Episode 145: Priya Assal - Enough is Enough: The Revolutionary Women of Iran

As we have been witnessing the protests raging across Iran after the brutal death of Mahsa Amini, we are also hearing of intensified violence against the women there.
In order to more deeply understand the current climate, I reached out to my Iranian friend and sister Priya Assal and invited her to join me for an interview.

If you want to hear why what is happening in Iran should matter to us here in America and all over the world, then I urge you to listen to Priya’s revelations and her personal story of love and longing, and her passion for women’s rights in Iran and beyond. Priya Assal is an Educator, Writer, Artist and Women’s Community Organizer.

She is the founder of Inner Journey Practices, an educational non-profit organization dedicated to the empowerment of Farsi-speaking women worldwide. Priya holds a BFA from the California College of Arts and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is also a certified Holistic Health teacher, a certified Iyengar Yoga Instructor and a certified Women’s Rite of Passage Facilitator in the lineage of Sarah Durham Wilson.

In her Medium article she writes:

"Today’s Iranian “Women, Life, Freedom” slogan is 1969’s American “My body my choice”, and is exposing yet again the shadow of the old beast at play: Patriarchal Tyranny.
Patriarchal Tyranny is a global curse inflicting violence upon most of the world’s population, including the citizens of seemingly free countries. The fact of the matter is that nearly everyone is oppressed by the corrupt systems born of this beast; systems that define the norms and shape the worldview of human beings. In countries like Iran, Patriarchal tyranny is in your face. It’s undeniable and felt at every corner and in every room. However, in countries like the United States or in Europe, it’s cleverly disguised under pretend freedom and comforts, and therefore harder to recognize and defeat.”

Priya is an artist, activist, writer, educator and a Mature Feminine Rites of Passage Practitioner. She is passionate, determined and committed to using her gifts and voice in service to the liberation of Iranian women, and all women. As the founder of Art of the Inner Journey Education her work serves to provide free education, transformation and Inner liberation to Iranian women so that they may experience reclamation and healing from patriarchal and terrorist rule.

Please support Priya’s work to assist Iranian women by donating here

• Priya shares some of the history on the Hijab and how it has changed over the last 43 years.
• How Mahsa Amini has become the most used hashtag and really what it means to be a Key code
• How Iran was considered the Paris of the middle wast in the 60’s and what happened after that
• We discuss how oppression exists all around the world and some is very hidden and some is in plain sight
• How consumerism and capitalism affects us at a very deep level - increasing the poverty aspect
• We speak of the loneliness that exists in particular in the United States versus in Iran and how we need to find our joy and comfort in community
• Iranian women are putting everything at risk because they have nothing left to lose; when everything has been taken away from you life isn't worth living anymore
• How curiosity and education about Iran or other cultures helps to expand the ability to identify with other women
• For transformation there are three key aspects:
  • Absolute honesty with yourself
  • Courage
  • Humility
• We need to prevent a repeat of history.
• What is the symbolic nature of hair cutting that many Iranian women are doing

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Links:

• ‘We are risking death’: Iranians on Mahsa Amini protests | Iran | The Guardian
• Death of Mahsa Amini - Wikipedia
• Inner Journey Practices
• Donate — Inner Journey Practices
• Essential Workshop Waitlist — Inner Journey Practices
• Contact — Inner Journey Practices
• Zoroastrianism - Wikipedia — Zoroastrianism
• Priya Assal – Medium