by Jan Shoemaker
It’s hard to keep your foothold in a world where structures are constantly collapsing, where boundaries erode and old forms fall away—from cells to civilizations.
Tag: Jan Shoemaker
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)
Print and digital subscriptions available. Buy SUFI now.
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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Archives Issue #80
FROM THE EDITORS
THE GENDER ISSUE: ART | POETRY | CULTUREWATCH | BOOK REVIEWS | & more…
From Issue #80 on we have shifted the focus of SUFI to how it could best contribute to raising the spiritual consciousness among people of diverse backgrounds, beliefs and experience, and to introduce more diverse interpretations of the Sufi path and other spiritual disciplines in both a contemporary and historical context. Thus, in this issue our featured articles and narratives present expressions of women’s experience and perspective of the mystical in modern life – an Asian Sufi living in World War Two Europe, an American woman experiencing the mystical dimension on the streets if Istanbul, a Sufi scholar examining gender bias through a foundational Sufi Text, and an interview with a rabbi who overcame religious and gender prejudices to reach her goals.
DISCOURSE, ARTICLES, NARRATIVES AND INTERVIEWS
THE EXPERIENCE OF NOTHINGNESS Discourse by Alireza Nurbakhsh
DAUGHTER OF SUFISM The Passion of Noor Inayat Khan by Yousef Daoud
WRESTLING WITH GOD A Conversation with Rabbi Tirzah Firestone Interview by Llewellyn Smith and Kelly Thomson
FROM HISTORY TO HER STORY Women in Sufi Discourses by Safoura Nourbakhsh
UNDER THE MINARET Narrative by Jan Shoemaker
CULTUREWATCH
Low Budget Mysticism / Spiritual tourism in India by Sholeh Johnston
Revealing the Truth/A Rapper on Rumi by Sholeh Johnston
Community, Nur Foundation Working for the Needs of the Poor-Spain
BOOK REVIEWS by Robert Landau Ames and Eliza Tasbihi
A Soaring Minaret by Laury Silvers
Sacred Spaces, A Journey with the Sufis of the Indus by Semina Quraesh, Ali S. Asani, Carl W. Ernst and Kamil Khan Mumtaz
POETRY
Whoever Becomes Nothing Becomes God by Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh
Friend of God by Jeni Couzyn
The Way Under the Way by Mark Nepo
I Was a Fable by Peter Valentyne
FEATURED POET
JENI COUZYN, Poet
FEATURED ARTIST
MINA MOMENI, Photographer ( www.minamomeni.com)
(Front Cover Photo Mina Momeni)
Print and digital subscriptions available. Buy SUFI now.
Under the Minaret
by Jan Shoemaker
Under the Minaret is a compelling essay about an American woman experiencing the mystical dimension on the streets of Istanbul.
“…my mind wandered again to the woman in the road and I felt the tug of eternity. Was it possible my mother had traveled along? I felt the recognition of it open in me. Under the minarets, below the dome of Hagia Sophia, outside the synagogues tucked behind fortified gates, I’d found but failed to see her in a a stranger’s gaze.” (Photo by Timothy O’Brien.)
(Photo ©Timopthy O’Brien)
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