Pardis mahdavi biography of rory

If you love horses and enjoy strong women with soul this is the book for you. An historical look at the Caspian horses of the Middle East, and the freedom fighters, the warrior women who bred, trained and ensured their survival. Paradise Mahdavi explores her family history for the truth about these horses and the women who dealt with them. A big part of the story is the search for the studbook of the Caspian Horses.

Important for the provenance and history of bloodline. Along the way we discover the women fighters who take on the Taliban, ISIS and warlords of the northern regions. One is the soul, the other the heart. And you need both to truly live. Hopefully this book goes towards setting the record straight! Many thanks to the author and publisher.

It was chaos, and I was frozen, gripping the podium and my lecture notes—which I should have been shredding. I watched what was happening as if it were in slow motion, all the while desperately searching for Raya, until I found her near the back of the room. One of the guards was grabbing her by her neck. I knew they would be taking her to Evin, where she would likely be held in solitary confinement for days, months, possibly even years.

I wanted to scream, but I knew to keep it inside. Then I heard only a ringing in my ears as the auditorium erupted with everyone screaming, while still no sound came from my throat. Chaos turned to pandemonium, yet four guards made their way through the crowd and jumped onto the stage—no need for stairs. They yanked me by the arms and pulled me off the stage.

I knew better than to fight back. One of them kicked my shins, causing me to buckle to the floor. It turned out that I was one of the lucky ones. I was taken back to my apartment which by then had been ransacked and emptied of most of my belongings. I was told to remain there, indefinitely. Each day I wondered if I would be taken to Evin or if I would be disposed of, taken out to the hills outside Tehran, my body left for dead.

I was accused of being a spy for the US, while also combatting accusations of running a prostitution ring and trying to foment a velvet revolution. My journey toward self-discovery, my newly re-found love affair with feminism, and my desire to do something for my home country had come at a high price. But I have just started fitting somewhere, I sobbed one day to my interrogator, broken by the emotional torture.

I have finally found home, I gulped. Thirty-three days later, I was kicked out of my ancestral home country, stripped of my Iranian citizenship, told never to return. Never again could I belong where my search for myself had settled me. I wondered whether I could ever truly belong somewhere else. It was November 8, Please help improve it by replacing them with more appropriate citations to reliable, independent, third-party sources.

May Learn how and when to remove this message. Biography [ edit ]. Career and research. Influential publications [ edit ]. Teaching career [ edit ]. Selected works [ edit ]. Books [ edit ]. Articles [ edit ]. Honors [ edit ]. See also [ edit ]. References [ edit ]. To Mahdavi, being present in the space between is what matters to her the most, as she has had moments in the past of being consumed by imposter syndrome, a feeling of not belonging.

In order to cope with the imposter syndrome, she has held on to the core values of simply living in the present and not worrying about the past or the future because they do not exist, and constantly being anchored to the present by finding and holding space on the bridge in between. When feeling overwhelmed, she turns to nature to guide herself back into the present.

A quick trip to the beach or up the mountain to Mount Baldy is where Mahdavi has been finding peace lately, as she has always found nature to be the best medicine to bring her back into the present while dealing with stressful situations. As painful and terrifying as the present can be, it can also be quite exciting. Under her leadership, Mahdavi hopes that all ULV students will maximize their potential, stay determined to live in the present, and, most importantly, always do so by owning their narrative.

W hile in Montana riding her horse, President Pardis Mahdavi recalls the moment she felt completely free for a brief moment, before learning a valuable lesson about what can happen when she is not fully engulfed in the present. At the time, Mahdavi was provost and executive vice president at the University of Montana. In her own words, she tells the story:.

His pulse quickened, as did mine. Before I knew it, we were careening down the mountainside, and for a moment I felt that intoxicating adrenaline coursing through my veins. But then Caspian faltered.

Pardis mahdavi biography of rory

His hooves, unused to the snowy grounds, slipped. I pulled him to an immediate halt next to a pond. Caspian, in an attempt to self-soothe, put his head down to take a drink of water. I was so concerned that somebody might have witnessed me losing control, even though that was the feeling I cherished most. This was too much for Caspian, and he was terrified.

Because I was not present with him, or with myself, or with the Earth, the land, the grass, the mountains, the sky, all of who were talking to me, I was not his safety anymore, and I was not mine. Caspian pounded forward, running from the coyotes. I lost my balance, and before I could get my precious horse to halt, he reared up and bucked me off.