“Arise from sleep, old cat,
And with great yawns and stretchings…
Amble out for love”
― Issa, Japanese Haiku
photographed from Istanbul, 2014.
Tag: Journeys
clouds of fire.
“The blue of daylight
fades and chills as the sun sinks
beneath clouds of fire.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich, Making Wishes
Captured by Netta. Retouched by yours truly.
vitreous worlds
It’s about having the eye to see the internal within the external. It’s to probe purpose and beauty in chaos and noise. It requires patience, intention, and humility.
“Intellect is the knowledge obtained by the experience of names and forms; wisdom is the knowledge which manifests only from the inner being; to acquire intellect one must delve into studies, but to obtain wisdom, nothing but the flow of divine mercy is needed; it is as natural as the instinct of swimming to the fish, or of flying to the bird. Intellect is the sight which enables one to see through the external world, but the light of wisdom enables one to see through the external into the internal world.”
–
dandelion dreams.
Well, there’s all probability that you’ve stumbled across a cliche dandelion shot like this. This one is that I took from a journey through some farms in Yerevan, Armenia. I’ve read of thematic contexts wherein Dandelions are often read with transcience and impermanence.
“Dare to imagine. Dare to be.
Books are the seeds. Dreams are the soil.
The fruit of the harvest, a world reborn.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich, Dandelions: The Disappearance of Annabelle Fancher
I happened to recollect an adorable visual sometime from 2015 wherein a dad shows his baby buzz dandelions for the first time and he got excited. Let me tell you, no matter how messed up your day was, this can truly give you some shine and melt your soul!
excellence
“Let excellence be your brand. When you’re excellent you become unforgettable. Doing the right thing, even when nobody knows you’re doing the right thing will always bring the right thing to you” – Oprah Winfrey.
Spirit of the Stairway
This is a photograph that I took from a museum at Yerevan. The title of the post is based on the same notes from a French phrase.
“
People in France have a phrase: “Spirit of the Stairway.” In French: Esprit de l’escalier. It means that moment when you find the answer, but it’s too late. Say you’re at a party and someone insults you. You have to say something. So under pressure, with everybody watching, you say something lame. But the moment you leave the party
As you start down the stairway, then — magic. You come up with the perfect thing you should’ve said. The perfect crippling put-down.
That’s the Spirit of the Stairway. The trouble is even the French don’t have a phrase for the stupid things you actually do say under pressure. Those stupid, desperate things you actually think or do. Some deeds are too low to even get a name. Too low to even get talked about.
”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Guts
mind streets.
A street from Istanbul photographed in 2014. The building seen in the backdrop is a part of the famous Sultan Ahmet Mosque, also known as the “Blue Mosque”. Built somewhere between 1609 and 1616, it is adorned with hand-painted blue tiles. The upper area is decorated with approximately 20,000 hand-painted glazed ceramic in 60 different tulip patterns. The lower stories are illuminated by 200 stained glass windows. It’s filled with majestic Byzantine art elements.
“When you wander in an empty silent street, you wander within the mind of wisdom!” ― Mehmet Murat ildan
flower seller.
This is a photograph from 2014. While we were hanging out at a coffee shop in Istanbul, there came this ethereal little flower-seller selling flower bouquets to the cafe market. There are many experiences in this world to gift you a smile. It can be a cafe or a shore or aids of the sun or the wind or moments of bliss or the love of the season of sunset. This dream of the day does not last. Memories are fickling as seasons change. Poetry is oozing in 🙂 I’m always overwhelmed by the power of images. I’m delighted to preconize that I’ve discovered a treasure trove of some of the old photographs that I have carefully preserved and I’d like to share it with the lovely people here. Sign up for emails subscriptions so that you won’t miss them, and keep exploring 🙂
mosaic lamp eloquence
All of us who have traveled through the wider Middle East in all probability would have stumbled across one of these beautiful lights. These are Turkish mosaic lamps. Turkish lamps have a long history, the technique of producing these lamps started 5,000 years ago in its earlier forms. They had their early debut during the Ottoman era. Until the 19th century, candles and oil lamps were predominantly used for illuminating palaces and mansions. Before the spread of electric lamps, these lights were important symbols of rich heritage and civilization. Oil lamps were produced in the form of glass bottles or cup-shaped jars suspended from a chain. Bathhouses, mosques, and arenas of Istanbul were lit with these oil lamps. Over time, colored glass panes were used artistically with these lamps and they turned out to be even more beautiful. These are usually handmade and are an important element of Turkish and Anatolian roots and culture. We’d find variants of these types in other cultures as well. It’s an art and a skill to prepare hand blown glass which is cut from large sheets of different sizes and colors. A transparent, permanent but slow drying adhesive is applied to a small section of the base with a noticeable pattern through the adhesive to direct the artisan’s hand and there are several other steps to completion. Each one carefully crafted is a piece of art and expertise. I picked one from a journey to Istanbul in 2014.
panda cram.
It’s one of my favourite pastimes to graze through old photo archives and to relish and hark back to the stories and memories that evoked them. Recently, I discovered a treasure trove some of the old photos, notes and illustrations from my 2013 archives. I’ll be trying to share some of those nice memories here in some of the subsequent posts, God willing. After all, this is my wondercrate. Photo narrations are something that I never get tired of.
Panda cram is such a little chucklesome memory. Back in 2013, only a few of my colleagues had personal cars. So, a dear friend of mine had a sedan car with him which can carry 5 people max. So, we used to hop in this car for our lunch trips. So in total, we would be 5 people and the car would be almost full. And then, someday, he got this huge stuffed panda as a gift from somewhere and he had put this in his car. The panda is considerably huge and is tad bit almost the size of a grown-up boy 😀 And as usual, during a mid-noon when we were about to go for lunch on the car, we had this unusual co-passenger inside the car taking the size of an almost full-size adult, and I still remember all of us had to cram inside the car to accommodate this amigo and we laughed our heads off. Visualizing this would make me chuckle every time I think about it or see this photograph. Good times.
