Ayşe Gül Altınay Welcome to this site where I share some signposts from my academic journey and the beautiful fruit of the curiosities and passions that have shaped it.
I feel deeply grateful to so many wise and generous souls who have held my hand and illuminated my path along this journey – inspiring, encouraging and guiding me towards “the space within” where I could begin to grasp the beautiful dance between the mind and the heart…
I hope to use this site to also post my inspirations and my gratitude to all.
Starting with Rainer Maria Rilke’s insightful invitation (with the beautiful translation of Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows) :
“I love all beginnings, despite their anxiousness and their uncertainty, which belong to every commencement.
If I have earned a pleasure or a reward, or if I wish that something had not happened;
if I doubt the worth of an experience and remain in my past – then I choose to begin at this very second.
Begin what? I begin. I have already thus begun a thousand lives.”
(Rainer Maria Rilke, Early Journals, trans. Anita Barrows & Joanna Macy)
Photo by Ayşe Gül Altınay (Istanbul, 2022)