Exploring Kinship:
Attuning to the Need of the Day
Saturdays, Sep 20, Oct 25, Nov 15 & Dec 20, 2025
4:00 – 5:15 pm PT (Los Angeles), 7:00 – 8:15 pm ET (New York)
Overview
Kinship cultivates the natural connection of one heart to another, fostering harmony, goodwill, and caring action. Kinship inspires people to work together to serve those in need, to protect and restore the web of life on Earth, and to create a more just and beautiful world.
In our next series, we’ll explore topics such as awakening to kinship, belonging, embodiment, and mutual aid. Join us on Saturday September 20, October 25, November 15, and December 20, as we dive deeper into Kinship. All are welcome to attend.
Dates & Themes
- Saturday, Sep 20—Awakening to Kinship
- Saturday, Oct 25—Belonging
- Saturday, Nov 15—The Embodiment of Kinship
- Saturday, Dec 20—Mutual Aid: A Moral Ideale
Please see below for descriptions of all four gatherings.
Details
All sessions are from 4-5:15 pm Pacific Time/7-8:15 pm Eastern Time. For those in Oceania, sessions will be on Sundays at 11am in Sydney Australia and 1pm in New Zealand.
All are welcome to attend. This program is open and free to the public. Come to all or any part of the series. Video recordings of each class can be found on the Inayatiyya Vimeo page.
If you have questions about Kinship, or about this series, please email us at kinship@inayatiyya.org. For registration questions, please email astana@inayatiyya.org.
Exploring Kinship Gathering Descriptions
20th September: Awakening to Kinship
How is Kinship awakening in our world today—and why does it matter now more than ever?
In this opening session, we’ll journey into the roots of the Kinship Activity: its origins, its purpose, and how it continues to evolve in our world today. We’ll explore the foundational principles that guide this path and reflect on how we each find our place within it.
Our conversation will bring us to the praxis of Kinship in the present day. Together, we’ll ask: How can we practice kinship in everyday life? How can we meet the call for connection, care, and spiritual friendship in a fragmented world?
Whether you’re new to the Kinship Activity or seeking deeper understanding, this session offers a warm welcome and an invitation to begin walking this path—together.
25th October: Belonging
In this session we will explore the theme of belonging in all its many layers. We all feel the need to belong—to our families, our communities, to ourselves and the One to name just a few. What does belonging feel like? Why is it so important to us? What if belonging is not so much a state but more of a set of skills that we need to learn? Join us and find out.
15th November: The Embodiment of Kinship
Join Raqib as we explore how the state of our nervous system shapes our capacity for connection—with ourselves, with others, and with all of life. Drawing from the wisdom of Polyvagal Theory and the Sufi path of the heart, we’ll consider kinship not as a concept, but as a living, embodied experience—one that emerges through safety, presence, and attunement.
Through gentle practices of breath, awareness, and shared presence, we’ll explore how co-regulation opens the doorway to spiritual friendship and communion with the natural and unseen worlds. This offering invites us into deeper intimacy with life itself—where kinship is not only understood, but felt as a rhythm we can live and move within.
20th December: Mutual Aid: A Moral Ideal
Mutual aid is a voluntary, collaborative exchange of resources and services for common benefit that take place amongst community members to overcome social, economic, and political barriers to meeting common needs. It operates with the assumption that cooperation, rather than competition, is what strengthens and grows communities. Examples of mutual aid include food and meal collectives, clothing exchange events, networks to deliver medicines to those in need, community pantries, and even little free libraries. Within Murshid’s teachings, mutual aid could be viewed as an expression of The Seventh Sufi Rule, that “there is One Moral, the love which springs forth from self-denial and blooms in deeds of beneficence”
During this Kinship Circle, Khatidja will discuss mutual aid, explore it as an example of love in action, and how one might become involved with mutual aid groups in your area. There will also be time for Q&A.
Speakers
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Khatidja Rodriguez-RuizKhatidja Rodriguez-Ruiz was initiated into the Inayatiyya in 2008 and is a graduate of the Suluk Academy (Naubahar). She has previously served the Inayatiyya as a Kinship Council Member, as a member of the North American Board of Trustees, and as a chair of the Fundraising Committee. Khatidja has focused her academic studies in the area of urban community and public policy. In her daily life, she works in education philanthropy with a goal of expanding accessibility and inclusivity in higher and performing arts education. She is passionate about building networks of community and mutual aid, as well as elevating the visibility of marginalized groups. She is motivated by the belief that our diverse outlooks and experiences make us a stronger whole, if we work collaboratively to weave a unifying ideal of love, harmony, and beauty. She currently lives in Forest Hills, NY with her husband Wesley.
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Majid VowellsMajid David Vowells is the Kinship representative for Aotearoa New Zealand and discovered the Sufi path when he moved there over twenty-five years ago. The Maori, Pacifica, and African cultures he has met have shown him much about the living experience of kinship. He has taught in culturally diverse schools and seen the challenges refugees face. He shares the experience of being an immigrant with his Ethiopian wife and her extended family. They have two adult children, and Majid has grandchildren in England and Japan. He has found that the message of Hazrat Inayat Khan, and particularly the teachings on kinship are a potent way for the human family to work toward unity and peace in these troubled times.
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Raqib Jonah YakelRaqib Jonah Yakel was initiated into the Inayati Order by Pir Vilayat in 2000. For many years, he was an active member of the Washington, DC, Baraka Center and is a graduate of both the Suluk Academy (Gulzar/2015) and the Raphaelite Program with Himayat Inayati. He spent ten years in Kansas City, where he led a Sufi center and later served as a mentor for the Suluk classes of Naubahar and Na-koja-abad. His service in the Kinship Activity began in 2010 as a rider for the Spirit Rides the Wind fundraiser, a five-day bike ride from Washington, DC, to the Abode of the Message. He later led early Kinship circles in Kansas City. After several years focused on health and healing, he returned to the Kinship Council in 2023. Professionally, Raqib is a chiropractor and functional medicine practitioner specializing in brain health, chronic inflammatory conditions, and mold-related illness. In addition to his private practice, he works closely with Raqib Kogan at the George Washington Center for Integrative Medicine in Washington, DC. Raqib currently resides near Portland, OR, with his wife, Jeni.
