You know, there’s a reason why they called them magic carpets. I look at the one by my bed. My grandfather brought it with him from Armenia, I was told.
This one is not a floral. Geometric bands in gold, camel, brown and blue march around this little rug. Touches of coral – was it a deep red at one time? – intermingle and weave in life’s blood and fire.
What do we have here? Checkerboards of color, I see. Are they flowers or crosses? And next, a row of crosses for sure. Coming in another level, closer to its soul, is another band in lighter tones. The centers of each repeat create an intricate pattern that is hardly decipherable. I can read it, though. The cross is held within a diamond – protection from the evil eye, and interspersed north, east, south and west is the dot within a circle, an ode to fertility. Oh how lovely to have this charming magic carpet inches from me while I sleep!
Next come two more bands that echo the edges of this small world, and then I get to the heart of the matter. On a field of the deepest blue, there bursts an orgy of symbols. Birds appear amid flower blossoms, dragons, I think, ram’s horns, swords and crowns.
Pagan Celts, horse whisperers to my left. Near-Eastern Christians to my right, silk weavers with secrets of their own. They speak back and forth, compare notes. Eventually, I hope, they will make sense and who they are and what they mean will leap off their fields of midnight blue and earthy brown.
Bitch Rag 