SoulWork, by Raphael Birney and Suzanna Yahya Nadler

The Process of SoulWork, video by Mariam Baker

Update on Murshid Wali Ali, GoFundMe fundraiser

When What We Believe Becomes What We Do, by Darvesha

Circle of Love, by Baraka Brenda Beeley

plus, Connections

SoulWork has both ancient and modern roots and was brought into this current incarnation in the 1980s by Moineddin Jablonski, who was the spiritual leader of a Universalist Sufi lineage. As long as humanity has existed there have been various ways to work with the inner world to bring us into greater balance, open to supra conscious states, to bring more compassion to ourselves and the world. Imaginal practices have existed in almost all spiritual traditions. In modern times Carl Jung developed his entire psychology through his inner imaginative experiences that he documented in The Red Book. He called this method of inner work active imagination while the ancient Sufis called this process creative imagination. The medieval mystics differentiated between the vera imaginalis or true imagination and the fanciful daydreams of the so-called monkey mind.

Dear Friends,

In May, 2021, Murshid Wali Ali phoned me with a request to help him read through the

poem Saladin from the Jerusalem Trilogy, by Murshid Samuel Lewis and add music. My breath/Spirit of Guidance told me to get back to him with a “yes” and because of his progressive dementia, to also produce a film - which could be edited – and to do this in a class-type setting. This has been a group effort with Vakila ter Veld, Nizamuddin Robinson and Shakur Linkenhoger, our camera operator. We've been going nearly every Sunday to hang out at the Mentorgarten...

His family has set up a GoFundMe campaign to support his on-going care.

If you would like to donate, click here

By Murshida Darvesha MacDonald

Ziraat is where the call of God meets the condition of the world. Our Ziraat practice is two-fold: we dedicate ourselves to waking up to the realization of our interconnectedness; and as we do, our new ways of seeing, feeling and thinking are reflected in our actions.

Thich Nhat Hanh, in his book, Cultivating the Mind of Love, wrote, “We belong to the first generation of monks and nuns in Viet Nam who had received a Western education. More than anything we wanted to help the people of our country during the time of war. But the teachings offered by the Buddhist institutes had not changed for centuries. We were motivated by the desire to bring peace, reconciliation, and brotherhood to our society, and we felt frustrated that our teachers never addressed these needs. Every tradition has to renew itself from time to time in order to address the pressing issue of the day and offer the kinds of practices that are needed to renew itself.” He went on to create what is now referred to and Engaged Buddhism.

Exactly where our practice ends and our life begins is a question that arises in all traditional spiritual lineages. How we answer that can be found in our Ziraat practice which begins with the realization that “the Earth is us!”

Do you want to engage in service in your local community? Don't know where to start?

That's the situation I was in back in 2020. I started out just making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and giving them out to the homeless on the street and in the parks. Then I added bottled water and mandarin oranges. Then I realized there was a great need for socks so I went to Ross and bought socks. The more I engaged the more I noticed how much more was needed on a regular basis.

In December 2020 during an extremely cold winter in Colorado I started making chicken soup and handing that out twice a week. I posted on my local Nextdoor that I would bring food to the homeless everyday if people contributed meals. I was flooded with donations. After two weeks I realized I couldn't do this alone and created an online CareCalendar for folks to sign up to either make hot soup for 24 or make 24 sandwiches with fruit and water bottles with 1-2 people to distribute the food. Within two weeks I had 85 volunteers...

Contact Baraka Brenda Beeley if you would like help starting a program

A selection from archivist, Murshid Tansen O'Donohoe

GATHA: Those who do not breathe fully, in other words freely and deeply, can neither be well physically nor make use of their mental faculties. Very often one finds most learned and intelligent people unable to work as they wish and incapable of finishing a work which they have taken up. Sometimes a person thinks it is from bodily weakness or mental weakness or lack of enthusiasm or loss of memory, not knowing that it is very often a matter of regularizing the breath.

TASAWWUF: All the processes of inner disciplines are directed toward proper breathing, or adopting from proper breathing, proper outlooks on life. We cannot know the values of right breathing until we try them. Here we are given at least a mental picture of slow breathing, moderate breathing, and rapid breathing. But when we surrender to God, when we practice Darood or Wazifa, in this state of surrender the body and mind will breathe correctly without any conscious effort...continue reading

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Recordings: Video and Audio