Sufi Healing Retreat North America

Speakers

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  Devi Tide
  

  Devi Tide

  Devi Tide is the Kefayat (Head) and Vice President of the Sufi Healing Order in North America, New Zealand and Australia. She has over thirty years of experience as a teacher of healing and the esoteric sciences, bringing the qualities of wisdom, heart, subtlety, humor, and intelligence to her role. Devi has contributed to and offered programs in India, Australia, New Zealand, Europe and North America. In her seminars, public speaking, and individual sessions and retreats, Devi represents the inner vitality and harmony of the body, mind and spirit, the vitality of our interconnected world, as well as personal transformation. 

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  Jamila Cranston-Buckley
  

  Jamila Cranston-Buckley

  Jamila Cranston-Buckley is a student of life. She has worked in the fields of Well Being for 40 years. A practitioner of Oriental Healing, Herbal Medicine and Acupuncture, Jamila continues to deepen in understanding the Five Elements as they manifest through every aspect of life. She treasures the philosophy of Wholeness and Interdependence of living systems found in approaches such as Sufi teachings, Oriental Medicine and ‘Perma-Dynamics’. Her passions are gardening, exploring wellbeing through movement, eating well, being in community, growing communication skills, cultivating compassion and consciously working with all states of mind. Her focus is tuning and polishing her Heart-Being, to listen more fully and deeply to self, others and life. Jamila is the Inayatiyya’s National Representative for New Zealand and holds the work of the ‘Inner School’. She guides individual and group retreats to tend heart, soul, unfold unique gifts and purpose of life.

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  Eileen Alia Yager M.D.
  

  Eileen Alia Yager M.D.

  Eileen Alia Yager, M.D. is a pediatrician and Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. She is Director of the Integrative Pain/Symptom Management Clinic at Children’s Hospital Colorado. She gives workshops on mindfulness practices, meditation, pain relief, and stress reduction. In 2016, Alia received the Outstanding Faculty Service Award from the Medical Staff at Children’s Hospital. Alia serves as a senior teacher in the Inayatiyya Inner School, a Shafayat (senior teacher) in the Inayatiyya Healing Activity, and is a receiver of the Golden Heart Award. She is a long-time meditator (52 years) and meditation teacher (27 years), and knows the breath as an interconnected energy field, a connecting energy to our body-mind-heart complex, and a guide and connection to the Divine. She says that the mystics know that there is only one being and we are part of it, and breath is how we interconnect.

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  Julianna Takacs
  

  Julianna Takacs

  Julianna Takacs has been a student and teacher of yoga and meditation for over 20 years, originally based out of New York City where she was featured in Time Out NY several years in a row as a top yoga instructor. In addition to serving for two years as faculty at Long Island University’s accredited course in Yoga for Wellness, Julianna has been a student of Sufism in the tradition of Hazrat Inayat Khan since 2002. After moving to New Mexico in 2018 to help open a retreat center north of Santa Fe, Julianna now lives in Peterborough, NH where she continues to teach yoga and serve as Director of Programs for the Inayatiyya.

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  Raqib Misha Kogan M.D.
  

  Raqib Misha Kogan M.D.

  Raqib Misha Kogan, M.D. received his medical degree from Drexel University College of Medicine. He’s the medical director of the GW Center for Integrative Medicine and associate professor of medicine in the division of Geriatrics and Palliative Care at George Washington University. Raqib has been on the Sufi path since 2001 and is a Conductor in the Inayatiyya Healing Activity. Together with his wife Rafia, he completed Suluk training in 2007. Raqib has been working closely with Devi Tide and other Healing Activity leaders for over 10 years and has assisted in organizing and running many annual Leadership Retreats. Raqib’s goal is to bring healing wisdom and practices of the Inayatiyya to more people, especially those who are vulnerable. To achieve this goal, Raqib founded AIM Health Institute, a non-profit organization in the Washington, D.C. area that provides integrative medicine services to low-income and terminally ill patients regardless of their ability to pay.

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  Amina Georgia Feliou
  

  Amina Georgia Feliou

  Amina Georgia Feliou is the Kefayat and Vice President of the Inayatiyya Healing (IH) in Europe. She is the leader of the IH in Athens, Greece and a representative for the Inayatiyya Inner School. She is a psychotherapist following Murshid’s path since 2008. Before working as a psychotherapist, she was working for more than 10 years at the United Nations and in particular the United Nations Information Center for Greece, Cyprus and Israel, stationed in Athens, Greece. She has studied philosophy, psychology, psychotherapy, and library and information science. She enjoys swimming, hiking and practicing fascia exercises. She is dedicated to the service of fellow human beings, non-human friends and Mother Earth to the best of her abilities.

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  Shafia Cooksley ND.
  

  Shafia Cooksley ND.

  Shafia has 40 years’ experience as a Qualified Naturopath, Shiatsu Practitioner & International tutor of Natural Health & Oriental Medicine. She has been the Founding Director & Tutor of a College of Oriental Medicine & Shiatsu for 4 decades & the only person in NZ honored as a life member of the NZ Shiatsu Practitioners Assoc NZ. Shafia was recognized as a young child by Elders, Healers, Indigenous Wisdom keepers & Tohunga (Maori Healers/Shaman) as being from a long lineage of Healers on both her mother and father’s side. She was honored with receiving a National Award for Service to NZ Health, for her part in helping bring Health Practitioners of many modalities together to represent NZ Health Practitioners to liaise
  with the New Zealand Government on Health Policy and setting NZ National Natural Health Standards. She has been a seeker on the Sufi path since 1980 & is a Healing Conductor, a Cherag, an initiate of Ziraat (since 1982) & currently the holder of the Inayati Healing Order for Aotearoa/New Zealand. She is also a Trustee and Custodian of The Sharda Centre. Her interests are organic & permaculture gardening, saving heritage seeds, dancing, and selfless service.

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  Nur Alima Smith
  

  Nur Alima Smith

  Nur Alima Smith is a Shafayat, a Cherag, a Healing Conductor and a Raphaelite Healer in the Inayatiyya Healing Activity. She is adept with various breathing techniques, having studied this for 35 years. Nur Alima brings the Inayati philosophy and practices to the community groups. She has run many trainings for staff and volunteers in Hospice and multiple Veteran Organizations focusing on these techniques and how to heal oneself with the breath. Since 2015 Nur Alima has also led a weekly meditation group for Veterans who have PTSD. Her additional work with the Veteran Community includes teaching meditation and relaxation techniques to those on active duty about to be deployed and those who have just returned from combat. She also leads a monthly meditation session for Hospice volunteers and staff.Nur Alima serves on the Inayatiyya Healing steering committee, and lives in Syracuse, New York.

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  Sitara Mitten-Lewis
  

  Sitara Mitten-Lewis

  Sitara Mitten-Lewis founded the first Sufi Order center in Sydney, Australia in the 1990’s and served as Regional Representative for Australia until 2010. As a Senior Teacher, she also serves as a Shafayat in the Healing Activity and a Mentor in the Dances of Universal Peace. She coordinated the Inayati Order Leaders Training Committee from 2010-15 and helped develop the training module on Sacred Sound. She guides murids and offers retreats and workshops on meditation, music and movement in the US, Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand.

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  Ushi Darena Burgess
  

  Ushi Darena Burgess

  Ushi Darena Burgess is a long-time murid in the Inayatiyya. She grew up in small towns in the forests of the rural Pacific Northwest.
  A deep longing brought her to this spiritual path and the Inayatiyya. She is a Shafayat in the Healing Activity, a Cherag in the Universal Worship, and served on the national Board for five years. She brings spirituality into the world in a very real way, with clarity, acts of kindness, compassion and heart.
  Her career spanned decades of public service. Currently, she co-leads Wings of the Message Sufi Center in Seattle, Washington and facilitates a weekly Healing Service for the World. She acknowledges the interconnectedness of all humanity with the biosphere, and includes a global perspective in all her work.

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  Isa Jennings
  

  Isa Jennings

  Isa Jennings, Healing Conductor and Shafayat, was born and raised in Germany. She came to live in the US, and studied with a Cherokee Grandmother and Healer for 10 years Isa gratefully lives on and caretakes Selu’s Sacred Garden that was created on Kalapuya ancestral grounds. For the last 15 years or so Isa’s spiritual home has been the Sufi teachings of Hazrat Inayat Khan. She feels deeply connected to the Healing Service, guiding healing retreats and offers the Universal Worship. Above all, below all and throughout all Nature holds and nurtures her. Professionally, before she retired, Isa was a Child and Family Therapist and managed a grief support program for children, teens and their caregivers. She volunteered with No One Dies Alone and accompanied patients in their last hours of their life in their physical bodies. She still supports patients and caregivers with Reiki and a healing presence.

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  Mahdiah Esther Jacobs-Kahn
  

  Mahdiah Esther Jacobs-Kahn

  Mahdiah Esther Jacobs-Kahn, LCSW is a Senior Teacher and Retreat guide in the Inayatiyya. She is a Shafiyat in the Healing Activity and guides healing retreats.
  Mahdiah received her Masters in Social Work from the New York University Graduate School of Social Work and holds a certificate in Sound Healing from the California Institute of Integral Studies.