Earth Responders
Wednesdays, April 3rd to May 15th, 2024
6:00 – 7:15 pm EDT
A Kinship Program Designed in Collaboration with Other Inayatiyya Activities
By a deep insight into nature we discover that the creation is the same as the Creator. ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan
The global ecological crisis deeply impacts us all. The Earth Responders program provides insights, approaches, and tools for those who are called to bring deep presence to this most immediate need of our time.
The framework of the training is built on the foundation of the five stages Murshid gave for the development of the ideal of Kinship: Respect, Sympathy, Understanding, Forgiveness, and Unity. By embracing each of these qualities and perspectives, we prepare to serve in a deeply rooted understanding, knowing that when one part of existence suffers, we all suffer.
By appreciating our abiding interrelationship with the natural world, reading the sacred manuscript of nature, and immersing ourselves within it, we are inspired and strengthened to help protect and restore the whole web of life.
This program draws on values and teachings found in several Inayatiyya Activities:
- Awareness of the sacredness of the natural world, as taught in Ziraat, grounds us in the five elements—Earth, Water, Air, Fire & Ether—and their transformational qualities.
- Devotion and prayer, central in the creation of nature ceremonies, are qualities exemplified in the Universal Worship.
- Sympathetic resonance, a focus of the Inner School, bolsters our ability to support and understand each other.
- Transforming difficult emotions like grief and anger is central to Kinship, which nurtures care and harmonious relationships with all life.
These and other qualities support our ability to serve the human and other-than-human communities at this time of ecological crisis.
EARTH RESPONDERS DETAILS
If you are interested in expanding your capacity to serve your local community at this time of ecological crisis, join us for this six-week Earth Responders intensive training.
Our faculty includes Rabia Povich, Wali Via, Amida Cary, Shams Kairys, Abdul Hakim Oerton and Sharifa Oppenheimer, with special guest Mu’izza Mizen.
Each session will focus on a new teaching, with opportunity for interaction. Topics will be presented in 75-minute zoom sessions, with each one recorded. Live participation is encouraged. Participants will deepen their experiences of the topic through homework assignments and online sharing.
Participants are encouraged to spend 30 minutes a day focused on the presented material. If desired, small group, online meetings will be offered between sessions to help build connection and community.
As an Earth Responders community, we will train together for seven sessions, Wednesdays, April 3-May 15, from 6:00-7:15 pm Eastern. All aspects of the program will be offered via Zoom. Advance registration is required. A suggested tuition of $66 is recommended for the whole course and a reduced tuition price of $49. Please see the sidebar to register.
Please note we will be using Tutor LMS (Learning Management System) for this program to access homework and video recordings. You will be sent instructions on how to register for it when you register, and again just before the program begins. There is no additional cost to use the LMS.
If you have questions about the content of the course, please email kinship@inayatiyya.org. Questions about registration, payments, and logistical details may be sent to digitalmedia@inayatiyya.org.
EARTH RESPONDERS SCHEDULE
- April 3rd—Introducing Earth Responders and Introducing Ourselves with Rabia Povich and special guest Mu’izza Mizen
- April 10th—Cultivating Respect with Wali Via
- April 17th—Developing Sympathetic Resonance with Amida Cary
- April 24th—Increasing Our Understanding of the Ecological Crisis with Shams Kairys
- May 1st—Digesting Grief: Forgiveness and Tolerance with Rabia Povich and Abdul Hakim Oerton
- May 8th—Serving from Unity with Sharifa Oppenheimer
- May 15th—Closing Session with Pir Zia and all faculty
EARTH RESPONDER GOALS & CAPACITIES
Earth Responders will help us:
- Strengthen our awareness of and attunement to our shared kinship with all life
- Learn how to provide comfort, support, understanding, and renewal to other humans, as well as to other life forms and communities impacted by the ecological crisis
We will also grow our capacity to:
- Respond to a calling to serve at this time of ecological crisis
- Deepen connections with the natural world
- Nurture awareness of the inter-connection of the whole web of life
- Support and serve human and other-than-human communities in distress or impacted by climate change, species extinction and other environmental disruptions
- Support eco-activists
- Celebrate and learn from the natural world and nature-based wisdom traditions
- Uphold the truth about humanity’s impact on the natural world
- Foster hope that can lead to committed action, grounded in the unfolding reality of ecological crisis
EARTH RESPONDER RESOURCES
Resources include teachings from Hazrat Inayat Khan and other resources grounding us in our interconnectivity with all life, including:
- Ten Sufi Thoughts—Cultivate the ability to read the sacred manuscript of nature
- Nature Meditations—Practice them, learn them, perhaps write your own
- Emerald Contemplations—A practice that expands our connection to the natural world.
- Call of the Earth—Ecological perspectives from the Inayatiyya’s Seven Activities
- Elemental Breaths—A source of purification and balancing
Speakers
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Wali ViaWali Via has been following the Sufi path since 1978 and serves a number of roles within the Inayatiyya, including as the current Vice President of Ziraat in North America. Wali has spent his adult life farming organically and biodynamically at a commercial scale. He is now retired from farming, though the farm continues on in good hands (wintergreenfarm.com). He spends as much time as he can in the wilderness, hiking, backpacking, climbing mountains, and kayaking, and playing with his grandchildren. Wali is dedicated to providing opportunities for people to deepen their spiritual lives including their relationship with the natural world to foster the Earth’s healing.
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Shams KairysShams has been a student and guide in the Inayatiyya for over 45 years, with ongoing engagement in the Kinship activity. He has worked with many innovative organizations and projects, including Berkeley Area Interfaith Council, Meeting of the Ways, Creating Our Future, Seva Foundation, ReachingOut Project, EarthSave, Youth for Environmental Sanity, and Seven Pillars House of Wisdom. His love of the natural world and growing awareness of its degradation led him to focus on shedding light on the roots of the ecological crisis and the profound challenges it presents. He has advanced ways to deepen our sense of intimacy within the web of life and to cherish and protect it. He enjoys outings in nature with his son and friends, occasional flirtations with his violin, and working with authors as an independent editor.
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Rabia PovichRabia Povich, a student of the universal Sufi path, co-leads a local Inayatiyya center in Charlottesville, VA. Motivated to advance the ideals of justice and equity, Rabia is engaged in a local community low-barrier homeless day shelter and an interfaith clergy group addressing inequity caused by systemic racism. Her professional background spanned 25 years in public policy, where she utilized advocacy, research, communication, and organizational development skills to reduce poverty and injustice and increase opportunity. She currently serves as North American Vice President of the Kinship Activity.
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Amida CaryAmida Cary is Director of the Inayatiyya’s Retreat Concentration in North America and its Retreat Guide Training Program, working in concert with an international network of experienced retreat guides and trainee mentors. Her primary focus is encouraging all involved to enter the transformative depths of the retreat process. Amida is an experienced retreat guide herself and has worked closely with Pir Vilayat, Aziza Scott, and Pir Zia. She is a founder of Suluk Academy and has served as Suluk faculty. Amida lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
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Sharifa OppenheimerSharifa Oppenheimer was the founding teacher of the Charlottesville Waldorf School and is the author of the best-selling book Heaven on Earth: A Handbook for Parents of Young Children and its companion workbook How To Create The Star of Your Family Culture. She recently wrote With Stars in Their Eyes: Brain Science and Your Child’s Journey Toward the Self. After writing extensively from her experience, wisdom, and love of young children, she has turned her hand toward writing about other aspects of profound connection. She has been a student of Sufism for many decades and has deep respect for other indigenous wisdom traditions which point humanity toward the sacred nature of the living earth. She offers Sacred Earth ~ Sacred Self gatherings that explore humanity’s biological and spiritual inter-being with our other-than-human relations. Her new book A Litany of Wild Graces: Meditations on Sacred Ecology (Red Elixir Press, Spring 2020) explores these themes through essays, poetry, and litany. The mother of three grown sons and grandmother to many grandchildren, she lives with her husband in an enchanted forest in Virginia.
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Abdul Hakim OertonAbdul Hakim Oerton is a Representative and Siraj living in the leafy Adelaide Hills of South Australia. He was initiated into the Ziraat activity twenty years ago and participates in the Oceania Ziraat events while ploughing in the inner and in the family garden. His work background includes many years as a registered psychiatric nurse and then as a spiritual care provider in mostly institutional settings. He and his partner share a love of nature’s abundance and divine immanence in all its manifestation.
