airport i found that my reservation was lost, leaving me stranded for over an hour at the check-in desk. air maroc’s ingenious solution to this problem was really simple: paying $800 for another ticket.

one hour later, the problem was exasperatedly resolved. did i miss my plane? absolutely not. and why? turns out leaving on time is not one of air maroc’s traits. at least not when it comes to flying airplanes.

the delays were systematic on every flight i’ve taken with them so far (today is my fourth). and they make a special effort to disappoint at the level of the smallest details: crappy food, complaisant staff, non-responsive customer service (to whom i wrote a month ago to no avail), run-down on-board toilets, you name it.

and to wrap up, i’m leaving you with a classic: as i type these words, the flight attendant selling duty free items on board is walking the airplane isles asking every passengers individually whether they have a change for $100.
how’s that for individual customer care?

mon jardin d'eden

2011-08-01T23:16:00.001+03:00

chefchaouen, morrocco / august, 2011 / nikon d300

my my my it's a beautiful world

2011-08-01T18:13:00.002+03:00

chefchaouen, morocco / august, 2011 / nikon d300

heaven is on earth

2011-08-01T14:15:00.002+03:00

chefchaouen, morocco / august, 2011 / nikon d300

for those who would see directly into essential nature, the idea of the sacred is a delusion and an obstruction: it diverts us from seeing what is before our eyes: plain thusness

2011-07-29T19:12:00.001+03:00

morocco / july 2011

'i suspect that primary peoples all know that their myths are somehow “made up.” they do not take them literally and at the same time they hold the stories very dear. only upon being invaded by history and whipsawed by alien values do a people begin to declare that their myths are “literally true.” this literalness in turn provokes skeptical questioning and the whole critical exercise. what a final refinement of confusion about the role of myths it is to declare that although they are not to be believed, they are nonetheless aesthetic and psychological constructs which bring order to an otherwise chaotic world and to which we should willfully commit ourselves!' - gray snyder / the practice of the wild

mass media, mass hysteria and the poisoned well

2011-07-28T19:35:00.000+03:00

classic, witty commentary by stephen colbert that reminds us that just because the norwegian terrorist is a non-muslim, anti-muslim fuckhead, it doesn't mean that we must relieve muslims from their hypothetical responsibility which we instinctively cast on them at the outset of a terrorist attack!

to immortalise his hilarious words, i've typed an extract from the video.

"some say that these false reports of muslim involvement were a widespread failure of the media, but i say by going with their guts, these journalists were able to get the story they wanted and scoop reality. and even if there was a rush to judgement, we must not repeat that mistake by rushing to accuracy! just because the confessed murderer is a blond, blue-eyes norwegian-born anti-muslim crusader, does not mean he’s not a swarthy, ululating madman.
…
so if you’re pulling a news report completely out of your ass, it’s safer to go with muslim! that’s not prejudice, that’s probability. because the news business is all about guesstimating. just taking shots in the dark. it’s friday, you’re trying to beat the traffic for the week-end, you hear about a horrible attack, and you roll the bones and go “muslim!”. same way when you see someone turn the wrong way up a one way street, your journalistic instincts go “aasian!”.
the point, this monster may not be muslim but his heinous acts are indisputably musl-ish! now we must not let his islam-esque atrocity divert our attention from the terrible people he reminds us of!"

let's free our minds!

2011-07-19T19:18:00.000+03:00

'The reason I write my books is to help build a cultural resistance that will stop this culture from killing the planet.' - Derrick Jensen

"you can't kill a planet and live on it, too"

2011-07-16T22:22:00.000+03:00

extracts from an article on truth out by frank joseph smecker and derrick jensen. reminds me of guy debord's 'society of the spectacle' combined with herman daly's 'steady state' economic theory. a good read.

Let’s expose the structure of violence that keeps the world economy running.

With an entire planet being slaughtered before our eyes, it’s terrifying to watch the very culture responsible for this – the culture of industrial civilization, fueled by a finite source of fossil fuels, primarily a dwindling supply of oil – thrust forward wantonly to fuel its insatiable appetite for “growth.”

Deluded by myths of progress and suffering from the psychosis of technomania complicated by addiction to depleting oil reserves, industrial society leaves a crescendo of atrocities in its wake.

(...) As though 200 species going extinct each day were not enough, climate change, a direct result of burning fossil fuels, has proved not only to be as unpredictable as it is real, but as destructive as it is unpredictable. The erratic and lethal characteristics of a changing planet and its shifting atmosphere are becoming the norm of the 21st century, their impact accelerating at an alarming pace, bringing this planet closer, sooner than later, to a point of uninhabitable ghastliness. And yet, collective apathy, ignorance and self-imposed denial in the face of all this sadistic exploitation and violence marches this culture closer to self-annihilation.

Lost in the eerily comforting fantasy of limitless growth, production and consumption, many people cling to things like Facebook, Twitter, “Jersey Shore” and soulless pop music as if their lives depended on it, identifying with a reality that’s artificial and constructed, that panders to desire rather than necessity, that delicately conceals the violence at the other end of this economy, a violence so widespread that we’re all not only complicit in it to a degree (e.g., if you’re a taxpayer, you help subsidize the manufacturing of weapons of mass destruction), but victims of it as well. As Chris Hedges admonished in his books, “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy” and the “Triumph of Spectacle,” any culture that cannot distinguish reality from illusion will kill itself.

Moreover, any culture that cannot distinguish reality from illusion will kill everything and everyone else in its path as well as itself.

As the world burns, as species die off, as mothers breastfeed their children with dioxin-tainted breast milk, as nuclear reactors melt down into the Pacific while the aerial deployment of depleted uranium damages innocent lives, it is perplexing that so few people fight back against a system that has horror as a reality for most living on the planet. And those who fight back, who stand in opposition to the culture behind such wholesale abuse and call it what it is – a genocidal mega-state (especially if you believe that the lives of nonhumans are as important to them as yours is to you and mine is to me) – are met with hostility and hatred, scoffed at, harassed, even tortured. With so much at stake, why aren’t more people deafening their ears to the nutcases who preach a future of infinite-growth economies? And why do so many people continue to put “the economy” first, to take industrial capitalism as we know it as a given and not fight back, defend what’s left of the natural world?

“One of the reasons there aren’t more people working to take down the system that’s killing the planet is because their lives depend on the system,” author and environmental activist Derrick Jensen told me from his home in California when I interviewed him on the phone recently.

“If your experience is that your food comes from the grocery store and your water comes from the tap, then you are going to defend to the death the system that brings those to you because your life depends on them,” Jensen explained.

“If your experience, however, is that your food comes from a land base and that your water comes from a stream, well, then you will defend to the death that land base and that stream. So part of the problem is that we have become so dependent upon this system that is killing and exploiting us, it has become almost impossible for us to imagine living outside of it and it’s very difficult physically for us to live outside of it.

“The other problem is that fear is the belief we have something left to lose. What I mean by this is that I really like my life right now, as do a lot of people. We have a lot to lose if this culture is to go down. A primary reason so many of us do not want to win this war – or even acknowledge that it’s going on – is that we materially benefit from this war’s plunder. I’m really unsure how many of us would be willing to give up our automobiles and cell phones, hot showers and electric lights, our grocery and clothing stores. But the truth is, the system that leads to these things, that leads to technological advancement and our identity as civilized beings, are killing us and, more importantly, killing the planet.”

Even in the absence of global warming, this culture would still be murdering the planet, bumping off pods of whales and flocks of birds; detonating mountaintops to access strata of coal and bauxite, eliminating entire ecosystems. All this violence inflicted upon an entire planet to run an economy based on the foolish and immoral notion that we can sustain industrial societies, all while trashing the planet’s land bases, ecosystems and life. And the fantastic rhetoric those who insist on adapting to these changes promulgate – that technology will find a fix, that we can adapt, that the planet can and will conform to fixes in the market – is dangerous.

(...) In the real world, you can’t have a nature/culture split, but in this culture you do and it has real effects on the physical world. You can’t live on a planet and kill it at the same time.” You find the problem with an industrial production economy when you unpack the word “production.” As Jensen makes clear in his book “The Culture of Make Believe,” production is essentially the conversion of the living to the dead: animals into cold cuts, mountains and rivers into aluminum beer cans, trees into toilet paper, oil into plastics and computers (one computer uses ten times its own mass in fossil fuels). To go paperless is not to go green, or maybe it is, depending on what shade of Green we’re talking about here. Basically, every commodity one comes in contact with is soaked in oil, made from resources, marked by, as Jensen puts it, the turning of the living to the dead: Industrial production.

(...) In the US, more lives are lost weekly from preventable cancers and other illnesses than are lost in ten years from terrorist attacks. And the corporations this culture fights for overseas are the very organizations culpable for these domestic deaths every week.

(...) “An infinite-growth economy is not only insane and impossible,” remarked Jensen, (...) “Furthermore, according to the stories of industrial capitalism, this economic system must constantly increase production to grow and what, after all, is production? It is indeed the conversion of the living to the dead, the conversion of living forests into two-by-fours, living rivers into stagnant pools for generating hydroelectricity, living fish into fish sticks and ultimately all of these into money. And really, what is gross national product? It’s a measure of this conversion of the living to the dead. The more quickly the living world is converted into dead products, the higher the GNP. And these simple equations are complicated by the fact that when GNP goes down, people often lose jobs. No wonder the world is getting killed.

(...) “A while back I had a conversation with an anarchist who was complaining that I was ‘too ideological,’ and that my ideology was ‘the health of the earth.’ Well, actually, the earth is not and cannot ever be an ideology. The earth is physical. It is real. And it is primary. Without soil, you don’t have a healthy land base and without a healthy land base you don’t eat, you die. Without drinkable clean water you die.”

And this is one of the problems with our culture: its lack of ability to separate ideology – the kind that accommodates maximizing pleasure and domination – from the needs of the natural world. And, so, if solutions to global warming do not immediately address the basic needs of the planet, well … we’re fucked.

(...) “I saw this right-wing bumper sticker the other day that read, ‘You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers,’ but it’s not just guns: we’re going to have to pry rigid claws off steering wheels, cans of hair spray, TV remote controls and two-liter bottles of Jolt Cola,” cautioned Jensen. “Each of these individually and all of these collectively are more important to many people than are lampreys, salmon, spotted owls, sturgeons, tigers, our own lives. And that is a huge part of the problem. So of course we don’t want to win. We’d lose our cable TV. But I want to win. With the world being killed, I want to win and will do whatever it takes to win.”

When Adolph Eichmann stood before the Jerusalem District Court and was asked why he agreed to the task of deporting Jews to the ghettos and concentration camps, his response was, “No one ever told me what I was doing was wrong.” Today, 200 species have become extinct; another indigenous community will disappear from this planet forever; an entire forest will be removed; and millions of human lives will be forced to endure the agonies of famine, war, disease, thirst, the loss of their land, their community, their way of life. Not enough people have stepped forward to say that what this culture is doing to the planet is wrong.

Well, here it is folks: What this culture is doing to our very selves, what it’s doing to the planet, is wrong. So damn wrong. And the sooner we replace this economy, the sooner we can dissolve these toxic illusions and their formative narratives. Only then, can we begin to live the free lives we were born to live and win the fight.

thrushes bleating battle with the wrens disrupts my reverie again

2011-07-16T20:14:00.001+03:00

music: the decemberists /june hymn/ the king is dead /download
photo: qornet el sawda, lebanon /june, 2011 /nikon d300 /enlarge

XLVII

2011-07-14T12:55:00.000+03:00

i want to look back and see you in the branches.
little by little you turned into fruit.
it was easy for you to rise from the roots,
singing your syllable of sap.

here you will be a fragrant flower first,
changed to the statuesque form of a kiss,
till the sun and the earth, blood and the sky, fulfill
their promises of sweetness and pleasure, in you.

there in the branches i will recognize your hair,
your image ripening in the leaves,
bringing the petals nearer my thirst,

and my mouth will fill with the taste of you,
the kiss that rose from the earth
with your blood, the blood of a lover's fruit.

- neruda

cosmic cosmos

2011-07-13T22:02:00.002+03:00

baabdat, mount lebanon /july, 2011 /lumix DMC-ZS7 /enlarge

helplessness blues

2011-07-11T00:04:00.003+03:00

baabdat, mount lebanon /july, 2011 /nikon d300 /enlarge

when 1 + 1 = ∞

2011-07-09T14:19:00.001+03:00

music: david sylvian /trauma/ sleepwalkers /download
photo: qornet el sawda, lebanon /june, 2011 /nikon d300 /enlarge

another glorious morning

2011-07-06T12:47:00.001+03:00

ehden nature reserve, lebanon /june, 2011 /nikon d300 /enlarge

the body of my world, root and flower

2011-07-05T11:56:00.003+03:00

music: the decemberists /january hymn/ the king is dead /download
photo: ehden nature reserve, lebanon /june, 2011 /nikon d300 /enlarge

the Α and the ϖ

2011-06-18T12:00:00.001+03:00

december 2010/ sidi bou said, tunisia/ nikon d300/ enlarge

a home in you

2011-06-18T06:48:00.003+03:00

december 2010/ jerba, tunisia/ nikon d300/ enlarge

sunny and happy

2011-06-17T20:58:00.001+03:00

december 2010/ sidi bou said, tunisia/ nikon d300/ enlarge

the year of the poppies

2011-06-12T17:58:00.002+03:00

"i love poppies. could be my favorite flower. and you can’t even pick them, because they quickly shrivel up and return to dust... so you just have to appreciate them all wild and glorious in the fields... seems a metaphor for life, n’est-ce pas?"

june 13th, 2010

the sun

2011-06-12T17:46:00.000+03:00

have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful

than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone—
and how it slides again

out of the blackness
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower

streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance—
and have you ever felt for anything

such wild love—
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure

that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you

as you stand there,
empty-handed—
or have you too
turned from this world—

or have you too
gone crazy
for power
for things?

-mary oliver

nectar of the earth

2011-06-11T14:49:00.001+03:00

june 2011/ barouk cedar reserve, shouf, lebanon/ lumix DMC-ZS7/ download

replay: un de ces jours

2011-06-09T10:01:00.001+03:00

a replay of a post initially published on 19 september 2006.

Musique: Language /Da Grassroots Body/ BO Les poupées russes /Télécharger
Photo: Baskinta, Liban /Février 2005 /Canon EOS 300 /Kodak TriX N&B /Agrandir

what i want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled... and i do

2011-05-29T23:16:00.000+03:00

Every year
the lilies
are so perfect
I can hardly believe

their lapped light crowding
the black,
mid-summer ponds.
Nobody could count all of them --

the muskrats swimming
among the pads and the grasses
can reach out
their muscular arms and touch

only so many, they are that
rife and wild.
But what in this world
is perfect?

I bend closer and see
how this one is clearly lopsided --
and that one wears an orange blight --
and this one is a glossy cheek

half nibbled away --
and that one is a slumped purse
full of its own
unstoppable decay.

Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled --
to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing --
that the light is everything -- that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.

~ Mary Oliver

you are the name of things

2011-05-29T21:05:00.002+03:00

Letter

I had wanted to begin
by telling you I saw another
tanager below the pond
where I had sat for half an hour
feeding on wild berries
in the little clearing near the pines
that hide the lower field
and then looked up from red berries
to the quick red bird brilliant
in the light. I have seen
more yarrow and swaying
Queen Anne's lace around the woods
as hawkweed and nightshade
wither and drop seed. A new blue flower,
sweet, yellow-stamened, ovary inferior,
has recently sprung up.
But I had the odd
feeling, walking to the house
to write this down, that I had left
the birds and flowers in the field,
rooted or feeding. They are not in my
head, are not now on this page.
It was very strange to me, but I think
their loss was your absence. I wanted
to be walking with Leif, the sun
behind us skipping off the pond,
the windy maple sheltering the house,
and find you there and say
here! a new blue flower (ovary inferior)
and busy Leif and Kris with naming in a world I love.
You even have my field guide. It's you I love.
I have believed so long
in the magic of names and poems.
I hadn't thought them bodiless
at all. Tall Buttercup. Wild Vetch.
"Often I am permitted to return
to a meadow." It all seemed real to me
last week. Words. You are the body
of my world, root and flower, the
brightness and surprise of birds.
I miss you, love. Tell Leif
you're the name of things.

~ Robert Hass

a home never lost and never found

2011-05-27T05:11:00.001+03:00

been walking montreal for four consecutive days now. a good eight or so hours a day, soaking in the details of what makes this city what it is.

like how bike parkmeters clamp around the axle of locked public 'bixi' bikes to keep them in place, or how neatly planted maple trees line the sidewalks, their clean soil covered with mulch. or how various coin currencies lay at the bottom of a plastic cup by the side of a solo musician playing in the street. or the fact that a nickel coin is larger than a dime. or how clean the metro rails are, as compared to london's. or how smiley the cashiers are, as compared to paris'. or how blue and wide the sky is as compared to beirut's. or how most of the city's modern architecture dates from the eighties. or how safe the city feels.

been running in park mont-royal this morning. got addicted to the smell of freshly cut grass as it was being mowed. and the mats tied to those bikes going uphill to the park's summit where the riders would be doing their morning yoga session. or the few bird songs among the noises of the city in the morning rush hour.

as i walked throughout the city, i couldn't help not stopping at local fruits and vegetables stores. watched the raspberries' velvety, hydrofuge skin and their organic, intensely orgasmic feel. and blueberries' pulpous hearts almost bursting out of their dusty skins. and freshly cut asparagus wearing their elegant crowns of chlorophylle and hugging each other like dear old friends. and gorgeous, erotic grapefruit shining their flesh and awaiting to gush out their scent in public.

i couldn't help getting drunk on montreal's diversity. vietnam and morocco and india and china and the cameroon and romania and the democratic republic of congo and italy and canada and lebanon and cuba and france and palestine and everywhere else and nowhere.

montreal is full of details. a home for so many of those who are seeking one. and for someone like me who carries their home on their back, montreal is just another badge. like another spice that i just discovered. fenugreek or something.

another prism that breaks out the same sunlight into a totally different array of colours. another angle of sight through the same kaleidoscope. another fascinatingly sad encounter with identity. a revolting confrontation with an avalanche of human-invented concepts. a rear view mirror of the devastatingly wrong rights.

all those images of a million details invade me, overwhelm me and leave me drugged. i suddenly feel like a bee hit with the colony collapse disorder. i've gone mad, wanting to grow a beard and my curly hair and go wander the world and die anonymously. i feel like i'm totally fulfilled with helplessness and homelessness. my home is the universe. i'd rather be an unconscious ray of sunlight, or a water drop in a river: inexistent as a standalone entity, yet wholly and entirely part of everything.

music: fleet foxes/ drops in the river/ sun giant/ download

into the wild, into your arms

2011-05-26T20:29:00.006+03:00

dc - maryland - new jersey - new york - connecticut - massachusetts - vermont - and into new hampshire's white mountains national forest!

sunset hike with the love of my life, from park gate to mizpah hut through amazing forests and snowy patches. according to the appalachian mountain club's website, mizpah (which i found to be a biblical word) means "pillar in the wilderness".

the next morning, we hit the trail to mount washington, a five hour hike in a partly sunny partly foggy weather, through amazing forests and then well above the (exceptionally low) tree line. the weather at mount washington is known for its unpredictability and deadliness.

the only thing that beat the feeling of peaking the summit was the wholesome meal that we prepared once back at the mizpah hut, after a well-deserved yoga session (ooh, and thank god for sierra designs' sleeping bags that zip together!). the hut's caretakers were an amazing couple who kept us company over the evenings at the hut. she's a professional harp player and he's a phd candidate researching thru-hikers on the appalachian trail.

the next morning was equally divine, with authentically prepared turkish coffee, blueberry pancakes, homemade bread and maple butter. never, in my wildest dreams, could i have imagined a more wholesome way of discovering new england's wilderness, accompanied by the most divine morsel of earthy goodness that has ever existed.

mount washington: tick

2011-05-26T03:55:00.001+03:00

may 2011/ mount washington, white mountains national forest, usa/ lumix dmc-zs7/ enlarge

if i had an orchard, i'd work till i'm sore

2011-05-26T02:18:00.000+03:00

music: fleet foxes/ helplessness blues/ helplessness blues/ download

je suis le fantôme qui s'égare

2011-05-08T13:30:00.001+03:00

apvril 2011/ toubkal, atlas, maroc/ nikon d300/ agrandir

happy everything

2011-05-01T09:00:00.001+03:00

toubkal (4,167m): tick!
toubkal (4,167m) with the most amazing person that has ever walked the surface of the earth: tick!

april 2011/ toubkal, high atlas, morocco/ nikon d300/ enlarge

glorious morning (every morning)

2011-05-01T07:20:00.001+03:00

april 2011/ toubkal, high atlas, morocco/ nikon d300/ enlarge

everything/everywhere all the time

2011-04-30T23:58:00.002+03:00

april 2011/ high atlas, morocco/ nikon d300/ enlarge

the dreamers

2011-04-30T20:06:00.002+03:00

april 2011/ imlil, high atlas, morocco/ nikon d300/ enlarge

on the timeless virtues of the catholic church

2011-04-30T19:42:00.000+03:00

"Your Reverence writes me that you would like to know whether the Negroes who are sent to your parts have been legally captured. To this I reply that I think your Reverence should have no scruples on this point, because this is a matter which has been questioned by the Board of Conscience in Lisbon, and all its members are learned and conscientious men. Nor did the bishops who were in Sao Thome, Cape Verde, and here in Loando—all learned and virtuous men—find fault with it. We have been here ourselves for forty years and there have been among us very learned Fathers... never did they consider the trade as illicit. Therefore we and the Fathers of Brazil buy these slaves for our service without any scruple..."

Brother Luis Brandaon to Father Sandoval
Letter dated 12 March 1610 (Zinn, A People's History of the United States)

bookchin rewritten

2011-04-19T06:10:00.003+03:00

i love bookchin's below quote, except that if i were to rewrite it today, i'd replace the term 'capitalism' with 'materialism', and i would replace the term 'fight' with 'avoid'. here's his text:

"what compels me to ~~fight~~ avoid this society is, of course, outrage over injustice, a love of freedom, and a feeling of responsibility for perpetuating and enlarging the human spirit - its beauty, creativity, and latent capacity to improve the world. i do not care to come to terms with an irrational society that corrodes all that is valuable in humanity, that eats away at all that is beautiful and noble in the human experience.

~~capitalism~~ materialism devours us. at the molecular level of everyday life, it changes us for the worse, and it compels people to make extremely unsavoury rationalisations for why they believe things they know - or at least they once knew - are false and for doing things that are trivialising and dehumanising.

when we struggle against ~~capitalism~~ materialism, we are really struggling against our own dehumanisation, and once we become fully cognisant of that, then the danger of surrender to the system reinforces our resistance. as revolutionaries, we are fighting not only for a better society but for our very humanity."

come to think of it, i don't even actively avoid society, i just naturally choose to realize my emancipation outside of it.

snow white wings

2011-04-14T07:16:00.001+03:00

april 2008/ barouk river valley, lebanon/ lumix DMC-ZS7/ enlarge

gibran's breathtaking wisdom on how to use-up life to its maximum potential

2011-04-08T10:38:00.001+03:00

لا تجالس أنصاف العشاق، ولا تصادق أنصاف الأصدقاء، لا تقرأ لأنصاف الموهوبين، لا تعش نصف حياة، ولا تمت نصف موت، لا تختر نصف حل، ولا تقف في منتصف الحقيقة، لا تحلم نصف حلم، ولا تتعلق بنصف أمل، إذا صمتّ.. فاصمت حتى النهاية، وإذا تكلمت.. فتكلّم حتى النهاية، لا تصمت كي تتكلم، ولا تتكلم كي تصمت.

إذا رضيت فعبّر عن رضاك، لا تصطنع نصف رضا، وإذا رفضت.. فعبّر عن رفضك، لأن نصف الرفض قبول.. النصف هو حياة لم تعشها، وهو كلمة لم تقلها، وهو ابتسامة أجّلتها، وهو حب لم تصل إليه، وهو صداقة لم تعرفها.. النصف هو ما يجعلك غريباً عن أقرب الناس إليك، وهو ما يجعل أقرب الناس إليك غرباء عنك، النصف هو أن تصل وأن لاتصل، أن تعمل وأن لا تعمل، أن تغيب وأن تحضر.. النصف هو أنت، عندما لا تكون أنت.. لأنك لم تعرف من أنت. النصف هو أن لا تعرف من أنت .. ومن تحب ليس نصفك الآخر... هو أنت في مكان آخر في الوقت نفسه!!..

نصف شربة لن تروي ظمأك، ونصف وجبة لن تشبع جوعك، نصف طريق لن يوصلك إلى أي مكان، ونصف فكرة لن تعطي لك نتيجة.. النصف هو لحظة عجزك وأنت لست بعاجز.. لأنك لست نصف إنسان. أنت إنسان.. وجدت كي تعيش الحياة، وليس كي تعيش نصف حياة!!

ليست حقيقة الإنسان بما يظهره لك ... بل بما لا يستطيع أن يظهره

لذلك ... إذا أردت أن تعرفه فلا تصغي إلى ما يقوله .... بل إلى ما لا يقوله.

جبران خليل جبران

now here's the sun, it's alright! now here's the moon, it's alright!

2011-04-02T08:52:00.001+03:00

april 2008/ bekaa plain, lebanon/ nikon d300/ enlarge

joy and suffering

2011-03-27T21:13:00.002+03:00

'people talk endlessly about their suffering and their joy.
but what is there to suffer or to be joyful about?...
wherever there is joy, there is suffering.
if you want to have no-suffering, you must accept no-joy.'

-vietnamese proverb

from the heights of these majestic mountains

2011-03-27T21:06:00.001+03:00

march 2011/ laqlouq, mount lebanon/ lumix DMC-ZS7/ enlarge

34°02′N 6°50′W

2011-03-17T17:26:00.005+02:00

equinox nearing,
magnetic pole is shifting,
my north is south west

we live in a beautiful world!

2011-03-14T08:15:00.000+02:00

morning dew forming,
on the grass of my longing,
spring forest within

the wild hunt (part two)

2011-03-09T18:49:00.006+02:00

march 2011/ mount lebanon/ lumix DMC-ZS7/ enlarge

on daily bread and racism

2011-03-09T17:47:00.004+02:00

(warning--angry post)

i read a post today by nasri atallah about racism in lebanon (and another one on the lebanese anti-racism movement's blog).

reading it reminds me of an incident i witnessed this week and that i was planning to write about.

if i had to list the two things that infuriate me, i'd say these would be
- witnessing humans that inflict suffering upon others through intolerance, discrimination, and abuse of power, and,
- witnessing human-generated environmental damage.

i am enraged by scenes of racism, especially of an employer abusing their status as a paymaster to ill-treat a migrant worker: stupid rich housewives mistreating their maids or business owners humiliating their migrant staff. such scenes shake me to the core. unfortunately, these scene are so common in this society that racism has become the equivalent of 'common sense'. for example, it is perfectly normal for a group of lebanese to discuss what they call 'the inferiority' of the migrant nationalities they employ and to mock them, sometimes in their presence, without being challenged.

the racism of petty, ignorant and dictatorial merchants breaks my heart.

my girlfriend and i were buying a zaatar man'ouche at the old wooden bakery branch on jal-el-dib highway on monday afternoon. for the uninitiated, the 'wooden bakery' is a multimillion dollar business throughout lebanon, whose income is generated by the sweat and pain and hard effort of many unnoticed immigrant workers.

while waiting for our man'ouche, and as we were making small talk with the friendly egyptian baker who was wrapping carefully preparing it, he asked us what we thought of the revolution of his people in egypt. delighted, i said that we admired their revolt against a dictator and that we support his people in these interesting times.

as i said this, and out of the blue, the bakery's manager walked across from the other side of the shop, intercepted us and uttered mockingly, in the presence of the egyptian baker, that this revolution is nothing but an american plot. he then paused and barked: 'the egyptian people are a dumb people'.

his violent statement left me in awe. at first, i thought he was being sarcastic, so i asked him: 'what do you mean?'. he responded confidently: 'they are a population of eighty million dumb people!'. i was still in shock, trying to formulate my reply, when the egyptian baker put his job, source of income and residency in lebanon on the line, and responded quietly and firmly with a statement that totally broke my heart: 'we are not a dumb people'.

by that time, my silent fury had reached its peak. i breathed, looked the manager in the eyes and said firmly and patiently: 'how dare you say that? how could you call the people of a whole nation dumb?'. he responded: 'because they're dumb'.

so by then, i decided i was going to let him have it. it said: 'they're not dumb! if anything, they're far more civilized than you and your people. their history, their land, culture, industry and geopolitical importance put yours to shame. who are you to be judging eighty million with a sweeping statement? at least they know how to coexist peacefully, while four million of you, individualistic self-serving lebanese can't even live a single day in peace. you're nothing but a prey to your warlords and to blind sectarianism. all you care about is how to individualistically chase money and power, at the expense of your community. you're a bunch of shortsighted merchants, and you call the egyptians dumb?'.

he was uttering a few words when, furious, we walked out of the bakery and sat on the sidewalk, eating our man'ouche and watching the noisy, polluted and chaotic jal-el-dib street that the bakery overlooks.

i am dazzled by the decaying morality of a large proportion of the lebanese. dazzled by how a people who's got money and university degrees coming out of their ears, can be so pathetically short-sighted and self-obsessed.

the cumulative total of the time the lebanese have spent mercilessly killing each other exceeds the total that they've spent in peace. as nasri put it, even in 2011, they still can't make a stupid power grid work, they can't supply themselves with potable water in a land that receives 900mm of rain per annuum, and they've got one of the poorest internet infrastructures of the planet. everything about the lebanese is shiny on the outside, and rotting and mediocre on the inside. a disgustingly materialistic, exhibitionist, self-obsessed and intolerant people. and yet, they dare judge, discriminate against, and abuse others.

standing outside that bakery on monday, i wished i could grab that racist fuckhead of a manager and shake him so hard that he wakes up to the realities of humanity, and sees his stone age nation for what it really is. but then i realized, just like i do everyday, that i'd better put my effort in those places where my chances of making a difference are higher than nil.

i've totally given up on the lebanese.

the wild hunt (part one)

2011-03-08T23:06:00.005+02:00

twenty nine in bloom
on thirty five longitude
happy birthday, love!

march 2011/ mount lebanon/ lumix DMC-ZS7/ enlarge

your haiku of the day

2011-03-05T07:43:00.003+02:00

love, fruit of the earth,
find the daisies in the field,
some fifty yards east

grass, weeds and pollen
call upon you, honey bee,
chase the yellow sign

ok wanderlust

2011-02-27T11:47:00.004+02:00

march 2009/ trikedhunga, nepal/ leica R6.2/ ilford delta 100 pro/ enlarge

the winter sun

2011-02-26T21:42:00.010+02:00

kaleidoscopic:
droplets on emerald tree leaves
whisper our story

having a coke with you

2011-02-23T01:06:00.002+02:00

"is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluoresent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I'm with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o'clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles

and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them
I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it's in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven't gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn't pick the rider as carefully
as the horse
it seems they were all cheated of some marvellous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I am telling you about it"

-frank o'hara

दृष्टधर्मसुखविहारिन्‌

2011-02-17T00:11:00.003+02:00

"It is true that the Buddha taught the truth of suffering, but he also taught the truth of "dwelling happily in things as they are"(drishta dharma sukha viharin). To succeed in the practice, we must stop trying to prove that everything is suffering. In fact, we must stop trying to prove anything. If we touch the truth of suffering with our mindfulness, we will be able to recognize and identify our specific suffering, itsa specific causes, and the way to remove those causes and end our suffering."

Thich Nhat Hanh; The Heart of The Buddha's Teaching

orientalism in fullest flower

2011-02-16T23:53:00.002+02:00

"Because we have become accustomed to think of a contemporary expert on some branch of the Orient, or some aspect of its life, as a specialist in "area studies," we have lost a vivid sense of how, until around World War II, the Orientalist was considered to be a generalist (with a great deal of specific knowledge, of course) who had highly developed skills for making summational statements. By summational statements I mean that in formulating a relatively uncomplicated idea, say, about Arabic grammar or Indian religion, the Orientalist would be understood (and would understand himself) as also making a statement about the Orient as a whole, thereby summing it up. Thus every discrete study of one bit of Oriental material would also confirm in a summary way the profound Orientality of the material. And since it was commonly believed that the whole Orient hung together in some profoundly organic way, it made perfectly good hermeneutical sense for the Orientalist scholar to regard the material evidence he dealt with as ultimately leading to a better understanding of such things as the Oriental character, mind, ethos, or world-spirit."

-edward said

zinc and lemonade

2011-02-15T01:42:00.002+02:00

chaos,
dreams
and souls ablaze,

by life's blinding light,
by the sun in your eyes,

by the magnetism of an unfathomable obscurity,
endless shades of fifty percent grey,
and a grainy detail,

by lags and frequencies,
by une femme, entière,
and the cosmos, entier.

mild bruises
and confusion,
and impermanent impermanence

crestwood for the uninitiated,
freeze frame
and the sudden silence,

shh... beware the borderline.
ignite your lips,
and kiss the divine,

you are the chemistry,
the process, the rapid fixer,
and the slow unfolding.

pious sacrilege

2011-02-15T01:24:00.003+02:00

this body of earth and light, i want to use it, and i want it to use me, like a bow uses an arrow. and one day, my essence having imploded with joy, i want to explode, i want to be blown away, forever, by the khamsins or the westerlies, among the trunks of a quietly shushing forest.

a forest of mammoth trees and damp earth and naked trunks, within the void of your chest.

state of state of mind - take three

2011-02-08T22:37:00.000+02:00

music: muse/ exogenesis: symphony, pt. 3: redemption/ the resistance/ download

i want to clothe you in nudity

2011-02-08T07:13:00.001+02:00

palpar

mis manos
abren las cortinas de tu ser
te visten con otra desnudez
descubren los cuerpos de tu cuerpo
mis manos
inventan otro cuerpo a tu cuerpo

-octavio paz

the colours of my longing

2011-02-07T23:31:00.002+02:00

fluffy shady clouds are rolling like huge cotton balls through the skies this evening. the dusk casts colours like a sprinkle of safran-masala mix. like a divine gold powder that twinkles with the sinking sun.

(1 february 2011, 18:30)

the snail that wished it was a daisy

2011-02-07T23:22:00.000+02:00

to dorothy

you are not beautiful, exactly.
you are beautiful, inexactly.
you let a weed grow by the mulberry
and a mulberry grow by the house.
so close, in the personal quiet
of a windy night, it brushes the wall
and sweeps away the day till we sleep.

a child said it, and it seemed true:
"things that are lost are all equal."
but it isn't true. if i lost you,
the air wouldn't move, nor the tree grow.
someone would pull the weed, my flower.
the quiet wouldn't be yours. if i lost you,
i'd have to ask the grass to let me sleep.

- marvin bell

aww but hell i'm just a blind man on the plains i drink my water when it rains and live by chance among the lightning strikes

2011-02-07T23:15:00.002+02:00

ok, it is big stuff for me when i choose for an artist to be placed in that sacred cabinet in my heart. that cabinet. that place where sebastien schuller, band of horses, arman melies, the shins, the fleet foxes, explosions in the sky, and a tiny handful of other musicians reside.

on behalf of every particle of my body, i hereby announce that 'the tallest man on earth' is now promoted to the rank of one of my all-time-favourite artists.

music: the tallest man on earth/ burden of tomorrow/ the wild hunt/ download

state of state of mind - take two

2011-02-07T07:06:00.000+02:00

music: muse/ exogenesis: symphony, pt. 2: cross pollination/ the resistance/ download

a thousands ways to try

2011-02-07T07:05:00.001+02:00

december 2010/ sidi bou said, tunisia/ nikon d300/ enlarge

state of state of mind - take one

2011-02-05T16:16:00.003+02:00

music: muse/ exogenesis: symphony, pt. 1: overture/ the resistance/ download

the eclipse

2011-02-05T12:26:00.002+02:00

i stood out in the open cold
to see the essence of the eclipse
which was its perfect darkness.

i stood in the cold on the porch
and could not think of anything so perfect
as man's hope of light in the face of darkness.

- richard eberhart

this just in

2011-01-26T17:40:00.003+02:00

a: just checked with the only american girl that i love more than you, and my conclusion is: you girl are a toast + jam + scrambled eggs combining pervert!

b: you're a nerd looking guy who never washes his car unless its dangerously covered with scum and a shame to your smart reputation. you can't pronounce yogurt or protein correctly. you're a guy who lusts over a cologne that's packed in a velvet bag like a 70s porn star package. but unfortunately, i adore you to pieces and i think that you're a lil god!

for the love of our animal bodies

2011-01-26T06:49:00.003+02:00

watching other people suffer used to put me down. it used to paralyse me. it was like a huge axe that suddenly amputated me at the knees. watching them suffer quietly made me fall pray to their pain, i was suddenly attracted to it, like a moth attracted to fire. and i used to feel like i owed them, that i had an immediate call of duty to serve them, to take some of the load off their back and chest; to simply share their suffering by transposing some of it with some of my happiness.

with time, i learned that this was draining me, and was not helping me or them. simply suffering with others meant that i was increasing the amount of suffering, and not sharing it. i gradually learned how to replace what i'll call 'sharing by suffering' with 'sharing by compassion'. so i've come to see suffering as a burden that is dissociable from human nature. inevitable, inescapable, but dissociable. so i'm learning to love to share by compassion with thos who are suffering, without letting that suffering paralyse me. easier said than done, but the process is fascinating and so worth it.

which brings me to buddhism. i just wish that one day, buddhist thought could be universally seen for what it is: a timeless human philosophy. in an era where healing human compassion is being emotionally outsourced to professionals, it is imperative for us to relearn and rediscover the power and the duty of humanity to face suffering, and share it through compassion.

oh how i'd love for us to keep learning and teaching and using our animal bodies and souls, to understand our potential, and radiate our infinitely complex energies, healing warmth and compassion around us, one day at a time, one person at a time.