Category Archives: Blog

Not frivolously, around the alleys and bazaars, I whirl.
Lover’s temperament, I have — to have one glimpse of my Beloved, I whirl…

— Rumi

Today I took some young Syrian refugee friends for a whirl at an amusement park in Beirut. From the bumper cars to the arcade, we had a total blast. Thankfully, my whirling dervish training came in handy, since I didn’t get too dizzy or nauseous on the spinning rides. After much debate, the kids convinced me to put my ferris wheel fears aside and take a ride–for a spectacular view of the city and sea…

How I danced around the daughters of the sea
When they rose up from the depths
To sit upon the rocks
And behold the stars…

— Khalil Gibran

When I was wandering through the palaces, bazaars, and mosques of Esfehan, I felt like I could stay there forever. Lately, this legendary jewel of Iran has been in the news–for its connection to an American academic. Before he died a few weeks ago, Richard Frye, a distinguished American scholar of Iranian Studies, expressed his desire to be buried in Esfehan. This past Thursday, a number of Iranian “hard-liners” staged a protest to denounce any plans to bury him in his favorite city–even though two other American experts on Iran (Arthur Pope and Phyllis Ackerman) are already buried there. To read more about this ongoing debate in Iran, please click here.

This is the way to freedom from care and pain:
So think as if your every thought were to be etched in fire upon the sky
for all and everything to see.
For so, in truth, it is…

— Mikha’il Na’ima/ميخائيل نعيمة

O You toward whom no one journeys but You,
neither mosque nor monastery is empty of You!
I saw all the seekers and everything sought–
all are You, with no one else in the midst…

— Displaying the Concealment of the Real Realm

There is no mystique to Tai Chi Chuan. What is difficult is the perseverance. It took me ten years to discover my chi, but thirty years to learn how to use it. Once you see the benefit, you won’t want to stop…

— Ma Yueh Liang

We begin every tai chi class in Beirut with a cup of tea. It’s the perfect way (after a long day) to unwind, before practicing this meditative martial art. Tonight at tai chi, however, we were faced with an extreme meditation challenge, thanks to the deafening thunder of army helicopters hovering above–a strange soundtrack for our gentle, slow-motion moves…

A noontide have you been in our twilight,
and your youth has given us dreams to dream….

— Khalil Gibran

All your hours are wings that beat through space from self to self.
He who wears his mortality but as his best garment were better naked.
The wind and the sun will tear no holes in his skin.
And he who defines his conduct by ethics imprisons his song-bird in a cage.
The freest song comes not through bars and wires.
And he to whom worshiping is a window, to open but also to shut, has not yet visited the house of his soul whose windows are from dawn to dawn.

Your daily life is your temple and your religion.
Whenever you enter into it take with you your all.
Take the plough and the forge and the mallet and the lute,
The things you have fashioned in necessity or for delight.
For in reverie you cannot rise above your achievements nor fall lower than your failures.
And take with you all men:
For in adoration you cannot fly higher than their hopes nor humble yourself lower than their despair…

— Khalil Gibran

One of my Iraqi students here in Beirut invited me to this exciting concert next week–really looking forward to it…