The Valley of Bewilderment
The picture representing the Valley of Bewilderment is a mixture of artistic rendering and actual photography. The background picture is an actual picture of a sunset I took while on a flight to Virginia from Boston, and it has been colorized to an extent. The mountains and birds, however, are drawings that I added to the picture. All editing to the picture was completed through the photo editor Pixlr. As this picture represents a valley, there are mountains on either side forming a valley, and the Sun at the end represents the light of the Simorgh close by, only one valley away, the bright, bewildering light of this Simorgh. A number of birds glide safely through the valley to continue on their journey to their king, however this immense power and light of the Simorgh is too much for some of these birds to handle, and they plummet to their demise in the valley below. The verses of the poem that best represent the toils and the hope of this valley are also present. While the birds are undergoing much bewilderment of the senses, they are also experiencing much hope in the form of love, as stated in the verses.
The background music is an original composition for Santur and Daf by Danial Shariat.
A note on the music: “This is the most joyous piece, making use of a common Persian dance rhythm and syncopated melodies to create what is the most hectic and rhythmically complex of the pieces which would symbolize bewilderment” (DS).