Songs of the Soul Festival 2012
Coleman Barks with his friend Shams Kairys This inaugural event was highlighted by such religious luminaries, scholars and artists as the poet Reverend Canon Charles P. Gibbs, who directs the United Religions Initiative, the rolling southern charm of best-selling author Coleman Barks, the transforming work of poet therapist John Fox, the celebrated teachings of Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, and the grace and direction of the festival hosts, Sufi masters Dr. Nahid Angha and Shah Nazar Dr. Ali Kianfar. Syed Saifuddin presenting with members of Taneen on Saturday morning. Sheikha Azima took us to the journey of the Prayers, and Professor Nuria Sabato to the poetic beauty of Morocco. We heard from Dr. Athar and listen to Rumi translated by Dr. Ergin, we learned about Ibn Arabi’s mesmerizing poetic expressions from Nick Yianguo, and Bawa Muhaiyaddeen’s Dr. Katz and about African Sufi masters from our African delegate Prof. Abdullahi-el-Okene. The multi-day festival culminated Sunday evening as the sun dipped over the horizon, with several rounds of Zikr, the sacred Sufi rhythmic chanting that invites participants into deepening remembrance of God. Daniel Abdal-Hayy’s poetry reading open a door towards another day of being drunken by poetry and music, and Dr. Mijares brought us to the state of appreciation for the teachers who have taught us to listen to the songs of the nature. The day continued with the practice and prayer led by a succession of Sufi leaders from around the world, including Pir Shabda Kahn and Tamam Kahn, Musa Muhaiyaddeen (E.L Levin), and Syed Saifuddin who was visiting from Bangladesh. “When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy” - Rumi Music filled the room throughout the weekend as artists including a pair of Native American and indigenous musicians representing the rhymic wisdom of the Yosemite Valley, and musicians and artists in the Maya, Toltec, Olmec, Zapotec, and mexica traditions offered presentations and performances honoring and sharing songs of their land and people. Playing handmade instruments, and attuning to the voice of the spiritual realms through the beauty of the natural world, these musicians invited the over 400 people gathered at the festival to experience the mystery and wonder of the cosmos as it moves through each of us. The Kervan Ensemble performed Sunday and was accompanied by a whirling Dervish (not pictured). Saturday also featured remarks by long-time president of the Bawa Muhaiyaddean Fellowship, Sonia Leon Gilbert, who shared a moving personal parable in which a family of newly hatched birds fall from their nest and discover their will and power to fly through the power and love of a mother’s song as she called to them from the tree. On Saturday evening, the International Association of Sufism hosted a formal dinner celebrating Sonia’s life’s work, and a luncheon was hosted earlier in the day in celebration of the Sufi Women’s Organization. Ya Elah, a spiritual music ensemble based in the Jewish tradition, performing on Sunday, and creating "one voice through Love." The festival was kicked off with poetry readings from Albert DeSilver and Renee Owen, both established poets from communities local to Marin County, and judges for the first annual Songs of the Soul Poetry Contest. The honorable mentions and winners of this contest were subsequently recognized. The contest winners were invited to read the top three poems aloud. For a more complete list of international presenters and performers, see the following album. Audio recordings of each presentation and performance is available for purchase. Continue to check back for updates on future festivals and poetry contests. Songs of the Soul: Poetry and Sacred Music Festival & Poetry Contest International Association of Sufism is embarking on a new program honoring poets, mystics and musicians from many cultures and traditions, recognizing published and unpublished poets by creating the Songs of the Soul Poetry Contest, and is hoping to be able to offer this celebration as an Annual Festival, with the first Songs of the Soul Poetry and Sacred Music Festival held in March 2012. Poets and Mystics, through the ages, have served as instruments and voices of a sacred and natural wisdom that moves through the world. The rhythm and words that flow onto the page and dance into the ears of other human beings, when aligned with this wisdom have often soothed and enlightened the souls of our ever-emerging humanity. In the tradition of the great Sufi poets Rumi and Hafiz, we invite the mystics, poets, and musicians of our time to come and share and give voice to the natural unfolding wisdom of the world. The Songs of the Soul Poetry Contest welcomed submissions of unpublished works of poetry for consideration and entry into the first annual Songs of the Soul Poetry Contest. The contest was fortunate to receive many outstanding and beautiful poems. All the poems were read more than once during an anonymous process of selection. Making selections is always difficult in a contest! Finally three poems were selected as winning poems and five poems were selected as honorable mentions. The poets of the wining poems were given stage time to read their poems at the Songs of the Soul Poetry and Sacred Music Festival. Poetry Contest March 2012 Judges Albert Flynn DeSilver is a poet, author, artist, publisher, and writing coach. He served as Marin County’s very first poet laureate from 2008-2010. Albert has published several books and hundreds of individual poems in literary journals worldwide. His most recent book (due out in 2012) is a memoir titled “Beamish Boy,” about recovery and spiritual awakening. He has taught writing workshops and given presentations at conferences and institutions throughout the United States. Albert also works in the Teen and Family program at Spirit Rock Meditation Center near his home in Woodacre, California. Visit his website at www.albertflynndesilver.com Dedan Gills, Co-Founder of GROWING A GLOBAL HEART has pioneered the idea of “Green Recovery”–a concept that combines stewardship and restoration of blighted urban areas with an engaged dialogic process designed to restore the integrity of souls wounded by the crush of modern urban reality. His work incorporates the principles of sustainability, permaculture design, environmental awareness and the greening of the inner spirit as critical aspects of the recovery and healing process. For the past ten years he has worked with people victimized by efforts at survival in our modern urban environment including people who are homeless, suffering from drug addiction and incarceration. He also serves as a surrogate male role model and mentor to young men growing up in these challenging urban environments. Dedan is a writer and poet and associate producer of Watts Up! a documentary film (in progress) about a young man’s transformative journey. Dedan has studied and received certification in permaculture from Larry Santoyo the chief advocate of urban permacultre. He has traveled extensively and has participated in international conferences on Conflict Resolution, Peace and Global Healing in Russia and Bali. He recently returned from a two-month trip to West Africa, spending time in Ghana and Senegal, as part of an ongoing exploration into the inter-generational impact of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Nafisa Haji, Ed. D. is the author of two novels, The Writing on My Forehead and The Sweetness of Tears, both published by HarperCollins. She studied history at the University of California at Berkeley, taught elementary school for many years in inner city Los Angeles, and earned her doctorate in educational leadership, doing research on caring relationships between teachers and students, at the University of California at Los Angeles. She is honored to consider herself a student of Dr. Nahid Angha and Seyed Shah Nazar Dr. Ali Kianfar. Renée Owen: The Japanese genres of haiku, haibun, rengay and haiga inspire Renée’s poems and wabi sabi art. Widely published internationally, her award-winning poetry is featured in A New Resonance 7: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku and the handsewn art book, Blossoms. Her mixed-media collage and book art is exhibited locally and published in haigaonline, Modern Haiku and Mariposa. A member of the Haiku Poets of Northern California, the Haiku Society of America, and the Wellspring Poets, Renée performs her poetry live with her husband, musician Brian Foster, whose CD, Hear the Earth, captures his songwriting talent. They can be reached at reneeowen@sbcglobal.net. Nick Yiangou holds a Master’s degree in Transpersonal Psychology and currently works as an IT manager in the software industry in California. He is a director of the United States branch of the Ibn Arabi Society, which promotes the teachings and translations of this great spiritual teacher. He is an ongoing student of the Beshara School of Intensive Esoteric Education in Scotland, which is based on the principles and teachings of the way of oneness and unification, and previously served on the board of the Beshara Foundation in the US. Songs of the Soul Poetry Contest Winners First Place Title: I Am by Charles Burack Charles Burack is poet, professor, creativity coach, and interfaith spiritual counselor. At John F. Kennedy University in Pleasant Hill, California, he teaches interdisciplinary courses in psychology, literature, creativity and spirituality and has pioneered contemplative and creative educational approaches. He also teaches at UC Berkeley and California Institute of Integral Studies. Burack has published a collection of poems, Songs to My Beloved (Sacred Arts, 2004), and a literary study, D.H. Lawrence’s Language of Sacred Experience (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) as well as dozens of articles, stories, poems and meditations. In 2001 he received the New Scholar Award from the D.H. Lawrence Society of North America for several articles on Lawrence’s attempt to create novels that serve as sacred initiation rites for the reader. Burack recently completed a book on integrative spirituality and is finishing another book on holistic approaches to creativity. For many years, he has been actively involved in interfaith education, arts and counseling. A former rabbinical student, he was trained as an interfaith spiritual director at the Spiritual Directors Institute and as a lay interfaith chaplain at Kaiser Permanente Hospital. He helped develop the interfaith curriculum at The Chaplaincy Institute for Arts and Interfaith Ministries. I Am In the beginnings I am and in the endings I am every finish but a pause every start but a push or pull of infinite pulsations of endless cyclings and recyclings birthings and buryings bloomings and bustings All I see is I I is all I see all always all always each always all Each a part, a portal, a prism Enter a leaf you are there Enter a root You are here Branch, trunk, fruit Tree of life Earth is sun’s Dark condensed Rays Sun is earth’s light loosened dust Waves dissolve into particles Particles dance into waves Can you see an apple, without seeing the branch, the sun, the dirt, the ants, the spring rain, the clouds, the nearby lake, the distant sea, the farmer, the trucker, the steel plant, the rubber plantation, the marketplace? I am the mother and the baby and the flow of joy between I am the mammaries and the milk and the mouth that sucks blind The trees are my thick hairs, the mountains muscled bone, the seas fragrant sweat the winds living breathe I split myself to see myself to know my nature to gaze upon my face to proclaim my facets With division I multiply With difference I make sense One to act, another to react One to be, another to become One to know, another to be known I make worlds out of yearning for partners in dance Worlds whirl out and worlds whirl in but never do I release both hands Love wrestling is the combat I love most I rip my stillness to make delirious dance and score my quietude to make uproarious song Chaos is my free play order my moment of rest I splinter my eye to make points of view I gather my eyes to know myself completely I burn and burn consuming myself spreading out my wealth that all may be light Everyone a ray rooted in my burning heart Everyone a root arrayed with my fire My heart a bright home an incandescent loam Second Place Title: Wisdom by Tracey Harrington Tracey Harrington is a mother, artist and lover of wisdom. She is indebted to the works of Christian, Sufi and Nature mystics and her family who continue to show her what love is. Third child to a single parent mother, she was taught to go inside the door of her heart to be with God. Tracey learned to pray when her mother’s blue convertible ford wouldn’t start in the mornings to the sound of the flooded engine. Later she found reciting the poetry of women mystics as a natural form of prayer. Tracey was the special events coordinator at Orcaschool, a non profit elementary school that integrated outdoor education in Santa Barbara and together with the community launched a peace initiative for children affected by war leading to the opening of a school in Afghanistan in 2004. Her life has been dedicated to children and restoring a connection to meaningful, joyful work in the home. Tracey and Rob are currently developing a LifeWays’ program for children and families in Marin and feel great joy to be offering this unique program to the community. They can be reached at traceymay14@aol.com. Wisdom Golden grain Sways soft against the sun’s embrace She yields, perennial as the restful fields, in silent and concealed grace At the call of the wild sparrow she wakes, the fields to illuminate Pods snapping in the summer heat reeds rippling on the shallow lakes From some eternal stream she sings, Cicada and bee The meadow’s secret signature the soul’s epiphany. Third Place Title: Muezzin on Market Street by Joe Shakarchi Joe Shakarchi was raised in New York, and has been part of the San Francisco Sufi and poetry communities since the 1980′s. His first book of poems is called Sunrise in the West, and is accompanied by a CD on which Joe’s poems are backed by three musicians: John Densmore (founding member of The Doors) on percussion, Nepali flute player Manose, and Stephen Kent on dijiridu. His writing has also appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle and Poetry Flash. Joe was the winner of the first Common Ground Magazine spiritual poetry contest. Along with frequent appearances on radio, he has helped produce poetry videos. He has taught writing at San Francisco State University and San Jose City College. His influences include Rumi, rock ‘n’ roll, Zen, the temples of Bangkok and Kathmandu, and the cafes of North Beach. Joe now divides his time between the USA, Thailand and China. He has begun writing memoirs about his travel experiences. Please visit www.joeshakarchi.com. Muezzin on Market Street a man as dark as an african night robe and hood as white as the sahara a satchel in one hand a boombox in the other walks downtown market street at dusk tape deck at full volume playing the call to prayer Honorable Mention (5 Poems) Poem’s Title: 2012 by Hamid Edson Poem’s Title: Mother’s Day by Salim Matchette Poem’s Title: Cygnus by Sabura Meyer Poem’s Title: For Rumi by Elsa Slatton Poem’s Title: A Hint of Your Perfume by Rodney Kreps The International Association of Sufism is introducing: Songs of the Soul Poetry Contest Poets and Mystics, through the ages, have served as instruments and voices of a sacred and natural wisdom that moves through the world. The rhythm and words that flow onto the page and dance into the ears of other human beings, when aligned with this wisdom have often soothed and enlightened the souls of our ever emerging humanity. In the tradition of the great Sufi poets Rumi and Hafiz, we are inviting the mystics and poets of our time to come and share and give voice to this unfolding wisdom.
This year’s theme: The Natural Rhythm of Wisdom.
