earth to goldزمین به طلا

earth turns to gold in the hands of the wise

زمین تبدیل به طلا در دست عاقل

This book is a synthesis of the Iranian architect Nader Khalili’s story and life work, Cal-Earth, and my own family’s history of immigration from Iran. Nader Khalili loved the poetry of Persian mystic Rumi, much of which he translated into English. Rumi’s work largely focuses on humanity and the elements of Earth, Water, Air, and Fire, which directly connects to Khalili’s sustainable earth architecture. Khalili draws elements from classical ancient persian architecture, such as the dome and the arch, preserving old custom with new technology.

Khalili’s story of immigration takes place years before my family’s, years before the Iranian Revolution. He migrated to the United States in pursuit of education, whereas mine came on refugee status. Both left the Iranian capital of Tehran to settle in the diverse Californian landscape.

As a child, I visited my Baba Bezorg and Ammu Bezorg’s house every Friday night. I remember looking through my Grandmother’s persian books, seeing the very same swirling script letters as the ones in this book. I can taste the hot darjeeling tea and the lingering fenugreek and saffron from her food. Though my family has lived in this country for several decades, the stories and culture they came with have not faded away. They have fused them with their new life to take on new shape and color, merging the old traditions of their homeland with the modernity of their adopted one, much like the clay domes Khalili built.

introduction

your homeland was the heavens, but you thought that you belonged here, in the world of dust.in the dust you sketched out your own face,but left out just one thingthat first, true place.

ایامکہ تو بر فلک و طن داشته ای خود را إز جهات خاک پنداشته اى

بر خاک ز نفش خوىش بنگاشته ای وانچیز که اصل تمت بگذاشته اى

ایامکہ تو بر فلک و طن داشته ای خودرا إز جهات خاک پنداشته اى

بر خاک ز نفش خوىش بنگاشته ای وان چیز که اصل تمت بگذاشته اى

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Iran

My grandfather Sasson was born in 1921 in Sanandaj, Kurdistan, high in the hills of the Zagros Mountains not far from the Iranian border with Iraq. His father died when he was a baby, only 6 months old. From the time Sasson was seven, his mother sent him out to the bazaar to sell socks and prayer caps that she had knit. He didn't complain. He loved his mother and he loved his town. He had a horse, a dog and a pet deer. Sanandaj back then had a Jewish neighborhood, a Sunni Moslem neighborhood and a Christian neighborhood, all built side-by-side with identical mud brick buildings.

My grandmother Farangiz was born in 1933 in Kermanshah, a Kurdish province of Iran, south of Sanandaj. She began to cook for her family at the age of 11. She studied French in the sixth grade and always wished she had been able to learn to speak fluently.

kurdistan

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Farangiz and Sasson met in Tehran.

Before their wedding, a good friend had told Farangiz how a bride under the chuppah could gain the upper hand in a marriage. In traditional Jewish weddings, the couple stands side by side, the Rabbi chants seven marriage blessings, and they share a special wine with their family gathered in a tight circle around them. To seal this tradition, the man breaks a glass that lays between him and his wife, and they are considered to be wed. At the conclusion of the ceremony, when the Rabbi placed the ceremonial glass on the ground next to Sasson’s foot, and when Sasson raised his foot to break it, Farangiz hoisted the hem of her long white gown, lifted her left shoe, stiletto-heel and all, and thumbed it down on top of his.

At the wedding, Farangiz did not have a ring for Sasson. A man didn’t need a wedding ring, but Farangiz wanted him to have one, just like her. So for that day they borrowed her brother’s ring. The ring was too big for Sasson. He had to keep his hand upright all night so it did not fall off.

During dinner Gonce, Sasson’s mother, gave Farangiz a piece of gold cellophane. She licked it with her tongue and placed it on Farangiz’s forehead. “Gold,” she said, “I give you gold for your wedding.” Then she bent her head forward, bowing at each sentence, “May you and your husband always prosper,” she chanted, “May you find happiness in each other. May you have good health and bring many children.”

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When his four sons were all still boys, Sasson had a store in Sepah Square in the main shopping district of Tehran. On the front of the store, across the large plate glass window, he had his name painted in big swirling Farsi letters.

He sold small electronics - tape recorders, radios and the like. He held the sole distributorship for Philips for Tehran and also carried other Japanese brands. He displayed some of this in the store, but the majority of his large inventory he stored in a warehouse called Adle Brillians about eight miles away.

One day in 1972 there was a fire in the warehouse district of Adle Brillians and all of his merchandise burned. The fire was arson, probably set by bazaaris who felt threatened by the growing merchant classes and the policies of the new Shah. Sasson and many other merchants lost almost everything and had to begin building their businesses again.

electronics store

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Sasson left Iran in 1978 on one day’s notice and with two suitcases, two months before the Islamic Revolution. His wife and sons were already in London. By then he had sold most of the furniture in their apartment, except for the kitchen table. Anything else that didn’t fit in the suitcase he left behind, including the store.

He didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want to leave his store behind and all the merchandise he had. He didn’t know how he would make a living in another country. How would he pay his sons’ tuition? Pay for food and rent? He had a 6th grade education. Worked as a shopkeeper all his life. Spoke Farsi, Aramaic and Hebrew, but not English.

When he got to the United States and his sons were settled in good jobs, Sasson wrote to his assistant in Iran. “Dear Friend,” he penned in Farsi. “I hope you are well, also your mother, your father, your brother, all your family. Please sell the store and the inventory in the warehouse and give up the lease. I am sorry for the trouble. Keep half the proceeds for yourself and send me the rest. Here is my address. I am forever grateful to you.”

A few years later, his assistant sent him a check along with a box of gaz candy and persian dates, sweeter than anything he could get in his new country.

here and not there

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مدئود یرھش رھب مدرک رفسمدئدن یرھش نم قشع رھش وچ

رھش نا ردق لور زا متسنادنمدیشک تبرق یسب ینادانز

دوب لھد زاوآ قشع زا ریقبمدینش ملاع رد ہک ُیزاوا رھ

اھنت ہب مدوب ناج ملاع نا ردمديزخيم اپ ورپ يب یراموچ

یھاخ ہک اج رھ وربناج یا تفگب مدیرفلا لبج

نوچ مگیدزن نم ہک

درک ہرب مھاگنا و درب مھا رزمدیھر نم متفرن نم ہر نازاک

I traveled and to every city I went,I never saw a city like the love of mine

I didn’t value the land in the beginning, until I felt like a prisoner in the foreign land

instead of love and poetry I had simplicity, for every poem I heard in the world

in that foreign land I was alive but alone, like a snake crawling among men

word came from my love,travel to where you wish cause my heart is with you where ever you are

she stole my mind and I lost my way,I didn’t walk but I ran back all the way

طوقس قشاع ایب ایب هبون هب دیهد هزاجا ؛هرابود ایند نیا رد کاخ مامت دوخ

تسا قارب الط هب

come let’s fall in love again; let’s turn all the dirt in this world to shiny gold

Cal-Earth sits in the desert near Hesperia, nestled in a bare valley. It is all mud dome, persian carpet and sand bag, flanked on one side by an unused lansdcape filled with discarded objects -- tv monitors, mattresses, glass bottles, dry earth and shrubs -- and on the other, Section 8 housing, a line of identical suburban cookie cutter homes in varying shades of white, brown, and pinky beige. These three areas are vastly different, and yet side by side, seem to inform one another. They are alien landcapes, a mix of intention and disregard.

The superadobe huts are sustainable, made of the natural earth they are built on. They are disaster-proof, affordable. The model they are made from was meticulously written and tested, and yet is also based on basic tenants of habitat creation. Aesthetically, it feels instinctive, and the organic mounds that shape the domes though artifice, do not disrupt the surrounding natural landscape.

These domes have been adapted and recreated on several continents. They are painted green in Brazil. A deep terracotta brown with intricate white detailing in Kolhapur, India, purposed as a home for rescued child laborers. White and patterned with red as a birthing center in Mexico. They mark a separate world, a world driven by ideals. Khalili’s belief was that with gravity and geometry, earth, bricks, rocks, sanbags, and barbed wire, anyone can build a home, and that it is their basic human right to be able to create one.

“I bought a motorcycle and went to the desert for five years in Iran to see what the solution was for sheltering the poor in the world and to learn from what already existed. There I got to know five personalities: earth, water, air, fire and Rumi, the 800 year old Persian mystic poet.”

Nader Khalili, Rumi, Fountain of Fire

utopia

هاگن قشع ردهیالود ار نآ هنوگچ

قشع رد هداتفا زا یکی اب

هاگن حور ردزویف نیمز اب ار نآ هنوگچ

دیدج یگدنز نآ هب

لوغشم ردقنیا امش ارچدب ای تسا بوخ ای و نآ ای نیا اب

یبیکرت زیچ همه هنوگچ هب هجوت

همه دروم رد ثحب ارچهتخانشان و هدش هتخانش

هدش هتخانش ماغدا هتخانشان هنوگچ هک دینیبب

هناگادج منک یم رکف ارچیدعب و یگدنز نیا زا

ایند هب نیرخآ زا یکی هک ینامز

هاگن ار دوخ نابز و بلق رددنک یم ساسحا گنگ و رک هکلب ،یکی

دنک یم تبحص یاه هناشن و تاملک رد رگید

هاگن شتآ و بآ ردداب و نیمز

راب کی رد همه ناتسود و نانمشد

هرب و گرگوهآ و ریش

مه زونه رود

هاگن نیا تدحو ردناتسمز و راهب

لادتعا رد نآ یلجت هک

جوزمم نم ناتسود دیاب زین امشنامسآ و نیمز زا

هتخیمآ وت و نم یارب طقف

look at lovehow it tangleswith the one fallen in love

look at spirithow it fuses with earthgiving it new life

why are you so busywith this or that or good or badpay attention to how things blend

why talk about allthe known and the unknownsee how the unknown merges into the known

why think separatelyof this life and the nextwhen one is born from the last

look at your heart and tongueone feels but deaf and dumbthe other speaks in words and signs

look at water and fireearth and windenemies and friends all at once

the wolf and the lambthe lion and the deerfar away yet together

look at the unity of thisspring and wintermanifested in the equinox

you too must mingle my friendssince the earth and the skyare mingled just for you and me