Huff Post: Michael Wolfe
When I first traveled in Spain, the Alhambra Palace and its summer gardens were not yet tourist magnets attracting millions every year. Their beauty is indescribable, but when I first visited, it was nearing midnight. As I climbed the long hill to the deserted medieval walls, I couldn’t see a thing.
Built to house the last generations of Grenada’s Muslim rulers, Alhambra is the palace that Queen Isabella coveted and finally claimed in 1492. When I reached the unguarded entrance it was padlocked. Nearby I discovered a length of stone wall lower than the rest, with an olive tree growing beside it. I threw my sleeping bag over the wall, climbed the tree, and jumped down inside.
The palace grounds were dark. The first thing I heard, then finally saw by moonlight, was the sound and shimmer of a sheet of water: overflowing a fountain basin, water softly winding into a long, reflecting pool.
If one were living in a bone-dry desert, I wondered, confined to a landscape of two colors — hard blue above and pale brown beneath — how would one imagine Paradise? If water never flowed on your patch of Earth, wouldn’t you fill your Paradise with fountains and cool streams? If your weather consisted of relentless sun and sandstorms, you’d imagine shade and gentle wind. If your only trees were low and scrubby, you would dream up orchards. There would be expansive flower beds, profusions of pastel colors, ripe fruit and perfume in traces on a breeze. Yes, if you lived in the desert, your version of paradise would probably be a palatial garden like in Alhambra Palace, guarded by high, surrounding walls. It’s no surprise, then, that our word “Paradise” derives from a nearly identical Persian word meaning “walled garden.”