Do Not Despair

"How long will you follow the glittering phantom reflected from another? Strive to make the Divine experience actual for yourself.
So that your words will be prompted by your immediate feelings, and your flight will be made by your own wings and pinions...
I have no hope from any quarter, but that Divine Bounty is saying to me, " Do not despair!"
Our Emperor had made a perpetual feast for us: God is always pulling our ears, drawing us close and saying, "Do not lose hope!"
Although we are in the ditch and overwhelmed by this despair, let us go dancing since He has invited us.
Let us dance along like mettlesome horses, galloping towards a familiar pasture.
Let us toss our feet, though no foot is there; let us drain the cup, though no cup is there.
Because all things there, are spiritual: it is reality, on reality, on reality.
Form is the shadow, reality is the sun."

Rumi (Vol.6, 4664-4747)

Prayer Flags

The onslaught of media this weekend commemorating the tenth anniversary of 9/11 left me feeling empty.  Reliving the event is horrific enough, but reflecting on the ten years that ensued disheartened me even more.  I find the hip, hip hooray for America hypocritical as we grieve for those lost in a bloody civilian battle, yet we continue to kill.  Do unto others as you would condemn others to do unto you.  Of course,  I mourn the lives and innocence lost that day, but I wish the response to the terrorist act had been different.

At a loss for how to comprehend my emotions this weekend, I found some clarity when I stumbled upon Carla Shapiro's Prayer Flags.  In the weeks after 9/11 Carla turned her lingering loss into an art project.  She hand copied The New York Times obituary for each victim onto a single vellum sheet of paper, and strung them over the creek that runs past her cabin in the Catskill Mountains.  For an entire year, she photographed the 1,910 flags, documenting nature's impact on the ink stained pages.  Over time, the elements washed them clean, returned them to blank pages, and allowed Carla to release her pain and grief.  This was a memorial I could embrace, for it was personal, spiritual, healing, and appropriate.

The 9/11 Decade

The event will forever be synonymous with the decade, and time will continue to clarify the impact on the world, a nation, a generation, and me.  I was alerted to the disaster by a friend, who called concerned about mutual friends in Manhattan.  Had I heard from them, did I know if they were okay?  Assuming they were in a car accident, I asked for details.  Turn on the TV.   The South Tower was already down.  I couldn't fully process or comprehend what I was seeing.  The footage of the plane colliding with the building was on a continuous loop, as if the riddle would be solved the more times it was viewed.

The Woolworth Building with it's majestic Gothic spire is my favorite architectural wonder in the city, but The Twin Towers hold a special space.  We were conceived in the same decade, I watched them grow from the car window during frequent family trips to the city.  A source of conversation around the dinner table, they symbolized confidence in a city plagued with crime and inflation.  I loved them most from afar, rising from the concrete, sleek and modern, anchoring the skyline.  I can't recall the first time I stood in the plaza, shadowed by the world's tallest skyscrapers, but my most memorable experience occurred when I was 17.  Commemorating my grandmother's 80th birthday we had an intimate family dinner at Cellar in the Sky.  I borrowed one of my mother's designer dresses, the men wore black tie.  On the 107th floor of the North Tower, we dined for hours on a superlative, seven course menu impeccably paired with five exquisite wines.

I was on the phone with my mother when the North Tower fell, words caught in my throat, tears wet my face.  In the ensuing days I was awakened to the ramifications of our global actions.  I was deeply saddened by the devastation, but also by the country's arrogance.  My initial fear, that life would never be the same, were accurate, but in ways I didn't anticipate.  At some point ease and frivolity returned to my days, but my global disillusion remains.

This Moment

 

A Friday ritual.  A single photo, no words, capturing a moment from the week.

Baby Mei Mei

Farmers Market Ojai

Apple Picking in Ojai

Apple picking, a perfect way to bid adieu to summer and  usher in fall.  Although the daytime temperature in Ojai Valley was still in the 90s, the evening was substantially cooler.  The sun set earlier, and the changing light signaled a change in season.  Crisp, tart apples begging to baked in buttery dough, or juiced with cucumbers and kale.