Here a man is praying in the Blue Mosque in Istanbul which is truly blue and big.
At nighttime in Istanbul, the imams in the Blue mosque and the Haya Sofia sing the call to prayer together and alternate verses so that their voices twist together like two big birds spiraling into the sky. It is very nice, Istanbul at nighttime.
It was Eid-al Adha, and blood was good luck. This is the holiday to remember Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son. Just as Ibrahim was about to send the knife down, he heard a voice from heaven telling him to stop.
This is like a modern day Ibrahim, but without the voice. He has been sacrificing sheep all day, and Cairo’s streets are running with blood. If you think he is cruel, you must remember that this is his job. He is a poor man on a rich street, and people have been bringing him sheep all day, and asking him to do the killing. The look in his eye, I think, reveals that all of this killing is not his.
In Islam, there is a specific way of killing an animal. First, you must separate the animal from its friends, so that no one has to see the violence. Next, you must give the animal a bit of water and a bit of food. Then you blindfold the animal. You say a prayer to thank God for the animal, to say “Do not be afraid, because the same force that is taking your life now will one day take my life as well, and that is just the way.”
It is unclear which of these provisions are followed on Eid. Certainly not all of them, and certainly not all the time.
Mr. Khalil Gibran wrote how it is that people must kill animals. He said:
Would that you could live on the fragrance of the earth, and like an air plant be sustained by the light.
But since you must kill to eat, and rob the newly born of its mother’s milk to quench your thirst, let it be an act of worship.
And let your board stand an altar on which the pure and the innocent of the forest and plain are sacrificed for that which is purer and still more innocent in man.
And when you crush an apple with your teeth, say to it in your heart,
“Your seeds shall live in my body,
And the buds of your tomorrow shall blossom in my heart,
And your fragrance shall be my breath,
And together we shall rejoice through all the seasons.”
In this photo, soon-to-be-monk Nimal is using a stone to teach me how to write my name in Sinhala. We are high above the jungle on one of two giant rocky outcrops in the valley near Anuradhapura. The one we are on contains me and Nimal. The other (visible in the background) is Sigiriya, a massive stone on the top of which are the ruins of an ancient palace. Nimal led the way up the stone, announcing that when he turned 13 he was due to begin his training as a monk. He was excited, he said, but felt that he might suffer in his training as he wasn’t sure if he would get enough food as a monk.
This is similar to the attitude held by Ruwanga, who, seeing a statue of the meditating Buddha when he was ten, told me, “I would like to become a Buddha, but my legs would hurt.”
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Wake up, wake up,
Sleeping butterfly,
And let us be companions!
-Basho
The flying butterfly:
I feel myself
A creature of dust.
-Issa
Of the second poem, Mr. R.H. Blythe (haiku expert) says:
Besides and beyond the dissatisfaction of the poet with himself, there is the light, free joyousness of the insect and that of Issa breaking through our heavy earthiness. He who feels himself a creature of dust has already passed beyond this state into a region of light and air.
The photo was taken secretly and swiftly at the Ye Olde Curiousity Shoppe in Seattle. That is a good place to be and I go there as often as possible to see the freak pig and flattened walrus face.
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An old Turk tries his luck one last time on the Bosporus.
Taken about a year ago in Istanbul.