Welcome, Beloved
My name is Sepideh Hakimzadeh.
My blood ancestral lineage comes from the ancient lands of Iran and Anatolia, what are present-day Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Turkey. On both my maternal and paternal sides, my great grandmothers were part of nomadic tribes: the Shahsavan of Northern Iran and the Lori of Southern Iran.
I was born in Iran in the immediate aftermath of the Iranian Revolution of 1978-79, which became one of the country’s darkest moments in modern times. I was birthed into a time of great fear, uncertainty, death, and destruction, what was essentially the culmination of the greed, interference, and predatory energies of Western powers determined to destabilize the region. Seeing the opportunity, these energies were then taken up by a patriarchal theocratic regime that has ruled ever since through the brutal repression of its people, women and ethnic minorities in particular.
My parents were revolutionaries fighting for a democratic future. A victim of the regime’s bottomless cruelty, my father was imprisoned at the time that my mother gave birth to me. They named me Sepideh, which means first light, dawn — the dawning of the first light. My name symbolizes hope, freedom, joy, and liberation from the depths of darkness.
We eventually left my motherland to seek stability and freedom, initially in France and then in Turtle Island — the present-day United States — first as refugees and, eventually, as citizens.
Healing comes when the individual remembers his or her identity — the purpose chosen in the world of ancestral wisdom — and reconnects with that world of Spirit.
- Malidoma Patrice Some
I am a psychotherapist with a background in a variety of healing modalities, including bodywork, yoga, mindfulness, energy work, and somatic movement.
My body of work meets at the intersection of consciousness, animism, liberation, ancient ancestral wisdom, and love. I focuse on transformational leadership for visionary leaders shaping global consciousness and culture.
Through decades of working to remember my true essence, reclaim my divinity, and reawaken and embody the power of my sacred oath, I have come to see that my name is a perfect representation of who I am and the path I must forge in this lifetime.
My teachers have been many over the last 20-plus years: Michael and Anneli Molin-Skelton, Susan Harper, Lionel Corbett, Myranda Pretty Owl at Boundless Warrior, Jack Kornfield, Pema Chodron, Gabrielle Roth, Toi Smith, and Clarissa Pinkola Estes, among numerous others, have all expanded my understanding of myself and my place in the world. I am guided by my well and luminous ancestors and spirit guides.
I identify as non-white and queer; my pronouns are she/her. I see my queer identity as one that is in relationship with all energies around me, expanding beyond rigid categories of sexual identity and gender. As for identifying as non-white, Whiteness is a cultural construct that has its basis in Western European narrative. I am an Iranian woman, an identity that carries a lot of complexities in the West. My identity speaks to a culture, a way of life, and an understanding that is definitively neither white nor Eurocentric.
I want to acknowledge the original land protectors: As a resident of the Hudson Valley, I live on unseeded lands of the Lenape, Wappinger, and Sepasco tribes. The Native American name for the Hudson River which is the artery of the Hudson Valley is Muhheakantuck which translates to “the river that flows both ways.”
