9/10/2025
It’s a morning habit
Sitting on the hill
Overlooking the valley
Alert, watchful, listening.
And in unison, they let out a crying yelp
Then silence. Taking note.
Throughout the canyon, below
Area dogs bark in response.
Noting their position,
The wise coyote matriarch
Safely guides her family around the dogs
To their daytime ground.
Sitting on the porch overlooking the vista, one rainy afternoon
I felt rich with such peace and beauty
With God or gods watching over me, I reveled.
Is the universe really that forgiving
To award a sinner such as I
Who sees the rivers, not the rocks
To soar above the tormenting world?
For the stream to reach the ocean
It must polish earth’s body and stone
Yet oblivious to it all
I, we, all of us sleepwalk right through.
The earth is the mother of
All living things
And all living things
Should have an equal right to it.
Why is it that the coyote
The trees, the river, and the wind
Understand this, but the people of
Today’s world don’t?
Is it because we have separated
Ourselves from the nature of things? And
In our egotism, set us above it all?
If so, someday, soon, we’ll learn that
Such arrogance is self-defeating!
REZA GHADIMI
8/31/2025
On a trip to the beach, a while ago
I was curious to see if the ocean
Is, as they say, a different world.
It wasn’t.
Water to the horizon, but the endless
Swells of the sea seemed to me
An effort to emulate the hills back home.
It was hopeless, though, like painting in the rain
Just when you think you have a perfect likeness
The shower washes it away.
The surf crashes, tirelessly rises again, reaches a highpoint
Then rumbles and falls.
How long before it realizes that, solid, it’s not?
Maybe it’s the desert in me
But I prefer the solid features of my world.
There is something honest and faithful
About the rocky cliffs behind my house.
Day or night, rain or shine, winter and summer
They remain truthful. Oh, they do change color
Wash their face, seem to even comb their hair
Like a beautiful, proud, and noble lady
Pleased with her looks, solid in virtue.
I like that in my world
Especially in these days of upheavals.
For that which has a solid foundation
Will not get washed away
As that which is intelligent
Will survive the foolish.
REZA GHADIMI
8/21/2025
I have always been a wanderer.
Whether mentally or physically.
Life has been an uphill journey
Along miles of unknown trails.
Sometimes, over every crest, the end seems
To be just over the next hill
Only to wish it over the next
Hill after hill, higher and higher.
Spellbound by every opportunity, I move on
Not for any magical offering at the end,
But for the chance of meeting the challenge.
There is something exhilarating in accepting
Such ventures in life, whether for vocation or sport.
Eventually, you get to know the trails
Their consistency becomes familiar
Their up and down, turns and forks, not mysterious.
Their safety and solitude, welcoming and
Completing them, triumphant
Even without claiming a prize.
For, win or lose, the real test is trying
The real gift is making the journey.
Hiking such trails successfully and
Coming out victorious by learning
More and more of what life is all about
Is an education that
Cannot be learned any other way.
Such insight brings about betterment.
After all, isn’t that what humanity is all about?
REZA GHADIMI
8/2/2025
Reminiscence of bygone days, memories of what (once) was. Nostalgia need not be for long ago or far away, sometimes one can feel longing for something quite recent. Though my fishing trip just happened, I desire for its peace still. There is something soothing and calming to the soul, watching a river gently flow past. Perhaps its resemblance to our body's circulatory structure, reveals how much a part of nature we are. Or that its motion reassures us of our existence, a testament to our being.
The tranquility of the deep gorge I was in was comforting and peaceful. The crows, magpies, and occasional jump of a fish, did keep my attention immersed in its beauty. But the modern world still found ways to disrupt it with over flying aircraft and the occasional whistle of a distant train.
Such places are everywhere, as are peaceful people who live there and are oblivious to the intrusion of what lays beyond (see old & new, July 18). I recall another such place on a mountaintop in Central America. A couple of caring RN nuns, ran a semblance of a clinic there and occasionally, health practitioners from the outside world came and helped out, for a few days or weeks. I talk about it in my book, Practicing from the Heart in the Age of Technology - (A SALUTE TO OUR NURSES). The gentle folk, living in those remote places, had only a day-to-day task of keeping themselves and their animals, safe and cared for. What help, occasionally came to them was a blessing. A gift from another world, beyond their perception, perhaps, even from gods. It was not to be taken for granted, only appreciated. I felt ashamed that my intrusive world was encroaching violently upon theirs.
But of course, the other side of this reality is the fact that modern technology used in training medical students and healthcare professionals - will ultimately lead to better providers as well as discovery of better ways to research, develop, manufacture pharmaceuticals as well medical and other devices that will help everyone, including people in isolated areas. The trick is not destroying one way of life, while improving the other. Then we can all enjoy the peace of nature, no matter our lifestyle.
Reza Ghadimi
7/20/2025
A National Geography documentary starts by showing a small caravan of four camels and four men walking across the hot sands of Mauritania in West Africa. The hooves of the camels and sandals of men displace the dry sand with every step, leaving a long trail to the horizon, dramatically revealed by the slow rise of the camera for an aerial view. Suddenly the camels are alarmed, as a faint rumbling sound is heard far away. The men stop and watch amazed as the whistle of a train is heard in the distance. Soon several locomotives come into view pulling a long train of hoppers carrying iron ore. Men and beast watch as twenty first century interrupts their ancient way of life.
The film reminded me of another documentary across equally desolate and isolated yet incredibly cold Siberia. Where temperatures dip below -70C. There too, people have their primitive lives disrupted by modern transportation systems. New man comes with trains, trucks, machinery and remove the iron, copper, lumber, etc. from their backyard and leave destruction and waste to their land and often sicken them in the process. As a journalist traveling the cold of the arctic said "a country is not a place on a map at all, but a story full of people you meet and places you visit." Interestingly, while these places and thousands of others like them are exposed to fresh realities, the healthcare system is not one of them.
There are thousands of nationalities worldwide. It might be difficult for us to understand other lifestyles and traditions, but they do exist and have needs that are disrupted by modern life. The information technology/internet is reaching them faster than the amenities it portrays, adding to the disparities they see and feel. Among them and perhaps the most necessary is healthcare. These people see this as a new way of slavery. It is time this is changed and they receive their share of prosperity. The absurdity of it is that it cost so relatively little to provide healthcare to every corner of the world. Telehealth and telemedicine can educate and supervise people in these areas to care for themselves. We have the means, even the money, it just takes a little caring.
Reza Ghadimi
7/11/2025
There is a question
Unanswered for centuries and millennia
That has left us bewildered.
Scholars and prophets have asked
All for naught
And left it to be taken as faith
A divine cause.
Gypsies and dervishes dance to it, puzzled
Some look to the cosmos for clues
Others into a drop of water.
There are those, silently sitting
By the shore or mountain top
Pondering a metaphysical resolve.
As to who are we?
Why are we here?
Why is here, here?
As we grapple with the elusive answer
The root question gets forgotten!
And that may be the reason for
The emergence of iniquities everywhere.
Reza Ghadimi
1/31/2025
It snowed last night in the city and again today
I felt that after a long hiatus, I would welcome it
But my feet were wet through soaking shoes.
It is a new year and I expected the excitement of its celebration
Would last longer than the cold month of January
But the contradictory news surrounding my humanity
Seem to have drawn the joy out of its pleasure and
Drove us into its burst of fury.
I never thought to live this far into the twenty-first
With its fantastic communication tools
That tell lies more often than setting us aright.
Yet here I am, dodging the homeless
Sheltering under plastic sheets
Covering their cardboard abode
Ashamed, I notice there are more of them now.
Against the darkening sky, busy people
Hastily rush home, cowering under umbrellas
And wet collars pulled halfway up the head.
Buses and taxis splash through puddles
Liquor store’s overhead sign flashes open
As people going in and out
Prepare for a cold night with a loved one or alone.
Back in the cheap motel room
I hang my wet socks by the bed and pull a blanket over me.
It’s still snowing.
Reza Ghadimi
Practicing From the Heart
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