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The night before I got randomly tear-gassed in Taksim Square in Istanbul, I enjoyed an Ottoman-inspired feast at Rami Restaurant, which doubles as a museum for the impressionist paintings of Rami Uluer (who died in 1988). Though I chose to eat my manti on the top floor of the restaurant for a prime view of the majestic Blue Mosque, I took another peek from a window on the first floor on my way out…and snapped this picture…

While I was excavating this December in Sudan, I had the chance to explore a number of ancient Meroitic sites, and I kept running into the goddess Isis in temples dedicated to the god Amun–as well as in temples of her own…

Praise to You, Isis, the Great-One,
God’s Mother, Lady of Heaven, Queen of the Gods.

You are the First Royal Spouse of Osiris Onnophris,
The One Who protects Her brother, and watches over the weary-of-heart…

— Hymn to Isis from her temple at Philae

The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein lies the germ of all art and all true science. Anyone to whom this feeling is alien, who is no longer capable of wonderment, and lives in a state of fear is a dead man. To know that what is impenetrable for us really exists and manifests itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, whose gross forms alone are intelligible to our poor faculties–this knowledge, this feeling…
that is the core of the true religious sentiment. In this sense, and in this sense alone,
I rank myself among profoundly religious men.

― Albert Einstein

In December, while I was uncovering a Meroitic temple from the sands of the Sahara in Sudan, some Sufi friends taught me how to whirl like a dervish in the Sudanese style. Though the form is a bit different than the whirling style which I learned in Cairo and Istanbul, my Sudanese Sufi friends reminded me that “all whirling is one.”

Bring the pure wine of love and freedom.
But sir, a tornado is coming.
More wine, we’ll teach this storm
A thing or two about whirling…

— Rumi

We squandered the goodwill of the world after we were attacked by our actions in Guantanamo, both in terms of detention and torture. Our decision to keep Guantanamo open has helped our enemies because it validates every negative perception of the United States.

— Marine Major General Michael Lehnert

Three Guantanamo Bay detainees were relocated last week to Slovakia. Yusef Abbas, 33, Saidullah Khalik, 37, and Hajiakbar Abdul Ghuper, 39 were the last ethnic Uyghur Chinese nationals to leave the detention center in Guantanamo, after having been stuck in legal limbo for the last five years. Slovakia previously accepted three other Guantanamo Bay prisoners from Azerbaijan, Tunisia, and Egypt in 2009.

Having done in-country research on Islam in Slovakia (where I was simultaneously connecting with my Slovak roots), I can’t imagine too many Slovaks cartwheeling with joy over their country’s latest “humanitarian gesture” in accepting Uyghur detainees–since xenophobia is currently on the rise in Slovakia.

A few weeks ago in Sudan, on the day I was leaving Khartoum to return home to Beirut, two Sudanese detainees from Guantanamo Bay were arriving at the same airport from where I was departing. After landing in Khartoum, they shared how they had been “systematically tortured” in the course of their 11 year imprisonment. Time will tell if these recent transfers from Gitmo to Slovakia and Sudan are part of a new trend of relocating more detainees (with even the former general who opened the camp calling for the site to be shut down)–or if the detention in Cuba of the remaining 155 prisoners (or “packages”) will continue on for many more years to come…

Merry Christmas to all of those celebrating the holiday today (and enjoying a festive feast) here in Lebanon…

Capoeira is the fight of ballerinas. It is the dance of the gladiators. It is the dual between comrades. The game is a dance, it is a perfect symbiotic dispute between force and rhythm, poetry and agility. Unique because the movements are commanded by the song. The submission of forces, of rhythm, of violence, of melody; a subliminal antagonist.

In capoeira, the contestants, are not adversaries, they are “comrades”. They do not fight, they pretend to fight. They look genially, giving an artistic vision to combat. Above the spirit of competition. They have a feeling of beauty.
The capoeirista is an artist, is an athlete, is a player and a poet.

— Dias Gomes

Capoeira is joy, it is good humor, it is not that competition business; it is spontaneity.

– Mestre Suassuna

After a late night out on the town in Beirut, I woke up this morning in the mood to do capoeira. After the trauma of each bomb that hits Beirut, I find capoeira to be especially soothing for the soul. Listening to the song above is always a beautiful way to start the day…

Capoeira is a game, it is dance, it is fight, it is of war and it is of peace, it is of culture, of music, it is a portion of things…

– Mestre Suassuna

The Meroitic temple complex of Musawwarat in Sudan is one of my favorite places in Africa to explore. Thankfully, when I arrived at these ruins–hidden deep in the desert far from any road–no one else was there…the temple’s ramp system, elephant statue, animal graffiti, and unusual ground plan make this temple complex unlike any other that I’ve seen in the Nile Valley…

I took these photos of some of my neighbors in Sudan while walking back home (to my mostly Sufi village) from excavating a Nubian temple in the Sahara…on some of our walks home, we hopped on donkeys, like the boys above…

Jesus was lost in his love for God.
His donkey was drunk with barley.

Drink from the presence of saints,
not from those other jars.

Every object, every being,
is a jar full of delight.

Be a conoisseur,
and taste with caution.

Any wine will get you high.
Judge like a king, and choose the purest,

the ones unadulterated with fear,
or some urgency about “what’s needed.”

Drink the wine that moves you…

— Rumi

While reading this recent article on “War Shelters” in the NYTimes, I was surprised to find that no mention was made of the yurt design behind the architecture of these corrugated metal houses. Architectural Forum called the houses a “dressed-up adaptation of the lowly grain bin” but to me (and maybe it’s because I lived in a yurt myself) the template for their design seems to be the circular, compact shape of a yurt. Doesn’t that look like a yurt to you?

The new yoga art exhibit at the Sackler Gallery, “Yoga: the Art of Transformation,” was just reviewed in the NYTimes.

Here’s a selection from the article which mentions the intertwining of yoga and Sufism in the Mughal court:

Medieval Indian texts suggest that many people found mendicant yogis alien and off-putting, even menacing. To the Mughal emperors who ruled India from the early 16th to early 18th centuries, they were objects of fascination. Although formally Muslim, some of the rulers were wide-ranging spiritual seekers who surrounded themselves with holy men: Sufi sages, Jesuit missionaries, yogis.

Figures of yogis recur in manuscript paintings produced by the Mughal court. Some of these images are pure escapist fantasy, with handsome yogi princes devoutly tracking down sweethearts in Sufi romances…

A Vodafone ad in Egypt featuring a Muppet-like character named Abla Fahita (Aunt Fajita) is being investigated by state prosecutors for allegedly revealing an upcoming terror plot…

In response to this puppet “conspiracy,” bloggers have begun photoshopping Aunt Fajita into torture and terror scenes like the one to the left.

To learn more about the danger terrorist puppets may pose, please click here…

Today the sea is calm in Beirut–but that’s about it. The streets are deserted, with most people feeling too nervous to venture out. On my sea stroll this afternoon, I found that those of us who aren’t staying home are noticeably on guard–suspicious of anyone who might walk on by…passing strangers on the Corniche, I felt like I was witnessing and becoming the walking wounded–how can we not help but be affected one way or another from the two big bomb blasts that recently ripped through Beirut? The city today somehow feels like it aches…