I once had a teacher remind us that there are hosts of unemployed ancestors just waiting for us to notice them and ask for their guidance! I’ve come to believe and truly feel that this is true. As Alice Walker says, they never sleep! (With thanks to sister Myriah for sharing this in a recent class).
Ancestors Never Sleep
Ancestors never sleep And always seem to know What they’re doing. How is this possible? I ask myself Sometimes I am weary Enough to expire – What a relief I will think. No more obsessing About this madness; Whatever it might be This year, or even this century. But ancestors merely Yawn And send me off For a nap. Not only is life not over, They sniff, It has barely begun for you. There are eternities Waiting just beyond The next bad movie You fear you’ll be Starring in. Go to sleep. Rest your brain. Rest your heart. Rest your eyes And all your thoughts. We have been with you From the beginning Which didn’t exist And we will be with you Until that moment of Non-existence Swings round again. You are attempting to carry The suffering All around you But your back is bending. Let us bear it for you. Knowing as we do That it is only A difficult turn On a never ending Journey Of dissolving And becoming And dissolving Again And becoming Once more; Forever and ever On And On. Save despair, Our beloved Sweetcakes, For a couple of eons Later.
October 24th or 25th – Seattle Peace Chorus Virtual Concert
On Saturday or Sunday evening, 24 or 25 October 2020, after 5:30 pm PDT, a link will appear on the welcome page of our website, seattlepeacechorus.org, to direct you to our premier concert on YouTube. We will encourage you to try the link, making sure that you can view and hear the concert, then to return to the website for the concert program and other materials.
Additional guest artists:
Singer from the Haida tribe—Sondra Segundo
Renowned African-American dancer—Chris Daigre
Cellist—Gretchen Yanover
Please spread the word to your family and friends, and by all means VOTE!
This show is free, but if you would be willing to support our work, please donate what you would pay for a ticket: $10, $15, $20, or $25: Donate to Seattle Peace Chorus
October 31 – 11 AM – Ruhaniat Family Zoom
Zoom link hereMeeting ID: 850 7142 0455 Password: 507622
From Shabda: With all heart we invite you to join Pirani Tamam and myself, with a focus on the Mysticism of Music through the lens of a Sufi Choir Retrospective guided by Maestro Allaudin Mathieu, with original Sufi Choir members Fatima Lassar, Zuleikha, Abraham Sussman, Dara Young and myself. In 1969 Murshid Sam requested our Maestro Allaudin Mathieu to start a “Sufi Choir”! As we began, we met in Allaudin’s basement with Murshid Samuel Lewis in attendance singing bass. Around 1972 our first public gig as the Sufi Choir was opening for the Grateful Dead at the historical rock and roll venue, Winterland in San Francisco. Further exploits had us singing on stage election night at Jerry Brown “ headquarters”, with national TV coverage, the evening he was first elected to be the Governor of California. The Sufi Choir also made several LP Records which are now CD’s.
October 31 – 7:30 PM – Seattle Area Unity Zikr
Zoom link hereMeeting ID: 868 0868 1629 Passcode: 598143
The essence of God is love and the Sufi path is a path of love. It is very difficult to describe love in words. It is like trying to describe honey to someone who has never tasted or even seen honey, who doesn’t know what honey is. Love is to see what is good and beautiful in everything. It is to learn from everything, to see the gifts of God and the generosity of God in everything. It is to be thankful for all God’s bounties. This is the first step on the road to the love of God. This is just a seed of love. In time, the seed will grow and become a tree and bear fruit. Then, whoever tastes of that fruit will know what real love is. Muzaffer Ozak • Love is the Wine
Halveti-Jerrahis • Inayati Order • Mevlevi Order of America Sufi Ruhaniat Int’l • Rifai-Marufi Order
Puget Sound, WA SUFI COMMUNITY UNITY ZIKR Saturday, October 31, 2020 7:30 pm PDT
Local Sufi tariqat representatives and friends traveling the inner path in community and mutual respect for decades gather on the fifth Saturday of the month for Zikr and to make a charitable contribution. Please connect on time. POST TARIQAT Selects a charity, holds post, opens, closes. SACRED ATMOSPHERE No announcements, please.
Based on the words of Martin Luther King Jr.: “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.”
Saturday 17 October 11 am Pacific Time – Ruhaniat Family Zoom. This is a special session because our small group of passionate social activists will be presenting our re-envisioning of what was once called the Brotherhood/Sisterhood Ray and we are now calling the Kinship Ray. It is a program and concentration designed to lend focus and lift up all of the social and earth justice work our Ruhaniat family is engaged with, as well as encouraging collaboration and support for even more action on our dear earth.
Sunday 18 October 7pm Pacific Time – Virtual Whidbey Zikr. We will be gathering online with our friends from Whidbey (and all of you are welcome!) for remembrance of the Divine in each of us.
Saturday, 31 October 7:30pm Pacific Time – Puget Sound, WA SUFI COMMUNITY UNITY ZIKR – Local Sufi tariqat representatives and friends traveling the inner path in community and mutual respect for decades gather on the fifth Saturday of the month for Zikr and to make a charitable contribution. Please connect on time.
This is such profound, disturbing, and finally hopeful writing, that I wanted to pass it on. With thanks to my friend and companion on our Sufi path, Azima Annalouiza for sending it my way.
“We are anxious. We are scared. There is no place to run. There is no place to hide. There is only our love and grief to hold us in the terror of all we are seeing, sensing, denying. We can’t touch the source of our despair because we can’t touch each other. And so we retreat inside when everything outside is screaming. We are sitting in rooms watching screens alone, waiting, as if this is a pause instead of a place, the place where we find ourselves now.”
“We have been living a myth. We have constructed a dream. We have cajoled and seduced ourselves into believing we are the center of all things; with plants and other sentient beings from ants to lizards to coyotes and grizzly bears, remaining subservient to our whims, desires, and needs. This is a lethal lie that will be seen by future generations as a grave, a grave moral sin committed and buried in the name of ignorance and arrogance.”
“We cannot breathe. This is our mantra in America now. We cannot breathe because of the smoke. We cannot breathe because of a virus that has entered our homes. We cannot breathe because of police brutality and too many black bodies dead on the streets. We cannot breathe because we are holding our breath for the people and places we love.”
“Grief is love. How can we hold this grief without holding each other? To bear witness to this moment of undoing is to find the strength and spiritual will to meet the dark and smoldering landscapes where we live. We can cry. Our tears will fall like rain in the desert and wash off our skins of ash so our pores can breathe, so our bodies can breathe back the lives that we have taken for granted.”
“I will mark my heart with an “X” made of ash that says, the power to restore life resides here. The future of our species will be decided here. Not by facts but by love and loss.”
One of my favorite Sufi poets, Hafiz, has been coming into my world these days, so here are three lovely and compelling poems from him:
“Every child has known God, Not the God of names, Not the God of don’ts, Not the God who ever does anything weird, But the God who knows only four words. And keeps repeating them, saying: ‘Come dance with me, come dance.’”
— Hafiz – (translation by Daniel Ladinsky)
The Happy Virus
I caught the happy virus last night When I was out singing beneath the stars. It is remarkably contagious – So kiss me.
~ Hafiz – From: The subject tonight is love – 60 Wild and Sweet Poems of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky
Tiny Gods
Some gods say, the tiny ones “I am not here in your vibrant, moist lips That need to beach themselves upon the golden shore of a Naked body.” Some gods say, “I am not the sacred yearning in the unrequited soul; I am not the blushing cheek Of every star and Planet– I am not the applauding Chef Of those precious sections that can distill The whole mind into a perfect wincing jewel, if only For a moment Nor do I reside in every pile of sweet warm dung Born of earth’s Gratuity.” Some gods say, the ones we need to hang, “your mouth is not designed to know His, Love was not born to consume the luminous realms.” Dear ones, Beware of the tiny gods frightened men Create To bring an anesthetic relief To their sad Days.
~ Hafiz ~ (The Gift – versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)
October 17 – 11 am Pacific Time – Ruhaniat Family Zoom gathering – the folks who have re-imagined the concentration of social and earth justice within our Ruhaniat family, that we are calling the Kinship Ray will be presenting our vision and a call to action. Watch for details of the Zoom link.
November 6th – 8th – Save the Date for a virtual version of our yearly Dances of Universal Peace retreat
The annual North Pacific Region Fall Retreat normally held at Camp Burton, Vashon Island, WA will be VIRTUAL this year, November 6 – 8, 2020.
With the theme “The Altar of Love,” we will bring all our joys and sorrows, fears and triumphs, and place them, with surrender, on the altar of Love.
Leaders Stephen Matin Pierce and Marti Munajat Dimock will present four virtual dance sessions over the three days.
Participation by other leaders will be solicited in the formal registration process which will be released later in October.
Times for deep silence and meditation, as well as gathering and socializing, will also be offered throughout the weekend.
Be thinking of a way to create an altar near you that can be seen on Zoom!
Watch for full details later in October! Namaste!!
To save the world is hard, to save the world may not be an essential task; To calm the heart is hard, to calm the heart may be an essential task. Sufi Murshid SAMUEL L. LEWIS
OCTOBER 1, 2020 • HEALING SERVICE 6:30 pm • ZIKR 7 pm ZIKR & HEALING SERVICE SACRED SUFI PRACTICE of REMEMBRANCE
Love is above all expression; The nature of love is light, expansiveness, brightness, beauty, life itself; Thoughts, words, descriptions of any kind can in no way describe the illimitable; True love expresses itself in life, in atmosphere, in feeling, in heart qualities, in unselfishness. It is life that lives and love is life itself. Sufi Murshid SAMUEL L. LEWIS
