Trego's Mountain Ear

I’ve never before been tempted to steal a title from Nietzsche – but the furor in Minnesota, the street riots in Iran, the raid in Venezuela, and who knows what else may occur before I post this.

It applies more to the rioting in Iran – Zarathustra founded Zoroastrianism – the Persian religion before Arab conquerors brought Islam into the country that we know as Iraq. The present rebellion is symbolized by attractive women setting photographs of Supreme Leader Khamenei on fire, then lighting a cigarette from the flaming photo. Apparently, its illegal to burn Khamenei’s photo, and Iranian women really aren’t allowed to smoke. The guy on the media said this was becoming a symbolic part of the revolution – and its possible that they’re right.

I didn’t get into reading of Persia and Zoroastrianism from reading Nietzsche. The author who dragged me into the topic was a brit poet named Fitzgerald, who loosely translated the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Khayyam had a verse that motivated me to read of both Islam and Zoroaster:

Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same Door as in I went.

And this I know: whether the one True Light,
Kindle to Love, or Wrath consume me quite,
One Glimpse of It within the Tavern caught
Better than in the Temple lost outright.

Oh Thou who didst with Pitfall and with Gin
Beset the Road I was to wander in,
Thou wilt not with Predestination round
Enmesh me, and impute my Fall to Sin?

Oh Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make,
And who with Eden didst devise the Snake;
For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man
Is blacken’d, Man’s Forgiveness give—and take!

So I read of religions – and, like Khayyam, usually found myself walking out the same door as I walked in. Islam lacked appeal, excepting the Sufi teachings. Zoroastrianism was written up as an essentially dead precursor to Judaism and Christianity – yet a little more research showed that it still lives in the religion of Yazidi. Big point of this is that Zoroastrianism still exists among the Yazidi and the Parsees (India) and there are a whole lot of fire temples still operational (well, 150 in India, anyway). Not a worship of fire – but the idea that fire is a symbol of cleaning, of ritual purity, and that a sacrifice through fire leads to happiness.

The talking heads may be right. The burning photographs that light cigarettes may be the symbol on their own – but Persia spent a long time as a center of knowledge, and Zoroastrianism did stress fire as a cleanser. Thus spake Zarathustra. I even stole Nietzsche’s end line.