A Tribute to Paisley In Troubled Times

A warm welcome to the first post of 2026 in the blog of Leslie Powell Ahmadi: a Black American Christian woman who from 1992-1996 came face to face with her fears of living in post-revolutionary Iran with her Iranian husband and their two young children. In the process, she made unforeseen discoveries both of a country and herself. It’s all captured in the book I’ve written called The Road Between Hearts: A Memoir of a Black American Woman Discovering Iran.

​Thank you for continuing to stand by for details of its impending release!

But this blog is about more than the book. It’s about a country whose people and culture are relatively little known in the West and about the ways I learned and benefited from both in the four years I lived there and to this day.
                   
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Question: Have you ever experienced coming across a word, a phrase, an image for the first time—then all of a sudden, you start noticing it everywhere?  

Something like that happened to me a few months ago, when I gained a new understanding of a fanciful little artistic figure commonly known as "paisley." What I learned (or actually intuited in an apparent moment of serendipity) was that the paisley figure, which I had spotted here and there my whole life but never paid serious attention to, actually originated centuries ago in ancient Persia (Iran) as a stylized symbol! A stylized symbol of what, you ask? My follow-up research asserted it represented a shoot (boteh jegheh in Persian) from the age-old Persian cypress tree—reminiscent of fertility, growth, and regeneration!

A circle of paisley figures adorning a tablecloth

Once my research provided that revelation, I began noticing the presence of paisley—a  droplet of swirling colors in the whimsical shape of a seed, a minnow, a mango, a pregnant belly, a kidney bean—just about everywhere! On the decorative plate in my neighbor's house. On the colorful tablecloth we use when we have guests. On my neighbor's delicate metalwork displayed above the fireplace. Stitched all over the makeup bag my Iranian niece Ghazaleh gave me! And even on a collection of various blouses/tops I've purchased and worn over the years. Why, even as I'm typing these lines, I happen to be wearing a paisley print shirt—a favorite of mine from 15 years back!

Here’s the shirt I was talking about! Can you spot any paisley figures or fragments of paisley on it?

Those who grew up in the sixties and seventies (as I did) may recall how popular the paisley motif really was at that time. But my research also told me that a resurgence of paisley popularity appeared in 2024 and 2025!                
 
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So, please consider this post (and future posts on my Instagram page) as my homage to paisley--alive, well, and visible since its creation in Persia over 2,000 years ago. And in the wake of agonizing travail taking place in Iran now in 2026, I ask myself if this year can ultimately be said to be the year of the paisley--a time fertile for growth and regeneration--for the beautiful, longsuffering people of Iran.
 
I hope and pray so!