5 Years Too Many

This month marks the 5th anniversary of the imprisonment of 7 Baha'i leaders in Iran, for no crime other than their belief in a faith deemed "heretical" by the Shiite clerics. This is a faith that teaches the oneness of God, the oneness of religion, universal education, the equality of men and women, and the unity of humankind. You can learn more about the systematic persecution of Baha'is here: http://www.bic.org/fiveyears/

I Am Going to Cause a Tiger

And so, as I sleep, some dream beguiles me, and suddenly I know I am dreaming.

Then I think: this is a dream, a pure diversion of my will; 
and now that I have unlimited power, 
I am going to cause a tiger.

~ Jorge Luis Borges

Do not wake me, says the dreamer,

let me pass through Indian forests

and glimpse the crushing velvet,

the hunter's molten eye.

Let me speak Blake in my sleep,

grind syllables between my teeth

like citadels of crashing light,

forming meteors that arc the iris -

fallen stars devoured

by my own slumbering depths.

Let me whisper to my darkness

the golden oath I dreamt:

I am going to cause a tiger.

But do not wake me. Not yet.

Song of Ourselves

March 8th was International Women's Day. A few weeks earlier, I had written a personal reflection on what it means to be a woman today. It was published last Friday on American Public Media's On Being blog. You can read the essay here:

SONG OF OURSELVES

My mother, Jacqueline and her dear friend Judith, Haifa, Israel