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Best-selling Ayurvedic author Sahara Rose Ketabi has made a life out of modernizing ancient wisdom.
Sahara Rose Ketabi
Sahara Rose Ketabi wants me to stop watching scary movies. We chat about this as we ride the elevator down from her sixth-floor apartment overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Los Angelesâ Pacific Palisades. She never watches horror films. Art plants seeds in our minds that can grow and become real, she tells me: âIt changes your subconscious and creates possibilities of atrocities that you would never have thought of on your own. Then itâs in your subconscious, and it keeps leaking in. So then youâre manifesting more ofânot that specific thing per seâbut scenarios that go along with it.â
I tell her how Iâm still trying to unsee 2019âs Midsommar, which is gruesome and harrowing in a way I wish my mind could forget. Ketabi nods, although she has not seen it. Manifesting is one of her super powers, and sheâs not about to muck that up for a cheap thrill. Ask her about it, and sheâll tell you detailed accounts of how sheâs attracted her lifeâs greatest successes: a foreword written by one of her heroes, Deepak Chopra, in her very first book, back when she was living in her grandparentsâ apartment after college; her husband, whom she dubbed her âGod Manâ and says she communicated with through meditation before they ever met; and her latest endeavor, Rose Gold Goddesses, a worldwide collective of spiritual women seeking enlightenment and sisterhood.
See also Deepak Chopra on What It Means to Discover Your True Potential
I first met Ketabi in August 2018 when I was interviewing yoga and meditation teacher Rosie Acosta for a cover story that ran in December of that year. Ketabi had just received the first advance copies of her contemporary Ayurvedic cookbook Eat Feel Fresh, and sheâd brought a few over to Acostaâs Laurel Canyon home to promote its October release on Acostaâs wellness podcast, Radically Loved. I honestly hadnât heard of Ketabi, but I should have. By then, her own podcast, Highest Self, had hit No. 1 in the spirituality category, and The Idiotâs Guide to Ayurveda was already a bestseller in the Ayurveda spaceâthanks in part to the foreword and cover quote she managed to score from Chopra.
A Fated Meeting with Deepak Chopra
How did that happen? In May 2017, Ketabi spontaneously decided to attend a yoga and science conference while she was visiting New York City. She was bored, sitting in the very back of a jam-packed auditorium, plotting her escape. âIâm thinking, Right now, the only thing that could keep me here is if Deepak Chopra walks on stage,â she tells me, leaning back into the corner of her sectional as we eat sashimi in her living room. âAnd then theyâre like, âOK, time for a lunch break. Now, a word from our sponsor, Deepak Chopra.ââ In that moment, the alternative medicine megastar walked on stage, waved âHello, everyone,â and casually walked off, signaling a break in the event.
Ketabi was a precocious child, growing up in the Newton suburb of Boston with parents who had both immigrated from Iranâher father to attend MIT, her mother to continue her own education after the 1979 Islamic Revolution resulted in the shuttering of universities. Ketabi recalls an elementary school assignment where she was asked to dress up as her favorite celebrity for a presentation. âShe dressed up as Gandhi,â her brother, Amir, recalls from Boston, where he lives. âLiterally, white robe.â Their father had showed them the 1983 Academy Awardâwinning film Gandhi as children. âWe talked about violence and peace and meditation and the significance of it all,â says Amir. âIt had an impact on both of us, but she really took it a step further.â As a preteen, Ketabi threw herself into learning about spiritual leaders and changemakers such as Mother Teresa and Ida B. Wells, using books as a roadmap for what her own path could look like. Eventually she picked up a book by Chopra. âHeâs always been a major figure in my life,â she says. âMy parents and I would get into fights, and Iâd be like, âOne day Iâm going to be like Deepak Chopra!ââ
See also How Deepak Chopra's Law of Pure Potentiality Can Transform Your Body, Mind, and Spirit
So there he was, at the foot of the stage, a thousand people between the two of themâan amorphous mob trying to exit the auditorium like cattleâand Ketabi started bum-rushing the stage. When she reached Chopra, he was mid-conversation. Eventually he turned to her.
Ketabi introduced herself and asked Chopra if she could send him a PDF of her forthcoming book; he agreed and gave her his email address.
âSo Iâm like, This is the pinnacle of my whole life,â Ketabi says excitedly. âI have Deepak Chopraâs email; now what am I going to do with it?â She meditated for eight hours that day, imagining Chopra writing an endorsement for the book. âIâm thinking, This is exactly what I need to get this book out into more peopleâs hands. If he writes a quote, more people will read it, and it will benefit more lives.â
Chopra did read her manuscript, and as we now know, he wrote the foreword to The Idiotâs Guide to Ayurveda (and later, Eat Feel Fresh). He also invited Ketabi to be a faculty member on his wellness app Jiyo, which led to the two of them hosting a 31-day Ayurveda transformation challenge together and to Ketabiâs online Intro to Ayurveda course. Today theyâre collaborating on an Ayurvedic certification program through Chopra Global. âItâs been a joy to watch Sahara grow and expand in the past few years,â Chopra told me in an email. âShe is a true example of embodying her own dharma.â
Ketabi says whatâs fueled her entire life is living in alignment with her dharma, which is the theme of her next book, Discover Your Dharma, coming next year. Early on, she decided that her purpose âin this lifetimeâ was to be of service to humanity. Because of this, she started volunteering with at-risk youth in Boston at 13 (after sheâd started practicing yoga a year earlier). When she was 15, through a global justice program at her high school, she went to Costa Rica to work in a prison and care for orphans. That same year, she started her schoolâs chapter of Amnesty International. âI was very into reading about Howard Zinn and counterculture and how we can create change,â she says. âI was organizing protests all the time and bringing in speakers to talk about the Iraq war, genocide in the Congo, and forced rendition.â At 16, she helped build a preschool in Nicaraguaâat 17, a community center in Thailand.
âShe marches to her own beat,â says Amir. âAs a 13-, 14-year-old girl, she was very aware of her privilege. Being first-generation Iranian, we were exposed to a lot of the truths of the world at an earlier age than mostâwe were having Israel-Palestine discussions in middle school. And Sahara was just adamant that she needed to go out there and try to make a difference and learn about the world.â
"The constant chattering in my mind diminished, and I could think more clearly"
The Journey to Ayurveda
Ketabi attended George Washington University in 2009 to study international affairs and development, intent on becoming an international human rights lawyer. But as she dove in beyond her coursework, interning at NGOs around DC, she grew depressed, depleted, out of touch with her dharma. Soliciting money via an endless revolving door of fundraisers didnât feel in line with her greater purpose. âI wanted to help people,â she says. âIn DC, everything is so political. I could see I was just losing myself in the politics and I wasnât using my creativity.â
To make matters worse, Ketabiâs physical health was failing. She transferred to Boston University to be closer to her family and started a blog (the first iteration of Eat Feel Fresh) to share some of the recipes and positive psychology she was studying in her free time to try and combat undiagnosed digestive issues. It was through writing and sharing her journey directly with readers that she tapped back into her higher calling. Armed with a newfound hope, she enrolled to become a certified health coach through the Institute for Integrative Nutrition.
See also 7 Chakra-balancing Ayurvedic Soup Recipes
At 21 years old, Ketabi was 87 pounds with hypothalamic amenorrhea when, through her coursework, she discovered Ayurvedaâthe ancient system of medicine based on the idea that health is achieved through balancing bodily systems using diet, herbal treatments, and yogic breathwork. âAll my health problemsâbut also my personalityâwere explained,â Ketabi says. Suddenly her body started to heal. âThe first thing I noticed was that I could sleep at night,â she says. âThe constant chattering in my mind diminished, and I could think more clearly. I felt more grounded and peaceful than ever before. And I could finally digest food without curling up on the couch in pain.â
Unsatisfied with the limited resources available to study Ayurveda in the US, Ketabi went to India to attend Ayurveda school outside of Delhi. As a Persian American who is 50 percent Indian, she had always felt a deep connection with India and its culture. For two years, she immersed herself in Ayurvedic philosophy and began thinking about how to update it for contemporaries: For instance, traditional Ayurveda doesnât allow for the consumption of raw foodsâwhich makes sense when you consider the contaminated soil and lack of refrigeration in Ancient India, she says. However, modern nutrition encourages us to eat fresh raw fruits and vegetables, so sheâs reformed certain recipes accordingly.
See also Putting Ayurvedic Theory IRL Terms: What Your Dosha Really Says About You
Channeling the Goddess Archetypes for Connection and Transformation
It was while studying Ayurveda in India that Ketabi began leading goddess retreats (see Find Your Inner Goddess). She had grown up surrounded by imagery of Persian and Indian deities, but it was her yoga practice and her travels to India, she says, that brought her deeper into her study of Hindu and Vedic goddesses. As I write this, Ketabi is preparing for the LA launch party celebrating Rose Gold Goddesses, her online platform for spiritual women to connect, converse, plan meetups, and explore the goddess archetypes from cultures around the world. Members have access to a Monthly Goddess Guide full of yoga practices, rituals, meditations, music, mantras, mudras, and journaling promptsâall related to each monthâs chosen goddess. She texts me a little video of herself âgetting glammed upâ for the event, her face painted in the likeness of the Hindu goddess Kali, destroyer of evil forces.
See also The Yogini's Guide to Starting Your Own Womenâs Circle
When I asked her about criticisms regarding cultural appropriation, she was cool and confident and largely unfazed. âAm I allowed to talk about goddesses if I didnât grow up in a polytheistic religion?â she asks me rhetorically. âGoddesses exist and have always existed in every religion and every cultureâitâs a universal archetype that we can all step into.â We have just finished lunch and are getting into it in her living room like old friends might. âWeâre human beings,â she says. âBut some people are so focused on our differences instead of our similarities.â
I visit Ketabi again at home on a cloudless Friday in September when Rose Gold Goddesses has been live for almost a month. The goddess she has chosen to celebrate this month is Saraswati, goddess of knowledge, music, art, and nature. Ketabi has organized a little gathering of friends at her home for a goddess ceremony, a ritual to honor the divine feminine, creativity, and, of course, Saraswati.
We assemble in her living room, sunshine pouring in from all angles, and Ketabi opens by blessing each of us with a single rose: The flower signifies âbeauty, elegance, strength, and wisdom,â she says. But also, âRoses are not to be trifled with. You canât just get a rose and make it your own. She has thorns, sheâll fight back.â This represents all of us in the circle right now, she tells us, post #MeToo, in Trumpâs America. âAs women, we want to share our beauty and the full spectrum of who we are, but thereâs this dark spot in society that makes us feel like weâre not safe.â And yet we are all here, supporting women in the community and thriving in our personal and professional lives. And why is that? She asks, then answers: âItâs because weâre the rose.â
For more information on goddess archetypes, take Sahara's quiz and check out her oracle deck and guidebook, A Yogic Path.
0 notes
Link
Best-selling Ayurvedic author Sahara Rose Ketabi has made a life out of modernizing ancient wisdom.
Sahara Rose Ketabi
Sahara Rose Ketabi wants me to stop watching scary movies. We chat about this as we ride the elevator down from her sixth-floor apartment overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Los Angelesâ Pacific Palisades. She never watches horror films. Art plants seeds in our minds that can grow and become real, she tells me: âIt changes your subconscious and creates possibilities of atrocities that you would never have thought of on your own. Then itâs in your subconscious, and it keeps leaking in. So then youâre manifesting more ofânot that specific thing per seâbut scenarios that go along with it.â
I tell her how Iâm still trying to unsee 2019âs Midsommar, which is gruesome and harrowing in a way I wish my mind could forget. Ketabi nods, although she has not seen it. Manifesting is one of her super powers, and sheâs not about to muck that up for a cheap thrill. Ask her about it, and sheâll tell you detailed accounts of how sheâs attracted her lifeâs greatest successes: a foreword written by one of her heroes, Deepak Chopra, in her very first book, back when she was living in her grandparentsâ apartment after college; her husband, whom she dubbed her âGod Manâ and says she communicated with through meditation before they ever met; and her latest endeavor, Rose Gold Goddesses, a worldwide collective of spiritual women seeking enlightenment and sisterhood.
See also Deepak Chopra on What It Means to Discover Your True Potential
I first met Ketabi in August 2018 when I was interviewing yoga and meditation teacher Rosie Acosta for a cover story that ran in December of that year. Ketabi had just received the first advance copies of her contemporary Ayurvedic cookbook Eat Feel Fresh, and sheâd brought a few over to Acostaâs Laurel Canyon home to promote its October release on Acostaâs wellness podcast, Radically Loved. I honestly hadnât heard of Ketabi, but I should have. By then, her own podcast, Highest Self, had hit No. 1 in the spirituality category, and The Idiotâs Guide to Ayurveda was already a bestseller in the Ayurveda spaceâthanks in part to the foreword and cover quote she managed to score from Chopra.
A Fated Meeting with Deepak Chopra
How did that happen? In May 2017, Ketabi spontaneously decided to attend a yoga and science conference while she was visiting New York City. She was bored, sitting in the very back of a jam-packed auditorium, plotting her escape. âIâm thinking, Right now, the only thing that could keep me here is if Deepak Chopra walks on stage,â she tells me, leaning back into the corner of her sectional as we eat sashimi in her living room. âAnd then theyâre like, âOK, time for a lunch break. Now, a word from our sponsor, Deepak Chopra.ââ In that moment, the alternative medicine megastar walked on stage, waved âHello, everyone,â and casually walked off, signaling a break in the event.
Ketabi was a precocious child, growing up in the Newton suburb of Boston with parents who had both immigrated from Iranâher father to attend MIT, her mother to continue her own education after the 1979 Islamic Revolution resulted in the shuttering of universities. Ketabi recalls an elementary school assignment where she was asked to dress up as her favorite celebrity for a presentation. âShe dressed up as Gandhi,â her brother, Amir, recalls from Boston, where he lives. âLiterally, white robe.â Their father had showed them the 1983 Academy Awardâwinning film Gandhi as children. âWe talked about violence and peace and meditation and the significance of it all,â says Amir. âIt had an impact on both of us, but she really took it a step further.â As a preteen, Ketabi threw herself into learning about spiritual leaders and changemakers such as Mother Teresa and Ida B. Wells, using books as a roadmap for what her own path could look like. Eventually she picked up a book by Chopra. âHeâs always been a major figure in my life,â she says. âMy parents and I would get into fights, and Iâd be like, âOne day Iâm going to be like Deepak Chopra!ââ
See also How Deepak Chopra's Law of Pure Potentiality Can Transform Your Body, Mind, and Spirit
So there he was, at the foot of the stage, a thousand people between the two of themâan amorphous mob trying to exit the auditorium like cattleâand Ketabi started bum-rushing the stage. When she reached Chopra, he was mid-conversation. Eventually he turned to her.
Ketabi introduced herself and asked Chopra if she could send him a PDF of her forthcoming book; he agreed and gave her his email address.
âSo Iâm like, This is the pinnacle of my whole life,â Ketabi says excitedly. âI have Deepak Chopraâs email; now what am I going to do with it?â She meditated for eight hours that day, imagining Chopra writing an endorsement for the book. âIâm thinking, This is exactly what I need to get this book out into more peopleâs hands. If he writes a quote, more people will read it, and it will benefit more lives.â
Chopra did read her manuscript, and as we now know, he wrote the foreword to The Idiotâs Guide to Ayurveda (and later, Eat Feel Fresh). He also invited Ketabi to be a faculty member on his wellness app Jiyo, which led to the two of them hosting a 31-day Ayurveda transformation challenge together and to Ketabiâs online Intro to Ayurveda course. Today theyâre collaborating on an Ayurvedic certification program through Chopra Global. âItâs been a joy to watch Sahara grow and expand in the past few years,â Chopra told me in an email. âShe is a true example of embodying her own dharma.â
Ketabi says whatâs fueled her entire life is living in alignment with her dharma, which is the theme of her next book, Discover Your Dharma, coming next year. Early on, she decided that her purpose âin this lifetimeâ was to be of service to humanity. Because of this, she started volunteering with at-risk youth in Boston at 13 (after sheâd started practicing yoga a year earlier). When she was 15, through a global justice program at her high school, she went to Costa Rica to work in a prison and care for orphans. That same year, she started her schoolâs chapter of Amnesty International. âI was very into reading about Howard Zinn and counterculture and how we can create change,â she says. âI was organizing protests all the time and bringing in speakers to talk about the Iraq war, genocide in the Congo, and forced rendition.â At 16, she helped build a preschool in Nicaraguaâat 17, a community center in Thailand.
âShe marches to her own beat,â says Amir. âAs a 13-, 14-year-old girl, she was very aware of her privilege. Being first-generation Iranian, we were exposed to a lot of the truths of the world at an earlier age than mostâwe were having Israel-Palestine discussions in middle school. And Sahara was just adamant that she needed to go out there and try to make a difference and learn about the world.â
"The constant chattering in my mind diminished, and I could think more clearly"
The Journey to Ayurveda
Ketabi attended George Washington University in 2009 to study international affairs and development, intent on becoming an international human rights lawyer. But as she dove in beyond her coursework, interning at NGOs around DC, she grew depressed, depleted, out of touch with her dharma. Soliciting money via an endless revolving door of fundraisers didnât feel in line with her greater purpose. âI wanted to help people,â she says. âIn DC, everything is so political. I could see I was just losing myself in the politics and I wasnât using my creativity.â
To make matters worse, Ketabiâs physical health was failing. She transferred to Boston University to be closer to her family and started a blog (the first iteration of Eat Feel Fresh) to share some of the recipes and positive psychology she was studying in her free time to try and combat undiagnosed digestive issues. It was through writing and sharing her journey directly with readers that she tapped back into her higher calling. Armed with a newfound hope, she enrolled to become a certified health coach through the Institute for Integrative Nutrition.
See also 7 Chakra-balancing Ayurvedic Soup Recipes
At 21 years old, Ketabi was 87 pounds with hypothalamic amenorrhea when, through her coursework, she discovered Ayurvedaâthe ancient system of medicine based on the idea that health is achieved through balancing bodily systems using diet, herbal treatments, and yogic breathwork. âAll my health problemsâbut also my personalityâwere explained,â Ketabi says. Suddenly her body started to heal. âThe first thing I noticed was that I could sleep at night,â she says. âThe constant chattering in my mind diminished, and I could think more clearly. I felt more grounded and peaceful than ever before. And I could finally digest food without curling up on the couch in pain.â
Unsatisfied with the limited resources available to study Ayurveda in the US, Ketabi went to India to attend Ayurveda school outside of Delhi. As a Persian American who is 50 percent Indian, she had always felt a deep connection with India and its culture. For two years, she immersed herself in Ayurvedic philosophy and began thinking about how to update it for contemporaries: For instance, traditional Ayurveda doesnât allow for the consumption of raw foodsâwhich makes sense when you consider the contaminated soil and lack of refrigeration in Ancient India, she says. However, modern nutrition encourages us to eat fresh raw fruits and vegetables, so sheâs reformed certain recipes accordingly.
See also Putting Ayurvedic Theory IRL Terms: What Your Dosha Really Says About You
Channeling the Goddess Archetypes for Connection and Transformation
It was while studying Ayurveda in India that Ketabi began leading goddess retreats (see Find Your Inner Goddess). She had grown up surrounded by imagery of Persian and Indian deities, but it was her yoga practice and her travels to India, she says, that brought her deeper into her study of Hindu and Vedic goddesses. As I write this, Ketabi is preparing for the LA launch party celebrating Rose Gold Goddesses, her online platform for spiritual women to connect, converse, plan meetups, and explore the goddess archetypes from cultures around the world. Members have access to a Monthly Goddess Guide full of yoga practices, rituals, meditations, music, mantras, mudras, and journaling promptsâall related to each monthâs chosen goddess. She texts me a little video of herself âgetting glammed upâ for the event, her face painted in the likeness of the Hindu goddess Kali, destroyer of evil forces.
See also The Yogini's Guide to Starting Your Own Womenâs Circle
When I asked her about criticisms regarding cultural appropriation, she was cool and confident and largely unfazed. âAm I allowed to talk about goddesses if I didnât grow up in a polytheistic religion?â she asks me rhetorically. âGoddesses exist and have always existed in every religion and every cultureâitâs a universal archetype that we can all step into.â We have just finished lunch and are getting into it in her living room like old friends might. âWeâre human beings,â she says. âBut some people are so focused on our differences instead of our similarities.â
I visit Ketabi again at home on a cloudless Friday in September when Rose Gold Goddesses has been live for almost a month. The goddess she has chosen to celebrate this month is Saraswati, goddess of knowledge, music, art, and nature. Ketabi has organized a little gathering of friends at her home for a goddess ceremony, a ritual to honor the divine feminine, creativity, and, of course, Saraswati.
We assemble in her living room, sunshine pouring in from all angles, and Ketabi opens by blessing each of us with a single rose: The flower signifies âbeauty, elegance, strength, and wisdom,â she says. But also, âRoses are not to be trifled with. You canât just get a rose and make it your own. She has thorns, sheâll fight back.â This represents all of us in the circle right now, she tells us, post #MeToo, in Trumpâs America. âAs women, we want to share our beauty and the full spectrum of who we are, but thereâs this dark spot in society that makes us feel like weâre not safe.â And yet we are all here, supporting women in the community and thriving in our personal and professional lives. And why is that? She asks, then answers: âItâs because weâre the rose.â
For more information on goddess archetypes, take Sahara's quiz and check out her oracle deck and guidebook, A Yogic Path.
0 notes
Text
Meet Sahara Rose Ketabi, Contemporary Queen
Best-selling Ayurvedic author Sahara Rose Ketabi has made a life out of modernizing ancient wisdom.
Sahara Rose Ketabi
Sahara Rose Ketabi wants me to stop watching scary movies. We chat about this as we ride the elevator down from her sixth-floor apartment overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Los Angelesâ Pacific Palisades. She never watches horror films. Art plants seeds in our minds that can grow and become real, she tells me: âIt changes your subconscious and creates possibilities of atrocities that you would never have thought of on your own. Then itâs in your subconscious, and it keeps leaking in. So then youâre manifesting more ofânot that specific thing per seâbut scenarios that go along with it.â
I tell her how Iâm still trying to unsee 2019âs Midsommar, which is gruesome and harrowing in a way I wish my mind could forget. Ketabi nods, although she has not seen it. Manifesting is one of her super powers, and sheâs not about to muck that up for a cheap thrill. Ask her about it, and sheâll tell you detailed accounts of how sheâs attracted her lifeâs greatest successes: a foreword written by one of her heroes, Deepak Chopra, in her very first book, back when she was living in her grandparentsâ apartment after college; her husband, whom she dubbed her âGod Manâ and says she communicated with through meditation before they ever met; and her latest endeavor, Rose Gold Goddesses, a worldwide collective of spiritual women seeking enlightenment and sisterhood.
See also Deepak Chopra on What It Means to Discover Your True Potential
I first met Ketabi in August 2018 when I was interviewing yoga and meditation teacher Rosie Acosta for a cover story that ran in December of that year. Ketabi had just received the first advance copies of her contemporary Ayurvedic cookbook Eat Feel Fresh, and sheâd brought a few over to Acostaâs Laurel Canyon home to promote its October release on Acostaâs wellness podcast, Radically Loved. I honestly hadnât heard of Ketabi, but I should have. By then, her own podcast, Highest Self, had hit No. 1 in the spirituality category, and The Idiotâs Guide to Ayurveda was already a bestseller in the Ayurveda spaceâthanks in part to the foreword and cover quote she managed to score from Chopra.
A Fated Meeting with Deepak Chopra
How did that happen? In May 2017, Ketabi spontaneously decided to attend a yoga and science conference while she was visiting New York City. She was bored, sitting in the very back of a jam-packed auditorium, plotting her escape. âIâm thinking, Right now, the only thing that could keep me here is if Deepak Chopra walks on stage,â she tells me, leaning back into the corner of her sectional as we eat sashimi in her living room. âAnd then theyâre like, âOK, time for a lunch break. Now, a word from our sponsor, Deepak Chopra.ââ In that moment, the alternative medicine megastar walked on stage, waved âHello, everyone,â and casually walked off, signaling a break in the event.
Ketabi was a precocious child, growing up in the Newton suburb of Boston with parents who had both immigrated from Iranâher father to attend MIT, her mother to continue her own education after the 1979 Islamic Revolution resulted in the shuttering of universities. Ketabi recalls an elementary school assignment where she was asked to dress up as her favorite celebrity for a presentation. âShe dressed up as Gandhi,â her brother, Amir, recalls from Boston, where he lives. âLiterally, white robe.â Their father had showed them the 1983 Academy Awardâwinning film Gandhi as children. âWe talked about violence and peace and meditation and the significance of it all,â says Amir. âIt had an impact on both of us, but she really took it a step further.â As a preteen, Ketabi threw herself into learning about spiritual leaders and changemakers such as Mother Teresa and Ida B. Wells, using books as a roadmap for what her own path could look like. Eventually she picked up a book by Chopra. âHeâs always been a major figure in my life,â she says. âMy parents and I would get into fights, and Iâd be like, âOne day Iâm going to be like Deepak Chopra!ââ
See also How Deepak Chopra's Law of Pure Potentiality Can Transform Your Body, Mind, and Spirit
So there he was, at the foot of the stage, a thousand people between the two of themâan amorphous mob trying to exit the auditorium like cattleâand Ketabi started bum-rushing the stage. When she reached Chopra, he was mid-conversation. Eventually he turned to her.
Ketabi introduced herself and asked Chopra if she could send him a PDF of her forthcoming book; he agreed and gave her his email address.
âSo Iâm like, This is the pinnacle of my whole life,â Ketabi says excitedly. âI have Deepak Chopraâs email; now what am I going to do with it?â She meditated for eight hours that day, imagining Chopra writing an endorsement for the book. âIâm thinking, This is exactly what I need to get this book out into more peopleâs hands. If he writes a quote, more people will read it, and it will benefit more lives.â
Chopra did read her manuscript, and as we now know, he wrote the foreword to The Idiotâs Guide to Ayurveda (and later, Eat Feel Fresh). He also invited Ketabi to be a faculty member on his wellness app Jiyo, which led to the two of them hosting a 31-day Ayurveda transformation challenge together and to Ketabiâs online Intro to Ayurveda course. Today theyâre collaborating on an Ayurvedic certification program through Chopra Global. âItâs been a joy to watch Sahara grow and expand in the past few years,â Chopra told me in an email. âShe is a true example of embodying her own dharma.â
Ketabi says whatâs fueled her entire life is living in alignment with her dharma, which is the theme of her next book, Discover Your Dharma, coming next year. Early on, she decided that her purpose âin this lifetimeâ was to be of service to humanity. Because of this, she started volunteering with at-risk youth in Boston at 13 (after sheâd started practicing yoga a year earlier). When she was 15, through a global justice program at her high school, she went to Costa Rica to work in a prison and care for orphans. That same year, she started her schoolâs chapter of Amnesty International. âI was very into reading about Howard Zinn and counterculture and how we can create change,â she says. âI was organizing protests all the time and bringing in speakers to talk about the Iraq war, genocide in the Congo, and forced rendition.â At 16, she helped build a preschool in Nicaraguaâat 17, a community center in Thailand.
âShe marches to her own beat,â says Amir. âAs a 13-, 14-year-old girl, she was very aware of her privilege. Being first-generation Iranian, we were exposed to a lot of the truths of the world at an earlier age than mostâwe were having Israel-Palestine discussions in middle school. And Sahara was just adamant that she needed to go out there and try to make a difference and learn about the world.â
"The constant chattering in my mind diminished, and I could think more clearly"
The Journey to Ayurveda
Ketabi attended George Washington University in 2009 to study international affairs and development, intent on becoming an international human rights lawyer. But as she dove in beyond her coursework, interning at NGOs around DC, she grew depressed, depleted, out of touch with her dharma. Soliciting money via an endless revolving door of fundraisers didnât feel in line with her greater purpose. âI wanted to help people,â she says. âIn DC, everything is so political. I could see I was just losing myself in the politics and I wasnât using my creativity.â
To make matters worse, Ketabiâs physical health was failing. She transferred to Boston University to be closer to her family and started a blog (the first iteration of Eat Feel Fresh) to share some of the recipes and positive psychology she was studying in her free time to try and combat undiagnosed digestive issues. It was through writing and sharing her journey directly with readers that she tapped back into her higher calling. Armed with a newfound hope, she enrolled to become a certified health coach through the Institute for Integrative Nutrition.
See also 7 Chakra-balancing Ayurvedic Soup Recipes
At 21 years old, Ketabi was 87 pounds with hypothalamic amenorrhea when, through her coursework, she discovered Ayurvedaâthe ancient system of medicine based on the idea that health is achieved through balancing bodily systems using diet, herbal treatments, and yogic breathwork. âAll my health problemsâbut also my personalityâwere explained,â Ketabi says. Suddenly her body started to heal. âThe first thing I noticed was that I could sleep at night,â she says. âThe constant chattering in my mind diminished, and I could think more clearly. I felt more grounded and peaceful than ever before. And I could finally digest food without curling up on the couch in pain.â
Unsatisfied with the limited resources available to study Ayurveda in the US, Ketabi went to India to attend Ayurveda school outside of Delhi. As a Persian American who is 50 percent Indian, she had always felt a deep connection with India and its culture. For two years, she immersed herself in Ayurvedic philosophy and began thinking about how to update it for contemporaries: For instance, traditional Ayurveda doesnât allow for the consumption of raw foodsâwhich makes sense when you consider the contaminated soil and lack of refrigeration in Ancient India, she says. However, modern nutrition encourages us to eat fresh raw fruits and vegetables, so sheâs reformed certain recipes accordingly.
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Channeling the Goddess Archetypes for Connection and Transformation
It was while studying Ayurveda in India that Ketabi began leading goddess retreats (see Find Your Inner Goddess). She had grown up surrounded by imagery of Persian and Indian deities, but it was her yoga practice and her travels to India, she says, that brought her deeper into her study of Hindu and Vedic goddesses. As I write this, Ketabi is preparing for the LA launch party celebrating Rose Gold Goddesses, her online platform for spiritual women to connect, converse, plan meetups, and explore the goddess archetypes from cultures around the world. Members have access to a Monthly Goddess Guide full of yoga practices, rituals, meditations, music, mantras, mudras, and journaling promptsâall related to each monthâs chosen goddess. She texts me a little video of herself âgetting glammed upâ for the event, her face painted in the likeness of the Hindu goddess Kali, destroyer of evil forces.
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When I asked her about criticisms regarding cultural appropriation, she was cool and confident and largely unfazed. âAm I allowed to talk about goddesses if I didnât grow up in a polytheistic religion?â she asks me rhetorically. âGoddesses exist and have always existed in every religion and every cultureâitâs a universal archetype that we can all step into.â We have just finished lunch and are getting into it in her living room like old friends might. âWeâre human beings,â she says. âBut some people are so focused on our differences instead of our similarities.â
I visit Ketabi again at home on a cloudless Friday in September when Rose Gold Goddesses has been live for almost a month. The goddess she has chosen to celebrate this month is Saraswati, goddess of knowledge, music, art, and nature. Ketabi has organized a little gathering of friends at her home for a goddess ceremony, a ritual to honor the divine feminine, creativity, and, of course, Saraswati.
We assemble in her living room, sunshine pouring in from all angles, and Ketabi opens by blessing each of us with a single rose: The flower signifies âbeauty, elegance, strength, and wisdom,â she says. But also, âRoses are not to be trifled with. You canât just get a rose and make it your own. She has thorns, sheâll fight back.â This represents all of us in the circle right now, she tells us, post #MeToo, in Trumpâs America. âAs women, we want to share our beauty and the full spectrum of who we are, but thereâs this dark spot in society that makes us feel like weâre not safe.â And yet we are all here, supporting women in the community and thriving in our personal and professional lives. And why is that? She asks, then answers: âItâs because weâre the rose.â
For more information on goddess archetypes, take Sahara's quiz and check out her oracle deck and guidebook, A Yogic Path.
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