This says “Be Omid e Khoda” meaning “With the hope of god’s attention” or “God willing”. Us Persian’s we say this before we start doing anything or when we are getting depressed or stressed or feeling going nowhere. There is always him being more powerful and able than anybody or anything else. Having trust on him and hope will bring his power to us and solves the problems. I am not too religious but I do believe in him and his eternal power and that is how I personally survive a lot with smile on my face.
Thank you Jenny for your beautiful and kind thoughts that initiated this moving message, thank you Hosein for your lovely work and for you too, Be Omid e Khoda - and for my Father who died at 4:00pm this afternoon.
This Francy and her husband of 30 years George and this is part of their love story. Please read this link. Re-blog please. I wish it was a happy ending can we make it one?
http://lwarner.chipin.com/missbusybiz-urgent-family-situation
I wish I could do more to help than this - please read it everyone and do what you can.
Addendum:
I lay awake for a while last night thinking about the day, the piece I posted and as I often do, considering my position from different angles. I feel I may have been a little too polarised in my viewpoint, or if not polarised than omitting some important considerations. I said, “As I’ve discovered, the women not prone to this behaviour (catty and back stabbing) are the chronically insecure, that feel they have nothing to bring to the battle or the deeply secure, and they are a relative rarity.”
I would like to add that I believe the insecurity that drives this negative female behaviour is very common, and the behaviour itself is familiar enough that if you ask a woman, she will be able to say she’s seen it, probably often. I think there are women who are insecure, or even those that have nothing ‘to bring to battle,’ that overcome. They simply choose not to behave this way. It is possible to have good female friends, I have and many I know have also.
Now my comment about men, “This isn’t to suggest that men can’t or don’t play an important part in children’s lives because they can and do. Their hunting has been adapted to wage earning and protection to support.” Men also can and do more than just earning a wage and supporting their wives/partners and children. I know many men who are excellent fathers and husbands, involved in their children’s lives and interests and taking an active role in running the home.
I hope this brings balance to my piece. What are your thoughts about women and how they treat other women?
Click on the source link for the complete piece.
“A damning indictment of women maybe, but the truth is exposed. Our sensitivity, empathy, gentleness and other fine qualities when mixed with insecurity become a poison for friendship.”
© S. Marian, Sept.11, 2012
An excerpt from “The Female Exposed,” to be found on “A View From Outside the Box,” url: adialoge. Please follow the source link if you’ve ever wondered about the difference between women’s image and the reality and what lies beneath.
Aretha Franklin, “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman. For more art prints: www.arts-wallpapers.com/nude_art/index.htm
“As (my daughter) gains experience, she has also acquired the wisdom and skills to deal with her own sex. I long to tell her that as she leaves childhood behind, she can say goodbye to girlish warfare. The wouldn’t be true though.”
© S. Marian, Sept. 11, 2012
An excerpt from “The Female Exposed,” to be found on “A View From Outside the Box,” url: adialogue. If you’ve ever wondered about the difference between the image and the reality and what lies beneath, click on the source link for the full piece.
Nude in a Landscape shows artist Cara Tierney leaning back atop a rocky lakeshore in a confident and self-assured posture. It’s a masculine pose that was inspired, Tierney says, by the works of 19th-century German painter Caspar David Friedrich. Tierney’s work appears at Carleton University Art Gallery.
For more of Cara Tierney’s work or details of the exhibition:
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/entertainment/Multiple+visions/7164049/story.html
“Her words were, ‘Come back soon.”…”It’s over three years on since the big immigration adventure. Home is not one place and is not contained within one definition, but at least two. I dwell in the land of my birth and my heart is not heavy, there’s room for more. I’ve expanded to accept this reality and in doing so, I can hear the words of my friend for what they really are - words to sing me home.”
© S. Marian, Aug 14, 2012
An excerpt from “Words To Sing Me Home,” to be found on “A View From Outside The Box,” url: adialogue. For anyone who has ever experienced homesickness, find comfort here.
(“Homeward Bound,” Simon and Garfunkel)
“The next year the (home) ‘sickness’ hit with a vengeance and interestingly, it also corresponded with my whole family being physically ill, one and off.”…”I became a little bit ridiculous, hanging on to every shortbread tin with a west highland terrier or some tartan on it, clung to every Scottish word and tradition and fortunately, tartan trousers would have looked terrible on me or maybe I would have worn them too. In some deep way, I fought being here even though I’d chosen to do so.”
© S. Marian, Aug. 14, 2012
An excerpt from “Words To Sing Me Home,” to be found on “A View From Outside The Box,” url: adialogue. For anyone that’s every been homesick, take some comfort here.
Words To Sing Me Home
There are days, even for me, when a blank page is intimidating. Most of the time I just seize the idea in my head that’s bouncing up and down with it’s hand up, and listen to what it has to say. Not today though. I was going to write about taxes. I know that sounds boring but actually, historically and in some of its applications, it isn’t. I don’t feel like it though. Today instead, you get a free for all and I hope you’ll meander along with me.
What’s on my mind on this sunny Monday is homesickness, the idea of home and the reality, and how, just when you think it’s behind you, it surprises you. The first year of being in Canada I was energetic and working hard to make a new life. The next year the ‘sickness’ hit with a vengeance and interestingly, it also corresponded with my whole family being physically ill, on and off. I couldn’t listen to Scottish music without crying (not me at all usually), one song in particular just felled me – it’s called Caledonia. I grieved for my home and inevitably; it took on another shape in my head. I became a little bit ridiculous, hanging on to every shortbread tin with a west highland terrier or some tartan on it, clung to every Scottish word and tradition and fortunately, tartan trousers would have looked terrible on me or maybe I would have worn them too. In some deep way, I fought being here even though I’d chosen to do so.
The following year, the third one was significant as the ‘annus horribilis’ of the immigration experience. For Queen Elizabeth who memorably used that phrase, 1992 was her horrible year, but for me 2011-2012 was a new low. Not a year to look back on with undiluted pleasure for me either. I had accepted my situation but had sunk into a kind of depression, the outward resistance now turned inward. This type of depression is anger by another name, and particularly, impotence directed within. Just four or five months ago I finally took control back, as Winston Churchill called it, from the black dog. Piece by piece I gathered the scattered pieces of myself and put them together. That’s what it felt like. Remarkably, nothing much in an outward sense had changed. My circumstances are still much the same, I continue to wrestle with some of the same problems and as before, I do not have funds to send this family back to Scotland for a visit. Yet, my whole world is transformed by taking charge. Significantly, I have found a kind of home.
What is home though? I imagine you could ask 20 people that question and receive 20 different answers. The dictionary defines home as: the place where one lives permanently, esp. as a member of a family or household. The answer is simple then, Canada is my home as it’s where I reside with my family. Not so simple though. I think that definition is missing at least 50 shades of grey. There is subtlety here; it’s not just where you live but where you feel you belong, maybe if you’re fortunate - where the voice of your being sings in harmony with its surroundings. That place is Skye, for me. When I put those fragments of self back together I found that I had expanded. Try putting the items of a tightly packed box back in after emptying it, and you’ll be asking yourself, ‘but how did they fit?’ I had expanded to incorporate two different types of home; one that was the place I grew up in and had returned to. The other was my adopted home, the home of my heart, the home of my soul.
My island home is with me wherever I go but in a way, a part of me is still there too. Maybe it’s dipping into the world of quantum mechanics but I believe that’s possible. In an essential way I live on in those I left behind, love and still share my life with, albeit at a distance. This brings me back to homesickness. Today I spoke to my friend on Skye. There’s 33 years, eight hours of time difference and a lot of land and water between us but as always, when we spoke I was right there. I was sitting in her sitting room, having a blether and doing what we like to do, putting the world to rights. We had a great chat, and not for the first time I found myself thinking how much better my life is with her in it. She’s just one of those people. After our long chat she said the words, the words that were like a tardis for grabbing me by the heart, and yanking me back to Skye in soul, with my uncooperative body left behind. Her words were, “Come back soon.” That was the surprise and you know surprises can be more potent from those we love. Oh, the warm melody in those words…
It’s over three years on since the big immigration adventure. Home is not one place and is not contained within one definition, but at least two. I dwell in the land of my birth and my heart is not heavy, there’s room for more. I’ve expanded to accept this reality and in doing so, I can hear the words of my friend for what they really are – words to sing me home.
© S. Marian, Aug. 14, 2012
