Remember, and resonate with the highest truth.

We welcome your reflections on this theme.

RUMI

A Mirror, A Compass, A Touchstone.

A retreat with Kabir & Camille Helminski, & Amir Etemadzadeh, master of Sufi music

March 27-29, 2026, San Damiano Retreat, Danville, California

Join us for a contemporary experience of sacred space, beauty, and friendship in beautiful countryside with precious community!

Please note: This retreat is now fully booked. A waitlist is available.

Ramadan Mubarak!
May your Ramadan be much blessed!

The Qur'an: Volume VI
English translation by Camille Adams Helminski

This Volume VI of the Qur’an, which contains Surah TaHa, Surah al-Hajj (“the Pilgrimage”), Surah al-Anbiya (“the Prophets”), and Surah al-Mu’minun (“the Faithful”), offers moments of strong support and clarification of our purpose, continued guidance as to how to realign with the Source of our being.

And I unfurled upon you Love from Me [wa alqaytu ‘alayka mahabbatan minnee]—so that you might be brought up under My Eye (in touch with the spring of My Love).

For I have brought you up for (service and intimacy with) My Self. [Wa astan‘atuka li-Nafsi.] Go forth, you and your brother, with My Communications [bi Ayaati], and never let go of remembering Me [wa la taniya fi zhikri]. Go to Pharaoh, both of you, for truly, he has transgressed (beyond the bounds of what is right). But speak gently to him, so that perhaps he might remember, or come into awe.”

For one who comes to Hu as a faithful person, having done deeds of wholeness and reconciliation—for them are exalted stations, Gardens of Eternal Bliss, beneath which running waters flow: they will dwell there—that shall be the recompense for all those who purify themselves.

[Surah Ta Ha, 20:39; 41-44; 75-76]

Threshold Society, Kabir and Camille, have offered a number of eCourses with Spirituality & Practice which can still be taken. These courses offer selections and commentaries to guide you through a reflective process lasting between 30-49 days, depending on the course.

Courses include:

• Ninety-Nine Names of God by Camille Adams Helminski & Daniel Thomas Dyer
• The Wisdom of Muhammad with Camille and Kabir Helminski
• The Essence of the Qur’an by Kabir Helminski and Jeremy Henzell-Thomas

Through this second collection in the “Songs of the Soul” series, we encounter a world where Divine Grace is always with us and every moment is an opportunity to “begin again” in God’s Name. Whether amidst expansion or contraction, whether witnessing the intricacies of the human body or the canopy of the stars, Camille Hamilton Adams Helminski draws our attention to something subtle yet intoxicating with Its Beauty. Her clarity of vision, as well as her appreciation of the Mysterious, compels us to witness the workings of the Divine within our lives, with wonder, opening the heart to this Love, our very Life, the Source of our breath—this Force that pours through us and knows no boundaries!

“Ramadan Love Songs remind us to turn always to the light of Divine Grace with an open heart. Nothing else allows us to see. Nothing else can seek the companionship of the Most High, Who is always present. These poems for Ramadan—and every month of the year—grant us a sublime scent of a fragrance that inundates us with their power and subtlety. Glory be to one who wrote them and to the One she reminds us to remember.”
~ Amina Wadud, professor emeritus (Visiting Scholar Starr King School for the Ministry, Berkeley, CA. Author of Qur’an and Woman)

“With Ramadan Love Songs, Camille Helminski has given a precious gift to all who walk the Path of Love. These purifying words of depth and devotion can hold us gently and guide us firmly through sacred passages, that lead us all towards the One.”
~ Rabbi Shefa Gold (Author of Are We There Yet? Travel as a Spiritual Practice)

“The tradition of Ramadan poetry in English goes back to the late Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore, and is now extended by the lovely new work of Camille Helminski. Growing out of a mingling of the Qur’an, devotion to the Prophet, and Rumi’s poetry, these poems will touch your heart. These poems begin with the story of the washing of the blessed Prophet’s heart, and, God-willing, they will do the same for yours.”
~ Omid Safi (Professor of Islamic Studies, Duke University. Author, Radical Love: Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Tradition)

Available from:

Fred Brussat changed worlds peacefully at home in Claremont, California, on December 13, 2025, from an aortic tear or dissection. His wife Mary Ann and their two Maine Coon cats, Rumi and Shams, were with him. He had valiantly lived a full life with Parkinson’s for 20 years. At his death, he was 83.

Frederic was a United Church of Christ clergyman with a journalism ministry. He was a member of Judson Memorial Church, a United Church of Christ congregation in Greenwich Village, New York City.  Fred and his wife Mary Ann created a massive inter-spiritual and inter-cultural website called “Spirituality and Practice,” home to countless reviews and articles, which has hosted a number of our e-Courses.  Fred and Mary Ann have been Mevlevi initiates and part of the Threshold Community for about 25 years.

In 1996 Frederic and Mary Ann published Spiritual Literacy: Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life, a collection of more than 650 examples of spiritual perspectives on everyday experience, which is the basis of a 26-part film series. The book was a national bestseller, and Oprah said she kept a copy on her bedside table.

Their second book, Spiritual Rx: Prescriptions for Living a Meaningful Life, recommends resources and exercises for bringing the Alphabet of Spiritual Literacy into daily life. These 37 practices are common in all the worlds religions. The Brussats are also the authors of two gift paperbacks, 100 Ways to Keep Your Soul Alive and its sequel 100 More Ways to Keep Your Soul Alive.

Frederic said that the Alphabet of Spiritual Literacy was what he hoped would be his legacy. He used the 37 practices as markers of the spiritual life, signs of which he could always find in books, films, and daily experiences. He coded all the content on Spirituality & Practice – the reviews as well as countless articles – according to which alphabet practice it illustrated. In this way, he constantly championed everyday spirituality.

Spiritual conversation (sohbet) with Shaikh Kabir and Camille Helminski in 2008 

 “How can we approach salat and benefit from it? We can see salat as a means of developing being. By being we mean a strong inner life, a unity in our inner life, a unity of all aspects of our being, including physical, emotional, mental and spiritual and unitive. Salat offers us this possibility because it is a single act in which all of these things are potentially unified. We have a verbal part which is the Fatihah, and other parts, but the Fatihah is the one essential part. So, we say, ‘In the name of God, the Infinitely Compassionate, the Infinitely Merciful, etc.’ and we’re engaging the mind. We’re also standing in front of Infinity and we’re quite consciously feeling that sense of relationship, and the relationship is one of the human with the Divine, the natural to the Supernatural, the finite to the Infinite. So, in the standing posture, we’re aware of that. We’re also aware that we’re standing there as human beings in all the dignity of being human and we’re standing upright in this world; it’s a very strong, strong position but it’s a meditative position.   

 And then, next, we’re bowing. In the bow, we are acknowledging our servanthood, ibada, which means both worship and servanthood. This is what salat essentially is. But our servanthood and our worship extend to every aspect of our lives. So, our worship is to be conscious of the Divine Presence, and to know that our life here on earth, and everything that we do, becomes service when we remember God. So, we work in God, we love others within God, we create, we contribute within God, always aware of that larger context. So that’s the bow of servanthood. 

And then the next posture is the prostration, surrender, effacement: the forehead touches the ground, the heart for once is higher than the head. And this whole process of standing, bowing and prostrating is a process of ever deeper self-effacement, of becoming transparent to the Divine, of merging with the Divine.  Ideally this cycle of postures can become so wholehearted and conscious that we in our normal personality and conditioned self are not even here because we are so present in the worship. So, this is what it is practiced for, and that’s what we mean when we say it is an exercise of being, increasing exercise of being.” 

We are happy to introduce The Threshold Sufi Music Ensemble and The Ilahi Project. This album, "See What Love Has Done to Me," recorded this past June in Istanbul under the direction of Shaikh Kabir and Selçuk Gürez, celebrates the living tradition of Sufi “tekke” music.

New book release
now also available as an e-book:

~ Shakira Shatoff [St. Louis, USA]

O my Dearly Beloved,

Utter joy erupts from my heart when I read this theme. It is an absolute honor to serve You for this practice of humility, service, friendship, loyalty and patience is all from You. These are Your Divine gifts that grace us. You dress Your willing servants in Your Divine Names. Your Abundance is poured through this vessel of clay.

You employ us.  All we need to do is say “yes”— bringing our offerings, loving intent  and presence into attunement with Your Vibration of Love. You guide and direct us to fulfill your wishes in this earthly realm. You, my Beloved, know the true needs of others and if I am still in my heart, grounded in a state of being, I hear your call loud and clear. You make it easy to step into action. 

Prayer, meditation, and zhikr are the dervish’s training ground. They are the doorway that unites Your Heart with mine. If this heart isn’t with You, I’ll miss Your guidance and calls to help. I’ll find myself serving my false self, a dictator, who takes me away from this state of Presence and joy. It is only when You and I are tightly knit together that we create beauty, healing, and bring light to the darkest corner.

O Beloved, long ago this heart realized that You need my humble assistance in my own little corner of this world. I’ve been placed exactly where You need me. It is in time of deep prayer and meditation that Your call is heard. There is something I am often asked to do while on my prayer carpet or meditation seat. Sometimes it is a call for prayers, sometimes it is to help my next door neighbor, or raise relief funds for others far away. Or, the call may come to support immigrants in my own community as they try to build new lives following devastating loss and disaster.

O Allah, my prayers, my sacrifices, my living and dying are for You, 
You without partner. It is this that You have commanded 
and I surrender my entire being to You, my Beloved Friend.

[Qur’an, 6:162]

In serving, I may feel that my contribution is small compared to what is needed. It is a tiny particle compared to the outflowing of abundant mercy that comes from You. I have watched over and over in my life how You take a tiny gift from me and turn it into a Big Gift.

For example, four years ago in the height of the covid pandemic, I knocked on the door of a Middle Eastern refugee family that I had heard was struggling. They had no phone. They were among the hundreds of new refugees arriving in the St. Louis area within a very short period of time. This family of five was settled in an old home about 40 minutes away in a far-out neighborhood south of the city. Using Google translate, I learned they were lacking English language skills, transportation, food, medical care, a computer  and basic necessities. The family included a young mother still in her 30’s with two young adult sons and a daughter of high school age. The daughter spoke some English and soon became the family’s translator and only English speaker.

Pulling together a small group of dervishes from our local Threshold sohbet circle and my meditation community, we met as a group with the family and divided up tasks. Some of us attended lectures on resettlement with the family to insure that they understand the steps required to obtain basic services—a food card, resettlement funds, donated computers, transportation, health insurance, and access to food pantries, household furniture and goods. Over the months, we drove them to take their driver’s license exams, used connections to help find jobs, talked to school officials to get their daughter settled in school, and helped them get connected to the internet. And, most importantly, we hosted each other in our homes. The mother is an amazing cook, always arriving with gifts.

It was a time of intermixed emotion—intense worry, fear, sorrow, and yet delight, laughter, deep connection and love. It wasn’t an easy time, especially for the family. It was an ordeal, a çile. Alhamdulillah, the family was very hardworking, resourceful, and grateful. Allah, You were with with us every step of the way! My Grace Overspreads everything (Qur’an 7:156).

Today, this family is thriving. Both sons are working and the daughter is in her third year of undergraduate studies on scholarship and hoping to attend medical school. A few months ago, they purchased the rental home they had found in a better neighborhood. They now have green cards and are the proud owner of two vehicles. The mother is in her second year of English language classes. She only learned recently what had happened to her beloved husband. Before they fled their country, her husband and two teen sons had been taken to prison by the new regime. The boys were tortured and released several months later. They never saw their father again. The mother and her children fled the country and resettled in a nearby country and waited nine years before being admitted to the U.S.. 

Over the years, we have stayed connected and just this week a dervish helped the daughter find a “shadowing” opportunity with a full professor at a local medical school. 

This is how You work, Allah. Our little, humble, patient, loyal, friendly dervish efforts are turned into Miracles by You, our Beloved Friend. Truly, You don’t ask too much of us. You simply ask us to say, “Yes, I am a dervish and I will be Your servant.” Is there any better calling in life than this?

Shakira is a dervish and retired psychologist who devoted her professional life to healing adults with histories of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. She loves her family, spiritual community and garden and leads the St. Louis Threshold Sohbet circle.

February 1st

Join us for a monthly online meditation and sohbet with Shaikh Kabir and special guests from the Threshold community. Held on the 1st Sunday of every month at 12pm Eastern Time (5pm UK).

Zoom meeting: https://zoom.us/j/435138208
Zoom passcode: threshold

Watch last month's meeting below and see all our videos here.

To view in YouTube without interrupting ads, use the Brave browser.

The Threshold Society, rooted within the traditions of Sufism and inspired by the life and work of Mevlâna Jalâluddîn Rumi, is a non-profit educational foundation with the purpose of facilitating the experience of Divine Unity, Love, and Truth in the world. Sufism is a living tradition of human transformation through love and higher consciousness. Our fundamental framework is classical Sufism and the Qur’an as it has been understood over the centuries by the great Sufis. The Society is affiliated with the Mevlevi Order, and offers training programs, seminars and retreats around the world.

You can find our core articles here. We encourage our community to read and reread these regularly.

Each month we intend to highlight an article about our lineage and its principles. This month we offer:  Suggestions for Practice

Most people who come to Sufism have preconceptions as well as questions about what Sufism is. What does the practice consist of and how will I learn and develop? Is there a detailed curriculum? Or hidden knowledge? What should I expect of my shaikh and what kind of relationship is possible? Some people might imagine that the shaikh has a detailed, objective technical knowledge of various inner states, spiritual energies, planes of reality, spiritual powers, etc. While there is some truth in this, it has been our experience that among the best teachers these subjects are seldom emphasized or talked about directly. An emphasis on secret, privileged knowledge, or encouraging a mystique or building a cult of personality, or intimations of end-time scenarios, have proven time and time again to be counter-indicators of spirituality. In other words, the more such tendencies surround a teaching, the less likely it is that the teaching will be balanced and authentic. If we look to the Qur’an and the example of the Prophet Muhammad, we see a sane and balanced presentation of the Way. Our approach, therefore, places a strong emphasis on developing our capacities for presence, remembrance, service, and humility.

[Read more...]

Mar 27-29: San Damiano, California. Registration now open.

Friday evening August 14 through Monday noon August 17: 2026 UK Annual Retreat, more details soon.

We’d love to hear from you: eyeoftheheart@sufism.org
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