Beloved Family,
We had wonderful 43rd Annual Mendocino Sufi Camp, with all ages well represented and a deep feeling of family and tribe embraced. Welcome new mureed Kahyah Eliyah.
Looking forward to traveling to the Northwest Sufi Camp tomorrow. With deep gratitude for the completion of the dargah, the following week I'll be joined by nine of the Murshid(a)s for the Murshid Sam Dargah Dedication Celebration at Lama Foundation.
Tamam’s health is slowly improving. (If you didn’t receive the letter I sent out two weeks ago, you can find it at the very bottom of this email after the photos.) Her intense pain from her mild L2 Compression fracture is reduced daily. We are still waiting for a clear diagnosis on the granuloma in her lower left lung, which is the main subject of her healing path. Once we have that there will be a treatment plan.
While home I have been enjoying the garden and the local birds, with a sweet visitation from a red shouldered hawk two days back. Libby has been helping with Tamam and at the same time helped me can 15 quarts of tomato sauce and a dozen jars of plum jam.
On Sep 3, I move into my next decade, turning 70!
For our next practice I would invite us to embrace two wazifas connected with healing, becoming whole and making God a Reality. YA JABBAR has the root of setting the bones in alignment, or said in another way, the healer of fractured existence. YA AZIM has a root of bringing the experience of Divine Presence right into the bones.
Inshallah, many of us all be together in the next few weeks, either at the NW Sufi Camp or the Dargah Blessings Ceremony.
If you are planning ahead, please join me for a Sufi Retreat in Maui Dec1-3, 2017. Further, we are bringing a group to Mother India Feb 2-11, 2018. Also this years Sufi Sesshin is not at its usual time in the vey beginning of the year, but February 23 - March 2, 2018.
Thanks you for your prayers for Tamam.
Much love, Shabda
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9. Ya Jabbar (yaa jab-BAAR)
Al-Jabbar is an expression of divine power that allows you to accomplish things or to act in the world. It is a healing strength. It carries the root meaning of setting a broken bone to heal it. Al-Jabbar means the strength to continuously heal all things all the time, the strength to heal brokenness. It is compelling, but only in the sense of stabilizing you in a consistent direction of movement.
When recited, Ya Jabbar empowers the sincere practitioner with an enduring strength so that nothing can shake you. Through embodying this quality your existence becomes unified. It is the mender of our fractured existence.
33. Ya 'Azim (yaa 'a-ḌḤEEM)
Al-'Azim actualizes the divine presence. It involves feeling this presence in the depth of your soul, literally in your very bones. Al-'Azim comes from al-'adaam, which means to grow strong in the bones. It is the experience of the infinite in your deepest, essential self, as well as in the world outside. Al-'Azim means to embody the divine presence in a complete way, a physical way. A most difficult part of human actualization is reaching the stage of being able to bring the structure of your inner realization into balance with the structure of your outward manifestation in the world.
The invocation of Ya 'Azim is a very helpful practice for all who pay attention to realization in an abstract sort of way, but who cannot bring their realization out and function with it in daily life. It is a divine quality that is called on for the accomplishment of extraordinary aims. There is an awesome or overwhelming feeling connected with this Name. The root of 'Azim alludes to the hundredth or greatest Name of God, the unknown Name. See Chapter 10, Infinite Presence.
To hear the pronunciation: Ya Jabbar ~ Ya 'Azim
Youth Evening at Mendocino Sufi Camp
New mureed Kahyah Eliyah initiated at Mendocino Sufi Camp
Progress on Murshid Sam’s Dargah
Harvest time in our garden (grapes)
Single large tomato from our garden
Tomatoes
Libby and I making tomato sauce
15 quarts complete
Our garden plums made into jam
A visitor to my morning practices in the backyard
Black Phoebe in our backyard
Red Shouldered Hawk in our backyard
Hummingbird in our backyard
Female house finch in our backyard
Male house finch in our backyard
Acorn Woodpeckers in our backyard
Local Pelican
Local Grey Heron
For upcoming Events and Teachings, see Shabda's calendar for more information.
July 25, 2017
Dear Family,
Just returned from 8 days in the redwood forest leading the Mendocino Sufi Camp!
Want to give you an update on Tamam’s condition. For the past 6 months she has been treated for a benign growth in her lower left lung with prednisone. When progress of the treatment was checked it turned out the prednisone did NOT work, and now there is a new search for a better diagnosis.
Simply going off prednisone is a hell realm. But as we now know, it also greatly reduces bone mass in women who are osteoporotic.
So much so that on Saturday, Tamam suffered a compression fracture of her L2 vertebrae, which is EXTREMELY painful. After six hours in the Novato Hospital ER from midnight to Sunday morning, they released her with abundant pain meds.
She is now on opioids to reduce the extreme pain while the swelling subsides and healing begins. Naturally, all with lots of doctor visits.
She is still left with answering what is going on in the left lung and the treatment protocol, for which she has recently had another pet scan and needle biopsy, various blood tests etc, awaiting all the results.
Please put her in your healing prayers. And realize she is unable to answer emails for now, so if you must, write me. But just putting her in your prayers and healing lists will be greatly appreciated as I am always very busy with emails.
I will give an update in a month, as the back heals and the new treatment protocol is uncovered.
Much love,
Shabda