Poem by Hafez The Pearl on the Ocean Floor

This poem is by the ancient Persian poet Hafez.  The name for the documentary Pearls on the Ocean Floor was taken from this poem.  I borrowed it from http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/.

The Pearl on the Ocean Floor

By Hafez (1320-1389) Translated by Robert Bly

We have turned the face of our dawn studies toward the drunkard's road.
The harvest of our prayers we've turned toward the granary of the ecstatic soul.

The fire toward which we have turned our face is so intense
It would set fire to the straw harvest of a hundred reasonable men.

The Sultan of Pre-Eternity gave us the casket of love's grief as a gift;
Therefore we have turned our sorrow toward this dilapidated traveller's cabin that we call "the world."

From now on I will leave no doors in my heart open for love of beautiful creatures;
I have turned and set the seal of divine lips on the door of this house.

It's time to turn away from make-believe under our robes patched so many times.
The foundation for our work is an intelligence that sees through all these games.

We have turned our face to the pearl lying on the ocean floor.
So why then should we worry if this wobbly old boat keeps going or not?

We turn to the intellectuals and call them parasites of reason;
Thank God they are like true lovers faithless and without heart.

The Sufis have settled for a fantasy, and Hafez is no different.
How far out of reach our goals, and how weak our wills are!

Pearls on the Ocean Floor

Pearls on the Ocean Floor

I went to see a documentary that was screened at OU last night.  The documentary, Pearls on the Ocean Floor had a profound impact on me.  It was about Iranian women artists, both in Iran and living estranged from their home countries in different places around the world.  There were many different mediums the women used in their art work and many different styles and modes of expression.

When I lived in Iran I had several students who were also artists. One of them was a pharmacist and was taking watercolor classes from a male watercolor artist there.  She was a cheerful woman over 50 who had accomplished much in her life.  She was independent, an entrepreneur who owned one of the few 24-hour pharmacies in our city.  She was strong, outspoken and loved to gossip. Actually, she never knew it but gossip almost ruined our friendship.  I decided in the end that it was worth it to keep her friendship because she was such a fascinating person and ultimately I learned incredible things from her.  I simply steered our conversations away from things I didn’t want discussed in the neighborhood, and instead thoroughly enjoyed our conversations about spirituality, art, and the meaning of life.  We held our classes at the back of the pharmacy, and many times she would have paint brush in hand and we would chat merrily in English about the intrigues and goings-on in her art class.  It seems she had quite an eccentric in her artist teacher and he was surrounded by a bevy of scarf-clad lovelies who vied for his approval. She was an infinitely spiritual person, who had also suffered the death of a teenage son, and domestic abuse.  Once she told me about her prayer room, a small room in her house that she had painted green with a green carpet and green curtains.  Green is the color of spring, of spiritual matters, of saints, and of prayers in Iran.  It has a meaning and a life all its own in Persian culture.  Without having lived in Iran, or closely with Iranians, it is hard to explain the bittersweet, lovely, reverent emotion that green provokes in Iran.  One of the artist ladies in Pearls on the Ocean Floor did an installation that said in lovely Persian calligraphy, “My green isn’t your green.”  She lives in Germany and she was comparing the cultural significance of the color in that country to the meaningful, emotional significance that the word carries in Farsi.  Sabz. Green.  No, not the same in English.

Another thing that is so culturally different is the phrase, “Oh my God!”  and “Khodayah Man!” I’ve been watching a lot of stand-up comedy done by Persians lately with my oldest son.  It is so funny to us because we completely understand the context.  A lot of them will do a heavily Iranian accented English, and invariably it’s peppered with lots of “Oh my God!”s emphatically exclaimed.  It’s funny because probably two of every three Iranians I know will use this phrase passionately when speaking English.  Before I lived in Iran, my fundamentalist Christian upbringing had me cringing every time my Iranian friends used OMG so carelessly (taking the name of the Lord in vain), but when I got to Iran and learned Farsi, somehow it didn’t seem like a careless exclamation, but more a passionate invocation.   More like, God are you hearing this?  Depending on the emotion of the exclaimant, it could be awe or exuberance: “Khodayah Man! How Beautiful!” as in “My God, what a beautiful baby!”  Then OMG was a word of exquisite praise to the Creator.  Or it could be “Khodayah Man! Really?” as in “OMG.  This kid won’t eat!  I’ve worked hard all day cooking and now he won’t eat.”  It’s like saying God, I love you, but you see what I have to go through here?  Sometimes it’s used as a lament:  “Khodayah Man, na”  as in “Oh, no, my God, no”  I suppose that one is universal, we all really want God to help take things back and make things right at horrific times in our lives.  It’s crazy how OMG in Farsi rings in my ears as part of a passionate, everyday conversation with God, but that fundamentalist upbringing still makes me hesitate slightly when I hear OMG in regular conversation in English.   Have I lost something in translation or gained a richer vocabulary?  Depending on the day, time, and my level of nostalgia it could be a lot or little of both.  There are no longer fundamentalist black and white colors in my world, instead infinite shades of gray.

Hangin' Out With The Guys

One of the highlights of my year this year was when my oldest son invited me to play ball with him and some of the guys at work.  We went to the OU gym and I had a blast!  I didn't realize that this was such a big thing until a friend pointed out that there probably aren't a lot of 43 year old moms hanging out at the gym and playing basketball with college guys.  It made me feel way cool. 

I started playing basketball late.  I was a sophomore in high school.  People kept telling me that because I was tall, I should be playing basketball.  So I went out for the team.  I was put on the B-team of course, but really lucky because our A-team went to State that year and the next. I got to be with the best. We had a class hour set aside for basketball, and we also practiced after school during the season.  Our coach was a stickler for the fundamentals, and yet we learned advanced concepts too, plays and zone defenses and the particulars of man-to-man defense.  It all fascinated me.  The players on the B-team were all told they could come to the A-team practices and shoot on the sidelines.  I was at every single practice, shooting and watching the A-team run the plays over and over again.  Sometimes the coach would put me in the scrimmage at the end of practice.  I was really proud of my progress. By my Junior year I had improved enough to dress out with the A-team.  We went to state again and I had a blue and gold letter jacket decorated with patches.  I loved that jacket!

 All this was a grounding experience for me at a time when my home life was rapidly deteriorating. I had trouble getting to the games.  I'd walk miles home from practice, and yet I was determined to participate no matter what.   My mother never attended even one of my games.  Along the end of my Junior year, my mom stopped coming home, first for a night, then several nights, and then for two weeks.  I was the oldest of four children.  We were taken away from her and two weeks into my Senior year, just as I was poised to step up and hopefully become a starter for our team, we moved to a very small Missouri town, population 400.  I was now in a Senior class of 25 teenagers who had all known each other since grade school.  I played basketball there, but it wasn't the same.

After I graduated, I didn't play basketball again until I went to Iran. By that time I had two small sons at home. I mentioned that I loved basketball in one of the English classes I taught, and one of my students told me there was a basketball class in a nearby gym.  I went to a practice and was immediately invited to join the team.  I did and for the next eleven years we played ball!  We lost a lot in the beginning and went through a lot of trial and turmoil.  Basketball is not the most appreciated activity for a Muslim woman who is expected to be chaste and ladylike.  A lot of the girls had to really work hard to convince their families to let them play at a competitive level. Even I would never have been able to do it if not for my sons incredible aunts, who took care of them when I was at games and tournaments. Eventually we improved and were able to represent the city in different tournaments and eventually we joined the National League and worked our way up from Level 3 to Level 2, and then to Level 1.  We really worked hard for that. We even had a sponsor, Homa Air.  That was Awesome!  The next level is the Superleague.  The members of the National Women's team are chosen from players on Level 1 and Superleague teams.  They then play womens teams from other countries.  I credit Basketball with saving my sanity.  The cultural difference was stressful, not to mention the fact that I was trapped in Iran and not allowed to leave the country.  I would be at home, and upset with some crazy idea my ex-husband had, or something that had happened with my children that I couldn't control.  I would go off to practice in a huff, angry and stressed out. After 2 hours of running, jumping, drills, and scrimmage, I would arrive at home an angel, at peace with the world and clear about how I was going to handle the problem of the day.  Even to this day, exercise is my anti-depressant.  It allows me to serve myself and the world with energy, optimism, and inner peace.

It will be 5 years in March 2012 since I have returned from Iran.  I still play basketball 1-3 times a week, mostly one-on-one with my son.  It's funny, men were never allowed to see our games in Iran, only women were allowed in the gym because we wore classic basketball uniforms: tank top and shorts.  (I was always number 14)  Now we play here at the YMCA and it's our way to bond.  We talk trash, foul each other like crazy and love it!  Not many Moms can say that their son is not afraid to take them to the college gym to play with the guys.  I am truly blessed!

Do you love me? Do you really do?

I am reading M. Scott Peck's "Further Along the Road Less Traveled" Sigh.  I love reading books like this, but they always make me feel that I have so far to go on the road to being a complete and whole human being.  I feel like a jigsaw puzzle, with fragments lying all over the table.  There's a really beautiful picture there somewhere, but so far, only little pockets here and there have enough pieces put together to hint at the possibility of the whole.

In the book, Scott talks about a study the military did back when he was working in the army.  They studied a group of "markedly successful" people who were not only successful in their careers but loved and popular socially.  At one point in the study they were asked to write down  the three most important things in their life, in order of importance.  All of the participants (there were twelve) took a long time to do this. Scott reports that the person that turned his in first took about forty minutes, and some took more than an hour.  They weren't allowed to consult with each other, but an amazing thing happened.  They all wrote exactly the same thing for answer # one.  Myself.  M. Scott Peck says "Not 'Love.'  Not 'God.' Not 'My family.' But 'Myself' And that, I suggest, was an expression of mature self-love.  Self-love implies the care, respect, and responsibility for and the knowledge of the self.  Without loving one's self one cannot love others. But do not confuse self-love with self-centeredness.  These successful men and women were loving spouses and parents and caring supervisors."

Then Scott goes on to describe an encounter with a person he labels as being a person of the lie.  He thinks these people of the lie are essentially evil.  When he asked this person what was most important the reply was, "My self-esteem." So what's the difference?  Self-esteem is supposed to be a good thing right?  I was confused.  He goes on to say that people of the lie believe that self-esteem is so important that they will do anything to preserve their self-esteem at all costs, whereas self-love is believing ourselves to be important and valued without being attached to being constantly having to perceive ourselves as esteemed. 

The concept of constantly trying to preserve self-esteem is really foreign to me.  I can't imagine what that life would feel like.  My perspective is probably the opposite.  I struggled for years and still struggle with believing in my intrinsic value and worth, although I've come so far from the whisper of a person that I once was.

Let's go back to the answer, "MYSELF."  Putting “Myself” at the top of the list of priorities in my life. I stopped when I read that passage and asked myself two questions:  1. "Hey self, how long would you have taken to write down your answers?  Would you have gotten impatient and written down a few trite responses that you thought other people would think were good answers?  Huh, self?  Would you have sat in a room for at least forty minutes deliberating?" (What I'd really like to know is if they were given all the time in the world to answer, because they had the day off and nothing else was pressing, or if all of them had jobs waiting that they really needed to get back to.  I'd like to know if the question floored them when they read it and they sat down and mentally said, 'this'll take some consideration.' Then putting all else aside devoted themselves to the answer in spite of outside pressure.) Yes, my first question was "How Long?"  I read all the time about sitting down to really set goals, just taking time to really think about what I want from life, what direction I need to go, but then I tell myself, "Ok Sunday.  We'll do that Sunday.” Then I rush off willy-nilly into my life.  Sunday comes and goes, vroom!  I don't think I would have taken all the time I needed.  I don't think I take all the time I need.

The second question I asked myself was, "Hey Self, what would you have written at the top of the list?  I then reviewed all the possibilities and conclude that the question is no longer fair.  I know what the kids at the top of the class would've written.  I actually laughed out loud! I don't know what I would've written before, but I know what I'm writing now!  It's been two weeks now since I've read that passage on page 88 of the book.  I've told different people about it, discussed it.  I even have applied it to my own life.  There was a tough decision I had to make. Someone needed my help, a rescue of sorts.  In the past I would've immediately said, "Yes!" even if my gut were telling me, "NO!"  So I said to myself, "Self!  If you were a person who had written, "Myself" at the top of a list of The Three Most Important Things in My Life, what would you do?  I stopped.  I realized how sad, how stressed, and how overwhelming all the events in my life right now already are.  I realized that I am already helping people now, and I don't have the resources to rescue anyone.  I also realized I was angry.  I was angry because the person asking for a rescue had already asked me once before, and I had already said no.  Now this person is back again in more dire circumstances, still expecting a rescue from me, for a situation that came about as a result of a lack of planning and an expectation that everyone else would chip right in and make miracles happen!  (I stopped and asked myself why I was so angry, what’s the deal with the self-righteousness?   It's said the things that make you angry are the weaknesses you yourself possess.  I have a weakness for wanting things to happen so bad that I just blindly think miracles will happen and that somehow my lack of vision and planning will be smoothed over and made up for.  I think it comes of a victim mentality and the belief that someone, somewhere will want to rescue me if I am pitiful.  It's a really lazy way of thinking, yet very addictive and destructive. I learned it as a neglected, lonely child as a way to get attention.  It's not a skill that serves me now. I have to fight that constantly.)  Back to the dilemma, after I considered the situation as a person who would have written "Myself", I realized I needed to say no once again. It wouldn't serve the person or me to rescue him with bitterness, regret, or anger in my heart. I released the outcome, and prayed for guidance for us all. I was able to do so calmly without all the guilty voices that might have condemned me in the past. (It seems that self-love may be a calm way to live.) I saw him recently; other people had stepped forward and were helping.  I was glad.  Glad he was helped, and glad I took care of what was important first, even if just this one time.

"Myself"  Perhaps I wouldn't have written that at the top of my list before.  I am writing it now.  I am envisioning a life in which it becomes the absolute Truth. 

Love your neighbor as yourself.  Answer me this:  How much do you love yourself?

What's the price?

A very dear friend recently gave me the book Wild At Heart, by John Eldredge.  It is a book written by a man for men.  The subtitle is Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul.  My friend recommended it to me because of difficulty I am having with a relationship I am in.

One amazing thing he says is about the temptation of Eve.  He says that Adam was present when Eve was being tempted.  That Adam could've intervened but didn't and even after he stands back and watches Eve eat the forbidden fruit, he could've chosen God over Eve but he didn't. 

This created a lot of anger and conflict in my mind.  Anger because I looked back over the history of Christianity and Islam and I see centuries of blame. How many times because of the story of The Fall from Eden have women been punished and persecuted?  How many women have been made to feel weak and inferior because they have been accused of being the reason Evil is in the world?  That women are the reason for estrangement from God?  Then I began to think.  It's just that kind of anger, the broad-stroke anger against men in general that I was feeling, that is actually the same sort of anger that the self-righteous men who believed they had been wronged by Eve and that the daughters of Eve should be punished were feeling.  The world is too diverse and complicated for blanket accusations.  Even the Bible had the Good Samaritan, who should have given in to prejudice, but didn't and even went the extra mile to save someone who by cultural norms should've been offensive to him.  Meeting each person on a case by case basis, and attempting to see and figure out all the good and all the bad in that person, loving him unconditionally as God would, putting up boundaries, fair and firm. to protect your own lovely God-given soul from the bad, opening yourself up to drink the good the other has to offer into your heart, and deciding how far into your life each person will be allowed is a HUGE amount of work.  Especially because all the while you are doing this, your own bad and good, cultural references and judgment, childhood relationship issues, and worries about bills, money, family, and self-worth are all clouding your ability to see and hear the other person.  When you think about it, stereotypes and snap-judgments save us a lot of psychological strain and stress.  They are easy, a cheap way to handle relationships with others in our world. What's the price? What is the real price of paying all that energy into a relationship, or going the cheaper judgmental route and being done with it?

Long ago, I read somewhere about the price of everything in our lives.  For everything obtained, material or spiritual, there is a price.  The accepted view in the material world is that things of great value generally cost much more than things of little value.  Things of great value usually are of a much higher quality and purity than things of little value.  Things of great value are usually long-lived, cherished and enjoyed for generations, where things that are come by cheaply don't last long, aren't cherished or given much thought, and give very short-term satisfaction. I've come to believe that it is the same for a man's inner world as well.  Quality thinking is bought by spending time on reading, thinking, and listening to others who have also spent time on thought.  Quality relationships are bought by people who spend time and energy on becoming better listeners, better acceptors of self and others, who try to really see the core of each person they come in contact with.  Deep lasting awareness of self and others is bought with a price.  The price is going beyond stereotypes, and hashing out a conscious way of thinking, knowing that pain, fear, anger, or other strong emotions will accompany that process. It's asking a Higher Power for guidance until we finally make a resolution and act upon it, knowing that, based upon our severely limited knowledge and ability, that we may be making a mistake.  It's willingness to accept responsibility for a mistake, then go through the whole painful process again to make a better choice than last time.   Sometimes I deliberate and ruminate, and decide.  Those decisions are the ones that feel the sweetest to me. They seem to expand my soul, somehow make me into something a little bigger.  Sometimes I am miserable, tired, or too busy to deliberate.  Sometimes I just want to avoid the pain, let someone else decide, give up my personal power and go with whatever popular opinion seems to be. Actually I’ve made a lot of decisions this way.   So many of those cheap decisions, in afterthought, caused a lot more anguish, embarrassment, and regret down the road than I would ever have imagined.

Ultimately I guess that perhaps it's not so important whether Eve tempted Adam, whether Adam was present or off in another part of Paradise doing cool Paradise things, or if Adam could've stopped Eve or didn't.  Who’s to blame Adam or Eve? The result is and always will be the same. That's all in the past.  We are here, we are human, we have right now, and we have all our relationships that are  right here, right now.  We are alive today and we have a life to spend, our currency today is time and energy.  However any of us came by the next 24 hours, I am certain that if you are human, it was hard-won.  Love as unconditionally as you possibly can.  See as judgment free as you possibly can.  Embrace joy and sorrow as the twins that they surely are.  Seek and search out quality as much as possible!

Smile, everyone!

I was reading a recent article on Yahoo by Jennifer Margulis about the impact a smile can have on people.

One of the pieces of information in the article that fascinated me was that “Smiles exert subliminal powers.” The article went on to say that in a study where people were shown an image of a smiling face for just four milliseconds, they experience an emotional high.  Four milliseconds are not even enough to register in the conscious minds of the test subjects! The article listed three results that were found in the study. “Compared with control groups, the smile-viewers perceive the world in a better light: To them, boring material is more interesting, neutral images look more positive, even bland drinks seem tastier”

I have been doing a lot of reading lately about the science of influence.  There are so many tried and true, ethical ways to influence consumers today.  Books are being written daily about just this subject. However this is super simple.  This is just a big smile, folks.  We’ve always known that smiles open doors, but in today’s competitive markets, looks like they also make sales.  There is a trick however (You knew it was coming, didn’t you?)  The trick is this; it has to be a genuine smile.  The fake ones that don’t reach your eyes don’t get the job done.  According to the article, there’s a muscle in the face that automatically is activated when we smile genuinely, and never when we fake smile.  Somehow people can pick up on that.  So next time you want to influence someone to your way of thinking, think happy thoughts, and smile big!

What does that mean to me as a salesperson?  It’s the difference between a customer that stays in our store and one who goes to the competition.  Since I read the article, if I’m helping a customer and I pass another who is “just looking” or even if someone comes in the door, I try to dazzle them with a smile, and at least a “How are you today?”  If four subconscious milliseconds have an influence on test subjects, then my one or two second smile should knock’em out!  Seriously though, I’m finding out that the science of influence is not rocket science- it’s actually social science.  You can start today to improve your influence by finding reasons to smile, genuinely smile, your way to better sales success.

http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/health/what-the-size-of-your-smile-says-about-you-2528046/

Creativity, it's everywhere!

So many people say, in a humble, self-deprecating way, usually with a shrug, "I'm just not a creative person".  That can never be a true statement.  Creativity is an intrinsic part of every single human being.  Without it, there could be no life, great or small.  People who say they are not creative do not realize that it's like a little energetic, smiling imp, ever-present, peeking around the corners and through the cracks of what he or she believes to be an uncreative life.  There is no such thing as an uncreative life.

The definition of creativity is the ability to create.  We do that whether consciously, or unconsciously on a daily basis.We create words, pictures with words, relationships, emotions, desires.  Creation is so much more than art, although the creation of art and beauty is what most think of when creativity is mentioned. 

There are inspired creations, sublime creations, so-so creations, painful creations, evil creations, unintended creations, lopsided creations, creations that got the job done, creations that didn't quite work out, endless, endless creations, to infinity-and beyond!!!  (I love that phrase, thanks Buzz Lightyear to you and your creator.)

Each time any person makes a way where there was no way before, an answer is created.  Even imitation of someone else's creation shows, first, an appreciation of another's creativity, and second, the creativity of the imitator, because even the most accomplished imitator can't help but pour himself into the imitation, and so the copy is also a creation.  Each time I procrastinate by coming up with a new excuse, an avoidance is created. Think about it, a person contemplating sucicide must create reasons for himself to do it, or not to do it. Every action, every thought is a creation resulting of the sum of a person's whole. Each time a student, teacher, co-worker or I realize a difficult concept that someone else wants us to understand, a connection is created, an emotion brought into being, an expression fills our faces, a momentary rush of adrenaline speeds our heart, and we experience the thrill of "AHA!"

 Creativity is pouring over us, in us, around us, and yes, out of us all day every day, with or without our help.  Every life, whether lived with intense purpose, regimented, goal-oriented, with intense conviction, or helter-skelter, any-which-way, with no general purpose other than existence or survival, is still a creation.