Tag: Altruism

Archives Issue #84: Altruism, Healing and Sufism in West Africa

FROM THE EDITORS

In this Issue of SUFI, Dr. Alireza Nurbakhsh tells us altruism is fundamental not only to our spirituality but to our identity as human beings. Examples of this are found in the powerful healing combination of Sufism and shamanism embodied by Shaikh Rahmi Oruç Güvenç and in the ancient Blessing Way chants of Medicine Woman Sheila Goldtooth. Readers will also find in this Issue a fascinating exploration of Sufism in West Africa through the eyes of a contemporary Sufi Shaikh in Senegal.

DISCOURSE, ARTICLES, NARRATIVES AND INTERVIEWS

CARING FOR OTHERS Sufism and Altruism Discourse by Dr Alireza Nurbakhsh | Read entire discourse >

SHAMANIC TRADITIONS AND SUFISM Oruç Güvenç and the Healing Power of Music by Azize Güvenç and Yousef Daoud | Read more >

SUFISM IN WEST AFRICA by Zachary Wright

BLESSING WAY SINGER A Visit with Navajo Medicine Woman Sheila Goldtooth Interviewed by Chara Nelson, Photography by Alex Cowie

SENEGAL, SUFISM & POLITICS A Conversation with Seydou Diop Interviewed by Annie Stopford and Eugene Ulman | Read more >

THE ENORMITY CLUB Narrative by Jan Shoemaker | Read more >

CULTUREWATCH

MERCAN DEDE Turns the Tables on Sufism by Michele Rousseau | Read more >

HELIOFANT PRODUCTIONS I, Pet Goat II by Sholeh Johnston

JESSIKA KENNEY Singing from the Heart by Sholeh Johnston

FILM REVIEW Beasts of the Southern Wild by Peter Valentyne

BOOK REVIEWS by Peter Valentyne
Seven Thousand Ways to Listen
(Mark Nepo)
The Divine Flood (Rudiger Seesemann)
Saracen Chivalry (Pir Zia Inayat-khan)
In this Forest of Monks (Daniel Skach-Mills)

POETRY

From Him by Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh
Prayer of the White-Tailed Tropical Bird by Eve Powers
Attendant Spirits by Mark Nepo
Silence by Alex Cowie
We are all Born Naked into this World by Robert Sternau
To Love by Roger Loff The Obedience of Iblis, the Devil by David Sulivan

FEATURED POET

MARK NEPO Poet & Philosopher(marknepo.com)

FEATURED ARTIST

YARI OSTOVANY Painter (yariostovany.com)

(front cover artwork: Bear Bull Shaman, Blackfoot Medicine Man by Otto Rapp)

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The Enormity Club

By Jan Shoemaker

Gazing out at the deep, glacial lake,carved out of the earth’s surface over a million years earlier, where kids were shrieking and jumping from rafts, I pushed my feet into the cool sand beneath the hot surface and squinted back at my own history. I traced it familiarly through the cottages and lakes of my childhood, then back more philosophically along a timeline that began with my mother and led all the way through the glacial days and the molten days, back to the big bang itself – the one event that links us all, our single family reunion. And, sighing over what had been feeling like the great weight of care-giving, I considered the obligations of daughters to mothers and wondered where they left off, unable or perhaps unwilling to see beyond the makeshift and unnatural borders I had thrown up: her and me.

In “The Enormity Club,” essayist Jan Shoemaker reflects on the philosophical reverberations brought about by caring for her elderly mother.  Studying her own feelings of resistance to the disappearance of things she loves, she uses ready humor and stringent thinking to consider that perhaps the things that separate us really are a lie.

(Photo of Ron Mueck sculpture © Mike Bruce Gate Studios, www.gatestudios.com)

 

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