Witnessing the birth of Bahareh.com through the eye of a needle

How did it all come to be? How did it start to breath and live and become a child that is in its last trimester of life in the womb.

If I had to go back in time and write the essence of where this bird learned how to fly, I would have to go back to a home that is called the house of God, this home can be any where and in anyone as long as there is the faintest belief in the Good in life.

This is when the seed is planted, when the embryo starts its life, this is where i started to breath a bit deeper and sink a bit louder.

These days, these last days before the launch of the site or before the birth of Bahareh.com, I have been questioning why? And why? and Why?

I have forgotten that this has nothing to do with me, that it has its own life and identity and that my name is only used as a vehicle, as a loud speaker as a robe to enter the right crowd. The words are pure light, they are from a source of light that is a torch that travels beyond time and space.

I had been struggling with a blog for months, with a website for months, i worked with wonderful people that supported me all along the way, so patiently Kourosh Tavakol and Javad Farahani and Karim Shabankareh in the first steps along the way. Then i took a few steps back… almost began to crawl forgetting i knew how to walk. Then my brother Rahim told me to start video taping my poetry, he has believed in the words since the first time he heard one talk. I tried i sat in front of the computer, but it just did not fly.

Then one day i was at a conference in my children’s school, The Global Issues Conference. There a young man spoke his name is Chris Bashinelli, i did not know him from other Chirses in the world, but others did. He talked about believing what you do, and knowing what is right for you to do in life. After the talk, i went to him for advice, he was half my age, but i think reason and wisdom have no age, and there is a reason why i was a there on that day that he was there.

I talked to him, he asked me if he could ask me a few questions on video, i said sure, but while we wait for your camera person, can i read you a few poems i just wrote.

I started reading, i knew he was somewhere else, but the incredible thing is out of the blue came a person and stood by me and said, ” I just overheard you read your poetry” she pointed to the hair on her hand and said, that i make her feel somehow alive, i am not sure of the word, but she said she believed i have something to say and that it needs to be shared.

She asked me if i wanted her to video tape me and then i could do with it what i want. I looked up and i said “did you just drop out of the sky”?

This is the story of the beginning of a friendship with Sonya Edelman. She is a director and a producer, she is the one who has done the two poem videos you see on my site, and she has also taped me sitting and reading the first few journals in my home. While we were talking i told her someone told me that they heard flute when they heard my poetry, she told me her field of study is music specializing in flute. The beautiful flute you hear in the beginning of these videos is her composition.

She began to love my animals and gave me a collection of clay animals for my birthday, she had just met me but she knew me better than most people in my life.

Then I was looking for someone to organize my being, my being as a poet that wanted or thought i wanted to share my words with a few more people. Sonya told me she knew someone that would be wonderful. She brought the next player into the game of my life as Bahareh.com. Her name is Hanna Makki, she is wonderful at bringing people together and organizing events may they be on that day or somewhere down the line. If i needed something to happen along the way, i knew if no one else could or would see to it, she would. I am fortunate to have her as part of the team.

We started talking about PR firms and logos and such and Hanna said she knew the perfect person. Her name is Sana Bagersh who owns a large firm in Abu Dhabi called BrandMoxie. For the first meeting i got all dressed, and something sweet in hand as is customary in Iran and we went the group; Sonya, Hanna and I. We had a wonderful meeting of hearts and minds. Hearts in the sense that we all spoke the same language, even if one was speaking of logo, the other of film and the other of when and how. I just sat there listening and talking not sure why?

Brand Moxie started work, and the group of wonderful talented designers came up with logos and designs, and as things are; there was one design that popped out at me, it is what i have as my logo now. Bahareh in modern Farsi calligraphy and then with some tweaking and adding my signature on the side, Rula Hinawy came up with the perfect logo and design. The design of the website and stationary and cards are all her work and vision. She did not once frown in all the times Hanna and I decided to move something 3 centimeters to the side.

Now then we certainly needed someone to take care of all of this wonderful work and put it on the website. Hanna knew just the right person. A gentleman who I have since discovered to be my brother not by blood but through light. His name is Farrukh Naeem. I had been told a lot about him, about what an expert he is, he is one of the best writers in the middle east, he is the best copy writers in the region and much much more. But on that wonderful evening when Sonya, Hanna and I sat around the table waiting for him, i did not know that i was going to meet someone who was a poet at heart and a carrier of light like all others in my life. The only difference was that Farrukh and i had shared similar experiences that brought the web of light to life. Since then he has taken Bahareh.com under his wing, and is taking care of this site as he does for his beautiful toddler, who is my precious and youngest niece. I was lucky enough to feel at home with his mother and sisters and wife. My family has expanded over night.

And now it is with his vision and direction that Bahareh.com is coming to you through this blog and this website.

There are so many many more people along the way, i would not know where to start, but there is Ommid Nikbin who is musician and composer who has done the audio to the Farsi poetry. I truly feel like when i heard the first poems with his music, the words started to dance and fly.

Then there is Mohsen Aghdam who has put some visuals to the audio, a young man whom i have never met, but who i have been speaking with in the last few days.

The wonderful friend that has done all the transcribing for my Farsi poetry is Soudeh Jamali, she is a soul I met from here to there in a nation called home that i had only known as a child, as an adult I have found a friend in that home.

The second camera person on the day of shoots is Maitri Somaia, she is great, i was afraid for her and her camera as she lied down on the beach in the water and practically on the side walk, she has also done a lot of editing of the footage Sonya had taken earlier.

Elaine and Jan are wonderful photographers, Jan’s work you will see along the way with the journals that turn pages are they tell stories. Every single person along the way, at the company who has poured the tea, and every single person along the way who has delivered something from somewhere to someone, and every single morsel of light that has shed its way along the way has made Bahareh.com… Bahareh.com today.

I have of course had many many mentors and carriers of light along the way, I can only begin to name a few, but there are so many many more. Dr. Diane Harvey who SAW me as a young woman and made me believe that i can, i am still struggling with this, but she is the force behind my higher education and telling me i am the best at what I do. She is the person that after reading some of my poetry, said that i was her favorite poet ever. She has been present in my life for a quarter of a century.

Then there is Harry Woehrle, a gentle man i met on the bus, he carried a white cane, but he is the one that has taught me the meaning of sight. I am sighted and in flight mostly for his guidance along the way. I met Esther De Waal, through another mentor and friend Jean Duff. Esther, took the time to ask me to introduce myself to her and then cared enough to listen since then. We have little contact, but through her books i get a knowing for the world she wants to paint for me. I love having met her along the threshold of my life between here and no where but here. Jean, gives me a cozy feeling when i think of her, and i like her as a mother, she is real and sincere.

Really all my friends, and neighbors and the cashier at the grocery store and the garbage collector who waved hello one day have played a role in my life and in the birth of Bahareh.com

In my poetry you will read about the shadow. The shadow role is sometimes played by me, sometimes by someone i have met along the path, whose heart has not been in tune with mine. The shadow can and has been a friend from time to time. With out the shadows help i would not be able to see the brightness of the light.

There is one other person that i would like to mention along the way and that is the person that has been with me truly since the beginning of the day i started to write. Her name is Raz Moinzadeh, she is a childhood friend, whom i did not recognize as a friend then, she then came into my life 11 years ago again for a short visit after my father’s death to sit by my side for a while. Our next encounter was last year and since then she has been by my side as a companion looking over a friend carrying a seed in her womb.

Raz has been there through the light and dark, through the drought and the fall of rain. She reads into the poetry things that i would never see. Her wisdom and her open heart have led the way for me. She has not only been the carrier of me, she has also been the secret keeper just as her name says she would be. Raz, although your name means secret, your essence is nothing but the truth learning to shed light, i hope you let this light be your friend along the way.

How can I not say a word about my family, people whom i did not choose in my life, but i was born into this crowd. There have been good and bad times along the way, just as any family who wants to tell the truth about their life. I am fortunate to be who I am and where I am and part of that is the home in which i was born and also the home in which i live in now. I would like to also remember the womb that carried me to life and also remember the children i carried in my womb to this life.

Welcome to this website that has started to breath, as you write on my blog and as i make changes or additions according to what you like this will become OUR space, our place to breath in the LIGHT and breath out the LIGHT. No more looking throughout the eye of the needle, now Bahareh.com is born to life.