First please note that all Ruhaniat and Inayattiyah events are available on their calendars.
Ongoing Ruhaniat Sufi Events Calendar
There are many different opportunities for online Zikr, Dance, Retreats, and classes that can be found on the Ruhaniat Sufi Events Calendar here:
https://ruhaniat.groups.io/g/announcements/calendar
With all of the distressing events in our world, we’d especially like to highlight the opportunity to join Yahya for the Embodied Soulwork class every Monday morning at 8:30 AM Pacific time. Here is some more information:
https://www.selfsoul.org/event/coming-home-embodied-soulwork/?instance_id=5733
A time to gather and remember that we are awareness, witnessing the many experiences in life through SoulWork practices of song, chanting, elemental attunement (earth, water, fire, air), and sharing. There will be other guests offering active imagination exploration. On Zoom – a free event.
Ongoing Inayatiyya Events Calendar
And our sibling Sufi organization the Inayatiyya also posts a calendar with many different opportunities to deepen your spiritual and social justice practice. You can find their calendar here:
Northwest Sufi Camp
Northwest Sufi Camp will this year be celebrating blossoming teachers and more diversity in the teaching staff. Our main teachers will be Tania and David from Columbia! Check out the flyer and more information and registration here: https://nwsuficamp.org/
Sufi Book Club
While the book club is taking a hiatus for the summer, we will be sending out summer reading suggestions curated by members who have read and been inspired by them. If you are already a member and would like to send us your recommendations, please send them to Nur Mariam (adsimmons@comcast.net) or Wakil (drmatthewsusa@gmail.com), or you can send them directly to the mailing list. If you would like to be on our mailing list please let either of us know that as well!
We are also hosting a movie night on July 25 at 5PM Pacific time. Contact Wakil (drmatthewsusa@gmail.com) if you would like to be added to that Zoom invitation.
We will be watching and discussing two excellent videos that were first seen at the Bioneers conference this year. They are each about 20 minutes long, so we’ll have breakout rooms and a chance to meet as a larger group to share our feelings and thoughts.
The first is a keynote speech by one of the founders of Bioneers – Nina Simons – Navigating the Nexus: Nature, Culture and the Sacred. It is introduced as follows:
“If you’re at all like me, you may be having trouble finding your way through the challenging confluence of crises we are facing these days.” Bioneers Co-founder Nina Simons explores how we can support each other to make our way through the maze we’re currently facing.
The second is a very compelling and inspiring video by Angela Glover Blackwell- Transformative Solidarity for a Thriving Multiracial Democracy. It is introduced as follows:
True solidarity requires stitching together what appears separate into a powerful, magnificent whole. The honed, deliberate, transformative practice of solidarity produces an exhilarating recognition of our interconnectedness and interdependence—essentials for a thriving democracy. Angela Glover Blackwell, a renowned civil rights and public interest attorney, longtime leading racial equity advocate, and founder (in 1999) of the extraordinarily effective and influential national research and action institute that advances racial and economic equity by “Lifting Up What Works,” PolicyLink, discusses transformative solidarity and why it’s necessary for a thriving multiracial democracy.
Angela Glover Blackwell, one of the nation’s most prominent, award-winning social justice advocates, is “Founder-in-Residence” at PolicyLink, the organization she started in 1999 to advance racial and economic equity that has long been a leading force in improving access and opportunity in such areas as health, housing, transportation, and infrastructure. The host of the Radical Imagination podcast and a professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley, Angela, before PolicyLInk, served as Senior Vice President at The Rockefeller Foundation and founded the Urban Strategies Council. She serves on numerous boards and advisory councils, including the inaugural Community Advisory Council of the Federal Reserve and California’s Task Force on Business and Jobs Recovery.
We will be considering books to read when we start up again in the Fall and will let you know if you are on the mailing list.
BOOK RECOMMENDATION
Here is one summer reading book recommendation from Nur Mariam to get you started:
ALL THE DAYS PAST, ALL THE DAYS TO COME BY MILDRED TAYLOR
Description of the book:
Cassie Logan narrates this book, a young black woman searching for her place in the world, a journey that takes her from Toledo to California, to law school in Boston, and, ultimately, in the 60s, home to Mississippi to participate in voter registration. She is witness to the now-historic events of the century: the Great Migration north, the rise of the civil rights movement, preceded and precipitated by the racist society of America, and the often violent confrontations that brought about change.
Review of All the Days Past All the Days to Come:
Taylor is unsparing in her depiction of the years of segregation and of the Black experience of white racism, bigotry, and injustice … this never-didactic book is irresistibly readable, while the richly realized, highly empathic characters are unforgettable. Taylor’s remarkable novel is, in sum, that rare exception: an absolutely indispensable book.” – Booklist
This is a historical novel I highly recommend! Mildred Taylor depicts in vivid detail the resilience of the Logan family as they fight for the right to vote and to live in a land where they can know justice.