Happy Thanksgiving 🍁🇨🇦

©️Samina Iqbal. 2022

Happy Independence Day USA

©️Samina Iqbal. 2022

“Happy Canada Day”

After two years of pandemic related restrictions, Canada Day celebrations return to Canada. YAY!!!

RCMP Musical ride

Canada Day Parade in Whistler Village. Photo by Justa Jeskova

RCMP Musical ride

🍁🇨🇦PROUD TO BE CANADIAN 🍁🇨🇦

©️Samina Iqbal. 2022

200 POSTS!!!WOW!

“I got this lovely message from WordPress right now. It fills my heart with joy. At the same time I realize how quickly time flies past us. It seems like yesterday when I posted my first post with trembling hands. Too much has changed in my life as well. I’m happy to capture little moments like these as nothing else seems certain in these unprecedented, uncertain times. Wishing all the best for my fabulous bloggers and friends!!!”

“Congratulations on writing 200 posts on Samina’s Forum for police support!”

©️Samina Iqbal. 2022

Ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,

there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,

the world is too full to talk about.

(Rumi)

(Landscape at Twilight
Vincent van Gogh (1853 – 1890), Auvers-sur-Oise, June 1890
oil on canvas, 50.2 cm x 101 cm
Credits (obliged to state): Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)
Van Gogh made this evening landscape in the fields near Auvers, with a view of the local castle. He rendered the tangled black branches of the pear trees with a flurry of black brushstrokes. This reinforces the contrast between the dark trees and the luminous yellow sky.

The painting seems somewhat like a panorama because of its wide format. It is one metre wide and 50 centimetres high. Starting in June 1890, Van Gogh made a total of thirteen works with these dimensions. All but one are landscapes. He cut the canvases himself from a large roll.)

©Samina Iqbal. 2022

Tears For Humanity

“I went inside my heart

to see how it was.

Something there makes

me hear the whole

world weeping.“

RUMI

(Evocative mood painting by Helena Wierzbicki)

©Samina Iqbal. 2022

The Beauty

RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police)

The beauty itself is a

screen

to shield and partially

reveal

the light that’s blazing

inside your presence.

Rumi

©Samina Iqbal. 2021

Hold your meanness to your chest…

William Ladd Taylor, Awaiting his return. Source: Sotheby’s/private collection

Don”t always be waiting to

see

what’s behind it. That wait

and see

poisons your spirit.

Reach for it.

Hold your meanness to your

chest

as a healing root

and be free with waiting.

Rumi

©Samina Iqbal. 2021

What are these lights?

Painting by Vincent Van Gogh. Starry Night. 1888.

Inside water, a waterwheel turns.

A star circulates with the moon.

We live in the night ocean wondering,

What are these lights?

Rumi

©Samina Iqbal. 2021

….a turning night of stars

Painting by Rene’ Magritte. The Lovers. Paris 1928.

This moment this love comes to rest in me,

many things in one being.

In one wheat grain a thousand sheaf stacks.

inside the needle’s eye a turning night of stars.

Rumi

©Samina Iqbal. 2021

Your Quest

Painting by Dou, Gerrit (Thyssen-Bornemisza-Museum)

What hurts you, blesses you.

Darkness is your candle.

Your boundaries are your quest.

Rumi

©Samina Iqbal. 2021

Happy Independence Day USA

• 

The Star-Spangled Banner (arr. Leopold Godowsky)

©Samina Iqbal. 2021

Happy Canada Day 2021!

• 

National Anthem of Canada

RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police)-Our Honor and Pride

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“We thank you Canada.”

©Samina Iqbal. 2021

Dance In Your Blood

Dance, when you’re broken open.

Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off.

Dance in the middle of the fighting.

Dance in your blood.

Dance when you’re perfectly free.

(Rumi )

• 

  Dance of soul

(“Dance of soul“, photo by Ahmad Odeh)

©Samina Iqbal. 2021

Caravanserai

• 

  Caravanserai of Sa’d-al-Saltaneh
  (Iran)

This being human is a guest house

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

Some monetary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

Rumi

©Samina Iqbal. 2021

Early-Waking Grievers

• 

(together-mourning doves
Painting by Floy-Zittin)

I was sleeping, and being comforted

by a cool breeze, when suddenly a gray dove

from the thicket sang and sobbed with longing,

and reminded me of my own passion.

I had been away from my own soul so long,

So late-sleeping, but that dove’s crying

woke me and made me cry. Praise

to all early-waking grievers!

(Adi-al-Riga)

©Samina Iqbal. 2021

Balance of Life — Source of Inspiration

Sometimes life seems

so finely

balanced

that the slightest

breath of air will

send all into madness.

Security does not exist

for everything changes

and all must die.

One must walk with grace

for soon the dance is over

with no curtain calls

to be had.

Balance of Life — Source of Inspiration

Pure Heart — Eddie Two Hawks

Whoever, in devotion, offers Me a

gift, whether it be a flower, a fruit

or water, I accept it as coming from

one who has a pure heart.

The Bhagavad Gita

Orchid Spring Bloom 2021, Eddie’s Garden Photos Thank you everyone for your patience!

Pure Heart — Eddie Two Hawks

Wine or Blood?

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Hand Painted Red Wine Glass Cup Bottle Canvas Oil Painting Still Life

“The wine we really drink is our own blood,

Our bodies ferment in these barrels,

We give everything for a glass of this,

We give our minds for a sip.”

Rumi

 

 

Samina Iqbal. 2021

“Within the ocean.”

• 

  Painting by Sergey Piskunov
  Girl in pink (underwater series)

Late, by myself, in the boat of myself,

no light and no land anywhere,

cloud cover thick, I try to stay

just above the surface, yet I’m already under

and living within the ocean.

Rumi

©Samina Iqbal. 2021