{"id":60,"date":"2014-04-24T16:46:44","date_gmt":"2014-04-24T16:46:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/kirin\/?p=60"},"modified":"2014-04-28T16:19:02","modified_gmt":"2014-04-28T16:19:02","slug":"a-rain-of-pearls-cascade-of-wine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/kirin\/2014\/04\/24\/a-rain-of-pearls-cascade-of-wine\/","title":{"rendered":"A Rain of Pearls, Cascade of Wine"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(medium: photocomposition, response: week 9)<\/p>\n

There are two primary things that I want this photocomposition, which pulls text and image from Ghazal 21 of Hafiz\u2019s The Green Sea of Heaven,<\/em> to evoke:<\/p>\n

1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The \u201crain of pearls\u201d referenced in this photocomposition is part of my consideration of our Week 9 readings on how ghazals <\/em>are composed and the central structural elements explained in \u201cRavishing DisUnities.\u201d The \u201crain of pearls\u201d to me is a metaphor for the disunity of poetry that defines the ghazal<\/em>. It is that very disunity that makes the ghazal form so compelling to me, and perhaps to others. There can be an internal thematic content, but each couplet is disjointed from the others. This \u201cdisjointed\u201d structure is something I appreciate deeply and which I think is essential to representing actual patterns of human thought. The image of the \u201crain of pearls\u201d (see p. 10-11 of The Green Sea of Heaven<\/em>) is a powerful one because it can also be connected by a concerted effort<\/em> into a string of pearls. The string of pearls is perhaps a forced or temporary unity, but nonetheless, each pearl is a valuable human thought \u2013 in its own right, and also as part of a potential whole. This, to me, is the beauty of a ghazal\u2019s structure.<\/p>\n

2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The symbol of wine, which is pervasive in ghazals<\/em> and other forms of love poems, has been compelling throughout (its influence is also evident in my other blog posts). The reason I find the metaphor of wine salient extends beyond the theme of intoxication. Intoxication certainly lends itself to an understanding of the inaccessibility <\/em>of God, of a fulfilled love \u2013 there is no true trance state<\/em> \u2013 wine, poetry, and ritual practice are all ways of engaging the higher senses in order to get closer to God. But beyond this, we have the image of the spill, because the fluidity <\/em>of the image is part of what appeals to the listener \u2013 it is a dangerous fluidity, enabling one to cross boundaries and access some partial segment of the beyond. The photo itself, with multiple colors and a depiction of the liquid nature of the wine, is intended to indicate that boundaries between the divine, love, physical, and intangible are all more permeable than we imagine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  (medium: photocomposition, response: week 9) There are two primary things that I want this photocomposition, which pulls text and image from Ghazal 21 of Hafiz\u2019s The Green Sea of Heaven, to evoke: 1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The \u201crain of pearls\u201d referenced in this photocomposition is part of my consideration of our Week 9 readings on how ghazals […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6294,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120131],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-for-the-love-of-god-and-his-prophet-understanding-islam"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/kirin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/kirin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/kirin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/kirin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6294"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/kirin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/kirin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/kirin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions\/63"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/kirin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/kirin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/kirin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}