In solidarity of the women and children of Iran
Updated: Feb 7
Nietzsche "I'm on fire
with painful longings, persisting in me like
unsatisfied desire. in one
sense, my tension is a crazy urge to laugh, not so
different in its way
from the ravaging passions of heroes but close,
too, to the tension
of martyrs and saints..."
These words from a dear friend touched me deeply recently:
“I’ve been trying my best to digest and make sense of all that I’ve been seeing (or not seeing in the case of the media). Countless people have been killed, disappeared or silenced, especially the fearless women letting their hair fly free on the streets and artists who have given voice to the communal pain. The internet has been cut off, but we are still receiving videos and images of the unbelievable fight for human rights that is going down. Censorship is at an all time high!
On October 1st, hundreds of thousands of people marched around the world in support of the brave people of Iran, and it was not covered by one news outlet!
Yesterday the news came that students at Irans most prestigious university, the brightest minds in the country, were being trapped on campus by armed forces…they are being beaten and killed. The sheer gravity of this is mind blowing…. And yet there is international silence.
Friends, I beg you, make noise, reach out to your local members of parliament. Your Iranian friends, they’re not ok. The biggest feminist movement of our times is happening right now. If they’re not free, none of us are”.
I have spent the last few days grieving for the people of Iran and the young people being brutally murdered by those who have yet to ask themselves:
Where does my power end and the divine power begin?
How does the divine power function with my power, as a relationship that enables life forces to change in freedom?
How can I recognise divine will from my will, and learn to trust it, within my developing self?
To help myself to place the pain of my heartache somewhere, I started to journal my responses and thoughts down. My head felt hot and my liver was burning - a familiar feeling like the height of Summer, refusing to give way to Autumn.
As I journaled, I realised that my Iranian friend’s name means - Fire.
Her pain felt like my own.
My inner fire ignited an impulse in me to remember my own early encounters with fire whether through the violence of others against me and my mother, my verbal defending and attacking against others, or my own self-destructive capacities as a young adults.
In noticing and recognising the push and pull, an alchemy in bearing the tension of opposites enabled me to connect and cross thresholds. In time, the crossings gifted me freedom and compassion, and most importantly the consciousness to recognise its inherent beauty and my responsibility to keep asking Who Am I?
As an offering to begin asking this question, I am sharing some of my recent artwork here, that for me reflect the symbol and nuances of fire, as light-giving, warmth-giving, passion, love, inspiration, enlightenment, illumination, willpower, desire, longing, hunger, and also as greed, and rage. Other words may come to your mind.
I have experienced these ‘warmth’ aspects in various ways during my own struggles with extreme outbursts of intense emotion, that I tried to suppress or project on to others. In between the ups and downs, there were feelings of unworthiness, shame and guilt, that gifted me the humility to question further and courageous keep exploring what I had inherited that was making me ill and uncomfortable in my thinking, my feeling, and in my movements.
I was lucky to have met *Anthroposophy that opened me up to what I was carrying… breathing - of the air we share. It offered me a different way to recognise, befriend and include my inner fire to digest what I had taken in. With courage and wonder, I worked to bridge fire and water, using the Transpersonal Arts processes that I had initially learned at the Tobias School of Art & Therapy some years ago. Knowing the human condition in all its guises, is what makes me a good therapist for the people I now support as an Art Therapist.
We could think of the metamorphosis of the plant, how seed changes to leaf, leaf to flower, flower to fruit and fruit to seed. In animal and man there is change and growth but in all these developments there is innate wisdom. Anthroposophy recognises that Wisdom takes the symbolic form of - woman - or mother.
I will offer here some possible questions for self-reflection as we go along.
What happens as you make your own meanings, from a deeper place of listening?
V
V
V
1. How does it feel to experience these colours and forms within you?
2. What is the story you perceive between the beings?
3. What questions arise for you to contemplate awhile?
4. Can you recall the time you let down your hair (if you have hair), and how it felt so freeing?
What do you think is happening here for the central form and being, represented as a woman?
How are your animal instincts doing these days, and can you recall how they might change at various times of the year?
Could you bring yourself to return to this image to query further, over some time? Notice what new perceptions arise as you return to look with curiosity and wonder again?
1. How do you feel looking at the darker parts versus the lighter parts?
2. If you were to place yourself in the role of any of these forms and beings, what new things would you learn about your self?
3. How would you celebrate the discovery of your soul to know true freedom as a long-lost love reunited?
Me, just like the women in my artwork, I will let down my hair and allow it to dance freely in the breeze!
How do these words resound in your body sensations?
Which words and phrases stand out for you?
What feelings does this verse awaken within you, if any?
To close, I offer you these words by
Bob Dylan
… How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, and how many times must the cannonballs fly
Before they're forever banned?
… The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind
… Yes, and how many years must a mountain exist
Before it is washed to the sea?
And how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn't see?
… The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind
… Yes, and how many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
And how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, and how many deaths will it take 'til he knows
That too many people have died?
… The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind
Blowin' In The Wind lyrics 1963 © Special Rider Music, Universal Tunes
Thank you for your time and attention.
Sending prayers of heartfelt love to all the human beings involved in the conflicts of Iran and beyond. May we find safe and supported ways to look at ourselves and discern the living forces moving in and around us, sooner.
And of my dear Iranian friend whose name means Fire, I can tell you that she is married to a wonderful man whose name is one of many names we have for - God.
Nisha
Notes:
* Anthroposophy / Anthro Pos Sophia = The Wisdom of the HUman Being. (Breath of Life)
From an anthroposophical perspective the human being is not only physical, psychological and social, but also spiritual: an individuality -a self- with an individual life’s task i . During life the individuality and the soul (psyche) are connected with the body in an individual way. We call the way they are linked and work together ‘constitution’.
Health is not considered to be the absence of illness, but the ability to adjust and, as much as possible, take control of the challenges with which we are presented in life. This could be physical challenges, such as illness, but also psychological or social ones. Health is therefore related to buoyancy and the capacity to always find a new balance ii. We call whatever contributes to finding this balance ‘healing’.
Some Healing-Empowering Stories that may help you to support the bearing of the inner fire at this time. Please let me know if you have others. I can add them here for visitors to find.
Fire in the Mountain
Prometheus
Iron John
Michael and the Dragon
Vasilisa The Brave / Vasilisa the Beautiful
The Red Shoes
The Handless Maiden
Metamorphosis
Medusa
Perseus and Andromeda
The Little Snake
The Coal Pedlars Wife
(Artworks are by me, created using the Transpersonal Arts way, as Art Therapy for Creative Health).