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