ARTICLES, ESSAYS & INTERVIEWS
JOHN BACKMAN is a spiritual director and monastic associate and author who writes about contemplative spirituality and its relevance for today. This includes a book (Why Can’t We Talk? Christian Wisdom on Dialogue as a Habit of the Heart) as well as articles in such places as Spirituality & Health and Amethyst Review.
DOROTHY C. BUCK is a writer and counselor. After writing The Dance of Life in 1987 she then went on to get a PhD in Religion and Literature from Boston University and an MA in Pastoral Counseling from Emmanuel College. Her book, Dialogues with Saints and Mystics: In the Spirit of Louis Massignon was published in 2002.
TRACY BURNETT is a PhD candidate in environmental science, policy, and management at UC Berkeley. She studies livestock management and grassland ecology on the Tibetan Plateau in western China.
JOHN L. CAUGHEY is an anthropologist and a Professor Emeritus of American Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. His research involves the ethnographic, comparative investigation of contemporary cultures as systems of meaning. He has done field research in Micronesia, South Asia, and the US.
TSERING DORJE is an English teacher at Ngawa Prefecture High School. He received his bachelor’s degree in English and Tibetan Studies from Qinghai Normal University.
GRACE HARWOOD is an artist residing in Oakland, CA, with her service dog Foxy Lady. She concentrates her efforts primarily in the realm of post-modern abstract expressionism and fine art/portrait photography. Her forthcoming book is entitled The Threshing Machine.
SHOLEH JOHNSTON studied creative writing at Warwick University and was a contributing editor to The Warwick Review. She has written for BBC Audiobooks and contributed to a variety of online and print publications.
IGOR KUFAYEV is a Russian British artist, yogi and spiritual teacher. Also known as “Vamadeva,” which means “preserving aspect of Shiva in his peaceful, graceful and poetic form.” He is the founder of the Flowing Wakefulness Foundation.
SAFOURA NOURBAKHSH has a PhD in women’s and gender studies and has written numerous articles on the Persian expressions of gender and sexuality in Sufi discourse. She teaches at Georgetown University, Washington, DC.
ALIREZA NURBAKHSH received his PhD in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He lives in London, where he works as a solicitor and is the editor of SUFI. Upon the death of his father in October, 2008, he became Master of the Nimatullahi Sufi Order.
REID PIERCE has had a lifelong interest in Indian philosophy and yoga. In 2008, he completed his master’s degree in Eastern classics and Sanskrit studies at St. John’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
ACHARYA SHUNYA is a globally-recognized Vedic scholar, best-selling author and spiritual teacher of non-dual wisdom. She is the first female lineage-holder from an ancient line of Vedic spiritual teachers from northern India and chosen amongst multiple male candidates as the first female spiritual leader of the lineage at the age of 24. She is the author of the best-selling book, Ayurveda Lifestyle Wisdom.
POETRY
ROGER LOFF is a retired psychotherapist living with his wife in California.
AMARA GEORGE PARKER is a poet and novelist. Her works have been published in literary magazines Voice of Eve, Aeva, She Who Knows, inkspace, and Earth Pathways Diary.
EVE POWERS is an award-winning poet whose work has appeared in California Quarterly, Rockhurst Review, Purpose Magazine, Sufi Journal, Third Wednesday Journal, Lalitamba, Hawai’i Pacific Review, Atlanta Review, Archyopteryx: The Newman Journal of Ideas, City Works Literary Journal, Kerf Literary Journal, Whirlwind Review, and Muse Literary Journal. Her fiction has been published in Writing Our Way Out of the Dark, Scent of Cedars: Promising Writers of the Pacific Northwest, A Cup of Comfort for Sisters, The Broken Plate Review and Slab Literary Journal.
FEATURED POET
WALLY SWIST has written over 200 articles and reviews but his main focus is poetry. His books include Huang Po and the Dimensions of Love (Southern Illinois University Press, 2012), and A Bird Who Seems to Know Me: Poems Regarding Birds & Nature (Ex Ophidia Press, 2019). His poems have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review,, Commonweal, The Galway Review, Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac, North American Review, Poetry Daily, Rattle, and more. Shanti Arts Books has published a trilogy of Swist’s poetry, regarding politics, spirit, and nature: Candling the Eggs (2017), The Map of Eternity (2018), and The Bees of the Invisible (2019).
FEATURED ARTIST
PETER PHAROAH was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. He studied art and graphic design at the Witwatersrand Technicon and went on to become an art director and illustrator. In 1998 he moved to the Wilderness, South Africa to become a full-time fine artist and where in 2001 he opened The Pharoah Art Gallery, which features his original artworks and giclee prints. [cover, pp 36 40]
Top photos left to right: WALLY SWIST, JOHN L. CAUGHEY, IGOR KUFAYEV
Bottom photos left to right: ACHARYA SHUNYA, PETER PHAROAH
