The intro poem was written by Rumi, the 13th century Sufi master and poet supreme and his lines could be said to sum up the basis of this tradition–that all of the rules and details of religion lose significance when  consumed in the transcendent love for God. The individual melts like a drop of water into the ocean and the illusion of separation disappears as he returns to his original nature.

Most people have heard of whirling dervishes in the West: the twirling dancers who dizzy themselves in trance and many folk stories and moral fables originate from the Sufi traditions that date back to pre-Islamic times. Small groups of disciples committed themselves to the guidance of an accomplished master who helped them destroy the false notion that they were separate from  God. Such practices sometimes included the extraction of all of the teeth of a young student, to take away his ‘bite’ for life and to humilify him, that he might approach the path of self-dissolution with a more modest step.

The Sufis adapted to Islam pretty readily. The intense ritual activities of worship required and encouraged by the new religion in the seventh century, suited the fervent inclination of these mystics and gave them an umbrella of orthodox community support under which they could cultivate their studies.

Of course, it was a case of accept-or-die in the early days of Islam, when every true believer ran around with a sword looking for infidels to slice up into geometric pieces. Despite their tacit conversion to Islam, the Sufis have always been regarded with suspicion and mistrust in many circles and they’ve traditionally faced persecution in less tolerant communities.

But like all the people of the Middle East, they shared a reverence for the Word that may  nowadays be beyond our appreciation. Teachings and knowledge had always been passed down by a strict oral lineage that was definitely not a case of Chinese whispers–the length of the chain of transmission added to its prestige with the weight of each link increasing the validity of the teaching: As told by Muhammed to Ali, as told by Ali to Abu Bakr, as told by Abu Bakr to Bilal–if all those guys said it, then we’d better listen up! As such, the Sufis embraced the miracle of the Qur’an with open heart and faith. It was clear to them that the sound and content was of a divine nature and they took their reverence a step further than most.  They chanted  some verses for days at a time: especially the sacred verse of ‘lailahahillalah’–’There is no God–but God’ ie. There is nothing–except this! Meaning that there is not a moment of sensation or an atom  of existence that is not perfect Godness. Through the most intense of pain, sorrow, joy or confusion, this verse can act like an ever-ready log of truth in the sea of transience. The believer may then float above the fixation of events in the present to receive an eternal perspective where all is seen as Divine.

I was given the verse when I first came to Goa as an eighteen year old. I conducted an intense psychedelic regime over the next twelve weeks and I clung to the Qur’anic words for all I was worth.

Whenever my visions turned malevolent with the sea and sky rotating wildly and demonic grinning skulls came flying through the darkness–the chanting of the Arabic phrase would put flowers in the eyes of my apparent assailants and a smile back on my lips. I discovered that fear could only operate when I imagined myself to be disconnected and outcast–with the chanting of these words the whole universe was behind me, in front and all around–Demons, do your worst! Since the 60’s, freaks from America and Europe have been searching for the secrets that Sufism hints to yield and the one who passed  the Quranic verse to me was an American who had spent six years in Morocco under the tutelage of an acclaimed master of a prestigious Sufi order. For most of that season in Goa, I did my best to extract stories of this time from my friend and so I heard second-hand of some of the less-than-orthodox devices employed by his master in the process of instruction. His teacher was a small, glowing man named Hussan. Whenever anyone came to visit him, they’d be given a spoonful of majoom: a sticky sweet concoction of  Moroccan herbs, not the least of which were the potent leaves of mountain marijuana–all just to prepare the student’s mind for the mind-blowing rap session that followed.

On one occasion, my friend told me, he was taken out by Hussan in an open-top sports car to be taught the art of invisibility. After whizzing around the main streets a few times (a speeding convertible was more than a little conspicuous in Morocco) Hussan put him down in the full view of two notorious, undercover narcotics police and roared off.

My friend was left alone with two large suitcases full of hash which he then had to carry back to the house.

"HUssan, why are you making me do this?" My friend had implored on what was a very long walk. These stories he told me to illustrate the many and various methods used to navigate the student on his path of bending to the will of God.

Islam. The word means ‘peace’ or ‘submission’. For me it always conjures up the eternal image of a Muslim kneeling down on his mat, a finite form, prostrate before the infinite. In the West, the atheistic fashion has been to hold our heads up high in defiance, refusing to lower ourselves to anyone or anything–including God. Bow down? Are you kidding? It's an unfamiliar concept  that surrender is the greatest strength of all. The Chinese Taoists never  tire of saying:

Once the mind is at peace with the will of Allah then it becomes a hell of a lot easier to deal with humans afterwards. It was with this kind of inner strength that the Muslims sliced seven shades out of the crusading Christian ‘infidels’–literally ‘one who will not believe’.

When a person becomes a Muslim, a Self is lost and a Brotherhood gained. According to the Qur'an, all believers are equal before the eyes of Allah. The whining pride of our infantile spirituality can be put away and  rest and nourishment taken on  the infinite resources of strength and wisdom that stream forth from the Source.

The further Eastern traditions of Buddhism and Zen also put extreme emphasis on the killing of the Self in order to unite with the Oneness of existence–so Islam is not unique in this and many of the images used in the poetry of Sufism can also be found in Buddhist texts.

It would seem mystics of any religion are bound to get along.

On the other hand(if i can risk heresy and fatwah for a moment), it’s just that like Christianity and Judaism, Islam is a mad desert religion started by camel pushers who thought that the world was flat–Honour the Lord your God! Vengeance shall be upon thee! Woe be to the sinful! etc. And that’s simply the style that suited these harsh lands where Survival and Death were two deities to be solicited at the campfire, when one was still alive at the end of another day.

Can you imagine Buddha preaching to the Pharisees or to the idolatrous Arabs about the perfection of the lotus flower and the myriad illusion of a world that ran on the cosmic wheels of reincarnation? He’d have had his fat belly slit open before he could so much as light an incense stick! In the same way, all religions originating in these big sand pits have learnt to embody the Infinite in a set Father figure of a creator–God, Jehovah, Yahweh or Allah–whatever you want to call it. It seems to be our nature to create form from chaos and the personalisations of God would appear to be an effort to extract meaning from it all.. It’s as adequate a vehicle as any and the Sufis explain the seemingly arbitrary reference to a personal God, using terms like ‘He’ and ‘Him’–in the same way that we speak about each other as you, me and the parson’s daughter. If the logic runs thatwe’re going to think of ourselves as separate from each other, then it follows that our relationship of existence will be of the same tongue. So maybe there is a God sitting up in the sky with kindly eyes and a long, white, Santa Claus beard! So I’d read my books and in my arrogant youth thought I knew my stuff. I was kinda hoping to meet some crazed Sufi master who might give me special initiation into the secrets of his sect in the remote and lonely mountains. This business of lopping off the head and then whacking it back on sounded pretty cool, too and I wanted to give it a try myself. ‘Off with their heads! ‘ said the Queen.

We arrived in Sonedad before dawn and  I had to wait around in the station until a more reasonable hour for visiting people arrived. As the sky began to lighten, I went outside to take in the local scenery and a young man came running out after me, yelling that I’d dropped all my money in the station–it only amounted to about two dollars but it was a typical example of the good character of the Muslims.

The town was surrounded by bulging, green hills with rocky tors that celebrated the first rays of the sunshine breaking upon the Western ridge for the trillionth time in its life. Around 8 o’clock, I went to look for a bus into town, failed and indulgently took a taxi that brought me to the spacious lawned grounds of the university a short time later.

Thankfully, the guy at the gate paid the fare for me and I tried to locate Mr And Mrs Sufta: old English-teaching friends of the professor in Esfahan. I only hoped to get some information on where I could find some Sufi contacts. But when I turned up at the door that morning, Mrs Sufta didn't recognize the name of the professor who had given me their address. However she simply declared: "Anyway, you are our guest! Come in!" Slightly bemused at this unreserved and spontaneous act of hospitality, I entered and sat down on the thick Persian carpets that covered the floors–as they do in the house of every family that can afford them. Within minutes, she had bought me a box of my favourite pistachio pastry sweets and two slices of cake, along with a glass of chai, obviously. This was the way to breakfast! I was then invited to sleep and I did so gratefully, straight down on the rich textured carpets that were infinitely superior to mattresses. Very happy, I fell asleep.

When I awoke, the rest of the family had been marshalled and I had to explain to the kindly but stern father of the house, just what I was doing asleep in the corner of the room, having demolished half of the reserved delicacies of the pantry. He couldn’t recall who the professor was either but it didn’t really seem to matter. I was simply taken to be a long-lost family member of some kind and was absorbed as a random element into their everyday pattern of living.

Their nephew, Fahrzad, was appointed to be my guide for my time in Kurdistan. He would take me to the Thursday Khan Garh that night: the weekly Sufi meeting that I hoped would be the unfolding of the entire mystery.

We came into town by shared taxi though it took some time to hail one of these unmarked cars that drive the same fixed routes around town each day. In every town in this country, men and women can be seen trying to get the attention of these taxis, who act like they couldn’t care less if you come or not. It's a curious reversal of roles where the customers are subservient to the whims of the drivers. Passengers hop in, out and shuffle about every couple of minutes. Things are especially complicated when a woman gets in as then all is done to keep them apart from the other men in the car and thus allow her dignity to be uncompromised.

In the middle of the town was a glorious statue of a man with one leg bent behind him, both arms and head raised up in the air in the full immersion of ecstatic worship. Right on! I thought, becoming a little fervent in the atmosphere of things.

A little while later, Fahrzad led me through the old part of the town which looked very much like 19th century London of the movies. We wound our way through irregular contours of misty back streets and alleys in the dark evening that held the kind of character long dead in the all-pervading illumination of modern cities. We came to the house of his grandmother, who was apparently a dervish herself. I didn’t really know what that meant, other than it was a term for a follower of Sufism. She was small and wizened in the face and lived in a poor dwelling with a wooden ceiling that appealed to my heart more than any home I’d seen since leaving England.

I tried to imagine if I could live in a place like this and wondered how the locals would react to an Englishman studying Sufism in their neighbourhood. Could I find peace and contentment in this traditional area, with a loving wife and establish a family away from the havoc of the rest of the world. I was really beginning to lose the plot at this stage.

A few family and friends arrived and one happy man in his fifties, proudly showed me the scar on the left flank of his belly from where he’d had a sword driven through him in a Sufi ceremony.

This was not the side of Sufism I’d heard about and sounded like a grandiose S&M club. It was the focus of the conversation though they doubted there would be any blood-letting on this night.

The ceremonies took place in an old, old building known as the Khan Garh and we men came through to the main carpeted room, while the women went off to provide chai. I bowed to the Sufi leader of the evening; a slender man in pure white cloth, with a green scarf wrapped loosely around his head and neck. He eyed me keenly as I sat back against the wall and took a look around.

All who entered kissed the unfurled flag that stood in the corner and some bowed to the pictures of Muhammed’s followers that hung high on the walls, which were supposed to have been drawn from inspired dreams. About 20 men sat about and the ones who were official dervishes had long, flowing hair which they bundled up under large floppy hats, Rastafari-style.

Propped against the corner were three rings of wood, two and a half feet across and covered with leather, looking like Irish borans. By these sat a small and silent old man, looking much like a goat. Next to him was the preacher in white who delivered a passionate discourse about the miracle of pregnancy. His audience nodded and murmured in assent to his words.

Not long after our second chai, the scrawny old man picked up his leather-bound hoop, known as a daf and suddenly burst out in a voice born of a thousand mountain gales; his rocky voice rough and strong as the crags that surrounded the city. He howled beautiful renderings of suras from the Qur’an, accompanying his wail with light finger rhythms that erupted without warning into a thunder clap of sound when he threw the daf into the air and caught it with his spare slapping hand.

The walls seemed to shake under the impact.

The daf is traditionally used to alter the consciousness of the audience, to allow the miracle of the Qur’an to be fully understood–an aural intoxication that held as much power as the rasping voice of the singer. A conversational silence reigned under the majesty of the performance, only to be broken when the men would murmur the salutary ‘ praise be upon him’, whenever the name of Muhammed was sung.

After about an hour of solo performance, the old man was joined by two other daf players and singers. I feared for the foundations when all three threw their dafs in the air to emit a boom to banish any unbeliever’s doubt. When we left, Fahrzad asked me how I felt–I was amazed that he needed to ask! He told me that the sound made him feel like crying inside for joy.

We slept in his grandmother’s house and rose a few hours later to climb the local mountains before dawn. Hyperventilating and nauseous in the 5am chill, I had no idea why we were punishing our lungs like this, until our path climbed suddenly and we met the full vista of velvet hills. A white light lay like a snow blanket on the Eastern range. We climbed up and up, toward the drifting sounds of drums and laughter from above and came to a plateau where a fire now burnt shyly in the virgin daylight that seeped in all around.

Our throats were hot and dry and we moved towards the spring where icy water laughed up from deep in the mountain.

It was so cold that we could only take small sips, not sure any more if we were hot or chilled. Further up the slope, small groups of young men and even women sat in little spaced out clusters, talking and tapping the odd drum–or to my dislike, playing some junk on a portable tape recorder.

I pulled myself up on a rock and meditated on the view that reminded me why I came travelling in the first place.

The sun was peeking shyly over the opposite ridge and the whole town of Sonedad could be seen nestling in the valley pocket with rocky slopes chaperoning the outer districts. No way could this town grow any larger.

The hills ran as far as the eye’s sight, with fuzzy brown undulations and play of shadows. According to Fahrzad, it was these ranges that were the source of pride for the Kurdish people. I imagined the battles that were fought in these areas when Kurdish nationalist guerillas hid out in the valley clefts and scanty tree cover in their ill-fated battle for independence during the early ‘80’s. I could picture the fearful image of Irani army helicopters scouring the region to pinpoint and destroy the brave separatists, who might have won their struggle in an age of less-advanced technology.

These were the moments that made all the long road journeys worthwhile. When I climbed up high all of the psychic stress of civilisation was shed like a heavy coat. The breezes of a purer blend of peace and the harmony of Nature lifted  my spirit to better places.

Before I could verbalise an emerging hunger that growled inside, Fahrzad passed me up a sandwich from a shoulder bag of packed breakfast. He spoke to me in quiet English and I realised that in my smart clothes, no one twigged that I was a foreigner. That accounted for the refreshing lack of attention I received. Most of the Iranis had a lighter shade of skin than many of the Turkish. With dark hair and unshaven chin I didn’t stand out, despite my blue eyes.

It was Friday and so many had taken advantage of the holiday to lounge about on this elevated social spot. I guess more informal relations could take place, away from the watchful eyes of the Islamic elders below who didn’t have the energy to mount so many steep steps this early in the morning. Other late-risers were coming up with panting red faces as we descended a little while later and all over town, the Kurds prepared for their day of congregational worship. It was also a day for families to spend some relaxed time together.

Fahrzad shepherded me back down to the town, taking my arm every time we crossed a street. This was annoying but actually quite necessary because the traffic was so chaotic that, when alone, it took me ten minutes to reach the next kerb. For his part, it was his glad duty to extend his protection to a guest in his homeplace. It didn’t seem to cut much ice with him that I had come four thousand miles from England without any problems. He was also extremely reluctant to let me loose in the tiny town of Sonedad, lest I should become hopelessly lost or meet with some terrible calamity.

To this extent, Fahrzad embodied the nobility of the Irani spirit, carrying on his young shoulders a strong sense of honourable conduct. He once solemnly informed me: "You know, Tom, I shall never drink alcohol in my whole life!" He strained to be as gentle as possible to all that he met–though perhaps his sense of humour suffered in the seriousness of his endeavour to act well.

Most of all, he displayed the remarkable talent, so often found in Iran, for listening and waiting until the other has finished everything they have to say before making a considered reply. Perhaps this is the patience that is lost to the West under the barrage of modern media that seeks to assail our every sense through each waking moment. This drip-feed of data becomes so addictive that many people’s first reaction upon arriving home is to switch on the box and numb their minds with the sedative of Australian soap operas.

The Iranis did watch television but only in rationed amounts and they still valued more the time to take a glass of chai and elicit another person’s viewpoint–and this was the people that the American government chose to make their national enemy? A more absurd example could not have been picked to present as a race of evil, scheming terrorists than these sweet and generous folk. I could not help but laugh when I thought of what sinister images the notion of Iran struck in the minds of most people back in England.

Fahrzad spent much of his time making sure that I was sufficiently entertained and many of his friends wanted to meet me and practice their English. I was a novelty in Kurdistan which doesn’t receive much tourism and whenever people heard that there was a foreigner in town, they would rush to see what a non-Irani was like. They seemed slightly disappointed to find that I had the same facial features as them (one nose, two eyes etc…) and much the same living needs. Perhaps they expected me to hunt butterflies for food or something! In any case, I tried to entertain them with blues harp and clarinet performances whenever I could find the energy.

The Sufta Family were pretty happy to have me as long as I paid the unspoken tariff of playing chess with their young sons (and letting them win once in a while). When they had to leave town to attend a family function, I moved to Fahrzad’s house where I experienced the slightly uncomfortable side to Irani hospitality.

A couple of hours after huge lunch, the mother would come into the room where we were sleeping off the last ingestion of food and force our fuzzy heads to eat slices of melon. Throughout the day she would continue to ply us with bowls of fruit and chocolates and when we returned from our usual aimless walk into town, feeling ready for bed, it would be announced that dinner was ready! To my horror, we’d come through to the main room to see the mats all laid out with plates of rice, piles of nan, meat dishes, vegetable stews and soups, peppers and sliced onions.

The largest piece of meat would be placed before me, the guest of vegetarian inclination. Fahrzad’s mother would wait for the moment that the mounds of food on my plate showed even the slightest sign of a dent, when she’d pounce upon me with a ladle, imploring that I should take more. My polite refusals would cause her the most grievous offence. All in all, the last mouthful would sometimes be finished at midnight, leaving me with no energy the next day to leave the house and escape death by enforced gluttony.

During this week, I began to hate the thought of food as I fell asleep twice a day with a bloated stomach–a habit extremely damaging to one’s health and one explicitly condemned by Muhammed, for that matter. But there was no way out and a silent war began to fester between Fahrzad’s mother and I. She would eat only after everyone else had finished, stuffing in spoonfuls of three of four dishes at once,  chewing in pensive hurt at the slight done to her cooking by this thin Englishman.

The father was a big and bustling guy who seemed to be on the verge of a heart attack at any moment. When he heard I was interested in Sufism, he pulled up his shirt to proudly show me his sword scar, too. My arrogance was a little disturbed to see that just about everyone seemed to be an ex-dervish–I wanted to be of the precious few initiated into the magical secrets of the dervishes. But I've since learnt that until recent times, practically everybody in the Islamic world  belonged to some Sufi order or the other.

Fahrzad told me that the dervishes were only really active in the wintertime when there was less to do in daily life. Not much really went on in these September days. To make up for my disappointment, though,  he managed to get hold of a video ( made on someone’s camcorder) of a maiming session from the previous winter.

The whole point of these rituals, Fahrzad told me, was to reach a state of trance and immersion with God, facilitated by chanting and the playing of dafs. The physical laws of the world could be breached on a bridge of Grace afforded by the intense faith of the devotees held in the protection of Allah. Are you following this so far? The film starts running. Dafs boom through the room, accompanied by some finger chimes and a continual fervent chant of ‘Allah! Allah! Allah’. A very shaky home video recording shows circles of men with their hands linked: some with long, flowing hair, others cropped–maybe they were on their lunch break from driving buses. They all move slowly round, rocking their heads back and forth with the rhythmic chant.

Now don’t try this at home kids but one of the grey haired leaders in white cloth took a volunteer and slowly pierced a sword through the spare flesh at the side of his waist until it came out the other side. Then he withdrew it with no loss of blood.

Other tricks included needles being stuck through the cheeks and jaws, spikes hammered into the head with mallets until they could stick there unsupported, shooting themselves in the side and eating sharp pieces of glass lamps and razor blades–hors d’oeuvres anyone? A little rough to digest but quite refreshing I think you’ll find! Even little boys no older than seven got in on the act, slashing their tongues with razors–anaethetized by  either by the divine ritual atmosphere or  the attention of the video camera.

This was all entirely credible as none of the people involved were professionals and none were looking to deceive anyone. This video was not being produced for an MTV contract and most of the participants were just ordinary folk who didn’t want much more than what they already had in life. I couldn’t believe that this kind of revelry was going on in Iran but there it was.

All interesting stuff but not really to my tastes. I was hoping for a bit more from the Sufis than ceremonial piercing sessions and so I continued to pester Fahrzad to the point of exasperation.

He couldn’t understand what more I wanted as I begged him to establish for me some contact with the Dervishes of the area. A day or so later, he arranged for me to meet the son of the local Sufi leader who would answer any questions I had.

It was then that I realised I’d been guilty of spiritual window-shopping. All of my enquiries about the possibility of study brought the answer that I’d have to spend some years living around the Khan Garh building if I was to be initiated. There were currently no two week vocational courses for itinerant English freaks with a liking for poetry.

I did learn the meaning of the term ‘dervish’ though and this gave me more than enough to chew on for the time being.

It literally means ‘one who has nothing’ ie. nothing except God. Rumi wrote: "The true believer of God lives in complete poverty." Not that a dervish should necessarily be scrounging for bits of bread but rather that he should acknowledge everything as secondary to his passionate search for the Divine. By exerting utter detachment to the things of this world his mind is freed to focus on the heights of heaven. It all sounded little bit austere to me. I wasn’t yet quite ready to forgo the milkshakes, the pretty girls and the fast cars just yet. Better that I come back to the feet of the Sufis as a toothless old man, when my ‘bite’ for the delights of life had faded and my meditations and prayer would not be interrupted by the vision of creamy thighs of sun-tanned sweeethearts.

I then considered I might make the luscious legs and pert breasts my particular meditation on the illusion of life and pursue them with pious gusto! I even found backing in Rumi’s poetry as I remembered his verses implying that if your driving force is the carnal energies of your lower half, then simply turn your rump around to face the light and it will surely lead you there by the back door! Not too many female lovelies to be had around these parts though and I dreamt of the Israeli girls who would even at this moment be partying in the Indian Himalayas. The thought was unbearable and so I made plans to start heading back East as soon as possible–wait up girls! I’ll be there soon! Before I left, I spent a night in the home of a local Kurdish guy and learnt some things about these charming mountain people, who have been pissed upon in several countries for a long, long time. The 20 million or so Kurds are spread over the range of mountains owned separately by Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria and a couple of the former Soviet Union states. Yet they lack a homeland of their own.

The Kurds that I met generally had a lively and laughing disposition with a strong sense of cultural identity.

They have their own language and are proud of their distinctive customs of dress, dancing and folklore that mark them as a race apart.

The politics are mind-numbingly complex but it seems that the Kurds in Iran have the best deal of all the scattered people– in places like Turkey they face public flogging if they are caught speaking Kurdish and the Turkish government refuses to acknowledge them as a people in their own right. One Kurd had told me that there they were regarded only as ‘barbarian Turks’. There they face continual police intimidation, brutality and military assaults. This is also true for the Kurds in Northern Iraq, where entire towns have been wiped out by the use of Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons (each batch allegedly stamped on the reverse side with ‘made in the U.S.A’ or ‘produce of Great Britain') All complicated and muddy and it seemed inappropriately distant when spending the evening with this mustachioed teacher, his smiling wife and their playful children. There was a free and easy vibe that was missing in many of the other houses that I stayed at. We had a great dinner together of a yoghourt soup and fried tomatoes with eggs which we ate out of the pan, in a kind of communal simplicity that was light and refreshing after the usual conservatism of Iran.

"Now let us lay back and fart!" The teacher announced. Here my new friends acted with the unpretentious energy of a family, not straining to be ‘good Muslims’ but only to be good people–they took their religion in the spirit of believers.

Sonedad was definitely poorer than anything I’d seen before in Iran. On the main streets could be seen ten or twenty beggars in the course of a half-hour walk. Most pitiful of all were the women who slumped on the the sidewalk with their heads and bodies completely covered: motionless black shrouds with a small bowl before them containing the odd coin.

I guess they were widows from the days of the wars in the early eighties.

Islam does require that every male who is capable of doing so, should pay two and a half per cent of their annual earnings in a special tax called zakat and once a year, he will go to a special zakat office. He and an official will determine exactly how much he should pay and then the office distributes the funds amongst the poor and needy as it sees fit. By the looks of things it wasn’t enough.

Islam condemns beggary. This makes sense in a functioning society where everyone has a chance but though no one wanted to admit it publicly (And the people to whom I spoke often requested me not to repeat what I was told), there was clearly a lot more talk about an Islamic society than actual practice. Corruption existed here too.

When I asked about the beggars, my friends would sniff disdainfully and declare that most of them were millionaires who were just too lazy to work. This kind of shit made me really angry and I upset the atmosphere of more than one dinner party by saying so. Anyone who has tried asking for money knows just how tough it is and what sort of wear and tear it takes upon your self-esteem and morale. It is to abjectly lower yourself to the offhand charitable whim of the passer-by and reduce all of your thoughts to the dismal focus of the next few coins required to buy your food.

I suggested to these decent folk that they try it themselves and then they’d quickly change the subject.

On my last morning, I spent three hours climbing to the very top of the local mountain peak and celebrated with a wild dance of release in the domain of fresh, sweeping winds–finally free of the orthodox minds of the general public, who regarded a stretch of the arms as a prelude to a form of arcane witchery. By the time I descended Fahrzad had gone out of his mind with worry but I was glad to prove to him that I could stand on my own two feet.

I gratefully declined the offer of the Sufta family to stay longer at their home and teach English at their institute, though they would have been quite happy to put me up for months.

Living in Iran was like leaving half of my mind closed, suppressing the freakish flowerings of the imagination to which no one there was able to relate Fahrzad’s mother repaired my flagging desert boots (A constant embarrassment to my hosts when they took me anywhere) and packed me a lunch for the journey: together with lots of advice on how to keep myself and my luggage safe. I was given the bus ticket to Esfahan and the two families also gave me some money for my forthcoming journeys.

The source of the Kurdish pride, the velvet mountains, slumbered in the sunset yellow that blessed the valley.

My bus rolled out and we wheeled on East.