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Happiness Now!
Offering simple practices that integrate mindfulness, meditation, spirituality, and wisdom as we explore easy ways of welcoming greater happiness into our lives. By redefining happiness as an overarching appreciation for the richness of life, we can embrace sadness, grief, and pain and include them as part and parcel of the joy we seek.
Fazl Frank Olivier has been attending Mendocino Sufi Camp for over 30 years. He has been practicing meditation since age 11, and at 25 learned mindfulness practice from Thich Nhat Hanh. For the past 7 years, he’s been focused on the topic of happiness, blending his spiritual journey with over 40 years of spreading laughter and delight as a professional comedian juggler.
The Heart of Divine Love…A Meeting with Remarkable Friends
“Through the presence of that One Light, the Divinity Within, we are all interconnected.” —Murshid Samuel Lewis
How do we connect with “the presence of that One Light, the Divinity Within”? By using the tools of Sufi Meditation, the mysticism of sacred sound, breath, and silence, we will explore the many states and stages of Light that naturally arise within the view of our innermost heart. Allowing vulnerabilities to be held in loving acceptance, honoring and welcoming the diversity of our unique paths, let’s embrace and share our connection “as Friends along the Way.”
Mary Kenney is one of the many friends in the teaching lineage of Murshid Samuel Lewis and Hazrat Inayat Khan. Her life’s path, training, and love of classical Sufism in Islam began while living at the Lama Foundation in 1985. She is a dear friend and student of Imam Bilal Hyde and has associations and initiations within the Naqshbandi, Chisti, and Shadhiliyya Sufi tariqahs. Mary has been married for fifty years and has four children. She has been graced with the honor of giving bedside care to the dying as a hospice clinician for 20 years.
Cultivating Limitless Freedom – Manifesting Loving Kindness and Compassion
Core lineage Sufi teachings and practices on Awakening and service in these dynamic times, with an emphasis on: the mysticism of breath; the science and art of dance, wazifa, and zikr; music; the walking meditations of Murshid Samuel Lewis; and opening the heart.
Pir Shabda Kahn, a direct disciple of the American Sufi Master, Murshid Samuel Lewis, has been practicing Sufism since 1969 and, since 2001, is the Pir (Spiritual Director) of the Sufi Ruhaniat International, the lineage tracing from Hazrat Inayat Khan and Murshid Samuel Lewis. He is also the Spiritual Guide of the Dances of Universal Peace worldwide. Shabda has studied and performed North Indian Classical Vocal Music under the guidance of the late Master Singer, Pandit Pran Nath, since 1972. He is also a disciple of the illustrious Tibetan Master, the 12th TaiSitu Rinpoche. He brings gentleness and humor in transmitting the rich lineage of Sufism.
Tuning the Heart
Spirituality is not necessarily intellectuality, nor orthodoxy, nor asceticism., Orthodoxy, asceticism or intellectual pursuit after truth, are all the various ways people have taken in order to reach the spiritual goal; but the way is not the goal. If there can be a definition of spirituality, it is the Tuning of the Heart. Sufi Inayat Khan
To help in this Tuning Pursuit, I’ll be offering Sufi Teachings, Sufi Zikr, Dances of Universal Peace, Stillness, Sound, and Silence. I look forward to this Caravan of Friends.
Murshid Allaudin Ottinger is a longtime practitioner in the way of love, harmony, and beauty. As a lifelong musician, he’s presented sacred Sufi music, world music, children’s music, and more in a variety of settings throughout the world. He’s also recorded several albums of Sufi music, jazz, and poetry over the last few years. He is recognized as a senior teacher in the Sufi Ruhaniat Order. He has led Dances of Universal Peace since 1979 and is a mentor/member of the DUP network, Cherag, DHO initiate, husband, father, grandfather—oh, joy! With great thanks to his teachers, Allaudin continues to travel the world and present the Sufi message. He’s helped to steer the Ozark Sufi Camp for 42 years and has led camps at the Abode in New York, Lama Foundation in New Mexico, and Mendocino Woodlands Camp in California, among many beautiful places he has been. He has also helped to lead tours to Ajmer, India (Moineddin Chishti’s tomb), Uluru (Aboriginal sacred site) in Western Australia, and Burning Man in the Nevada Desert.
But most of all, he is looking to help the Caravan of Body, Heart, Mind, Soul of every being That he encounters along the way.
This Breath is the One That Counts!🌹
Hidden Gems – Uncovering the Extraordinary in Everyday Life
Exploring Sufi teaching and tapping into Sacred Wisdom through intention, meditation, attunement, and group ritual.
Yasmin Scott is devoted to the Sacred, which comes forth in many forms. Her deep resonance with light and nurturance led her to mentor and teach art studies to many children for decades. She studied closely with Murshida Vera Corda, incorporating her Holistic Child Guidance course into her teachings and leading the New Moon Light work for many years. Yasmin has helped to birth the 40+-year-old Ozark Sufi Camp and has been involved even longer with the Shining Heart Community in Kansas City. She is a senior teacher in the Sufi Ruhaniat International and is the mother of two amazing children and grandmother to five.
The River
Practice and Writing in the holy manuscript of nature. We will roam near and far to practice together at the river and in the woods, walking, writing, sharing, and creating.
Amina Meyer is a lifelong student of Sufism, ontology (the study of being), and thought work. She is a teacher of the Walks, a meditation taught by Murshid Samuel Lewis to develop one’s embodied presence and attune to the “all of it” through the rhythm of breath and movement. Amina has maintained a Qadiri zikr circle for more than a decade. She has also served as a life coach within her 25 years of training in the domain of ontology and spirituality. Amina is a second-grade teacher, art teacher, puppeteer, and proud mother of three. She lives in Richmond, California.
Singing Your Heart‘s Song
Singing and Dancing have always been core practices in our lineage. I sincerely believe the saying, “When you sing, you pray twice,” which has been attributed to everyone from St. Augustine to Rabindranath Tagore. In this workshop, we will sing, dance, and pray our hearts’ prayers, as well as opening to songwriting through meditation and walking practices. For those interested, we will prepare songs for our Sufi salon in the style of Song Circles, using simple chants and rounds to sing our hearts’ songs.
Gitanjali Lori Rivera has been a student of Sufism for over 40 years and a performing artist since her teens. She loves to blend performance with her practice and is excited to bring that to our beloved Mendocino camp this year. Gitanjali is a yoga teacher, dance and zikr leader, a cherag, and a guide on the Sufi path.
Divine Access through Energy
All we see, touch, and experience of God on this plane is manifested through energy, including ourselves. In this class, we will explore various ways to access this richly abundant, ever-present universal life energy. We will use it to attune to Divine reality in our innermost being and cultivate ever more easeful ways to reach out (or in) and touch God. Methods to explore will include Reiki, Breathwork, Yogic studies, Emotional Freedom Techniques, and Tapping Zikr.
Sadaya Zimmerle is a Sufi guide in the Ruhaniat, as well as a lover of Yoga, the Dances of Universal Peace, Service to the Beloved, and energy healing of all kinds. She did her 500-hour yoga teacher training in India under Guru Vishnu Panigrahi in a program deeply rooted in ancient teachings. Sadaya delights in teaching yoga weekly. Her passion for the dances has led her to become a mentor, host a monthly dance circle with her accordion, and offer the Dances broadly in service. As co-founder of the nonprofit Return to Love, she spiritually directs East Bay Sufi Camp and other opportunities for connection through the practices we love. Sadaya is a Reiki Master and Advanced Certified Emotional Freedom Techniques practitioner, a powerful therapy involving self-applied acupressure. Lately, she has deeply enjoyed teaching energy healing techniques to adults in an outpatient mental health program where she works as an LCSW. With excitement, she is studying to add a powerful form of breathwork to her toolkit. Sadaya created the hybrid practice “Tapping Zikr,” which combines EFT Tapping with Sufi melodic and chanting zikr, in which we remember all the Love and Oneness we are awash in. May we live that truth in all we do and already are.