EARTH exists to nurture the flourishing of individuals and communities through deeply rooted relationships, ancestral healing traditions, humility, and reverence for all of life. EARTH walks alongside those impacted by trauma, stress, and injustice, reclaiming sovereignty and tending a circle of restoration and care, rooted in the heartbeat of ancestral wisdom. EARTH envisions a world where all individuals and communities have access to ancestrally and culturally-aligned healing.

EARTH: Empowering All Relatives To Heal and The Center for Mind-Body Medicine have been leading a global trauma relief initiative for Iranians (and other Farsi speakers) for the past 5 years. We train psychologists and other leaders in an evidence-based model of mind-body medicine trauma relief The Center for Mind-Body Medicine, and then we mobilize them to hold workshops and groups online or in person to serve kids and adults inside Iran, Afghanistan, and all over the globe (20 countries so far). The service delivery, mobilization, and grassroots organizing is offered through EARTH Empowering All Relatives to Heal, a new 501C3 that many angels have been supporting to raise funds to make this happen. The trauma needs are significant as just about NO ONE in Iran is feeling safe. Iranians all around the world who are doing everything they can to keep themselves afloat AND support their loved ones, the innocent inside Iran, are burnt out and exhausted. This war and turmoil is a war innocent Iranians (and many others seeking justice and liberation around the world) have been fighting for a long time. And it continues, now in it's most intense phase in Iran and for those of us trying to help and be part of the healing and solution, instead of adding to the pain, hate, divisions, and blame games.

The 200 Iranian and Afghan facilitators going through these trauma trainings have been doing incredible work. They have facilitated groups and workshops changing the lives of 12,500 people in the past 5 years. The healing spaces they create, in this evidence-based yet culturally congruent model, provided in the Mother Tongue, Farsi, is literally giving rays of hope when people have lost just about everything.

After years of hard work, volunteering, serving so many traumatized kids and adults, 20 of these facilitators have completed their Certification in Mind-Body Medicine. 10 of these live inside Iran and 10 outside. But they are serving the whole globe. They are angels, doing remarkable healing work. And they need out support...

And 2 weeks ago, we were made aware there is a small grant to help train 4 of these 20 leaders to become supervisors so they can help train 100s of others on a wait list to be trained. But, the grant limits who can receive a scholarship, and those individuals have to live outside Iran. UGH

I thought, no one of our amazing facilitators inside Iran would every even want to do this training in the middle of the chaos and war. BUT I WAS SO WRONG.

The facilitators in Iran said to me, "please please include us, we as Iranians have been forgotten for so long, but being part of this training is a ray of hope and light in the extreme hopeless darkness we have been living in for months"!

This is what one of them wrote me today in Farsi when I asked her, why would you even think this training matters at all given you are living in midst of a war and in so much pain???

"It was truly an important question.

Why, with all these difficulties, did I want to take part in this course?!

I went over this again and again in my mind.

Getting unrestricted internet is expensive.

Traveling to the border just to access the internet takes at least 14 hours—not to mention dealing with checkpoints and the costs.

There’s even a risk to life.

What if there’s another attack?

Going to Van is even more dangerous, because it involves crossing the border under wartime conditions.

This is no joke. Border? War? A supervisory course??

When I think about all of this logically,

it feels like my brain must be malfunctioning.

But when my heart speaks,

it says: this is movement.

This is choosing to stand on the side of life.

This is moving toward a glimmer of hope in the darkness.

This is Yalda in the darkest night,

and Nowruz in the heart of the cold.

Isn’t it true that we know the world is declining,

yet the sun still rises every morning, and we still say good morning to each other?!

And now, in a situation where I’ve lost almost 90% of my work,

to stay afloat I need a piece of wood—

even if I know it’s so small it might not carry me to the shore,

at least it keeps the hope of not drowning alive within me…

And I think this is the same hope that led my parents to decide to bring me into the world in the middle of war.

We were born from war,

and within war, survival alone is not what matters—

finding meaning is what matters most, even if you don’t survive.

I cannot stand still and watch myself, my profession, and my efforts sink.

I have to do something.

If it were otherwise,

probably none of us would be here, now."

It broke my heart...

So, here I am, asking each of you...we need your help to be able to provide a scholarship to 3 individuals who live inside Iran. This will help them get to the Turkish border and stay together in a rental for a week so they can use the internet available there and participate. The costs include training tuition ($2500 x 3 = $7500), Travel, food, and lodging for a week ($2000 for all 3 together), total $9,000. So please help us raise this amount to make it possible. Every dollar will be matched by an angel donor.

Bless you, thank you!