WAVES AND HILLS
WAVES AND HILLS
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
August 31, 2025
THE UPHILL JOURNEYS
THE UPHILL JOURNEYS
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
August 21, 2025
UNMINDFUL OF TIME
UNMINDFUL OF TIME
Out of the nature that surrounds
And the world that turns around
Day and night set the mode
To work or rest when it's sound.
Time works to nature's need
Evolving life takes time indeed
Those who live urban ways
Want speedy lives, and ready feed.
Forget they, the required schedule
Life to develop, plants to produce
Cattle and sheep to graze
Time for children and maize to mature.
Jungles breath and oceans breed
For seasons to arrive and yield
Grow the seeds to edible feed
It matters not where roots were buried.
Give time for it to grow
Time is integral to soul
Mindful we must be of time
Less it will leave us behind.
Reza Ghadimi
August 2025
LONGING
LONGING
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
THE OLD AND THE NEW
THE OLD AND THE NEW
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
QUESTION OF QUESTIONS
QUESTION OF QUESTIONS
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
THE DECLARATION OF OUR INDEPENDENCE
The Declaration of our independence
Back from a hiatus, hoping to find the nightmarish world I left, was just a bad dream. Only to find myself in a Munch world wanting to scream. But today is America's Independence Day, our birthday and anniversary as a nation. We should be celebrating it joyously. Yet in the face of all that is happening around us, it may be difficult to celebrate anything, while we are under attack from within as well as without. Perhaps it is time to revisit the declaration of our independence. What exactly was it that we declared independence from? Is our world free today? For what it declares, is for everyone, not just the USA. If you have never fully read this document, or even if you have, please read it here and now. It only takes five to ten minutes, and you may come away with a totally new perspective of it.
In Congress, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!
THE ALCHEMIST
THE ALCHEMIST
I feel like an alchemist
In a brutal sultan’s hideaway
Not turning water to wine
Or metals to gold
But sadness to joy
Fear to hope.
Create not a fantasy
But a reality of optimism
Vision of harmony
As gentle rain, fragrant breeze
Oceans teaming with time
Deep rooted, enduring and firm.
Dancers under olive trees
Branches emanating melody
Evocative, suggestive, and declaring
To cheer away the misery
Free the freed and
Liberate that which is not.
Reza Ghadimi
MEMORIAL DAY
MEMORIAL DAY
5/26/2025
The following is an excerpt of the page on Memorial Day, from my book: Practicing From the Heart in the Age of Technology. Perhaps we should make this, a day to remember the victims of broken societies as well.
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Memorial Day is when we remember those who gave their lives to defend our country. It is noteworthy that a year after the end of the Civil War, in April 1866, four women of Columbus, Mississippi gathered together to decorate the graves of the Confederate soldiers buried in their town. They also felt moved to honor the Union soldiers buried there and to note the grief of their families by decorating their graves as well. The story of their gesture of humanity and reconciliation is now told and retold in Mississippi as being the occasion of the original Memorial Day.
Another heart-warming Memorial Day story is that of the Vietnam Veterans Peace and Brotherhood Chapel in the mountains north of Angel Fire, New Mexico.
Following the death of their son, U.S. Marine Corps First Lieutenant Victor David Westphall III, Jeanne and Dr. Victor Westphall decided to build a memorial in his honor and the fifteen men that died with him near Con Thien, South Vietnam on May 22, 1968, and the Vietnam Veterans Peace and Brotherhood Chapel in Angel Fire, New Mexico was erected. The Chapel was dedicated on May 22, 1971, the 3rd anniversary of the death of their son. It was the first major memorial created to honor the veterans of the Vietnam War and inspired the establishment of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., which was completed ten years later in 1982.
In circa 1982, a group of veterans and motorcycle enthusiasts made a pilgrimage to the site to honor their fallen comrades and to visit the one of a kind memorial. Somehow the word got out in that era of no internet and many more made the trip the next year and every year since, so that last year's (2024) Memorial Day event attracted ~40,000 to Angel Fire, New Mexico.
We salute all veterans everywhere who honor us with their devotion, patriotism and sacrifice.
Reza Ghadimi (USAF 1967-1971 Veteran)
SPRING TEASE
Spring,
she is a teaser!
With her tormenting winds, she plays with man and nature alike.
Showing a cleavage of summer and uplifted windblown skirt, she
excites and arouses the world with fantasies of
pleasure of the months yet to come.
Winter hangs on to her flowing skirt as she flirts with the sun and sky.
Every peek of the sun brings a warmth to the coldness of plant and animal alike.
And with every rise in temperature, blades of grass peek through the
snow and buds open on the trees as they dance back and forth
to the tempo of the wind.
After every use, I clean the fire stove in anticipation of the coming
warm days only having to run back into the forest in search of scraps
of wood to make one more fire, and watch her giggle and tease by
blowing snowflakes into my face.
It is May and there is ice on the pond. The lilacs spread their aroma through
the snow, and apple blossoms shiver and smile with every blow of the wind.
I too, play hide and seek with my winter and summer clothes as I wait
for her to stop her teasing games, and in anticipation of the coming
summer, I open the windows a tad more.
Reza Ghadimi
THE SUMMER AFTER MED SCHOOL
I head out west
Needing to get far away from
Smugness of NY and its people.
My VW bus packed with
Everything I owned
And mostly didn’t need
I drove on, till I crossed the border
Into Colorado. The WELCOME TO …
Sign felt especially heartwarming.
Boulder was as I remembered
Quaint and comforting
I rented an apartment on Walnut St.
On the way back from dinner that first night
I bought some books
Back in the room, the books looked menacing
As the walls closed in
Reminding me of toil of the past months
Reading, memorizing, testing
Over and over again.
A crack of thunder over the Rockies
Called my attention.
As I watched the sunlight fade
And the shadow of the mountains
Fall over me, I realized why I was there.
I dug through boxes and extracted
What camping gear I still had.
The next day, I spent shopping for what I didn’t.
Morning next, geo maps in hand
I head for the Continental Divide.
The first night under the starry skies
Overwhelmed by the surrounding nature
I lay awake till Cygnus flew behind the
Western hills and call of an owl and rustle
Of a marmot finally put me to sleep.
Most of that summer, I spent
Hiking the trails from Mount Blanca
To Arapaho Forest, as I recharged
The wild desert in me.
The cold winds of fall arrive early
In the Rockies and I had a stack
Of job offers to consider.
Reluctantly, I left the rivers and
Mountain critters to consider the future
The West has been home ever since.
School years are but a memory now
Though writing this note takes me back
Regretting not the gone times
But wondering how I survived
Living with those who know this not.
Reza Ghadimi
OF BODY AND SOUL
When I was a little boy
I had a globe for a toy
I wanted to fly to the moon
Cross the scary and dangerous wood.
As a teenager I wanted the world
Climb the mountains, for I was bold
Sailed the oceans till I discovered
Mysterious Islands, with magical things to uncover.
As a young man I was a patriot
Cared for country, flag and compatriots
Protect the motherland and fight
For the freedom that I was taught.
Later when I had my kids
Their protection was what I cherished
I taught them all that I knew
Bought them everything anew.
As a medicine man, I cared for all
Never mind color, tongue or national
I even went to mountains too
Jungle, war, and Sahara to cure.
Now in my olden days
Thinking back to my Gone Days
I am content to have done some good
Writing about it brightens my mood.
For life is too short to think too hard
On politics, views, or issues too brutal.
I want to enjoy the birds and the bees
Flowers, ocean, simple meals and a beer.
I will pray to gods and powers to be
To give our leaders some sanity.
IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?
Reza Ghadimi