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Date: December 15-17, 2006
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Salam Alaykom and Welcome to the Las Vegas retreat summary. With clear intentions and hearts focused on The One Who is Worshipped, foqara and faqirat of the Tariqa began traveling to the December retreat at the Life Giving Spring Retreat Center in Boulder City, Nevada. For many, life had other plans. An unusual number of ailing relatives and broken airplanes and bad weather events redirected them away from our gathering and back towards important events. Gradually we heard disappointed regrets from those who were turned back and promised our friends we would pray twice as hard, eat twice as much, and laugh too loudly together in their honor.
Those of us that arrived on Friday found the Las Vegas brothers and sisters had been working overtime to host our retreat. We had an especially spirited practice that night and as usual stayed up too late marveling at this beautiful collection of intelligent, energetic, sincere brothers and sisters. Members from Virginia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Massachusetts, Florida, Virginia, Washington (D.C. and state) then continued practices and prayers on Saturday, and that evening enjoyed an amazing meal of freshly slaughtered lamb in a festive atmosphere. Muslim brothers and sisters from the local community joined us to bolster our efforts and dine together.
Sidi Mounir was to be the featured speaker, but his own travel difficulties brought him instead to Paris, France. There he joined us via a live internet video feed, and for an hour we were all present, awake together with members of the Tariqa in Paris. He spoke of his hopes for a peaceful world, of the inclusiveness of Sheik Hamza’s teachings, and of his hopes to meet us all in person one day. All the members present introduced themselves one at a time, in Arabic, French, and English, and Sidi was welcoming and playful and happy to be with us all. In the same way, we ‘met’ the assembled Parisians, including one from Tokyo! The video feed ended with devotional singing by both groups in concert.
It was a technological triumph the heart, and the aging techno-geeks in the audience could only marvel at the skill of the brothers who made it all work.
The usual elements of retreat bliss, travel exhaustion, sleep deprivation, fine food, and glorious company sent us all on our mildly delirious ways on Sunday, back to homes and businesses and families and a better understanding of ourselves and one another. Many reported a re-invigorated connection with the Sheik and the practices, and certainly with the real people in the room who were discriminating between sleep and wakefulness, conditioning and present consciousness, the ego and the Self.
Work has already begun on a retreat for the late spring.
May Allah be pleased!
Akbar Perk Clark (Tucson, AZ)
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