Latest / Live Free Ride Free with Rupert Isaacson / Ep 18: Ari Honarvar - Rumi With a View

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Ep 18: Ari Honarvar - Rumi With a View · Live Free Ride Free with Rupert Isaacson

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  Rupert Isaacson: Welcome to Live Free Ride Free, where we talk to people who
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  have lived self-actualized lives on their own terms, and find out how they
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  got there, what they do, how we can get there, what we can learn from them.
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  How to live our best lives, find our own definition of success,
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  and most importantly, find joy.
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  I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson.
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  New York Times bestselling author of the Horse Boy.
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  Founder of New Trails Learning Systems and long ride home.com.
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  You can find details of all our programs and shows on Rupert isaacson.com.
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  , Ari welcome to Live Free Ride Free.
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  I'm so happy that you're here for the listeners.
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  I, I knew Ari about 20 years ago in Austin, Texas, where we were both
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  part of an ecstatic dance group.
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  And anyone who's ever done ecstatic dance knows how ecstatic it is.
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  It's a, it's one of the most wonderful things you can do if you stumble into it.
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  And it tends to attract obviously fairly interesting people.
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  I remember Ari, my interactions with you just always thinking, wow, that's a really
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  interesting person who's going to go on and do really, really interesting things.
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  And I knew a little bit about your background.
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  So now to reconnect after so long and to find that not only have
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  you been doing interesting things that you sort of blow one's socks
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  off with your interesting things.
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  Can you please tell us who you are and what you do?
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  Ari Honarvar: Thank you so much for having me, Rupert.
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  It's so fun to catch up after feels like ages.
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  And yeah, so I'm the founder of Roomie with a View, and the purpose of that is
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  to bridge the of between war torn America.
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  Countries, borders, and also it's an intersection of art, dance, which includes
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  dancing, poetry, music, everything that you can imagine that's artistic,
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  and also well being and spirituality.
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  So that's where I'm at.
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  I dance with refugees.
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  I've danced with thousands of refugees throughout the past decade or so, and
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  I practice all sorts of different kinds of ways to bring joy into my life, and
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  I do facilitate resilience through joy.
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  Workshops and retreats on both sides of the U.
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  S.
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  Mexico border.
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  Just as I dance with refugees.
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  I conduct those sessions with frontline workers with mental health care workers
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  with doctors with with people who are asylum Attorneys and work, how you just
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  deal with a lot of vicarious trauma.
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  And throughout my experiences, I've found that just my own childhood
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  coming from, from a war torn country, which was super oppressive to
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  women and and everyone else that.
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  Joy is what is pleasurable is sustainable and joy is like a renewable fuel
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  that can transform our relationships with others, with each other,
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  with work, with our whole world.
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  So that's, that's what my gem is.
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  Rupert Isaacson: The war torn country that you came from was, is Iran.
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  You were how old when the Shah fell and Ayatollah Khomeini came in?
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  Ari Honarvar: I was six and just like that, in a matter of months,
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  women lost their right to ride a bicycle or sing or dance in public.
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  Couldn't
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  Rupert Isaacson: sing.
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  A woman could not sing.
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  Ari Honarvar: Right.
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  Rupert Isaacson: A man could sing?
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  Ari Honarvar: A man could sing.
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  A woman's voice was deemed too provocative by the Islamists that took over Iran.
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  Rupert Isaacson: What did that mean for you as a six year old child?
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  Describe the shift of your reality from A relatively westernized kid
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  because Iran at that time, certainly Tehran, was relatively westernized.
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  What changed, like, in the perception of a child?
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  Could you describe it for us?
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  Ari Honarvar: Yeah, so my best friend was a boy, I was kind of a tomboy, and we were
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  just getting into all sorts of troubles.
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  And and all of a sudden, I could not be You know, playing with him
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  without a chaperone in public.
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  He could go on as he pleased, whereas I had to cover my hair and my body.
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  I mean, that took, took a couple of years for that to happen, maybe a year or so.
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  For, for.
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  The regime to implement the mandatory hijab laws.
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  And once they did that, then I became more and more restricted.
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  I felt like I was just having to blend into the background.
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  I couldn't run.
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  They wouldn't let, you know, if I ran, someone would be like,
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  What are you doing running?
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  You know, bringing attention to yourself.
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  You're a girl, you're supposed to be you know, whatever.
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  And we literally had to sit on the back of the bus as, as women.
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  So there was a gender apartheid that was happening that we were subject to
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  that was so unfair to my seven year old.
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  mind that, that I, you know, just kept my hair really, really short.
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  I cut my hair and I pretended to be a boy so I could skirt those
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  laws and get into as much trouble as I could before some well meaning
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  neighbors are like, hey, that's a boy.
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  Girl pretending to be a boy.
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  And my parents were like, no, no, no, you can't do this.
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  So then I had to get into trouble in other ways because it was so unfair to me.
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  To live in a world where a group of people are favored over another group.
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  And that's the basis of my social justice or the sense of morality and social
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  justice that you know, human rights and, all of our relations rights is not a
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  choose your own adventure kind of thing.
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  You have to honor everyone in this world as a, it's the basis for me.
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  Rupert Isaacson: So you're six years old, this happens to you, you, you think, okay,
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  fine, I'm going to pretend to be a boy.
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  That doesn't work.
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  At what age do you get out?
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  How do you get out?
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  And what's your.
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  As you go into like later childhood, early adolescence, because then I should imagine
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  things must have changed even more.
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  Ari Honarvar: Yeah.
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  So I was I had so many terrible things happening all around me.
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  People were getting arrested, tortured, killed executed.
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  The dissidents, anyone who said anything that was not jiving
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  with the, with the authorities.
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  Freedom of speech was extremely curtailed.
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  So people had to talk about the weather to, you know, as a metaphor is like, Oh,
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  I think the weather's going to get better.
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  Meaning like this regime is going to go maybe.
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  And and people, and then people started getting arrested for
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  even talking about the weather.
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  So it was, it was just this kind of a lottery of torture and
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  death that was that befell us.
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  And then in the middle of that, about a year, I was like seven, seven years
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  old when the Iran Iraq war happened.
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  Saddam Hussein took advantage of the internal turmoil and attacked
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  Iran and started a war that lasted eight years and destroyed countless
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  lives, more than a million lives.
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  And it was, you It's really hard.
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  We had to deal with internal you know, suppression and
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  oppression and, and crackdowns.
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  And then there was an actual war going on.
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  And but the war on joy that we felt.
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  You know, really, really hurt in a different way.
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  And and it was not okay, but by many of us, we actually took risks, dangerous
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  risks to, to bring joy into our lives.
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  We would even, we would have little tiny parties, you know, in, in in kind of like,
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  speakeasy type situations, but sometimes they would get like our neighbors.
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  Neighbors party, birthday party got raided because they were birthday party,
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  Rupert Isaacson: a child's birthday party.
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  Ari Honarvar: a child's birthday party.
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  They would
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  Rupert Isaacson: raid a child's birthday party.
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  Ari Honarvar: They raided a child's birthday party and
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  everyone took off there.
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  It was our neighbors.
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  Everyone took off, climbed the wall, got into our house to, to run away.
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  And there is my mom handing everyone a veil, a chador to put on their head
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  so they can, everyone's like barefoot because, you know, it was just so, So
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  unexpected and these men with machine guns show up and and the mother of the
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  child was had a brain tumor and she was very weak and it was like she gathered all
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  her strength to, to throw this birthday party to have one final moment of joy.
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  And so when she came over to our yard, she had a seizure and.
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  These men with machine guns held the machine guns to us, you know,
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  I pointed the the guns at us and said, you cannot go help her.
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  So we're watching this woman right on the ground and and we are helpless.
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  We, you know, they wouldn't let us help her.
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  And so my mom is like, she's gonna die.
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  And so the man is like, oh, let her die.
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  So what?
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  So this is the kind of oppression we're talking about.
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  So of course it enraged me.
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  It made me so, you know, intolerant of such injustices.
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  So what I did was I would sneak out at night and I would write
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  anti regime stuff on the walls.
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  And the punishment for that is death, because when you live in a theocracy,
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  anything that you say against the regime, you also say that against the against God.
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  And of course you can't be blasphemous.
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  So my sister's classmate, she was a senior in high school when she was arrested,
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  half her classmates were arrested and taken to prison for various acts of
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  defiance, just bringing joy to their life or have a sense of expression.
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  And My sister's classmate, Roya, was executed without a public
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  trial and they just told her parents to come get her body.
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  So that kind of, you know, just, detonated these shockwaves through our
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  neighborhood as we're getting bombed, as we're, our family members are
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  getting killed in an actual war too.
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  So, so yeah, but we were like, we're gonna, we're gonna have joy
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  anyways in the midst of it all.
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  We are going to express ourselves in the midst of all of this.
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  And I just watched the adults who were able to put their grief or,
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  or even bring their grief and their joy together and, and and celebrate
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  whenever we could, whenever we could.
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  And my parents decided that it was too dangerous for me to be in the U.
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  S.
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  So I left.
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  So, so they, so my mom actually wrote a poem about India's Independence
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  Day and submitted it along with our visa application to India.
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  And India in the, in Indian ambassador must have liked that poem.
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  So she, they, they granted us a visa to go to India.
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  And in India I secured a meeting with the American Consulate.
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  I was 14 at the time.
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  And through a series of miracles, I got a visa to come to the us.
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  But the fine print on that miracle was that I had to do it alone
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  and my parents had to go back to Iran to be with my sister.
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  They didn't give them a visa to come.
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  So I had to learn a new way of life, a new language and on a new planet.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Wow.
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  Okay.
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  I've got some questions before we go to how on earth you managed to
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  Survive in the US at 14 by yourself.
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  The first question is okay listeners Ari is also a best selling author and
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  she's the author of a book you've got to check out called, A Girl Called Rumi.
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  Rumi, as many of you know, Is, was, I guess still is, along with Happy's, a
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  sort of staple in the, what would we say the, the, the, in Western eyes,
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  the sort of inspirational, spiritual
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  poetry, sort of beloved by scholars, new ageists, hippies, just people
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  that like poetry, you know, anyone who likes a good poem at some point
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  is going to come across roomy.
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  Without a doubt, this high medieval writing, I think in the 13th century
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  Persian poet has penned some of the most beautiful literature
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  that's, you know, recorded that we can get our hands over.
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  But for your people, Rumi is as Shakespeare is to the Brits
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  or whoever, perhaps more.
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  How did this expression of poetry, and particularly the poetry of this
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  particular poet and poets like him, mitigate the suffering of the war on joy?
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  How did that help you?
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  What did you do?
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  How did it manifest?
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  Ari Honarvar: So, it's so wild because you couldn't compose new poems.
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  Like, I, my mother was a poet and, and I talk about how the
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  regime pruned her of her poetry.
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  And because anything that you said was blasphemous, but then there is Hafiz
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  and Rumi and Saadi and, and Harveen, Etesami and all, all the older poets
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  well, Etesami is more new, but, but the the older poets, you know, you could just
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  recite their poems and, and, and every
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  Rupert Isaacson: People just know them in, in, in Persian culture,
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  in Iranian culture, people grow up reciting them, knowing them.
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  Is it sort of common knowledge or is it just only the educated?
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  Ari Honarvar: Yeah, so it's poetry is as part of a Persian person's
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  makeup as their very heartbeat.
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  We recite poems not just in at funerals and weddings, but when in
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  conversation, or even when we're trying to resolve a conflict, we
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  do it through a verse of poetry.
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  And and it's just woven in the fabric of our lives and and now every time
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  someone says something that is you know, neuroscience or, or wisdom is like, Oh,
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  it's all about emptiness or crying is good for you or compassion or gratitude is the
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  way to go, or all of those little things.
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  There is a verse for everything that these mystics and poets
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  knew thousands of years ago.
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  Or hundreds of years ago, and it's just part of that that mantra.
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  It's become like a mantra of sorts that we can say that and it evokes this passion.
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  I think I mentioned that part in in so many of, of the, the talks
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  that I do about this rooftop scene where I'm on the rooftop and I'm,
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  and we're watching the anti aircraft missiles shoot down from the sky.
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  And I'm really scared.
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  I'm seven years old and I don't know who's going to die next.
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  Is it going to be my sister, my friend, my best friend, my teacher?
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  And all of a sudden, someone from a passerby below says something like,
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  And that means, Even if from the sky poison befalls all, I
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  am still sweetness, wrapped in sweetness, wrapped in sweetness.
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  Wrapped in sweetness.
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  And then someone from below or another rooftop is gives an
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  answer to that with another verse.
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  While others are singing about love, I am the ton of love
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  and verses like that, really going into your 7-year-old heart and radiate to
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  every cell of your being until your world is as ecstatic and magnificent.
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  as the 13th century poets.
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  And in that moment, what bomb could ever touch that?
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  Rupert Isaacson: Here's, so here's the question that bubbles up in my mind.
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  My family, as you may well know, is colonial African.
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  And so joy is so much part of of the African experience, no matter
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  whether you're white, whether you're black, whether, you know, even under
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  apartheid I suppose they absolutely tried to go to war on joy, but there's
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  no way they could, you know, you're going to tell Africans to not sing
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  and dance and, and make praise poetry.
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  And so, you know, no, you're, it's, that's, you know,
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  telling the ocean to go back.
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  But, In a culture that,
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  where people are raised on this kind of poetry and ecstatic joy,
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  what made so many people decide to go along with a war on joy?
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  Where did these young men who were pointing the gun at the mother
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  having the seizure in your yard, they must have also been raised on this.
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  What made such a sizable chunk of the population decide
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  to turn their backs on it?
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  Ari Honarvar: Well, you could address, this is a very good question, and you
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  could address it from very different ways.
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  I would like to address it historically.
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  To and, and also bring about colonialism and imperialism as, you
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  know, you're very familiar with that.
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  So, in 1953, Iran had a democratically elected leader who was popular and
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  they were going to nationalize oil.
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  They did nationalize oil.
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  That means that the Brits and the U.
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  S.
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  weren't going to get cheap oil anymore.
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  And so, this was the first time that the CIA decided to stage
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  a coup for profit overseas.
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  And what they did is that the Brits can convinced the U.
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  S.
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  government to, to stage a coup.
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  And so they started paying money to thugs.
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  And the thugs You know, just started beating people up and and, and it
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  was just like nothing that like that had ever happened before and they
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  were successful and they, they were able to oust Mossad there, who was
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  a democratically elected leader and get them and, and, and then the U.
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  S.
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  installed the Shah.
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  Who was a dictator and then the dictator ended up being what dictators do.
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  He had some you know, some educational programs and he had some good things
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  that, that he implemented, but he also kind of like the royalty in Britain was
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  very opulent while people were suffering.
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  So their income equality was became worse because we were no longer
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  a democratic socialist country.
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  And and then there were cronies and then he went on the,
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  on a war on the dissidents.
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  So people were whoever was saying anything against him was
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  getting tortured and killed.
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  Then the backlash happened and people became really, really dissatisfied.
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  And the CIA again started colluding with this unknown mullah, Ayatollah Khomeini,
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  and they, they kind of, I guess they made some back room deals with each
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  other and he, she, he became the, the de facto leader of, of the country.
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  And he had promised democracy, he had promised women's rights,
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  he had promised so many things.
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  Amazing things, but he became even more brutal than the Shah.
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  So by that time, there was so much such a fractured society.
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  And that's the people saw the corruption of the Shah.
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  People saw the torture.
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  People saw the.
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  The opulence when other people were starving.
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  So, so they, some people chose religion, their religious
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  routes and ideology took over.
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  And then the other side was like, no, we kind of like this.
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  So there was like this, and then there were other ordinary people
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  were like, well, I don't like this.
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  And I don't like that, that I'm stuck in the middle.
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  Rupert Isaacson: I guess what's still, I'm just sort of as a journalist peeling
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  back the onion layers a little bit.
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  I could see all of that historical process happening within a national
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  character that still allowed for the sort of culture, main cultural
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  expressions to keep happening just because they were so powerful.
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  You know, I could see this dictator, that dictator takes power.
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  I can, you know, let's face it.
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  I mean, this goes on all the time, everywhere.
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  But it was just so interesting, because every Iranian I've ever met
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  has had this sort of joie de vivre.
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  I don't think, I can't think of a single Iranian that I know, whether they were
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  born in or out of Iran, who doesn't have, as you describe, this love of culture, of
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  dance, of poetry, of exactly, like it's in them, like, like, like their blood.
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  So, what's intriguing to me is, for example, you know, I saw
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  dictatorships come and go in Africa.
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  But I wouldn't say that there was ever a war, and, and, and
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  brutal, horrible, nasty things.
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  But I wouldn't say there was ever a war on
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  per se.
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  There was certainly, if you spoke up, if you did all those things, yeah, you
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  were just gonna get tortured and killed.
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  But if you wanted to dance in the street, if you wanted to have your
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  musical festivals, if you wanted to do all that you know, In fact,
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  it would almost be encouraged to sort of, maintain the pretense of
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  a status quo that was harmonious.
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  You know, that, that can actually serve a dictator quite well.
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  What do you think?
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  You know, if you were the soldier pointing the gun in, in that yard back then or if
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  you were the soldier going to war with Iran, with it, with Iraq what do you
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  think was going on in the minds of those young men who were also raised on the
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  poetry, who also grew up seeing their sisters dance, who also participated in
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  the, the childhood that you described?
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  What do you think made those particular people think?
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  Yeah, I'll just jettison all that and take on this strange alien persona.
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  What's your theory?
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  Ari Honarvar: Yeah, so that extremism that and especially religious extremism,
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  and if you want to talk about Africa, we can also talk about Boko Haram.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, sure.
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  Ari Honarvar: You know, those people were also brought in a, in a, in a culture of
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  joy and res, you know, resilience through joy and song and dance and poetry and
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  expression, but when you get radicalized in a way that is harmful because you
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  put your ideology above everything else.
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  So you become like, it is almost kind of like a, Addiction were when,
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  when you have healthy habits the, the the habits are supposed to, to
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  support the entire organism, the human organism, whereas addiction
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  is like the whole entire organism.
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  Human organism is supposed to support that addiction.
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  Got it.
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  So it's kind of similar analogy to when you put ideology above people.
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  It's, yeah.
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  You will absolutely kill people.
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  And it's the same with capitalism or anything else.
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  It's not just religious.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Sure.
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  Ari Honarvar: When, when you put when you forget what's.
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  What's important because of a set of rules or an objective or whether it's the
• 26:40
  shareholders, you know, bottom line or whatever, it's it results the same thing.
• 26:48
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, exactly.
• 26:48
  You know, there was actually a precedent within English history.
• 26:51
  You may well be aware of it in the 17th century, the Brits were the first people
• 26:55
  to cut off the king's head and say, you know, You know, down with the monarchy for
• 27:00
  this reason or that reason, and they did, and of course a new bunch of gangsters
• 27:03
  got in and those gangsters were religious fundamentalists who were Puritans, Puritan
• 27:09
  Protestants, and they banned dancing, they banned singing, they banned Christmas,
• 27:13
  they banned everything they could ban, and
• 27:19
  this coincided with, you know, the witch burning years and the many, many
• 27:25
  cataclysms that, that followed that century, and it, in the end, After about
• 27:33
  30 years or so of the historians here will say no Rupert it was 40 whatever
• 27:39
  it's roughly No, it was a few decades of parliamentary rule they brought
• 27:44
  back the monarchy because at the end of the day, they said, well, they were a
• 27:49
  bunch of wankers, but these wankers are like even wankery than those wankers.
• 27:54
  So choose your wanker.
• 27:56
  Let's get the old wankers back.
• 27:58
  And they did.
• 27:58
  And of course, that that was King Charles II, who was who's known as
• 28:01
  the merry monarch, you know, who was brought back partying and science
• 28:05
  and arts and dance and, you know,
• 28:09
  It was a sort of nouveau renaissance that ushered in the enlightenment
• 28:13
  in the Industrial Revolution.
• 28:16
  One can hope that similar situations can happen.
• 28:22
  Ari Honarvar: Well, hopefully better where we don't need a monarchy, but it was the
• 28:26
  Rupert Isaacson: best we could do at the time.
• 28:27
  Yeah.
• 28:28
  Ari Honarvar: Yeah.
• 28:28
  Yeah, exactly.
• 28:29
  But, but now we have, we have good models of you know, countries that
• 28:34
  can grow up and have enough equality.
• 28:37
  Of course, everyone's going to have some problems, but when you
• 28:41
  have enough equity, equity and transparency and all those good things,
• 28:45
  Rupert Isaacson: is there a verse for that?
• 28:47
  Ari Honarvar: I'm sure there is.
• 28:48
  Yeah.
• 28:50
  Rupert Isaacson: What is your verse before I want to return to you getting to the U.
• 28:53
  S.
• 28:53
  as a 14 year old scared and alone Having just been in India,
• 28:58
  which is its own culture shock.
• 29:00
  I've lived in India is can you think is there a verse that you can think of?
• 29:05
  Ari Honarvar: Yeah
• 29:06
  Rupert Isaacson: embodies hope optimism
• 29:08
  Ari Honarvar: Well, what when you said like The, the moving that, when
• 29:14
  you talked about moving from the, from Iran to here, I go with the,
• 29:26
  which is this know, it's a read, the song of the read that has been cut from
• 29:32
  the source and it just sings because.
• 29:37
  It is so, has, is so full of longing for, to go back home.
• 29:44
  And I was very, very homesick during that time.
• 29:47
  So, so that, that is definitely a a song for, for that, or a verse for that.
• 29:54
  But then dancing really helped me you know, stabilize my nervous system.
• 29:58
  I didn't know that at the time that it was helping me with trauma integration
• 30:03
  and and just, Getting better and better.
• 30:07
  And and so there's a number of verses.
• 30:10
  Let me see.
• 30:11
  I love this man, Tara.
• 30:20
  And it's, Tara is the Arabic word for the rhythm of this moving world.
• 30:25
  So when your heartbeat becomes one with the rhythm of this moving
• 30:30
  world, and and, and that then you're.
• 30:34
  All life kind of becomes this, this synchronous, beautiful song.
• 30:43
  And and so, yeah, so that's kind of.
• 30:45
  Kind of, I think that's what we do when we have these sessions together,
• 30:50
  when we have these communal experiences of love and joy and dancing together,
• 30:57
  our nervous system is a home in device for pleasurable experiences that
• 31:02
  stabilize, nourish and fortify us.
• 31:05
  So, so of course, you know, like this is what we're meant to do.
• 31:09
  With each other.
• 31:10
  And, and if we could, you know, get people to more people to do that, then,
• 31:16
  you know, just our whole quality of life will, will definitely get better.
• 31:23
  Okay.
• 31:25
  Rupert Isaacson: You get, you're at 14, you arrive in
• 31:28
  the U S who do you stay with?
• 31:31
  Where do you go?
• 31:32
  How do you live?
• 31:32
  Who feeds you?
• 31:33
  How do you get educated?
• 31:35
  Where are you living?
• 31:37
  Ari Honarvar: I landed in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and this very kind family And why
• 31:43
  Rupert Isaacson: there?
• 31:43
  That's such a random place.
• 31:46
  You know, you think of port of entry city, right?
• 31:48
  Las Cruces is I suppose it's port of entry if you're coming from Mexico, but yeah.
• 31:53
  Why?
• 31:55
  Ari Honarvar: Yeah so One of the things that happened during the revolution is
• 32:01
  my brother, he was, he's 10 years, my senior, he left as an exchange student,
• 32:08
  and then he couldn't come back to the U S I mean, come back to Iran because
• 32:13
  of the revolution and everything else.
• 32:15
  So I hadn't seen him for 10 years and I was stuck in Iran.
• 32:19
  He was stuck in the U S and so I you know, so, so I was like,
• 32:25
  You know, he became my guardian
• 32:27
  Rupert Isaacson: and
• 32:28
  Ari Honarvar: became this anthropological experiment.
• 32:31
  But before that, I lived with a very kind American family too.
• 32:36
  and memorize 300 words of English a day to be able to learn English
• 32:41
  and communicate with them.
• 32:43
  And so, so yeah, for, for a few months I did that and they
• 32:46
  were very, very wonderful.
• 32:49
  And, and then I lived with my brother for the rest of it.
• 32:52
  Rupert Isaacson: And who connected you with that original family?
• 32:54
  Was that the state department or?
• 32:56
  Ari Honarvar: No, it was my brother.
• 32:58
  My brother did.
• 33:00
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 33:01
  So it was still all very organic.
• 33:03
  You know, you expect these things to happen through very stratified sort of
• 33:07
  official lines, but really they sent you to your brother and your brother
• 33:13
  couldn't take you at that point.
• 33:14
  So he found people and good luck sort of thing.
• 33:17
  Ari Honarvar: Yes.
• 33:18
  Yeah, like the, and it was a better bet to do it that way than to seek asylum.
• 33:25
  I had a better chance of, because, you know, I had no evidence
• 33:29
  that my life was in danger.
• 33:31
  So you have, it's, it's so hard to seek asylum in the U.
• 33:34
  S.
• 33:34
  People don't realize this.
• 33:35
  They're like, well, why don't they go through, through proper channels?
• 33:38
  And then when you do, when you don't have an evidence, you know, credible,
• 33:42
  you evidence and then you're turned back.
• 33:44
  So yeah, so this was the path for me to, to to arrive.
• 33:49
  Rupert Isaacson: And meanwhile, your parents have gone back from India to Iran
• 33:53
  Ari Honarvar: and
• 33:54
  Rupert Isaacson: presumably they're in danger and you're cut off from them.
• 33:58
  Ari Honarvar: Right.
• 33:59
  Rupert Isaacson: And you're trying to navigate American school.
• 34:05
  Ari Honarvar: Yeah, yeah.
• 34:06
  I skipped two grades.
• 34:08
  And because of, I was a pretty good student in Iran, despite everything
• 34:13
  that was going on and and I just kind of muscled through learning the whole
• 34:22
  culture, student culture and graduating.
• 34:25
  And then I went to, to college and, I went to Texas State and studied there.
• 34:31
  I studied molecular biology and in grad school, I studied melanoma genesis,
• 34:37
  which is how melanoma is, the cancer is is propagated in, in the, in the body.
• 34:45
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay, so how do you discover dance to help you through what
• 34:50
  why and and how does dance suddenly open up for you as a teenager And as we know
• 34:57
  the American high school culture can be you know unpleasant How do you integrate
• 35:02
  that and then why molecular biology?
• 35:05
  Let's can we do it in that order, please?
• 35:11
  Ari Honarvar: Yeah, dancing has always been part of me.
• 35:13
  So even when we were not allowed to dance, we would dance.
• 35:18
  We would get chased by the morality police.
• 35:22
  And and it was like, you know, that's why we felt like it was like we didn't,
• 35:26
  you know, when you're, you're prefrontal cortex is not developed enough.
• 35:30
  You don't really have that, that sense of danger and consequences
• 35:35
  that could be followed.
• 35:36
  So we would do that as teenagers, me and my friends.
• 35:39
  Rupert Isaacson: Where would you dance?
• 35:40
  Where, where, where the variety place to find you?
• 35:42
  Bubs houses?
• 35:44
  Street
• 35:44
  Ari Honarvar: each other's houses in the streets when we could, we
• 35:47
  would just like shake her booty, you know, whatever anything to do a act
• 35:51
  of defiance against the injustice.
• 35:54
  So, in the US, I had all this limited unlimited potential to dance.
• 35:59
  So I used it.
• 36:01
  I just would put on MTV and I would dance.
• 36:03
  And it was yeah, and it just, I, I kept feeling better and better and it mitigated
• 36:09
  my homesickness, which was terrible.
• 36:13
  And yeah.
• 36:14
  And then why did I choose molecular biology?
• 36:17
  I was always very fascinated by.
• 36:20
  The human body and and I originally thought about going to medical school,
• 36:26
  but I had a friend who was a doctor and he said, you're going to be so
• 36:31
  like consumed by medical school.
• 36:33
  You're not going to be, and then you're my life sucks.
• 36:36
  You know, he was not very happy as a, as a doctor.
• 36:39
  So as I changed my mind, I was like, well, maybe I'll become a researcher.
• 36:42
  So.
• 36:44
  Switched to, to to research.
• 36:47
  I was interested in cancer cause my father had cancer and passed away from it.
• 36:52
  So, so that's kind of, I started that and then I got recruited by Nikon,
• 36:57
  the microscope company, or they have a microscope division, the lens company.
• 37:02
  And so I became.
• 37:05
  Tech person, you know, the, the microscope specialist and I would help the
• 37:09
  researchers and it was very interesting to see different types of research that,
• 37:14
  that different university professors were, were involved in the cutting edge
• 37:20
  that I was figuring out the imaging for.
• 37:24
  Rupert Isaacson: How does that become the writer of A Girl Called Rumi and
• 37:30
  the ambassador, the musical ambassador dancing with refugees in war zones?
• 37:36
  That's a bit of a jump.
• 37:37
  Can you please tell us how that happened?
• 37:40
  Ari Honarvar: Sure.
• 37:41
  Well, I blame you for the first part because I remember very clearly we
• 37:45
  were sitting in a cafe and I was telling you, you asked me about my
• 37:51
  story, kind of like you are now.
• 37:52
  And you said, Hey you know, you should write a book.
• 37:56
  And that was the time when no one would be writing, you know, it was not that common.
• 38:01
  Everyone is writing a book now, but I was like, well, I've
• 38:04
  only written technical papers.
• 38:06
  I have no interest in writing or what it was just not part of my world.
• 38:11
  And and then when the science field and the, the tech business was not,
• 38:17
  absolutely did not agree with me.
• 38:19
  I was not the person for this.
• 38:21
  It just felt wrong.
• 38:23
  Every cell of my being was like, do not do this.
• 38:26
  And so, I quit one and then I laid, got laid off from another
• 38:31
  one cause I tried another.
• 38:34
  high tech com or a biotech company and it didn't work out.
• 38:38
  And so I was like, all right, that's it.
• 38:40
  So I became a carpenter's apprentice.
• 38:42
  Someone wanted an apprentice.
• 38:44
  I was like, yeah, I'll do woodworking.
• 38:45
  I'm terrible at that.
• 38:47
  I have no no natural aptitude for it, but I really liked it.
• 38:51
  So, so it was, it was kind of cool.
• 38:53
  And then at the same time I was teaching meditation to teens and I was very
• 38:59
  much into spirituality and Buddhism.
• 39:03
  So, and then I started dancing at the ecstatic dance.
• 39:07
  And and, you know, it kind of like took off from there.
• 39:12
  Rupert Isaacson: Can you tell listeners a little bit about Ecstatic Dance?
• 39:15
  Those, those listeners who know me a little bit will not be at all surprised
• 39:19
  because you know what a big hippie I am.
• 39:21
  To know that I like going into rooms full of people and taking off my shoes and,
• 39:25
  Making a fool of myself and the bigger fool I make of myself the more I enjoy
• 39:29
  it however Ecstatic dance isn't something that everyone is familiar with and I
• 39:34
  always feel they kind of should be because it's one of those things I feel that if
• 39:38
  you fall into it, you realize that you always have this access to happiness and
• 39:42
  well being that I think relatively few people Have can you tell us a little bit
• 39:46
  about what ecstatic dance is, please?
• 39:48
  Sorry.
• 39:50
  Ari Honarvar: Yeah the Well, I mean, I'm not the best person to, I'll
• 39:55
  tell you what my experience was.
• 39:56
  So basically you go into a space and yes, you take off your shoes.
• 40:02
  And you're barefoot and there's a whole bunch of other people and they
• 40:06
  put on this curated set of music.
• 40:09
  Someone has figured out a set that starts with some sort of a
• 40:13
  warm up, some sort of a crescendo and then a cool down at the end.
• 40:19
  And it's about, I think, two or three hours of the time.
• 40:23
  And usually by the end, everyone is sweating and feeling really, really great.
• 40:28
  And I've met some of.
• 40:30
  The most amazing people through dance, including yourself.
• 40:35
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 40:35
  It's I, I only discovered it because we, as you know, we were in Austin,
• 40:39
  Texas and we were going to a yoga class.
• 40:42
  And at the end of this yoga class, all these people would start coming into
• 40:47
  the yoga studio and like hugging each other and looking happy and there'd be
• 40:51
  these sort of beginnings of this rather interesting sort of trance y techno y
• 40:55
  music and I remember thinking that sounds, that sounds quite interesting, doesn't it?
• 40:59
  And then I remember hanging out just, just out of curiosity to see,
• 41:02
  well, what do they do, these people?
• 41:04
  And watching sort of entrances.
• 41:08
  Some people like really, really dance and other people like lay around on the
• 41:11
  floor and wept and others, you know, sat in apparent meditation against the wall
• 41:17
  and others did this and others did that.
• 41:18
  And I remember thinking this looks amazing, but I'll never, I'll never
• 41:22
  like I'm not that much of a hippie.
• 41:23
  I'll never really do that.
• 41:24
  And of course, within like two weeks, I was completely hooked.
• 41:28
  Because As you know, I was at that time spending quite a lot of time in
• 41:34
  the Kalahari with, in Southern Africa with San Bushman hunter gatherers,
• 41:39
  you know, on the human rights work that I was doing, and I was seeing
• 41:42
  dance being applied for healing.
• 41:46
  all the time, you know, and healers dancing themselves into trance
• 41:50
  against a backdrop of the people of the clan and the extended families
• 41:54
  dancing, creating a polyphonic chant with clapping and singing.
• 41:59
  And this could go on for 12 hours.
• 42:02
  And I watched cancers being pulled out of people's bodies and shape
• 42:06
  shifting and all of this stuff.
• 42:08
  I saw it.
• 42:09
  And I realized the power of dance, and I realized that dance is, of course, at the
• 42:16
  root of what it means to be human in the same way that, say, storytelling does,
• 42:21
  that we're the ape that speaks, right?
• 42:24
  And that to cut yourself off from dance is really to be kind of sort
• 42:28
  of colonialized in a weird way.
• 42:30
  And of course, in British culture, we are, we are cut off from dance, and except
• 42:36
  in very, very certain stratified ways.
• 42:41
  Situations cause the explosion of techno music and raves to some degree knock that
• 42:45
  sideways But it's still in there to the point that people feel maybe they need to
• 42:49
  take ecstasy or something before they can access You know that intrinsic human state
• 42:57
  Where did you decide
• 43:01
  I'm actually gonna do this as My vocation my metier and and how
• 43:11
  did you get involved with that?
• 43:14
  For healing, for conflict resolution, for peacekeeping, as you do now.
• 43:17
  And tell us please about the organization that you represent and
• 43:22
  just, just give us that story, please.
• 43:26
  Ari Honarvar: Well, interestingly enough, I met Cameron Powers, who was
• 43:32
  the founder of Musical Ambassadors of Peace, the organization that I work with.
• 43:36
  Rupert Isaacson: Musical Ambassadors of Peace.
• 43:39
  Ari Honarvar: Correct.
• 43:39
  Yeah.
• 43:40
  I met him through dancing in Boulder, Colorado.
• 43:44
  And it was the same thing, barefoot boogie, that's what they called
• 43:47
  it then, the ecstatic dancing.
• 43:51
  And I, I was dancing and he started dancing with me and then I found
• 43:55
  out that he and his wife, Christina Sophia, they had just traveled to
• 44:03
  to the to Iraq during the invasion.
• 44:06
  And and they were like, and so the.
• 44:09
  Wow.
• 44:09
  Very.
• 44:11
  very talented musicians.
• 44:13
  They sing in like 10, 12 languages and and they absolutely
• 44:19
  abhorred the way that the U.
• 44:21
  S.
• 44:22
  imperialism has wreaked havoc on so much of the world.
• 44:25
  So they went to the border in Jordan, Iraq and, and Jordan, and
• 44:31
  they were gonna They're like, well, we're not letting any Americans.
• 44:35
  And where is your visa?
• 44:36
  You know, you're not state department.
• 44:38
  And so this Cameron takes out his oud, which is an Middle Eastern
• 44:44
  predecessor to guitar and and starts singing and Christina and, and Cameron
• 44:51
  starts singing Iraqi love songs.
• 44:53
  And it's like, this is our visa.
• 44:55
  And so the, the agents were so floored and they're like, come on in.
• 45:00
  They led them into Iraq and they started singing these love songs on
• 45:05
  the streets of Baghdad and people were like, Oh my God, you're not contractors.
• 45:11
  You're not military.
• 45:12
  You're not here to kill us or make profit off of us.
• 45:16
  And and they're like, yeah, we're, we call ourselves reverse missionaries
• 45:21
  because we're not here to to preach a gospel where we want your stories and
• 45:27
  we want to bring them back to the U.
• 45:29
  S.
• 45:30
  So we, they see what an amazing culture you are.
• 45:35
  And so this gained a lot of fame in that region.
• 45:39
  And they ended up in Cairo performing in front of 60, 000 people in the stadium as
• 45:48
  musical ambassadors to the Middle East.
• 45:51
  And when they And I was like, I would love to work with you guys.
• 45:56
  And this was at the height of the anti Muslim and anti immigrant kind of
• 46:04
  sentiments were just really bubbling up in a, in a terrible way in 2015 or so.
• 46:10
  And so they were like, sure.
• 46:12
  Yeah, let's let's do some roomy shows.
• 46:16
  So I would tell a story or recite a poem.
• 46:19
  And I had like this huge, beautiful ensemble behind me with music and singing.
• 46:26
  And and it was, we called it edutainment, which was to bring, to show a side
• 46:32
  of the Middle East to the American audience that is not, you know, bearded
• 46:36
  men with machine guns, but inclusive.
• 46:40
  wonderful and an inviting culture full of poetry, mysticism, and
• 46:47
  the the kindness and compassion.
• 46:50
  So when we did that, they were then Syrian refugees started coming into
• 46:56
  San Diego and I asked if I could do anything for them besides bringing them.
• 47:01
  We're living
• 47:01
  Rupert Isaacson: in San Diego at this point.
• 47:03
  Ari Honarvar: At this point, I'm living in San Diego and I asked
• 47:06
  him what, what I could do and to help besides bring in donations.
• 47:10
  And they said, start a drum circle.
• 47:13
  And and I was like, isn't that what hippies do in the Bay area?
• 47:17
  Like, what, how's that going to help?
• 47:19
  You know, like it's still, even though the dancing was really helping me, I still
• 47:23
  wasn't convinced that for people who have been, you know, Traumatized doing drumming
• 47:30
  might help, but actually, and then I took a facilitation course with another musical
• 47:36
  ambassador who had been to Kurdistan and Iraq Christine Stevens, and and of
• 47:41
  course, there was like paper after paper.
• 47:43
  Research paper showing how amazing drumming is for refugees, for, for
• 47:49
  the, for the nervous system, for, for recovery from addiction, for
• 47:53
  recovery from, from surgery, for a substance abuse prevention, et cetera.
• 48:00
  So, and I was like, well, I, I, I started doing a drum circle with with
• 48:06
  another Kurdish woman who in town named Ahwaz Ahmed, who is so I was
• 48:13
  from Iran and she's from Iraq and we had our families, probably in France
• 48:18
  had killed each other in the wars.
• 48:20
  And there we are holding a drum circle together for, for refugees from
• 48:26
  Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq.
• 48:30
  And it was so transformative.
• 48:33
  And that, and, but drumming is right, wasn't really my thing,
• 48:37
  you know, like I enjoyed it.
• 48:38
  It was transformative, but so, and people wanted to dance.
• 48:42
  They didn't, didn't want to just sit down.
• 48:45
  So we started dancing and that brought this whole other amazing Layer two to
• 48:52
  our work and and so just from trial and error of what works and what doesn't work
• 48:59
  I started just holding these sessions and then the Muslim ban happened in 2017 and
• 49:07
  there were no more new refugees coming from Middle East and At the same time a
• 49:12
  crisis was brewing at the border At the U.
• 49:16
  S.
• 49:16
  Mexico border, and so I shifted my focus to there to the U.
• 49:22
  S.
• 49:23
  Mexico border, and I started holding sessions for asylum
• 49:27
  seekers who were standing.
• 49:30
  This isn't a 18.
• 49:33
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 49:36
  Ari Honarvar: Yeah.
• 49:36
  In 2018 is when they were doing child separation at the
• 49:40
  border and there was so much.
• 49:43
  And I was as a journalist, I was covering all of that.
• 49:49
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 49:50
  How did you end up being a journalist?
• 49:51
  Because you skipped that bit.
• 49:52
  You went, we went from biotech into meeting these amazing people in
• 49:57
  Boulder and dancing and then find, you know, doing things for refugees.
• 50:01
  Where, where, where and how journalism?
• 50:03
  Ari Honarvar: Yeah, it was very much kind of another coincidence.
• 50:07
  That kind of fell into my lab, not, not intentional, but when the Muslim
• 50:13
  ban happened, I wrote a op ed about I'm a, I'm a refugee from a Muslim, I'm a,
• 50:21
  I'm a refugee from a banned country.
• 50:22
  Here's my story.
• 50:23
  And I told the story of, of my childhood and what.
• 50:27
  Why, why people seek refuge and why we shouldn't shut our door to,
• 50:34
  to refugees coming in from the U.
• 50:37
  S., especially since the U.
• 50:39
  S.
• 50:39
  was, was to blame for much of what had happened in the, in those countries.
• 50:45
  So, So that kind of went viral and and then editors started
• 50:50
  asking me for for opinion pieces.
• 50:53
  And then I started doing more, some investigative just because I was at
• 50:58
  the right place at the right time.
• 51:00
  And and then it kind of took off from there.
• 51:03
  Rupert Isaacson: What did you find as an investigative journalist?
• 51:06
  I mean, were you investigating, for example, the children being
• 51:09
  held and separated and so on?
• 51:11
  And what did you find?
• 51:12
  What should we know?
• 51:14
  Ari Honarvar: Yeah.
• 51:15
  So there the activists, because I was very active in that, in, in those
• 51:20
  circles who were working with the separated kids and their families with
• 51:25
  their, the legal teams and everything.
• 51:28
  One of them brought a piece of paper to me and it just floored me.
• 51:34
  It was.
• 51:36
  a paper tucked into a backpack of a child, six year old Guatemalan
• 51:42
  girl who was separated from her mother at the Texas border.
• 51:49
  And then she was transferred to a Arizona facility, detention facility,
• 51:55
  without her mother, and she was sexually abused at this border, at this detention
• 52:02
  facility, and she had to sign a paper.
• 52:05
  They made her sign, this six year old, they made her sign a paper that said it
• 52:11
  was Responsibility to stay away from her abuser and she couldn't read or write in,
• 52:18
  you know, so, so basically this is was
• 52:20
  Rupert Isaacson: her abuser, a staff member or another refugee.
• 52:25
  Ari Honarvar: It was another kid.
• 52:26
  Okay.
• 52:27
  So the so her signature was this broken D and we had this paper.
• 52:34
  And so I wrote about that.
• 52:36
  And of course.
• 52:37
  Okay.
• 52:38
  Everyone went wild and the senators were retweeting it and
• 52:42
  Trump wrote a tweet about it.
• 52:44
  And and then He said, maybe they should come try to come over legally or something
• 52:51
  like that, but they had come over legally.
• 52:54
  So that's the whole thing to seek out like asylum is absolutely a legal
• 53:00
  thing to do under international law.
• 53:03
  So, so then The detention facility ended up being closed, fortunately, and
• 53:09
  the kid was reunited with her parents, and they all got therapy because of
• 53:15
  the publicity that this got, and they got all their legal fees paid as well.
• 53:24
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, I'm glad that, you can't say it's a happy
• 53:27
  ending, but at least there was hope.
• 53:32
  You know, an attempt to right the wrong when you were going in to spend time with
• 53:40
  these communities who are sitting in camps and so on, and you're dancing with them,
• 53:47
  a, what's the, what's their reaction is, are they like, well, hold on a second,
• 53:50
  we need, you know, practical help.
• 53:52
  What, what, what, what's with this dance thing.
• 53:55
  And then secondly, At what point do they go, no actually we
• 54:01
  really do want this dance thing.
• 54:03
  And then thirdly, what are you dancing?
• 54:10
  Ari Honarvar: So it's interesting because it was never the refugees who
• 54:14
  were the gatekeepers to the dancing.
• 54:16
  They were thrilled to dance from the get go.
• 54:21
  It was, and we never go empty handed.
• 54:23
  We always bring donations because it's kind of ridiculous to ask people
• 54:27
  to, to, you know, dance with you when their basic needs are not met.
• 54:33
  But the, it was the other activists who.
• 54:37
  We're like, what are you doing?
• 54:38
  This is so frivolous.
• 54:39
  They need
• 54:40
  Rupert Isaacson: the sort of Puritan do gooders sort of thing.
• 54:43
  Ari Honarvar: Yeah.
• 54:43
  So it's basically like the colonialized mindset that thinks that doesn't
• 54:50
  everything has to be streamlined.
• 54:51
  Everything has to be according to, they don't look at the whole refugee
• 54:55
  experience or the whole person to see what they're looking for.
• 54:58
  Absolute needs are the fact is what when you're in a camp like that, so
• 55:03
  much of your time, you're spending worrying, you're spending in boredom,
• 55:08
  you're spending having difficult physical ailments, because you're
• 55:12
  not moving your body the way you're supposed to, you're, you're consumed
• 55:17
  by your trauma, you're consumed by so many different Terrible things.
• 55:23
  So when we put on a dance, everyone is just like, Oh my God, thank you.
• 55:28
  You know?
• 55:29
  And so, but I mean, I actually was.
• 55:32
  So I asked the shelter director at, at one point I was like, maybe it is
• 55:37
  because the other activists were like, this is, this is wrong, you should be
• 55:42
  working more on, on the bringing, you know, legal help and medicine and things
• 55:46
  like that which we were, but so I was like, well, maybe I shouldn't do this.
• 55:51
  Maybe this is just like a headache for them.
• 55:52
  Why am I doing this?
• 55:54
  And so I asked the shelter director and they were like, Oh my God.
• 55:57
  No, even if you don't bring anything at all, please bring your dancing because
• 56:03
  once they dance everyone is just so calm and the effects last for several days.
• 56:10
  People have better collaboration, cooperation, headaches disappear,
• 56:15
  need for medication disappears, and and it's just like absolutely needed.
• 56:20
  In fact, during the The COVID lockdowns where I couldn't go to
• 56:23
  Tijuana to dance because there was a lockdown, the borders were closed.
• 56:28
  And we, they're like, we need our dancing.
• 56:31
  So we did our Zoom sessions.
• 56:33
  We started doing Zoom sessions instead.
• 56:37
  Rupert Isaacson: How long, how long would a dance session last like this?
• 56:42
  And again, what are you dancing?
• 56:44
  Is it Taylor Swift or is it like the dancers of the countries
• 56:49
  that, that they have left?
• 56:51
  Or is it both?
• 56:52
  Ari Honarvar: I think it is so important to, to honor the
• 56:56
  population that you're working with.
• 57:00
  Again, this is not my dance.
• 57:01
  This is.
• 57:02
  our group.
• 57:03
  So what are, what are, what are they?
• 57:05
  So if I'm dancing with Haitians, we dance to Haitian music.
• 57:09
  If we, I'm dancing with Ukrainians, we, we dance to Ukrainian music
• 57:15
  and we do the Ukrainian dances.
• 57:16
  They teach me how to do it because I have no idea how to do Ukrainian
• 57:20
  dances, so foreign to my senses.
• 57:23
  And or when I am in Tijuana, a lot of them are from, yes.
• 57:29
  Mexico or South and Central American countries and we dance
• 57:35
  bachata, samba, I mean bachata,
• 57:40
  and salsa and merengue and and then sometimes they teach me
• 57:44
  some dances that I have no idea.
• 57:46
  So, so it's, it's all about the music that makes them feel safe.
• 57:51
  Makes them feel have a sense of belonging works in reparative
• 57:56
  rehumanization and honors their wishes.
• 58:01
  Rupert Isaacson: What's the neuroscience of dance?
• 58:03
  Why does it restore?
• 58:07
  Ari Honarvar: So again the, one of the things that happens when, um,
• 58:14
  when mammals are experiencing danger.
• 58:18
  When they get to a safe place, they shake their body.
• 58:22
  They literally shake it off.
• 58:24
  And somehow we humans used to do that.
• 58:29
  And and we just stopped doing that.
• 58:31
  We stopped shaking our bodies when, after trauma.
• 58:36
  It's a little bit of a mental, emotional hygiene that it's kind of like when you
• 58:41
  get your hands dirty, you wash your hands.
• 58:43
  It's a similar thing that helps keeps us healthy.
• 58:47
  So we don't ingest germs.
• 58:48
  This is so we don't You know, we don't, we don't have the cortisol and the adrenaline
• 58:53
  and the harmful hormones and chemical neurotransmitters just keep going.
• 58:58
  How can you
• 58:58
  Rupert Isaacson: shake off cortisol?
• 58:59
  Cortisol, that's a stress hormone that's now coursing through your system.
• 59:03
  How does shaking mitigate that?
• 59:06
  Ari Honarvar: So it's interesting because you have both cortisol, you
• 59:10
  know, so cortisol doesn't just like stop it it when you're dancing when
• 59:15
  you do pleasurable activities you have cortisol too like dancing or having
• 59:20
  sex or or exercising you also have Cortisol, but it's mitigated with some
• 59:26
  other hormones and neurotransmitters like serotonin oxytocin And endorphins
• 59:32
  and dopamines that flood your body.
• 59:36
  And eventually there's a balance to that.
• 59:39
  And then eventually your, your rest and digest system, which is the
• 59:44
  parasympathetic nervous system kicks in.
• 59:47
  And it It starts and then you feel really good.
• 59:51
  That's when you rest, digest and create rather than be in a survival mode, which
• 59:56
  is when it's just those only the cortisol and adrenaline and other chemicals that
• 1:00:02
  are, that are only supposed to be like a spike, you know, to get you enough
• 1:00:07
  stress to get out of a bad situation, you know, you don't want to be.
• 1:00:11
  In a prolonged situation that is that is present in that you
• 1:00:19
  Rupert Isaacson: have your sympathetic nervous system excited.
• 1:00:21
  And then through the dance through these other chemicals, the oxytocin,
• 1:00:26
  the serotonin, endorphins and so forth, the, the parasympathetic
• 1:00:33
  can then also become excited and then balance out and take over.
• 1:00:36
  Is that basically the process?
• 1:00:41
  Ari Honarvar: It is.
• 1:00:42
  And once.
• 1:00:44
  And when you do it together, when you do acts of art or dancing or, or
• 1:00:51
  anything that is stabilizing to the nervous system and it's together,
• 1:00:56
  then the effects are amplified.
• 1:00:59
  I had a doctor at one of my retreats.
• 1:01:03
  Who told me that the etymology of sympathetic can be tracked back
• 1:01:08
  to pathos, the Greek word for the disease or feeling of self.
• 1:01:15
  And sim is the Greek root for together.
• 1:01:19
  So when it's combined with pathos, it's sympathy means together in feeling.
• 1:01:25
  And so what causes suffering befalls all of us.
• 1:01:30
  And so this sympathetic nervous system is really tuned into the environment and
• 1:01:36
  all that it contains and it automatically decides to activate or, or not based
• 1:01:43
  on the stimuli it receives and the parasympathetic also when so that becomes
• 1:01:47
  kind of like a contagious stimulus.
• 1:01:49
  Contagion when, when we are all like stressed, you know, that's
• 1:01:53
  how riots happen or impedes and the opposite is absolutely true.
• 1:01:58
  Joy is very contagious and we all And we all feel that joy and it's amplified
• 1:02:06
  and we resonate with that together.
• 1:02:11
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:02:11
  So we, we, we understand that the parasympathetic has now become active
• 1:02:17
  with at rest and digest and one can see how for anyone, especially someone who's
• 1:02:22
  been suffering, this is a good thing.
• 1:02:25
  What goes on in the brain?
• 1:02:28
  So once it crosses the blood brain barrier, what goes on there?
• 1:02:31
  Ari Honarvar: What, what our brain was evolved for was movement,
• 1:02:36
  otherwise we would be plants.
• 1:02:37
  So it is, so there's the, the body budget, which the, Refers to the
• 1:02:44
  constant process of predicting and balancing the body's needs and resources.
• 1:02:49
  So that it replenishes that body budget that when you cross that, then you got,
• 1:02:55
  you know, like your cerebellum starts.
• 1:02:57
  It's producing like Purkinje cells and all sorts of ways to mitigate
• 1:03:04
  the, the amygdala, which has a you know, it's, again, amygdala is
• 1:03:09
  also activated during the fight, flight, freeze, et cetera, response.
• 1:03:14
  But it's also activated during learning.
• 1:03:18
  It's also activated during learning something new or communicating something.
• 1:03:23
  You know, that you haven't before.
• 1:03:24
  So it's when you move in a different way, when you say a different thing,
• 1:03:30
  your brain keeps getting rewired.
• 1:03:33
  And so, when, when that, when we keep doing the same thing more and
• 1:03:40
  more, those, those neural pathways keep getting stronger and stronger.
• 1:03:44
  So the more that we dance, the more, or we do, we engage in pleasurable activities.
• 1:03:51
  That activate our parasympathetic nervous system, the more we make
• 1:03:56
  those pathways stronger and stronger.
• 1:03:57
  Right.
• 1:03:57
  Yeah.
• 1:03:58
  You're
• 1:03:58
  Rupert Isaacson: talking about novel movement and its effect on the brain.
• 1:04:01
  You mentioned those cheeky little things a moment ago, Purkinje cells,
• 1:04:05
  which I always think of as like a Pokemon character bouncing around
• 1:04:09
  with long floppy ears or something.
• 1:04:11
  Tell, tell the listeners what's a Purkinje cell and what does it do?
• 1:04:14
  Why is it a good thing?
• 1:04:17
  Ari Honarvar: Well, there is It's in that, I guess the base of the cerebellum.
• 1:04:21
  I have to like look up the, the, the exact definite, you know, the
• 1:04:26
  exact what it does, but it's a, these are really large neurons.
• 1:04:31
  And if you look at them under the kind of focal microscope, they're so beautiful.
• 1:04:36
  They're like a tree.
• 1:04:37
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, or a placenta even.
• 1:04:38
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:04:40
  Ari Honarvar: Yeah.
• 1:04:41
  Yeah.
• 1:04:42
  And and so the once, you know, the, they stimulate the release of, of
• 1:04:48
  certain chemicals, you got BDNF, you got serotonin, you got oxytocin,
• 1:04:56
  which is the bonding chemical.
• 1:04:58
  And it also is active in communication and and, and learning and creating.
• 1:05:05
  So, so yeah, it's, it's a really beautiful way to there, and
• 1:05:10
  there's so many other chemical processes that happen in the body.
• 1:05:15
  Yeah, you
• 1:05:15
  Rupert Isaacson: mentioned, you mentioned BDNF that's, you
• 1:05:17
  know, brain derived neurotrophic factor the protein that becomes.
• 1:05:22
  A stem cell that becomes a neuron stimulated by movement.
• 1:05:25
  And as you, as you point out, you know, Purkinje cells get fired as part
• 1:05:30
  of that with our work with autism, those people that know that side of
• 1:05:34
  me, of my work, we rely very much on the creation of Purkinje cells through
• 1:05:39
  novel movement, play balancing dance.
• 1:05:41
  Because with the oxytocin.
• 1:05:45
  Which is both a feel good hormone, but as you say, a bonding hormone
• 1:05:49
  that promotes communication.
• 1:05:50
  Someone has autism, they don't particularly maybe want to communicate,
• 1:05:52
  and then suddenly they're getting flooded with a communication hormone.
• 1:05:55
  The Purkinje cells among many other things that they do are
• 1:05:59
  responsible for social skills.
• 1:06:01
  So, you know, in my world with autism, I've got someone who has,
• 1:06:05
  you know, I don't particularly want to communicate ism.
• 1:06:07
  And then suddenly they're flooded with a communication hormone
• 1:06:09
  and social skills neurons.
• 1:06:12
  We see change.
• 1:06:14
  But one of the things which we absolutely promote is dance, you know, and I'm so
• 1:06:18
  I'm fascinated by the fact that you're using it so effectively with trauma.
• 1:06:23
  So okay.
• 1:06:24
  So you're there in Tijuana which as we know is a gnarly place cartels.
• 1:06:30
  nasty stuff.
• 1:06:30
  Are you ever in danger when you go and do these dances?
• 1:06:35
  Ari Honarvar: I mean Yeah, it's just like anywhere else really but we did
• 1:06:39
  have a really horrible situation one time at one of the shelters that I danced
• 1:06:44
  with the shelter directors were were unfortunately tortured and killed and
• 1:06:49
  hanged from the pole telephone poles
• 1:06:52
  Rupert Isaacson: Why?
• 1:06:54
  What point were they making or who who did it?
• 1:06:57
  Ari Honarvar: I mean, they don't leave a calling card behind, you know, like no one
• 1:07:01
  Rupert Isaacson: usually when people do something that they
• 1:07:04
  want you to see like that.
• 1:07:06
  We don't take them into a backroom and kill them.
• 1:07:08
  We hang the body wherever we see.
• 1:07:10
  It's usually to make a statement.
• 1:07:11
  Fear, fear this for what reason?
• 1:07:14
  What, what do you think was going on?
• 1:07:15
  What was the message?
• 1:07:17
  Ari Honarvar: I honestly don't know.
• 1:07:18
  And we have asked around and I have found a reason what happened.
• 1:07:24
  But it could be a number of things like after I do a lot of the dance sessions,
• 1:07:30
  after every dance session, I meet with people who need a little bit more extra
• 1:07:35
  support and sometimes they do tell me their stories and a lot of times they
• 1:07:41
  don't know, they don't know who did anything they're like, I have no idea.
• 1:07:45
  But I, there, there were like, you need to leave or we're going to kill you.
• 1:07:50
  even though, you know, they may have mistaken them for a witness or
• 1:07:55
  they were a witness to something, but they didn't know who did it.
• 1:07:59
  Still, they are in danger and they have to leave.
• 1:08:03
  And some of them were shot many times and survived and were, you know, as
• 1:08:09
  soon as they got better, they left.
• 1:08:12
  So, yeah.
• 1:08:13
  Rupert Isaacson: And these directors of the shelter who who murdered.
• 1:08:18
  Was this in any way connected to the dance or this was just like
• 1:08:20
  a random thing that happened and suddenly you can't go to that shelter
• 1:08:23
  anymore because the people are dead?
• 1:08:26
  Ari Honarvar: Yeah, it's was not connected to the dance.
• 1:08:29
  Yeah, the,
• 1:08:32
  Rupert Isaacson: it's terrifying.
• 1:08:35
  Okay, so this is brave that you go and you do these dances in these places.
• 1:08:41
  Is San Diego and Tijuana the only place you do it well?
• 1:08:45
  Where else do you go?
• 1:08:45
  Do you, do you go around the world doing it?
• 1:08:47
  How does it work?
• 1:08:50
  Who sends you?
• 1:08:50
  Who funds it?
• 1:08:52
  Ari Honarvar: I have been to Mexicali, and I have been to London, dancing with
• 1:09:00
  Ukrainian refugees, and I do it, and I do the retreats and workshops all
• 1:09:06
  over the place, but the dances with the refugees are usually, in San Diego
• 1:09:11
  or in Tijuana more than anywhere else.
• 1:09:14
  And Musical Ambassadors of Peace is the usually the funder.
• 1:09:20
  Rupert Isaacson: So at the end, listeners, we're gonna find out how we
• 1:09:23
  can support Musical Ambassadors of Peace.
• 1:09:26
  And I'm gonna ask you about your retreats as well and how people can join them.
• 1:09:29
  But before then, from dance, let's just go back to poetry.
• 1:09:34
  So,
• 1:09:38
  Is to, obviously dancing is physical.
• 1:09:42
  Poetry, you might dance or declaim, you know, move your
• 1:09:45
  body while you recite poetry.
• 1:09:49
  What do, what for you is the difference though, the main difference in the
• 1:09:53
  process of joy between dance and poetry?
• 1:09:56
  What, what's going on differently from one to the other?
• 1:10:01
  Ari Honarvar: Well, what is going on?
• 1:10:05
  I don't know.
• 1:10:05
  Every time I recite a poem, I feel like my body really moves in
• 1:10:09
  a, in a, in a different way that is very potentially dance like.
• 1:10:16
  Rupert Isaacson: Does poetry, does poetry access trance?
• 1:10:19
  Do we automatically go into an altered state of consciousness through poetry?
• 1:10:25
  Ari Honarvar: It absolutely can happen, but any, I mean, there's so many like
• 1:10:30
  the science of neuroaesthetics, which is how our body and our brain are, They're
• 1:10:37
  basically the same, but our nervous system response to aesthetic experiences and
• 1:10:43
  and art shows that, you know, you can get into that state of flow or trance through
• 1:10:51
  crocheting or through painting or through poetry or storytelling, writing a story.
• 1:10:57
  So there's so many different ways of, of accessing that.
• 1:11:05
  Rupert Isaacson: Take us into an altered state of consciousness, please.
• 1:11:08
  You've recited earlier were you reciting in Farsi or Arabic earlier?
• 1:11:13
  Ari Honarvar: It's Farsi.
• 1:11:14
  Okay.
• 1:11:16
  Rupert Isaacson: Please take us again.
• 1:11:18
  It's so beautiful.
• 1:11:20
  A verse that you feel is the verse of now that anyone sitting
• 1:11:27
  in their car in traffic listening to this might benefit from.
• 1:12:03
  Ari Honarvar: We are not that un unruly tree that became
• 1:12:12
  an ax itself.
• 1:12:17
  When life breaks us, we become music.
• 1:12:26
  Rupert Isaacson: I would say that took me into an altered state of consciousness.
• 1:12:29
  Ari Honarvar: It's just
• 1:12:34
  Rupert Isaacson: a wow is not enough.
• 1:12:35
  It's I was checking in with what the feeling was in my body.
• 1:12:41
  So I was responding on a nervous system way just to the beauty of the language.
• 1:12:49
  Very beautiful language, magical sounding language.
• 1:12:51
  It sounds to the English ear like somebody recounting a magical
• 1:12:56
  spell, but a beautiful one.
• 1:12:58
  And then when you translate it.
• 1:13:05
  One follows in that sort of curious way, like, tracking, and then you reveal this
• 1:13:14
  Punchline is the worst word one could think of for it, but you know what I mean?
• 1:13:20
  When, when life breaks us, we become music, is that right?
• 1:13:25
  Ari Honarvar: Yeah, so, so the, the, I guess they made palms they
• 1:13:29
  made axes out of palm trees before.
• 1:13:32
  It's like, so this kind of like, it's talking about the cycle of violence.
• 1:13:36
  Yeah.
• 1:13:36
  The abuser becomes, the abused becomes the abuser.
• 1:13:39
  Someone who's been cut down becomes the axe themselves to cut somebody else down.
• 1:13:45
  But when they cut us down, we become a musical instrument.
• 1:13:49
  We become music itself.
• 1:13:50
  Rupert Isaacson: Oh,
• 1:13:56
  Ari Honarvar: through which music flows.
• 1:14:00
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:14:00
  So you're also an author and you're the author of a very
• 1:14:05
  poetic book, A Girl Called Rumi.
• 1:14:11
  Tell us first, before you tell us about that book and the story of
• 1:14:18
  that book, I don't want, I want you to tell it, I don't want to tell it.
• 1:14:22
  Just remind those listeners who do not know Rumi, because one always
• 1:14:26
  forgets that there are people out there who don't know who Rumi was.
• 1:14:30
  Who was Rumi?
• 1:14:31
  And why did you choose
• 1:14:35
  him for the title in that way?
• 1:14:38
  And then tell us about the book, please.
• 1:14:41
  Ari Honarvar: Yeah, Rumi is the 13th century poet and mystic.
• 1:14:44
  He's his best selling poet, I guess, internationally now because of the
• 1:14:52
  translations that, or the interpretations that have been, have rendered him more
• 1:14:58
  popular than, than even during his time.
• 1:15:02
  But he was a scholar and a like a Quran scholar, like a religious scholar that
• 1:15:09
  basically was like, Yeah, I'm putting my practices aside and I'm gonna
• 1:15:14
  because I'm filled with poetry and and he has so many relevant verses that
• 1:15:21
  keep showing up in in the zeitgeist in both Iran and internationally.
• 1:15:28
  And I grew up with Rumi like reciting his words before I could read or write.
• 1:15:36
  And and so definitely there is something in there and Hafez
• 1:15:40
  too, but when in, in the U.
• 1:15:43
  S.
• 1:15:43
  somehow Rumi, Rumi's words resonated with me more than, than Hafez
• 1:15:49
  at the time when I was in the U.
• 1:15:50
  S.
• 1:15:51
  just like so enthralled by rediscovering him.
• 1:15:54
  He, he just kind of like, found me like a long lost lover or, or beloved
• 1:16:00
  who just kept knocking on my door.
• 1:16:03
  And I was like, Oh my God, it's you.
• 1:16:04
  I'll put you aside because I was trying to assimilate into this crazy culture of, of
• 1:16:10
  the U S and now I can be with you again.
• 1:16:13
  And And I would just walk into, to different gatherings and when someone
• 1:16:19
  would ask me a question, just as in Iran, where we would answer with
• 1:16:23
  a verse of poetry, I would answer with a verse of Rumi in Farsi.
• 1:16:28
  And people didn't learn, like, oh my god, she's gone crazy, let's, let's, let's,
• 1:16:34
  They were like, Oh my God, what is that?
• 1:16:36
  That sounds beautiful.
• 1:16:37
  Can you translate it?
• 1:16:38
  So that's kind of how I started translating Rumi.
• 1:16:42
  And then the book, I call it a girl called Rumi was because the main character is
• 1:16:48
  a nine year old who has to deal with hijab laws and and all sorts of stuff.
• 1:16:53
  And based on my own experience.
• 1:16:56
  And at one point she meets this mysterious storyteller.
• 1:17:01
  And what she does is that he asks her for her name and she doesn't want to tell her
• 1:17:11
  then her name, because she thinks that he could have some magical power over her.
• 1:17:17
  So she says, my name is Rumi.
• 1:17:19
  So
• 1:17:22
  what happens?
• 1:17:24
  Rupert Isaacson: Give us just a little bit of what happens, but
• 1:17:26
  not enough to give the story away.
• 1:17:30
  Ari Honarvar: So basically the story is a story of family bonds and what's
• 1:17:34
  hap what happens to relationships when an entire region is thrown in
• 1:17:40
  the crucible of political oppression and war and at a deeper level.
• 1:17:46
  It's that story of yearning for liberation from suffering and how
• 1:17:52
  can we Revisit our relationship.
• 1:17:55
  It's suffering with the unknown with our imagination.
• 1:17:59
  So yeah, that's the the story.
• 1:18:03
  Rupert Isaacson: I can, I can recommend it.
• 1:18:05
  Listeners garden by it.
• 1:18:06
  It's a brilliant read.
• 1:18:09
  And it will reveal a lot about a different lens to look at through for the Middle
• 1:18:16
  East, which is constantly thrust in front of our eyes in a different way.
• 1:18:22
  Rumi himself was a refugee too, was he not?
• 1:18:27
  He, yeah, tell us about his life a little bit.
• 1:18:32
  Ari Honarvar: Yeah, I think he was, he migrated at the age of 12.
• 1:18:35
  He was born in Balkh, which is the in in Afghanistan, in modern day Afghanistan.
• 1:18:41
  At the time it was all one place and then he moved to Turkey to , and
• 1:18:50
  that's where he met his beloved.
• 1:18:53
  Someone who at this old, her heretic who comes in and and they just kind
• 1:18:58
  of, have this spiritual connection and, and he just forgets about
• 1:19:04
  his religion and his po his his.
• 1:19:07
  scholarship and he just goes right into this love affair with this madman
• 1:19:13
  and we don't know if it's an actual love affair or a just a spiritual
• 1:19:19
  or a platonic love affair but what we do know that he started composing
• 1:19:25
  all these poems like 10, 000 verses or more out of this and he had never
• 1:19:30
  wrote a single line before beforehand.
• 1:19:37
  Rupert Isaacson: When I read Rumi It does not sound Muslim to me.
• 1:19:41
  You know, it doesn't, it sounds much more universal.
• 1:19:43
  The boys I went to school with who were Muslim did not.
• 1:19:46
  The, the language he's using reads kind of like the song of Solomon out of the Bible.
• 1:19:55
  You know, it, it's, it's about love.
• 1:19:59
  It's about the beloved.
• 1:20:01
  It's, you can't tell if it's erotically charged or if it's platonically charged.
• 1:20:07
  And it doesn't matter because it's a spiritual love either way.
• 1:20:11
  And the sort of mad joy of.
• 1:20:17
  Connecting with that universal love that is the truth given that that is
• 1:20:23
  not everybody's perception of Islam and certainly the young men who are pointing
• 1:20:30
  their rifles at the Lady in your mother's yard who was having the seizure and who
• 1:20:36
  were trying to make you guys wear hijabs.
• 1:20:39
  They were not Speaking that language or coming from that position.
• 1:20:45
  What branch of Islam
• 1:20:50
  was Rumi?
• 1:20:53
  I know, in fact, a bit, but I know a lot of listeners will not.
• 1:20:57
  And where does that still exist within the sort of modern expression of Islam?
• 1:21:04
  Because, because it's unfortunately not what's projected, really.
• 1:21:09
  Could you just speak to that a little bit?
• 1:21:14
  Ari Honarvar: So, yeah.
• 1:21:16
  So first of all, the translations that are most popular are written by
• 1:21:24
  European, from a European centric gaze by white men who don't speak Farsi.
• 1:21:31
  So I would not trust those translations, the most popular ones.
• 1:21:34
  There are several other translations who are by Farsi speakers who You
• 1:21:40
  know, can have a lot of the original text and the original text is
• 1:21:46
  brimming with religion and Islam.
• 1:21:49
  Rupert Isaacson: So,
• 1:21:50
  Ari Honarvar: so it's, it's fascinating that the,
• 1:21:53
  Rupert Isaacson: But it's not calling for jihad and it's not
• 1:21:55
  calling for vengeance and it's not
• 1:21:56
  Ari Honarvar: Absolutely not.
• 1:21:57
  That's the thing.
• 1:21:58
  It's
• 1:21:58
  Rupert Isaacson: not pouring, it's not talking about infidels or so forth.
• 1:22:01
  Ari Honarvar: Not, not at all.
• 1:22:02
  Not at all.
• 1:22:03
  So the, the, the popular transitions cut him off from his Islamic roots.
• 1:22:09
  It's kind of like cutting Martin Luther King from his religious.
• 1:22:14
  Christian roots.
• 1:22:16
  Now, Martin Luther King was not a Christian nationalist.
• 1:22:21
  He was not the, you know, the extremist at all.
• 1:22:26
  He was preaching love, but he was very much Christian.
• 1:22:29
  Same thing with, with Rumi.
• 1:22:31
  He was a Sufi devoted, but his flavor of Sufism is
• 1:22:39
  Not, you know, what he sees God or goddess is like as as the beloved rather
• 1:22:47
  than this God of fire and brimstone that the extremists seem to to claim.
• 1:22:53
  Right.
• 1:22:53
  Rupert Isaacson: Tell us about Sufism.
• 1:22:54
  How does Sufism different differ from Wahhabi or, you know, some
• 1:23:00
  of these other more extreme?
• 1:23:02
  How did where did Sufism come from?
• 1:23:04
  And why is Sufism not?
• 1:23:06
  What we know from Islam.
• 1:23:10
  Ari Honarvar: Well, it's the mystical side of or the mystical Flavor of Islam.
• 1:23:18
  That's what what Sufism is.
• 1:23:21
  It originated in the Middle East and and it predates Rumi By, you know, I
• 1:23:31
  don't know how long but it, it just came out of this notion that we are
• 1:23:36
  responsible for our own spirituality.
• 1:23:40
  The, there is no God outside of us that will punish us or.
• 1:23:46
  or or give us a reward afterwards.
• 1:23:50
  And same thing with Christianity here, you know, like the
• 1:23:57
  mainstream Christianity is so different than the, the more
• 1:24:01
  mystical sides of Christianity that that we are accustomed to.
• 1:24:06
  That we see in that is more fringe and it's not super mainstream where it's
• 1:24:13
  more inclusive and allowing and and embraces dance and embraces singing.
• 1:24:21
  So
• 1:24:21
  Rupert Isaacson: that's my question.
• 1:24:22
  Why is that not the Islam that is projected?
• 1:24:27
  Why is that not the Islam that we know?
• 1:24:32
  Ari Honarvar: Extremism seems to have a way to to crush, you
• 1:24:36
  know, the, the others, the other expressions of religion or philosophy.
• 1:24:44
  And we see that here in the U.
• 1:24:47
  S.
• 1:24:47
  with the, a lot of Christians who are extremists who are in the government
• 1:24:52
  and are driving the laws in the U.
• 1:24:56
  S.
• 1:24:56
  as well.
• 1:24:57
  They're oppressing and suppressing
• 1:25:00
  Rupert Isaacson: without doubt.
• 1:25:00
  I mean, what, what's interesting though, you know, I'm a medieval historian.
• 1:25:03
  That's what I did my degree in.
• 1:25:05
  So I had to do a lot of church history, right.
• 1:25:07
  And some, but not much of the interplay between Christianity and
• 1:25:11
  Islam because of the, the crusades.
• 1:25:14
  And then later the, you know, Ottoman.
• 1:25:16
  Colonial adventures within Europe but one knows really quite well documented
• 1:25:23
  why mystic Christianity got kicked into the trash can because the,
• 1:25:31
  gosh, up until about the third century AD, Christianity was Christianities,
• 1:25:36
  like lots and lots and lots of different sects of various kinds all over the
• 1:25:40
  place of course, all bickering with each other, but no one had the upper hand.
• 1:25:44
  And then with The first Roman emperor, Constantine, deciding to make
• 1:25:48
  Christianity a state religion after having tried a couple of other ones,
• 1:25:52
  by the way, tried the cult of Sol Invictus, and it didn't quite do it.
• 1:25:56
  And then, and then he also killed his wife and son in law, no,
• 1:26:00
  yeah, his wife and son, actually.
• 1:26:03
  And like this idea of absolution.
• 1:26:05
  So, he thought, well, maybe I'd go for the Christian thing because
• 1:26:07
  then I could be forgiven for that.
• 1:26:09
  So there are various reasons, but the main reason was that was a time of
• 1:26:12
  massive civil wars in the Roman Empire.
• 1:26:15
  And the idea was to take a, something that you could use to unify people's perception
• 1:26:22
  of government through spirituality, and that had been there previously
• 1:26:28
  with the deification of emperors.
• 1:26:31
  Where the Emperor was seen as a god, but somehow that had become eroded perhaps
• 1:26:35
  because the Emperors were replacing themselves every six months Sometimes the
• 1:26:38
  four different ones on the throne at any one time so it lost its credibility So
• 1:26:42
  he comes in and then there's this thing called the Council of Nicaea where they
• 1:26:46
  decide All right We're going to create a Roman Church and this is the Catholic
• 1:26:51
  Church meaning Catholic Universal and all those other ones over there those
• 1:26:55
  Aryans, and those Manichaeans, and those Donatists, and all those other ones.
• 1:26:59
  No, no, they're not, we're gonna get the sort of state seal, ba boom, and
• 1:27:03
  we have these institutions of the Roman Empire anywhere a thousand years old.
• 1:27:07
  We're gonna bring those to birth, and we can do this so that we
• 1:27:09
  can, you know, get social control, stabilization, taxation, and so on.
• 1:27:15
  And then gradually through the fourth century, It just
• 1:27:19
  becomes more and more extreme.
• 1:27:20
  It starts quite tolerant, it becomes more and more extreme.
• 1:27:23
  And then it becomes the extreme Christianity that we know.
• 1:27:28
  Then there's a brief resurgence, right about the time of Rumi,
• 1:27:31
  with, of Christian mysticism.
• 1:27:33
  People like Hildegard of Bingen, the Cathars in Southern
• 1:27:36
  France, and all of this.
• 1:27:37
  Saying, no, no, no, it's all about love and peace.
• 1:27:39
  And of course the Pope goes, nah, ha, ha, and launches crusades
• 1:27:42
  against all these people.
• 1:27:44
  And To a large degree squashes them.
• 1:27:48
  And then, you know, when you have Martin Luther coming along a
• 1:27:52
  bit later saying, Hey, hey, hey, this has all gotten very corrupt.
• 1:27:55
  Then, of course, massive reaction.
• 1:27:56
  And that's where you get the Spanish Inquisition and, and also the reconquest
• 1:28:00
  of Spain, you know, from the, from the Muslims, you know, cracking
• 1:28:04
  down on, Well, if they, if they convert, are they really Christians?
• 1:28:07
  We need an inquisition to find out, you know, or are they, you
• 1:28:10
  know, actually going to come along and try to get the caliphates
• 1:28:12
  going again and blah, blah, blah.
• 1:28:14
  So you can sort of trace it within Christianity quite well because
• 1:28:18
  it's, it's, it's written down.
• 1:28:20
  You can see what the guys were actually saying in these, in these conferences,
• 1:28:24
  but with Islam, what's interesting is, I presume that does exist, that record does
• 1:28:28
  exist, but obviously we in the West don't get taught it unless we do some specialist
• 1:28:34
  medieval Middle Eastern studies.
• 1:28:36
  What do you think
• 1:28:40
  was the reason why something like Sufism arose in the first place?
• 1:28:46
  Like, one can say with Christian mysticism, the Christ message is in and of
• 1:28:51
  itself about forgiveness and love, right?
• 1:28:53
  That's what he's saying in the New Testament, and then the church
• 1:28:57
  does whatever it does with that.
• 1:29:00
  What?
• 1:29:02
  What did this Mystic Branch of Islam come from with its love and peace message.
• 1:29:10
  And why was that so radically different from the Shia Sunni stuff that, you
• 1:29:15
  know, what do you know what, was there a mechanism similar to that one, that
• 1:29:20
  Christian one that I just outlined?
• 1:29:21
  Or where, where did, where did Sufism even come from?
• 1:29:27
  Ari Honarvar: I believe it was like around after the death of prophet Muhammad
• 1:29:32
  it, it appeared in in Saudi Arabia.
• 1:29:35
  That was like the, the place where it originated, but it didn't really solidify
• 1:29:40
  until the 12th century and order and and where people were actually practicing it.
• 1:29:49
  Rupert Isaacson: And is Sufism still alive and well, or does it just exist now,
• 1:29:54
  only in the pages of people like Rumi?
• 1:29:56
  Ari Honarvar: No, it definitely is alive and well.
• 1:29:58
  There are several different orders of Sufism.
• 1:30:02
  Rupert Isaacson: And are they, do they find themselves under pressure
• 1:30:05
  or persecution from mainstream Islam?
• 1:30:10
  Ari Honarvar: Yes, they do.
• 1:30:11
  Iran, there, there are crackdowns.
• 1:30:14
  Okay,
• 1:30:18
  Rupert Isaacson: so anything good, anything fun, can't have that.
• 1:30:21
  Well, I, I would hope that the Western perception could begin to include Sufism.
• 1:30:33
  And I think that the work that you do is helpful with that massively.
• 1:30:40
  You talk about the, you know, the word ambassador.
• 1:30:44
  I think we need these ambassadors.
• 1:30:48
  So
• 1:30:51
  you're out there doing that, you're doing that now through dance, you're
• 1:30:55
  doing that through your writing, you're helping refugees, you're running retreats.
• 1:30:59
  Can you tell us a little bit about these retreats?
• 1:31:02
  And then can you also tell us how we can find out more about your work
• 1:31:06
  and how we can support your work?
• 1:31:10
  Ari Honarvar: Yeah.
• 1:31:11
  So when I was working with refugees, there were medical crews or, asylum attorneys
• 1:31:19
  who were present sometimes in the camps to do legal assistance or doing you
• 1:31:26
  know, medical checkups on the refugees.
• 1:31:28
  And when they saw that, it's like, Hey, can you do something for that?
• 1:31:32
  Something like that for us.
• 1:31:34
  So that's kind of how it began me giving workshops to mental
• 1:31:39
  health care workers, health care workers, asylum attorneys and such.
• 1:31:43
  And now I do that for The broader audience as well and basically is that
• 1:31:50
  you know, just going through different ways to stabilize our nervous system.
• 1:31:56
  And what my new series is called deep rest retreats, deep rest reset.
• 1:32:04
  Retreat so we can really fully arrest and do it together so
• 1:32:09
  it can amplify the benefits.
• 1:32:12
  And then we come up with ways to have those kind of mental
• 1:32:16
  emotional hygiene's through the day.
• 1:32:19
  As, as we wake up every day, what can we do?
• 1:32:22
  And we have buddies that we pair up with and support groups that do that.
• 1:32:26
  People can support each other through the journey of rewiring their nervous
• 1:32:31
  system in a way that is beneficial to them and society and mitigates
• 1:32:36
  the effects of vicarious trauma that we're constantly bombarded with,
• 1:32:42
  especially in those kinds of situations.
• 1:32:46
  Rupert Isaacson: How do we join one of your retreats?
• 1:32:48
  Ari Honarvar: I don't have one for the public scheduled.
• 1:32:52
  This Yet but you can look through my sub stack or my roomiewithavew.
• 1:33:00
  com, which is my website under events.
• 1:33:04
  When there are public events, I social I, yeah, I put it there.
• 1:33:09
  Rupert Isaacson: Roomiewithavew.
• 1:33:11
  com.
• 1:33:11
  So if people want to join one of your retreats, they can contact you there.
• 1:33:15
  Ari Honarvar: Yes.
• 1:33:16
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:33:17
  And spoiler alert listeners those of you who know, we'll
• 1:33:19
  be moving to Spain next year.
• 1:33:21
  We will be having our own retreat center.
• 1:33:24
  So we're definitely going to be asking Ari to come and lead
• 1:33:26
  one of her retreats there.
• 1:33:28
  So hopefully you'll be able to join up for that too.
• 1:33:31
  I'll, I'll be posting that if Ari agrees, which I hope she will.
• 1:33:36
  Ari Honarvar: It's so funny because I was telling a friend about you know, meeting
• 1:33:41
  or re getting re acquainted with you.
• 1:33:45
  And I was talking about the autistic population and the refugee population.
• 1:33:51
  And they said it's funny because.
• 1:33:54
  All of us are pretty much neurodivergent, and all of us are refugees, so this should
• 1:34:02
  be a really beautiful collaboration, whatever we end up doing together.
• 1:34:07
  I
• 1:34:07
  Rupert Isaacson: can't wait.
• 1:34:08
  I can't wait.
• 1:34:10
  Alright, I know you need to go soon, so I'm just going to ask you to
• 1:34:14
  wrap up with a last verse for us.
• 1:34:19
  If you're going to wish our listeners well as they go home.
• 1:34:23
  Out of this altered state of consciousness of listening to your
• 1:34:26
  amazing story and back into their lives.
• 1:34:29
  What would you like to leave us with?
• 1:34:31
  Maporsid,
• 1:34:31
  Ari Honarvar: maporsid ze ahval haqiqat ke ma bade parastim na peymane shomareen.
• 1:34:40
  Maporsid, maporsid ze ahval haqiqat ke ma bade parastim na peymane
• 1:34:52
  shomareen.
• 1:34:55
  Don't ask us to dissect truth.
• 1:35:00
  We are worshippers of the sacred wine, not accountants of wine cups.
• 1:35:13
  Rupert Isaacson: Thank you.
• 1:35:15
  Thank you.
• 1:35:18
  RumiWithAView.
• 1:35:19
  com, the book, A Girl Called Rumi, garden by it.
• 1:35:26
  We'll be giving more information about the retreats.
• 1:35:32
  Ari, it's been an honor.
• 1:35:33
  Thank you so much for giving us the time.
• 1:35:36
  Ari Honarvar: Oh, it was such a pleasure.
• 1:35:38
  And I was very excited to learn about the European history, medieval history
• 1:35:44
  that you, you generously offered.
• 1:35:46
  So thank you.
• 1:35:47
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, my pleasure.
• 1:35:49
  All right.
• 1:35:50
  Until the next time, I hope you'll come on again.
• 1:35:54
  Ari Honarvar: Thank you.
• 1:35:54
  Absolutely.
• 1:35:55
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:35:56
  Until then, be well.
• 1:35:58
  Ari Honarvar: You as well.
• 1:36:00
  Rupert Isaacson: Thank you for joining us.
• 1:36:01
  We hope you enjoyed today's podcast.
• 1:36:03
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• 1:36:08
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