Prayer Stones Turkey, spring, 2011
A Poetic-Visual Meditation on "the Sacred"
and Islamic Sacred Art and Sacred Knowledge
Double-page illuminations for "An Imaginary Book" Chapter I
I reach for a piece of wood. It turns into a lute.
I do some meanness. It turns out helpful.
I say one must not travel during the holy month.
Then I start out, and wonderful things happen.
Rumi
Prayer Stones #1 (source image: marble column surface, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul) 19x25" double-page illumination
[Click on images to enlarge]
Introduction
In the Spring of 2011 my wife Gloria and I traveled to Turkey. It was one of the most transformative journeys of my life . . . wonderful things happened.
This online photography project, entitled Prayer Stones, is the first of a much larger collection of related projects entitled "An Imaginary Book." In the beginning, I had intended to make an informal blog documenting our trip to Turkey. It was to be shared with friends and family. Then spontaneously the project took on a creative life of its own and turned into something much more personal and poetic. Prayer Stones is a visual meditation on the sacred and a written contemplation regarding some extraordinary experiences of the sacred I encountered while viewing Islamic sacred art and hearing the Islamic call to prayer, the Ezan, while traveling in Turkey.
My trip to Turkey, and these surprising and transforming experiences of the sacred initiated for me a new and unusual kind of creative process. I eventually came to realize that Prayer Stones was just the leaping-off point for what would eventually become a collection of nine core projects that form an integrated unity entitled "An Imaginary Book." The "book" also includes five peripheral projects, a Preface, and a collection of textual excerpts by Islamic scholars entitled Sacred Art, Sacred Knowledge.
All of the online projects are collected and briefly introduced here: "An Imaginary Book": A Brief Introduction. For each project there is a sample image, a brief descriptive introduction of the project, and a hyperlinked title which will take you to the complete online version of the project.
I encourage you to first read my Preface to "An Imaginary Book" before venturing any further into Prayer Stones. It contains important contextual information that should make viewing this and the other projects more rewarding. For example it has a detailed explanation on how I construct the symmetrical photographs, and it explains the many meanings the word Imaginary in the "book's" title has for me. I also encourage you to see the projects in the order in which they were produced: the list of project titles in the Preface and in the Brief Introduction are presented in the chronological sequence.
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Why I Traveled to Turkey A summary overview
Since the year 2000 I had been making a series of photography projects inspired by the music and writings of American composer Morton Feldman (1926-1987). Visit The Departing Landscape project, and the Triadic Memories project. Much of Feldman’s late music was inspired by the Turkish rugs he had collected. I thought it would be important, if possible, to see first hand the visual art, and the culture itself, that was so intimately connected to Feldman's music . . . and my own creative process.
Since traveling in Turkey (May 2011) I have devoted all of nearly two years working on "An Imaginary Book." My creative process has been inspired by the experiences I will describe here in Prayer Stones, and my studies of Islamic sacred art and sacred knowledge. I have been particularly interested in the scholarly writings on the Qur'anic, Prophetic and Sufic Traditions.
I also wanted to travel to Turkey to pay homage to Rumi, the great 13th century Sufi poet-saint, by visiting his memorial shrine in Konya, Turkey. I had read and loved Rumi's poetry for many years, and my studies of the Hindu yogic traditions, since 1987, have frequently referred to Rumi's teachings and poetry and held him in the highest regard. Fortunately this tour's itinerary made it possible for us to visit Rumi's shrine.
Rumi's Shrine
As I entered the shrine I was deeply moved as I joined so many other travelers (who had obviously come great distances from all parts of the world as well) in expressing their heartfelt love and gratitude for the life and work of this great being. Rumi's sacred presence was palpable in the shrine; and there was a profound sense of deep silence in the shrine. Indeed these sacred qualities can be felt in Rumi's poetry, of which I have include several examples here in my Prayer Stones project.
In the shrine there was a display of Rumi's books and his personal illuminated Qur'an. The Qur'an seemed alive with a sacred presence; it seemed to glow with its own internal light. (I was to have a similar experience while viewing illuminated Quran's later on in the trip.)
Being in Rumi's shrine, where he lived and prayed, and where is remains were buried, and feeling the deep love and respect of all the visitors and pilgrims, and seeing his sacred books was one of the most important experiences of the trip for me. Our itinerary also included a program of sacred music and the sacred dancing of whirling dervishes. I had always longed to experience this ritual form of meditative dance which was Rumi's inspiration. He had been the founder of the Sufi order: the Mevlevi Whirling Dervishes. (To learn more about Rumi click here)
The Ancient Ruins
And I had wanted to visit Turkey to see its many famous ancient ruins. I'm fascinated by really old places, and Turkey has lots of them! In fact every parcel of land, every stone and piece of ruin we encountered on our trip seemed to be haunted by a sense of the vastness of time and ancient human experience. For example, when we visited the famous archeological site of Troy we could actually see how the excavations had revealed nine layers of civilizations! One on top of the other, nine civilizations had been born and then destroyed throughout the years dating back to 3000-2600 BC!
Single Image #4: "Cyprus & Ruin Fragment, Turkish Landscape" 19x25" double-page illumination
As we traveled through Turkey in our speedy bus (which seemed always moving on to our next important destination) we were frequently gifted with surprising glimpses of ruin fragments just laying, eternally still, in distant fields or on the sides of mountains. One of my favorite images from the trip ("Cyprus & Ruin" above) was taken from the bus.
The Mosques
And I loved our visits to several mosques. We were able to go inside and experience several large mosques, and one small, local mosque. I was deeply impressed by their simple elegance and the vast, open roundness of space that seemed filled with the devotion of the ritual prayers. The mysterious beauty of the mosques' geometrical designs and the elegant calligraphic ornamentations consisting of the Prophet's words were especially attractive to me.
The Landscapes
Turkey has an amazing variety of landscapes: beautiful vast mountain ranges, deserts, the fascinating, strange rock formations of Cappadocia; cave dwellings, underground cities, elegant sprawling hot springs and mineral terraces. We saw herds of sheep grazing on the sides of rough, dry mountains attended by shepherds dressed in woolen cloaks.
The Ezan
Much of my photography, dating as far back as the 1960’s, had been influenced by all kinds of music including jazz and the contemporary compositions of Morton Feldman. Interestingly, on the trip to Turkey I experienced, repeatedly, a sound - though not exactly music - that was completely new to me, and hauntingly transformative. Many of the photographs you'll be seeing in Prayer Stones have been inspired by my experience of the Ezan, the Islamic Call to Prayer.
Listen, if you can stand to.
Union with the Friend means not being who you've been,
being instead silence: A place: A view
where language is inside seeing.
Union with the Friend means not being who you've been,
being instead silence: A place: A view
where language is inside seeing.
Rumi
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I photographed spontaneously throughout the trip, like most tourists, simply reacting at a gut level while all the time feeling overwhelmed by all the amazing things I was seeing and feeling and not understanding in this wonderful and ancient foreign culture and landscape. I wanted to bring it all back home with me in pictures, all the while feeling it was futile to try. It was only when I returned home and had time to quietly contemplate my experiences and really begin to work with my photographs in a deeply considered way, that I was able to get in touch with the true significance of my travel experiences in Turkey which inspired "An Imaginary Book."
Suffice it to say, the trip was filled with magical experiences which I will write about in more detail below. I left Turkey with an open heart and a feeling of longing, like I had in some strange way found my ancient homeland. Something truly great had happened to me . . . and I didn't quite know what it was when the time came to leave.
An Inward Journey
When I got home, I began studying with great enthusiasm and concentration about the sacred art and sacred knowledge traditions of Islam. My studies helped me to sustain, enrich, deepen and clarify the love and the feeling of the sacred I had experienced so often during the trip but was too overwhelmed at the time to really understand or more carefully contemplate. The process of creating Prayer Stones and the other core projects of "An Imaginary Book" has been for me a visual meditation, an important part of the process of integrating and understanding in a deeper way all that I had received from this great adventure, this journey that was as much inward as it was outward.
Ezan Diptych #2: Ruin Fragments & poppies / Cappadocia Landscape 19x25" double-page illumination
Prayer Stones #19: Ruin Fragments, Golden Grass, Troy Archaeological site 19x25" double-page illumination 19x25"
Prayer Stones #12: Ruin Fragments, Green Grass, Troy Archaeological site 19x25" double-page illumination 19x25"
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The Ezan : Call to Prayer
We began our travels in Istanbul. We had arrived at our hotel room in the afternoon. Our window was just across from one of the many minarets or towers one would see in most any Turkish city or village. We soon discovered that the tower contained loud speakers which broadcast the Ezan, the Islamic Call to Prayer five prescribed times each day. The times vary throughout the year, but generally they are: an hour before sunrise, noontime, afternoon, early evening, and one hour after sunset. To hear an atmospheric recording of the Ezan made in Istanbul click here.
The Call To Prayer was not broadcast simultaneously from the many minarets throughout the historic part of the city where we were staying; the minarets began and ended at approximately the same time, though each one began its broadcast independently from the others. When I heard the Ezan broadcast after sunset that first evening from our hotel room the sound seemed spatially vast and hauntingly atmospheric, resembling at times a deep resonating echo in a large canyon.
Our first morning
Our first morning in Istanbul began before sunrise with my first real and intense experience of the Ezan. I was awakened by the BLASTING sound of the Call to Prayer from the minaret just outside our opened hotel window! As I lay in bed in a half-sleep listening to the quavering sound of the alone singing voice, I actually got goosebumps and shivers in response to the sound - so full of longing - summoning Muslims to prayer and echoing mysteriously throughout the city.
The sound drew me deeply inside myself; my mind stopped; I was experiencing something deeply mysterious, something of the transcendent in this first of what would be several Ezan awakenings with which I was to be gifted on the trip. Special moments like this one transformed my vacation in Turkey into something much more like a pilgrimage.
Ezan Diptych #3: Mountains / Stadium, Temple of Acropolis, Pergamon & the sound of the Ezan 19x25"
In the Mountains Surrounding Pergamon
Another magical experience of the Ezan occurred on the side of a mountain while visiting Pergamon. Clouds were floating through the mountain tops as I was looking down at the ancient ruins of the Acropolis Stadium when I began to hear The Call to Prayer being broadcast in the large sprawling Turkish city below the ruins. The haunting sound rose up like the gentle fragrance from a beautiful flower, and it's numinous, sacred presence seemed to permeate the clouds, the surrounding mountains, the stone ruins . . . and some interior place within myself.
Prayer Stones
I have an intuitive sense that all objects have at their very center an interior life, a consciousness not unlike my own. click here The ancient stones and pieces of ruin fragments I photographed in Turkey seemed to me especially alive with this "energy," as if they surely must have in some inexplicable way absorbed the history of human experience and the mysteries of nature they had secretly been witness to. I like to think the stones absorbed the sacred sounds of the Ezan, so full of longing for God, and the ritual prayers of the Islamic peoples which had occurred day after day, five times each day, for so many, many years throughout the ancient landscapes of what was now named Turkey.
I came to feel that the beautiful, musical language of the Ezan, with its heartfelt outcry, pervaded everything I had come to love in Turkey: the landscapes, of course, but also the mosques, Rumi's Shrine, the illuminated Qur'ans . . . and especially the stones and the marble surfaces of the ancient ruins. When I look at my photographs of Turkey today, I feel the presence of Ezan pervading the images; the Ezan is inside the objects, inside the spaces, inside the light.
My informal travel blog about trip to Turkey turned into Prayer Stones, the first chapter or project of "An Imaginary Book" after I got back home and began slowly, deeply contemplating these encounters with the Ezan . . . and the illuminated Qur'ans.
Prayer Stones #14 Marble surface, Hagia Sophia 19x25" double-page illumination
The Illuminated Qur'ans : An Encounter
I had never seen an illuminated Qur'an in my life; but the ones I saw during our trip to Turkey were life-transforming. When we visited the Turkish and Islamic Art Museum in Istanbul, and the Rumi Shrine in Konya, I had no expectations of what I would see or experience there. However when I saw the magnificent, ancient illuminated Qur’ans on display at these two powerful places, I experienced a palpable sacred presence in those holy books that was very similar to what I had experienced when I heard the Ezan that first morning in Istanbul or in the mountains surrounding Pergamon. I was so deeply moved by the ineffable beauty of the opened, double-page illuminations I saw in Rumi's shrine, and in the art museum, that my heart achingly opened, my mind stopped, and I silently wept.
The illuminations appeared to glow with a mysterious, subtle light from within, that is to say the images seemed self-luminous; the Qur'ans and their images and the calligraphy seemed alive, as if they were breathing. Something more than merely "seeing" was going on: I was having an encounter with the sacred.
I could sense in the abstract visual power of the double-page illuminations, in the greatly detailed, gold laced, painstaking work that went into the making of them, a clarity of intention, a profound sense of devotion and respect which I imagined the artists surely must have felt for both the Qur'an and it's holy words, and perhaps for their own profoundly accomplished and yet selfless artistic practice. [To see some examples of Qur’an illuminations click here. To learn more about the Qur'an click here]
There was something impersonal about the Qur'an illuminations that interested me despite the sacred presence they emitted. I thought perhaps the abstract graphic imagery contributed to the impersonal feeling-tone. However I read later that the visual images in the Qur'an were intended to help turn the reader's attention inward . . . as a kind of preparation for the reading of the Holy Words which are considered the direct revelation of God. The artisans or craftsmen were expected to achieve in their work a delicate balance: they needed to make designs which would not draw attention to themselves as makers, and at the same time be evocative enough to facilitate the reader's coming into something like a “mystical, silent conversation” with The Creator through His Holy Words which were hand written in the most exquisite and elegant calligraphic forms.
Double-Page Illuminations
I was so deeply impressed by the illuminated Qur'ans I saw in Turkey that I began to nurture a fantasy of creating my own book of images somehow modeled after them. After I discovered the process of making the Four-fold symmetrical photographs (I will write about this further below) I eventually began thinking of Prayer Stones as a collection of double-page illuminations for an imaginary book. At that point in time I had no idea that the concept of an imaginary book would manifest into a large collection of related projects.
Once I began thinking of the symmetrical photographs as if they were double-page illuminations, I began wondering how I could more clearly visually reference that idea. I had obtained Martin Lings' wonderful book Splendors of Qur'an Calligraphy & Illumination, and as I studied the excellent reproductions and read his articulate and clarifying text about Qur'an illuminations, I became fascinated by the "solar roundels" you often see in the surrounding margins of the Qur'an pages. I decided I would put some of the "little suns" as they are called in the margins of my symmetrical photographs. I put them in the center of the image, in fact, so as to indicate both the central vertical axis of the horizontal image format and the imaginary place where the two mirroring images face each other across an imaginary gutter. With the inclusion of the little suns in the margin spaces, the images seemed more like double-page illumination in an imaginary book.
Martin Lings writes the following about double-page illuminations: ". . . both pages together are an image of harmony . . . Like their equivalents in mosque decoration, the double-page illuminations are above all echoes of the verse Wheresoever ye turn, there is the Face of God, for the multiplicity of the world is as a non-transparent veil, whereas these [Qur'an] paintings present multiplicity as a veil through which oneness can clearly be seen."
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Our eyes do not see you,
but we have this excuse: Eyes
see surface, not reality,
though we keep hoping,
in this lovely place.
Rumi
Prayer Stones #2 (source image: marble surface, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul) double page illumination 19x25"
Discovering the Symmetrical Photograph
When I got home from our trip and began to study and organize all the pictures I had taken, I became fascinated by several close up images I made of marble surfaces (walls, columns, floor pieces) in the Hagia Sophia. I had taken the pictures simply to document the natural designs in the polished marble surfaces - they seemed to me beautiful "abstract pictures" in their own right. When I saw these photographs they reminded me of some decorative marble wall pieces in the Hagia Sophia which had fascinated me but which I had neglected to photograph. What I was remembering were some large rectangular slabs of marble that had been sliced thin, flipped over and then set side-by-side to create something like decorative, symmetrical Rorschach-diptych designs. (See the image below which I found on the internet to illustrate what I was remembering. You can click on the image to enlarge it.)
With this memory of the marble walls now etched in my mind I felt compelled to try making my own symmetrical diptychs using the close up images I had made of marble surfaces. I duplicated the original image of the marble surface, flipped it around and collaged it together with the original source image. I continued playing with the imagery until I finally arrived at the kind of Four-fold symmetrical images you see presented below. (See my Preface for a more exacting outline of how I construct symmetrical photographs.)
I continue to feel, quite frankly, amazed at the intuitional impulse which initiated the idea to make these symmetrical images with their surprising degree of image transformation! I started with simple photographic documents of flat marble surfaces and somehow ended up with images that (for me) offer an experience of deep, interior, self-illuminated space. This new other-worldly imagery, which manifested its own light, a rhythmic movement like breathing, and an inexplicably vast spaciousness, definitely corresponded to the Qur'an illuminations, the mysterious awakening sounds of the Ezan, and the round vast mosque spaces I had encountered in Turkey which were alive with the sacred. The Four-fold symmetrical process was transforming snapshots into symbols; the symbolic photographs that seemed to come into existence of their own creative volition were transforming me.
Prayer Stones #1 (source image: marble column surface, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul) 19x25" double-page illumination
The Haiga Sophia: A Building of Transformation
Interestingly, like my photographs inspired by the Haiga Sophia with it's wonderful vastness of space and magical marbled walls and columns, the building itself had undergone many transformations in it's long, fascinating history. It was dedicated in the year 360, and served through 1453 as an Orthodox partriarchal basilica - except for a period (1204-1261) when it was converted to a Roman Catholic cathedral. It later became a mosque (1453-1931), and finally - after it was secularized in 1931 - it opened again in 1935 as a public museum, which is what it is today. One can see and feel the presence of this deep history of prayer and politics in the spaces and surfaces and ornamental designs in this remarkable building.
After making the Prayer Stones symmetrical photographs, and recognizing their visual relationship to the Qur'an illuminations that I had loved so much, I felt compelled to study in a more concentrated way, Islamic Qur'an illumination and the other traditional sacred art forms of Islam. My studies generated a strong desire to continue making symmetrical photographs after I had completed Prayer Stones. And now, after nearly two years of continuous work, nine projects have manifested for "An Imaginary Book" inspired by a variety of Islamic ideas and subjects including: Islamic Sacred Gardens; Moorish Architecture; The Tree of Life; Islamic theories of the Infinite and the Beautiful; Ta'wil (return); Islamic theories of Creation; and the mystical travel of Sufism. Visit "An Imaginary Book": A Brief Introduction.
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Ezan Diptych #5: Ruin Fragment, Aphrodisias site / Pottery museum display 19x25" double-page illumination 
The diptychs
Rumi, the great Sufi poet-saint, often wrote of mystical “wordless conversations” he had experienced with his teacher, Shams of Tabriz. It occurred to me that there was a similar silent dialogue that occurred between the facing images in a double-page Qur'an illumination. The Prayer Stones diptychs were influenced by the double-page Qur'an illuminations I had seen and, indeed, there is a silent conversation going on between the two images in the diptychs.
The images I use in the diptychs are not unlike the snapshots anyone might make while traveling. And yet when they are carefully selected and set side-by-side, one can sense the affinity these images have for each other. It's as if the one image completes the other in some ineffable way. In their dynamic, and yet silent face-to-face juxtapositions, some new energy or presence or meaning is generated in the space between the images; it's definitely something that can be felt.
For me, the space between the images is filled with the divine silence, the sacred presence I encountered when I heard the Ezan, and saw the double-page Qur'an illuminations in Turkey.
I would like to suggest that one of the most poignant ways a viewer could experience the diptychs would be to enter into the conversation. One could do this imaginatively by projecting one's self into the space between the images, and (as Rumi often taught through his poetry) after resting there, and becoming silent . . . simply listen.
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Traveler : Seeker
Traveling may be a secret kind of pilgrimage for many of us, that is to say an inner journey, one that takes us to some previously unknown aspect of our self. Though some of us keep that secret hidden . . . even from ourselves, if we are fortunate enough, our travel experiences awaken something inside us that recognizes the mystery we'd been seeking.
Prayer Stones, unknown to me at the time of its making, turned out to be only the beginning of such an inner adventure which has since then taken on a creative life of its own in the form of "An Imaginary Book."
There's an interesting story about Rumi and his beloved teacher, Shams that is relevant here: One day, without explanation, Shams disappeared, and Rumi suffered an intense period of grieving and longing for Shams. He went looking for his beloved teacher everywhere . . . Finally Rumi stopped his seeking when he came to this realization:
Why should I seek Shams?
I am the same as He.
His essence speaks through me.
I have been looking for myself!
Photographs
Single Images
Ezan Diptychs
Symmetrical Prayer Stones Photographs
Prayer Stones #3 (source image: stone on the Aphrodisias site) double-page illumination 19x25"
Ezan Diptych #8: Two marble sculptures, Antalya Archaeological Museum 19x25" double-page illumination
Ezan (Vertical) Diptych #9: Prayer Stone, divided 19x25" double-page illumination
Ezan (Vertical) Diptych #9: Prayer Stone, divided 19x25" double-page illumination
Prayer Stones #4 (source image: upper hallway, Aspendos Stadium) 19x25" double-page illumination
Prayer Stones #15 Marble Wall, Ruins, Turkey 19x25" double-page illumination
Prayer Stones #5 (source image: mineral pools, Pamukkale) 19x25" double-page illumination
Prayer Stones #16 (source image: Pergamon Mountain View) 19x25" double-page illumination
Prayer Stones #16 (source image: Pergamon Mountain View) 19x25" double-page illumination
Ezan Diptych #6: Cappadocia landform / Cave, Cappadocia 19x25" double-page illumination
Ezan Diptych #7: Entering a Stairway, Hagia Sophia / Ruins, Aphrodisias site 19x25"
Two Stone Wheels, Underground City, Ozkonak, Cappadocia / Ezan Diptych #4, 19x25" double-page illumination
Prayer Stones #18 Cave of Gold, Underground City, Ozkonak, Cappadocia 19x25" double-page illumination
Two Stone Wheels, Underground City, Ozkonak, Cappadocia / Ezan Diptych #4, 19x25" double-page illumination
Prayer Stones #18 Cave of Gold, Underground City, Ozkonak, Cappadocia 19x25" double-page illumination
Ezan Diptych #10: Cappadocia Landforms 19x25" double-page illumination
Single Image "The Call" #3: Ruins, Pamukkale 19x25" double-page illumination
Ezan Diptych #13: Stone Fragmented Portraits, Antalaya Museum 19x25" double-page illumination
Ezan Diptych #11: Istanbul Residents Going to Work / Young tourist listening to the Ezan, Bosphorus Strait, Istanbul
Celestial Gardens
The image above is the last Prayer Stones symmetrical photograph I made, and, at the same time the image initiated a new series of photographs I have entitled Celestial Gardens, which serves both as an extension of the Prayer Stones project and the second "chapter" of "An Imaginary Book." I invite you to continue on this journey with me by visiting Celestial Gardens.
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"An Imaginary Book": The Complete Collection of Islamic sacred art inspired projects
Welcome Page to my entire photography website.
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Prayer Stones #11 & Celestial Garden #1 (source image: marble columns, mineral springs, Pamukkale) 19x25" double-page illumination
Celestial Gardens
The image above is the last Prayer Stones symmetrical photograph I made, and, at the same time the image initiated a new series of photographs I have entitled Celestial Gardens, which serves both as an extension of the Prayer Stones project and the second "chapter" of "An Imaginary Book." I invite you to continue on this journey with me by visiting Celestial Gardens.
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Like the ground turning green in a spring wind.
Like birdsong beginning inside the egg.
Like the universe coming into existence,
the lover wakes, and whirls
in a dancing joy,
then kneels down
in praise.
Rumi
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Gloria and I want to express our heartfelt gratitude to the people of Turkey, the great group of people we traveled with, Go Ahead Tours, and especially Suleyman Karaz - our very excellent tour director and guide. We loved our travel adventure through Turkey. If you'd like detailed information about our tour please click here.
I dedicate Prayer Stones to my wife, Gloria, with love and gratitude for all the ways she has helped and supported me, not only in this project but in all of our life's journey together.
Steven D. Foster
I dedicate Prayer Stones to my wife, Gloria, with love and gratitude for all the ways she has helped and supported me, not only in this project but in all of our life's journey together.
Steven D. Foster
Sacred Art, Sacred Knowledge excerpts from the writings of great Islamic Scholars
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