I first became obsessed with ancient Sumer as a young girl of about 12, my favorite book at that time being «Gods, Graves and Scolars» by C.W.Ceram. Recently, digging through my library, I came across a copy of this book – and that night I first dreamt of a priestess spending the night by the gold bed of Marduk on the top of ziggurat E-Temen- An-Ki...

Enheduana was a priestess and a poet who lived about 4,300 years ago in Sumer. I guessed or imagined her life: one of too many daughters, she was forced to serve as a priestess of Inanna, Goddess of the Moon. Dedicated to Gods, she was not allowed to marry or have children. Her purpose in life was to pray for her parents – a fate too cruel for a powerful and talented Enheduana. She became one of the most beloved poets of the Ancient Sumer, with fragments of her superb love poetry surviving to these days...

The other reason behind this last poem was the fate of the trees in cities: oftentimes they are thoughtlessly, almost wantonly cut down whenever they happen to inconvenience the landowners. Thus, in my neighborhood trees stand wearing orange death sentences; in my native city of Tashkent the government cuts down the beloved ancient planes in the central square to the horror and disgust of all who knows and loves our city...

Time and phenomenology

Most of us have contemplated Time at some point of our lives. Have you not experienced the existentialist Angst while pondering the ultimate end of self? Or mayhap you considered the transient nature of the Universe itself? Have you ever wondered why some moments of your life you remember with such clarity and vivid details and do not seem to remember other ones at all?
Philosophers from Aristotle and St. Augustine to Heidegger, Al-Ghazal to Lenin, scientists from Dekart, Newton to Einstein grappled with the notion of time. For some – time is the objective quality of substance. For the others – a means of internalizing the outside reality by the subjective conscience…
Aristotle defined time as “a number of change with respect to the before and after”. His time is unbroken, consisting of infinite number of instances between any two instances.
Augustine's time is, on the contrary, made of separate instances. Augustine’s inquiry into the nature of time arises from his attempt to understand how God, who is in Eternity, could create the world, which is in time. Like Plato, Augustine wants to understand the relation of Being and Becoming. Because God creates time itself along with heaven and earth, Augustine argues that it does not make sense to ask what God was doing “before” creating.The creation of time and becoming must somehow be a timeless act. Augustine also presents what is perhaps the first phenomenological description of time, observing that the past and future are never directly experienced as such, but are only known as certain types of experiences in the present.
“Thus it is not properly said that there are three times, past, present, and future. Perhaps it might be said rightly that there are three times: a time present of things past; a time present of things present; and a time present of things future. ...The time present of things past is memory; the time present of things present is direct experience; the time present of things future is expectation. “(Confessions, 11, XX)
“...see that all time past is forced to move on by the incoming future; that all the future follows from the past; and that all, past and future, is created and issues out of that which is forever present. Who will hold the heart of man that it may stand still and see how the eternity which always stands still is itself neither future nor past but expresses itself in the times that are future and past?” (Confessions, 11, XI)
Augustin’s time exists as long as the universe, created by God exists; dying, we are freed from the chains of time and would be able to view the totality of Creation…
Dekart and Newton view time as flowing evenly, and Einstein as relative and changeable. Husserl's Phenomenology views a continuum of experienced time similar to viewing a space continuum and demands a conscious reflextion; the retention of the past and the foreshadowing of the future are, in essence, the present. The flow of time becomes the intentional flow of experiences, a subjective passage that can be faster or slower...
The retained past – however subjective it may seem to the outside viewer,- is quite objective to me, the insider... The Heraclites river suddenly stops in its flow, and I enter it again and again watching my winged shadow flying ahead of me on the pale tiles at the bottom of the swimming pool, as I re-live this moment today, yesterday, tomorrow...

The Hedge

The tall dusty hedge divided the world
Into “my own” and “theirs”
Bitter-smelling dark leathery leaves
Deliniated the safety of space
And held the uniquness of the moment
Where a three-year-old boy
Is lost in baking his sand pies.
The softness of warm light and the thickness of time
At the bottom of the brook red worms wriggle among naked roots
The water between my fingers is clear and same always
In that instant I am forever ten
And my mother is still wearing a beautiful short dress
Standing in the doorway
With a song on her smiling lips.
A transistor radio and strange noises of the unfathomable planets
Under the golden moon
When loneliness is a gift you prayed for
And night belongs only to you
And you belong to the night...
And on the other side – noisy footsteps and loud voices
And the abysmal clanking of a trolleybus
Speeding along in a reckless abandon,
And multitudinous roads
Convoluted, endless
That lead you away
from your own self.

Artemis and Gaia

Artemis, tall, white
Radiance in the night
Half-moon in her braid
Keeper of our last dolls
Breasts like the teats of a she-wolf triangular pointed
Long stems of her slender legs
tensed muscles and bowstring
Caressing the lucent pale curl by the ear
On the exhale – a faint whistle between clenched teeth
And the flight of Death

Gaia, shade of the day
Lithe in her flowing deliberate movements,
Her thighs are strong, she carried many children,
Her buttocks are perfect spheres
The sky and the earth
And the juicy ripe mangoes.
Where her tender foot treads,
Lakes are filled with life-giving water
Grapes dream, translucent in the sun,
And the irrepressible desire of lovers
Burns mortality with a sigh...

Then why does Gaia discover with trepidation
a grey hair in the tumbling mass of that dark waterfall?
Why does she peer at the mirror
Studying a new line at the edge of the dusky eye?
And why does the virgin vernal Artemis
Weep for Aktaeon
Why would she flee the enchantment of the starry effervescent night?

Russian Orthodox Christmas in Seattle

This year the Bishop of Seattle Feodosy came from San Francisco to serve the holiday liturgy.
The service was beautiful and somehow solemn. It was my first time to see Feodosy, and at first he impressed me as a tall man with a commanding presence. Imagine my surprise when I met him face to face and discovered he is an average height, quiet voiced man with kind and vulnerable eyes. I could see he enjoyed fellowship with the parishners - and had a wonderful time at the yolka. By the way, I played... Baba Yaga... Hello, old age... Oh, well, I had fun!