Sufi Remembrance

Victoria Tackett, dear sister and friend of the heart, made her transition today at her home in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. She breathed her last around 3pm CT this afternoon with her long-time friend Roberta Avila keeping vigil. Roberta said her passing was peaceful and gentle.

Victoria was a long-time mureed who lived at Khankah SAM for a time. She was given the spiritual name Tulsidas, but in later years claimed her birth name Victoria as her spiritual name. In the years after Murshid SAM’s passing, members of the Bay Area Sufi community were asked to go to other parts of the country to take the Message of Spiritual Liberty far and wide. Victoria answered the call, moving to Texas where she faithfully led weekly Dances of Universal Peace meetings and Sufi gatherings for a number of years. She was also an inspired, talented artist who created the interlocking ‘Dancing Hearts’ logo for the Dances of Universal Peace, and did a series of sacred portraits that were published in The Sound journal, including a stunningly powerful portrait of Hazrat Inayat Khan which was the only one of the portraits that she kept.

In her work life, she was a therapist, professor, author, rehabilitation specialist, grief counselor, art teacher, and was the arts coordinator for museums in North Carolina and Mississippi. She was a consummate visionary and organizer, focusing the Chapel Hill NC Bicentennial Celebration, and proposing and spearheading the creation and funding of the Chapel Hill Museum. In 2002, she created and directed the Sound & Spirit World Music Festival in Waveland MS with guests Pir Shabda Kahn, Imam Bilal Hyde, and musicians from the Japanese, Klezmer, and Southern Christian Gospel traditions, and more.

When she learned she was suffering from terminal congestive heart failure several years ago, she began collecting sacred writings, stories, and poems about death which she found to be comforting, and hoped might bring comfort to others someday. Her collection will be published posthumously. A tribute to Victoria with photo will be posted to the Sufi Remembrance Project website soon.

Ya Salaam, beloved Victoria! I know you are beyond all pain and suffering now, basking in the glorious vision of Divine Sunshine…