Cairo, the 5th January, 2011

Brilliant!

"Every encounter, every event, however inconspicuous, carries in it a meaning, and self-knowledge grows from the willingness to accept those encounters and events, and from the ability to change direction spontaneously in order to respond to them. At the end of the way, this is what makes the difference between a rich and a lost human being. To err is human and natural, yet to die without having understood one's mistakes turns life into a meaningless exercise. Compassion and understanding, superficiality and egocentrism have nothing to do with age, but with the life one leads.

Life holds more than the two poles of consciousness, awake and asleep.

Whoever only accepts these two misses out on a whole range of tales, blue worlds, and fragrant gardens. Some time along the way, one realizes that even the evil impulse is only present to aid the good. Without darkness there would be no concept of light. If the light is to understand itself, it must know about its antithesis, about darkness. Heavy sweetness, filled with the fragrance of death and spiced with musk. Whoever was subjugated once becomes forever impregnable. Time and time again, we bend further back into the past, drinking from the source of our old songs and dreams. Remembering the time when the voice of our mother healed all the wounds of our soul.

A time comes when we turn our backs on lies and approach the truth, without ever quite reacing it."

Prologue from the book "Midnight's tales - a Woman's Journey through the Middle East" by Rosina-Fawzia Al-Rawi