URS Date June 29, 2012
On June 29, 2012, at 77 years, Rabia Carol Hunter peacefully left us to begin her next adventure. Rabia was a native San Franciscan, born to Inez and Jack Hunter. As a young girl she loved the outdoors, horseback riding and working as a camp counselor. At age 27, married and with two young children, she was diagnosed with cancer. Her successful battle against cancer motivated her to be, and do, more with “this wonderful life.” She raised her two children Suzanne and Alex Wierbinski, with unconditional love and lots of laughter. She sought truth in many spiritual paths, from Sufism to Hinduism, Buddhism to the Unitarian Church, focusing on the love, harmony, and beauty she found in each. Always ready for a new adventure, she traveled to India three times, lived at Lama Foundation in the San Cristobal Mountains, and developed many deep and loving friendships around the world. As a life long activist, she continually gave back to her community through volunteerism. Her most recent volunteer work included serving on the Advisory Board of the Area Agency on Aging (and Chair of the Legislative Committee), as a driver for Meals on Wheels, as a volunteer at the Charlotte Maxwell Complimentary Clinic for alternative healing for women with cancer, as a cook at Zen Hospice, and as a docent at San Francisco City Hall. Friends and family are invited to the celebration of Rabia’s life which will be held July 29, 1:30 p.m. at the Deer Park Villa in Fairfax.
Rabia Hunter surprised us during her life so it’s not unexpected that she
would also surprise us in her death. Rabia passed away some time between
late Wednesday night and early Thursday morning. Her body was found in her
home in Petaluma, laying comfortably in bed, with a newspaper, several
books, and her cell phone nearby. Knowing that she was facing a terminal
illness, Rabia had contacted hospice earlier in the month, intending to
serve as an example of using this resource early in the process of dying.
She faced her illness and death bravely, thoughtfully, honestly, with humor
and a complete lack of self pity. In other words, with the same qualities
with which she had faced her life.
Love,
Hassan
One of our treasured community members, Rabia Hunter, has passed on. Please send her your aspirations for a wonderful and deep journey onwards, YA SALAAM!
She was one of my first mureeds in the 1970’s, then transferred to Sheikh Hassan Herz, who along with his wife Jayanara, lived with Murshid Sam at the Garden of Inayat. As Hassan said to me with all heart a few hours ago, “I started as her teacher and she became my teacher!”
She lived at Murshid Sam’s home, the Mentorgarten, for many years. Her way of making community was to cook for people.
Rabia became one of the guiding elders of Lama Foundation, spending many, many of her summers living there, and serving on the Lama Board of Trustees.
From before I knew her, she had survived cancer, and continued after remission for five decades to show courage and strength! , all along with a wonderful sense of humor.
She is survived by her daughter Suzanne and son Alex.
Once we know about a Memorial we will post it here.
Much love, Shabda
Rabia was one my first Sufi friends, back in the early 80s. Over the past twenty years or so, we seldom saw each other — but when we did, it was as if we were picking up a conversation that had been interrupted just a moment earlier. Joyous journey, dear friend!
For those who need to put a face to her name, here’s a picture of Rabia from Mendocino Camp in 2007.
Love and light,
Jelehla Ziemba
Rabia was a unique treasure. Once a picture-perfect 1950’s housewife (beautiful too), she broke that mold, after family tragedies (the death of her husband & the crippling of her dancer daughter) to become an amazing selfless, giving soul.
Her devotion & strength in the face of adversity is exceptional, a reminder to us all that we can do the same, despite all the ‘slings & arrows’ that life entails.
Happy Trails, Beloved Bodisattva!
Rabia was so dynamic, genuine, and warm! Her friendly presence during visits to Lama always gave such a feeling of visiting a dear friend, and of a kind of “homecoming”! Thank you, Dear Rabia! Celebrating your homecoming in glory, love, joy, and light! With much love and appreciation for having known you! Nuria
Like a living beacon: a shining light in human form, a most disarming presence, always with a warming welcome – I experienced in this being a soul who triumphantly met some very formidable life challenges. Thank you for being so. . . you, dear Rabia. I will miss your form. I add my blessings and best wishes with a heartfelt and gentle ‘Ya Fatah’.
I have the fondest memories of Rabia in classes with Khalida and Hassan. Those classes were a very very special time in my life and she was an inspiration to us all.
Rabia is the reason I became a Ruhaniat Sufi. It was Spring of 1996 and I was living in Arroyo Hondo New Mexico and the Lama fire happened. A plea went out to the local community for help of various kinds including people to cook for the Lama community members who were staying at New Buffalo Commune, having come down the mountain to fight the fire and been stranded. I took food and went down and spent several days cooking for them. I met Rabia there. We became friends. After they had all returned to Lama and were preparing for the first camp she called and invited me to come. I thanked her and told her I’d love to come but had no money and no job having just returned from four months in Central America so I couldn’t afford it. She insisted. “You helped us. We want you to come.” So I went and had a wonderful time and a clear revelation that this was the Sufi family I had been searching for for twenty years. A month later I was initiated at Lama and the same day moved to Kansas City and joined the Shining Heart Sufi Community. My eternal gratitude to Rabia for her generosity and kindness.
Ya Saalam and blessings, Basira
I first met Rabia in 1980 at a Ram Das retreat at Lama. She stayed on and spent many a summer there. We remained friends. When I last visited her a few months ago we had a great time with many laughs. After living at Khankah SAM she moved to Petaluma in senior housing. It was there that she became a member of the local Unitarian/Universalist Church and became quite active there. She was also active with volunteer activities.
I will always admire her spirit and energy and, most certainly, our long friendship. Ya Saalam and Godspeed on your journey, Rabia.
So many memories rush forth. The one that came first was this: Khalida (later Kamae) and Rabia and I met at Khalida’s house in Fairfax, probably in the 80’s, to have a healing service. Then afterward we lay about on Khalida’s bed talking and laughing for an hour or so. A few years after that, I brought my “new boyfriend” (I’ve been married to him for 15 years now, and we were together five years before that) to Mariam Baker’s for a party. Rabia came and said to me, “You two look alike! I can see why you like each other!” and we laughed at the joke that one would be attracted to a “familiar” face. (I had not seen this but later could see what she meant.) She was my gatha, then githa, and then forever Sufi sister. Whenever we met, after however many years, we met fully and in affection and truth. I am deeply sorry we will not be face to face again, but feel so priveleged to have known her.
Rabia, the welcoming spirit. Thank you for holding this post that
welcomed so many into the heart of Lama and the Mentorgarden. Your smile and laugh, your wisdom and compassion are a beacon of light to help us Remember.
Ya Salaam, dear teacher,
Sarfaraz
I have known Rabia and enjoyed her bright spirit and deep soul, since the early ’80’s.
A couple years ago, my husband, Ken, and I wanted to take a tour of the San Francisco City Hall, and when we showed up one Friday morning, there was Rabia as our tour guide! She gave us a GREAT tour, very informative and fun. We were the only ones there, so she custom made it for us.
Ya Salaam, dear friend…..I will miss you. Hayat
This is the story of the velvetine hat. Back in the late 1970’s, when I lived in Pacifica, I owned a floppy velvetine hat that I wore in the rain. It was a brownish-khaki color. I remember one time in the wet weather that I had an umbrella as well, and I loaned the hat to Rabia at the Mentorgarten as we exited the building. She had admired the hat many times. We would laugh about her forgetting to return it from time to time. Then I moved to LA in 1980, and totally forgot about the hat. Some time in the 80s I was back in town for some jamiat (I forget the year), and standing out front of the Mentorgarten, here came Rabia waving the hat at me to return it. Such a hearty laugh we had! After the Bay Area, over the years I was always joyfully surprised when Rabia would turn up, first at Lama and then at the Southwest Sufi Community, where I saw her last. Thank you for your great friendship, Rabia! Godspeed.
I love you Rabia ! Met you the first day I ever walked with Joe Miller & felt a strong connection. Later we were at Lama for awhile together & I always felt warm understanding with you. A very high soul you are. I’m grateful to have known you & grateful for our eternal connection
Blessings on your journey, Rabia. I enjoyed meals and conversations with you at the Mentorgarten when I used to sleep on the floor downstairs going to or from Mendocino Camp.
You were always in the kitchen at Lama cooking delicious meals and welcoming everyone with an open heart. I was so disappointed last year not to find you at Lama, and no one seemed to know where you were. I looked forward to seeing you every year and sharing time together. Wherever you go you will warm the atmosphere. Love to you and Ya Salaam! May the light of the One embrace and hold you and guide your way on.
Love, Haqiqa Nuri
I also remember that I mentioned a Jamiat Khas gathering, and she said, “Retired people like me can’t afford things like that, but you go and have fun! I’m sure it will be wonderful!”
I can’t send her to one now, but I hope in the future we can check in with our elders, and find out if they would like to attend events and help them do so. Ya Salaam, Rabia, and I hope you will be with us in spirit this November.
Wow, Rabia, what a surprise to find you gone, so quietly slipping away. You were such a treasure during my visits to San Francisco when I stayed with you in Mentor Garden. You were an ideal Wakila, a perfect hostess and guide of ‘places to visit’. You took me and Fateah around many of the places that are part of our Ruhaniat Heritage. It was so clear you were ‘in-service’ … all the time! It was a priviledge and a delight to meet you and to hold you in the heart. What a gift you ARE, for though you have cast off the body, you will live on in many a grateful heart I am sure ;D Blessings Beloved Bodhisattva, may your journey of return to the Beloved open with Grace and Ease. Thank you, xxxHUGSxxx
Dear Rabia, you made a big impression on me when I visited San Francisco in January 2004 – your warmth and hospitality during my stays at the Khankah and Mentorgarden – your lively and informative tours of local places of interest. Somehow the Mentorgarden came more alive for me through you – the heart-&-wings entrance, the garage, each room with its furniture, the pictures on the walls, the big trunk with its treasures, all the nooks, crannies and sculptures of the garden – all were lovingly revealed and are vividly impressed in my memory. It was a joy to know you, and to know also that our friendship continued over the years. Ya Shakur, Ya Salaam – may your journey continue in peace. With much love, Fateah
Rabia and I met only once. I went to San Francisco January, 2005 to attend a Cherag weekend at the Mentorgarden, staying the week before with a college room mate in Albany. One day I went into the city and made pilgrimages to the Mentorgarden, an aunt’s previous home we had visited in 1956, and the labyrinth at Grace Cathedral. I hadn’t called or emailed to the Mentorgarden; I just showed up at the door late morning.
Rabia was so welcoming and hospitable, giving me a complete tour. She showed me an ashtray out in the back garden full of cigarette butts from a teacher who had stayed there earlier in the month. She said she thought the butts carried his baraka.
The highlight of the visit was Rabia suggesting I sit in the front room in Murshid SAM’s chair, with his robe draped over me, which I joyously did. The robe was still on display from the Urs earlier in the month.
Rabia also helped me with a bus route to my aunt’s old home nearby in the Potrerto area.
Happy trails to you, Rabia, from our brief though memorable encounter! Lucy Oliver
It’s been so long since I saw Rabia. Back in the early days of Sema and life in SF we saw each other often and I remember her teasing me when I was about to be married to Nizam-ud-din. She told me to always look at the glass as half-full, not to take anything (good or bad) too seriously, and to never go to bed angry. Such sage advice! Her hearty laugh and sparkling eyes are as clear in my mind as if I’d seen her yesterday. She was a bright star and a gentle, kind person. May she always be remembered in the light she shone on everyone she met.
Rabia Hunter has left an indelible memory in my heart. We met her at Lama Foundation in 1999-2000. I was immediately charmed by her charisma and her liveliness and the light that just shone through.
She welcomed us in her home/the Sufi center in San-Francisco drove us around boisterously to visit different aspects of this city. I discovered San Francisco and she was our guide. She is one of these persons that I met briefly but still 14 years after still crosses my mind. I think I fell in love with her.
Rabia was my closest friend. After meeting at Lama in the early 80’s we seemed to follow each other back and forth from Lama to the Bay area and always with gladness to be in each others presence. She made so many people she met feel like they had been friends forever. With the heart of a mystic that was rooted in the practical she could see the essence of things and say it like it was when others were mired in the details. She was politically astute, beyond generous, and spiritually deep. It was a privilege to serve on the Lama Board with her, to cook with her, to take road trips, to share spiritual doubts and certainties and family issues. I am a better human being for having known her.
In the early 80’s there were a group of us who attended a month long retreat at Lama Foundation (guided by Wali Ali and Jelaluddin Loras) , held in the then still standing Intensive Studies area. One night, with some urgency, Rabia invited me into her room to see something. I hurried off with her, she opened the door to her room and there was her oil lantern, with a glistening clean chimney and neatly trimmed wick (something she had taught me to do) and a brightly burning flame that was burning about a 1/4″ or 1/2″ above the wick with no flame visible in between. We both witnessed this miracle with delight. She also advised me to volunteer to do the laundry for the retreat. I gladly did and we enjoyed a trip off the mountain, doing loads of laundry for the 20+ people of retreat and enjoyed being ‘in town’! She was a loving, warm, lively, happy, delightful woman full of joy and we shared a sweet friendship.