International Retreat 2013
Practising Healing as a Sacred Trust:
What may this bring to our lives and to our world?

15-17 March (and March 14th for Conductors) at Fazal Manzil, Suresnes (near Paris), France

Healing is a gift in every being – plant, animal, human. As healers, we are moved by this gift as a soul impulse in the depth of our heart. It is our ‘sacred trust’. Many of us grew up as children with the parable Jesus told of the talents – one worker who wasted his, one who buried his, and one who used his talents to create more. As children we were often told the parable as a warning not to be lazy! Now, as cosmic children, endowed with the talent of healing, how might this parable speak to us in a more subtle way? How may we ‘invest’ our gift of healing for greater benefit?

This is a time of great stress around the world: many people are experiencing their society breaking down, are losing trust in themselves, losing hope and courage; there is growing sickness, insecurity and depression, individually and collectively. The planet herself is suffering. The spiritual and human values on which our societies are founded – fairness, justice, compassion and care for all, respect for nature – are being overwhelmed by other priorities. It is painful even to acknowledge what is happening.

How might the sacred gift of healing have a special application now?
In the depth of every heart, what is it longing to bring in for the world?
What is the ‘edge’ in the emerging consciousness of healers?
What can we, working together in a group as in the Sufi Healing Order, dedicated to human and spiritual service and evolution, contribute and create?
What does it mean, to practise healing as a sacred trust?

In this three-day retreat we will support each other in moving more deeply through this inner and outer journey, listening to our personal and collective stories, inspired by sharing pain and healing, intuition and realization, to unveil more clarity, vision and sense of what we may be and do. In silence, meditation and other Sufi practices, and including chants and dances.

Guided by Sarida Brown, the international leader of the SHO, and by Noor Hervot, Latifa Weiss, Azimat Kowalik, Inger Mundt, Khanun Francart and other Shefayats, the national leaders from many countries.

The SHO International Retreat is an annual meeting of members from all over Europe exploring issues of profound importance in our dedication to the path of healing. Shefayats and Conductors present teaching and meditation inspired by Hazrat Inayat Khan, Pir Vilayat and Pir Zia, and other great Sufi mystics. As participants share experiences together, the meaning and practice of healing opens and deepens. We carry this blessing out into our homes, our lives, our healing and our groups.