The Evil Eye

Ramin's mother sends us gifts every time his brother visits us. This summer she sent something that I had no idea about. An example is above - ours looks almost identical to the biggest one on the very far left. I honestly had no clue what it was - just that it looked like some sort of a decoration. The one day, I was looking at his cousin's facebook page and she had a little application on there called The Evil Eye - and it looked exactly like our new decoration! So I got intrigued to find out exactly what it was all about. I found a website that explained it pretty well:

"The evil eye belief is that a person -- otherwise not malific in any way -- can harm you, your children, your livestock, or your fruit trees, by *looking at them* with envy and praising them. The word "evil" is unfortunate in this context because it implies that someone has "cursed" the victim, but such is not the case. A better understanding of the term "evil eye" is gained if you know that the old British and Scottish word for it is "overlooking," which implies merely that the gaze has remained too long upon the coveted object, person, or animal. In other words, the effect of the evil eye is misfortunate, but the person who harbours jealousy and gives the evil eye is not necessarily an evil person per se. "

Very interesting huh? I like this concept a lot...I've hung up our amulet in our bedroom along with another persian decoration she sent us. I'm really enjoying everything she sends to us because I enjoy learning about the culture. It's all very interesting and I'm hoping one day we'll be able to visit Iran with his family because I really enjoyed our time with his family in California :)