Poets speaking through the mouth of everyone – a special message for me, looking 12 ways at once. Farshin on the hilltop overlooking the mercury lights of the village below, 200 people’s humble homes and watching the tiny jeep below driving through the river and up to ‘mobile tappeh’ or ‘cell phone hill’ – so called because it is the only place where cell phones work – once there in range of Hamadan’s tower.

Farshin tells the Sa’aadi poem of the Parvaneh (butterfly) and the candle where the candle says of itself ‘I am true love because I am standing patient burning from head to toe. I am like Farhad when his Shirin left (since candles in this story are made of bee’s wax) – he pines for the lost honey. He criticises the butterfly as fleeting, impatient getting scorched then fleeing. I thought back to my time in Lumbini and a great black cape of admonition fell on my shoulders – why did I not stay longer?

In social situations I think I unconsciously set myself up with back to back engagements, thereby protecting myself against dissapointment if engagement A is a drag – invariably engagement A turns out to be the more fantastic of the two. In Lumbini I was driven to leave on Visa pain of expiry – but I should not play that game with the devine.

After our walk we returned to the farm house and I was told the story about how just days before the sister of the petrified German Shepard pup was lured out by a single wolf and then destroyed by the pack. We went inside and ate porcupine and beef kabobs. The porcupine is called ‘joojeh teeghi’ which literally means ‘spiny chicken’ and was very tough meat but tasted good marinated in yoghurt and onion before cooking. Supposedly it had been shot by Anehseh’s brother and is difficult to hunt since from all but close range its flattened spikes act as bulletproof armor against buckshot.

We all talked over the Israel conflict and everyone retired with Farshin sitting in the kitchen smoking a cigarette and listening to the sound of the liquid money rain falling outside. He had just spread fertilizer and this very timely rain would save him ten days watering.

In the morning I looked out the window periodically at the leaden sky, gathered my stuff and only woke Farshin who waved to me from his cot on the floor as I left. I climbed up out of the valley onto the wild side out up in the drizzle, the landscape like my imagination’s Scotland, all greens (who upon closer inspection are spiky weeds and cactus) rolling and a few igneous jagged peaks dusted by snow following a snaking ridge.

I thought I would shoulder my goal peak as I rode up and down the green waves of soft mud, my feet gaining kilos. At last I found a wide and graceful neck separating me, shoulderless scarred by deep trenches in the green. I jumped across these one by one, their sticky softness making it all easy. Putting away my umbrella I made it up the rocky peak line like a giant mastless ship. No time to dally I said my respects and bowed before the devine on that unmarked peak, leaving its damp constant chill wind as I set out straight down to rejoin the middle of my ascent path. On the highest folds of the peak I noticed some crazy bastard had tried to farm this area outright, without making terraces.

Increasingly worried there would be a panic back on the farm after my 2.5 hours absence I ran down entering the farm area full of wild mountain heights power, the poor German Shepard puppy nearly buried itself at the site of me. No worries, the rest had not eaten breakfast yet, we had some farm fresh eggs and were off to see the horses, heavy rain and some hale followed us up and instead of riding we drove and looked at ten acres of land planted with a magical seed wheat of mysterious origins found by some friend while digging his garden in a 100 year old pot – 10,000 seeds inside of which two sprouted when the lot were planted. Each plant had 40 children and after ten years there are ten acres.

My Daily Prayer

1) If you ask my opinion ask and I will tell
2) If you want to teach me something I am eager to learn
3) If you love me do, if not not – I am no one and know nothing.
4) I am not here to impress you with how smart I am
5) Appreciation and action.


Great idiomatic saying I learned this weekend:

Great Wisdom

‘Ke*r ra did’ ‘Kadu ra nadid’
You saw the di*k but not the squash.

‘zangularo ki begardaneh gorbeh mindazeh’ Who is going to hang the bell on the cats neck?