I am sooooo getting this iPad app. Ruth Negga reading Shakespeare’s Sonnet 114:
Or whether doth my mind, being crowned with you,
Drink up the monarch’s plague, this flattery?
Or whether shall I say mine eye saith true,
And that your love taught it this alchemy,
To make of monsters and things indigest…
~Trent Gilliss, senior editor
Call to Prayer at Sultan Hassan Mosque (video)
by Trent Gilliss, senior editor
One of the largest mosques in the world, the Masjid al-Sultan Hassan is just one more reason to visit Cairo:
Built between 1356 and 1363 by the Mamluk ruler Sultan Hassan, the scale of the mosque is so colossal that it nearly emptied the vast Mamluk Treasury. Historians believe that the builders of this mosque may have used stone from thepyramids at Giza.
Early in construction, some design flaws in the colossal plans became apparent. There was going to be a minaret at each corner, but this was abandoned after the one directly above the entrance collapsed, killing 300 people. Another minaret toppled in 1659, then the weakened dome collapsed.
The early history witnessed by the mosque was as unstable as its architecture: Hassan was assassinated in 1391, two years before completion, and the roof was used as an artillery platform during coups against sultans Barquq (1391) and Tumanbey (1517).
It doesn’t get much hotter than this! A short film by Chris Bolton that captures the art of fire breathing at 2000 frames per second and truly does offer “a rare glimpse into a world outside the human perception of time.”
~Trent Gilliss, senior editor
Axios!?
by Trent Gilliss, senior editor
While watching this short video clip of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople ordaining Metropolitan Elpidophoros Lambriniadis to be the bishop of Bursa, you can hear the participants exclaim Axios! But what does it mean? It’s a Greek word (ἄξιος) that translates to mean something akin to “He is worthy!” and is shouted during the ordination of Eastern Orthodox bishops.
“Innovation is the exit strategy for aid.”
Dr. Abdallah Daar during his conversation with Krista Tippett at the Chautauqua Institution to kick off a week-long series of interviews based on the theme of “Inspire. Commit. Act.”
“I picked up a camera in journalism class, and it was truly spiritual.”
— Ann Marsden
May she rest in peace.
Tea + Ink: The Empty Space Inside the Mountain
by Dorothée Royal-Hedinger, guest contributor
An intimate portrait of ex-Yugoslavian émigré artist Slobodan Dan Paich, Silent Crescendo follows his daily ritual of creating simple drawings with tea and ink. In response to the modern pace of the art scene, Slobodan has embraced these fluid works of art to express his searching approach to life.
Dorothée Royal-Hedinger is a producer at the Global Oneness Project, which produces and distributes films, media, and educational materials that challenge people to rethink their relationship to the world and connect them to our greater human potential. She lives in San Rafael, California.
Kara Holden offered this lovely Friday intermission in response to our question about the best song you’ve heard all week: Beneath us, constellations.
~Trent Gilliss, senior editor
Seane Corn Demonstrates “Body Prayer”
by Trent Gilliss, senior editor
For Seane Corn, yoga is much more than a practice in flexibility. It’s a way of applying spiritual lessons to real-world problems and personal issues. One way she channels her energy and love is through a practice she calls “body prayer,” as she shares in this video from Yoga from the Heart.
She shared this perspective about “body prayer” with Krista Tippett in our show, “Yoga, Meditation in Action”:
“I trust that if I do my yoga practice, I’m going to get stronger and more flexible. If I stay in alignment, if I don’t push, if I don’t force, then my body will organically open in time. I know that if I breathe deeply, I’ll oxygenate my body. It has an influence on my nervous system. These things are fixed and I know to be true.
But I also recognize that it’s a mystical practice, and you can use your body as an expression of your devotion. So the way that you place your hands, the ways that you step a foot forward or back, everything is done as an offering. I offer the movements to someone I love or to the healing of the planet. And so if I’m moving from a state of love and my heart is open to that connection between myself and another person or myself and the universe, it becomes an active form of prayer, of meditation, of grace.
And when you’re offering your practice as a gift, as I was in that particular DVD, as I do often, I was offering to my dad who’s very ill. And so when I have an intention behind what I’m doing, then it becomes so fluid. Because if I fall out of a pose I’m not going to swear, I’m not going to get disappointed or frustrated. I’m going to realize that this is my offering, and I don’t want to offer that energy to my father. I only want to offer him my love. And so I let my body reflect that. And when you link the body with the breath, when my focus is solely on getting the pose to embrace the breath that I’m actualizing, then the practice, it’s almost in slow motion.
It has a sense of effortlessness. When people can connect to that, it takes the pressure off of trying to do it perfectly. It just becomes a real expression of their own heart. Sometimes it’s graceful and elegant, other times it’s kind of funky and abstract, but it’s authentic to who the person is. It’s their own poetry.”
