The Pilgrimage

The following poem is by George Herbert. I hope you enjoy reading it.

I traveled on, seeing the hill where lay
My expectation.
A long it was and weary way.
The gloomy cave of desperation
I left on th'one, and on the other side
The rock of pride.

And so I came to fancy's meadow, strowed
With many a flower;
Fain would I here have made abode
But I was quickened by my hour.
So to care's copse I came, and there got through
With much ado.

That led me to the wild of passion, which
Some call the wold
A wasted place but sometimes rich.
Here I was robbed of all my gold
Save one good angel, which a friend had tied
Close to my side.

At length I got unto the gladsome hill
Where lay my hope,
Where lay my heart; and, climbing still,
When I had gained the brow and top,
A lake of brackish waters on the ground
Was all I found.

With that abashed, and struck with many a sting
Of swarming fears,
I fell, and cried, "Alas, my king!
Can both the way and end be tears?"
Yet taking heart I rose, and then perceived
I was deceived:

My hill was further; so I flung away,
Yet heard a cry,
Just as I went: None goes that way
And lives: "If that be all, "said I,
"After so foul a journey, death is fair,
And but a chair."

Listen to me Please

He sometimes feels sick of holding so many wicked people in his heart. His biggest wish is to move from its place to somewhere that no soul could ever live in him. He loves to be isolated form his people since Tehranis have shown no mercy to him. The city can only breathe at night when everyone is asleep and when the wind had moved the polluted air to Varamin. Tehran hates its situation but is too weak and tired to take action against its enemy. He have attempt to change his situation long before but it didn't help. He is tired of listening to the sound of his tears. There have been some people who felt sorry for him but none tried to help. He knows that the world will end somewhere bright and warm and that is the only thing that keeps him alive.

Sadeq Hedayat

"My life appeared to me as unnatural, uncertain and incredible as the design on the pencase I am using at this moment. It seems that a painter who has been possessed, perhaps a perfectionist, has painted the cover of this pencase. Often, when I look at this design, it seems familiar; perhaps it is because of this design that I write or perhaps this design makes me write."

He is an Iranian Famous writer. He was born in 1903 to an aristocratic family. He was education at the best schools in Tehran. In 1925, he traveled to Europe to continue his Studies. In the French high school, Lycée Français, in Tehran he become accustom to western literature. He was affected by the works of some western's writes such as Franz Kafka, Edgar Allen Poe, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Anton Chekhov. In 1930 he came back to Iran and he held different official jobs. Se qatre khun (three Drops of Blood), Alaviyeh Khanum (Madame Alaviyeh), vagh vagh sahab (mister bow wow), Haji Agha (Mr.Haji) are some of his collection of his short stoires. Parvin Dokhtar-e sasan (Parvin, sassan's daughter), Maziyar, and Afsaneye Afarinesh (The Fable of Creation)are his plays. His most famous work is "The Blind Owl" which has been translated into English, German, French, Indian, and Urdu.

Meat No More

They are many reasons that some people become vegetarians. Some want to improve their health and loss weight. Many of them find it immoral to kill and eat animals. Some are concern with the issue of environment and world hunger. All of their reasons are acceptable. It's essential to know whether or not meat is the appropriate food for human physically and ethically.

When we look at nature wild animal kill and eat others. They do this by nature. Their body and biology have been created in a way that they can only eat meat. Their teeth, jaws, paws, and their stomach have been created for eating meat. So we can say they only eat meat since they can't eat anything else. But humans' body and biology is not the same as wild animals. Human's delicate fingers and round shiny teeth, and stomach have nothing to do with jumping on back of a zebra and tearing its skin and eating it. So meat is not the real food of human. If it was humans never had to cook meats and use lots of spice in order to make it tasty. Unlike wild animals humans have other choices in eating like vegetables and fruits.


Experiments have shown that having no meat dishes reduces the risks of heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes mellitus, and some forms of cancer. It is believe that vegetarians don't get essential amino acids from vegetable proteins. But studies have shown that all of the essential amino acid can be found in non meat sources. And there is no need for vegetarians to combine plant protein sources in each meal since "the human body can store essential amino acids and combine them as necessary." www. primusweb.com.

Ethically killing and eating animals is wrong. It's true that animals don't have common sense but they do have feelings and there is no doubt that they feel fear when we want to kill them. If you catch a squeal you will feel that its heart is beating fast. This shows they do feel fear and they like they life instinctually. We didn't give them the right to live so who are we to take that away from them. And if each of us has had to provide his/her daily meat who had had the guts to do so. Who could take a knife and cut the sheep's head off with lots of blood splashing. Killing and eating animals is not what individuals' desire. So providing meat is very different form providing fruit and vegetables and it's not the human desire to kill and eat.

In the end, it is not strange if someone doesn't eat meat. Eating vegetables and fruits are physically and ethically right. Human have been created biologically to eat vegetables and fruits.


(Some of the famous vegetarians are Leonardo Da Vinci, Charles Darwin, Socrates, Plato, Sir Isaac Newton, Thomas Edison, and Mark Twain)

http://www.primusweb.com/fitnesspartner/library/nutrition/vegetarian.htm#famous%20vegetarians

the picture is from:http://www.diabetes-diabetic-diet.com/images/vegetarian

For more information see Hedayat's book"favayedeh giyahkhari"

Take Time to

A few days ago one of my Friends sent me the following poem. Take time to read it

TAKE THE TIME


Take time to love
It is the secret of eternal youth

Take time to laugh
It is the music of the heart

Take time to cry
It is the sign of a large heart

Take time to read
It is the source of knowledge

Take time to hear
It is the power of intelligence

Take time to think
It is the key of success

Take time to play
It is the freshness of childhood

Take time to dream
It is the breath of happiness

Take time to live
Because time passes quickly
And never returns
Happy road to life
my friend.

Historical Houses

There are a few historical houses in Kashan, a city near Esfahan. The antiquity of these houses is nearly 200 years. They show the art of the gifted Iranian architectures.
I visited those houses a month ago. Now I want to share some of its pictures with you. I hope you'll have a chance of visiting the place.








Alavi's historical house













Tabatabai's historaical house










Inner view of the house.
These windows with their colorful glasses give a different look to every room when the sun light passes them.

Raheleh Hajizadeh

The Celebration

I'm sure you all had seen horror movies or perhaps had some scary experience which had ended happily ever after. Well, my experience wasn't of that kind. It was 6 years ago no perhaps 6 years and 9 month ago. We were living in an old and gloomy house in London. I had some weird feeling about the place.

I woke up in the middle of the night. I looked at the clock it was 2:30 am. Wow, I had more than 4 hours time to sleep. "What a pleasure sleeping is" I thought, I put my heard on my pillow but suddenly I head a noise. Perhaps it was not a noise; I heard someone talking and then a loud laughter. But that was not a human being talking and laughing. Humans can never make those shape sounds. I was sure it was coming from the kitchen. I felt coldness in my body. A few minutes later I had few of them talking loudly together. From time to time they laughed all together. It seemed that one of them was telling the other how to kill one of the humans, they hated, and others laughed to show their agreement. I could imagine their faces while they were laughing. There were all in front of eyes with their gloomy and hairy faces, long eyebrows, and their skinny dark hands with long ugly fingernails which were coming to choke me. I couldn't breath I was scared to death. I felt beads of sweat rolling down my face. Then I heard them eating and drinking. At that moment I was sure they were celebrating perhaps a wedding, a birthday I had no idea. One of them open the refrigerator, then a sound of opening a bottle I was sure it was my grapes juice bottle. Then, I heard him pouring the juice for all of his friends. After dinking their juice they all made a very strange "haaaa" sound. I couldn't believe it how could they drink my grapes juice without asking me, mean creatures. They spend the rest of the night laughing and talking (also scaring me).then I remember what my sister told me two weeks ago. I remember how she tried to explain to me what sounds she had heard in the middle of the night. I don't remember how I went to sleep again. In the morning, when I got to the kitchen everything was in its place. It seemed that no one touched anything from the last night. But I was sure I heard them being here and celebrating something I tired to convince myself that I was wrong about those creatures gathering in the kitchen last night, perhaps I had a nightmare. I open the refrigerator to drink some but water found my grapes juice bottle empty! When of looked closer at the bottle I saw the dirty fingerprints of those skinny dark hands with their long ugly fingernails.

by Raheleh Hajizadeh

Yalda

My favorite Iranian custom





To begin I have to mention that all Iranian costumes are wonderful. In my opinion "Yalda's night" is a bit different from all. On the night of 21st of December which is the longest night of the year Iranians celebrate Yalda .Yalda meanes birth and it's the birth of sun and love because after Yalda the days become longer. Some believe Yalda came from Mithraism who celebrated the birth of eizadeh Mehr on this night. Whole the families gather and they try to spend the night with each other. Iranians eat watermelon, nuts, and pomegranate on this night. They believe eating watermelon on this night helps you body resist any illness during the coming winter .They read Hafez divan or Ferdowsi's epic poems on this night. They stay late at night and enjoy every second of their gathering. It’s hard to find an Iranian who does not have any nice memories of this night.

Translated by Raheleh Hajizadeh
http://www.vcn.bc.ca/oshihan/Pages/Yalda.htm

Roubaiyat of khayyam

Here are some Rubaiyat of khayyam, I hope you all enjoy it.


In childhood we strove to go to school,
Our turn to teach, joyous as a rule
The end of the story is sad and cruel
From dust we came, and gone with winds cool.


Khayam, if you are intoxicated with wine, enjoy!
If you are seated with a lover of thine, enjoy!
In the end, the Void the whole world employI
magine thou art not, while waiting in line, enjoy!

Heaven is incomplete without a heavenly romance
Let a glass of wine be my present circumstance
Take what is here now, let go of a promised chance
A drumbeat is best heard from a distance.

The secrets eternal neither you know nor I
And answers to the riddle neither you know nor I
Behind the veil there is much talk about us, why
When the veil falls, neither you remain nor I.

Links:
http://www.okonlife.com/poems/page2.htm
http://www.kellscraft.com/rubaiyatcontent.html