SummerSunday, August 23, 2026
1 Shahrivar 1405
Quatrain 74 of 75
“I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
Some letter of that After-life to spell:
And after many days my Soul return'd,
And said, "Behold, Myself am Heav'n and Hell."”
Omar Khayyamtr. Edward FitzGerald, 1859
Reflection · Summer 1405
I sent my Soul through the Invisible, some letter of that After-life to spell — in summer the soul's expedition and return is most recent. The soul's report: myself am Heav'n and Hell, and in summer you can feel both. Heaven is the full summer evening, the wine and the company and the warm air. Hell is the anxiety underneath it, the knowledge that it is temporary.
Both. At once. Not one or the other but both, and the self contains them. The After-life is not a future but a present condition of the specific self that you already are.