Barak Baba & the Il-khanid (Tibetan Buddhist/Muslim) Rulers of Persia (1257-1307 AD)

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"Barak Baba..........(1257-1307 AD), a crypto-shamanic Anatolian Turkman dervish close to two of the Mongol rulers of Iran, the Īlkhānid period.......http://www.iranicaonline.org

"Ahmet Karamustafa, Ph.D., associate professor of Islamic thought and Turkish literature in Arts and Sciences......his treatise on the Qalandars, a 13th-century Islamic dervish movement that also favored tambourines and psychoactive drugs, not to mention drums and naked revelry.....Among dervishes, he explains, such bizarre anti-establishment behavior was considered an intensely spiritual act of pious self-denial, an outward sign of disdain for earthly societal norms. It's an intellectual tidbit that might prove useful to anyone seeking answers to social unrest in the '60s......In his 1994 book, "God's Unruly Friends: Dervish Groups in the Islamic Later Middle Period, 1200 - 1500," Karamustafa tells of Barak Baba, who led about 100 dervishes into Syria in 1306. Baba, who made a point of thumbing his nose at authority, liked to wander around nearly naked, wearing only a red cloth around his waist and a reddish turban on his head. His turban sported buffalo horns protruding from either side......Baba's dervishes were renowned for their "immoral" ways, which included consumption of illegal foods and drugs and failure to observe the ritual Islamic fast. Like the free-spirited flower children of this century, dervishes were castigated as no-account beggars, idiots, lunatics and impostors, both by contemporary church leaders and waves of subsequent religious scholars."....http://home.earthlink.net/~drmljg/id1.html

"Barāq Bābā left Sarï Saltūq and traveled to the Il-khanid court, probably because of a reverse his master’s forces had suffered. When Barāq Bābā came into the presence of Ḡāzān Khan in Tabrīz, a tiger was unleashed on him to test his occult powers; a cry from him was sufficient to halt it in its tracks. Thereafter he enjoyed the trust both of Ḡāzān and of his successor, Moḥammad Ḵodā-banda Oljāytū (Öljeytü)..... it is possible to see in Barāq Bābā an early exponent of the potent mixture of Turkic shamanism, Sufism, and ḡolāt-Shiʿism that some two centuries later brought the Safavids to power."....http://www.iranicaonline.org/

"In 1306 AD Barāq Bābā arrived in Damascus, carrying the Il-khanid banner and a letter of appointment. His outlandish appearance aroused both disgust and amusement: He was naked except for a red loincloth (fūṭa) and extremely filthy, wearing a kind of felt turban to which cowhorns were attached on his head. His companions were similarly dressed and carried with them an assortment of bones and bells, to the accompaniment of which Barāq Bābā would dance, imitating the antics of monkeys and bears....Tapdūq Emre, the preceptor of the celebrated mystical poet Yūnos Emre, were both regarded as Barāq Bābā’s successors....Qoṭb-al-ʿAlawī’s interpretation of the ecstatic utterances contained in the resāla in conformity with the classical Sufism of Iran suggests that no clear line of demarcation separated the crypto-shamanic Sufism of Barāq Bābā and his peers from its established and orthodox counterpart. Barāq Bābā is said, indeed, to have been one of those whom Ḡāzān Khan consulted concerning the life and teachings of Mawlānā Jalāl-al-Dīn Rūmī".....http://www.iranicaonline.org/

"ḠĀZĀN KHAN......(1271-1304 AD), oldest son of Arḡūn Khan and his eventual successor as the seventh Il-khanid ruler of Persia......he was appointed governor of the eastern provinces, i.e., Khorasan, Māzandarān, Qūmes and Ray..... Ḡāzān was a Buddhist who converted to Islam.....Once firmly on the throne, Ḡāzān launched a campaign against the non-Muslims in his kingdom. Particularly affected were the Buddhists, to which the Khan had belonged before his conversion to Islam. The Buddhist baḵšīs (lamas or scholars, q.v.) were given the option either to become Muslims or to leave the country. Buddhist temples were destroyed as were many churches and synagogues.....In spite of his conversion to Islam, Ḡāzān remained loyal to different aspects of Mongol tradition, most notably the yāsā, or law code attributed to Čengīz Khan." ....http://www.iranicaonline.org/

"The Ilkhanate, a khanate that formed the southwestern sector of the Mongol Empire, ruled by the Mongol House of Hulagu...The founder of the Ilkhanate dynasty was Hulagu Khan, (1218-1265 AD).....grandson of Genghis Khan....... It was founded in the 13th century and was based primarily in Iran as well as neighboring territories......Hulagu's descendants ruled Persia for the next eighty years, tolerating multiple religions, including Shamanism, Buddhism, and Christianity, and ultimately adopting Islam as a state religion in 1295......The Ilkhanate was originally based on the campaigns of Genghis Khan in the Khwarazmian Empire in 1219–24 and was founded by Hulagu Khan, a grandson of Genghis Khan. With the fragmentation of the Mongol Empire after 1259 it became a functionally separate khanate. At its greatest extent, the state expanded into territories that today comprise most of Iran, Iraq, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkmenistan, Turkey, western Afghanistan, and southwestern Pakistan. Later Ilkhanate rulers, beginning with Ghazan in 1295, would convert to Islam......

Click on the map to enlarge

"In the period after Hulagu, the Ilkhans increasingly adopted Tibetan Buddhism. Christian powers were encouraged by what appeared to be an inclination towards Nestorian Christianity by Ilkhanate rulers, but this was probably nothing more than the Mongols' traditional even-handedness towards competing religions. The Ilkhans were thus markedly out of step with the Muslim majority they ruled. Ghazan, shortly before he overthrew Baydu, converted to Islam, and his official favoring of Islam as a state religion coincided with a marked attempt to bring the regime closer to the non-Mongol majority of the regions they ruled. Christian and Jewish subjects lost their equal status with Muslims and again had to pay the poll tax. Buddhists had the starker choice of conversion or expulsion.".....

"In Sufism, teachers of ‘crazy wisdom’ are termed ‘Malamati’ or followers of the ‘Path of Blame.’ They may find it necessary in their teaching function to incur feelings of opposition in others, in order to challenge fixed ideas and assumptions......Individuals who follow the ‘Malamati’ approach do not worry about appearances, image or the impression made on others. They incur reproach, take no care of their repute, and simplydo and say what they consider right.".....http://www.lightwinnipeg.org/Crazy%20Wisdom.pdf

"The Qalandariyyah (Qalandaris or Kalandars)..... are wandering Sufi dervishes. The term covers a variety of sects, not centrally organized.......Starting in the early 12th century, the movement gained popularity in Greater Khorasan and neighbouring regions.....Particular to the qalandar genre of poetry are terms that refer to gambling, games, intoxicants......The Qalandariya may have arisen from the earlier Malamatiyya and exhibited some Buddhist and Hindu influences."

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December 2015

John Hopkins....Northern New Mexico

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The Shaivite Yogini Poetess Lal Ded of Kashmir (1320–1392 AD)

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"Lal Ded, Lal Didi, or Lalleshwari (1320–1392) was a Kashmiri Saivite mystic, whose mystic poetry (called vatsun or vakhs, i.e. that which flows, or speech, the Aryan name for the Oxus River near Balkh, the original Saraswati) constitute some of the earliest compositions in the Kashmiri language."....http://shayarmarket.blogspot.com/2014/08/lal-ded-shiv-chuy-thali-thali-rozan.html

"Lalleshwari (1320–1392) was a mystic of the Kashmiri Shaivite sect. She was a creator of the mystic poetry called vatsun or Vakhs, literally "speech". Known as Lal Vakhs, her verses are the earliest compositions in the Kashmiri language and are an important part in history of Kashmiri literature. She inspired some of the later Sufis of Kashmir.....She is also known by various other names, including Lal Ded, Lalla, Lal Diddi, Laleshwari, Lalla Yogishwari and Lalishri."....Richard Carnac Temple (1 August 2003). Word of Lalla the Prophetess. Kessinger Publishing.

"Whatever this body of mine experienced became
the sadhana of Saiva Tantra
illumining my path to Parmasiva."
(An example of Lal Vakh in Kashmiri:
yi rasini vichoarum thi mantar
yihay lagamo dhahas partsun
suy Parasivun tanthar )

"The Rishi order of Kashmir is a Sufi tradition associated with religious harmony. Many of the saints held dear by Kashmiris to this day were Sufi Rishis. The original Rishis include Sheikh Noor-ud-din Wali also known as Nund Rishi. The Rishi order has made an important contribution to Kashmiriyat, the ethnic, national, social and cultural consciousness of the Kashmiri people, as well as a distinctive contribution to global Islam. The 17th-century poet Baba Nasib sums up the impact of the Rishi order thus: "The candle of religion is lit by the Rishis, they are the pioneers of the path of belief. The heart-warming quality of humble souls emanates from the inner purity of the hearts of the Rishis. This vale of Kashmir, that you call a paradise, owes a lot of its charm to the traditions set in vogue by the Rishis."….Kashmiris use the Hindu epithets Rishi or Baba to describe these Sufi saints. The Shaivite yogini Lal Ded was a key influence on Nund Rishi, and is said to have suckled him at her breast when he was an infant. Sufi Rishis were certainly aware of yogic practices, as evidenced by the poet Shams Faqir's praise of Lal Ded: "Lalla achieved the fusion of her vital air and ether, and thus realized God." However, the Sufi Rishis made an effort to clearly distance themselves from certain Hindu practices. Some were farmers, and Nund Rishi himself is said to cultivated land in order to demonstrate the spiritual and social importance of manual labour, abhorred by the Brahmins. "

"Lalleshwari was born in Pandrethan (ancient Puranadhisthana) some four and a half miles to the southeast of Srinagar in a Kashmiri Pandit family. She married at age twelve, but her marriage was unhappy and she left home at twenty-four to take sanyas (renunciation) and become a disciple of the Shaivite guru Siddha Srikantha (Sed Bayu). She continued the mystic tradition of Shaivism in Kashmir, which was known as Trika before 1900.....

"Her poems (called vakhs) have been translated into English by Richard Temple, Jaylal Kaul, Coleman Barks, Jaishree Odin, and Ranjit Hoskote."

"Vatsun is derived from Sanskrit ‘Vachan’ meaning word/speech. This is because it has no particular pattern of versification or rhyme scheme. The metres and rhyme schemes of vatsun are varied, but generally each unit is a stanza of three lines followed by a refrain (vooj). Vatsun bears a resemblance to Urdu lyric. Vatsun is also similar to the ghazals of the Middle East and iambic pentameter of the Western world......In poetry it is a popular age-old folk-form dating back to the fourteenth century, when Lal Ded and Hazart Sheikh-ul-Alam (alias Nund Rishi) wrote in Kashmiri language the devotional poetry depicting their mystic experiences, love for God, love for others, and folk dancing."..."Vatsun." Encyclopaedia of Indian literature vol. 5. 1992.

"Lal Ded....b. 1355......Born in modern-day Kashmir, 14th-century Kashmiri saint and mystic poet Lal Ded (Mother Lalla), also known as Lalla or Lalleshwari, was married at the age of 12 into a family that was reported to have regularly mistreated her. After becoming a disciple of Sidh Srikanth, she renounced her material life and marriage to become a devotee of the god Shiva. As a mystic, she wandered naked, reciting her proverbs and quatrain-based poems. Lal Ded often used her poetry as a peaceful means of engagement with both Shaivism and Sufism.....Her poetry has been translated widely, including English translations by Jane Hirshfield in Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women (1994), Coleman Barks in Naked Song: Lalla (1992), and K.C.I.E. Sir George Grierson in Lalla-Vakyani or The Wise Sayings of Lal-Ded, A Mystic Poetess of Ancient Kashmir (1920). ".....http://www.poetryfoundation.org

"I was passionate, filled with longing,
I searched far and wide.
But the day that the Truthful One
found me, I was at home."
Lal Ded, “[I was passionate]” translated by Jane Hirshfield, from Women in Praise of the Sacred (New York: Harper Collins, 1994).

"The leading Kashmiri Sufi figure, Sheikh Noor-ud-din Wali, also known as Nooruddin Rishi or Nunda Rishi, was highly influenced by Lal Ded. One Kashmiri folk story recounts that as a baby, Nunda Rishi refused to be breast-fed by his mother. It was Lal Ded who breast-fed him. Lal Ded and her mystic musings continue to have a deep impact on the psyche of Kashmiri common man, and the 2000 National Seminar on her held at New Delhi led to the release of the book Remembering Lal Ded in Modern Times.....A solo play in English, Hindi and Kashmiri titled 'Lal Ded' (based on her life), has been performed by actress Mita Vashisht all over India since 2004."

"Lalleshuri (Lal Ded) of Kashmir.....Her poetic compositions or VAAKHS as they are popularly called are the extempore outpourings of a highly awakened YOGINI and exhibit high quality poetry with a deep philosophical content..... Lalleshuri communicated her spiritual teachings in the language of the common man using verbal medium only......The VAAKHS of Lalleshuri.... a highly awakened SHAIVITE YOGINI and a religious philosopher. Her sayings about the futility of worldly existence and the escape route through the practice of Yoga have received wide recognition.... Her poetic compositions were instantly committed to public memory and sung as divine songs to make retribution to God for ones sins. A highly awakened soul, a YUGPURSHA and a living incarnation of Lord Shiva, she gave out rare gems of VAAKHS in the common man’s word showing a clear path towards self realization.".....http://www.shehjar.com

"Lalleshuri is a great interpreter of the divine word AUM. She extensively explains the validity of AUM in achieving higher stages in yoga through PRANAYAMA and advancement of self by mastering efficiently the recitation of AUM. She says one who is able to master the recitation of this divine word with the rhythm of his breath without any digression of thought can form an easy bridge between him and the universal consciousness. LALLA says further that she gradually mastered the recitation of AUM in a way that she began feeling a strange sensation and with it her whole ego vanished, and thus detached from the world she was enlightened.".....http://www.shehjar.com

"Lalleshuri has given exhaustive description of KUDALINI SHAKTI and the exercise of KUNDALINI JAGRAN. The KUDALINI SHAKTI is a latent energy in the form of a coiled serpent with its abode in the lower end region of the spinal cord of the human body. On purification and awakening of this energy which is a systematic YOG-KRIYA the divine energy takes an upward course through spinal cord called KUNDALINI JAGRAN performed with the inhalation and exhalation of breath (PRANAYAMA) and gradually with sustained effort the energy reaches the top of the head of the YOGI. On acquisition of this energy the seeker attains the final and most comprehensive truth about the entire universe. This is the highest stage in YOGA and when the seeker reaches this stage all his passions for worldly pleasures retire and he is freed from the cycle of birth and death, a stage of eternal bliss. Lalleshuri calls KUDALINI SHAKTI in the form of a coiled serpent a SHAH-MAR (king serpent) and calls upon the seeker to lift the lid off the container of this energy by the power of exhalation and inhalation of breath and dive deep into the supreme consciousness.".......http://www.shehjar.com

"Mita Vashisht has worked in off-beat cinema as well as in commercial roles. She has worked in theatre and has written scripts as well. Since 2004, she has performed her solo play in English and Hindi, titled, Lal Ded, based on life of medieval Kashmiri mystic Lal Ded, all over India.".... C.S. Lakshmi (1 May 2005). "Songs of a mystic"

The Emir of Bokhara and His Country: Journeys and Studies in Bokhara... By Ole Olufsen

The Vakhsh River (Tajik: Вахш), also known as the Surkhob (in north-central Tajikistan) and the Kyzyl-Suu (in Kyrgyzstan), is a Central Asian river, and one of the main rivers of the nation of Tajikistan. It is a tributary of the Amu Darya river.

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March 2015

Northern New Mexico

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Ancient Nomadic Bards & Poetic Oral History

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".....the Druidic elite was divided into three parts: the Bards (lyric poets, musicians), Vates (diviners and seers) and the Druids (priests, philosophers, theologians). Druids were especially gifted at poetry, rhetoric, philosophy, and all verbal skills."

"A hereditary caste of professional poets in Proto-Indo-European society has been reconstructed by comparison of the position of poets in medieval Ireland and in ancient India in particular."......[Martin Litchfield West, Indo-European poetry and myth, Oxford University Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-19-928075-9, p. 30.]

"The Epic of King Gesar (/ˈɡɛzər/ or /ˈɡɛsər/; Standard Tibetan: གེ་སར་རྒྱལ་པོ, Ge-sar rGyal-po, "King Gesar"; Mongolian: Гэсэр Хаан, Geser Khan, "King Geser"), also spelled Geser (especially in Mongolian contexts) or Kesar (/ˈkɛzər/ or /ˈkɛsər/), is an epic cycle, recorded variously in poetry and prose, chantfable being the style of traditional performance, and is sung widely throughout Central Asia. Some 100 bards of this epic (sgrung: lit."tale") are still active today in the Gesar belt of China, Tibetan, Mongolian, Buryat, and Tu singers maintain the oral tradition and the epic has attracted intense scholarly curiosity as one of the few oral epic traditions to survive as a performing art. Besides stories conserved by such Chinese minorities such as the Bai, Naxi, the Pumi, Lisu, and the Yugur peoples, versions of the epic are also recorded among the Burushaski-speaking Burusho of Hunza and Gilgit, the Kalmyk and Ladakhi peoples, in Baltistan, in Sikkim, Bhutan, Nepal, and among various Tibeto-Burmese, Turkish, and Tunghus tribes. The first printed version was a Mongolian text published in Beijing in 1716."......https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_King_Gesar

"Kathak.......Originating from north Indian states, In ancient Indian temples brahmin priests(pandits) used to narrate the stories of gods and goddesses through dance, they were known as (kathakar)) and the dance came to be known as "kathak". Kathak traces its origins to the nomadic bards of ancient northern India, known as Kathaks, or storytellers. Its form today contains traces of temple and ritual dances, and the influence of the bhakti movement. From the 16th century onwards it absorbed certain features of Persian dance and Central Asian dance which were imported by the royal courts of the Mughal era."......Massey, Reginald (1999). India's kathak dance, past present, future. New Delhi: Abhinav Publications. pp. 15–33. ISBN 978-81-7017-374-8.

"In medieval Gaelic and British culture a bard was a professional poet, employed by a patron, such as a monarch or nobleman, to commemorate the patron's ancestors and to praise the patron's own activities.....William Shakespeare is known as the Bard or the Bard of Avon..... In other Indo-European societies, the same function was fulfilled by skalds, rhapsodes, minstrels and scops, among others.."....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bards

"The Indo-Europeans, speakers of the prehistoric parent language from which most European and some Asiatic languages are descended, most probably lived on the Eurasian steppes some five or six thousand years ago. Martin West investigates their traditional mythologies, religions, and poetries, and points to elements of common heritage....identifying elements of ancient, Indo-European heritage in the Greek material. Topics covered include the status of poets and poetry in Indo-European societies; meter, style, and diction; gods and other supernatural beings, from Father Sky and Mother Earth to the Sun-god and his beautiful daughter, the Thunder-god and other elemental deities, and earthly orders such as Nymphs and Elves; the forms of hymns, prayers, and incantations; conceptions about the world, its origin, mankind, death, and fate; the ideology of fame and of immortalization through poetry; the typology of the king and the hero; the hero as warrior, and the conventions of battle narrative.".....[Martin Litchfield West, Indo-European poetry and myth, Oxford University Press, 2007]

"...name Druid is composed of two Celtic word roots which have parallels in Sanskrit. Indeed, the root vid for knowledge, which also emerges in the Sanskrit word Veda, demonstrates the similarity. The Celtic root dru which means 'immersion' also appears in Sanskrit. So a Druid was one 'immersed in knowledge.'....Meet the Brahmins of ancient Europe, the high caste of Celtic society by Peter Berresford Ellis

"The Theory of Common Origins.......There are at least five theories currently mooted that attempt to explain the extraordinary connections and resemblances that can be found between European and Indian languages and culture. The most widely held theory, based on linguistic, archaeological and genetic evidence is the Kurgan hypothesis, which suggests that the Indo-European peoples migrated west to Europe and south-east to India from the Pontic-Caspian steppe, which comprises the vast steppelands stretching from north of the Black Sea as far as the east of the Caspian Sea, from central Ukraine across the Southern and Volga Federal Districts of Russia to western Kazakhstan. Some linguists and archeologists, however, favour the Anatolian hypothesis, which suggests the Indo-Europeans originated in Asia Minor (now Turkey) and there are other, less favoured theories that suggest Armenia or India (the Harappan Theory) were the source-lands, or that the similarities can be explained by looking further back, to our common origins in Africa.".......http://www.druidry.org

"Around 4000 B.C.E. ("Before the Common Era") the tribes that spoke Proto-Indo-European began to migrate away from their original homeland, which was probably the territory around the northwest shores of the Black Sea. Some went southeast and founded the Armenian, Iranian and Indic cultures. Others went south to Anatolia and Palestine, and became known as Hittites and Mitanni. Those who went southwest to the Balkans became Thracians and Greeks. Others who went west and north established the Celtic, Slavic, Germanic, and Baltic cultures.....by the time of the Roman Empire, nearly every language spoken in Europe (except Basque, Lappish and Finnish) was a member of the Western branch of Indo- European......the Western Indo- European cultures seem to have been built on the same fundamental social pattern as that with which we are familiar in Vedic India: clergy, warriors, and providers (farmers, craftspeople, traders, herders, etc.) In fact, it appears that a close to exact correspondence can be made between the religious, political and social functions originally performed by a Latin flamen, a Celtic draoi, or a Vedic brahman."....http://www.adf.org/articles/identity/ieclergy.html

"During the Middle Ages, Alexander the Great’s deeds — both real & legendary — inspired bardic poetry and song across the world, both East and West. The renowned Boston Camerata joins forces with the Turkish-American ensemble Dünya for a programme that offers illustrations from his fabled history....narration of the Alexander Story comes from Arrianos, Plutarch, Alexandre de Paris, Thomas of Kent, Iskendername, Seyahatname, The Septuagint and The Holy Koran.".....http://www.earlymusic.bc.ca

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John Hopkins.....Northern New Mexico….August 2013

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Shi Wai Tao Yuan: The Peach Blossom Land (421 AD)

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Tao Yuanming (traditional Chinese: 陶淵明; simplified Chinese: 陶渊明; pinyin: Táo Yuānmíng; Wade–Giles : T'ao Yüan-ming) also known as Tao Qian (simplified Chinese: 陶潜; traditional Chinese: 陶潛; pinyin: Táo Qián; Wade–Giles: T'ao Ch'ien) (365–427) was a Chinese poet of the Six Dynasties period (c. 220 - 589 CE).

"Peach Blossom Spring......Tao Yuanming is also known for his short, influential, and intriguing prose depiction of a land hidden from the outside world called "Peach Blossom Spring" (桃花源記). The name Peach Blossom Spring (桃花源 Tao Hua Yuan) has since become the standard Chinese term for 'utopia'....Peach Blossom Spring Story (Chinese: 桃花源記; pinyin: Táohuā Yuán; literally "Source of [the River of] the Peach Blossoms") or The Peach Blossom Land was a fable by Tao Yuanming in 421 AD about a chance discovery of an ethereal utopia where the people lead an ideal existence in harmony with nature, unaware of the outside world for centuries.

"The expression shìwaì taóyuán (世外桃源) ‘the Peach Spring beyond this world’) has become a popular Chinese expression, meaning an unexpectedly fantastic place off the beaten path, usually an unspoiled wilderness of great beauty. The text inspired many later poems, some music compositions and a modern Taiwanese play-turned-movie, Secret Love for the Peach Blossom Spring. In some of the poems, the inhabitants of the villages were immortals.....The Taohuayuan Scenic Area is a national park based on the Peach Blossom Spring and is located in Taoyuan County, Hunan Province.

"Shangri-la" means an ideal living place, like the Garden of Eden or heaven in western countries. Shangri-la (Shi Wai Tao Yuan) was built according to the poetic imagery depicted in Tao Hua Yuan Ji by the famous poet Tao Yuanming in the Jin Dynasty.

Shi Wai Tao Yuan - Shangrila （Xanadu）...Shangrila and Xanadu are near synonyms for the Chinese word "Shi Wai Tao Yuan" (an imaginary ideal world). Shangrila is a legendary place in Tibet while Xanadu is the capital of the Yuan Dynasty. We usually use Xanadu to convey the meaning of "Shi Wai Tao Yuan"......

Tao Yuanming, a famous writer of the Eastern Jin Dynasty (317 - 420), wrote the well-known essay Peach-Blossom Spring. In it he tells a story which goes like this: A fisherman happened to come upon a place called Peach-Blossom Spring. Squeezing through a cave, he found a village, the residents of which were descendants of refugees from the Qin Dynasty. It was a paradise isolated from the outside world, without exploitation or oppression, and everybody living and working in peace and contentment. The fisherman left the villagers and went home. But he could never find the place again. This idiom is derived from the above story, and is used to mean an isolated, ideal world.

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Northern New Mexico….June 2013

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