It’s how I feel these days.
Stranger in a Strange Land is the title of a science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein, published in 1961 …
A child born during a failed mission from Earth to Mars remains the only survivor and is raised by Martians, only to return to earth two decades later, hitching back with another, successful mission. Brought up by Martians, he is now an alien encountering aliens …
The book makes worthwhile reading, even more relevant now then it was decades ago. The title came to mind recently, and it also brought up a precious connected memory.
During the late 70s, instigated by my then Sufi teacher, Fazal Inayat-Khan, I stayed with my then partner and later husband for several weeks in Washington DC, at the time when President Carter was inaugurated. Our contact person was Dr Abdul Aziz Said, Professor for International Relations at the American University.
The above image is us at Amsterdam flee market, raising money to the journey To Washington D.C.
I posted about Dr Abdul Aziz Said in 2015 … https://courseofmirrors.com/2015/11/28/the-inner-jihad/
In that post I did not enlarge on the remarkable people we were introduced to during our stay.
One such person was a young scholar who held an influential position at the American Library, the Library of Congress on Capitol Hill, and the largest library in the world. He welcomed us to a tour of this magnificent place – a great privilege. At one point he asked if there was a book we would like him to locate for us. My partner and I looked at each other and had no problem choosing … ‘Stranger in a Strange Land.’ A short search on a console and the book came whizzing through the extensive tube network of the library and landed in our hands in no time.
This happened half a lifetime ago. I’m thankful for this memory.
If you haven’t yet read Heinlein’s novel yet, do. And share if you, too, like a Martian, feel at times like a stranger in a strange land.
How to reconcile moments of pure beauty and light our restless world offers, with the heavy darkness of human ignorance? How is it the guiding spirit that is shining through everything so often escapes the unseeing eye? Is it our wounded hearts, or our anxious busy thoughts that prevent spontaneous being? Many of us like twilight, the dawn, the dusk, mist, where darkness and light do not negate but enhance each other. They mingle. As friends do, or lovers. Twilight is poetry in motion.
like tiny cherubs
When there is no other near to share such paradoxical quickening with, I may call on those who enriched my life but are no longer present. I adore the moon, the ancient chunk of earth, reflecting and making tolerable the blinding beams of the sun, granting us poetry and symbolic language.
We must see things fresh, not through tired ideas our establishments bank on, that destroy nature’s homeostasis and spill imbalances into cultures too poor to afford resistance. I say – let our children and young people decide what’s worth living for?
Course of Mirrors 