Alone upon her roof under the eastern sky, Rabi’a of Basra used to pray:

"O my Lord,
the stars are shining
and the eyes of men are closed,
and kings have shut their doors,
and the every lover is alone with [the] beloved,
and here I am alone
with Thee." (1)

I have an icon on my altar, a copy of the one that hangs in the front entrance of the chapel at the Big Sur Hermitage, near where I used to live. This icon sits on my altar because it makes me think of all the comfort and feeling of home I experience when I am at the Hermitage, where I see icons everywhere. Yet I have known very little about them.

Bismallah  Er rahman Er Rahim. "I begin in the name of Allah, who is mercy and compassion." These are the words that begin the Dances of Universal Peace. Through this embodied Sufi practice, I find a way to pray that takes me out of my thinking head and into my heart.

Traditional cultures acknowledged the role of the Shaman as a wounded healer. There was great practical wisdom in the requirement to face—and then return from—one’s own death in order to become a shaman or healer for others.