CULTURE · LAND · BELONGING
Ancient Persian Culture & Indigenous Roots
My Persian Zoroastrian Knowledge helps me recognize certain values in Indigenous cultures. I see something familiar, something sacred, and it makes me feel at home.
Living in Canada for almost ten years has re-shaped my understanding of culture, land, and belonging. As a Persian-Canadian artist, I have never wanted to appear as if I am claiming similarities out of self-interest. But Zoroastrianism and many Indigenous Canadian spiritual traditions share meaningful parallels in their ethics, cosmology, and relationship with nature. Both emphasize living in harmony with the natural world, maintaining cosmic balance, honoring ancestors, and using ritual, breath, movement, and offerings to connect with the sacred.
Indigenous traditions are rooted in the understanding that all creation is alive and spiritually interconnected. Land, animals, water, and natural forces are treated with reverence, and ceremonies are designed to maintain balance between humans and the world around them. In Zoroastrianism, I see a similar teaching: the world is a sacred creation, and humans must protect it through Asha (truth, order, and right action).
Both traditions view the world as a living, sacred system that requires human responsibility and ethical care.
PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL WORLDS
Ritual restores
harmony.
Indigenous ceremonies express gratitude, restore balance, and renew community bonds. Zoroastrian rituals also aim to maintain cosmic order and strengthen the relationship between humans and the divine. In both traditions, ritual becomes a way to restore harmony between the physical and spiritual worlds.
Both cultures use the body, breath, movement, rhythm, sensory awareness, as a sacred instrument of connection.
05 / ANCESTORS
Active
presences.
Both honor ancestors as active presences. Indigenous nations hold ceremonies such as the Huron Feast of the Dead, renewing bonds with those who came before. Zoroastrianism honors ancestors through Fravashi, Farvardigan, and ritual remembrance.
SEASONAL AND COSMIC CYCLES
Creation,
renewal,
light.
Both follow seasonal and cosmic cycles: Indigenous winter ceremonies, summer Sun Dance, and harvest rituals; Zoroastrian Gahambars, Nowruz, and Mehregan that all celebrating creation, renewal, and the victory of light.
DEEP HISTORIES OF RESILIENCE
Preserve.
Renew.
Both traditions teach respect, gratitude, reciprocity, and balance with nature. Both have histories marked by migration, displacement, pressure from dominant religions, and the need to preserve culture in diaspora.
Zoroastrian communities in Canada navigate identity within multiculturalism. Indigenous nations navigate revitalization, decolonization, and cultural renewal. Both carry deep histories of resilience.
07 / HOMELAND
To honor
the land
I call home.
For me, Canada is a homeland that has welcomed me, and taught me. My reflections are about expressing connection, respect, and the joy of finding echoes of my own heritage in the wisdom of Indigenous cultures.
This is why I continue to improve my skills, my practice, and I create. To honor the land I call home, to honor the culture I come from, and to build bridges of understanding through art.
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