All calls last approximately one hour, except for the 4:30 a.m. call which can last 30-50 minutes.

9:00 a.m. Eastern: Spiritual Practice Call: I welcome you to the retreat, and set the intention for the day. I then lead a Sufi chanting and Remembrance practice for the group and may share Sufi spiritual teachings from my lineage.

12:30 p.m. Eastern: Guidance Call: It is customary during a Sufi spiritual retreat to have short periods for students to ask the teacher questions about spiritual practice or experiences, or to just speak what’s in their heart so the group can witness it. These calls often are very profound.

3:00 p.m. Eastern: Spiritual Practice: Again, I’ll be leading a Sufi chanting and Remembrance practice for the group.

6:00 p.m. Eastern: Guidance Call: Questions and insights to be shared from anything that has arisen for you from the day.

Start times vary – Early a.m. Saturday morning Eastern: Spiritual Practice: The time depends upon the Islamic prayer times. See Call details for specific times. Rather than the previous Sufi chanting, this call will focus on a quieter Remembrance using the sacred Divine Qualities, sacred Sufi texts, and spontaneous prayers to enflame the heart with love.

All of the access and call-in information is on the Community Home page. We don’t duplicate it here so there’s no risk of having conflicting information. Clever, right?

There are many different kinds of retreats. Some are really intense and process-oriented.

Not this one.

In my experience, business owners are often overworked, stressed-out and depleted. Combine that with the fact that I can’t be there in person throughout the day to support anyone’s particular process, and it becomes an obvious choice that these virtual retreats are meant to be gentle, nourishing, restorative.

The retreat is meant to combine the nourishment of turning away from the busy-ness of the world with the power of group prayer and support for each other by participating in a group intention. The day is intended to be spent mostly, or entirely, in quiet, except for the group phone calls. Your time will be spent in contemplation, Remembrance, other spiritual practice, napping (yes, rest is an important part of retreating) and some moderate physical exercise, like gardening, or walking in nature.

We begin the day of the retreat at 6 a.m. Pacific Time and lasts 24 hours. I will be leading a total of five conference calls, three of which will be for group spiritual practice, and two for questions, teaching and guidance.

If you’re curious about how the retreat works, you can listen to this 23 minute recording of the material covered during the first half of the first call of every retreat. Virtual Retreat Introduction & Overview

The Four Layers of the Heart and How We Clean Them This is the chanting practice that I lead on two of the calls during the retreat, if you want a preview.

Here’s the PDF of the chant I lead, Al Wird.

Part one, the how-to:

The Four Layers of the Heart and How We Clean Them This is the chanting practice that I lead on two of the calls during the retreat, if you want a preview.

We always encourage any participant to first practice in their own tradition. We make a few Sufi practices available for anyone who is curious or who may not have their practices and want to try these out.

Writing the Teachings

This is a very powerful way to ingest spiritual teachings directly into your body. I have a full description of how to write the Teachings in the Writing The Love download as well as a teaching from my Sufi teacher, which I recommend. You can also use sacred texts, such as the Qur’an, Torah, Bible, etc. You can also use teachings from saints, or master teachers.

If you do write the teachings you take them in very deeply, so I suggest you choose something that sincerely reflects Oneness. Here are some Sufi texts to download, if you want to use them for writing.

• Writing The Love download
• Writing the Seven Stations of the Nafs (ego) download
• Writing the Seven Stations of the Heart download

Remembrance with Qualities

Ideally you’ll be spending the whole day in Remembrance and meditation. In addition to simple Remembrance, there is also the practice of adding a particular quality of the Divine to the remembrance practice.

You can find a list of the names in transliterated Arabic on this web page.

I usually offer two recommendations of qualities for us to work with as a group when we meet for the calls based on my guidance that day. If my recommendation does not resonate for you, absolutely feel free to use your own.

The qualities referred to, along with the number associated with them are drawn from the book, “Divine Names: The 99 Healing Names of the One Love,” by Rosina-Fawzia Al-Rawi.

Several things are true about my qualifications.

The first is that I have done three years of training in spiritual healing in my lineage, and an additional two years of training in spiritual teaching.

Second, I have been named by my spiritual guide a “Muqaddam Murrabi,” which means that I am designated as a community leader and charged with supporting people in their spiritual walking/development.

Third, I completed an intensive training with my Sufi teachers, and received my Masters of Divinity degree in Spiritual Ministry and Sufi Studies. This study included preparing me to guide students in more in-depth, multi-day personal retreats.

Finally, I have led these retreats, in this format, for years, since 2005.

I’ve been trained, prepared and given a lineage transmission from my guide to spiritually hold a group of people in this way. I will be actively, prayerfully working with the group throughout the retreat, not just during the five calls, bringing healing prayers to both the group and individual names of participants as I’m guided.

I get it, being completely on retreat for twenty-four hours can be tough, especially from home. I will tell you right now that I won’t be entirely in seclusion. I will be taking time during the day to be with my children.

The intention is to turn away from the cares of the world. If you can only free up an hour or three for the retreat, and the rest of the time you’ll be working or otherwise engaged, you can still have a wonderfully immersive hour or three.

On the other hand, if you have a doctor’s appointment, or some other appointment that simply can’t be rescheduled and it takes up a block of time, the retreat can still totally be nourishing for you. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to bring the energy of calm retreat into a meeting like that, and returning back to the retreat afterwards?

Frankly, yes, it is a little strange.

Ideally we’d be in a rural location far from electronics and phone, but to do this virtually, we have to make some compromises.

I’ve led virtual retreats for our community since 2005. Each time they’ve defined a special day, and the conference calls have been meaningful and profound for people.Thankfully the conference service we use makes it all really personal. When you call in, I’ll be able to see your name pop up, so I can greet you by name and know you are there. You’ll be able to “raise your hand” if you have a question.

I’ve been doing spiritual work over the phone for years, including thousands of healings with individuals and hundreds of conference calls with groups. I’ve been very pleasantly surprised to see how effective a medium it can be for connection.

First thing I should say is that if you commit to the Virtual Retreat it’s about nourishing you. If getting up in the middle of the night is a hardship, let yourself miss that one call. Participating in the rest of the Virtual Retreat will still get you tremendous benefit.

I will also admit that I am a terrible Sufi in terms of getting up in the middle of the night. I like to go to bed before 10 p.m. and get up early and I’m just not a late night person.

However, the middle of the night, whatever time zone you are in, is a very special and holy time. The veils between the worlds are thinner, and if you take the time to notice, there is a gentleness, a purity, a holiness about that time of night. When I have been up, especially on a retreat, my heart has often had incredible experiences.

If you can join us, you may find that it’s incredible nourishing.

The practice of taking a retreat really cleans your heart. This means that much of the gunk of the world that covers and clogs you up will wash away. As a result, you might be left feeling tender, vulnerable, open.

Be gentle with yourself the next day. Don’t throw yourself into chaotic or overstimulating situations. Do easy, nourishing, fun things with people you care about.