am having so many metaphors about the PhD in my mind and i guess depending on what stage it is, it takes different forms…I am usually not creative, or to be more accurate i maybe inhibit my creativity cause i think it cant easily happen in a second language (for example i couldnt easily have a poem inspiration in english)….but with imagery and metaphor it is different…it’s beyond language…and maybe i came in touch with it now and dont want to lose it. so, here am recording some of this process: … Read more »

ii feel humbled when i realise that i can actually receive help myself from a research participant (similar feeling to when i am feeling i am growing as a result of working with clients in counselling…). I had written an email to A. (now in canada) about my experience of our interview. in that email, i kind of cimmunicated to him that i am in a process of finding new perspectives etc and how his experience was so much different than mine. JHe wrote back, offering a sufi poem which just spoke inside me, just at the right time, when feeling low, and needing sth to uplift me togo though the panel. Here it is: … Read more »

Today I received a letter from C. that reflected upon the conversation i had with her around ‘where is home?’, the struggle of returning to one’s homeland where is feels like a ‘foreign land’ and the whole area of ‘cross-cultural transitions’ as my research topic. I can see links with the Odyssey and the return to Ithaka etc…but she also sent me a poem by an english poet that reflects come of this ‘journeying’ through the seas…in a feverish way of emotion. Here is it: … Read more »

Whatever the tasks, whatever i do, i know i can not produce any work,any research, any relatonship etc without being able to just be….there is so much emphasis in the ‘doing’ that things do not flow after all…it’s been a while i have been feeling ’stuck’, hence not much entry lately in this blog…i just need to BE for now…i just found the following poem that ’speaks’ some of this truth, it is by widesmiles.org (1996): … Read more »

Lola, my artist friend wrote today:

 my new writing:

“SOMETIMES I RING MY DOOR-BELL,
AND NOBODY ANSWERS.

THEN I REALISE I AM NOT AT HOME”

This reflects the ways the ’sojourner’ (and not only) exeriences the lack of sense of having a home, the belongigness…with the sense of loss within the self…it’s is a psychological state related to transitions and constant moves…something to keep in mind, in creative ways, if possible