Date: January 7th 2009

Golden Gate Sufi Circle

"When the heart acts, it touches everything in the universe."

-- Murshid Samuel L. Lewis (Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti)

♥ This year's Urs of Murshid SAM in the Bay Area, will be held Thursday, January 15, 2009 from 7-10 pm at the Marin Art & Garden Center in Ross, at 30 Sir Francis Drake Blvd just west of the College of Marin. All are welcome!   ♥ The Urs of Hazrat Inayat Khan will be at Community Congregational Church, up on the hill in Belvedere, February 5th 7:00 - 9:30 pm    (Directions)   ♥  The Urs of Pir Moineddin Jablonski: 7:30 pm at the Mentorgarden, 410 Precita Ave, San Francisco GO

"TUNE IN" TO THE 2009 SUFI SESSHIN, NOW IN PROGRESS    GO Come, Come, Wherever you are ... Sufi Classes and Talks to download and experience remotely Talks by Pir Shabda Kahn, recorded at Sufi gatherings far and wide: GO. Murshid Wali Ali's Dharma Night talks, mureeds' Gatha Classes, and (by enrollment) Wazifa Studies: GO. View schedules for Shabda or for Wali Ali.

Got pictures -- from camp or other Sufi events? If you'd like to share them via this web site ... just get a free account on Webshots.com or Flickr.com or Photobucket.com or Shutterfly.com etc, upload your best photos (a few dozen photos is perfect). Then send me the e-mail link they'll give you for sharing your photos, at photos@sufipaths.net

NEW Sufi community web site for 2008: "SufiPaths.net ... serving California's Bay Area, Sonoma County, and the region"
(formerly SufiSonoma.org)

Local Events Schedules: Santa Cruz: Go here and Go here    Sacramento: GO    Pir Shabda's Schedule: GO    Murshid Wali Ali's Schedule: GO

Southwest Sufi Community news GO
Writings of Hazrat Inayat Khan GO
About Hazrat Inayat Khan / original lecture texts available GO

---

rocks crack apart
filled with passions
longing to have
a glimpse of you

soul grows wings
over-joyed with desire
flying in search of you

fire changes to water
wisdom becomes insanity
and my own eyes
turn out to be the enemy
of my sleep
as they long to see you

there is a dragon
devouring rocks and men
causing insanity
destroying peaceful lives
and calling itself love

please
don't imprison free souls
don't change laughter to cries
don't press us so hard
there is no one
but you to turn to

your love demands
nothing less than
my wounded heart
and my heart is filled
with nothing but your longings

the wine jar is boiling over
someone is drinking the wine
and making the harp play itself
the sonnets to your admiration

your love entered my house
saw me without you
put its hand over my head
and said pity on you

this love journey
is surely the hardest and
most twisted road i have taken
i began the journey but my heart
is still dragging behind
wrapped around your feet

-- Translation by Nader Khalili,
  "Rumi, Fountain of Fire",
   Burning Gate Press 1994.