Cypress Eternally Unbound

Curator: Shahed Safari

There’s much to say about the evergreen Cypress: it stands as a symbol of youth; it is etched on tombstones as a metaphor for immortality; it is the "Nakhl" of mourning and the wedding veil.

How surprising then that the Cypress stands atop the peak of defamiliarization!

The Cypress is both man and woman, it is bound yet fluid, it is a coffin for the dead and a ship of salvation. It is drawn on curtains to signal the curtain falling: inside-out, inside and out.

The truth is a sum of contradictions and the Cypress leads straight to it.

In Ferdowsi's words, Zahhak dreamt of being toppled at the hands of a towering Cypress, and so the young were slain before they could spawn. As Siavash stands on the verge of being beheaded upon the order of Afrasiab, he is described as a Cypress, with the Messiah crucified on a cross of Cypress wood; all for the crime of revealing "timeless" secrets.

But as darkness peaks, there is synthesis: as the Cypress falls, a seed is laid; a drop of Siavash's blood falls to the ground, and Farangis thus bears the child of Siavash, and Faranak that of Atbin. And so the truth is now all a seed, hidden but alive; whether in the ground or in a woman's womb, just waiting for its time: a wine grape waiting for its chance to shine.

In due time, the Cypress is born, claiming justice for light and creation from darkness and destruction: Kaykhosrow overthrows Afrasiab, and Fereydoon does the same with Zahhak. Here, life returns to its root, life gives life. Life does not merely come to be in facing destruction, but it is made possible with continuous creativity.

Darkness shall never fully be defeated, yet with every birth, it falls further behind and thus turns less effective. And this cycle persists: in the spring of creation, darkness is halted and life expands, and in the winter of destruction, life bares all, plunging its head into an earthly seed.

This is the Cypress, eternally unbound: the preserver and conveyor of the thin flame of life from winter to spring. It is burned for its aroma and cut to make pots for wine, and with this all, immortality is realized.

Elnaz Najafi, November 2023