tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-196730822024-03-13T14:40:27.632-04:00The MuseLaura's new book Uncommon Voyage: Parenting Children with Special Needs, A Handbook will be published in 2016. From 2000-2005 Laura was the Project Director for the New York Foundation for the Arts on a film about Albania, Shqiperi.
Laura's essays were published in The Forward in 2014 and 2015 and are collected in, Uncommon Passages. Laura is a devoted student of Iyengar Yoga. Essays from her book, Can You Show Me Tomorrow Today?can be read on her website www.laurashapirokramer.comlaura shapiro kramerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07853176438298890341noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19673082.post-74096713686497221172016-04-01T15:17:00.000-04:002016-05-16T11:29:18.359-04:00TO BALANCE WE MUST MOVE <div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">To accept whatever comes, regardless of the consequences, is to be
unafraid.</span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "geneva"; mso-bidi-font-family: Geneva;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>John Cage</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "geneva"; mso-bidi-font-family: Geneva;">Headstand turns the world upside down (the inner world and outer world.) When you do it every day, it reminds us nothing stays the same. Ever. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "geneva"; mso-bidi-font-family: Geneva;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Balance is achieved between movement and
resistance. To balance we must move. If we are rigid, we fall over (and that
hurts!) Holding still brings tension. Moving helps us perceive the world.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "geneva"; mso-bidi-font-family: Geneva;">Moving can denote a
strong feeling especially of sorrow or sympathy (he was moved to tears) and describes a stirring emotion. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "geneva"; mso-bidi-font-family: Geneva;">Move along, move aside, move on, move on up. Move is a verb that
means to proceed or progress, to advance or shift or change position. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "geneva"; mso-bidi-font-family: Geneva;">Move is
also a verb that implies inspiration or stimulation; it connotes affect, to
impress, provoke, and rouse. And it means to change, to budge, to shift one’s
ground or change one’s mind or have second thoughts, to make a turn.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitPObDsFZ-AlNNwbjdil1P7qikMYJJaTKPEvIHVMm55jePV5AZ1KOWjqlLoo-puM1pYtfojXGP5kusvxZ4igQ8aA2zBJ9uR9QgEs1epGeLA9PSAvMI9sX4HGwXr8flI7357wkt/s1600/James+dancing+on+Tonle+Sap.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitPObDsFZ-AlNNwbjdil1P7qikMYJJaTKPEvIHVMm55jePV5AZ1KOWjqlLoo-puM1pYtfojXGP5kusvxZ4igQ8aA2zBJ9uR9QgEs1epGeLA9PSAvMI9sX4HGwXr8flI7357wkt/s320/James+dancing+on+Tonle+Sap.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "geneva"; line-height: 150%;">Balance is an even distribution of weight enabling us to remain upright
and steady; it is the stability of our minds or feelings and it implies equal
or correct proportions.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "geneva"; line-height: 150%;">Balance in art is harmony of design and proportion. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "geneva"; line-height: 150%;">If something hangs in the balance, it is uncertain and at a critical stage. When we are balanced poise and grace dominate. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "geneva"; line-height: 150%;">Head balance delivers steadiness. </span><span style="font-family: "geneva"; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;">To be in head balance we have to be in a steady position so that we do not fall. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "geneva"; line-height: 150%;">We need to
transcend our limits and self-transformation has its limits, yet I do not like
to think I have reached mine. I do not want to set limits on what I explore,
not inside and not outside. When we set limits we miss exploring what really
matters.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "geneva"; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;">The compass I use searches for the center. </span><span style="font-family: "geneva"; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;">The
clarity of the extremes is that the center is within. From inside emerges the
balance and it is always back and forth, back and forth: going out and
returning in</span><span style="font-family: "geneva"; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;">. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "geneva"; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">It is always back and forth, back and
forth: going out and returning in. Head balance.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
laura shapiro kramerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07853176438298890341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19673082.post-80441341831862416482016-03-03T14:56:00.000-05:002016-05-16T11:31:44.658-04:00WOBBLE WOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana";">I believe in curiosity, in diving
into others, into the dissimilar and deep into myself. I am a seeker. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana";">I have the compulsion to
try and connect with something just out of reach - like trying to catch a
tiger, a search for something that constantly eludes me, searching for
something I refuse to let go of. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana";">I want to taste the
deeper currents of existence, an occasional privilege. Gobble gobble.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana";">The body is the framework for all
our bodies; the outer body is the frame for the organic body.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana";">The physical body is a window into our interiors
where there are involutions and evolutions like Nature, like temperature and
rainfall and fire, clouds and sun.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana";">We are like the Big Island of Hawaii where nine of
the world’s eleven climate zones exist on one island. <o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: verdana; text-indent: 0.5in;">Our body is like a mass of climate zones.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana";">We have fiery
brains, warm and cold hearts, warm and cold hands and sometimes cold feet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana";">We express these manifold interior bodies in our
skeletons and through our skin. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBHj60dZSGrytamH14FNH3gmw9fZOvH1LO1xqY67HrQSZpp0NW9CFOj0WnbyjM3y6rr1s5W7x2a-fDLJeIfLwkIkm2Tm02erKPecSBCf4ZQd5CC07TfgRUJHJ0Tuwk_IGA_5G-/s1600/Shadow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBHj60dZSGrytamH14FNH3gmw9fZOvH1LO1xqY67HrQSZpp0NW9CFOj0WnbyjM3y6rr1s5W7x2a-fDLJeIfLwkIkm2Tm02erKPecSBCf4ZQd5CC07TfgRUJHJ0Tuwk_IGA_5G-/s1600/Shadow.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana";">We extend through our hand gestures and the set of
our mouths as much as the words we voice, text, and think.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana";">Our handshakes and hugs are the intersections of
our emotional body, mental body, intellectual body and body in space.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana";">The world wobbles: it spins on an axis that is
moving and long ago scientists noted that this axis also wobbles.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana";">Scientists believe that tectonic plates of the
earth's crust drift around the globe like, for instance, the Pacific plate that
is the Hawaiian Islands.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana";">The islands are like a gigantic raft and have been
in the process of creation and dissolution for about twenty million years.
Kaua'i has moved 350 miles since it was born and now is less than half of its
original size.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana";">Some day like other islands, Hawaii will have moved
on. We do not know where it will sit eventually. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana";">If Hawaii, why not us? What do we know about where
anything will be eventually? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana";">We wobble. We move around and the world moves
around us. The word ‘forever’ is the miracle of gliding on and being reborn. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbumoeJsRfu0TsI6icRTS78UdQs4Ah3ukbT-5PDXcLIerKiHWz1d1PgclfY9NEyE__WDGKGPivUge-aUxpXMMHDjOKB1V-b-r2vjpNYhgGfY0gCf6EJOV4sXCyZz0JEqPsmjhb/s1600/Other.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbumoeJsRfu0TsI6icRTS78UdQs4Ah3ukbT-5PDXcLIerKiHWz1d1PgclfY9NEyE__WDGKGPivUge-aUxpXMMHDjOKB1V-b-r2vjpNYhgGfY0gCf6EJOV4sXCyZz0JEqPsmjhb/s1600/Other.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
laura shapiro kramerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07853176438298890341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19673082.post-20046140212130138342016-02-05T16:47:00.001-05:002016-05-16T11:27:32.347-04:00DIGGING UP THE BUNNY<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
DIGGING
UP THE BUNNY</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">We forget
things collected mechanically by the brain and always remember events in which
we are somehow emotionally wrapped. We remember striking moments of our lives,
exciting moments where beauty and love are condensed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">But we also
sink back especially, where we have been
psychologically hurt and wounded and where fear was present. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">We hold
these wounds like precious jewels. It is weight that does not drop easily from
our shoulders.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">My friend
told me a story about her daughter and her pet bunny. The little girl doted on
the bunny. One day the bunny got sick and died.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The child
had fits of crying and hand wringing. My friend helped her daughter bury the
bunny with an elaborate funeral. A few weeks after they buried the bunny, my
friend’s daughter came to her and asked if they could dig up the bunny.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The girl wanted to see it, to indulge her wound. She wanted to gaze repeatedly
at her loss, turn it over and touch it, feel it, again and again. Human.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The
Amygdala is the dark aspect of the brain formation that is storage of emotion
and memory. It is the encoding and retention of emotional information or
learning, particularly the information relating to survival. It is the brain’s
muscle of memory. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;">Memories
are different than memory. The part of the brain in which our memories reside
is encrusted with all sorts of images, mostly of the past, covering our head
like a veil.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 189.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">When something
new is dropped on to that thick layer of thoughts and remembrances, it gets
more difficult to recall. Like a sponge. It absorbs the things we live most
intensely, sucking them up.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 189.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">There is a
Zen story that tells of a Japanese master who received a university professor. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 189.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The
professor came to inquire about Zen. Nan-in, the Zen Master, served tea. He
poured his visitor’s cup full, and he kept on pouring. The professor watched
the overflow until he could no longer restrain himself.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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“It
is overfull. No more will go in!”<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Like
this cup,” the Master said, “you are full of your own opinions and
speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?” </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">(Gary Zukav, The Zen Lee Masters.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Some people
let shadows of dark events stay in their minds dragging the past into the present while others chose to get rid of
them and continue on with life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
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laura shapiro kramerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07853176438298890341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19673082.post-72115909527300622832015-11-22T13:11:00.000-05:002016-04-05T10:30:55.558-04:00THE ONLY FAILURE IS NOT TRYING<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Ever tried.
Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Samuel Beckett<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p><br /></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">What is there to lose by trying and failing? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">Life shrinks or
expands in proportion to our courage (as opposed to our possessions).</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 12.0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">When we hold our hand before our eyes, we can conceal the
greatest mountain, just as our little earthly life hides from our glance
enormous lights and mysteries of which the world is full. The person who can
draw this little earthly life away from before his eyes, as one draws away a
hand, beholds the greatest shining of inner worlds. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">We must be our own teachers. To
teach is an act of love. In ancient Indian tradition, the teacher was placed at
the very apex of the hierarchy. Even the King consulted teachers for advice. When
nothing is required of us and we can do whatever we want, who are we? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">A few years
ago I decided to go on a trip alone. </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I wanted to leap into the dark, into places I had never been. Every
stranger and every street beckoned with mystery. </span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I read
about a woman who gave herself ten articles of clothing to wear for one year and decided that would be me for three months: unencumbered; finding as much as possible in as little as I could.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;">The trip meant taking a risk. I did not know if I was going to be lonely or struggle with the unknown and the unfamiliar. I wasn’t sure if I could find my way by myself. How can we know if we don’t try?</span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The further
I went, the more ‘out there’, the more I was unmoored and the more I
wandered, the stronger my inner anchor. I grew secure by getting unfastened. My
travels took me to extremes. The clarity of the extremes is that the center is
within. From inside emerges the balance and it is always back and forth, back
and forth: going out and returning in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">When I returned people asked me all kinds of questions like
how much it cost; wasn’t I lonely? Wasn’t I afraid to travel alone? The most
common – and most annoying - question they asked was, “Where did you like
best?” </span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">My answer was “inside”. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">We learn to walk new in the world when we step out. </span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">How can we
prevent disappointment and protect ourselves from injury while being pioneers?
The path of discovery is a razor’s edge. It can be fraught with danger and
uncertainty. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Growth is a redrawing of boundaries so that we include more of the
outer world and the inner world. It makes us less secure, more fragile. In the
end it makes us more stable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">We must be
willing to live ‘imperfectly’. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The practice of going within frees us to live
the kind of life we desire which is to be pointed to the horizon, toward
whatever appears; to penetrate and probe and venture forth; to
express our chest where the heart resides. Ultimately, we draw a golden thread
through all we witness and pass through.</span></div>
laura shapiro kramerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07853176438298890341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19673082.post-83179205623471244432015-11-06T16:14:00.003-05:002016-03-31T14:47:16.547-04:00SHIFTING SANDS<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Faith
sees the invisible, believes the incredible and receives the impossible.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Geneva; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Geneva;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Anonymous</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">One summer children were digging in the sand on a nearby beach and
uncovered the head of a whale. First they exposed the tip of a smooth white
bone that turned out to be part of its skeleton. Everyone thought the whale probably
washed ashore during one of those mythic Cape Cod hurricanes, maybe forty years
before. Scientists came to do carbon testing. They determined the skeleton was at
least five hundred years old. The entire head weighed four hundred pounds! Sand,
blown by the wind over centuries, covered – and then uncovered - this leviathan
that for generations was waiting to be revealed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhypTGwVStd07mKRmI6fB64n7IWM8X1MFSUwv8hWYTrr-fsdRG9kmdmJmZSDD8bffvX2XoYCj0Ei2m78rxu2q0BxvgloLq5KnlKIh30QjwrEEf2tAR3iFBdhpTRRd7jX85cSOP7/s1600/Byron+Bay+beach.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhypTGwVStd07mKRmI6fB64n7IWM8X1MFSUwv8hWYTrr-fsdRG9kmdmJmZSDD8bffvX2XoYCj0Ei2m78rxu2q0BxvgloLq5KnlKIh30QjwrEEf2tAR3iFBdhpTRRd7jX85cSOP7/s400/Byron+Bay+beach.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Pain is the constant chaperone of living. Everyone I know has it: back
pain, shoulder pain, hip pain, arthritis pain, headaches, heartaches and loss.
We cannot always change this but there are ways to live with courage. Get the hang
of being still; stillness that does not depend on what happens. Let a new wind
blow in without knocking us over. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Spend time on any beach. Shifting sands are real. The beach where I
live in the summer has gone from being covered with sand to being covered with rocks
and is now morphing again to sand. We are that beach. Who knows what will be
revealed over time that for the moment is hidden? It could be a whale of a
thing! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
laura shapiro kramerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07853176438298890341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19673082.post-51408484709908279292015-11-02T14:53:00.000-05:002016-04-05T10:33:10.225-04:00THE ONLY THING YOU GET WHEN YOU LOOK BACK IS A STIFF NECK!<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Things turn out best
for people who make the best of the way things turn out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></i></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3jGL7YtPL6zZBnJEaMLxKdKeQMosEekpZkUgiyo-ygujomspJvJfQ0nwCx9G8NJ-a8mImuUDrILZ0VfjWqZzxiVgtizb0w8dmsGxWOApgIOx7Edjh7XrgDlnh0SuPbk8l-eLi/s1600/SUNSET.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3jGL7YtPL6zZBnJEaMLxKdKeQMosEekpZkUgiyo-ygujomspJvJfQ0nwCx9G8NJ-a8mImuUDrILZ0VfjWqZzxiVgtizb0w8dmsGxWOApgIOx7Edjh7XrgDlnh0SuPbk8l-eLi/s320/SUNSET.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Can we imagine
walking backward through life? If we want to go forward, do we take steps
backward? If we want to see what is ahead of us, do we look behind? There are
no eyes in the back of our heads.
In fact we have to swivel our necks to see what is behind us. And we
know how tired our necks can get from looking back. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Who has not heard
the saying 'that for every door that closes, another opens; that sometimes a
disappointment can lead to a new road?'</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> How can we see the door or the new path if
we are turned around; if we are not looking ahead and instead thinking about
the past? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">We live on the
front part of our bodies. Everything about us points forward: our eyes, our
nose, our mouth, and our shoulders, hands, and chest. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Surviving the challenges of life has to be
eyes straight ahead. We have to go onward without looking backward.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> At the same time we must not drag the past into the present.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">The past inspires the present.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> We are never
really without our past and never </span></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;">without our future. In Yoga in the great warrior
poses, the back leg is the ‘brain’ of the pose. Keeping the back leg strong and
articulate gives stability. Then we move forward with intelligence and grace, balanced
and secure. There is no need to look back: we have a strong leg like an anchor to
rely on.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Our eyes look ahead
to see what is ahead. A sailor steers by keeping the horizon in sight. The
horizon is always moving (there are only twenty-two miles to the horizon no
matter where you look.)</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Mostly we are
pointed in predictable directions, straightforward and positive, but there are
more difficult times. We need more attention and care to keep from stumbling.
Sometimes we need to side step or be still.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqU1jdCRqmWw76n7ppFtKv6-HSuf2eabkBfpwS07sjOmYVJjcE0IMW68XHvsSuQAPwhSz2q9bDv-HAv31jlDw-L-pQrUa4T5OLzLS6ogWfG6yLKfI0gE8XJ8lhLeCBlRNKC3w8/s1600/Pattern.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqU1jdCRqmWw76n7ppFtKv6-HSuf2eabkBfpwS07sjOmYVJjcE0IMW68XHvsSuQAPwhSz2q9bDv-HAv31jlDw-L-pQrUa4T5OLzLS6ogWfG6yLKfI0gE8XJ8lhLeCBlRNKC3w8/s320/Pattern.jpg" width="320" /></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There are special
features in our human necks that enable us to keep our heads still (but not
stiff). This gives us an advantage: it helps us avoid falls and injuries. Stillness
is pause without rigidity or going in reverse.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Do not be like
Lot’s wife. Lot was the nephew of Abraham. Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar
of salt when she looked back. We do not want to be a pillar of salt or have a
sore neck. We not want to be ‘stiff necked’.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The past, present
and future are not today what they were or what they will be. These are the
mysteries. Go forward one step at a time. Without looking back. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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laura shapiro kramerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07853176438298890341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19673082.post-75753517673443549562015-10-29T16:31:00.002-04:002016-05-16T11:26:17.181-04:00PRACTICE DOES NOT MAKE PERFECT!<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">An ounce of practice is worth a ton of
learning.<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Anonymous<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Doing poor or feeble practice in the
worst of times is far more meritorious than doing a good practice in the best
of times.<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Prashant Iyengar<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Practice is a
taste of the sacred. It is about health – mental, psychological, physical and
spiritual health. Fitness happens quickly with a big energy output. Health
takes a long time. This is where practicing comes in. We learn to do it by
doing it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWFiLVolOjOfi0KGu1kO6PYLc9ycMqVSfNTS7BXGrrg-VS2tOJuEDybqx3OpS3kDm7Q4R-yII07QX-eyM-ak3lN0PwrRwb0QQBoJCcL0EHWOCBIcMUTjZ2WLz4AMCIiNvNTR_7/s1600/Gurujii.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWFiLVolOjOfi0KGu1kO6PYLc9ycMqVSfNTS7BXGrrg-VS2tOJuEDybqx3OpS3kDm7Q4R-yII07QX-eyM-ak3lN0PwrRwb0QQBoJCcL0EHWOCBIcMUTjZ2WLz4AMCIiNvNTR_7/s400/Gurujii.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">You cannot
imagine the conversations I have convincing myself to practice. When practice is
intended for the end of day, often I procrastinate as long as I can until I
might not do it at all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">People who know
me cannot believe this about me. They always tell me, “You’re so disciplined.” Little
do they know that the conversations I have with myself give meaning to the word
struggle.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">What I know from
years of practicing is that it transforms me. There are dragons to battle in
the world - frustration, despair - as well as demons within. But there is a
possibility of transfiguration with practice. Practice makes me different. I know how hard it is. If I don’t want to do it, I do it anyway.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Think of practice as having a flashlight to explore dark (scary) places. The more we practice the
more our eyes get used to the dark. The challenge is to switch on the flashlight</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The glory and splendor of practice is like a telescope with immense
power, opening gradually and incrementally when the sun sets and the dark presents
itself. The greater the opening, the greater the
space, the more observation, the more we can see ‘in the dark’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">There is so much more to being a human being than we
realize. When we penetrate inwardly, we make a connection to the divine. We
meet our true selves. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Ultimately, what
I learn from practice is that it does not make perfect and that I can not
control anything - except what I put in my mouth, literally and figuratively. Yet
practice gets inside like the most delicious food. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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laura shapiro kramerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07853176438298890341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19673082.post-50816953460243769432015-10-23T15:50:00.001-04:002015-10-23T15:50:35.202-04:00MOMENTS<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<!--StartFragment--><span style="font-family: auntjudy; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">The wise don't expect to
find life worth living; they make it that way.</span><!--EndFragment-->
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzwouTxAU-dyjtwHx2-_JDFT4bzm6dytbk5XLmkwF5hZpeBMisf4Aw83GQBQiUCNtenw1MNDQSkc-j4K6rkN_yqHalGBR23OegE3hmrTdmRGcZU6gUpBlhbSYbyhtX1Spui21o/s1600/Orchids.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzwouTxAU-dyjtwHx2-_JDFT4bzm6dytbk5XLmkwF5hZpeBMisf4Aw83GQBQiUCNtenw1MNDQSkc-j4K6rkN_yqHalGBR23OegE3hmrTdmRGcZU6gUpBlhbSYbyhtX1Spui21o/s320/Orchids.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
We have in our lives only a few moments of joy and moments of wonder - mixed sometimes with each other and with other moments. We persist in thinking that such moments only have worth if we can make them go on forever. We speak of beauty or transcendence. Or other things. We reach an age and we realize that a moment, or if we are lucky, a handful of moments was our life. These moments are all and they are everything. We must live for the moments but we are so anxious pursuing everything else - the future usually - with anchors that pull us down, so busy that we sometimes miss the moments.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I celebrate little things. I am more than I ever thought I could be and I am <br />
grateful that I don't take small moments for granted and grateful that I will look back on my life and know I drank up every moment, soaked up the good and the bad.</div>
laura shapiro kramerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07853176438298890341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19673082.post-62374740015926897412015-10-15T15:54:00.000-04:002015-10-21T13:50:48.456-04:00SWIMMING LESSONS<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">It is not irritating to be where one is.
It is only irritating to think one would like to be somewhere else.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu6EvyScxsVuIylacwwXQMguTwg33mh4PXRbQcp9KSS5M2awekJbsAdhKQXaAlACf26OsENcBGL4a04LySXETtp4u35-6Tjtc3l-CACVOVjcjWhdVyQ6yiEC_G2573Ej-avqRA/s1600/Ducks+swimming.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu6EvyScxsVuIylacwwXQMguTwg33mh4PXRbQcp9KSS5M2awekJbsAdhKQXaAlACf26OsENcBGL4a04LySXETtp4u35-6Tjtc3l-CACVOVjcjWhdVyQ6yiEC_G2573Ej-avqRA/s320/Ducks+swimming.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<u><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic';"><b>SWIMMING
LESSONS</b></span></u></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<u><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<u><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><b>Plunge in</b></span></u><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the eventuality. Life is not coming to us. We have to
go to it. People stand at the edge of a pool or in the shallow part of the
ocean. Waiting for what? The only way to get used to it is to get in – plunge,
jump, stride or dive. We’re not going anywhere if we wait on the shore. Are we
waiting for life to begin? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Do ‘it’</span></u></b><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The dreaded thing. Send a thank you
note; show up for a dinner; call and apologize - even when you don’t feel like
it. It is always a surprise. Frankly, I wake up every day and think I will skip
swimming. Then doing it changes everything.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Adapt</span></u></b><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">We can get used to anything when it
is good for us. For decades I swam in the same pool. I learned to swim in a new
place. At first I wondered if I would be comfortable getting up in the morning
and not going to my old place. One day I realized I didn’t think about it
anymore. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Be flexible</span></u></b><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I swam in the morning for years. Then
life interfered and I had to go at other times. It was liberation to discover
if I didn’t swim in the morning, I could still swim! I was free. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Stay open-minded</span></u></b><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Learning to swim in a new place –
even in a new place in the pool - is like learning to sit in a new place. I see
classmates come to class rushing to claim the place where they sat or practiced
during class a week earlier or the day before, so anxious to have their ‘real
estate’. It is very important to have different angles and viewpoints and to
let the world have a different slant on us. We behave differently when we sit
in the front row instead of the back row. Move around. What is crucial is the
ability to be in different places in our heads and in our hearts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> <u>You never know what is going to happen</u></b><u>
<o:p></o:p></u></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Life is full of surprises and the
greatest surprises come from within. Often I think I am too tired or decide
(ahead of time) that I will only do half my swim. Unexpectedly I have the best
swim of my week or a longer swim than I have had in ages. Who can tell ahead of
time?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> <u>Learn from others</u></b><u> <o:p></o:p></u></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Keep improving. We can always get
‘better’ and we can always grow. Although I am swimming since I was walking,
recently I took a swimming lesson. My stroke improved. I got some pointers
about my kicking. It took a few weeks to integrate what I learned and to get
comfortable but I did improve and I am a better swimmer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> <u>Get the most out of what there is</u></b><u>
<o:p></o:p></u></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Some days I have to rush or I get to
the pool a bit later than I planned. I have less time than I wanted. I make the
most out of what there is. Something is always better than nothing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Do not put obstructions in front of yourself </span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">We can learn to do things we never
thought we could do. The biggest obstruction of all is comparing ourselves to
someone else. There is always someone who is a stronger swimmer or a prettier
swimmer, a faster swimmer. Why think about them? They are bigger, younger, and
different. Give all the attention to yourself. It is not irritating to be where
one is. It is only irritating to think one would like to be somewhere else.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> <u>Change does not mean decline</u></b><u><o:p></o:p></u></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">All things change, nothing is
extinguished.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>When I was younger I
swam relatively fast. I have slowed down. I don’t do ‘heats’ anymore. But I am
strong in other ways. I have endurance. It takes longer but it gets
accomplished. Stagnation is degenerative but change is evolving. Change is the
only evidence of life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Stay present<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">When I swim I try to keep focused on
swimming. Where are my eyes looking? Am I breathing into each lung evenly;
kicking with equal strength? My mind wanders and then I work to get my focus
back and to really think about what I am doing in the moment. It is good
practice. (I confess I have made shopping lists or decided what I was going to
wear to a party while swimming. I sort out a lot. But I keep coming back to my
swim.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Set modest goals</span></u></b><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">We can always exceed them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><u><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">It’s good when its over</b> – good that it
was done and good that it is done. </u><o:p></o:p></span></div>
laura shapiro kramerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07853176438298890341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19673082.post-67955966568497108832015-10-07T15:41:00.001-04:002015-10-21T13:51:06.317-04:00A SMALL STONE<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">All glory
comes from daring to begin.<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Geneva; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Geneva;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Anonymous<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Ninety-nine
percent of life is showing up.<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Woody Allen<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">A Small Stone<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0xX2tQ8qe6znJyEqNp_QF6pou6ygDdEr0cENTb4csp5kPHahyphenhyphensHgzqBt3y5olyq8qAgsqhdhK1XrD9-vRJKdmcqRlJGAMXI106uE7xNcAkPkzxqovjf2IFDBJItCj_jg0DhtV/s1600/STONES.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0xX2tQ8qe6znJyEqNp_QF6pou6ygDdEr0cENTb4csp5kPHahyphenhyphensHgzqBt3y5olyq8qAgsqhdhK1XrD9-vRJKdmcqRlJGAMXI106uE7xNcAkPkzxqovjf2IFDBJItCj_jg0DhtV/s320/STONES.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">A teacher once
said something that has remained with me ever since. What he said comes up in every
life situation that requires ‘action’
(which often is no action). Whenever I need to take on anything new or focus
to make myself better (heal the world, write a great novel, or lose five pounds) I remember his words.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;">It happened</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"> during my first yoga workshop. It rained in torrents the entire week of the
workshop. I mention this because it mirrored the intensity of the hours we
spent soaking up a deluge of knowledge and information from this exceptional
teacher.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span> Each practice began with three OM’s and a
Sanskrit invocation that they say if practiced twelve thousand times makes it’s
meaning clear. I’ve been practicing it ever since and I have no idea if that is
twelve thousand times. I never counted but it counts to me that I do it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Physical
work was intertwined with knowledge and information that was braided with
insight into the mental body, the emotional body, the psychological body and
the spiritual body. The teaching was complex and stitched into a formative experience
for me. There were anecdotes that transcend the telling but seeped way in. The
lesson of the ‘worthwhile’: it is earned with sweat. Nothing <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">heartfelt</i></b>
or worth having is gotten without toil. Ultimately, the greatest pleasures of
life are earned this way. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">At the end
of the workshop someone asked our teacher how to practice, how to start and how
long to practice once you get started. The teacher was eating some dried fruit
and nuts and continued chewing for a few moments (a typical Yogi) before he
spoke. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“If you go
out and try to pick up a big rock, or a boulder, you will struggle to lift it
and to throw it any distance.” He paused again and then went on:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“If you go
out and pick up a small stone and toss it, you will throw that small stone a
great distance; a much greater distance than the big boulder.”<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">This wisdom
over years keeps gathering weight and meaning. This idea of the small stone became
a boulder, a solid reliable rock. I remember when my son who was learning to
walk: he was four years old and defying the prognosis that he might never walk. It was
one small step at a time. He walks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Let us gather
inward the best parts of ourselves. That means working on giving our self things
beside ourselves; new endeavors; continuing to be the best we can be. It begins
with one small step, one small stone. Instead of a heave ho, try a toss.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
laura shapiro kramerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07853176438298890341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19673082.post-48712399720365238002015-09-29T12:45:00.000-04:002015-10-21T13:51:25.207-04:00HARDER TO HOLD ON THAN TO LET GO<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">To be uncertain is to be uncomfortable, but to be certain is to be ridiculous.<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
A Sukkot Story and
the Buddah’s Hands</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">IT IS HARDER TO HOLD ON THAN TO
LET GO<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibtWF9btMt7zpE2MteROjFPtKHDiXKpN2nOtYbHokI1Euax0gTjdLeBHA12IHyDzp9e39WjvZFGttDMlptjtyGotblPq36QJheO3xxe-YyFTQ5BIw_2jSZSOD9WsvdzkuqiKWk/s1600/Istanbul+Sukkah.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibtWF9btMt7zpE2MteROjFPtKHDiXKpN2nOtYbHokI1Euax0gTjdLeBHA12IHyDzp9e39WjvZFGttDMlptjtyGotblPq36QJheO3xxe-YyFTQ5BIw_2jSZSOD9WsvdzkuqiKWk/s400/Istanbul+Sukkah.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We use the hands for giving and for taking. Our hands
are big while giving and small while taking.Giving does not make us poor.
Keeping all to ourselves does not make us rich. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> Once in the
chaos of a move, we were robbed. The thief pilfered jewelry </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">that were gifts
from my grandmothers who were long gone from this world. Of course, the most
important ‘things’ in life are not things; they are health, loving family
relationships, profound experiences, and meaningful work and are more important
than anything I lost that day.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> The day
after the robbery I was riding in a taxi and began sobbing. The driver was very
concerned and asked me why I was crying. Nothing like a sympathetic stranger to
talk to - so I told him. Ah, he said. He understood perfectly. He once lost a
watch that had been in his family for generations. But, he continued, it will
always be in my heart just as your things will always be in your heart.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span> The empathic driver reminded me of some
stories. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> One story
is about the Buddha’s hands. We cannot tell the front of the Buddha’s hands
where the palm is from the back of the hand. Why? Because we need the front of
the hand to grasp. This is true: we need our palms to open jars, grab the
laundry that needs folding, wrap around the steering wheel of our cars. The
Buddha knows better than to try and hold on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span> The second story concerns the religious holiday
that we are celebrating this week and is slightly more complex. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span> During these autumn days, Jews celebrate a
Biblical holiday known as the Festival of Booths or ‘Sukkot’. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It lasts eight days. The ‘Sukkah’ is a
“booth” that becomes the primary living area of one’s home. This “booth” or
“tabernacle” is a structure open to the heavens and covered with tree branches
and gourds and other symbols of autumn and is intended as a fragile dwelling
that reminds Jews how their ancestors lived in the desert (and how we must
respect life): sheltered yet at the same time open to the universe and to God.
All meals are eaten inside the Sukkah and many people sleep there as well.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span> During the days of the festival, Jews recite a
blessing over the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">lulav</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">etrog</i>. The lulav is a slender palm
branch that is held together with two willow branches and three myrtle
branches. An etrog is a citron that mainly looks like a misshapen lemon but
smells like heaven. During the festival the lulav and the etrog are waved in
ritualized patterns while the prayers are recited. Except Jews do not carry the
lulav and etrog on the Sabbath. (And because the celebration lasts eight days
there is always one Sabbath – and sometimes two!)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span> Why don’t the Jews carry the lulav and etrog on
the Sabbath? There are many explanations but I prefer this: The commandment
says that we must give our lulav and etrog to our neighbor or to a stranger if
they do not possess one. This implies ownership; that we own this lulav and
etrog and can give it away. Yet, the Sabbath, the day that consecrates time – ‘Remember
the Sabbath and keep it holy’ – is to remind us that we don’t own anything. <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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laura shapiro kramerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07853176438298890341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19673082.post-60471705852285983502015-03-02T16:13:00.000-05:002015-11-30T14:21:29.878-05:00BEHIND SANCTIONS AND VEILS IN THE LAND OF ESTHER - October 2014 Trip to Iran<div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Woman's Shrine Tehran</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Here are the facts:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Iranians are Zoroastrians, Muslim, Jewish, Catholic, Armenian. They are Arabs, Azeris, Kurds, Persians, Bakhtaris, and Turkmans: cultures crossing and criss crossing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> The largest age bracket in Iran is 25-29. They text, sext, Facebook, Viber and Instagram. Access to technology is cheap and fast through their virtual personal networks (vpns). Uncensored news is easily available. They are panting to shop on Amazon. Materialism – not revolution - is salvation.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Iran has an Islamic government that has killed Islam. Few want anything to do with religion. There is little or no religious feeling among the young in the cities. You can buy great mascara in Iran’s bazaars but it is impossible to find a place to take a swim. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Women on Darband Mtn</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Darband Mountain</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Woman's Shrine, Tehran</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">You went to Iran? Are you crazy? Did they know you were American? Jewish? Was it safe? Did you have to be covered?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Yes, they knew I was American. They invited me to their homes, offered me gifts and </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">often </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">asked me if I could help with a visa (there is no American Consulate in Iran). </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> They knew I was Jewish. They know Esther was a Persian Queen and that her tomb is in Hamadan; they know Daniel’s tomb is in Susa. Maliheh, my guide wasa thirty-seven year old Moslem Shirazi who became a sister to me. Under our headscarves, together we found out way to Jewish communities and ancient Jewish sites. She was my translator including a sabbath</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> sermon </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">at the Kinisa (synagogue) in Shiraz. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> In Isfahan Maliheh made sure to get me on time to afternoon services at Kinisa-ye Daniel. Maliheh and her girlfriend who works in my hotel visited a</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> mud clay synagogue in ancient Yazd. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Four hundred year old Kinisa-ye bet Knesset. Days later is our momentous visit to the cemetery of Serah bat Asher in Linjan an emotional connection to Persian Jews who have lived in Iran since the Babylonian exile: more than 2700 years.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Persepolis</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">From <b>Tabriz</b> to <b>Khoy</b>, <b>Maku</b>, <b>Urmia</b>, <b>Solduz</b>, <b>Maragheh</b> and <b>Zanjan</b></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Arriving in Tabriz at 2:30 in the morning from Istanbul, I covered my head as the travel agency had instructed. My passport including visa was right away confiscated at Immigration. Segregated from other arriving passengers, in the middle of the night, I had Kafkaesque visions of disappearing forever. Three hours later I was summoned with good humor by four thirty-something men to a pocket size room to be fingerprinted (on a machine older than Methuselah). These ‘Persian officials’ offered me their sympathy for the business of customs that kept me three hours. Like my Visa application, they wanted to know my father’s name. ‘Melvin’ was not easy for them. Afterward they cheerily sent me on my way.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> I went to the money changer while waiting in the Arrivals hall. Remember there are no ATM’s. The Iranians are living under the sanctions and and there are no American banks in Iran though every kind of other ones. A fifty American dollar bill was now a twenty inch stack of ‘rials’ - 330,000 Rials to the dollar – worn, torn bills with Ayatollah Khomeni’s picture plastered on one side and white capped Mount Damavand, long a symbol of resistance and pride in Persian literature and mythology, on the back. When the Iranians say ‘we are under the sanctions’ their money looks it: threadbare, creased, dirty and stacks of it needed to buy anything. After changing my money, the changer offered me candy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFEJqIl0vR_DS68LcH56MidSRbKBxafWKLXf6I-Z20ULsmcyyJFK1pfY-hGWIJW7IGjmi4jmZVOEBXAmOCUYdIwXykELKzyCL2pw4tEiG-VeF5JMYPiYYqAdOX4noDsjoy6skw/s1600/Disney+socks.jpg" style="border: none; position: relative;" width="240" /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b> Tabriz</b>, a city dating to antiquity in western Iran is in a mountainous region of the Azerbaijani province near Orumyeh Lake, the saltiest lake in the world after the Dead Sea. Snow covered the ground the my first morning when I ventured - without sleep - into the collision course that is Iranian traffic. Iran has the highest percentage of traffic accidents in the world. Crossing the street is like being in a video game that is hemorrhaging cars. (Tabriz was scary but Tehran was worse). But I was on my way to buy an extra scarf in the Tabriz Historic Bazaar, a World Heritage Site and the largest covered bazaar in the world so there was no turning back.</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> <o:p></o:p><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Instantly recognizing I was a tourist, enthusiastic locals besieged me. They wanted a picture and to practice their English. The umbrella I bought was decorated with Disney characters. </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: 48px;">Disney is as ubiquitous as the</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> overheated rooms and every</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: 48px;"> ceiling</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> arrow pointing to Mecca. (Disney is everywhere: from placemats to socks). </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">In the bazaar and in the streets, locals, young and old, told me, “Forget about the government. The people have to talk to each other. We can make peace.” At the newspaper stands I noticed George Clooney gracing the cover of every other magazine. Yet I was aware that t</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: 48px;">he regime</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: 0.5in;"> executed a teenage boy accused of homicide the day before I arrived.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Northwest Iran</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> For five days I rode a bus across the barren landscape of northwestern Iran along the bare foothills of the Alborz mountains, tiers of fire lit mountains, the region near Iran’s frontier with Turkey, Iraq and Kurdistan through countryside with depressing buildings, wrecked fuselages of military jets, giant mushrooms of ugly factories and half built concrete developments maligning the already bleak rounded foothills that affront a mighty range of mountain peaks: ramparts covered by poplars and cypress. I pondered regal Mt. Ararat, its volcanic peak crowned in snow with Lesser Ararat framed behind.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> At monuments and historic sites realized Iran is not ready for prime time: (no public western toilets - almost no toilets at all). Labeling – if it exists – is incomplete and haphazard. At more than seventeen World Heritage sites I was unable to acquire much information beyond what I already had read or studied. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">No postcards, no audio guides, no souvenirs, and almost never anything in English.</span><br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlcVer24dGlSw_QcKj8BPwCrhTtS5Q5ZC_iUgzpBc4eIeVPHRtKjNrD8Epal15NgkVCAzx1Jiib42-0lNFYommFzhG0JC7IaKq1MtPPokFHEIDiQvhF1qoESAXa-fmMwrVLW4d/s1600/Hasanlu+Ruins.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlcVer24dGlSw_QcKj8BPwCrhTtS5Q5ZC_iUgzpBc4eIeVPHRtKjNrD8Epal15NgkVCAzx1Jiib42-0lNFYommFzhG0JC7IaKq1MtPPokFHEIDiQvhF1qoESAXa-fmMwrVLW4d/s1600/Hasanlu+Ruins.jpg" style="border: none; position: relative;" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Hasanlu</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHLVaf8hNXpJlONP91OIlqbO-to-GRQSHlIP79cflim0U88aCEfclmXAZTz93YHilscOPSvn-IEfXSTvfAncZNrfhzyr2VdnM7lbCZJBOcqEZ8HHff9_A_sDQQLwPROSIt0MRm/s1600/Armenian+Church+NW+Iran.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHLVaf8hNXpJlONP91OIlqbO-to-GRQSHlIP79cflim0U88aCEfclmXAZTz93YHilscOPSvn-IEfXSTvfAncZNrfhzyr2VdnM7lbCZJBOcqEZ8HHff9_A_sDQQLwPROSIt0MRm/s1600/Armenian+Church+NW+Iran.jpg" style="border: none; position: relative;" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Armenian Church in the northwest</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(Keep scrolling down to continue reading.)</span><br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI9eIYX1VDUYy6ewfiIAcvAWRuOw-ZYmj-tWHLkJtwkIjxViH8u9pV6nNOXAbaPEUebu48rgDOh1b6Jqn1z4NGySb4_8CdN_2QGEA2m1c8bwL-CNnHPN-yDjJAIiPcvGgMjyTt/s1600/IMG_1836.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI9eIYX1VDUYy6ewfiIAcvAWRuOw-ZYmj-tWHLkJtwkIjxViH8u9pV6nNOXAbaPEUebu48rgDOh1b6Jqn1z4NGySb4_8CdN_2QGEA2m1c8bwL-CNnHPN-yDjJAIiPcvGgMjyTt/s1600/IMG_1836.JPG" style="border: none; position: relative;" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Blue Mosque in Tabriz</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Mt Ararat</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Bazaar</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWeBvEXD7CHH50WE3TxXLeK2cww7S48g35PqvaaradePVYmVsG4G4Q71ODx14_thzKH2OcXCt-UI-S9iHFdwGn5fHVbvYZ6eVTbt6FtgJO0ItXult8llJo7CkiB_bbEsPr9A4n/s1600/IMG_2200.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWeBvEXD7CHH50WE3TxXLeK2cww7S48g35PqvaaradePVYmVsG4G4Q71ODx14_thzKH2OcXCt-UI-S9iHFdwGn5fHVbvYZ6eVTbt6FtgJO0ItXult8llJo7CkiB_bbEsPr9A4n/s1600/IMG_2200.JPG" style="border: none; position: relative;" width="320" /></span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">From <b>KHOY</b>: sheepherders, apricots, peach and grape orchards, sunflowers and melon farms, goats to <b>Maku</b> and its fortresses protecting against the Ottomans. In fact the lingua franca is Turkish; I was closer to the Azerbaijan border and to <b>Maragheh</b> dotted with a few Christian and Armenian Churches; around <b>Lake Orumyeh</b>, the largest lake in the Middle East seeing the first of many Sasanian rock reliefs; tramping one drizzling afternoon over Hasanlu, the largest 'tell' of northwestern Iran. Similar 'tells' are only found in Jehrico and Nineveh. Remarkable how excited one can get.<br /> It took most of the day to get there and the rest of the day to survey it but the 5<sup>th</sup>century World Heritage site of <b>Takht-e-Soleyman (Throne of Solomon)</b> has one of the three eternal fires of Sasanian Iran. It is sustained in a Zoroastrian temple built next to an artesian volcanic lake.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOwGFw_pUl3WXy-NstZER_vOyx0UqMrkhn_eEHlrBPWYeCjo9E4vQ2nPrFiicYUcGR_0RwsHY_-OkZTNxyNF6QfWupVO_BQOudR3xS54cdRz-QeCcrdppJa9nq71KU2lEpDK71/s1600/IMG_1981.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOwGFw_pUl3WXy-NstZER_vOyx0UqMrkhn_eEHlrBPWYeCjo9E4vQ2nPrFiicYUcGR_0RwsHY_-OkZTNxyNF6QfWupVO_BQOudR3xS54cdRz-QeCcrdppJa9nq71KU2lEpDK71/s1600/IMG_1981.JPG" style="border: none; position: relative;" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Takht-e Soleyman</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz53S9NsTSh1x3d5dHqyeKRAuVK1nvDZ-uBYhp5vYkkGtSdolDg3VYbreXmfx_EdQadglycKYQDcBAXMwAR8aaOm19j91N729NYD8no6Fonpj-NgQWY2dPMbPNecEbHJAPHWut/s1600/Lsk+@+Takht+e+Soleyman.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz53S9NsTSh1x3d5dHqyeKRAuVK1nvDZ-uBYhp5vYkkGtSdolDg3VYbreXmfx_EdQadglycKYQDcBAXMwAR8aaOm19j91N729NYD8no6Fonpj-NgQWY2dPMbPNecEbHJAPHWut/s1600/Lsk+@+Takht+e+Soleyman.JPG" style="border: none; position: relative;" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Takht-e Soleyman</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> As dark approached, two men came from behind a makeshift building at the entrance of the extensive ruins. They were carrying a large tin bowl into which I politely peered. They would not take no for an answer: within minutes I was sitting with them and soaking up a delicious concoction of eggplant and tomatoes with soft lavash. Afterward we sat on a worn Persian carpet and drank fragrant bergamot tea. They spoke no English. I speak no Persian but we learned about each other. Bahram, an engineer with a family and, Mehdi, a scholar and bachelor, were based a month at a time (for little pay) in a bare room with cots and an improvised kitchen lacking even a hot plate. These were well educated people looking to do meaningful things and care for a precious site. They have status but no money. The money is to be found in the moneyed class of Revolutionary Guards, born into families who have looted and subjugated these people by intimidation and violence.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Stove </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">In a remote village between </span><b style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Maragheh</b><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> and </span><b style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Zanjan</b><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> where I stopped for lunch and a stretch, I was enthusiastically ‘collared’ by a schoolgirl, Mahdi, who beged me to come home with her, offering me all kinds of hospitality. When I demurred – ‘I’ll miss my bus” - she went off and then quickly returned with a gaggle of friends and her IPad. She wanted pictures and my email. “This is my dream,” she kept tearfully repeating, “my dream to meet an American; to go to America.” Her email was ‘Fortuna12@yahoo.com’</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> <o:p></o:p><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I quickly learned that every Persian name has a meaning: 'Mahdi' means ‘guided one’, 'Maryam' is the name of a flower; 'Golestan' is ‘rose garden’. Nirloufor means ‘lotus’; Nasim ‘breeze’. Out of the bus windows I saw close </span>up <span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> the glut of filling stations and long lines. Oil and gas are cheap. Everyone has monthly ration cards. If the ration is exceeded, only a few cents buys another liter.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Elaborately painted and meticulously maintained murals of the faces of ‘martyrs’ are displayed throughout the countryside and in the cities, villages and towns; huge haunting portraits of the idealistic millions who died in the decade long war between Iraq and Iran; the nation’s war dead everywhere looking out onto the world of the living, their idealistic - almost meek - demeanors rendered like the thousands of individual faces carved in stone in Persepolis. Outside the bazaars and on the roadsides were billboards decorated with swirling Persian script sometimes quotes from the Quaran, and if translated translated into bad English.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> The last stop before Tehran was in the great nomadic grasslands around <b>Soltanieh</b>, the second capital of the Mongol Empire where I spent half a day at the <b>Dome of Soltanieh</b>, an egg shaped dome and mausoleum that eventually served as the prototype for the Taj Majal. The Dome of Soltinieh is the largest brick dome in the world.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Dome of Soltanieh</span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Beauty salon Tehran</span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVC-Zqe3_FfQRbhxZZnfLbnb58RNlZxIyh9U5DUtWikTyBEL0Db8N1FQeRlxUcZVoxB_2_zKqifjp0SCKw_55oXaHViBMYhjKQ9-Nfr1g0jIpiEq9Rp1K7JdC7nZtXi5N0sSQF/s1600/IMG_2087.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #771100; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVC-Zqe3_FfQRbhxZZnfLbnb58RNlZxIyh9U5DUtWikTyBEL0Db8N1FQeRlxUcZVoxB_2_zKqifjp0SCKw_55oXaHViBMYhjKQ9-Nfr1g0jIpiEq9Rp1K7JdC7nZtXi5N0sSQF/s1600/IMG_2087.jpg" style="border: none; position: relative;" width="240" /></span></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Women at prayer shrine in Tehran</span></span></td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMBzJlTzi7mrA6Cga0hwzOkZwhOCWRI4UYavfiNkIb-lM_RaSOS21hl0mCVZtG8vzGFTirhmJ8C9033htCMxnSd4ORpd4VurultmnFHGMiPeWCc5N0bMjTd4tBH06_3gH3zOaT/s1600/IMG_2037.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; color: #771100; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-decoration: none;"></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMBzJlTzi7mrA6Cga0hwzOkZwhOCWRI4UYavfiNkIb-lM_RaSOS21hl0mCVZtG8vzGFTirhmJ8C9033htCMxnSd4ORpd4VurultmnFHGMiPeWCc5N0bMjTd4tBH06_3gH3zOaT/s1600/IMG_2037.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center; text-decoration: none;"></a></span><b style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Tehran</b><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> is the largest city of Southwestern Asia. A heavy scent of diesel tinged with eucalyptus is entangled in a chaotic web of wires, cables and broken concrete sidewalks, a metropolis seemingly without a center. Every other building is a bank. For two days I dodged urgent reckless terrifying traffic to visit the Qajar Dynasty’s Golestan Palace; to the Treasury to see the bedazzling National Jewels and the world’s largest diamond; the Carpet Museum. I was repeatedly observing the absence of infrastructure: for labeling; no provision for materials regarding their treasures and this was true at the Glass Museum, the Archeological Museum and the National Museum. There is no money invested in these 'amenities'.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 15px;"><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha4s51v533aioVKIASuFoJ_-gBvdePQcxsSE2Ksdm3w3H_AzfF7bV7ppGRCkGbP0ihIlHNQhUjtIKbnw72C8YG6MQ3SehqAOpzFqyD32vROgbPS45kcTD9h-k8TOQAasOSBDwb/s1600/IMG_2195.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="color: #771100; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha4s51v533aioVKIASuFoJ_-gBvdePQcxsSE2Ksdm3w3H_AzfF7bV7ppGRCkGbP0ihIlHNQhUjtIKbnw72C8YG6MQ3SehqAOpzFqyD32vROgbPS45kcTD9h-k8TOQAasOSBDwb/s1600/IMG_2195.JPG" style="border: none; position: relative;" width="320" /></a></span><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 16pt;"> </span>I took the public bus on the city’s famous </span><span style="background-color: transparent;">Vali Asr </span><span style="background-color: transparent;">north-south road - formerly Pahlavi Avenue - to the bazaar in the city’s north. The market teems with stalls packed with multi-colored spices, jars of pickled walnuts (that looked like brains), huge varieties of vegetables, saffron, pistachios, and other exotic foods. </span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Woman's shrine in Tehran</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> <b>{</b>I decided against writing about food for this article. Food has complicated sociological and anthropological dimensions too great to write about here. There is I am told good food in Iran: mainly in people's homes. I saw lots of ingredients in markets and on roadsides to infuse any kitchen. In the meantime, I adapted to what there was. In the rural northwest after a few days I finally spoke up one evening after a typical tasteless and monotonous dinner of kebob and asked a most obliging soul from the wait staff to bring in with them the next morning some luscious looking melons I saw from the window of the bus so I could have them for breakfast. And some dates and honey if some could be procured please. By the road and in small villages I bought excellent tomatoes and apples and once or twice some very good bread. In Tehran, Isfahan, Yazd and Shiraz I picked up dried fruits to snack and cardamon pods to make tea. I was glad I brought peanut butter with me (individual packets and they were all consumed over the three weeks).<b>}</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> The women on the bus and in the bazaars were self confident and chatty, quick to express love for Americans. They reassured me Iranis know the difference between Jews and Zionists! In public! They spoke disparagingly about the government (out loud). Iranian women occupy public spaces. They are professionals. They work, drive, shop. This is not Saudi Arabia; yet two days before I arrived in Tehran, a woman was executed for murdering her alleged rapist. No one spoke of it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> One woman explained to me, “The ‘trouble’ with Iran is if you need permission for something, there are at least fifty people you must go to. If you want to complain about something, you cannot find anyone.” I tried to go to yoga class but was told ‘yoga is banned right now’. There was no chance of swimming. No pools available to women. No fitness studios. And not many men or women are physically fit. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> The laws that pertain to women’s rights have no relevance to the lives of Iranian women who represent half of the population. Sixty percent of university students are women. Female students outnumber men two to one. More than two thirds of Iranis were born after the revolution. Disillusion halos the young who comprise more than half of the population. They talk constantly about living under the sanctions; about tech start-ups and the struggle for free speech. Pop music and culture is literally ‘underground’ in people’s garages with alcohol and drugs. Text messaging is constant.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> After two hours sniffing saffron and spices, tasting sour cherries, mulberries, walnuts and pickled beets in the smaller of the two major Tehran bazaars one morning, I borrowed a public chador and went – covered from head to foot - to Friday prayers in the (mirrored and glittering green) woman’s shrine. Women prayed, socialized and gossiped. Cell phones were ubiquitous, many of them charging in the outlets along the perimeters of the awesome marble walls.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">W</span><span style="font-size: x-small;">oman on Darband Mountain</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">When riding city buses I sat </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">with other women </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: 0.5in;">in the back chatting segregated by a large bar across the bus’s center away from where the men were standing . But in private cars, taxis and vans men and women ride together. After Friday ‘prayers’ in the woman's shrine next to the bazaar I climbed into a dilapidated van squeezing into the back seat with three full bodied and heavily made up twenty something’s and their boyfriends. We were going to the Darband Mountains, a favorite place for Tehranis to congregate and socialize especially on Friday afternoons. </span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: 0.5in;">The gap between the reality of society and the image cultivated by the regime is like the vast center between the two mountain ranges: the Alborz in the north and the Zagros in the south. (In Iran the in-between is the center of an extinct interior ocean which is the most arid depression in the world.) One woman told me referring to the regime: ‘It is a soft war waged with propaganda and technology but they are losing. We are trained to be afraid but things are different now. Once we were like mice in a laboratory but no more. Things are changing.” </span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Surrounded by Western consumer goods, computer games, Western beauty ideals, Instagram, Facebook, Viber, and Twitter private lives are full of vice. I went to two beauty salons, one in Tehran and one in Shiraz and in both the walls are plastered with posters of bleached blonds in strapless gowns revealing ample décolletage. From the streets in the smallest town to the biggest city, bridal stores exhibit racy, lacy and skintight gowns in the windows. <o:p></o:p>After dark opium and alcohol are plentiful. Chinese and German businessmen, Italians and other tourists occupy the hotels in the biggest cities: Tehran, Tabriz, Mashad, Shiraz and Isfahan. Interpreters and guides are doing brisk business.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><u>Flight to Isfahan</u></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: 0.5in;"> In Tehran’s domestic Mehrabad airport, I passed through ‘women’s security’ into the departure hall where everything was in Persian, a swirling script most beguiling but that I can not read. I turned to the woman nearest me and showed her my boarding pass.</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><o:p style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif; text-indent: 0.5in;"></o:p><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Ghazal, a beautiful Persian stranger whose name is the meaning of a poetic form made famous by the Sufi poet Hafez, immediately enveloped me in a warm Iranian embrace, reassuring me she would guide me to Isfahan where she was going too. P</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: 48px;">rotectively s</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">he ushered me through the hall. We sat next to each other. She took out an </span><b style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><i>English Conversation </i></b><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">book and I immediately insisted she put it away:</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: 0.5in;">“Let’s talk,” I told her. “Practice with me.” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: 0.5in;"> We did a lot of practicing as the flight was delayed almost three hours. The plane was a Focker from the 1970's and by the looks of it I was just glad to arrive safely. Two nights later Ghazal and her brother and sister-in-law took me to dinner at the Abbasi Hotel, a dazzling restoration of a Safavid caravansary complex from the time of its grandeur; a faithful preservation of a monument that deserved preservation. A stream flows through its lush Persian garden, the best garden I saw (and smelled) in Iran. The hotel was built by the Iran Insurance Company and is definitely the only hotel in Iran approaching four or five stars although I wasn’t in any of the bedrooms. (Unfortunately there were no rooms for three nights.) </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Miniature, Isfahan</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">A</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 20px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">fter strolling in the gardens and having a non alcoholic drink under the stars on one of the grand verandahs before dinner we went to a sumptuous room meant to conjure a room of one of the great caravansaries of the past and ordered dinner. The salad dressing was served in a plastic packet like soy sauce from a Chinese take-out. I was able to get some vinegar and fresh squeezed lemon juice (delicious) but olive oil was not available and was almost never to be found.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Ali Kapu Grand Palace</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #333333;"> </span> </span> My gracious hosts entertained me at dinner with pictures of their parties and their friends and friends’ children. The girls had lots of pictures of fashion, shoes, and nail designs. Some of the conversation was confined due to language barriers that did not encourage discourse on lengthy complex issues though they were not totally ignored. It was not the first time I heard from ‘cosmopolitan’ Iranis that they were not planning to have children. Ghazal and her brother Perman were destined to a childless life of hereditary privilege part of an extinguished world (though ‘through connections’ Perman was able to get an army deferment).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> “All our wealth and privilege does not buy us a good life in Iran,” Ghazal told me. “We have nothing to spend our money on,” (except Rolex watches apparently).“Living under the sanctions means our money is virtually worthless. Where can we go to vacation? Abu Dubai and the Emirates? The hotels on the Caspian are very mediocre though we love to vacation in the forests near Turkmenistan or along the thousand mile Persian Gulf coast.” They both have homes in Tehran and Isfahan.</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Ghazal and Perman drove me back to the hotel and as I was saying ‘good night’ – ‘shab bekheir’ - Ghazal placed a lovely bead necklace with a pave diamond heart in my hands (she had made it herself). All I could do was be as gracious as possible while accepting it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> <span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">During the days touring Isfahan my eyes were drunk with the splendor of the minarets; with the brilliant mosaic tile work in blues and turquoise and the glorious contrasts between glazed and unglazed tiles; massive interior arches of mosques and palaces; billowing flags of calligraphy; enchanted gardens and the Maidan where an open polo grounds has been transformed into a garden and a reflecting pool. I could imagine archery practice or polo in the evenings long ago. I saw my first murquanas and witnessed the </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">kaleidoscopically glittering mirrors of the palaces, the optical illusions, and the bazaar of </span>two hundred arcaded arches <span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">full of carpet weavers and other craftsmen. </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The incarnations of light on the architecture is only one of many reasons that Isfahan is studied and admired more than any other Iranian city and was once known as ‘half the world’. </span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 20px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">One afternoon in the courtyard behind Maidan Maqsh -e Jahan between one of Isfahan’s remarkable mosques and a madrassah I came upon two clerics. They were thirty-somethings and spoke fluent English and were sitting in the cloister with the sole purpose of engaging with tourists (not expecting too many Americans).</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 20px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="line-height: 20px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">When they learned I was a Jewish American, they began – gently - challenging me about the ‘Zionist media’; my ‘proof’ of the prophets Moses and Daniel, and the holocaust. I pushed back energetically and wished my husband was there to do the arguing about the Bible and the Five Books of Moses because about this he knows more about than I do. My Moslem guide, Maliheh, remained quiet during our half hour conversation but squirmed when they said women in Iran were free to choose whether or not to wear the veil. The tenor of the conversation was civilized though intense. As I began to leave one cleric asked me if I knew anyone who could help them with visas. They have been on a waiting list for four years to come and study at Fordham.</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent;">Later Maliheh and I found our way to Kinisa-ye Keter David, a synagogue in Isfahan, where I met ‘Daniel’, an American Irani who welcomed me warmly into the sanctuary (and successfully solicited a contribution). At least twenty-five men were praying, standing shoeless on the Persian carpets. I heard voices of children reciting songs and prayers on the other side of one wall of the sanctuary. Daniel flooded me with questions about what I was doing in Iran? How was it to be a woman traveling alone? How were things in New York? Were there jobs? How was real estate? He was conflicted about remaining in Iran where life was not as good as ‘before the Revolution’ or returning to the uncertainties of New York. After prayers we chatted over tea and biscuits served in the courtyard while the children I overheard earlier swarmed around me. I answered questions from throngs of well wishers who all invited me home for dinner.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Under Si-O-Se Pol bridge, Isfahan</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small; text-indent: 0.5in;">After two days of exploring Isfahan, the city known as the ‘Pearl of Persia’, Maliheh and I took a taxi southwest and went bumping over a dusty road eighteen miles from Isfahan to Linjan a small village situated in a valley sheltered by gaunt mountains. My research had described an ancient cemetery called Serah bat Asher with thousands of carved tombs some dating back thousands of years.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span> </span><br />
<span style="line-height: 20px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"> For twenty minutes we pounded on two green painted metal gates each decorated by a Mogen David. Eventually a sleepy eyed man reluctantly opened the door. His name was Jacob (like Serah’s grandfather.) He hesitated but Malileh’s persuasiveness and sincerity won him over. Gently he invited us through the gates and into the first courtyard. We were in the cemetery of Serah bat Asher, one of the most important Jewish pilgrimage sites in Iran. Legend has it that Serah was the first Jew to set foot in Persia</span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Jacob at Serah bat Asher</span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Mausoleums at Sarah bat As</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 21.3333px;"> </span>On my left were two derelict synagogue buildings. We followed Jacob beyond them to a sanctuary with a stone door covered in Hebrew writing. Jacob pushed the door open and beckoned me to enter. I was in the Chelleh-Khun, an ante room where I stooped over low to the floor and crawled through a ‘tunnel’ to the legendary ‘Jacob’s pillow’, a large stone barrel that was covered with Cabalistic carvings and wax dripping from candles that Jacob keeps perpetually burning. The barrel is said to have once spun continuously. I was in the Kenisa-ye Aveinu. There were other small rooms with faded blue paint, Jewish stars and a painting of Moses receiving the Tablets. I was emotional.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> After I emerged Jacob took Maliheh and me around two other decaying adobe synagogue buildings built like caravansaries. I was speechless to find myself on a five-acre expanse with thousands of tombs, some from the second century. There were also many clay brick mausoleums where whole families still come to stay during the Days of Awe. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Seeing us so emotional, Jacob let Malileh and me linger and then led us back to the synagogues, some decorated on the outside with beautiful tiles but mostly very derelict. Several interiors were scattered with plaster bricks and plaster dust. Makeshift ladders were scattered throughout. One room was domed at ground level with a stone bimah in the center. Upstairs were small prayer rooms. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 12pt;"> </span>Like me, Maliheh saw Jacob as a ‘holy’ man. He is living in a small cave at the front of the complex, a frayed Tallit and well-thumbed prayer book nearby the bed. He sleeps on the floor on a mattress covered with a Persian carpet while remaining devoted to protecting and maintaining the cemetery and the buildings, laboring daily with bricks and cement and welcoming the pilgrims who come by the thousands every year.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> On the way out of Isfahan the next day Maliheh and I talked about the visit to Serah bat Asher, about Jacob, and the conversation with the clerics. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Maliheh asked me, “What does America have against the Iranian people?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: 0.5in;"> I said I didn’t know how we could have anything against the Iranian people. I added, “Americans do get Iran mixed up with the Arab world.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> “I thought so,” said Maliheh. “But Iranians are not Arabs. We are Persians and, in fact, many have no good feelings about the Arabs. They burned our schools and our libraries.” This was 1300 years ago but I recognized that scars are deep.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /> “What have the Arabs ever done for us?” she went on. “They put us behind the veil and take credit for teaching us to pray. Our Islam is about a way of life, about ethics, about being honest and generous, not about rituals.” </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: 0.5in;">She continued, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: 0.5in;">“Can you imagine if politics had nothing to do with us, you and me, Americans and Iranis? Our government blames the Israelis for everything, but I actually think Jews and Iranis are the most alike. Besides, think how good Cyrus was to the Jews.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> It was true. Cyrus is considered our first righteous person.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> "<o:p></o:p>And,” Maliheh continued, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> “We all have the same mother and father: ” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> We spent the long desert drive discussing Torah stories and comparing the sounds of words in Hebrew and Persian while headed south to Yazd for two nights.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Yazd</span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Synagogue, Yazd</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 16pt;"> </span> <span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I loved Yazd, the oldest clay brick (adobe) city in the world. It is in a remote desert location and is especially famous for its qanats: vertical shafts – subterranean aqueducts and sloping tunnels - that create reliable supplies of water for irrigation dating from the time of Cyrus. This may be the greatest civil engineering project in the history of the world.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 12pt;"> </span> Yazd has thankfully escaped mauling (and malling like so much of Iran) so it is possible to stroll in the old city and feel like you have stepped back thousands of years. This was also the first place I bought some things to bring back to the states. Yazd is especially known for its textiles (bought some) and confectionaries and the pastries in Yazd were delicious. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: 0.5in;">Once a Zoroastrian center, Yazd is the home to the Towers of Silence, the awesome Zoroastrian ritual monuments for defleshing the dead, as well as the Atashkadeh Bahram, a temple holding a fire that has been kept alight continuously since 470 AD. In the foreyard of the Temple a woman appeared from nowhere asking if I was an American. As Maliheh translated, I understood she was Zoroastrian and that HIAS had once helped her and her family. It was hard to believe an Irani Zoroastrian in Yazd was singing the praises of HIAS! </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Zoroastrian de fleshing site</span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Yazd</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /> <span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Behind Yazd’s iconic Jame Mosque, Maliheh and I wandered until we found the Haridim family home (I knew about it from my research.) The mezuzah and the Hebrew writing above the door made it easy to identify. A 20 something attractive man wearing a sweatshirt that said ‘New York’ opened the door to us and directed us to the Kinisa a few doors away where ‘Bet Knesset’ was written in Persian and in Hebrew above the door.</span><br /> At two in the afternoon I left my shoes outside the door and entered the sanctuary through the derelict courtyard of the ancient adobe synagogue where I came upon ten men praying. A teenage boy was leading them. After prayers I spent two hours talking with ‘Aaron’ who showed me the ark behind the green silk curtain with ten four hundred year old scrolls.<br /> Aaron wanted to know “……..the truth about Obama. Is he a friend to Israel?”<br /> Our conversation proceeded from there while I absorbed the tenderness within the synagogue and imagined all that had passed within its walls. Aaron told me that nearby is the tomb of the Jewish mystic and religious scientist Harav Oursharga and that more than five hundred ofIran's Jews gather every year to celebrate and put flowers on the tomb of this religious leader who died more than 200 years ago.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Man in Yazd synagogue</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Two days later Maliheh and I were on our way to Shiraz, a city known for roses and nightingales – another long desert drive broken up by a short stop in Nain a 'city' possessing some of the finest pre-Islamic monuments in all of Iran and that continues to use the ancient qanat system for more than half of its water. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> In the late afternoon we stopped in Pasargadae to pay respects at Cyrus’ tomb (and break up the long drive). Cyrus of Anshan liberated Babylon and is considered the first 'righteous person' by many Jews. Jewish leaders hail him as the figure described in<b><span style="color: #003d6d;"> </span></b>Isaiah (45:1–6) who would redeem them and provide them with the hope of returning to Judea. Indeed, when he became ruler, Cyrus sent a group of Jews to Jerusalem to rebuild the Holy Temple; some remained, many more stayed in Iran. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> A newly planted ‘avenue’ off the Isfahan Road approaches the mausoleum. The 2700 year old tomb – a sarcophagus of white marble on a high steeped plinth - stands alone in an enormous ploughed field. The mausoleum is without ornament, though it was once surrounded by a temple and pavilions. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> A billboard stood outside the entrance to the site: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> “Imam Khomeini (with picture): The world knows that all Iran and Muslims problems are due to the politics of aliens. Of the USA Muslims generally hate Alies and specially hate the USA.” I write it here as it was with all its spelling and grammatical mistakes. Surrounded by visitors who did not so much as glance at the sign, but wanted their picture taken with me, I was ‘interviewed’ by a young man with a sophisticated video camera.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> “Tell us what you think of Iran,” he implored.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> “Who is this for?” I was imagining being summarily arrested.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> “For the Cultural Minister of the Province,” he answered. “It will be a pleasure for us to know that Americans are coming to visit.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> I looked into the camera and expressed my admiration for the courteous and hospitable Iranian people; my respect for the monuments of the Persian Empire (and I had yet to visit Persepolis); remarked on the extraordinary Islamic architecture; how much I savored the pistachios and melons and dates and the delicious gaz I had eaten.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Cyrus</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Tomb</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span>“What is your message to the country?” he persisted.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> “I am a Jewish American,” I began. “I am pleased to meet fellow Jews in Yazd and Isfahan; to visit the sites of my ancestors like Esther and Daniel and Serah bat Asher. I am looking forward to praying with my brothers and sisters in Shiraz. I see Americans and Iranis need to build bridges for a peaceful world.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> I made the peace sign and worried that secret police might follow me but Maliheh was reassuring. The young man was sincerely grateful. Many adults and children had congregated and began applauding, understanding my meaning if not my words.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Persepolis</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I really thought that if there had been Jews in Iran, they would be gone, just like the Persian Empire was gone. I thought that just like Persepolis lay in ruins, traces of Queen Esther’s descendants would be in ruins. However, the chosen nation is inextinguishable. Unbreakable. Eternal. Nothing proved this more than the Sabbath service in Shiraz that I rushed to from Pasargadae on Friday night. At least two hundred men and seventy-five children along with a few elderly women were praying in Kinisa-ye (Synagogue) Rabbizadeh sanctifying the Sabbath.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> The congregants mobbed me after Kiddush: <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixJuhKa-MsqpsL3RU5eKM-_okp2Cg-P-7MVfiNubcH7-qVs5rN9aHMM_UjFdEUwudcNru2adaJXB2IplTP9xD6kfPsVsrQbiUWxGneekpmTCJCXBoUxnuz2Z2aINWkUu92kQ8S/s1600/IMG_2654.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-size: 15px; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixJuhKa-MsqpsL3RU5eKM-_okp2Cg-P-7MVfiNubcH7-qVs5rN9aHMM_UjFdEUwudcNru2adaJXB2IplTP9xD6kfPsVsrQbiUWxGneekpmTCJCXBoUxnuz2Z2aINWkUu92kQ8S/s1600/IMG_2654.jpg" style="border: none; position: relative;" width="240" /></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Did I have kosher food? (There are kosher restaurants in Shiraz.) Are the Jews in America religious? Are the ‘Reformed’ compromising the rest of the Jews? There were so many invitations for dinner.<br /><br /> During the next few days I returned several times to the synagogue so I could photograph it and there were always many people (mainly men and boys) studying and praying there.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Synagogue Shiraz</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span> On my last days in Iran I visited Persepolis the ceremonial capital and world empire of the Achaemenid Empire. I saw columns, massive - and so many - stairs, platforms and palace doors; canellations along the parapets and balustrades decorated with winged beasts who now keep their solitude beneath the stars on this empty, moonlit plain. We detoured to visit Naqsh-e Rajab the site of rock cut tombs of the most famous Achaemenid kings. The carvings are fluttering long ribbons of etched stone merging into hair balloons. Herds of sheep, their necks garlanded with bells were herderd past us while we stood in front of the ancient tombs. We raced around Shiraz with its black spires of cypress trees cutting across egg-shelled colored hills to visit the Elam Gardens, the Citadel, the Narangestan Palace, the Pink Mosque and Hafez tomb: Iran is home to the great Sufi mystical poets.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> The last days coincided with Ashura the ten day celebration of the funeral of the 3</span><sup style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;">rd</sup><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Imam, Hossein, who with seventy two members of his family was cut down in Kerbala (now Iraq) by his cousin the Caliph Yazdi thirteen hundred years ago. For Shi’ites (98% of Iranis are Shi’ites) Ashura commemorates Hossein’s defiance and informs the core of Shi’a psychology: “He died to save his people.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> When I was traveling from Tehran to Shiraz there were black banners and triangular flags hung on streets and public parks, strung from one home to another. When I stopped to see the ‘Zoroastrian Sarv-e Abarkun’, a cypress tree that is one of the world’s ten oldest living trees, I met schoolboys and told them, “You are the future of your country”. They thronged me but there was no touching. No handshaking and no drawing close for a photograph.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBdqibD3AoWzN_IeGcvpiA_f7CKpsFOMCK-asbo3XeXDKYlxSqTckLmGfq3aGXZ-Dfavaoj6vx4DIyF3GvS-2Ktp_7Z92xqgrApgKxZO3mbF_ChC7_zgFK8Lgf_80ZtnK32sPv/s1600/IMG_2468_3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #771100; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBdqibD3AoWzN_IeGcvpiA_f7CKpsFOMCK-asbo3XeXDKYlxSqTckLmGfq3aGXZ-Dfavaoj6vx4DIyF3GvS-2Ktp_7Z92xqgrApgKxZO3mbF_ChC7_zgFK8Lgf_80ZtnK32sPv/s1600/IMG_2468_3.jpg" style="border: none; position: relative;" width="240" /></a></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcM9PW6v-WpvmCCVfZ_ZD_w8zc9x8X_bhyphenhyphenh610KZr6tDE2PQ7IAvNc4FXVi2oD2lwGHLl7zGSpTA71CB1XjqRHVzg-tWSh2wnUgYy7FHGXh5VAN0M12GXMsKIPbWuFanoGEek5/s1600/IMG_2590.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #771100; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcM9PW6v-WpvmCCVfZ_ZD_w8zc9x8X_bhyphenhyphenh610KZr6tDE2PQ7IAvNc4FXVi2oD2lwGHLl7zGSpTA71CB1XjqRHVzg-tWSh2wnUgYy7FHGXh5VAN0M12GXMsKIPbWuFanoGEek5/s1600/IMG_2590.jpg" style="border: none; position: relative;" width="240" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 1.4;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">They followed me on their bicycles to give me a banner so I could participate in the upcoming celebrations. There are parades with people on camels dressed as Mongols and other icons of Iranian history. The last two days of the holiday the whole country is shuttered. An ultimate Sabbath. These are days of singing and chanting and praying. Food is prepared at home to give to the needy and families and neighbors who come together to share and visit. Maliheh invited me home to her house.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 1.4;"> In the warmth of her parents living room I visited with her parents, kind-hearted, in their sixties. They were watching a banned television channel. I talked with her twenty-three year old brother Abbas who had recently qualified as a pilot having depleted his savings and his parents’ savings to take the necessary courses (including English) and to practice the required hours on a small ‘Piper’ plane.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 1.4;"> <o:p></o:p>“I have a license but I have no job. The chances of getting a job are nil. The government is corrupt. The only way to get ahead is to know someone. I am disillusioned; depressed. The people I know who have jobs or have money come from wealthy well-connected families. I am working on a visa to live and work in Canada. I feel like a drowning person.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 1.4;"> “Don’t leave your world,” I wanted to say.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ9_hJ1ozVMngqSnffKBeGgOFzwz4qzwwGTKrbylObaNapACO9X9Md8Rw5FEQ-oEFowYJaj-gMzlAZAbRTmd6yhs-DTFlaCVNPAwowj7W5MRGaja8EZV4WMxuXv9pj-oic6TGV/s1600/IMG_2471.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ9_hJ1ozVMngqSnffKBeGgOFzwz4qzwwGTKrbylObaNapACO9X9Md8Rw5FEQ-oEFowYJaj-gMzlAZAbRTmd6yhs-DTFlaCVNPAwowj7W5MRGaja8EZV4WMxuXv9pj-oic6TGV/s1600/IMG_2471.jpg" style="border: none; position: relative;" width="240" /></span></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFDIVO0EoMesuWVTyb6W-wYNfmFWdXdzoI_J4W1S7zKU8SRDo71ylf44gWCcThQa0ebGaY0CxLq3Jk2YAZ8TQco8ji6Swp47uluQE1ArEwhGD9tZi9Ns0HR9_1KGcs8dh2h0_f/s1600/LSK+in+Chador.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: white; clear: right; float: right; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></a><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 1.4;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 1.4;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.4;"> When I asked Maliheh about what Abbas said and how she felt about staying in Iran, she told me:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 1.4;"><span style="line-height: 1.4;"> “I cannot leave my country. If I leave, who will be left to take care of it? Who will guide you to Persepolis? I can’t do political things. I can’t protest against the government but I can stay to protect what I have. I want Abbas to go and have the chance to fulfill his dreams because he is like people all over the world; obsessed with the latest technology and a burning desire to know more about the world, a world that Persia helped to shape for centuries. ” </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 1.4;"><span style="line-height: 1.4;"> When I left Maliheh's home I was loaded with packages of baked goods and fruit and other delicious food. During the time we were together Maliheh often told me stories about learning to lie when she was at grade school and later when qualifying as a guide. Her parents hid the fact that they did not support the revolution. Iranis from the time of Esther learned that to lie is not an act of treachery or deceit but a right of passage. People lie for survival in a long tradition of dissimulation in the face of harm and anticipated injury. (Esther's Children: http://www.amazon.com/Esthers-Children-Houman-Sarshar)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Maliheh will remain in the land of her ancestors, a land of nightingales, poetry, rose gardens and cypress trees; a land where leaders are divided between the medieval and the modern; where banking and oil are king. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> I went to Iran because I wanted to see for myself what is going on; because Iranian history - as vast as the country’s geography and impossible to compress - stretches over half the world. Today the talk is of Islam and oil, centrifuges, holocaust denial, and hatred for Israel. I wanted a wider lens. Before this world is entirely extinguished, I wanted to bear witness. What I found was a transitional moment with eighty million hospitable and friendly people anxious to connect to us. It was a seminal experience. I cannot tell a lie.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Laura with Maliheh and Marayam, Yazd</span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz47rY64-vS9SWL-2rOusM_ojKF07w7xi_R8D68wC1OvLdMzUtCZzbJLp9c2V22j1Kk9qwZ2pYt8i3KvCZKOUAOwM5KVe00QD9BSc4QkR33Vd5sQR5bqFkca1dXF_BIpxJ-CSh/s1600/Restaurant+Waiter+Tehran.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #771100; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz47rY64-vS9SWL-2rOusM_ojKF07w7xi_R8D68wC1OvLdMzUtCZzbJLp9c2V22j1Kk9qwZ2pYt8i3KvCZKOUAOwM5KVe00QD9BSc4QkR33Vd5sQR5bqFkca1dXF_BIpxJ-CSh/s1600/Restaurant+Waiter+Tehran.jpg" style="border: none; position: relative;" width="240" /></span></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Waiter in Tehran restaurant</span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo3Mt476pTgMBvo4ksLkUyZfcflRljvyMohsMsMSoC60bjRbQuk0JsU9r2BMgkNcMmLMzzzhBUKjAyW-OWSkGCIh-fnJnRvYFIkt1a-iRKLn4MsoW_EdOIxTl9tOV52O5wH1jW/s1600/IMG_2435.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #771100; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo3Mt476pTgMBvo4ksLkUyZfcflRljvyMohsMsMSoC60bjRbQuk0JsU9r2BMgkNcMmLMzzzhBUKjAyW-OWSkGCIh-fnJnRvYFIkt1a-iRKLn4MsoW_EdOIxTl9tOV52O5wH1jW/s1600/IMG_2435.jpg" style="border: none; position: relative;" width="240" /></span></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Isfahan</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 12pt;">WATCH</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 12pt;">:<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Crimson Gold</span></i></b><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> directed by Jafar Panahi<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 12pt;">READ</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 12pt;">:<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/031230191X/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=031230191X&linkCode=as2&tag=laurashapirok-20&linkId=XDS2PEEFRUWFRMOO" id="static_txt_preview" style="text-align: center; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Mirrors of the Unseen: Journeys in Iran by Jason Elliott</a><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195325605/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0195325605&linkCode=as2&tag=laurashapirok-20&linkId=OG34J5XKDLPCRDZX" id="static_txt_preview" style="text-align: center; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Road to Oxiana by Robert Byron</a><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0679738010/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0679738010&linkCode=as2&tag=laurashapirok-20&linkId=VIBFIJOIL6YHOKXR" id="static_txt_preview" style="text-align: center; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Shah of Shahs by Rycard Kapucinski</a><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061130419/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0061130419&linkCode=as2&tag=laurashapirok-20&linkId=WAHDD7Y6XX6I3PFU" id="static_txt_preview" style="text-align: center; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer</a><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1595583335/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1595583335&linkCode=as2&tag=laurashapirok-20&linkId=J5EE3DWGJNDXKKWR" id="static_txt_preview" style="text-align: center; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Iran: A People Interrupted by Hamid Dabashi</a><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465069991/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0465069991&linkCode=as2&tag=laurashapirok-20&linkId=EDIXSFR2TTABD3VG" id="static_txt_preview" style="text-align: center; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">The Lonely War by Nazila Fathi</a><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0609810308/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0609810308&linkCode=as2&tag=laurashapirok-20&linkId=PNTCELFUQQILI5BE" id="static_txt_preview" style="text-align: center; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Journey from the Land of No by Roya Hakakian</a><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1586483781/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1586483781&linkCode=as2&tag=laurashapirok-20&linkId=MFY4PJQVPYZBWDPI" id="static_txt_preview" style="text-align: center; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Lipstick Jihad by Azadeh Moaveni (which I have not read).</a><br /><span style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0827607512/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0827607512&linkCode=as2&tag=laurashapirok-20&linkId=6HXRJ2U4LDOABGTL" id="static_txt_preview" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Esther’s Children by Houman Sarshar</a></span><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000GQJFFO/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B000GQJFFO&linkCode=as2&tag=laurashapirok-20&linkId=RRFPQNWAD3PQ3DZT" style="text-decoration: none;">In the Rose Garden of the Martyrs</a> by Christopher de Bellaigue</span><br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933368055/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1933368055&linkCode=as2&tag=laurashapirok-20&linkId=GFOSFV47IMGIHC2X" id="static_txt_preview" style="background-color: white; line-height: normal; text-align: center;" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">We Are Iran: The Persian Blogs</span></a></div>
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laura shapiro kramerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07853176438298890341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19673082.post-17500819281765526782012-01-31T17:01:00.001-05:002012-01-31T17:32:24.476-05:00The Horizon is Always Moving<br />Residing on Kauai on the southern side of this circular island with its trade winds cooling its tropical temps. Tek is delivering coconut water to me in gallon jugs. These are days of soft tranquil beauty. I am seeking skill in practice, learning to be skillful. It is one thing to study and practice and another thing to create it ongoingly. I am looking to push my inner limits; to have power and force without volume and make bold moves.<br />The Hawaiians were so skillful: built a civilization with what arrived on the three W's: wind, wing, water. On this archipelago destitute of metals - with only wood, stone and bone - they created a universe for us all to emulate. They cultivated their memories for mele - song - and Ka'ao - story - to dance - hula - and chant - oli - and deliver their oral traidtion of folktales to generations. What about us? Do we have good memory? Are we using our minds or are our minds using us? <br />Living on this cluster of volcanic craters and coral reefs, two thousand miles from any inhabitable land, I look out at the horizon, try to keep a level head, I want to point toward the horizon, always moving, the earth in flux, turning on its axislaura shapiro kramerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07853176438298890341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19673082.post-62039677613956345562010-06-21T19:17:00.005-04:002010-06-21T19:34:56.548-04:00The Zenith<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi49FojdW5upVZmZUUyeBa3dl6z8FRsDJvUzDLG6f_CY_Rn6g5NCaog_YmDbgu_ErrpUz7NfjZYB9bcp2xYJ7GeElNnT88QpYOaP_lzfFq03K4wTiv0N2u88mBGl1XrhMH7Es6n/s1600/Yoga+Doll.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi49FojdW5upVZmZUUyeBa3dl6z8FRsDJvUzDLG6f_CY_Rn6g5NCaog_YmDbgu_ErrpUz7NfjZYB9bcp2xYJ7GeElNnT88QpYOaP_lzfFq03K4wTiv0N2u88mBGl1XrhMH7Es6n/s320/Yoga+Doll.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5485374002842298066" border="0"></a><br />Summer solstice. Feeling the length of day. Feeling the length of lives that have recently passed. Dear Ones who blessed me while they lived and whose weight gives me solace in their deaths.laura shapiro kramerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07853176438298890341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19673082.post-49081750007339512552010-05-03T17:31:00.007-04:002010-05-03T18:04:50.992-04:00Tensile Time<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVJ8_rLkNdppgSkpRd9UAgRfMcR0-8FpZ-GAFH1F33jy8TNLERbMtci78-dLnaZDVT_-Sbr9nlxzy72I03CmpdQTTG-c1zotsLsLMcyeIn-0wFrpbJribnOryw1HDFVWWe8SCB/s1600/Lsk+Shadow:Hanoi+Museum.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVJ8_rLkNdppgSkpRd9UAgRfMcR0-8FpZ-GAFH1F33jy8TNLERbMtci78-dLnaZDVT_-Sbr9nlxzy72I03CmpdQTTG-c1zotsLsLMcyeIn-0wFrpbJribnOryw1HDFVWWe8SCB/s320/Lsk+Shadow:Hanoi+Museum.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5467167393249397666" /></a><br />The days are stretching long as we reach for the summer solstice and its expansive length of light only weeks away. Then the sun will be at its zenith only to slowly retreat all summer that is coming. It is about space and shape, and time: the ultimate improvisation of the cosmos.<br />LOVED 'From the Horse's Mouth', the Abrons Art Center's presentation of Alwin Nikolais alums. What a discovery! <br />Sadly discovery is also learning the vicious and insidious nature of the oil soon to be arriving on my summer beach via the Gulf stream.laura shapiro kramerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07853176438298890341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19673082.post-41104106703106916902010-04-26T13:42:00.010-04:002015-03-26T14:03:16.603-04:00Lag B'Omer<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNqod0MQCosP-3fK_HL_rDDIHCA5Nn3elT91YTFf69phvWSB6sNK3KgGWPBkh0k_lJTw81yFCTNqzFko4VsD3p39DAfy1SBJeTbPlrnsdhfXnMhaemZ1DTQtGAI95urQhXLtIN/s1600/James+%26+Gurujii.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNqod0MQCosP-3fK_HL_rDDIHCA5Nn3elT91YTFf69phvWSB6sNK3KgGWPBkh0k_lJTw81yFCTNqzFko4VsD3p39DAfy1SBJeTbPlrnsdhfXnMhaemZ1DTQtGAI95urQhXLtIN/s320/James+%26+Gurujii.jpg" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5464523906487465922" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 240px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></a><br />
Counting. Counting the days of the week, counting the hours of sleep, the hours until sleep, counting the hours I worked, counted the time of my practice (and how it counted to me). Counting who counts. My teachers count in unmeasurable ways and I am blessed by my remarkable teachers. I lost one this week, a woman of valor in every way. We'll count 82 years for her. She was as strong minded as she was small; as tough talking as the delicacy of her frame and affection. She was a teacher: everything tumbled into perspective and context, encased in the humor of her quips. Goodbye, my dear friend and teacher. <br />
Sunday we are at the 33rd day of counting the Omer, the 33rd day, the fifth day of the fifth week - a Splendor within the week of Splendor. This was the week my daughter was born. And I count her 23 years like I count nothing else.laura shapiro kramerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07853176438298890341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19673082.post-23300961968645347692010-04-13T17:30:00.012-04:002010-04-15T16:30:12.955-04:00In Between<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUsgZjOq1iV_HXJi2oXPX2Hwbi2zmL5ymm_3yvbopokOVpIT4Was2-FjbzgY3EIORbo77FVinHXJoNem-490Rt5TyiUa-Etid6I43P7qqKHIxAx-akvCY6psadB1KddtHPCSBe/s1600/James+in+Waterfall.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 267px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUsgZjOq1iV_HXJi2oXPX2Hwbi2zmL5ymm_3yvbopokOVpIT4Was2-FjbzgY3EIORbo77FVinHXJoNem-490Rt5TyiUa-Etid6I43P7qqKHIxAx-akvCY6psadB1KddtHPCSBe/s400/James+in+Waterfall.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5460030442983918722" /></a><br />Saw RED. Eddie Redmayne is thrilling: a brilliant performance full of Brando-like physicality. The play is hardly a 'drama', more a kind of abstract exegesis on art.<br />Tricia Brown dancers at Baryshnikov Art Center were sublime while challenging. Her work is hugely provocative. And finally got around to see Eastern Promises. I hope there will be a sequel. Hard as parts of it were to watch (I actually plugged my ears and lay on my stomach away from the screen in one scene) Viggo Mortensen is mesmerizing; the film is packed with colorful and authentic individuals and there was artful suspense and then what twists unfolded!<br />One night with the Juilliard Orchestra at Alice Tully (hate the acoustics but the wood is pretty to look at and imagine as the trees they once were). The program included Ligeti and I finally 'got it' - think 2001:A Space Odyssey - even after years and years of Christopher Wheeldon's ballets. Thank you Alan Gilbert. And all the passionate musicians, young and enthusiastic!<br />Pain is life’s chaperone. The pain of being born;arthritis pain;heartbreak;growing pains. Pain is the utter bell ringer, calling us while it is warning us away. <br />I want to be sensitive - responsive and alive - which means being fragile and vulnerable.<br />The struggle is to create sinews of awareness and remain open while letting in and letting out. Breathing in and breathing out. The Iceland Volcano is breathing out.laura shapiro kramerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07853176438298890341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19673082.post-48612425696803808462010-04-13T15:29:00.004-04:002010-04-13T17:25:17.357-04:00Revelation<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaiDnwG6ccoGAL1ROjQRL4FRWuR3skuf9ZnjxAD0CZ19WdYAtLCwoFrxRy35IvfciPasp3PvHdkmCYYLJuSQJdkTGm3CEHDcopNFUT7NzvvhY0V3I69kM7iY2ruPxY0xyZhTwP/s1600/Elephant+Camp+Image.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaiDnwG6ccoGAL1ROjQRL4FRWuR3skuf9ZnjxAD0CZ19WdYAtLCwoFrxRy35IvfciPasp3PvHdkmCYYLJuSQJdkTGm3CEHDcopNFUT7NzvvhY0V3I69kM7iY2ruPxY0xyZhTwP/s400/Elephant+Camp+Image.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5459735963369433794" /></a><br /> Secret things belong to God but what is revealed belongs to us (it is our responsibility) and belongs to our children (and is their responsibility) forever; that we may apply all the provisions of this teaching:<br /> Revelation does not deal with the mystery of God, but with a person’s life, as it should be lived in the presence of that mystery. And this teaching is not beyond reach. It is not in heaven, that we should say, “Who among us can go up to heaven and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may do it?” No, the word is very close to us, in our mouth and in our heart to do it. (Deuteronomy 29:28/30:11-14)<br /> As I count the days to the Law I remember the reasons for being 'kosher' - a clean tongue so as not to commit lashon hara for it is forbidden to speak disparagingly of one's "chaveir" (lit. friend)<br /> Also so that we remember we are not meant to taste everything.laura shapiro kramerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07853176438298890341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19673082.post-7465785780789350412010-04-05T15:23:00.010-04:002010-04-07T13:29:44.345-04:00Skeletons<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMv7Op2hSuMCTdbiX3fHTBiJO4VVBQAHCpoCaqW0UNchDPad8yvg3iyR5IpOjIRitsBUlLV0XUNZfjwsT-0tW6MLtK7NhSKRvVgJSZdWb66jCqt27oaQpbOcqegF5fSV7VOOjE/s1600/IMG_0645.JPG"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMv7Op2hSuMCTdbiX3fHTBiJO4VVBQAHCpoCaqW0UNchDPad8yvg3iyR5IpOjIRitsBUlLV0XUNZfjwsT-0tW6MLtK7NhSKRvVgJSZdWb66jCqt27oaQpbOcqegF5fSV7VOOjE/s400/IMG_0645.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5456756540725934498" /></a><br /> We've crossed through the Sea of Reeds. I want to be a thinking reed. A reed produces sound. The combination of our breath and one reed in a single wind instrument makes music. Enough reeds and we can comb our hair and, look, the reed expressing itself out of marshes, from water, to bend in the wind and yet remain 'rooted'.<br /> Our skeletons are like reeds. Our bones may seem like stone, but they are alive. “In many ways, bones are more animate than the muscles and fat draped over them or the quivering visceral organs they protectively encage.” NY Times Science Times April 28, 2009 – Bone, A Masterpiece of Elastic Strength. Like reeds.<br /> What roots ourselves, our skeletons, in the marshes is awareness. Awareness is the absolute anchor. It is the lynchpin, the mainstay, and the foundation. It is portable. It can be brought along without baggage.<br /> The most magical places are in our own minds. Not able to return yet to Cambodia, Bali, I let my imagination loose and dream. I dream to be a thinking reed.laura shapiro kramerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07853176438298890341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19673082.post-34687998623155102352010-03-29T13:49:00.009-04:002010-03-29T23:00:37.833-04:00Practice Does Not Make Perfect<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJrxDNdE2DBDT_UGiCjHNeb9dh4O1MAkbrjKfUcEJZ7hVml3vxcSqQ_cQsH_m1EZ-hNgjy0H0Cmrq4-942x_4OG3RaRd80CshcWgKOU1i0QK16CMTlFbLj159R4pzyEkLNdm_U/s1600/Lion.JPG"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJrxDNdE2DBDT_UGiCjHNeb9dh4O1MAkbrjKfUcEJZ7hVml3vxcSqQ_cQsH_m1EZ-hNgjy0H0Cmrq4-942x_4OG3RaRd80CshcWgKOU1i0QK16CMTlFbLj159R4pzyEkLNdm_U/s400/Lion.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5454256410071046914" /></a><br />The full moon is here and so is plentiful spring rain. Family comes together to break the bread of affliction and to rejoice in each other’s love and survival. What do we need to ‘survive’, to endure and live on?<br />Perseverance.<br /> Tenacity, determination, purposefulness. <br /> I am going to practice now. Practice does not make perfect but there is endurance, dedication, commitment. It is hard and it nourishes me like the rain nourishes the earth.laura shapiro kramerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07853176438298890341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19673082.post-86280008077491556402010-03-26T12:44:00.005-04:002010-04-05T16:47:16.407-04:00Renewal<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirYuuJ_Vj_BFtNVujsRcwLejMlpZJKhQccGG2XcVqRsHq0vIILPjrQDojHLIu-kDVYzRd5KduGr7S3xZChd72mFRIAuSui46Vhws6Esef3WTedcpqdHaETKDd_0mJD6TPsvqEb/s1600/March+Cape+Cod.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirYuuJ_Vj_BFtNVujsRcwLejMlpZJKhQccGG2XcVqRsHq0vIILPjrQDojHLIu-kDVYzRd5KduGr7S3xZChd72mFRIAuSui46Vhws6Esef3WTedcpqdHaETKDd_0mJD6TPsvqEb/s400/March+Cape+Cod.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5452988653320340962" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9URkQUaqDzmjEvWNNrBxuq9_QhGiQFiwygYhqSKss3AN9qxpkA0xY-JNXfyVy6X3C6MOZG1llvf0c-GsGytIkDg3mDtJEUgz0Ri0A0e77E7jib1a0NtvWT7quBkKG_CJMkJrD/s1600/Cape+Cod+in+March.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9URkQUaqDzmjEvWNNrBxuq9_QhGiQFiwygYhqSKss3AN9qxpkA0xY-JNXfyVy6X3C6MOZG1llvf0c-GsGytIkDg3mDtJEUgz0Ri0A0e77E7jib1a0NtvWT7quBkKG_CJMkJrD/s400/Cape+Cod+in+March.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5452988330429279330" /></a><br />Oh, Pesach. Pascal. Passover. Eggs and greens Pesach or Easter each with the Pascal lamb. I observe the moon waxing full harkening us to remember. To remember we were all slaves once. And we are all still enslaved in so many ways. We must cultivate imagination. Transformation occurs in practice, with creativity, compassion and receptivity.<br />Going to see the Buddhas at The Asia Society and the young dancers at the Juilliard. At this time of year all is budding: young graduates in performance and everywhere else we pause long enough to observe. Think music: the pauses between the notes are as important as the notes.laura shapiro kramerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07853176438298890341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19673082.post-84592393260500783902010-03-25T16:13:00.008-04:002010-04-20T16:54:02.762-04:00Spring Equinox<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMCfquwrQ9UXL0XgqIQ1EMc58krxlN1QC6WOiWlwLFztE3GxPxKsfbvw7Hu9KQ4AOxG-Srmw6NCYEkH-ksNjUJ3N0YG-wAb-xW5hYCvp-Qd6GXmehFxtbcAXox7ckYfhXgyf_w/s1600/March+shadow.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMCfquwrQ9UXL0XgqIQ1EMc58krxlN1QC6WOiWlwLFztE3GxPxKsfbvw7Hu9KQ4AOxG-Srmw6NCYEkH-ksNjUJ3N0YG-wAb-xW5hYCvp-Qd6GXmehFxtbcAXox7ckYfhXgyf_w/s320/March+shadow.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5462325763869834146" /></a><br /><br />A time to rebalance now that we've had a day of equal light and dark – the Spring equinox having just occurred – days lengthen as the Sun (my ruling ‘planet’) rises to its zenith. The sun is truly a star giving light and warmth and the impetus for growth – seen and unseen.<br />Reading ‘My Father’s Paradise’ by Ariel Sabar. It is a remarkable telling of his family's roots - 2700 years - in a remote corner of the world - an enclave of Jews in Kurdish Iraq who still spoke Aramaic.<br />Watching “The Stoning of Saroya M” – a powerful Iranian film<br />Listening to Sade and Andras Schiff.<br />Seeing the Wooster Street production of North Atlantic and The Bridgeman Packer Dance Troupe at the Barishnikov Art Center.laura shapiro kramerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07853176438298890341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19673082.post-45121287185353518792009-04-28T14:31:00.011-04:002009-06-05T16:16:56.018-04:00CAN YOU SHOW ME TOMORROW TODAY?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNY8IdFJEvluSOXOEwkR3QBRCWmEb2RDpv4KUuXuvo6XH_s4nSQAgiJGrRBmlu8d3n3uDID1MU8I3VLUrxbdCtvp7cYCguRK9Yf_OsMZS1oPFmEIAUcNeN_HjBnfEywHI3Njqh/s1600-h/Ankor+Wat+-+Dawn.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNY8IdFJEvluSOXOEwkR3QBRCWmEb2RDpv4KUuXuvo6XH_s4nSQAgiJGrRBmlu8d3n3uDID1MU8I3VLUrxbdCtvp7cYCguRK9Yf_OsMZS1oPFmEIAUcNeN_HjBnfEywHI3Njqh/s320/Ankor+Wat+-+Dawn.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5329815155283242002" border="0" /></a><br /><br />If you won't be better tomorrow than you were today, then what do you need tomorrow for?<br /> Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav<br /><br /><br />Dear Friends,<br />I am writing<br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> CAN YOU SHOW ME TOMORROW TODAY?</span> and making good progress. Remember to please send me your stories of renewed/reinvented/recreated lives. How have you dared to branch out and make a new life? What happened to you while you were busy making plans?<br /><br /><br />PLEASE SEND ME YOUR STORIES to showmetomorrowtoday@laurashapirokramer.com<br />or CONTACT ME: lskmuse@laurashapirokramer.comlaura shapiro kramerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07853176438298890341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19673082.post-26039594500248275992009-04-20T11:00:00.004-04:002009-06-05T15:40:07.771-04:00SHOW ME TOMORROW TODAY!Dear Friends,<br /> I am interested in your stories. I am writing a new book, <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Can You Show Me Tomorrow Today?</span><br /> Do you have stories of reinvention? Re-creation?<br /> I started out in the entertainment business. When my son was diagnosed with cerebral palsy I became an expert, an advocate, and eventually an author of the book <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Uncommon Voyage</span>, chronicling the journey I took with him in a world of healing outside of the mainstream. I traveled all over the country meeting other parents who have children with special needs. Eventually this led me to serve for ten years as Chair of a not for profit. I left Hollywood far behind.<br /> When my son grew up, I discovered new work for myself. What about you? I know someone who started out as lawyer and ended up cooking in the White House.<br />Do you have an interesting journey to share? I want to hear it.<br /> Please email me at <a href="http://showmetomorrow@laurashapirokramer.com/">showmetomorrow@laurashapirokramer.com</a><br />Visit my website: <a href="http://www.laurashapirokramer.com/">www.laurashapirokramer.com</a>laura shapiro kramerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07853176438298890341noreply@blogger.com