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. 

• 

  Wali Via
  

  Wali Via

  Wali 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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  Jabriel Hasan
  

  Jabriel Hasan

  Jabriel Hasan is a graduate of Union Presbyterian Seminary and currently a student at the College of William and Mary studying counseling. He is a returned Peace Corps Volunteer and a former resident of Richmond Hill, an ecumenical Christian community and retreat center in Richmond, Virginia. He is also a founding member and officer of the Black Coalition of Change, a local community organization also in Richmond. As of spring 2023, Jabriel is an ordained Healing Cherag within the Inayatiyya.

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  Jamia Haqq
  

  Jamia Haqq

  Jamia Haqq (Eila Paul) of Tainui descent has been walking a spiritual path all her life. Introduced to the Inayatiyya in 1997 she was soon initiated by the late Murshida Halima McEwan at the Sharda Centre, Aotearoa/New Zealand. Through her Maori heritage, having a strong connection with nature drew her to the Inayatiyya’s annual Summer Camp in Switzerland in 2002, where she was initiated into Ziraat by Pir Zia. In the last 15 years she has been a trustee, and at times custodian and kaitiaki/guardian, of the Sharda Centre, caring for the beautiful natural native forest, stream and visitors with an outward expression of her inner path.

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  Alia Patricia Michael
  

  Alia Patricia Michael

  Alia Patricia Michael is a long-time Sufi initiate, a Cherag and a Farmer in the Ziraat. She has gardened, farmed and designed landscapes her whole adult life. She has been a Permaculture teacher and mentor for nearly 40 years. She founded an earth-bonded church in Austin, Texas, and uses mystical insight to inform her work of land repair. She has advanced degrees in art, organic agriculture and sustainable systems design. She designs every landscape as an altar, with Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Ether woven
  into designs of lasting practicality and beauty. You can see her professional work
  at https://patriciamichaeldesign.com.

• 

  Lakshmi Lorena Tamariz
  

  Lakshmi Lorena Tamariz

  Lakshmi Lorena Tamariz lives her life in the Service of Universal Peace and is
  recognized as a sheikha and siraj by the Sufi Ruhaniat International. Glimpses of the universality of religious ideals came early in life for Lakshmi. For 20 years she and her spouse Arif have held a local Sufi circle in Cuenca Ecuador. In addition to weekly Sufi circles, she offers worship services and retreats. She is a leader and mentor for the Dances of Universal Peace and a Kundalini Yoga Teacher whose current primary spiritual practice is holding the home/family space while raising strong and beautiful daughters. Leading a circle has been a beautiful teacher for Lakshmi to deepen in responsibility, commitment, permanency, accompaniment, unity, devotion and service.

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  Maboud Swierkos
  

  Maboud Swierkos

  Maboud Swierkos is a longtime mentor of the Dances of Universal Peace. He lives in Santa Fe, NM where he co-leads public dance circles and bi annual Wazifah Dance Intensive Retreats. During the pandemic he and his wife, Tara Andrea, led Wazifah focused Zoom programs such as “The Wisdom of Our Wounding,” and “Our Changing and Aging Bodies”. Maboud is a guide in the Sufi Ruhaniat International. His work with the asma ul husna and extensive compilation of wazifa inspired dances & body prayers has touched people throughout the world. Maboud practices nature photography as meditation and contemplation. He has published a booklet of nature photographs called ’The Colors Of Unity’ Contemplating the Beautiful Names of the Beloved Through Images of Nature. Maboud works as a licensed psychotherapist in Santa Fe, using mindfulness-centered counseling approaches, Sufi-based depth psychology and Heart Rate Variability biofeedback methods.

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  Moetu-Taiha
  

  Moetu-Taiha

  Moetu-Taiha is a Maori woman from the tribes of Ngai Tuhoe and Ngati Kahungungu, Aotearoa-NZ. She is a member of “Grandmothers Circle the Earth” and a core member of “The Grandmothers of the Sacred WE”. She is a Healer and specializes in Spiritually guided Self-Empowerment workshops in Aotearoa, Europe and Turtle Island.
  From early childhood, Moetu-Taiha has been guided by the Spiritual realm and the connection to her Ancestors has strengthened as she’s “grown”. Moetu “reads” the subconsciousness of her clients and discovers correlations and contradictions to their conscious self-perception. Her compassionate and individualistic approach guides them to a deeper understanding of self, thereby opening pathways to healing. By utilizing her unique ability to access information and active help from the Spiritual realm, this often results in surprising clarity and efficiency. She is also a Naturopath, Reiki Teacher/Master and Counselor and Trainer for Holistic Maori Social Service Organizations with a focus on Indigenous Family and Tribal work.

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  Pamela Fetterman
  

  Pamela Fetterman

  Pamela Fetterman has 33 years of experience in environmental and ecological resource management, restoration, permitting, and water use regulation. Ms. Fetterman began her career in 1989 as an intern for Sarasota County in southwest Florida and worked in the field of environmental science beginning from entry level positions of field and lab technician to now a principal of her own environmental consulting firm, EcoGENESIS, LLC. Ms. Fetterman received her B.A in Environmental
  Studies from New College of Florida in 1992 and went on to receive her M.S. in Environmental Science and Policy from the University of South Florida in 2007. During this time Ms. Fetterman has maintained full-time employment, with a cumulative 17 years of experience in the public sector and 16 years of experience in the private sector. Notable projects that Ms. Fetterman designed, permitted and provided
  or provides implementation/operational consulting services include the Gulf Coastal Plains Wetland Mitigation Bank, Phase 1 (Texas), Zachary Umbrella Mitigation Bank (Louisiana) and Cherry Lake Wilderness Preserve (Florida), among others. Over the years Ms. Fetterman has accumulated broad experience in many water resource, environmental and ecological sectors, with the last 20 years focused on wetland
  delineation and functional assessment, permitting, and wetland and habitat restoration/mitigation design and implementation. Ms. Fetterman is also an accomplished musician and an ordained minister of Universal Worship. She is as comfortable in the field as she is on the stage. When not building her consulting business, she loves gardening and going on adventures with her beagle mix Chloe in their retro Serro Scotty camper, hiking and kayaking, and esoteric studies.

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  Perry Pike
  

  Perry Pike

  Perry Pike completed a multi-religious Masters in Divinity program in 2009 and is a
  sheikh and siraj in the Sufi Ruhaniat International (SRI). Perry lives the Service of
  Universal Peace as an end-of-life chaplain for Duke University Hospice (Durham, NC, US); as a guest faculty member of the Chaplaincy Institute (Berkeley/CA/US); and as chair of the SRI Siraj Circle. Perry is a body prayer facilitator, devotional singer, whirling dervish (Mevlevi Sufi Order), ecstatic dancer, all-around-organizer, and genderqueer educator. Perry also practices husbandry on a 2.5-acre farm with spouse Richard, a flock of chickens, a school of koi fish, a dog and a cat.

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  Rahmana Dziubany
  

  Rahmana Dziubany

  Rahmana Dziubany has been guided in a very young age to India as her spiritual
  home. She is the founder of the nonprofit BlessAnanda charity trust ( Blessananda.de ) and has set up a support system for Dalit children and their families in Tamil Nadu.
  Initially blessed by Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan 1985, she later joined the Ruhaniat where she serves as a Murshida, Siraj and senior mentor of the Dances of Universal Peace. Her Ananda House northeast of Berlin (www.haus-ananda-brandenburg.de) serves as an international nature and retreat center and regional meeting point for cultural activities. Rahmana as one of the early founding members of the German Green Party 1980 has been a peace and environmental activist since and is bringing people on sacred sites in Germany and India to bring healing to human hearts and the heart of Mother Earth.

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  Chanda Shannon Gorres
  

  Chanda Shannon Gorres

  Chanda Shannon Gorres, MDiv, MA, is a spiritual director, board certified chaplain,
  and nature therapy guide on Kanza lands in northeast Kansas, USA. Along with her
  spouse and child, she shares sacred life with 20 acres of plants, animals, and
  minerals. Her roots are Catholic, Progressive Protestant, Yogic, Buddhist, and
  awakening poetry. She is queer and a Cherag in the Sufi Ruhaniat International.

• 

  Sharifa Oppenheimer
  

  Sharifa Oppenheimer

  Sharifa 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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  Steffen Schneider
  

  Steffen Schneider

  Steffen Schneider is the Co-Founder for the Institute for Mindful Agriculture and Director Emeritus of Farm Operations at Hawthorne Valley Farm. Steffen finished his agricultural university studies in Giessen, Germany in 1982. He has been a Biodynamic practitioner since 1983, first in Wisconsin, and since 1989 at Hawthorne Valley Farm. He loves working with livestock, especially dairy cows, and his passion for Biodynamics continues to grow. He is convinced that a spiritually grounded agriculture is a major
  lever for societal transformation. He has given workshops and lectured at numerous national and international conferences. Through the Institute for Mindful Agriculture, he is currently engaged in food justice projects in the Hudson Valley of New York and supports food systems change in collaboration with several agricultural ventures, locally and nationally. Currently he serves on the Board of the Biodynamic Demeter Alliance as treasurer. He lives with his partner Rachel in Columbia County, NY and is grateful to be able to spend more time with his two sons and three granddaughters.