
She makes jewelry as part of the rehabilitation and education programs that ‘Beyond’, a local Lebanese NGO does with the children in the Syrian refugee camps.
Life these days is becoming a struggle to base oneself in the known, in scientific certainties, in facts confirmed in Wikipedia, in information validated by experts on television, on twitter, in newspapers,… we just need to have everything open and clear with no unpleasant surprises. But what about life’s mysteries? Do we still give room for those? Or do we miss them in our rush after the next confirmed fact?
I was walking the busy streets of Shanghai today when I felt something stop me in my tracks. Not just me, but a few other people too. There were birds tracing a circle around this building again and again and again, like a sacred dance for more than 20 minutes. The same circle, which was more like a spiral, and it was the most awe inspiring sight for me in the city that day. I felt a great calm come over me as I watched them and I knew that this phenomenon will forever be part of of my mystery box, my collection of unknowns, to marvel at and to mystery dream about.
To be winged, to be light, to not be weighed down, to be free, to travel with your mind, to fly in your dreams, to allow yourself to soar, to be what you were meant to be, to play your part in the creation plan… to really live!
photo: Sasha running in a field near Geneva and wings of a butterfly from Montreux
The sticky fly in warm weather is perhaps the most annoying of all insects I used to think. It just comes to land on your skin and keeps coming back no matter how many times you ‘shu shu shu’ it. When growing up in Lebanon we children were told that the fly was an invention of the beautiful Egyptian queen Nefertiti as she was bored one day and needed to entertain herself. So I used to walk around cursing queen Nefertiti and her boredom each time a fly woke me up early in the morning.
Today, I was exploring during a brief pause in the persistent Shanghai rain showers, so while Lea was looking for snails, I was photographing little bugs. And it made me think of how incredibly diverse our planet is, how amazing, complex, beautiful, colorful and completely different each living thing is. What an incredible garden of plenty, with so much to see, meet and discover. If you look closely, all is amazing, stunning, beyond belief, even the fly!
Fengzheng 风筝 —Kite, was first invented in China as early as 500 BC, and was originally made out of wood, and later out of bamboo and paper.
They have been used for sending messages, distributing propaganda, and even some were large enough to carry people on them for war strategic purposes.
Nowadays, the main purpose of kits is play, and in the case of some photographers, to carry cameras for bird’s-eye views. During a nice day in Shanghai, the kites fill the sky.
Children, adults, old people, all are flying kites. There is even a kite festival in Shandong province in April that I dream of one day attending!
But flight in all forms is so exhilarating to us humans, whether it is brief while on a swing, carried between 2 parents in pretend flight as a toddler, bungee jumping, parachuting, paragliding, pretending to be superman, or having a flying dream; we just wish we could do it.
Maybe part of us on some level can fly…