URS January 9th, 2015
Hazrat Inayat Khan
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Oh, Garuda, now it is my turn to watch friends pass. It comes so quickly. No regrets. We shared a kind Friend, brother. What GREAT fortune that someone raised us from our denseness when we turned to hear.
You worked in rough leather hides and made beauty your way, knives and scrapers. I loved you.
Gruff like our German Sufi brothers. Sympatico.
Rest well my dear friend- you have been very busy.
Garuda introduced me to the Sufi Order- driving from Seattle to a healing conference East of the mountains. There were a number of us in the Chevy Suburban and he had us singing some interesting songs all the way there- 3 or 4 hours- The words were foreign to me, but the essence was so familiar to my soul. Thank you my friend for helping me to remember.
Passing of a Beloved Mystic, Teacher, and Friend
I feel to share with you about the teacher who has been most catalytic in
my life. He passed over in grace on the evening of Friday, January 9,
2015. The following is more about me than him, but I hope it gives you a
sense of how his influence brought me into a place of readiness to serve
through the Dances and how it grew the Sufi community to a new level of
maturity.
So here is an accounting, from one limited perspective:
It was a great relief to me when I met Garuda Jim Kemp in 1979. I had
recently connected with a few Sufis through music. I dabbled. The classes
were interesting, the Sufi choir enjoyable, and the warmth of community was
nice, but I wasn’t captured by it. I had had mystical experience alone in
nature, but not with people, and I struggled in life with being
‘over-sensitive’.
Then I came to Garuda’s class for the first time. The next day I was
leaving on a sailing trip which could have landed me elsewhere, as I had
closed my affairs in the Seattle area. The draw of being with Garuda (and
with my 3 little nieces) pulled me back here. There was something… a
sparkle in my being that I wanted more of and which I had only experienced
fleetingly in the company of others, through music. In an attempt to
enhance these fleeting experiences, I had started adding drugs into the mix
and though there were a few significant moments, it was not grounded or
deeply satisfying over time.
In Garuda’s classes it became obvious that my sensitivity needn’t be a
handicap, but rather a boon… as I learned how to modulate states of
being. Very shortly I was ready to commit to this work and take initiation,
and would have done so directly with Garuda. However, he suggested that I
wait a couple of months until Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan would be in town, so
that (if I felt enough connection with the Pir) I could initiate closer to
the source (closer to Hazrat Inayat Khan and back through the lineage to
Muhammad and ultimately, the One Being). I am grateful for the initiation
with Pir Vilayat and never experienced interest in taking drugs again.
Garuda never sought to have initiates or to be a Sufi teacher, rather he
was commissioned to serve in these ways, so he did. And though he was not
my initiator, he was, more importantly, my guide through these decades. He
endlessly responded to requests for one-on-one interviews with myself (and
*many* others), without remuneration. For me, these precious times
consistently settled into the mystical realm and allowed refinement of
atmosphere. They were always grounded on the earth plane. I become
continually more aware of my potential as he ‘looked’ deeply into my soul.
This looking was felt throughout my core, and it integrated spirit and
body. It was beyond the limited realms that our culture recognizes.
He progressively taught me Sufi practices to further tune my being to each
level, as I was ready for it. These practices supported me through
the ensuing weeks, months, years, and to this day. Each session with
him always integrated earth plane realities of how my unfoldment was coming along in day to day living… ‘to be fully* in* the world, but not limited
to being *of* the world’.
He made a living in those days through his backyard cobbler business. I
still wear my first pair of Birkenstocks which he disassembled to cover the
cork bed with leather for durability. Later he was instrumental in a Sufi
business venture… the Roosevelt Bakery/Cafe.
I occasionally had interviews with Pir Vilayat over the years and have
been blessed by several other wonderful teachers (local and otherwise) in
the Sufi Order of the West, the Mevlevi, the Ruhaniat, and the
Rifa’i-Marufi Orders, but have no where else experienced the reliable
potency of spirit that Garuda nourished me with.
His teachers were Shamcher Bryn Beorse, Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, Joe Miller
(a cohort of Murshid Samuel Lewis) and, finally… beloved Sherif Baba from
Turkey. Garuda lived for a number of years in San Francisco in order to
be close to Joe Miller (while pursuing a business venture with a Sufi
collaborator there). I visited him and he encouraged me to spend time at
Khanka SAM. I slept on the floor where the Dances were born and
participated in one of the historic Sufi Dances in Golden Gate Park with
Joe and Gwen Miller. It included the traditional hike down to the
beach where Joe bought us all ice cream, as was the custom.
Eventually, Garuda returned to Seattle, and upon the urging of many of us
who had worked with him, he offered a weekly Zikr for the old timers,
though he was no longer a teacher in the Sufi Order of the West. Sherif
Baba started coming to Seattle and (like Pir Vilayat), appointed Garuda
to serve as a teacher (one of the very few on this continent) in the
Rifa’i-Marufi lineage. He also blessed him with the name Galip Deedee. A
number of dedicated Rifa’i-Marufis joined the “Friday Flock” zikr and
though it was not a public meeting, mureeds from other Orders filtered in
gradually. During this time Galip was also a treasured teacher of marketing
skills at the Art Institute of Seattle.
I few years ago, Galip started having difficulties and was diagnosed with
Parkinson’s disease. He still managed to do a lot professionally and
support us spiritually. Besides leading the Zikr, he shared with us about
mystical experiences that were a regular part of his existence, spoke
intently of Hazrat Inayat Khans work, and brought forth a multi-traditional
zikr. Gradually dementia also set in and it seems that he lost the first
part of his tenant: ‘to be fully* in* the world, but not limited to being
*of* the world’. Many of us continued visiting Galip and had a variety of
experiences with him over the past couple of years, while he lived in an
adult-care house. Since his abilities and quality of life were continuing
to fade, I felt relief when I learned he was no longer to receive medical
interventions.
One of the annual traditions for the Friday Flock was to have a “Log and
Nog” with Galip’s intense prep recipe, made up directly into a large
cooler. Someone organized one in December 2014 and I heard that Galip was excited about it. I chose not to attend. I had had a solo visit shortly
before that. During that visit, he was mostly in another realm, as he often
had been lately, but his breath (after all of these decades of breath
practices) told me that there weren’t many left. We had our goodbyes.
When I heard that he was transitioning last Friday, it was with deep
sweetness that I tuned in, as he let go of his body.
Al Hamdulillah! …another good death… the best way to bring a good
life into full exhalation.
Ya Shakur,
Hayra Fatah
hayrafatah@gmail.com
206 546-6092
I knew Garuda many years ago when he was in his forties and lived in Ballard. When we met, he welcomed me with big, brown, warm and bright eyes. Over the years of knowing him, he gave me love, full of warmth, kindness, inspiration and understanding. And he gave this same goodness to so many others. All who came into his world were welcomed into his heart and inspired towards a greater awareness.
Because of Garuda, I am a better person. His love helped me love others better. His kindness helped me be kinder to others. His awareness led me to a more open and wise awareness.
Dearest Garuda, thank you for all you have given me and so many others. Knowing you was to be blessed. I will always remember you with great tenderness, gratitude and appreciation.
Zohar ( Edy)
And I will always love you…
I met Garuda when I was 18 and he was 33 (I am 62 now). We recognized each other instantly, and found that even our breathe ebbed and flowed at the same time. My friend, teacher, protector – he opened my eyes, my mind, and my heart – and changed my world profoundly. I had not seen him for many years, and only an hour ago found out that he has gone on – but at the time he died, I fell into an extraordinary depression (I simply “disappeared” whenever I was not in conversation) for several months, and only now understand the ‘disturbance in the Force’ that was telling me that my own soul had flown. Saying that I will ‘miss’ him seems trite. It is impossible to ‘miss’ him. He is in my heart.