Something opens our wings - theme

Ever since I was little, I have long harboured a desire to visit the lands of Rumi, Omar, the Sufi, the Whirling Dervish, Zoroastrianism, and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

I was obsessed with the Persian Empire, the lands of Turkey and Syria, of Afghanistan and India... and dreamt of genies and forbidden caves... yes, I had a vivid imagination...

I was at work on Monday taking profile shots of one of our Islamic Studies professors, and was drawn to his vast and impressive collection of Islamic texts that filled a wall-length bookcase.

For a fleeting moment, as I was pressing down on the button, I was overwhelmed by the history, and meaning, contained within those texts... I wished I was standing elsewhere, that I was somewhere in a desert, listening to the last sonnets of Rumi sung by Pedram Derakhshani...

These are the places I truly want to go, more than anywhere else in the world. Where I feel insignificant, where I can feel history, a connection to a past and tradition still so strong, so embedded within the landscape...

“We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust."
- Rumi