Paradise Garden

Mythopoetic series on resilience

“The Persian garden has always been a refuge and resting place to the scorching heat of the desert. And perhaps every age has its own kind of desert….”

— Faranak Mirjalili

There is an old Persian word: pairidaeza. It is the root of the english word paradise. Long before paradise became an idea of a biblical heaven, it was a garden amidst earthly life. A walled sanctuary in the heart of the desert, where water flowed in fountains that stood at the center of blooming roses and nightingale’s songs, where the desert-wind blew the soil of an ancient land into fragrances that inspired poetry, and where music echoed and soul could hold dialogues that flowed like a stream beneath the shade of an ancient cypress tree.

But the Paradise Garden was never simply a place, a locai, although it certainly was materialized into wonderful gardens. As Henry Corbin reminds us, this garden of the soul belongs to the Mundus Imaginalis: an imaginal place that is not fantasy, nor a symbol or metaphor, but a living reality where the visible and invisible meet, where heaven and earth are united in the true meaning of the word “beauty”. A place where the soul remembers how to breathe, how to expand into itself and grow like a blooming rose.

Today, as the world turns more painfully erratic and unpredictable, and our individual lives become increasingly mediated by speed, algorithms, and endless information, we risk forgetting something our wisdom traditions have always known: that wisdom, and soul, cannot simply be consumed. It must be inhabited as a space that comes alive with the right ingredients, both simple and refined. Above all, it asks for us to gather together in spaces that tease the soul.

The Paradise Garden is an invitation into that ancient practice of gathering in beauty. We gather in the sanctuary not as escapism but to experience this wounded and troubled world sitting in the lap of the much older and eternal earthly beauty that it is. Through music, storytelling, image, silence and the weaving of dreams, we enter a space where the spirit of the depths can once again meet the spirit of the time.

This seasonal gathering is an invitation to cultivate this eternal garden once more—as an inner space as much as an outer one. Perhaps we need to rediscover paridaeza not as a lost paradise, but as a way of seeing the world together, and of being in the desert of our times amidst all its ugliness and eternal beauty. 

About the Hosts

Farânak Mirjalili is a Zürich trained Jungian analyst (IAAP). As both a Sufi mystic and psychoanalyst, she's interested in the places where trauma and the soul meet, and how the analytical work can become a work of descent and incarnation that can hold both the ordinary and extraordinary of life, while being rooted in the depths of the inner and imaginal worlds. She’s especially drawn to the questions of what it means to be a mystic and advocate of the soul in our current landscapes of poly-crises. 

She earned a Research Masters degree at the University of Amsterdam where she did groundbreaking fieldwork on the intersection of Jungian psycho-spiritual alchemy and laboratory alchemy— a work that she has now completed within a psychoanalytical framework at the CG Jung Institute. The title of her research is: “Alchemy & The Poetics of Matter: Eco-mysticism and the Practice of Alchemy for a Wounded World.” 

Sepand Dadbeh (b. 1992) is an Iranian multi-instrumentalist, troubadour, and cultural entrepreneur known for his musical storytelling and innovative interpretation of multiculturalism in the performing arts. Raised in a family of renowned artists, he began with the Tombak before specializing in the Oud and Tanbour. At 18, he joined the prestigious Shams Ensemble, and in 2012 co-founded the Jansouz Collective with his sister Khorshid to honor their grandfather’s legacy. Sepand holds a BA in Iranian Music from Tehran University and an MMus in World Music from Codarts Rotterdam. His work seeks to harmonize spirituality and ancient musical traditions with contemporary artistic expression.

Format

Storytelling | Music | Q &A | Wine

Date & Time

Sunday, October 25 from 17.00 - 19.30

Language

The workshop will be conducted in English.

Price & Admission

€30,- in-person, including complimentary wine- in partnership with De Filosoof.

€20,- recording