Exploring Rumi to Make Sense of Ourselves

Please Note: This live online conversation was recorded on our CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel. Watch it here.

“Quit being a drop. Make yourself an ocean.” Rumi’s inspiring and deceptively simple poems have been called ecstatic, mystical, and devotional. For writer and activist Melody Moezzi, they became her lifeline.

With the help of her father, who is a lifelong fan of Rumi’s poetry, she immersed herself in Rumi’s rich body of work, and discovered a 13th-century prescription for modern life. Melody’s latest book, The Rumi Prescription, follows her path of discovery as she translates Rumi’s works for herself, gaining wisdom and insight in the face of a creative and spiritual roadblock.

Melody addresses isolation, distraction, depression, fear, and many other everyday challenges we face—arguing that Rumi provides a roadmap for living with intention and ease, embracing love at every turn—despite the divided and chaotic times we live in. By following her journey translating Rumi’s works, Melody provides us a vivid reminder that we already have the answers we seek, if we can just slow down to honor them.

Join Shoshana Simons, Professor and Co-Chair of CIIS’ Expressive Arts Therapy Program, for a conversation about Melody's life and how the wisdom she found exploring Rumi can help us make sense of our modern lives.

Please note that this talk will be hosted live online. Instructions on how to join the webinar will be included in your event confirmation email. If you need additional assistance finding or joining the event, please email publicprograms@ciis.edu.


Melody Moezzi is a writer, speaker, activist, commentator, columnist, attorney and award-winning author. Her books include War on Error: Real Stories of American Muslims, and more recently, Haldol and Hyacinths: A Bipolar Life, which earned wide critical acclaim and broke new ground as the first mainstream mental health memoir by either a Muslim or a Middle-Easterner. Melody is a blogger for Ms. magazine, and a featured regular columnist, blogger, and vlogger for bp [Bipolar] Magazine. She maintains her own YouTube channel and video blog, A Saner Spin, answering readers' questions and addressing a variety of issues, including mental health, wellness, and spirituality. Melody’s writing has appeared on NPR and CNN, and in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, The Daily Beast, The Guardian, Hürriyet, and the South China Morning Post, among many other outlets.

Shoshana Simons, Ph.D., RDT is a Professor and Co-Chair of CIIS's Expressive Arts Therapy Program and adjunct faculty in the Transformative Inquiry Department. Shoshana earned an MA in Human Development & PhD in Human & Organizational Systems from Fielding Graduate Institute, CA, an MA in Sociology & Social Policy from London Metropolitan University, UK and completed her drama therapy training at the Omega Theater Transpersonal Drama Therapy Program, MA. Her extensive training and experience in the UK and USA in community-based work with children & families, counseling, education, leadership and systems change informs her passionate commitment to preparing expressive arts therapy students to transform mental health systems into humane, creative, life-affirming & culturally responsive communities of practice. Shoshana also offers “NarrARTive” coaching workshops and courses through Key of Life Coaching & Training, based on the narrative expressive arts approach to counseling and coaching she has been developing over the last decade at CIIS.