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www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqiTJK_uzUY
Light, my light, the world-filling light,
the eye-kissing light,
heart-sweetening light!
Ah, the light dances, my darling, at the center of my life;
the light strikes, my darling, the chords of my love;
the sky opens, the wind runs wild, laughter passes over the earth.
The butterflies spread their sails on the sea of light.
Lilies and jasmines surge up on the crest of the waves of light.
The light is shattered into gold on every cloud, my darling,
and it scatters gems in profusion.
Mirth spreads from leaf to leaf, my darling,
and gladness without measure.
The heaven's river has drowned its banks
and the flood of joy is abroad.
Rabindranath Tagore
Mercantour.
I met the young woman at a lake at around 2200 m altitude, and the ibex too. We started the descent all together, the ibex in front, us behind. The ibex sometimes stopped, we always joined it, then it left again. This lasted almost 1 hour. Then it stopped in a meadow, sat down like a dog, and let us pass while saying goodbye. A great moment....
Garden wall, New Plymouth, New Zealand
beholding
ceaseless watcher, behold your triumph,
apathetic eyes prying into weary flesh,
the beholding, isn't it an accurate name?
you have seized what little I had left.
and as I step onto the street,
I feel them stare into my every thought,
every dark impulse, every light deceit,
all this and more finally, horribly caught.
what else does a man have except his mind?
what can he depend on but privacy in contemplation?
the recorder clicks on, I hear the tape start to wind,
even now you record my damnation.
watching, watching, always watching,
from the eyes of the birds, from cameras mounted high,
I have never known such existential pain,
than to lose the little solitude I prized in my life.
and I have never felt such loathing,
and I have never felt such fear,
I cast my thoughts away, unknowing,
and it is with vile exultation you hear.
ALEXANDER PALMER
"All the world is but an eye, that watches, never bends."
I'm not normally one for early rising, but we broke camp at Ribnoto Ezero about 5am and had an amazing morning--at least six hours--moving through the lakes and over Malyovitsa before meeting a single person on trail. Morning at the fourth of the Seven Rila Lakes, Bliznaka Ezero (Twin Lakes, 2,243m) on the Five Mountains Trail (E4), Bulgaria.
We've seen shepherds guiding sheep, cattle, horses and goats out to forage common lands all over the world. In the Armenian highlands we saw shepherds moving all of these--but also hogs--in and out of settlements and to pasture. This common medieval practice of turning out pigs to forage (pannage) is increasingly rare today, when industrial farming of all livestock--and pigs in particular--predominates. Foraging hogs and cattle on the Trans Caucasian Trail, Armenian Highlands.
Our initial plan this summer was to spend two months in Armenia hiking the Armenian section of the newly established Trans Caucasian Trail (TCT), from near Armenia's southern border with Iran to its northern border with Georgia. Just a couple of days after we arrived, however, the US started bombing Iran, refugees started fleeing from Iran across its border with Armenia, and it became clear that it would be both insensitive and imprudent to follow through on that plan.
Armenia sits at a crossroads between Europe, Asia and the Middle East. It is Europe-facing in many ways, but in other respects it is deeply entangled in a variety of complicated Middle Eastern geopolitical issues. It enjoys generally friendly relations with two of its neighbors (Georgia and Iran) and very troubled relations with the other two (Turkey and Azerbaijan). Russian influence, intimidation and interference loom over all these relationships, as well as ones farther afield (Europe, the US). The hottest issues concern disputes over past and present borders, which have moved often and over large distances in the more than 2800 years of Armenian history, generally through warfare.
Mount Ararat (5137m), an important national symbol to Armenians but part of Turkey since the Turkish-Armenian War of 1920, broods down on the Armenian capital, Yerevan.
The ancient theater in Phillipopolis was built in the first century AD and probably fell into disuse sometime in the fifth century with the fall of Rome. In time it was covered with centuries' of debris and became buried underneath a neighborhood in the old town of Plovdiv. It was rediscovered in the 1970s, excavated, and brought back to life. Today it is used much as it was originally intended. We showed up in the daytime to have a look around what we supposed to be an archaeological site and learned that there was a ballet scheduled for that evening. On being told that it was Anna Karenina I asked whether it was in Russian, Bulgarian or English. The answer was "Bulgarian, of course" with an added "it is a ballet, so what does it matter?"
The ancient theater seats six or seven thousand and the performance was well attended, overwhelmingly (as far as I could tell) by locals. Several thunderbursts sent the orchestra temporarily running for cover, and eventually--after a number of delays--ended the show some time after intermission, with the dancers taking their bows in heavy rain to the delight of the crowd. It was a remarkable experience, and I won't soon forget it. Anna Karenina in Phillipopolis, aka Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
After a very long layoff I got back on the lathe and finished this big cherry bowl. I actually got it between centers and roughed into a blank before the summer, but a number of things got in the way of me finishing it and unfortunately, over the summer it began to crack. I did what I could with CA glue, turned it and finished it in walnut oil, and now I'll have to hope the crack is stable. Big cherry bowl, Olympia.
The exquisite interior of the Central Sofia Synagogue. The synagogue is still active, but with its capacity of more than one thousand it tells the story of a Jewish community that was once many times larger than at present day.
This is not precisely, as one might expect, because of the Holocaust. Despite the fact that Bulgaria was a (somewhat reluctant) ally of Germany, almost all Bulgarian Jews survived the war. This was largely due to the opposition of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and many other Bulgarians who loudly refused to cooperate with the Holocaust. It is in fact remarkable how many lives were saved or lost by the different responses of different peoples to the order to murder their Jewish neighbors. Many allies of Germany were enthusiastic participants, but some--most notably Bulgaria and Finland--mostly just refused to go along. And in occupied countries outcomes could also vary widely. The Danes, for example, behaved heroically and saved almost the entire Jewish population, while in many more shameful examples, occupied populations instead chose collaboration.
After the war, the vast majority of Bulgarian Jews emigrated to Israel. Today, though, Jews make up a notable proportion of international tourists in Bulgaria, which I presume has a lot to do with this history. Interior of the Sofia Central Synagogue, Sofia, Bulgaria.
I've noticed that the beauty comes in stages; first the daffodils followed by the dandelions. then comes the lovely purple stalks of flowers that the bumblebees find delicious. Those are followed by the delicate tiny buttercups that dot the whole mountain from clearing to clearing. My husband refuses to mow until the pollinators have their fill. The buzzing of the bees and songs of the birds are carried on the mountain breeze as it rushes up one side of the mountain, then plunged down our side and across the ridge down into the hollow.
Küstenwanderung abends an der Steilküste - Panorama zur späten blauen Stunde vom Felskopf der Punta des Boc auf die Küste zwischen Cala Mesquida und der Halbinsel Formentor
We didn't get a chance to visit Plovdiv our first time in Bulgaria. It is today perhaps the most beautiful city in the country and certainly among the most historically important.
By the 5th century BC the city had grown out of Neolithic and Bronze Age antecedents into the important Thracian center of Eumolpia. Little remains of that era except a collection of wonderful artifacts in the city's small archaeological museum and perhaps some cyclopian defensive walls on one of the city's seven hills, Nebet Tepe (from which the above was taken). In the mid 4th century BC the city was taken by Phillip II of Macedon and renamed (what else?) Phillipopolis. It grew rapidly and continued as an important city for hundreds of years, including under the Romans, who undertook some significant building projects, many of which remain in a state of fairly well-preserved ruin: a stadium, an agora, a theater, and several ancient christian basilicas.
From more recent times, there is also a very well-preserved Ottoman mosque (dating to the fourteenth century, center left of image), an Ottoman clocktower (dating to the 17th century, on one of the more distant hills just left of center), and very well preserved Bulgarian Revival architecture (19th century, much of the neighborhoods in the Old Town).
Overlaid atop all of this and in somewhat jarring contrast is a layer of massive buildings in Soviet Classicist and Brutalist style. Just to the right of Mrs. Orca (but almost too distant to make out) is the city's most controversial remain: the Alyosha Monument on Bunardzhik Hill. This is a colossal 1950s statue of a Soviet soldier, meant to commemorate the "liberation" of Bulgaria by the Soviets. In point of fact Bulgaria was an (albeit, somewhat reluctant) ally of Germany during WWII, so the arrival of the Soviets (who stayed in Bulgaria for 45 years) was not really a liberation.
Mrs. Orca atop Nebet Tepe, in Eumolpia, aka Phillipopolis, now Plovdiv, Bulgaria.