FROM THE EDITORS
ISSUE 85 discusses EMBODIMENT: Meditating Bodies, Dancing Bodies, Music Making Bodies, Suffering Bodies, Gendered Bodies, Remembering Bodies.
When religious teaching and practice are predicated on a hierarchical split between body, mind and spirit, the body is often devalued, denied, neglected, or transcended in attempts to reach the truth. When, however, the body is viewed as “the medium through which the divine is experienced and known,” as Rebecca Sachs Norris writes in “A Body Made Holy,” and as our other contributors demonstrate in creative and poetic ways, the body and its experiential reality might be far closer to practical spiritual awakening than the strictures of a religious dogma. As Hyun Kyung Chung points to in this issue’s interview, all of us are embodying God, and through our bodies we all participate in the permeable energy of universal truth. – The Editors of SUFI
HIGHLIGHTS – SUMMER 2013 – EMBODIMENT
ARTICLES
– THE ILLUSION OF SELF
by Alireza Nurbakhsh
– A BODY MADE HOLY:
Science, Body and Ritual by
Rebecca Sachs Norris
– MEDITATION IN MOTION
by Kabir Helminski
– TILL DEATH DO US PART:
The Marriage of the Feminine
Sensible to the Masculine
Transcendental in Rumi’s
Masnavi by Safoura
Nourbakhsh
– THE DANCER IS IN THE
DANCE: Body Listening
for Heart and Soul | Life and Work of International Storydancer ZULEIKHA
by Susan Skeele
CULTUREWATCH – LETTING THE MOMENT UNFOLD: Ansuman Biswas and the Art of Meditation – FILM REVIEW – BOOK REVIEWS
– OUR SKIN IS NOT OUR
BODY: A Conversation with
Robert Thurman and Hyun
Kyung Chung interviewed
by Llewellyn Smith
– SEARCHING FOR THE
MAN OF THE HEART: Sudipto
Chatterjee’s One Man Show
by Sholeh Johnston
by Sholeh Johnston
– THE MYSTICAL CINEMA of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
by Peter Valentyne
– RELIGION AND THE BODY: Modern Science and the Construction of Religious Meaning
Edited by David Cave and Rebecca Sachs Norris
– Sufi Bodies: Religion and Society in Medieval Islam
Edited by Shahzad Bashir
– Sufi Narratives of Intimacy: Ibn Arabi Gender and Sexuality
Edited by Sadiyya Shaikh
– CONTENTS MAY SHIFT: Instructions for Contemplative Movement POETRY FEATURED POET FEATURED ARTISTS
– FINDING BIRDSONG
by Mark Nepo
by Asimina Chremos and Dani Kopoulos
– ONE BREATH by Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh
– OF THIS I AM CERTAIN by Daniel Skach-Mills
– THE DARK CURTAIN by Chris Hoffman
– MY CROW by Changming Yuan
– CIRCLE DANCE by Eve Powers
– DESERT OF EXISTENCE by Roger Loff
– NEW LEAF by Raphael Block
– DANIEL SKACH-MILLS
– BRUCE GRANOFSKY (Cover Photo)
– NIKOLAY CHIGIREV
Print and digital subscriptions available. Buy SUFI now.