Wind, Marvel, New Year
Record No. 5
Wind
I felt the brutal winds on my cheeks, the only exposed part of my body, day after day while walking my dog. Wind showed up as breath, exhaling and having that breath suspended in the air, wondering whether wind and breath were the same motion with different origins.
An equinoctial storm is the forceful arrival of rain and winds occurring on the day of and days surrounding an equinox, when the sun crosses the earth’s equator. These storms have been scientifically debunked, but there is something special about the atmosphere reacting so intensely to the immediate shift from winter to spring and summer to fall.
Wind sweeps up the winter’s residue to make way for new sprouts. Wind has created and shifted landscapes, pressing fluted patterns onto stone and edging curves over large rock formations. When my late uncle or dad drove me 20 minutes outside of the city to the desert, the ripples on the sand dunes looked different each time. The sand dunes themselves too.
Marvel
Wind is hard at work at all times touching everything around us. It pushes clouds. It streams between stars. The astronomical root of the Spring Equinox is depicted through the bull (constellation Taurus) fighting the lion (constellation Leo). The lion triumphs and the sun rises to welcome a new season. Carved into the walls of Persepolis are early depictions of the bull and lion, a calendar for time and a spiritual alignment with the heavens. The ancient sky gazed upon by our ancestors remains almost the same as today.
Divinity is in the constellations. In a 1920s manuscript from Isfahan, the zodiac signs are painted alongside their corresponding demons, showing the underbelly of each sign. In the 13th century treatise Ajā’ib al-makhlūqāt wa-gharā’ib al-mawjūdāt (Marvels of Things Created and Miraculous Aspects of Things Existing), humans merge with their zodiacs, among other creatures and plants, to create fantastical beings. A merging of earth and sky. The stars blink into view a series of angular lines and stories are painted from the celestial phenomena, hinting at a future soon to arrive for us each.
In Farsi we say che ajab! What marvel! Such surprise! Also commonly spoken with cutting sarcasm.
New Year
The year resets in Spring. We are given another chance at life as small bulbs fight through the remaining snow. I tossed my sabzeh (sprouted lentils) into the stagnant creek water at High Park and stared as it stayed still. The water stinks. It doesn’t move, there is no current which a healthy body of water requires. My gesture felt anti-climactic, but perhaps my brothers and sisters in Iran can feel the breeze between millions of arms jutting the air, flinging a patch of green into water, watching it quickly depart in small short waves, or in my case, watching it bobble in place, likely to be used by a beaver or duck for something important to them. Whatever happens to it, every day is a new day to honor my people and believe in a better future for them.
