Neelou Malekpour - The Art of Sacred Smoke: Energy-Balancing Rituals to Cleanse, Protect, and Empower

I remember the first time I learned about energy and how I could shift my emotions and my mood, even if I couldnt control what was happening in my life. One afternoon when I was in elementary school, I came home, swallowing back tears after a schoolyard slight. I dropped my backpack by the dining room table and ran into my bedroom, hurling myself onto the stuffed animals neatly arranged on my bed. In the safety of my room I cried, my favorite doll Toot Farangi (Strawberry in Persian) muffling my sobs.

There was a gentle knock on my bedroom door. I ignored it, twirling my fingers in the dolls thick pink yarn-hair, and braced myself for the youre too sensitive, school isnt so bad, you need to toughen up lecture my parents delivered to me almost daily.

I was surprised to see my Maman, my maternal grandmother, instead, wearing her signature red lipstick and a mischievous smile. I made your favorite, she said in Farsi, scooting me over to sit beside me on the bed. She carried a bowl of faloodeh in her chubby hands, a dish of fresh grated apples sprinkled with a bit of sugar and a splash of rosewater.

I was a weird kid at ten years oldmy bushy unibrow, intense empathy, and cultural dissonance made me an easy target for bullies. But Maman made me feel calm and grounded because I never felt judged in her presence. I threw my arms around her neck, still not used to her presence. She had just arrived from Tehran, where my family was from.

I was born in Seattle, but I spent the majority of my first four years with both of my grandmothers in Tehran. They share the same first nameBehjat, which means happinessand they took care of me while my parents worked. I was their first grandchild and we were inseparable. I have more memories of them than I do of my mom and dad at that age.

At the height of the Islamic revolution in Iran, when people were disappearing daily because of their political beliefs and the airports had been shut down for months, my parents and I left Tehran illegally with human traffickers, via horseback. I later found out my father made this decision not only because he hadnt been paid by the University of Tehran, where he was an engineering professor, for more than six months, but also because he was afraid for my mothers lifeshe had just been fired from her job at the National Petrochemical Company, where she was an accountant, because of her anti-revolutionary sentiment. Every day when she left the house, he worried she might not come back because of her very vocal disapproval of the regime change. She refused to cover her hair and adhere to the restrictive new laws that had been instated. To this day there are mass unmarked graves at Behesht Zahra, the largest cemetery in Iran, which contain the remains of those the government felt were anti-revolutionaries.

I remember saying goodbye to my grandparents and my aunts in the middle of the night. I wasnt able to bring any of my belongings so I took the time to say farewell to my dolls and my bedroom. Everyone was so sad, filled with worry. I didnt really understand what was happening but their goodbyes felt different, smiles masking dread. That heaviness lingered in me the way bones ache before even a drop of rain falls from the sky. I had no idea I wouldnt see Maman again for almost six years.