Roman Catholic Religion

catholic bookmarks

Which group, Catholics or Christians, would religous bookmarks have more sucess in marketing?

Do you think a combination of a bookmark with a matching T-shirt would be a good product to market?

I'd say Christians, since the group isn't as specific as Catholics.

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Audio Bible Ambassador Equips Saints For Virtual Ministry

How You Can Reach People Around the World

David is a passionate believer in jesus christ with big dreams to help fulfill the Great Commission. In his younger days, he briefly braved the foreign mission field during a short-term trip, boldly sharing his faith. But now, he’s an average office worker with a newborn baby and a new mortgage.

During a meeting at work recently, he was asked to stand up and share something positive.

“Just last night, I reached 12 people with the Gospel message,” exclaimed David. “My computer is distributing the Bible to people in Brazil, China, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. People are downloading the Audio Bible in their own language while I’m standing here talking to you, and some are hearing about jesus for the first time.”

David’s story is not uncommon. Many believers desire to do great things for the Lord, but just don’t know how. His story took a dramatic turn after a virtual visit to FaithComesByHearing.com. While there, he downloaded his free Audio Bible and signed up to become an Audio Bible Ambassador.

“An Audio Bible Ambassador is someone who has said, ‘I want to reach the nations and make a difference for christ by helping distribute the Scriptures through the Internet,’” explained Troy Carl, Faith Comes By Hearing’s national director.

Faith Comes By Hearing, the world’s foremost Audio Bible ministry, recently launched this revolutionary Bible distribution campaign.

“Becoming an Audio Bible Ambassador is simple,” said Carl. “You start by downloading an Audio Bible for yourself. Then you sign up online and choose languages to sponsor. When people search for their free Audio Bible in one of your sponsored languages, your computer talks to their computer and sends over the Audio Scriptures.”

To see the impact, Audio Bible Ambassadors click through to a secure, interactive webpage that graphically displays a world map showing all those that they’ve shared the Word of God with.

“Through this outreach, you can make a difference for Christ and reach people while at work, surfing the web, or even while you’re sleeping,” Carl said. “By becoming an Audio Bible Ambassador, you will help thousands all over the world get the pure Word of God in audio in their heart language.”

“Your computer becomes a Bible distribution center for those searching for the Bread of Life,” said Carl.

On Monday morning, David encouraged his co-workers, “Over the weekend, I reached 61 people with God’s Word in audio. You need to go home today and become an Audio Bible Ambassador.”

“This program is a great way to help fulfill Jesus’ commands in the Great Commission,” David added.

Here’s how to become an Audio Bible Ambassador:
•    Download a free Audio Bible.
•    Register to become an Audio Bible Ambassador.
•    Sponsor languages from around the world.
•    Check back often to see your impact.

About the Author

Jon Wilke is the author of this article. Audio Bibles connect modern technology to the Word of God, with the timeless result of sharing God's Word with people who hunger for spiritual knowledge. For more information visit - faithcomesbyhearing.com

passion of the christ blue ray

passion of the christ study

JIm Cavielzal (passion of the christ) might become a Muslim?

I was listening to my local Radio statio & some ppl were talking about Relgion and this guy said Jim Caviezal was studying Islamic scripture, Islamic History and generally about Islam as he finds it facsinating, i personally have nothing against people choosing a religion or converting as i dont have a Religion myself but considering he made a film about christ isnt it just seems spectacular, i wont be really suprised either as people from all walks of life are converting to Islam but it kind of caught me off guard, by the way am from the UK and they were talking about it on radio 5 live, if anyone in the UK also was listing at 5am-6:30 then i would like your opinions.

lol, i feel a movie role coming on...

passion of the christ spanish

The poetic and thematic impact of Lorca's poems on Shamlou's poetry

The poetic and thematic impact of Lorca's poems on Shamlou's poetry

 

Shokofeh Raeesi

 

Introduction

 

Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936)   is perhaps the most important Spanish poet, dramatist, musician of the twentieth century. He was born in Granada in 1899 and he was assassinated in 1936 after Spanish civil war. He was an outstanding lyric poet of European literature. "Perhaps his greatest achievement was his ability to avoid the trapping of a superficial folksy style by skillfully combining traditional popular motifs with a modern sensibility"(Soto, Francisco).

His evocative lyrical ambiguity through the use of different symbols underlines an obscurity that makes the reader thinks and comes up with different interpretation as a struggle to explore the enigmas of his poems.

Lorca in his poetry combined traditional or typical customs of Spanish culture with intertwining the surrealistic poetical and thematic tactics to transfer the social and cultural attitudes against the injustice about woman, black people, and minority.

His poetry have been translated into different languages and have been the object of study by critics all over the world.

 

"Few poets write of desire with such a passionate delicacy as Federico Garcia Lorca. Lyric, erotic and savage, his poems celebrate the anguish of absence, the bittersweet longing for what cannot be possessed" (Alison Croggon.)

 

 

 

Ahmad Shamlou(1925 —2000) , Iran's most prominent contemporary poet ,recognized internationally, was a  poet, writer, and journalist. 

Shamlou's poetry is complex, but his imagery, which constructs the significant part of his message and aesthetical feature is simple.  "For infrastructure and impact, he uses a kind of everyday imagery in which personified oxymoronic elements are spiked with an unreal combination of the abstract and the concrete thus far unprecedented in Persian poetry"

He is widely known as one of the effective Iranian poet that his fruitful years of his writing and translating helped to introduce many world authors and poets to Iran.

His six-volume  (The Book of the streets) is a main contribution in understanding the Iranian folklore beliefs and language.

His poetry has been translated into several languages; Shamlou is deeply influenced by Garcia Lorca,

Now I will discuss the poetic and aesthetic impact of Lorca's poems on Shamlou poetry.

 

 

 

Analysis of impact of Lorca's poems on Shamlou's poetry

 

We can consider the Lorca's poems as an abstract art in which the meaning is conveyed  through less literal rendering (denotative meaning) and  through more combination of colors, feelings, and rhythm with impressive juxtaposition of  the incongruous images directly or indirectly to prove his surrealistic ideology that is cleverly hidden in language of his poems.

In Lorca's poems, the human emotions and nature characteristics are interrelated.

The close relation between human and nature is inspired by his delicate use of words such as, the tree, river, moon, nightingale, and etc.

Lorca's poems are based on amalgam of natural themes and deep human emotions along with a surreal mixture and complication of such a close relation through inseparable strings of recursion of the images. Few poems you can find without such an interaction of forms and meanings.

Influenced by Lorca, Shamlou, the Persian poet, writer, and translator known for his complex prose and simple ,lively and colorful images in his poems. This influence created a new point of view poetically, culturally and politically which made his poems understood by many western people in literature. The significant themes created by Shamlou's poems are common in Lorca's poems and  they  are love, passion and affection along with social and political attitudes. Both poets  transferred the meaning of freedom as one of the important theme by desiring to administer the justice in their country.

Shamlou, like Lorca, tried to highlight the role of music or natural rhythm hidden behind the structure of sepid poetry with the use of figure of speech such as , symbols, oxymorons, natural images and personifications to mix the prose- like form with poetical distinction to create a unique and outstanding atmosphere.

Romanticism and emotional impact of Lorca's poems together with surrealistic features influenced Shamlou to create  love poems that are unique and somehow weird to Persian readers.

Combination of allegory and abstraction together with cultural and poetical universal themes contribute to rich mode of expressions and aesthetical textures of both poets.

 

"Shamlou became a great poet of love, a poet as well of the natural world. But it was a love and a nature infused with a mystical otherness"

O Fairy in human form
whose body would not burn
except in the fire of illusion
your presence is a paradise
justifying escape from hell
it is an ocean overwhelming me
to wash me clean
of every lie
and of every sin.
And the dawn awakens by your hands.
- From Aida in the Mirror (trans. E. Kho'i)

 

Lorca defines his love and affection to his beloved through combination of nature with delicate feeling behind his words

No one understood the perfume
of the dark magnolia of your womb.
Nobody knew that you tormented
a hummingbird of love between your teeth

A thousand Persian little horses fell asleep
in the plaza with moon of your forehead,
while through four nights I embraced
your waist, enemy of the snow

 

Everyday speech style of these two poets and the exclusive power of wording, description, wonderful imaging and emotional portraying the message through the intense natural images are common features that distinguished their works from simple stereotyped rendering in their era.

Distancing from traditional poetry and going beyond what a romantics and surrealist reader expects to satiate the feeling of their curiosity and uniqueness of Shamlou's poems is possibly influenced by the ambitious and insatiable spirit of Lorca's poems but with lessoning their ambiguity and complication in some ways.Lorca and Shamlou's poems are admired because of their deep concepts of liberality, love, affection and passion.

Some of common figures of speech used both in Lorca's and Shamlou's poems

 

 

Now I will discuss the common figures of speech used by Shamlou and Lorca to clarify the artistic and poetic impact of Lorca on Shamlou. I represented them by giving some evidences and examples in both Lorca and Shamlou's poems.

 The highlighted words show poetical literary personification.

 

Personification in Lorca's poems:

 

Adam

 

Adam dreams in the fever of the clay
of a child who comes galloping
through the double pulse of his cheek

 

 

City That Does Not Sleep

The living iguanas will come and bite the men who do not dream,
and the man who rushes out with his spirit broken will meet on the
street corner
the unbelievable alligator quiet beneath the tender protest of the
stars.

 

Another day
we will watch the preserved butterflies rise from the dead
and still walking through a country of gray sponges and silent boats

 

 

 

 

Personification in Shamlou's poem:

 

From "Bagh-e Ayeneh" first published in the anthology Bagh-e Ayeneh (Garden of Mirrors), 1956:

 

 

Within the wild cries of the lightening

As-if in plain conception of the rains

in the restless womb of the clouds,

 

Within the silent pain of the vines

when the embryo of grape growing on the end of their limbs,

Trans. MARYAM DILMAGHANI

 

 

 

فریادهای عاصیِ آذرخش ــ
هنگامی که تگرگ
                     در بطنِ بی‌قرارِ ابر
                                           نطفه می‌بندد

و دردِ خاموش‌وارِ تاک ــ
هنگامی که غوره‌ی خُرد
                             در انتهای شاخسارِ طولانیِ پیچ‌پیچ جوانه می‌زند

 

Symbols in Lorca's poem: 

 

Gacela of the Dark Death

I want to sleep the dream of the apples,
to withdraw from the tumult of cemetries.
I want to sleep the dream of that child
who wanted to cut his heart on the high seas

 

I want to sleep awhile,
awhile, a minute, a century;
but all must know that I have not died;
that there is a stable of gold in my lips;
that I am the small friend of the West wind;
that I am the intense shadows of my tears

Here "apples" are a symbol of "Garden Of Eden", and the "child" symbolizes the " renewal" and regeneration. Another symbol used by Lorca in this poem is "stable of gold" as reference of Christ's nativity and "west wind" as spring.( Robert C. Allen) Lorca delicately symbolized what he thought not in a an clear way but he wanted to apply the symbols and words that are in nature have complexity of  duality of meanings. For instance, the child also represents a possible lover, the "high seas" also have underlying meaning as "death", and the "stable of gold" also implies the wild violence of horses. This kind of symbolizing shows the heavy ambiguity and obscurity behind the symbols in Lorca's poems and sometimes it is difficult to clarify the meaning certainly.

.

Now I will refer to the Shamlou's poem, "Vasl", first published in the anthology Lahzeh-ha va Hamisheh (Eternity and Moments) ,1964 that contains the symbols that the poet, like Lorca, used them to represent some meaning. But here we can say that possibly Shamlou didn't use the symbols with the complexity of duality of meanings.

 

Symbols in Shamlou's poem:

 

It is me,

Pulling out the nails

with my bare teeth

Yet holding wide open arms

 

آنک منم
میخِ صلیب از کفِ دستان به دندان برکنده

Here "the nails" is symbols of agony of poet and he struggled to fight with this agony produced by the oppression of sphere in  his era.

 

Now

It is me,

standing by the broken cross

high, straight

lifted like a wail

آنک منم
          پا بر صلیبِ باژگون نهاده
با قامتی به بلندیِ فریاد

 As an allusion to the event of crucifying the Jesus in Christianity, poet likens himself to Jesus that had been oppressed by ignorant people. Shamlou symbolized "Broken cross" as defeated sphere and suppressed difficulties in his lifetime.

 

 

 

 

 

 

No!

I could never believe the dark.

For the hope of a window,

at the end of such tight pass way,

was always shining in my heart

Trans. MARYAM DILMAGHA

 

هرگز شب را باور نکردم
چرا که
       در فراسوهای دهلیزش
به امیدِ دریچه‌یی
                    دل بسته بودم

Here Shamlou uses "the night" possibly as a symbol of "oppression" and "subjugation".

 

OXYMORON: A rhetorical figure in which incongruous or contradictory terms are combined

 

 

 

 

Oxymoron elements in Lorca's poems:

 

Aroblé, Aroblé…

 

The girl with the pretty face
keeps on picking olives
with the grey arm of the wind
wrapped around her waist.
Tree, tree
dry and green

 

 

 

Before the Dawn

Upon the green night
the piercing saetas
leave traces of warm
lily.

 

 

 

 

Adam

 

A tree of blood soaks the morning
where the newborn woman groans

 

 

Oxymoron elements in Shamlou's poems:

 

From "Bagh-e Ayeneh" first published in the anthology Bagh-e Ayeneh (Garden of Mirrors), 1956.

 

Your bliss

is merciless indeed,

yet so gracious

 

And your breath

striking over the palm of my hands

feels like a green song

Trans. MARYAM DILMAGHANI

 

 

 

شادیِ تو بی‌رحم است و بزرگوار
نفس‌ات در دست‌های خالیِ من ترانه و سبزی‌ست

 

 

From "Safar" first published in the anthology Phoenix in The Rain in 1966

 

It surely was a sea

And It surely was dead and  dead for a long while

For its falling frail sky

was a grey roof over the spotless stillness

of winds, of waves and of its moist rays of light) sunlight: my translation)

with no sign of the breathing of any star

The sun in that land,

was swinging in the vastness of sphere

ceaselessly wandering  around a fearful doubt

a fearful doubt: to rise or to fall.

Trans. MARYAM DILMAGHANI

 

 

 

 

به دریایی مرده درآمدیم
                            با آسمان سربیِ كوتاهش
كه موج و باد را
به سكونی جاودانه
 مسخ كرده بود،
و آفتابی رطوبت‌زده
كه در فراخیِ بی‌تصمیمیِ خویش
                                        سرگردانی می‌كشید
در تردیدِ میانِ فرونشستن و برخاستن
به ولنگاری
            یله بود

 

 

 

 

The concept of "love" in Lorca's and Shamlou's poems.

 

 

The Lorca's poems are the very poem of love. The words of love create the bridge between human feeling and external world.

Lorca is skillful at making the equivalence of word and feeling seem real. Language, desire, the elemental and the more-than-real blend together. In Lorca's works, love inevitably points to question of power, oppression, repression , subjectivity and identity: "there is no longer a Lorca without Foucault and Freud , without feminism, theories of body, between various emerging eroticism"(Bristow,pp.197-228)

Creating an unstable but highly persuasive equivalence between love, nature and sexuality, Lorca's technical construction of equivalence of sign and feeling, "sex", ‘love' and ‘nature' surprised modern readers, who was producing ideas and images at a time their minds are making the psycho relation between these elements while reading the poems. The equivalences used by Lorca also tend to misrepresent the scope of Lorca's writing on love, ignoring the fact , especially in the poetry there is  wide ‘variety of perspectives on love'(Walters,p.191)

Lorca is strong on companionship, on spiritual love, on love as commitment to others and to the fight against social injustice about women, homosexual men and black people (Ucelay, p.97).

 

However, sometimes, the complexity  of love description  takes the reader away from bodily conceptualizations.

As maintained by Feal Deibe (1973),  violence of unrequited passion between men and women in Lorca's work is attributable to fear of the woman .

The ‘sonnet of the Garland of Roses' works with sudden contrast, indicates discrepancy in the exchange of Love (Anderson 1990, p.313)

Another of his attitude toward love was his homosexual feelings.

As his writings of homosexual feeling we can refer to: "Ode to Walt Whitman," the dramatic piece "The Public", and the unfinished "The Destruction of Sodom".

"Ode to Walt Whitman," published in Mexico in 1934 in a limited edition of fifty copies, but never published in Spain during Lorca's lifetime. It  indicates the poet's own contradictions respecting homosexuality. "The ode represents a moralistic tone by making a clear distinction between a pure and desexualized homosexual love".

.

 

Now I would represent some evidences of different meanings and manifestations of the concept of love in Lorca's poems.

 

 

Ditty of First Desire

 In the green morning
I wanted to be a heart.
A heart.

 

 (Soul,
turn orange-colored.
Soul,
turn the color of love.)

 Songs, 1921-1924
translated by Alan S. Trueblood

در صبح سبز

می خواهم یک عشق باشم

می خواهم عشق باشم

 

روح ام سرخ شد

روح ام رنگ عشق شد

 

 

Here perhaps we can feel the satisfaction of Lorca with love but there is no specific beloved here the poet is serious about his love and insisted on  that as a volition. He wants to fall in love (positive attitude toward love), but in the next poem I will show the exact carnal and erotic meaning of love in Lorca's poems that confuses the reader. 

 

 

In "faithless wife" he shows lust and carnal desire to the woman that had husband but she pretended that she is a maiden.

In the farthest street corners
I touched her sleeping breasts
and they opened to me suddenly
like spikes of hyacinth.
The starch of her petticoat
sounded in my ears
like a piece of silk
rent by ten knives

در گوشه‌ي دنج خيابان
سينه‌هاي لرزانش را به‌دست گرفتم
ناگهان چون سنبل بر من شكفتند.
و صداي لغزش زير دامني‌اش
مثل تكه‌اي حرير
در گوشم پيچيد

I took off my tie,
she too off her dress.
I, my belt with the revolver,
She, her four bodices.
Nor nard nor mother-o'-pearl
have skin so fine,
nor does glass with silver
shine with such brilliance.
Her thighs slipped away from me
like startled fish,
half full of fire,
half full of cold

كراواتم را درآوردم
او لباس‌اش را
كمربندم را كه هفت‌تيري برآن بود كندم
او نيم‌تنه‌اش را.
هيچ صدف و مرواريدي
پوستي چنان دلپذير نداشت
و هيچ بلور نقرفامي
چنان درخشندگي‌اي.
ران‌هايش مي‌گريختند از دستانم
چون ماهي جهنده
و تنش
نيمي آتش و
نيمي يخ.
آن شب

 

In "Seranata" again there is the manifestation of interwoven sexual love and the grief " 

 

The night soaks itself
along the shore of the river
and in Lolita's breasts
the branches die of love

بر کناره‌های رود
شب را بنگرید که در آب غوطه می‌خورد.
و بر پستان‌های لولیتا
دسته‌گل‌ها از عشق می‌میرند

 

 

Naked the night sings
above the bridges of March.
Lolita bathes her body
with salt water and roses.

The branches die of love

(Translated from Spanish by Derek Parker)

 

بر فراز پل‌های اسفندماه
شب عریان به آوازی بم خواناست.
تن می‌شوید لولیتا
در آب ِ شور و سنبل ِ رومی.
دسته‌گل‌ها از عشق می‌میرند

 

Now I will represent some of the poems of Shamlou that transfer the same theme, erotic and carnal love of his beloved woman, Ayda, in the anthology of  "Ayda dar ayeneh( Ayda in the mirror)

 

"Your kisses

are chattering sparrows of the orchard

Your breasts

 

the hive of all the hillsides

your body

 

an eternal mystery

 

granted to me

 

in an immense privacy."

 

بوسه‌های تو

گنجشکَکانِ پُرگوی باغ‌اند
و پستان‌هایت کندوی کوهستان‌هاست
و تنت
رازی‌ست جاودانه
که در خلوتی عظیم
                       با من‌اش در میان می‌گذارند

 

In another poem, Ayda in the mirror(ayda dar ayeneh) from the anthology of "Ayda in the mirror",  Shamlou describes the sexual love in the kisses of his beloved.

 

Your lips are as delicate as a poem

Your lips turns the erotic kisses into

 Such a pleasant shame with

that a cave animate

turns into a human being

(My translation)

لبانت
     به ظرافتِ شعر
شهوانی‌ترینِ بوسه‌ها را به شرمی چنان مبدل می‌کند
که جاندارِ غارنشین از آن سود می‌جوید
تا به صورتِ انسان درآید

 

In "before dawn" Lorca possibly fears of love and complains that love is blind and unreasonable and also he confessed his hopelessness or opposition to that.

"But like love
the archers
are blind"

In "farewell" (Bedrood) from the anthology of "fresh air", Shamlou is also hopeless and has a negative attitude as Lorca toward love that is manifested in the anthology of "fresh air"

The gods didn't save me

Your union didn't save me either

Your heart beside me was meaningless

Your heart beside me was in compassionate (my translation)

. خدایان نجاتم نمی‌دادند
پیوندِ تُردِ تو نیز
نجاتم نداد

کنارِ من قلبت آینه‌یی نبود
کنارِ من قلبت بشری نبود...

 

Respectively, Shamlou's poem "Roxana" represents longing for his lost beloved, whose voice informs him of his inadequacy: "If you were capable of coming, I would have taken you with me. / You would have become a cloud and upon our meeting fire would have / sparked from our hearts and brightened up the sea and the sky."

 

 

This theme of disappointment and regret reminds us the same in one of Lorca's poems, "ode to Walt Whitman".

"Not for a moment, Walt Whitman, lovely old man,
have I failed to see your beard full of butterflies,…"

 

As can be seen, not exact but similar fluctuation of   the attitudes toward love is apparent in Shamlou's poems like ones of Lorca.

 Comparison between Roxana and "ode to Walt Whitman" shows that in Shamlou's poems the language has an almost Whitmanian scope, and also the focus of meaning is on the lost beloved just like Lorca's poems.

According to Federico Bonaddio in Lorca's poems we can see different attitudes and in some parts complicated and vague toward love. In some of his poems because of the symbolic and surrealistic style of his language it is difficult to judge and distinct whether there is a real or beyond real manifestation of love or beloved. For instance, in Lorca's Sonnets of Dark Love, the beloved's sex is not explicitly recognizable. But I think this complexity and ambiguity is much less than in Shamlou's poems. Maybe since the level of tolerance of ambiguity for Persian readers and west readers are different.

Shamlou is mostly influenced by Lorca in the style, theme a, figures of speech, imagery ,atmosphere, and  the texture of poems.

As the climax of his manifestation of love in his poems maybe  we can refer to " ayda in the mirror" in which we are evident that the character of woman with its real appearance as a female is illustrated by Shamlou  and the relation between a  man and a woman( lover and beloved) is clarified  and is different from the " lyric of last solitude"(ghazal-e akharin enzeva)in which Shamlou describes himself as a child that he is dependent on the love of her beloved as a mother( relation of mother and the child instead of man and woman). In " Ayda in the mirror" the poet that was sick of people and oppression of sphere fell in love with his beloved ‘Ayda' and describes his love and passion.

 

 

The concept of freedom in Lorca's and Shamlou's poems

Lorca as a humanist poet and anti-fascists   was a patriot and he loved the people of his country. "his  poems, especially the Gypsy Ballads, describe the 'guardians civil' as the natural enemies of both gypsies and marginal figures including against anarchists that were popular in rural areas of Southern Spain".

The emphasis of Lorca's work is on the desire to give back the rights of marginalised people (the poor, gypsies, and women).

Respectively, Lorca announced in his manifesto On Sat. 15 Feb. 1936, the day before the Spanish

Election, Mundo obrero (the communist newspaper): "Political parties separated by considerable theoretical divergences, but united in defense of freedom and the

Republic, have wisely joined forces in the formation of a broadly based Popular Front. We intellectuals, artists and members of the liberal professions would fail in our duty if,

at this time of undeniable political gravity, we refrained from making public our opinion on a situation of such importance" (From Ian Gibson's The death of Lorca. Published in Chicago by J. Philip  O'Hara, Inc. in 1973).

 

Lorca wanted to write for his people to warn them of the oppression of the government and disclose all the truths about savagery of political men in his country. His life is summarized in his struggle to resist against injustice and invite the people in his poems to break the silence.

Accordingly, illustration of oppression has been represented in one of Lorca's poems that I will discuss here.

In his poem "ballads of the Spanish civil guard" he made images, with his wonderful imagery tactics, about the oppressors that threaten the deep concept of freedom.

When night came near,
night that night deepened,
the gypsies at their forges
beat out suns and arrows.
A badly wounded stallion
knocked against all the doors.
Roosters of glass were crowing
through Jerez de la Frontera.

چندان که شب فرود می آمد
شب ، شبِ کامل ،
کولیان بر سندان های خویش
پیکان و خورشید می ساختند.
اسبی خون آلوده
بر درهای گنگ می کوفت

 خروسانِ شیشه یی بانگ سر می دادند.

          *

The city, free from fear,
multiplied its doors.
Forty civil guards
enter them to plunder.
The clocks came to a halt,

شهر ، آزاد از هراس
درهایش را تکثیر می کرد.
چهل گارد سیویل
از پی تاراج بدان در آمدند.
ساعت ها از حرکت باز ایستاد

Like Lorca, Shamlou struggled against oppression. He found himself in prison more than once.  He was one of the first to warn of the injustice in his famous poem "In This Deadend":

They smell your breath.
You better not have said, "I love you."
They smell your heart.
These are strange times, darling...
And they flog
love
at the roadblock.
We had better hide love in the closet...
In this crooked dead end and twisting chill,
they feed the fire
with the kindling of song and poetry.
Do not risk a thought.
These are strange times, darling...
He who knocks on the door at midnight
has come to kill the light.
We had better hide light in the closet...
Those there are butchers
stationed at the crossroads
with bloody clubs and cleavers.
These are strange times, darling...
And they excise smiles from lips
and songs from mouths.
We had better hide joy in the closet...
Canaries barbecued
on a fire of lilies and jasmine,
these are strange times, darling...
Satan drunk with victory
sits at our funeral feast.
We had better hide God in the closet.
- (trans. M.C. Hillmann)

"He had a lifelong commitment to freedom", while the troubles of his country sometimes made him disappointed.

In his anthology of "Abraham in the fire" he illustrated his social and political attitudes toward "freedom" , "patriotism" and his oppressed people.

In "herald"(esharati) from the anthology of "Abraham in Fire"(1973), the poet  claims for freedom and transfers  his message to all his people as " to achieve the freedom" and he is regretful that he didn't succeed in achieving  the freedom in his era. So he asks the reader to do their best to achieve this precious stone.

We,

We possessed all the mighty words of this world

and we did not speak.

We did not speak

of the long awaited Name!

 

For we were not denied any word

but one word,

-One Word-

Freedom!

***

We did not speak

we did not speak of the Word

But you drew.

You draw!

Trans. MARYAM DILMAGHANI

 

 

 

تمامی‌ الفاظِ جهان را در اختیار داشتیم
آن نگفتیم
           که به کار آید
چرا که تنها یک سخن
                          یک سخن در میانه نبود:
ــ آزادی!

ما نگفتیم

تو تصویرش

 

 

 

 

 
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Has A Self Help "guru" Ripped You Off?

Copyright (c) 2010 Willie Horton

We have recently witnessed the furore over the deaths of three people in a "sweat lodge" in Arizona during a "Spiritual Warrior" retreat run by self-help guru James Ray who has now been charged with three counts of manslaughter as a result. Allegations from participants in the retreat include that people who were complaining of feeling faint or dizzy or who were clearly feeling the effects of dehydration were forced to stay in the sweat lodge, whilst others claim that a thirty six hour enforced fast also played its part in the tragedy. Whatever truly happened will, no doubt, emerge in time - but the key question has to be asked as to why people would pay up to $9,000 to be subjected to a rite of passage such as this.

The current publicity surrounding this incident masks a deeper unease that the public should have with people who encourage their followers to believe them to be gurus because no one needs a guru, you don't need any representative to act on your behalf on introducing you to your true inner self. You don't need to become dependent on someone else to help your self to emerge. Self help means that, ultimately, you've got to help yourself.

I've been working with people since 1996 and regularly come across the ill-effects of guru dependence. One guy told me that he didn't know how he would survive the next six months because he'd been told to attend the Annual European Sales Conference of his company on the same weekend that he'd booked his "annual pilgrimage" (his words, not mine) to partake of Tony Robbins at London's Excel Centre. "How will I do without my Tony fix?" he asked - and he was serious. And, it is serious - if you're seeking the inner you, you need to detach yourself from the transient things of this world that drag the normal soul down - you certainly don't need to attach yourself to some new addiction.

I've had to assist people in re-directing their minds away from clearly self-destructive (either in a business, personal or relationship sense) courses of action that "came to them" in the pressure-cooker, cult-like environment of one or other self-help guru's retreat. One guy ended up stalking his ex-girlfriend after being encouraged to "follow his heart" (repeatedly chanted at him) in some form of "group therapy" session. He was told that positive thinking would bring her to him (suggesting his thoughts could control someone else - very dangerous). Indeed, if you want to explore the havoc that positive thinking can wreak, take a look at Barbara Ehrenreich's latest book, "Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World".

But back to my point - and another client who I had to assist. He had just returned from a $90,000 (yes, you read that right!) two-week retreat to find his wife had left him - she discovered that he had taken out a new mortgage on his home to pay the $90,000. The staff of the guru in question are well known for arranging multiple car loans for those who wish to attend but who don't have the wherewithal to re-mortgage their house. I was informed by my client that he was told that this guru believed himself to be jesus christ re-incarnate and that he "recollected giving the Sermon on the Mount" - some saviour though because, having a penchant for large-breasted girls, the front row of his retreats were jokingly known as "Silicon Valley"!!

Why am I giving you these details? I want to make a couple of very important points. Number One: All of us need all the help we can get to find our true passion, discover our inner potential and live life to the full. But only a fool would take a paracetamol for a headache and then become addicted. Number Two: You don't need anyone to come between you and God (however you define God) - all major spiritual traditions intimate that we are an integral part of the divine, quantum physics states that we are an indivisible, quantum entangled part of the underlying entity. Find God by finding your inner self - not by becoming hooked on some guru.

Number Three: Self help means helping yourself. Yes, as I've said, we all need guidance - we all know, in truth, little or nothing about our universe and our place in it. Most of us instinctively feel, however, that there is more to life than meets the eye - and we want that "more". Not only that, it is ours as a natural inheritance. But the journey to discovery (of the self and our purpose) is one we can only make for ourselves. Sure, we need the signposts but each step taken is a step that can only be taken alone.

So, by all means, read your self-help books, watch your self-help DVDs, participate in your self-help seminars - but use them as nothing more than the valuable resources they are to assist you on your journey - for to arrive you need to free yourself from all attachment.

About the Author

Willie Horton's acclaimed two-day
personal development seminars
have been running for thirteen years. He teaches that a clear and present state of mind creates extra-ordinary personal and business success. His vast expertise is now available in his Online Workshop at Gurdy.Net. His website also offers daily free personal development video seminars, articles and a
Free Personal Development Ezine
published every Monday morning.

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The Origins Of The Wedding Ring

The use of the wedding ring as a symbol of the bond between husband and wife is familiar to us as the concept of marriage itself, but from where did this interesting tradition emerge? The history of wedding rings as they are known today is actually unclear. In an article dating from the July 1869 issue of Appleton's Journal of popular Literature, Science, and Art, Edward J. Wood hypothesizes that the modern (modern as of 1869) use of wedding rings stems from the practices of ancient Hebrews. It was customary for the family of a prospective groom to give gifts to the potential bride and her family. The general assumption is that it is from this tradition that the use of wedding rings as we know them seems to have evolved.

Wedding rings are not specifically mentioned in the Bible, but references do exist that suggest the aforementioned Hebrew practices. Genesis 24:53 in the King James Version reads, "And the servant brought forth jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment, and gave them to Rebekah: he gave also to her brother and to her mother precious things," speaking of the servant of Abraham, the father of Isaac, who was to wed Rebekah. The wedding ring first came into use in Christian wedding ceremonies around 870 A.D.

The tradition of wearing a wedding ring on the fourth finger of the left hand also comes from the ancients. In ancient Greece it was believed that an artery from that particular finger led directly to the heart. While we now know this is pure mythology, it does serve as a rather romantic explanation for the tradition.

Although the concept of the wedding ring is obviously very old, the ring was almost always worn by the bride. Double-ring wedding ceremonies are rather new. Wedding rings for men were almost unheard of before 1940 and increased in use about the time of the Second World War. According to an October 1953 story in Hobbies, only about 15% of wedding ceremonies included a ring for the groom. After the start of World War II, the percentage jumped to 60%, and then to 70% after the start of the Korean war. Today it is more common than not for grooms and brides alike to wear a wedding ring.

So, why a wedding ring, as opposed to, say, a wedding bracelet or necklace? Religious ceremonies usually include a mention by the officiating clergyman of the ring's unending circle being representative of both God's perfect love for humanity and the marrying couple's undivided devotion to one another.

While the precise origin of the wedding ring is unclear and lost to history, today we recognize the wedding ring as a symbol of the unity of marriage. The couples of today also generally choose their wedding rings together, thus adding to the personal symbolism that the jewelry carries for them. Additionally, the wedding ring serves as a social symbol in today's world, signifying to others that this man or woman is "spoken for."

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Keeping Your Lawn Healthy And Beautiful

Lawns are not so puzzling if viewed as populations of grass plants which have the usual plant requirements for growth and survival. Simple reasoning then suggests timing and frequency of fertilization, steady mowing - not so severe as to cut away large portions of vital green leaf - seasonal weeding to lessen competition for the grass and other practices appropriate for the kind of grass planted.

Today even the most amateurish lawn owner can procure effective, ready-to-use products, with the directions for use simply stated on the package. Laborious practices have fallen before science and research.

Soils and Seedbed

Lawn making, like any gardening, is helped by good soils. But a little extra attention can make up for poorer soil, so don't be disheartened should your lawn be upon subsoil from a basement excavation. Fertilizer and grass roots can turn this into "topsoil," and in most cases purchase of topsoil is not necessary.

For a new lawn, till the soil several inches deep, breaking up the compacted layers. Grade and rake level, with the land sloped for drainage away from the house. Avoid steep slopes, impoundments, obstructions that will be in the way of mowing convenience. The surface need not be pulverized; in fact a dusty fineness will cake, inhibiting sprouting and leading to soil wash.

Incorporate ample plant food. This is the last chance to get fertilizer into the root zone without disturbing the grass. Almost any complete fertilizer is suitable, but especially should phosphorus be mixed in. Phosphorous is "fixed" by soil, will not move readily downward from the top. Twenty pounds of 12-12-12, or something equivalent, to 1,000 sq. ft. is not a heavy rate for most seedbeds.

Choice of Grass

Next comes the all-important choice of grass. The kind of grass will determine the appearance of the lawn, and guide maintenance practices.

For the northern area there are three main grasses - Kentucky bluegrasses, red fescues, and bentgrasses. Bentgrass requires extra attention, and is best left to the specialist. Kentucky bluegrass and red fescue have similar growth habits and make good companions. The bluegrasses do best in open situations and on good soil, while the red fescues are adaptable

The short-lived ryegrasses and coarse tall fescues (Kentucky 31 and Alta) are frequent ingredients of inexpensive mixtures. They are quick to sprout, but smother the slower permanent grasses. With mulching commonly practiced nowadays, there is little need for quick nurse grasses in a seed mixture. Reject seed mixtures which contain more than a very minor per cent of rye grass, and don't use tall fescues at all for fine lawns.

Watering

Constant moisture is vital to sprout seed or start new sprigs. Established and well fertilized turf rarely dies from lack of water. Of course, during summer drought grass tends to brown, and then watering determines whether the lawn will be green or not. Obviously, watering can help the weeds as well as the grass.

Mowing

Bermudas, Zoysias and bents have low trailing growth, can be mowed rather closely (usually 3/4 to 1 inch). Blue-grasses, the Fescues, St. Augustine, Carpet and Bahia prefer somewhat higher mowing (1 to 3 inches; the more difficult the climate, the more is high mowing apt to help the grass). Centipede is intermediate.

For close mowing, reel mowers usually are preferred; they do a precision job.

7 Basic Steps to Having a Good Lawn

1. Prepare a good seedbed for a new lawn, amply fertilized.
2. Choose quality grass - bluegrass mixtures in the North, sprigs or seed of choice in the South.
3. Mulch the seedbed after seeding, then water regularly until the new grass is established.
4. Mow whenever the grass grows an inch, and keep it mowed (high in
difficult climates).
5. Fertilize generously, especially at seasons just preceding greatest grass growth.
6. Weed if needed, by hand or chemically. If the latter, follow product
directions carefully.
7. Above all, plan procedures so as to not overtax time or budget, so that you can really enjoy having a lawn.

Follow these guidelines and you will have a lawn to be proud of.

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