#116 Echoes of Resistance: Rawan Roshni
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Michael Reiley: Welcome back to the show. This is Michael Reiley. Before we begin today's episode. I want to take a moment to say that if you'd like to support this podcast and the mission of Science and Nonduality please consider becoming a SAND member. In addition to supporting this podcast and the production of films, like "The Wisdom of Trauma". And "Where Olive Trees Weep". And our monthly community gatherings. You'll gain access to our sand member library with hundreds of videos from SAND's 15 year history of conferences, webinars, and courses. You can visit science and nonduality dot com slash join or find the link in the show notes.
Today, I'm in conversation with musician and artist Rawan Roshni. Rawan Roshni is a Palestinian Balkan global citizen Arab woman based in Jordan. She uses her voice as an artist, through her singing, songwriting and facilitation. Of brave spaces focusing on the work in the swatter region. She has co-founded multiple interfaith and world music projects, and most recently has been touring. Her solo trilingual live looping music and poetry performance. Out till your messages from the birds for over the past two years. Reaching seven countries and counting. And today we listened to and discuss these new music and poetry works from Rawan. As well as her reaction to the recently announced ceasefire in Gaza. Her history and work with poetry, music, and voice. And how these sacred vibrations can be a source of healing in our communities and world. All today on the Sounds of SAND Podcast presented by Science and Nonduality.
Michael Reiley: I'm here with Rawan Roshni for the Sounds of SAND podcast. Thanks so much, for being here today.
Rawan Roshni: Thank you for having me, Michael.
Michael Reiley: Yeah, so we've, we've been eager to reconnect with you since you came on for the Where Olive Trees Weep panel back last summer, and a lot has changed in the world, although some things have not changed and some things are not better, and as we're recording this today, the 16th of January, the ceasefire announcement has, has come out.
So if we can begin there, just kind of seeing how, how you're feeling, what emotions you're, you're holding now, how your community and family in Palestine and the region are doing today.
Rawan Roshni: Yeah, thank you so much for asking and presencing that because it is very present and very alive and still in movement fresh. Yesterday I was actually in the car on my way to a friend's house when I saw a post saying it's announced. And I immediately started frantically sending messages in my family group and to my different friends.
Actually doing this this Palestinian
Just being really relieved and overjoyed to see a step like that. And for a moment I just broke down in tears while I was driving. It was a very dangerous drive because I was sending these messages and doing the Zagruta and crying and but yeah, it felt like all this tension in my body It's, been there nonstop for the last 15 months. Having a moment to breathe, or in a pressure cooker when there's a tiny little bit of steam. air coming out. And also there's a sensation of disbelief. It's hard to trust this. There's suspicion and like cautiousness around being too hopeful or too joyful. And it is still complicated.
Like I had already been reading from a day before. Texts that were sent in different groups. I'm in about like the different phases of the ceasefire and how the first phase is, 10 hours a day or 12 hours a day. That The fire will cease. So it's also doesn't mean immediate and it doesn't mean all encompassing and it doesn't mean permanent.
So it does feel a little bit like breadcrumbs, like just trying to hold on to any string of hope. And at the same time, watching people in Gaza celebrating and crowds of people and children cheering and crying. It's very emotional. It's very emotional. Yeah, and I'm still not 100 percent digesting because today also there was some other news that Netanyahu is like delaying the cabinet from voting on it and accusing that Hamas has backtracked or blackmailed something.
And so it's not solid yet. It doesn't feel solid. It's solid. Since yesterday, 50 people have been killed in Gaza, and there's videos coming out of corpses on the ground, and it's not it's not like it's happened yet. The fire has not stopped yet. So it's a lot of mixed emotions. Even as I'm sharing, I can feel heat in my body and my back crawling up my back. Cause I so badly want this to be over as millions of people all over the world. And most of all, people who are living in Gaza, obviously want this to be over. And even actually 10 days ago, I was having an argument with somebody and anyways, throughout this dialogue I acknowledged and identified my inner child that really just wants somebody to make it stop, wants a father figure or like an adult figure to make this stop, because this cannot be how humanity exists.
There is a part of me that still cannot believe. the horror of what we can do to each other. And I think only after it stops, actually, will we be able to fully feel how traumatizing this was because it's been 15 months of daily exposure. And again, I'm speaking from a privileged place where I'm looking at it on a screen.
I cannot even begin to imagine. Although a very close friend of mine, Haneen, who was the one who invited me onto this Panel for the screening of where all of trees weep she has family there and we are part of a collective we work together and we are close in our sisterhood also. So I feel through her what's been happening with her family.
And yeah, it's like through a couple of degrees of separation, but it also really feels very personal. And every child there feels like It's part of my being,
Michael Reiley: Thank you for that very vulnerable and authentic sharing of, of how you're feeling in your nervous system and your body. And yeah, we're just. We're all kind of just, you know, the expression pins and needles kind of like just sitting on this very delicate and precious space. That's like you said, just a sliver, a sliver of hope.
I also appreciate you talking about the inner, inner child too, and this inner child wanting this this horror, this genocide to stop and just like a, a, You think he said a authority figure, a parental figure to come in and just stop the violence. Would you mind for the listeners just talking a bit about your, your, your ancestry, your family, your, your history as you've yeah, basically that,
Rawan Roshni: Yeah, sure. I'm a Palestinian diaspora, which means that I never had the chance to live on my ancestral homeland of Palestine because my grandparents were expelled in 1948. So at that time, my grandmother, for example, from my mother's side, was only six months old. And she was carried with her mom and her older siblings, and they went by boat from Haifa to Tripolis in Lebanon.
She was a refugee living in a mosque, actually, until she was nine years old. So she spent, her childhood as a refugee. Until then, her father was able to find employment in Kuwait and take her and her mother and her siblings to Kuwait. And each of my grandparents has It's a story similar to this.
Some of them had better luck in terms of socioeconomic accessibility, others less. And eventually all my grandparents settled in Kuwait, where my parents met and married and where I was born. And in 1990, the Gulf War broke out between Kuwait and Iraq. So we fled and were displaced a second time to Jordan.
Michael Reiley: how old were you when that war started?
Rawan Roshni: I was three years old. I don't actually have any memories of it, although I'm sure that my body remembers.
And there are some kind of trauma responses I think that are still present that I work on, things to do with separation anxiety, things to do with like tension in my belly. When I get intense fear, for example, and that started at that time.
I've been told stories that when we moved or when we migrated took refuge at that time, we were separated as a family and some of my family members stayed behind in Kuwait while others and myself came to Jordan. We were also under fire. And in that time, when. Family members were separated.
I like protested by refusing to go to the bathroom And I didn't know what I was doing. I was three kind of the opposite of a hunger strike
And it's, it, and they were very worried, like a week into this, they were very worried. They were like, okay, maybe we need to take her to the hospital or something. And then when my grandmother, the one I was talking about earlier, the one who crossed by boat, when she came she was like, guys, just let me take her for one night.
And she took me for one night. And then I was done the protests.
So yeah, I can only imagine what children are going, I cannot actually imagine what kind of lasting effects this genocide will have on the traumatizing of children. Generations to come, actually, we're watching how until now, three or four generations later grandchildren and great grandchildren of Holocaust survivors still have that genocide living in their system and their body and their consciousness.
So there's going to be a lot of healing work to be done, and it cannot actually even begin. Until the genocide is over. And so everything we're doing now in terms of resistance and applying pressure and spreading awareness and artivism and fundraising, and all of this is just like crisis response in this moment, doing the best we can to not drown in our helplessness and despair.
And I cannot wait for that moment. Where it, there's enough yeah, enough safety to just be able to, or accessibility, not even safety. Accessibility and safety to go in and start doing the healing work, cause you can't heal while you're still being injured.
Michael Reiley: Oh, yeah. And when did art and music come into your life?
Rawan Roshni: So it was very clear from when I was very young. I loved to sing and I had an aunt who was a composer and a pianist. She discovered this in me when I was eight years old. And she took me into the studio for the first time. There's actually little newspaper clippings of me wearing headphones that were too big for my head.
And they're like a little bit drooping over. And she had me record some of the children's songs that she had composed. So yeah, it's a gift, alhamdulillah, that I'm very grateful for, and I believe that this is the gift I've been given in order to show up in service to my brothers and sisters, to this human and also all of creative, creation and family that we're a part of here, because I believe we're just one species in this ecosystem.
And so my voice is, yeah, the gift and the tool and the responsibility that I've been given and throughout my life as I continue to grow. and maturity and awareness and spiritual connection. So then I have more access to my voice. I actually say that it's larger than me. It's much larger than me.
And so I've grown into it and found new ways to connect with it and to use it. For example, now here with you in this podcast, this is the newest form of using my voice. I'm starting to speak more also in this last year, in addition to singing. So singing has been present for quite a while. And in the last two years, I initiated my own solo performance where I gave singing lessons.
It's based on my poetry. So they started to become more of this spoken word element and now more and more so also to conversations and panel discussions and public speaking at conferences slowly. But yeah, this is another way to use my voice as well now.
Michael Reiley: Beautiful. Well, thank you for sharing your gift. And we're going to listen to some of your music throughout the episode, and we'll talk about it more so listeners will be able to connect with you in that way. I don't know. Yeah. And Use the word artivism, which I love that word. So there's the activism piece connected with art, but also the therapeutic piece world.
So when did that come about? Was that always present or is that something that kind of wove together more recently?
Rawan Roshni: The therapeutic element I think was always there in a shape or form intuitively And then I actually went and did a sound healing training at some point in a center in the south of Spain with beautiful teachers and a wonderful acoustic dome where I got to explore a lot more to do with singing bowls and tuning forks and also the human voice. which turns out to be the greatest sound healing instrument.
There's been some scientific experiments actually using different instruments on contaminated blood cells or contaminated water or cancer cells. And it's proven that the human voice is the most effective instrument. It's amazing. Fascinating. Yeah, so that was also a huge privilege and honor to learn more about and to start intentionally doing in addition to intuitively doing it.
And then in terms of artivism as an activism, right? It's using my voice and my poetry and the platforms to spread awareness, to ask questions, to evoke emotion to maybe fundraise sometimes, especially in this last year, that's been a huge driving force. And to also just reveal myself. I feel like as each of us knows themselves more and liberates themselves more and then reveals that and models it, then it inspires and ripples.
There's like an analogy also of if you're in a dark room and you'd like just one matchstick to see yourself a little bit clearer than also by de facto. Everyone else in that room will see themselves a little bit more clearly as well. And I strongly believe that each of us is here for a reason.
We were born to a race and to a place and to a mission on purpose. And the journey of finding one's purpose something really profound to be able to share and unveil and reveal. So as to also mirror to each other. I think we are, something in Islam says in translation, we created you in tribes. So we are communal beings. We're not isolated islands. in the middle of the ocean. And yet, of course, each person has a very unique experience. And in that unique experience, there's something collective inside of the very personal. And then once the personal kind of mirrors and reflects into the collective, we can then also touch the transpersonal the spiritual. And there's a beautiful dance between these dimensions, that we can swim between and weave between.
Michael Reiley: Yeah. There's so much power and wisdom in what you're speaking about and particularly in sound healing and the power of the voice. And not only for sound healers or people that project their voice outwardly, but for our own voice to heal ourselves. And like you said, that our own voice can become a therapeutic modality, whether that's poetry or humming.
There's a lot of research about the healing effects of just humming and self soothing yourself.
Rawan Roshni: And I think children know this. Children will, when they're breastfeeding, or when they're about to sleep, or when they have pain in their body, they will hum and sing. And the first thing they do, also the first thing we do when we're born, is hum. And express unfiltered and actually one of the workshops that I do, because in addition to being a musician, I'm also a facilitator.
And so I bring sound and movement into facilitated spaces as tools that we can use to heal ourselves and each other. And so one of the workshops I offer is using this, the voice to tune the body and the being to go through the chakra system and open up any blockages that are there and also notice where there might be pain or trauma or something stored.
So a lot of the times when we get to the throat chakra,
There is so much to release and process and liberate because we receive so many messages. Of don't say this, or don't express that, or lower your voice, or your voice doesn't matter, or, all of these things throughout the rearing of society, whether it's in school, or being raised at home, or society in general, or gender based discrimination, race based discrimination.
Some voices are louder than other voices, and some voices are more valued, and others are silenced, and how to bring back balance that I don't need to yell to be heard because that's also an overcompensation, right? Is if I'm constantly finding myself very loud and I'm talking a lot and I'm taking a lot of space, then there's something I'm trying to also fill or make up for. And so to reflect on how much space do I take? How much space do I give? How do I listen? How am I heard? How do I listen to myself? Oof, it can get really
Michael Reiley: Yeah.
Rawan Roshni: Yeah, deep.
Michael Reiley: Yeah. Well, it's a
Rawan Roshni: Just from making a tone with the intention of clearing my throat chakra just from this activity, all these things can start to open up.
Michael Reiley: Yeah. Yes. It's, it's a holographic. It's like you just try that one, one thing, you know, the nada yoga, there there's the different valves that you can do to move energy blockages in the, in the different chakras. And yeah, it's a, it's a The world, the world is sound. You know, that's what not a Brahma and so many spiritual additions teach us.
And so many creation myths start with, with sound as the fundamental nature of reality. So it's can be a really powerful. and transcendent tool for healing. Yeah.
Rawan Roshni: And I think a big part of the artivism these days, in particular, is to amplify voices that are silenced in the global scope, let's say. So a lot of people all over the world, if you want to tie it back into what's happening in Gaza in these last 15 months. It's really amazing to watch the solidarity that's been springing across the planet for the Palestinian people and how many people are amplifying Palestinian voices in the Palestinian experience.
And that I would say is the silver lining of this experience. Although the price is way too high and should never have been paid this way.
Michael Reiley: Yeah. Yeah. When, when, when you're looking at it, yeah. Like day to day, hour to hour, as many of us are, it does feel so just relentless and unfair, but I guess, like you said, one of the things we can try to do is to just zoom out and see this as a long, long project of. Could be centuries of healing that's going to happen.
And like you said, the, perhaps in future generations can look back on this genocide and say, okay, well, this is the point in which the voice of the voiceless was finally beginning to come to light. People who, you know, just didn't have, have space to be heard globally. Like,
Rawan Roshni: Yeah, it's been very touching as I travel this past year to see how Palestine is so alive all over the world. And yeah, throughout my life, I've never seen something like this. And it's brought me to tears multiple times to just see so many people wearing the kofiya, or people on top of a bridge, like with a flag people in the hundreds of thousands showing up on the street.
It's incredible.
Michael Reiley: I think we'll, we'll listen to one of your pieces ,
.
Michael Reiley: I do love the bicycle bell looping that, that part, cause that's such an evocative sound. You know, it's, it's, it's not a bicycle bell though. Right. It's a little. Percussion.
Rawan Roshni: little, yeah. Cowbell.
Michael Reiley: Okay.
Rawan Roshni: Cowbell or goat bell? I don't know what you call it, but it's like the ones that goats wear.
Michael Reiley: Is there something in that, that choosing that particular sound that has a a meaning behind it? Or you just like the sound of it?
Rawan Roshni: Actually, yes.
Michael Reiley: Yeah, what is it, if you want to share?
Rawan Roshni: So this specific piece, Prophecy of Remembrance, came to me in different parts and especially the first opening poem. Which has changed since the recording that I sent you. Because, yeah, the show is ever evolving. But just that opening poetry piece, Before I Sing, is actually a weaving of different people's statements in a circle that we're in, called the Prophecy Circle. And this Prophecy Circle was being done in a collective medicine work And so we gathered to ask for the guidance of the medicine, of the plant medicine in our collective piecework. It was a very profound experience very deep, still integrating it three years later, I would say. Especially as a community like myself, but also as a collective, I feel we're still integrating it and embodying it.
And so actually the sounds here are sounds that are reminiscent to sounds I heard in ceremony. So the bell was used every time medicine was served.
Michael Reiley: I see.
Rawan Roshni: So this was the way the shaman would tell us we could come drink again. And the shaker reminds me a lot of the ikaros. And then also, what other sounds are in this one?
That's it, actually. It's those two and my voice.
Michael Reiley: Yep. And that's your voice pitched down. You
Rawan Roshni: there's a guitar to bass effect on the looper and so I can create a bassline for my voice.
Michael Reiley: Wow. So powerful. Thank you.
Could you just talk about the, the inspiration and the, the kind of message of this piece?
Rawan Roshni: Yeah, so the singing part, the melodic part, came on its own one day when I was in my apartment in Amman late night, one night. I don't know if there was anything that inspired me on this day in particular. It just arrived, and a lot of my music and poetry does that, where it just arrives. And I'm lucky if I catch it.
Use this tendency to quickly grab my phone and voice record. And this helps me. Also sometimes even if I don't voice record, it miraculously will come back in a moment or two. Especially with Tuyul, with the solo set. I was very lucky to be hosted at a venue called the Perfumed Garden in southern Turkey.
And when I was in music residency there, I suddenly had full focus and all of my time dedicated to creating the set list. They were so generous. And they took care of, my lodging and my food and everything and then I just create. And when I sat to create for what ended up being a month in total, it was really amazing to me that I would be sitting working on one piece and then a melody that once upon a time came to me 10 years ago would show up and be like, Oh yeah, this is my place.
here. So it was a really magical weaving that happened at that place. And yeah, I will not dance to your angry war drum also is partly inspired by Suheir Hamad. If you know her, she's a beautiful Palestinian diaspora spoken word artist. And at some point in the 90s, I think I heard her poem and During, I think it was deaf poetry, deaf jam poetry, and she has this line where she talks about the war drum. So there was some inspiration from her and then the melody came. The rest of the words. And then as I was saying, the opening part of the poem is actually a weaving of different people's statements in this prophecy circle. And then the middle chunk, this poem we just listened to now came to me also in a one shot download when I was on a train.
On the land, actually. I was headed towards Haifa, actually, towards Dalyat al Karmel visiting a friend of mine up in the mountains outside of Haifa, and I was reflecting on this revolutionary community that is underground there on the Holy Land, and it's made up all kinds of different people, Muslim, Jews, Christians Palestinians Mizrahi, and also Ashkenazi citizens of Israel, and who know that there is another way, and who are not subscribed to the architecture of separation, and who will not surrender to this brainwashing and this yeah, narrative of we can't live together and we can't co exist and co resist also and who know that there is another lighthouse, this mission of collective liberation, understanding that we are all oppressed by this system of occupation. Some more than others, for sure. Some have more privileges and some are more vulnerable. And also, it's an amazing underground fringe community, let's say, that is not talked about in the mainstream, that is not seen on the scene. You know, but who have been working not only even in this generation, but who have had a path paved for us by previous generations, as long as the occupation has existed, as long as there have been people who know that this is unjust and who are willing to give their lives.
For justice to be served and for there to be equality and dignity for all of the people on the land. So yeah, it was this kind of proclamation manifesto poem, and it applies to many different kinds of Revolutionary spirited people all over the world. It's not only about quote unquote us in the Holy Land or in this specific story.
And even every time I listen to it, I feel like I understand it for a different community as well. It represents the global movement towards collective liberation and recreative sorry, reconstruction, as I say.
Michael Reiley: The great revolutionary songs have that quality, although they're about something very specific, the power and the fire of them is that it's, it's a universal quest for liberation that all sentient beings want to be free. And the, the title too, Prophecy of Remembrance, I love because it evokes for me a timelessness, this kind of warping, this nonlinear time of a prophecy is usually something that we're talking about as a, something that will come of remembrance.
So it's creates this loop of, of not time and no time, which yeah, it's also very beautiful. Yeah.
Rawan Roshni: Oh, I love that you nailed that because also the remembrance part it's fascinating for me. Like now when we were listening, I was just like, wow, you speak words out and the universe just keeps on bringing you like, whether it's affirming those or. giving you opportunities to understand even deeper what you've spoken.
And so recently I was speaking to someone, a medicine woman, a really amazing soul who was talking to me about song lines. Have you heard of this concept before?
Michael Reiley: Yeah, the Bruce Chatwick from Songlines the the aboriginal concept from Australia.
Rawan Roshni: Yeah. Yes exactly. This woman lived in Australia for many years and studied with the originals there. And she was telling me about, the concept that at some time very ancient history, all the land was one mass. And so people would walk the land. and sing. And it's made me think, wow, wait a second were we singing to the land or was the land teaching us its songs?
I can't, there's the reciprocity. Fascinating. And then, so yeah, she was saying we would walk on certain lines. Singing certain songs or melodies. And so these were the song lines. And so there's a song line that goes from Australia to India, to Middle East, what is now Middle East and then North Africa, and then would go like to Brazil and. Just the whole concept of then, because I'm here talking more about okay, we were one, and again, I was talking about that tribe, this, if we go back further, we were of Ismael and Isa and Isaac, right? Ishaq, Ismailia of like how we've got split into different tribes, but originally came from Abraham.
So this is what I was alluding to. But then if we go even further back and further back, it was one landmass. So we were really one landmass and one tribe.
Michael Reiley: Yeah. Pangea was the landmass of the
Rawan Roshni: How much can we remember? How far back can we go in, in our remembrance? And how much of that is in our DNA, and how deeply could we listen, and yeah, how much can the plants help us remember also, because they've, I feel, held on to this knowledge in a much more intact way than our human consciousness that's been scattered and distorted and distracted
Michael Reiley: yeah.
Rawan Roshni: and confused. So yeah, this is what I was talking about.
Michael Reiley: I love it. Yeah. And talking about the more than human and deep listening and ancient listening, you know, obviously some of the first music that probably humans were trying to emulate was birdsong. So If we, if you would be open to transition, we could talk about the next piece that we have here of al Tuyul. Okay. . Could you talk, talk a bit about this piece and we'll, we'll listen to it kind of the same way, but the, the framing of how did this piece come about?
Rawan Roshni: Yeah. So this piece is the opening of the whole show, which is by the same name. The show is Ur, messages from the Bird. So throughout my life, I have felt very connected to bird energy. On different journeys of mine, sometimes in altered states, and sometimes without any medicine either. I have perceived myself as a bird.
Like I would see my shadow, for example, on the stone, and I would see wings. Or I would climb up to the top. to the tip of a cliff and perch. I feel like I'm looking about to take off into flight. But I love traveling and I love also delivering messages. Like I feel like I learn from one culture and I take it somewhere else.
And then I bring from my culture and I share with another. And and it's very interesting because we were talking about how there's no coincidence in my opinion, what you're talking about. Place or race you're born into or your positionality in terms of your purpose on this planet. And so I've worked a lot also with my positionality as a diaspora and what gift does that have for me as much as it also has a pain and a longing and a feeling of displacement and homelessness.
Also, it gave me a gift of being able to look from the outside and look from different perspectives. And then having lived in Canada for 10 years, I got that passport and got accessibility to the globe. And so it's an interesting synchronicity from the universe that put me in this place. And on such one of those journeys, very strong journeys, I was here in in a valley called Wadi Araba. And Wadi Araba actually also exists on both sides of the border. So Jordan and Palestine and Israel, what is now so called Israel, are all one land, just split by a river, really, actually. It's west of the river and east of the river. So Wadi Araba stretches across that border as well. In the southern desert.
And there one day I was awake at the sunrise and the birds started sweeping down into the valley. And it's like they were spreading color with their sound. Yeah. It was a very synesthesia moment. And so I started to sing to them. And I was singing to them, but about them also, and in harmony with their song.
So I said, the birds sing. And the rest of the lyrics I continued when I was at residency at the Perfumed Garden. So just to translate for non Arabic speakers what they're going to hear. So the birds sing and they flap their wings and they glide on the wind. And they come with messages from the edges of the horizon down into the earth. And so the whole concept of the show and of this opening piece. is that we get to see from the bird's eye view. We get the gift of sight from that larger perspective zoomed out.
So the birds are looking down and they can see how we move. What are our patterns of movement on the planet? How do we also change the landscape that we're interacting with? What do we do to each other? And so they're able to witness and then reflect through a commentary on humanity and on society. Yeah, I would switch perspectives between this bird's eye view and then zooming into the microcosm to the very personal, intimate corners of the human heart, and then suddenly zooming back out and going back and forth in this way. And really, it was after I worked with this, bird spirits, energy, let's say, that I came to also see that birds are so alive in our mythology as well.
And I remember in university, I read a book called The Conference of the Birds. It's a long Sufi poem by Farid al Attar. He was Persian poet, and he talks about this group of birds that goes on a mission to find Seamorg. And Seymour is supposed to be like the lord of the birds, the king of the birds.
And they pass through seven valleys, and it's very symbolic again, like each valley is one of the kind of weaknesses or quote unquote like sins of humanity, right? And so with each valley, some birds die, or some birds give up, or walk away, fly away, la. And in the end, I'm going to ruin the poem for you, but in the end yeah, spoiler alert.
Skip 30 seconds if you want to read the book. In the end, 33 birds make it to Seaborg's kind of temple or castle, only to find out that Seaborg means 33 birds. And so it's one of those kind of what you seek is seeking you situations. Yeah and then there's the myth of the hood with Sayyidina Sulaiman.
The prophet Sulaiman has this bird that delivers a message and warns him of war. Back in the day, we used to tie messages to the legs of pigeons and send them. And so birds are huge messengers. There's also a prophecy. More western hemisphere prophecy about the eagle of the north meeting the condor of the south and this kind of tribal Reunion or conference as well, and I felt a lot this okay, and what about the falcon of the east?
Michael Reiley: Love it, yeah.
Rawan Roshni: And that this bird needs to come attend the conference
Michael Reiley: Yes.
Rawan Roshni: So yeah, there's a lot there many layers. I've also noticed because I keep looking with this lens now that so many tribal communities have, bird headpieces, headdresses. And I find it so fascinating. Most recently, last time I sat in ceremony, there was one medicine man from a tribe in Brazil called the Shawanoa.
And and actually the call that he would use. During a ceremony with a ha!
And later I asked him, I was like, what is that? And turns out it's a bird's call. It's the bird that they associate with as a tribe. I forget now the name of the bird. So there's a strong communication. I have come to this conclusion that there is a very strong communication between human and bird.
Michael Reiley: Definitely. Yeah. Once you, again, once you go into the, the, the rabbit hole, it's pretty, pretty endless. And yeah, I love it. And I love your just opening talking about your seeing your own shadow and seeing yourself as a bird. And I'm curious, do you have a lot of dreams as birds or dreams with birds?
Rawan Roshni: A couple of weeks ago, I had a dream of a golden eagle, but in the dream, the golden eagle was actually on a card. It wasn't like flying. Later my friend was like, Oh, you didn't tell me it was a tarot.
Michael Reiley: Oh, okay.
Rawan Roshni: Or a oracle card of a golden
Michael Reiley: Yeah. Yeah. Well, flying dreams are very popular, you know, they're very common too. And I've, I have plenty of flying dreams and I think that could be seen as embodying the birds. You were talking before about the sensory perception of, of the bird's eye view and that more, more than human.
Because often when we, when we approach, The more than human in art, we, it's still very human centric. We're still kind of looking at the bird as an external thing of beauty, the colors of the feather, et cetera. But there's a whole conscious experience of what it's like to be a falcon or to be a pigeon.
Rawan Roshni: Yeah, I feel like adding one more thing, which is that in the mythology of the Middle East, more ancient times, prior to the Abrahamic religions or the monotheistic religions. There were a lot of goddesses worshipped in this region. And one particular one that comes to my mind is Inanna or Ishtar.
Inanna specifically was also a winged goddess and she had claws for feet. So I think, yeah, there's, as we said, strong communication and maybe a fusion Isis of Egypt as well is depicted in this way with the wings.
Michael Reiley: Magical.
Rawan Roshni: Thank you. Yeah, I forgot to say that actually at the end there, I also say Al Islam, they say, and I don't know where this is written, if it's like a or sun, but somewhere , they say that the birds are actually constantly in remembrance of the divine. That the sound of pigeons is them saying a lak, but God is great. And so there I say, In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful.
And it's a way of opening the set as well, as we use before doing anything anything. You could say it before doing anything, just as a blessing, and also specifically before doing something sacred.
Michael Reiley: Awesome. Are you planning on performing this again? Are you touring with this still?
Rawan Roshni: Yeah, so I've been touring it for two years, not consistently all the time, but whenever there's an invitation, I'm so happy to share it. It's been performed in seven countries so far, I'm counting. And right now I'm focused on turning it into an album.
Michael Reiley: Okay.
Rawan Roshni: Because none of these pieces have been professionally recorded.
I have a lot of live recordings and live videos but even those I haven't released in full, like I sent you these private links because I want to keep that element of surprise that people get when they come to the show.
Michael Reiley: Okay.
Rawan Roshni: And yeah, it's been like in high demand, everybody after a show is like, where can I listen to these tracks in your memory? But they need to be Recorded and released and then I'd like to tour with the album For a while and I already have my sight on what's going to happen after as well because it's already been two years of performing this. So once the album is out, maybe one more year of touring it, and then I would love to see what next creation wants to come through as well.
Michael Reiley: Okay. Any other projects you wanted to mention since with the episode coming out next week?
Rawan Roshni: Maybe I can take an opportunity to talk about, yeah that as a facilitator, I have found in this last year and a half, that a lot of solidarity work has been opening up. And I've really been so blessed and privileged to start to understand. The solidarity coming towards Palestinians and also how to extend solidarity back out towards other causes as well for other communities.
And so it's actually a, an exchange, right? And so it's beautiful. This last year I participated in a sacred activism course in Tehmera. Where I got to really hear about other causes in other parts of the world, specifically meeting one Sudanese sister and gonna collaborate with her later this year to create an a retreat and gathering for Sudanese activists.
And in May, I will be co facilitating in a sacred activism gathering in Montenegro. Also very interesting to see this Middle Eastern Balkans crossover happening. So yeah, I'm really excited about that, about seeing that. Seeing more and more of the global tribe coming together to support each other in different causes.
And so I'm very open to receive invitations or messages or feedback to perform my show or to facilitate with different communities. I think really now is the time to be. As any other time, and also now is my time. I'm really here, and I'm really showing up. So I'm really grateful to be here with you today in this conversation.
And, yeah, Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah.
Michael Reiley: Beautiful. Thank you, Rawan. Thank you for all of your offerings and for your time and energy and beautiful sounds today. So,
Rawan Roshni: Shukran.
