Coincidence and Confirmation Bias

“There are no coincidences” I have heard often. “There is a cause for everything.”

Not a reason, but a cause.

Things seem to happen unexpectedly - people, ideas, images, and situations do find me off-guard and I find myself unable to immediately decide if the coming together of multiple ideas or situations is random or purposeful.

I posted an essay(1) a few days ago and got a lot of email from the Philippines to Russia, all inherently saying the same thing: believing in coincidences is a mental laziness on my part when I do not push hard enough to find the cause.

Again not the reason but the cause. In other words, I should not ask Why but What.

…So, I contacted a colleague well respected within the circles of psychology. Our email “debate” was so delightful that I decided to paraphrase some of it to show the progression of the communication which extended over two days.

                                                                                ***

“So, I am faced again with the dilemma of questioning if coincidences exist or if they are random but expected coming-together of events for which we do not have an explanation.”

“Why do you need an explanation?”

“Because I am trained to find the cause of things through investigation of events. The cause not only helps me interpret and explain, but also anticipate.”

“Therefore, you believe that for something to happen there should always be a cause?”

“Well, yes. Obviously you know better than I do about human nature and how we react to observations and events. Tell me, what have you learned in the past 40 years about our need to identify causality?”

“Ha, you sound like a radio interviewer who is looking for a sound bite! You really want me to summarize what I learned in a sentence?”

“Ok, tell me about coincidences and theories that explain how humans have dealt with coincidences.”

“That is also a tall order. Ok, to simplify things let me say that for this topic we can classify people into two groups: the empiricists and the mystics. The first group believes that coincidences are random collisions of events and, more importantly, that they can be explained by the laws of probability. In short, at some point something is bound to happen (Taoist, eh?)

The mystics, in contrast, believe that nothing happens without a purpose. As you know, Jung started this line of thinking by proposing the concept of synchronicity and influenced two generations of psychologists.”

“Yes, I know. But that never convinced me because synchronicity is the celebration of acausality: that things happen for a purpose but we cannot find a causal link. Eventually, it seemed to me that synchronicity is just an excuse for not finding the cause! You agree?”

“Not totally. A mystic has to believe in the purposefulness of what he cannot understand; and an empirically trained mind can only accept what it can understand. Both are, by fiat, valid inclinations.”

.. And then he turned his psychologist’s demeanor to discuss my personality.

“See, your challenge is that you do not fit well in either of these pure categories. I have known you for a long time, I have read your work, and I have seen you in various settings around the world. You are a mystic by birth, and an empiricist by training. Not a comfortable identity, my friend.”

Hmm.

“Ok, so I will not be comfortable looking for a cause only, and equally uncomfortable I am accepting a purposefulness that I cannot explain. Is that the case?”

“You can be comfortable with either or both, but not all the time. That is exactly why you are at a loss regarding coincidences. For you a coincidence is a rainbow over purposefulness and causality. It appears for a short while and you wonder if what you see really exists. It is like an illusion for you, but the mystic in you loves it. At the same time the empiricist scolds you saying “How dare you forget that if there is no causal relationship then it does not exist." 

I do not envy you.”

… We decided to call it a day and get back to our discussion, via email and across continents, the next day.

                                                                                      ***

“So, you thought more about the topic?” he asked.

“Of course. I even did some homework, as an empiricist! I learned that the word coincidence is derived from the Greek word Synkirian, which translates as “what occurs simultaneously by providential arrangement of circumstances.”  Is it possible that by construct, it is a mystical concept to which psychologists have tried to build an empirical framework?”

“You are not alone in such a proposal. But consider this: over the years I have, like Jung, asked my students what they think about this passage from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, when the Queen tells Alice that she is living backwards:

       “Living backwards! Alice repeated in great astonishment. “I never heard of such a thing!”

       “But there’s one great advantage in it” the Queen replied. “That one’s memory works both                          ways’”

       “I am sure MINE only works one way,” Alice remarked. “I can’t remember things before they                   happen.”

       “It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,” the Queen remarked.

See what I mean? Causality makes you live backwards – there are things that we experience before they happen.”

..That sounded like the proposed idea of retrocausality by physicists. I have indeed read and written about this topic(2).

“Have you, as a photographer, taken pictures of people in the streets and in your darkroom seen faces appear on paper, faces you thought you had photographed before?” he continued.

This made me think. Probably. But I could not see the connection to synchronicity or coincidence.

“The human mind recognizes situations via patterns that are in our unconscious. A human face is the most recognizable pattern and strangers, people you never met, will remind you of others you have, and think that you had met them before. Further, you may think that it was a coincidence that you took a picture of a stranger when you were thinking about another person who looked just like this stranger. What you did is called apophenia, or our tendency of finding patterns where they do not exist; being sloppy with large amounts of data by injecting our preconceptions. In that sense you may say that coincidence is just a wishful thinking! See, I am not a mystic…”

I knew that. Still, I wanted to learn about a solid theory or interpretation that did not depend on a Queen, Alice or apophenia!

“So, let me put on my empiricist’s hat” I said. “Can we say that coincidence is a correlation out of meaningless data? That it has no causal basis, and it is observed because probability theory tells us one of these days such a correlation will happen?”

“Now you are neither a mystic nor an empiricist—you have degenerated into a skeptic!” he wrote back. "I have a simple suggestion which is based on a statement you published years ago. You once said “Correlation is the same as superstition – just because a black cat crossed the street before you fell, does not mean that you will fall every time you see a cat. You remember writing this?”

Yes, I did.

“Then, why not consider coincidence as another variant of superstition? There is no purpose, no cause. It was bound to happen by probability alone. Your unconscious did not unite you with a higher plan or goal. Your wondering about the Why vs. the What did not make a ripple in the fabric of time or place. You just have to accept that just because you cannot find causality; it does not mean that there was an acausal relationship. You are committing an interpretation bias, which psychologists have termed Confirmation Bias. In short, you are not letting go of your preconceptions as a mystic while trying to apply critical thinking on information that does not exist!

Friend, relax and just enjoy these probability surprises when they happen!”

… I took my time to answer.

“The Spanish say that a spice is a weed to which we have given a name. Are you telling me that coincidence is a common weed and we should not try to make a delicate spice from it?”

This time he took his time to reply. He simply sent me a smiley face in the body of his email.

(1)   http://toani.blogspot.com/2014/12/when-rocks-whisper-name.html

(2)   http://vahezen.blogspot.com/2014/03/hiraeththats-welsh-for-longing_4.html

December 26, 2014

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2014

Love-Time Quantum Mechanics

Perhaps reflections about the passing of time have preoccupied the human mind second only to our desire to understanding love. 

… This morning the sky is dark, it is a cold December day. My mind wonders about things I have wondered about in the past. Time has passed since and I have let it pass in peace.

But not peacefully. I have listened to its passage, I have challenged its pace, and I have shared it with love. This December cold morning reminds me of a line from Shakespeare:

                                       “The inaudible and noiseless foot of Time”

I must have had a different encounter with time than he did. My time has never been inaudible, or noiseless. It has been stream and river, volcano and silent valley. My time has been noisy, crowded and lonely; it has been gut tearing and sweet amber. It has been an open wound and charming ambrosia. My time has reminded me that it was passing and that there was nothing I could do about it.

… Time and love are like games we play, but games with no rules. There has to be a winner in every game, and time wins no matter the opponent. Love makes losing sweet, acceptable, and often desirable.  And we play these games differently during our own travel between the past and present: we do not get better at these games, just that we realize that love stops making the losing acceptable.

It is attributed to Heraclitus the saying that:

                                      “Time is a game played beautifully by children”

I am not a child, nor that once young man who shared his time with love. And with people. So is my game weaker? Less beautiful now?

Or perhaps there is nothing relative about time and love. That we are unnecessary by-standers in the game where time plays against itself and love watches the game with little interest. Perhaps we have tried, since the beginning of time, to insert ourselves into that game.

I think that we were never invited.

If therefore time and love are not relative, then they should be absolute. I do not know of a more beautiful line that the one by Khalil Gibran when he wrote:

                                          “Love has no desire than to fulfill itself”

Do we have a role in that process? Or like hungry birds we descend upon the fields where the harvest of love was done and we glean what was left behind?

… It is darker now outside and it is that sudden calm before snow starts falling. All will be calm, clean and covered soon. But my mind refuses to separate love from time. Perhaps because I still remember how to play that game beautifully, like children who do not understand time. Or like old men who have played that game and are better losers now.

And, as a temporary victory for my belief, I recite a line from Jorge Luis Borges that makes me as peaceful as the mountain I see from my window getting ready for snow:

     “Being with you and not being with you is the only way I have to measure time”

Let it snow now.

December 13, 2014

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2014

Muddy Tea

How do sad eyes know

When to look away?

I have marched alone

When cities reached their bound

And people with large hands

Held their faces tight

It was not fear I found

Nor joy, nor regret

A sailor lights his pipe alone

And bites the wooden stem

How do brown eyes know

When you look away?

I did not have a journey

Just a passing through

And along the short way

Touched a stone, a rainbow, perhaps a few

It was not fear I found

Nor a promise, not even a sigh

Men in their large hands

Held their hopes and cried

How do hazel eyes know

When to say goodbye?

I have slept under roofs

That filtered stars and half moons

I have locked wooden doors

That opened upon no place

And yet, a sailor lights his pipe

In the hope of passed blue smokes

And the taste of new mornings

Promising angry seas, mossy rocks and cotton clouds

With all the pain
Awaiting them
How do children’s eyes

Shut so gently at night?

November 30, 2014

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2014

Grace and Humility

A year ago, following encouragement from readers who had read my literary work “confined” to the pages of traditional books, I decided to share my new writings through a Blog to reach new audiences and also to write more freely.  I have been delighted by the reception my decision received from practically every corner of our still-spinning earth!

The name of my Blog was chosen a bit whimsically but to reflect the focus of my new line of essays. ZenSouçis is a phonetic play on the French “Sans Souçis” which means “With no worries”.  The Zen dimension was important as I expected to follow a certain philosophy which became apparent to be germane to my previous work as well, but without my fully realizing it to be the case. Now, I wanted to discover, along with my readers, how what I did, felt, thought or avoided could find a simple explanation in the Zen teachings and recommended attitudes.

… I wrote about dignity, identity, longing, love, harmony, beauty and goodbyes. I have used multiple cultures, languages, and teachings as templates when exploring about how one separates his ‘self' from the flow of time and the 'backpack' of history. We all carry that backpack-- some of us feel its weight when our shoulders are weary of the carry.

And last night, when the sky was full of stars and the desert around me eerily quiet, I picked up a book from my father’s collection and sat by the window to read.

The book is a legend in the world of biology and medicine. The author is Dr. Alexis Carrel and the title “L’homme cet Inconnu” or “Man, the Unknown”.  It was published in the early 1930s and I recall my father saying that no medical professional in those days could pretend to know biology, medicine or philosophy without having read this book. A quick search on the Internet proved his point and more: it is today a cult book, with followers who believe that the book remains science and art, attitude, philosophy and knowledge, from a teacher who was also a wonderer.

In short, a Zen book.

First, about the physical appearance of the book. It is leather-bound; the pages are yellow in courtesy to time, thinned like the hands of those in a nursing home bed. It was published in 1935 in Paris by Librairie Plon. However the most interesting detail about the printing was that only 286 copies were made on special paper for select collections. Is mine one of these copies?

I think so, but the physical character of the book is in the history of those who had owned it. The entire book is covered in handwritten notes using black, red and blue pencil. There are comments, references and thoughts written in French, English, and Armenian and even in Latin! More, there are cut columns from newspapers about the author and the book glued to its pages. Ninety years old glue! Turning the pages or unfolding the newspaper columns takes the careful and caring hands of a surgeon, and many are so thinned and almost transparent that I decided to leave that exploration for another day or perhaps another person.

Second, the previous owners of this almost-a century-old book had many interests. The first page of the book even has algebraic equations with legends written in French and Armenian! One legend, written in Armenian under the fourth equation says “Infinity” but not as one would use it in Algebra but as a poet would write about “perpetuity” or “endlessness”! 

What was that reader trying to do? Perhaps try to describe some of Dr. Carrel’s ideas in a formulaic format?

I will never know, but my curiosity for re-reading this book after 35 years was grander than ever.

.. So I did. I will not write about the book or its messages as one can find better analyses on the internet or a library. What I want to share are dormant definitions that were woken up in me as I read till the early hours of the morning. These are the definitions of Grace and Humility. So, after a few hours of sleep, I decided to research and read more about grace and humility with a special penchant toward the teachings of what can be called Zen.

·         

•       The word Grace has a Greek root as ‘Chairo’ and today it is used as Charis; it also has a Latin origin as ‘Gratus’ meaning thankful or pleasing; finally it also has a Hebrew root as ‘Chanan’ and is today used as ‘Chen’ meaning ‘favor’.
• ·         The word Humility has a more ethical meaning ranging from a posture (lowering oneself vis-à-vis others), to knowing one’s place within a larger context. Interestingly it is said that the act of imposing humility on others is called ‘humiliation’ which today perversely connotes an undesirable behaviour.

Why did those two concepts or definitions pop up in my mind when reading Carrel’s book? He does not discuss them directly, but the philosophy of the unknown, regarding human biology and medicine made me realize that the grace of the human body, human behaviour and the biology we transform into poetry, knowledge, celebration, the tremor of love, and the fear of not being loved is what we all need to recognize, cherish and celebrate. As for humility, I felt that the only way to recognize the grace and gracefulness of the ‘Unknown’ in us is by being humble yet cheerful.

And suddenly I thought about the algebraic equation on the front page—could it be that a reader, almost a century ago, passed through a similar thought process and tried to build an equation with two unknowns? Was the ‘X’ in that equation Grace, while the ‘Y’ addressed Humility?

Can it be possible that two minds converged toward such a distillation upon reading the book? Perpetuity, Infinity… But what about the ‘self’ that we cherish in many cultures? Is there a connection between the ‘self’ and ‘identity’? Or, as I proposed elsewhere (ref¹) there is “no I in Identity”? 

I wondered what Buddha had taught regarding these questions.

Interestingly, it is said that when asked about the above, he refused to answer. But as a good teacher he suggested that the better way to approach an understanding of the ‘self’ one should not worry about the existence of the ‘self’ but ask “How does the perception of the ‘self’’ originate?”

… I was done with the re-read of Dr. Carrel’s book and the hundreds of commentaries various previous owners had written in the margins. This time, I had a new attitude and perspective given the 35 years of life between the two readings. I doubt it very much that I will have another 35 years’ wait for a third reading.

So, I will cherish the years left with grace and humility, without worrying about infinity or any algebraic equation with two unknowns and Armenian legends!

¹ http://vahezen.blogspot.com/2013/06/i-dentity.html


And here are two links worth visiting:

http://academicdepartments.musc.edu/humanvalues/pdf/Transplantationat100years.pdf


http://beingintheformofaquest.blogspot.com/2005/07/wisdom-of-alexis-carrel-on-moral.html

November 26, 2014

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2014

In Skull Valley

                                                                                              "If a fool  would persist in his folly he would become wise"
                                                                                                                                              William Blake (1757-1827)


When I reached to lift the veil
I fell short of breath
Sunset was already dressed
In a night dress

In the valley
Quail ran, did not take flight
Granite shone in shades of gray
As if holding the day’s last lights

The valley was a tumbrel of rocks
Where a life was saved from its shame
As if a seamstress hiding her locks
Under a shawl and a false name

And in the cold of desert nights
I shared my pain, I cried a name
Without warm tears and free of fright
For of that granite my heart had become

… Yet, when I reached again
My soul was of that secret calm
Sunrise had washed its night in cyclamen
And the name I cried was now a poem

November 20, 2014
©Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2014

Konya, Rumi and My Grandfather

It is said that with time the sharp edges of one’s experiences get smoothed, like water does to rocks. That two lonesome violins can cry a bigger tear even when serenading each other. And, that eventually we keep only the good memories as our threshold for pain decreases.

I am not convinced.

This morning, I played Arvo Pärt’s “Tabula Rasa for two violins”. Nothing that made me feel that I had made a tabula rasa of my life, memories or identity. The two violins did not calm me. But the repetitive notes somehow put me in a transient mood, almost a trans, and made me think about the Whirling Dervishes of Konya. And in a rather surprising moment, I thought about my grandfather, a musician from Konya who has influenced my life in mysterious ways.

.. My grandfather died when I was 8 years old. For the past 50 years I thought of him as a grandson would occasionally do, with a yearning for a grandfather. But three years ago, while writing my most recent book, I realized how much of what he had shared with me in those short years and that these memories, lessons and teachings had stayed in me, somehow cached in a corner, for all these years.

And three years ago they came out, and I wrote about him and his legacy in a book (1) about Armenian history of the 19th century, the Genocide, why I was born in the Diaspora, and how one remains a descendant of his people, no matter where he is born and ends up dying. And this morning Arvo Pärt brought me back to these thoughts, and made me think about one of the famous sons of Konya, the mystic Rumi.

… In the trance that the two violins lead me to, I recalled words from my grandfather that previously had little meaning to me. He said:

“It was a beautiful tomb, carvings in black, orange and gold. He was a famous man who wrote about loving. After him, the Dervishes started to dance. They were still dancing when I left Konya.”

The West discovered the writings of Rumi only recently, through translations that often are unaware of the nuances of the original language. Born in what is today’s Tajikistan, Rumi lived in Konya for almost 50 years and is buried there. His mausoleum, or tomb as my grandfather described, is supposed to be grandiose and the site of pilgrimage. The epitaph on his grave reads:

         “When we are dead, seek not our tomb in the earth, but find it in the hearts of men”

He was a musician who played the rabāb, a luth-like instrument played in Urdu, Seljuk and Tajik cultures, although he is best known for his playing the reed flute or nay. It is said that he played the nay while reciting poetry.

My grandfather was a musician who played the Oud, a luth-like instrument one still finds popular in Arabic and Turkish instrumentals. He also played the violin but holding it vertically on his lap and moving the bow horizontally. My grandfather, Karnig Kazandjian, survived the 1915 Genocide of Armenians because he played for the Turkish harem ladies who helped him and a handful of friends leave town. A Schindler’s List of an earlier era. I have written about this here(2).

Back to Rumi. Now I am listening to Pärt’s Silentium and the piano accompaniment makes the violins less monotonous, less holding their cries back.

Rumi is said to have never physically written his poetry. Instead it seems that his over-active mind was restless, and he dictated his lines while his disciples anxiously took note. And in putting himself in this whirling mental state, he physically turned and danced reaching the “zone”. It is said that the Whirling Dervishes are a direct reflection and their dance a practice derived from not only the Sufi character of Rumi’s work, but also of his practice. Contrasting this thought to Pärt’s Silentium, I cannot resist thinking that if Rumi were a child in today’s Western World he would have been diagnosed with Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and put on Ritalin!

… I have never been to Konya but have a few pictures of my grandfather, grandmother and uncle dated sometime around 1915. In this picture my uncle should have been less than 4 years old as he died during bloodletting at the hands of a Turkish barber who used his razor to shave during the day and practice “medicine” at night. He was 4 years old.

Then my grandfather surviving the exodus from Konya through the Syrian desert of Der-el-Zor arrived to Aleppo where he restarted his life, always as a musician. This picture, dating from the early 1920s, shows him as a handsome man teaching the Oud and violin.

… Now I am listening to Summa by the Chilingirian Quartet, and thinking about another famous line from Rumi:

                               “The wound is the place where the Light enters you”

What wound did open today? Was there light that found its way into my transient self partly in trance through Arvo Pärt? Was it light or The Light?

I do not try to understand. But know that fifty years later, the turbulent waters of life have not polished the sharp edges of my soul like rivers would do to rocks. That somehow, the words of my grandfather have surfaced from those inner caches of my own self to swirl and dance, making me think about the Dervishes of the Mevlevi Order and a mausoleum in Konya, where my grandfather was born but I have never visited.

With the ending notes of the Chilingirian Quartet I remain perplexed by this suggestion of Rumi:

           “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within                                                                 yourself that you have built against it”                                                                                                                                              

November 8, 2014
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2014

(1) http://vahezen.blogspot.com/2014/04/this-posting-will-be-different-from-my.html

(2) http://vahezen.blogspot.com/2014/07/ottoman-times-armenian-timemakers.html

The Balcony of Baudelaire, Garcia Lorca and Neruda

Poetry and photography are integral pathways to my mood while reflecting upon a new environment, people I meet, or names I remember. As such, I tend to choose my cameras to reflect my mood and, I read or re-read from authors to match my état d’âme. For example I look for my 1969 Nikon F at times; or I feel like capturing street scenes with a 1957 Leica IIIF rangefinder; but undeniably I feel naked without hanging a 1948 Rolleiflex medium format camera from my neck no matter what other camera I am using.

Reading poetry is similar. There are themes that attract me to authors, and there are authors I like to re-read.

This morning I was thinking about balconies. For a strange reason I find balconies special places where one discovers the ordinary in an unusual way, or seems to escape from the architecture within which we live. A balcony is freedom from buildings, and as such, seems to allow for a bit more capricious thinking or behavior.  I have written about balconies, from balconies and while remembering moments upon balconies. In poetry or prose, balconies have found their way into my writings.

But today, I wanted to read from others, and three poets came to mind—Baudelaire, Frederico Garcia Lorca, and Pablo Neruda.  My French is better than my Spanish, but I feel comfortable reading poetry in both languages.  Of the three poets, I find Neruda the most versatile, accessible, diversified, and for the common mortal in all of us. Only a small portion of his voluminous work has been translated into English, and that is a pity. I was introduced to Baudelaire at school, but introduced myself to Garcia Lorca and Neruda later in life. Perhaps I was ready for them. Perhaps it was a choice based on who I had become in choosing pathways to my mood.

.. The balcony. Written as Le Balcon or El Balcón, it is never about the balcony itself but what or who it represents. Again, it is the platform for dreams, remembrances or new thoughts.

Le Balcon is a famous poem written by Baudelaire to his lover. As always all translations are poor, especially when it comes to poetry. So here are the opening lines of the original poem and one of the many translations into English.

Mère des souvenirs, maîtresse des maîtresses,
Ô toi, tous mes plaisirs! ô toi, tous mes devoirs!
Tu te rappelleras la beauté des caresses,
La douceur du foyer et le charme des soirs,
Mère des souvenirs, maîtresse des maîtresses!

And a 2001 translation by Peter Low

Mother of memories, mistress of mistresses,
you who are all my pleasures and all my duties,
you will remember the beauty of our caresses,
the sweetness of the hearth, the charm of the evenings,
mother of memories, mistress of mistresses.

Why did Baudelaire decide to use the Balcony for these lines? It is said that she might have been on the balcony and this was a “Romeo and Juliette moment”. Or that some of his memories of her were associated with a balcony. I am not sure. For me, the balcony in this poem is almost a symbol of evasion, in thought or in body, through two lovers.

The Farewell by Garcia Lorca seems simpler, yet more powerful. In a few short lines he identifies the ordinary that makes life so desirable. Perhaps even durable even in the face of death. The balcony door may open upon an existence that succeeds to life itself.

If I am dying,
leave the balcony open.

The child is eating an orange.
(From my balcony, I see him.)

The reaper is reaping the barley.
 (From my balcony, I hear him.)

If I am dying,
leave the balcony open.

Next are lines from Neruda where the word balcony is used, but is not about the balcony we all know. It has no concrete, no stone and no steel. Instead it is the balcony of the sea, a vantage point where the mind rests:

..and time and again the darkness would be broken
by the crash of a wave,
and every day on the balcony of the sea,
wings open, fire is born,
and everything is blue again like morning

This lovely translation, by his close friend Alastair Reid, feels almost as genuine as the original Spanish version. It is hopeful, it is about a new morning. Or at least about the memory of a wonderful past morning. The balcony, for me, is where one needs to find himself to be optimistic.

… So there I was, on a windy and cool November morning thinking about balconies. Or about what memories I have because of balconies. No matter, I was in the mood for poetry and again, Neruda’s definition of poetry seemed to fit my mood. In Plenos Poderes he wrote:

La poesía es blanca:
sale del agua envuelta en gotas,
se arruga, y se amontona,

Which was translated by Thayne Tuason as:

The poetry is white:
it comes out of the water wrapped in drops,
it is wrinkled, and piles up,

This is why Neruda speaks to the mortal in me, while Garcia Lorca may go a step further into the post-mortem optimism about our days. And Baudelaire… he is the one who lived the moment with no respect to what was next or could be next!

But all three speak of love. And Neruda may have found the right formula when he said:
                    “If nothing saves us from death, at least let love save us from life.”


November 1, 2014
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2014

Beyond the Bounds

On the edge
As high as the eagle soars
Alone, over red rocks
Shaped as a name

On that edge
All is rock and harmony
As I whisper
A name, shaped as memory

It was under a pine tree
On a mountain far away
That I learned that whisper
When on the edge, left alone

And time, unkind and hurried
Forgot me there, for a long while
To wonder and to recall
What had not happened, but could have

… And so one grows, feeble or tall
When the gorges are deep
And the edge is so dry
That eagles fall

Alone
Without a name

October 30, 2014
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2014

Women and Horses

I took this picture a couple of days ago while dirt biking (yes, I carry a camera with me even then) and I found it a bit mysterious. The young girl, her golden braids to the wind, the horse in a proud posture, the vast pastures and the big skies had something nostalgic. Perhaps like a 1960’s cowboy movie reminding me of my childhood.

So, I sent it to a photographer friend asking “Does this picture remind you of something?”

What I got back was more about human nature than the moment I captured through a 1970’s Nikkor 55mm Micro lens.

He said:
“Ah, you like this picture but do not know why? Well, I think you should go back and read Freud and Jung. This is classic psychology about girls and horses, my friend. As you know I have taken a few pictures of women and horses, and I assume that is why you sent it to me. So, instead of talking about your picture, let me repeat what I learned about this topic years ago, when my pictures were published.

Does Kelpie mean anything to you? No? Well, this is the name given to an aquatic creature inhabiting the lochs of Scotland. What makes a Kelpie interesting is that interchangeably it takes the shape of a woman or a horse. You may be surprised to know that the monster of Loch Ness is in fact a Kelpie according to the Scotts. How much more delightful it is to see a woman coming out of the waters than that dragon-like contraption we were given years ago!

How about Epona? Rhiannon? The Centaurs? They are all mythical creatures involving women and horses, although the Centaurs can be men too.. But my favorites are the Valkyries in Norse stories and mythology. See, they say that Valkyries are virgins, who riding their white horses, hover over battlefields like falcons over prairie dogs!  And, they decide who will die in battle and who will not. But the best part is that they choose half of the dead and take them to Valhalla! To paradise. To Shangri La! And the other half, just die and get eaten by crows and vultures. What a story! “

I was laughing aloud reading his note. Did I deserve such a lecture? All I wanted was to get his opinion as to why the picture I took seemed attractive to me for reasons I did not fully understand.

Well, maybe he is right. Maybe this picture did touch a subconscious cord of sorts, dealing with women and horses.

So, I kept on reading.

“Did your daughter draw unicorns? Did your son? See, boys do not draw unicorns, nor do they have posters of white unicorns on pink background in their rooms. It is said that unicorns, as the imaginary impersonation of horses, affect the thinking of many a girl. Why? I do not know, but others have theories. The horse is seen by Freud and Jung as representing powerful instinctive urges of a sexual and perhaps aggressive nature. In medieval Europe the horse was considered to be a symbol of fertility. In all these instances the horse is an archetype. A platform. And girls have adopted the romantic image of the Unicorn to symbolize purity, and hope for dreams to come true.
And then there is your favorite, I know, the Pegasus…”

So I wrote back:
“You have become an expert in mythology, and perhaps women and horses. But tell me, what do you see in this picture?”

And to my surprise he answered:
“A man who cannot make up his mind concerning B&W photography. See, for you all is shades of gray; for me it is much simpler – I would have loved to see her golden hair mix with, I assume, the yellowish colors of fall.”

And he concluded:
“The horse is incidental.”

October 25, 2014
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2014

The Spirit of Spirituality

“So, who provides spiritual care to patients?”

I had just met him, a few hours ago. A man in his 60s, in great physical health doing volunteering work for nature preservation projects.  A man who once was a healer, in a professional capacity.

“Did you make spiritual assessment of your patients along with biological and social?” I asked.

“I did, but the system did not allow me to use it. If pills and scalpel could not cure or manage, then we hoped that that family and friends could help. Or, wish for destiny to be kind.”

… Camus and Heidegger. Existentialism and absurdity. Spirituality and loneliness.

Illness as a life event, can survive much insults from healers. But at the end, ill or not, we face the crossroad between life events and their dead ends. Life becomes a cul-de-sac. And we call it “end of life decision”; and we wonder if spirituality can assist with final decisions by adding quality to the process of that ending.

Or is it a passage?

“You can be an existentialist as much as you want when you can jump out of bed with a full bladder in the morning”, my interlocutor said. “But when the bed seems too high to climb into or too steep to get down from, then you become spiritual.”

“Is that the same as saying “there are no atheists in foxholes”?

“No,” he replied immediately. “Foxholes are temporary – if you get out alive you need to learn about forgiveness toward others and reverence for the beauty of life. If you do not come out alive, it is a moot point. I assume you have read some of  Albert Schweitzer's work?”

… Forgiveness – a state of inner comfort at its intersection with revolt. Comfort that is intertwined with the expectation that there is more to our existence than life itself; that somehow we will meet again in some other form, in some other space and not wonder about “end of life decisions”. Because finality will have no meaning then. Because the boundaries of timelessness are round, and they fold upon themselves in a circle, an oval, or an expanded drop of water shaped as timelessness.  

“Yet we all carry backpacks“, he continued perhaps guessing my thoughts. “These are backpacks where our ancestors live in; these are heavy backpacks. Some of us go through life gracefully, not showing the pull-down of what we are asked to carry. Others collapse under the weight. At the end it is all about grace and gracefulness.”

… Instinctively I straightened my back, almost touched my left shoulder with my right hand.  Have I been graceful? Have I learned to forgive while celebrating every moment I carried the backpack full of my ancestors’ request to keep a promise? And, will I recognize the spirituality I will need to alleviate and guide my end of life decisions?

“Just carry that backpack”, he said with a smile. “When you crouch to feel its weight, you will learn if you are ready to forgive or not.”

And as I was about to comment, he stopped me and said:

“Just do it gracefully.”

October 17, 2014

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2014

Train Station Blues

… And they spoke of their dreams

In words that were rarely theirs

Cold as an evening on the Silk Road

Wrapped in the echo of a lonesome tune

Played on a string instrument smelling of

Goat skin

And their dreams were known to all

Who watched the clouds and saw a face

To which they gave a name

The same name

That reminded them

Of loving

Now simply a dream they all exhaled

Like a varietal wine breathes morning air

In a pretentious decanter

Their faces had earned the imperfections

Of the passage

Upon lands, forgotten promises and tender lips

Passage of time, belonging to faces without names

With ample lips announcing the echo dreams make in us

Hollow, dark and damp

Like the memory of a name

Played on a string instrument

Smelling of goat skin

Somewhere on the road

Where dreams sleep at night

Under the shadow of a full moon

October 7, 2014

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2014

Bohemianism

I grew up in a musical family and my grandfather was a professional musician.  While surrounded with musical instruments and daily talk about that earthly art of communication, I early on developed a love for string instruments, especially the Oud and the violin. Classical and popular “lament, prayer and celebration” on violin’s cords touched my soul as a child, and still do. The sounds of Bohemia, Armenia, Romania and Hungary seem to find their way into my understanding of the violin and its language.

So, it was no surprise that I was looking forward to a symphonic concert when Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D Major, opus 61 started it and which ended with Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 in G Major. Perhaps more importantly, the soloist for Beethoven’s violin concerto was Pinchas Zuckerman.  I had never seen him play in person but consider the Duet for Two Violins (Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zuckerman) as one of the most beautiful recordings of our century.

After the concert, when the audience was slowing its heartbeat from Zuckerman’s performance, there was discussion about Mahler’s “bohemianism” compared to Beethoven’s “germanisism”.  I was intrigued by the various opinions, but especially by the difference in the understanding of what bohemian means.  For me a bohemian is an epicurean who worships the present and feels constrained by too many prescriptive rules of behavior. For many discussing Mahler’s work however, bohemianism was the precursor to America’s hippies and beatniks in the 1960s! Folks who rejected social order, were non-productive, and… took infrequent showers!

When I asked if they knew where Bohemia was, no one except one knew, and he exclaimed “Wasn’t that gypsy land somewhere in Europe?”

… This morning, I looked through my pictures wondering if I can find traces of bohemianism.

This one I took while watching Lago Como from the hills of Bellagio. It was the “Power of Now” as E. Tolle had wrote about; it was J.J Rousseau celebrating nature with no restraints.

Then I came across this shot I took in Buda, Hungary. Yes, Bohemia was part of the Hungarian-Austrian Empire, but on that rainy Sunday, I found nothing bohemian in that makeshift market. It was somber, cold, and even the few flowers they were selling seemed colourless.

Compare this to the view I had of a quiet street in Siena, Italy. It was a sunny day, and the street was full of Lilac trees’ exhale. The medieval structures harbored many Bed & Breakfast establishments. Can one live the present in unconventional ways there?

And now this uninviting “hotel” in a small town in Northern Maine, USA…. Will they understand what bohemianism can offer?

And since both Beethoven and Mahler created their best works in Vienna, here is a street moment from that city of music and art. 

… I do feel the bohemian lifestyle in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto; I do shut my eyes when listening to Mahler’s Symphony No. 4.  But at no time during these sensual and spiritual voyages upon the cords of a violin I see hippies and beatniks and their refusal to adhere to basic hygiene and social order….

September 21, 2014

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2014