This page features some multi-media resources featuring ancestral traditions from the region. This list is in no way even remotely comprehensive, just a taste of some starting points for those looking for leads into these themes. Check out our resource list for many other community organizations and projects.

Featured Podcasts

HUB Interviews

A conversation about the backstory of this work and what you can expect from our HUB! Featuring Sara Abdullah of Earth Seed Holistic and Layla K Feghali of River Rose Re-Membrance. 

Intro song: Ya Dara Douri Fina, by Fairuz
Outro song: 3roos il Nil, by Alsarah and the Nubatones

(Here you can find transcriptions of the interview.)

Intro Song : Rima Kcheich - 'Indi Ihsass

Outro Song : Oumaima Khalil - Ideik

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Maha Al Musa is the founder and educator of EmbodyBirthTM (Maha’s signature childbirth education & preparation program for expectant mothers and birth professionals who care for them since 1997), an award winning author and creator of the Dance of the Womb - The Essential Guide to Belly Dance for Pregnancy and Birth book (endorsed by Dr. Michel Odent and Sheila Kitzinger) and the follow on BellydanceBirth® Practice Video Series, speaker, breastfeeding advocate, and a mother to 3 beautiful children, all born as nature intended.

Maha gave her birth to her last, her daughter Aminah, when she was 46 years of age - a home water lotus birth and breastfed her till she self weaned at 8.5 years. They have both been featured and interviewed on various TV shows (national and international), magazines and online publications.

Through her birth work Maha wants to encourage EVERY woman/person with baby to align with the innate birth intelligence that resides within her womb and trust in its guidance.

Learn more about Maha and her work at mahaalmusa.com.

IG | @maha_al_musa

FB | Maha Al Musa

Purchase Maha’s award winning resources for pregnancy and birth and learn more about her programs here: https://mahaalmusa.com/bellydancebirth/

Syrian Sistars

Welcome hub family to the Syrian Sistars podcast! We are two Syrian gemini siblings born in the stars and raised in the U.S. South who come to you with visions of the transformed future and how to get there. We interpret dreams, share poetry, and share ancestral spiritual practices and knowledge with the hopes that you will too.

In episode 1, we share poems, dreams, thikrs, and ancient goddess stories from our region. We ask: what are the places I can't imagine healing and how can I begin to tend to those places? We talk about Anwar al Bunni, a  Syrian human rights lawyer, who opened a court case against members of the Assad regime. We talk about curses and how they can karmically bind you to the perpetrator-and an ancient Sumerian legend where this happens. The ancestors told me in a dream before uploading this podcast: It's not your job to change the people who harmed you. God is all forgiving and God can do that work. So these are ancient tales about the interlocking nature of karma and transformation, and how a mother goddess initiates a justice process in her own way. It does not mean we should act like Ninhursag. Instead it is a roadmap from 5,000 years ago that raises questions about how this process looks differently for everyone.  In the last half we discuss some of the 99 names of God, qualities of God that are meant to be chanted. We talk about the ways that Creator forgives us,  what it looks like to forgive ourselves when that process feels impossible. In our country, where the Assad regime has displaced over 12 million people, where members of our family and community have experienced genocide firsthand, chemical weapons, and bombs for wanting to start a revolution, we need to carve out ways to imagine a world where we stitch it all back together again. We will return to Syria and we must begin to envision a reparations process in order for it to be possible. In the journey to liberation, when all else fails, we can start with ourselves, slowly forgiving  ourselves for the things we hold against us, things that get stuck in our energetic bodies, and channel the divine nature of our Creator to help us through that journey. As Black feminist writer Toni Cade Bambara put it, "the revolution begins in the self, with the self." So as we fight for accountability in larger  world systems, we can also begin the work of reaching in ourselves & liberating the parts of us longing to be free.  We can center our pleasure & desires for freedom in those practices. We can let loose the flow of divinity within us to create a more just and awakened world.

Trigger warning on this episode for mentions of sexual violence and torture. 

IN EPISODE 1 OF SYRIAN SISTARS, WE SHARE POEMS, DREAMS, THIKRS, AND ANCIENT GODDESS STORIES FROM OUR REGION. WE ASK: WHAT ARE THE PLACES I CAN'T IMAGINE HEALING AND HOW CAN I BEGIN TO TEND TO THOSE PLACES? WE TALK ABOUT ANWAR AL BUNNI, A SYRIAN HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYER, WHO OPENED A COURT CASE AGAINST MEMBERS OF THE ASSAD REGIME.

The chants we mention:

يا غفار غفور-  Ya Ghaffar, Ya Ghaffur: the camel skin when it breaks, the beeswax that puts it back together. As you chant, find the energy in your voice, connect to that flavor of source energy. The words are divine mantra. These words of god are sacred to remind you of that divine quality of al Ghaffur within you.

يا تواب - Ya Tawwab: The restorative transformative forgiveness that travels back in time and changes the conditions so that the harm was not possible.

يا عفو- Ya 3afoo: Easeful forgiveness of a mother whose baby bites her. A natural grace.

يا عزيز -يا منتقم- Ya Aziz, Ya Muntaqim: the alpha, the creator state of forgiveness that is all. A forgiveness that is the ultimate, no end and no beginning, absolute. 

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Other notes:

Anwar al Bunni's brother is named Akram al Bunni, who is a prominent leftist writer.

The book is called Physicians of the Heart: A Sufi View of the 99 Names of God and available here: https://physiciansoftheheart.com/

The Hymn of Nansha (clay tablet from 2144 BCE) and its associated rituals can be read here: http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section4/tr4141.htm

Our background music is from the song "Alihat" by Juliana Yazbeck. We do not own the rights to this material. 

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"NO AMOUNT OF VIOLENCE IS MORE POWERFUL THAN OUR WORDS." IN THIS EPISODE WE TALK ABOUT VOICE AND SPEAKING UP IN CONFLICT. THERE IS ALWAYS ENOUGH SPACE FOR ALL OF US TO SPEAK. AND NEW PATHS OPEN UP ONCE WE LET OURSELVES BE WITH DISCOMFORT.

Shalabieh Al Hakawatieh

Arabic folklore | a traditional storytelling practice expressed and evolved by Sally Shalabieh.

Featured Short Films

We recommend watching the work of Nay Aoun here.

A wonderful series of short videos about traditional tenders of Lebanon. The Dibis and Zaatar ones are 2 of my favorites.

From Chai Khana

A couple of our favorite short documentaries about spiritual healing traditions in the South Caucuses from the incredible platform Chai Khana. Their platform is dedicated to documenting non-fiction storytelling pieces from the South Caucuses, and we encourage you to go check out their website and support them. Here are just a couple pieces from their archive…

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Fear Catcher

Tsovinar Araqelyan is 39 years old and lives in Garni, Armenia. Everybody in the village recognizes Tsovinar as a fear catcher/ candle pourer. In Armenian villages and cities, the art of fear catching has been used for centuries. For some, fear catchers can take the place of doctors and psychologists. When a child gets scared, for example, many parents first reach out to the local fear catcher. They only visit a psychologist in extreme situations.

Upside-down Moon

In the villages of upper Adjara, Merisi, and Medzibna, Georgia, people still believe in strange creatures and evil spirits who bring diseases.

They believe that magic is strongest during the waning moon, a period they refer to as the “upside-down moon.” It is then, ten days before a new moon, that women who know the spells can treat villagers' fears and sorrows with magical rituals.

From NOWNESS

This important documentary short film is reposted here with permission of the creator, Ivan Olita, founder of BRAVO productions whose bio and work you can learn more about at his website. It was originally published on NOWNESS, with the following editorial piece by Ahmad Swaid:

The Last Singer

One man’s fight to maintain a dying tradition in the ancient marshlands of Iraq

Straddling Iraq's life-giving Tigris and Euphrates rivers are the Hammar Marshes, an ancient Mesopotamian wetland where floating communities have lived for centuries. In recent years, the region has attracted visitors who come to marvel at the Madan’s, or Marsh Arabs, way of life; this aquatic community is famous for their ability to majestically navigate reed-covered waterways in hand-made canoes—all the while singing the songs of their forefathers across the delta. 

Filmmaker Ivan Olita takes us on a tour of this hidden kingdom led by Abu Haider, one of the few Madan committed to living a traditional way of life in Iraq’s flatlands. “This film is about identity,” says Olita. “Not just the internal identity shaped by the way we define ourselves and our values, but the external—the broader identity one has as part of a community, country and collective shared experience.”

“The marshes are a fundamental part of their identity, permeating both the material and spiritual”

Haider’s way of life has been under threat since the nineties when the marshes were drained as part of Sadam Hussein’s fettered attempts to smoke out Shia rebels. This had catastrophic consequences on the area and reduced a once-luscious paradise into a barren salt desert. Without drinking water, reeds to build homes, or a steady supply of fish and birds for food, the Madan were forced to give up their ancient homeland and exiled to refugee camps in bordering Iran and local towns. 

“The marshes are a fundamental part of their identity, permeating both the material and spiritual,” says Olita. “To lose that makes it impossible to hold on to their history and traditions. At one time Haider’s singing was a connection to his community, but now it’s a connection to the past.”

After numerous grabs for power and eruptions of war, a wave of religious conservatism has swept across the Middle East, encouraging Muslim communities to live a more orthodox way of life, which includes restrictions on singing, dancing and playing musical instruments in public. For the singing Marsh Arabs, this is an irreconcilable conflict between culture and tradition. 

“If the only way to keep the legacy of singing in the marshes alive is to personally become a tourist attraction, then so be it,” says Olita. “Haider heroically accepts that his social identity will bear the consequences of choosing to preserve the nature of his calling.”

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A String of Pearls

This one is directed by Kenyan artist, Amirah Tajdin, produced by Wafa Tajdin, under the patronage of the Irthi Contemporary Crafts Council. It was also published on NOWNESS platform with the following editorial piece by Gavin Humphries…

Meet the Emirati women keeping the traditional craft of weaving alive in Dibba, UAE

A String of Pearls is the third film in a series written and directed by Kenyan artist and filmmaker Amirah Tajdin for the Irthi Contemporary Crafts Council based in Sharjah, UAE. Working closely with female weavers from the Emirati community of Dibba who had never been in front of the camera before, Amirah showcases the craft of talli, a traditional weaving technique from the region.

The women are featured working pearls into their talli weaving as they tell each other stories while they gather to create the unique pieces. “The film features what has become my signature blur of fiction and reality to tell stories that go beyond being simply documentaries or branded content,” says the director. “The women's stories are real and true to their experiences but I get to direct them in settings within storylines that I come up with, inspired by the Emirati culture they hail from that rarely gets to be seen by wider audiences.”

The Irthi Contemporary Crafts Council supports the continuity of age-old crafts from the region, working with these women and other traditional artisans to reinvent their craft for a new generation, sharing their work with design and fashion institutions around the world.

From Ghada’s Corner

During the Easter season, we are excited to share these educational videos by Ghada Boulos from Nasra (Nazareth), Palestine featuring ancestral insights around traditional Eastern Christian traditions and their pre-Christian roots. The first one speaks of the significance of wheat through our most ancient regional cosmologies and still today in the Christian Orthodox traditions. The second one speaks about votive offerings in the Eastern Christian churches and the symbols and purpose involved in them.

Ghada also shares many teachings about traditional and ritual foods and other interesting subjects regarding the culture of Bilad il Sham (the Levant), which you can find on her YouTube channel or on her Instagram page here. She owns an incredible store with traditional artisanal items in Nazareth, Palestine called “Ghada’s Corner”. Be sure to visit her sometime if you ever end up there.

Weaving Songs

A SONG INSPIRED BY AND DOCUMENTING ARMENIAN RUG WEAVING SOUNDS.