post 232/365
Flowers and petals, leaves and stems, geometric shapes and lines, they carve their trade with a chisel bright and keen. Emphasizing on the beauty of wood in their design and architecture, over five generations they have managed to keep this intricate art form alive.
post 231/365
“Often you shall think your road impassable, sombre and companionless. Have will and plod along; and around each curve you shall find a new companion.”
The Book of Mirdad
post 230/365
Cedar roots buried under mounds of aged earth stone, gripping tight like family, faith, and friends, remain the one force that holds the cedar up. These cedars look up at the sky, day and night, watching the clouds and stars. Impressive in their might, they stand forcefully, claiming this little piece of land as their own.
post 229/365
After life is exploded, changed, dehumanized, there are shattered pieces that do not heal for years, if at all. “What is left are scars and something else – shame, I suppose, shame for letting it all continue. Glances at the past where solace in tradition and myth prevailed only brings more shame over what the present is. We have lost the splendors of what our ancestors have created and go elsewhere.” (Anthony Shadid _ House of Stone)
post 226/365
The call of the wind breaks through as we all fall in line. Lost among the footfalls, the mountains are our shrines. As the rocks hold the beat, while nature sings her song and the sun brings its heat as the wind pushes us along, I think to myself how picturesque is this land, how beautiful is Lebanon.
post 225/365
There is something quiet poetic about the Lebanese landscape and how it is integrated in every aspect of our lives. Depending on the region, food, words, dialect, and dress changes. Different religions and areas all have slightly different undertones to their dress and way of life, yet somehow they all seem to mesh together in creating this cultural heritage that is very much what makes this country not only so diverse but so rich in culture.
post 224/365
Driving in the city, under the scorching sun, we stop at an assuming little ice cream shop on the ground floor of a rundown building carrying bullets that echo of a past life that reverberates of times where bombs ripped the city’s skies. Echoes that no one hears anymore amongst the city’s cacophony of sounds.
post 223/365
There is something quiet exceptional about ka’ak bi halib, or milk cookies. The mahleb and the anise echo the flavors and fragrances of home. Soft, chewy, buttery, sweet, fragrant, and comforting, they melt in your mouth, leaving behind the after taste of aromatic spices.
post 222/365
“…the miserable village which still bears the name of Afqa at the head of the wild, romantic, wooded gorge of the Adonis. The hamlet stands among groves of noble walnut-trees on the brink of the lyn. A little way off the river rushes from a cavern at the foot of a mighty amphitheatre of towering cliffs to plunge in a series of cascades into the awful depths of the glen. The deeper it descends, the ranker and denser grows the vegetation, which, sprouting from the crannies and fissures of the rocks, spreads a green veil over the roaring or murmuring stream in the tremendous chasm below. There is something delicious, almost intoxicating, in the freshness of these tumbling waters, in the sweetness and purity of the mountain air, in the vivid green of the vegetation.”
Sir James Frazer describing the village at Afqa in his 1922 book, The Golden Bough
post 221/365
The discovery of copper marks the beginning of the metal era in the Orient. Copper was first used as an alloy in the composition of bronze, and hence in the production of weapons like daggers, spears, arrows and swords. It was also used in the manufacture of household utensils and even in some jewelry.
365 Days of Lebanon 