Posts Tagged ‘yalda’

Program 58: Like all Nights, Yaldas Come to an End

In this episode, we take another poetic journey to Shiraz to spend Yalda with the master poet, Saʿdi. He speaks of the symbolic significance of nights as moments of repose, and of cruelty to others as the true darkness. We return to Konya wishing Iranians’ suffering in this Yalda of cruelty to come to an end soon.

Program 50: The Everlasting is Born Tonight!

In this program I explore the concept of “birth” in Rumi’s lyric poetry as it applies to the entire cosmos. The convergence of the Winter Solstice, Christmas, and the Iranian Yalda celebrations indicate the symbolic significance of birth in many cultures. What does birth mean to Rumi? How does he put his poetic mark on this universal human experience?