Release of New Site: SOI-Seattle Kinship!

Dear Ones,

I am happy to release a new community website into your care:  SOI-Seattle Kinship (soi-seattle-kinship.org).  It’s aliveness is dependent on your use and participation:  your posting of events to the Calendar,  subscribing to the Site-Wide Forum,  registering for and use of the Group Forums, your Blog Submissions, your sharing of Images, and your initiation of and participation in Community Service projects.

Use the Group Forums to ask for or offer a ride,  share recipes and poetry, participate in a fun activity, advertise items wanted or for sale, offer or look for a job, let others know you are looking for a partner.  Create your own group, use the Groups to organize an event, to discuss and plan social or environmental advocacy, or in another way you think would serve the SOI-Kinship community and wider community.  Invite friends to join the site and Group Forums using the Send Invitations feature.  Read more... (462 words, estimated 1:51 mins reading time)

Things to Know and Share.

Observations on The Spiritual Process of Learning.  By Wajid Gallien

“Every soul at times asks itself, “Why am I here?” This question arises according to the development of one’s intelligence. One may say, “I am here to eat, drink, and to make merry,” but this even the animals do; therefore what more has he accomplished by being human? Another might affirm that the attainment of power and position is important, but he must know that both of these are transitory. Power of any kind has its fall as well as its rise. All things we possess are taken from others, and others in their turn await with outstretched hands to seize them.”   Hazrat Inayat Khan  Read more... (1167 words, estimated 4:40 mins reading time)

The Life Prolonging Influence of the Elements

This approach observes the elements and recognizes their relatedness to one another, compared to just their individuality. In other words, to form our physical body the elements have blended with each other, while retaining their individual qualities.  Earth without water would be dry, brittle, and unfertile. Water would dissipate at a much faster rate and would be unable to acquire the life giving mineral that it draws from its relationship with the earth. Fire would not have its relationship with earth and water that provide some of the material for its consumption. Moreover, it would not provide the warmth that maintains the flexibility of earth and water, as they would freeze. AIR would lose its subtle gift of form from earth, unable to contain its moisture from water, and the life sustaining temperature of fire.  Read more... (631 words, estimated 2:31 mins reading time)

Conversations with Archangel Gabriel

Conversations with Archangel Gabriel                 By Wajid

Jabril – Arabic jabrīl or jabra’īl: The angel Gabriel, archangel of the messengers. A compound word based on Arabic versions of the ancient Hebrew roots, variously interpreted as signifying: God is my Strength, God’s Warrior, God’s Might; the Arabic root j-b-r is based on the Hebrew g-b-r meaning mighty, strong, powerful, proud, warrior; and the Arabic ‘īl is based on the Hebrew ‘el, meaning the One God.  (in some texts as Jebrail or Jibra’il)  ( wikipedia)

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This early morning I am meditating on a beautiful pictorial story, found in the book “The Voyage of the Messenger” by Henry Corbin. I am moved by the beauty, the form created by the words of the story, my heart flirts with memories of an ancient relationship, between lover and beloved. Lost in the experience of the moment, a whisper in my ear startles me:  “If you think of me, how can I not be present? Would you share the story once again?  Read more... (1239 words, estimated 4:57 mins reading time)

Things to Know and Share

Things to know and share by Wajid Gallien

Universal Sufism is a universalist spiritual movement founded by Hazrat Inayat Khan while traveling throughout the West between 1910 and 1926, based on unity of all people and religions and the presence of spiritual guidance in all people, places and things. Hazrat Inayat Khan was himself an initiate of the Chishti, Naqshbandi, Suhrawardi, and Qadiri Sufi orders, and was instructed to bring Sufism to the West by his own teacher, Hazrat Shaykh al-Mashaykh Muhammad Abu Hashim Madani.^[1]Wikipedia  Read more... (2461 words, estimated 9:51 mins reading time)