Fresh Rain
A Quarterly e-Journal of the Open Path / Sufi Way
To view the archive of all past issues of Fresh Rain, click here.
Summer 2025
Dear Friends,
It’s been a chilly and windy spring in Northern California. But finally, as summer opens, the jasmine and lantana are in full bloom and there is the promise of heat to come.
Welcome to Freedom! We received so many wonderful essays that the theme will continue for the Fall 2025 issue. And truly, what better leitmotif for the Sufi Way?
I send gratitude to those who answered the call and will have to wait until the September Fresh Rain for their piece to be included. ***We will, however, need more poems on the theme of “Freedom” for Fall.
In This Issue
Unforced
Ihsan Chris Covey
Freedom
Felice Rhiannon
On Freedom
Lynn Raphael Reed
An early morning walk
Umtul Valeton-Kiekens
She Who Knows
Heath Thompson
Freedom
Roos Kohn
Ghazal 1
David Chapman
Letting Go
Sundance Candace Reiter
And This
Amrita Skye Blaine
Upcoming Programs
Unforced
by Ihsan Chris Covey
During a meandering hike the other day, going nowhere in particular, I was wondering where bucks in this area go to shed their antlers, since I have never seen them during my extensive wanderings. I asked a graceful yellow butterfly which way I should go to find out, and she seemed to indicate a direction to my right by circling several times before fluttering off.
Scanning this way and that, there seemed a clearer track to my left, so I ignored the butterfly’s advice and went on. But after a few steps, I realized I was only doing what my mind wanted—to find a clear track that was easier to follow. Was this anything to do with my ability to choose? What if I listened to the butterfly instead? So I backtracked and went the direction she had indicated. Not more than ten steps and I saw a flash of white up ahead. Could it be? I laughed out loud as I approached and bent down to pick up the five-pointed antler. In the distance, the distinct pop-pop-pop sound of a semi-automatic rifle punctuated the silence and reminded me to be on my guard again.
Surprisingly, all of this brought to mind the question of freedom. Plato famously pointed out the differences between what we want (what we think is best for us or most desired in the moment), and what we will (what is ultimately good for our being, whether we like it or not). From his view, true freedom lies not in our ability to satisfy immediate desires, but in our wisdom to understand and pursue what is genuinely good. But how do we do this?
There are many expressions of freedom today centering on unrestricted personal choice and liberty to think and act as we believe is best. Much of this is based on excluding external pressures we feel from society, both inwardly and outwardly. It’s a “freedom from” view: freedom from rules, oppression, tyranny, boundaries, morals, norms, judgments, authority, and so on. The person shooting the semi-automatic rifle provides a stereotypical American example of this kind of thinking, although it could just as easily be a protester marching at a “No Kings” rally.
Yet there is so much more to freedom than just what we don’t want imposed on us.
There is also what we might call our “disinterested spontaneity of the moment,” the ongoing experience of pure awareness whose paradoxical quality Sufis have also described as “everything matters AND nothing matters.” Awareness is disinterested because there is no attachment to outcomes in any direction—nothing matters. But it is also intensely interested in whatever is happening, and this interest is a kind of loving attention—everything matters. Our freedom, our natural ability to be what is, rests in the still point—the AND—of this eternal oscillation between mattering and not mattering. And from this still yet dynamic point of our being flows everything we know as goodness, beauty, and truth, the very nourishment of our creative imagination that opens up even wider expanses. When we recognize this freedom, we see that everything already knows what to do.
Invitations into the “wisdom to understand and pursue what is genuinely good” that Plato described can be found everywhere—in the stark contrasts of our sensate world, in the messages of butterflies, in our lovingly disinterested spontaneity, in our bodies, in our hearts, in our silences, in our stillness. We put ourselves in the way of this grace of freedom every time we pause, make sacred space, and open to the ineffable presence of the One Being that permeates and connects everything.
Ultimately, perhaps all we can say is that freedom is what is unforced, what flows all by itself, spontaneous expressions of love appearing and then vanishing. Just like antlers.
Freedom
by Felice Rhiannon
Physicists and chemists use the word ‘free’ when they acknowledge that something can change and is not constrained in its present state. They acknowledge that things can morph into something else, something different than their original state. Remarkably, we too have this freedom to change. In fact, we are this freedom, as we are constantly changing.
It can’t be easy for a collection of molecules to transform into another combination of elements. It is often not easy for us to exercise this freedom to make alchemical changes in our being, to simply be in our constantly changing state.
The word ‘freedom’ often evokes thoughts and feelings about imprisonment, slavery, the right to protest and to speak up, the right to think critically and make decisions for ourselves. It can also conjure up images of joy and gladness watching a sunrise, or stepping into the sea, or childhood play, the expansive opening to being.
In another context, the word itself is etymologically related to the word ‘friend,’ according to the Oxford English Dictionary. In the Sufi tradition this word, friend, is often used to express a relationship with the Divine, and those who love the Divine call intimately to the Friend (doost). (See https://onbeing.org/blog/calling-on-god-as-a-friend/)
Freedom and Friend? Delving deeply into the origin of the words we discover that the word ‘friendship’ derives its meaning from the old Teutonic word frijojan, meaning ‘to love’. Its pre-Teutonic origins, however, lie in the word priyo, meaning ‘dear’ – a word which further finds its root in another Teutonic expression, frio, meaning ‘free’. The Old English equivalent for ‘free’ is freon, meaning ‘to love’, from which our modern word for ‘friend’ is derived.” https://zenmoments.org/rumi-shams-power-friendship/
Freedom is a heartspace that is open to creativity, to change. Here we can find friendship with ourselves, releasing the critical voice that restricts us to a small, ineffectual individual. Freedom allows us to be unlimited, unrestricted, unbounded. Here, in this open space we can connect with friends and the Friend.
A friend opens our hearts. We trust and love and are unfettered in the safety of that love. With the Friend we are secure and sheltered and moored by Love. We are not separated, but are One. In friendship we are free to connect with another, to feel unhindered to express the depth of who we are. With the Friend we are always free, always who we are, always one together, abiding.
Would the Oxford English Dictionary accept a new definition of freedom? A spiritual condition that allows us to change, to transmute and, at the same time, grants us friendship with ourselves and with the Divine, the Beloved, the Friend.
On Freedom
by Lynn Raphael Reed
Freedom is kaleidoscopic.
Its meanings are unstable and multivalent. Depending on point of view and sociocultural or political context, the definition of what constitutes freedom changes like tumbling shards of glass ~ first one aspect but equally then its opposite coming to the fore.
And yet, it’s a word that tends to stimulate a feeling toward the ‘good’. Timothy Snyder in his book ‘On Freedom’ reminds us in reality freedom is the condition in which all the good things can flow within us and among us. Such a fluid and fluent current is surely vital and explains why freedom at all moments in history has been something to aspire to, individually or communally.
Sufi Inayat Khan writes:
There is not one single person whom the word freedom does not touch, and there is not one person who does not long for freedom.
So, what is this longing?
For those drawn to a spiritual path, this is often couched in terms of freeing oneself from the delusions and attachments of the material plane ~ in some senses rediscovering or returning to one’s ‘original’ nature.
In Rumi’s imagery, like the reed cut from the reed bed, playing a plaintive tune in its longing to return.
In non-dual ontologies, what is longed for is nothing other than that which is already here and everywhere. There is nothing to do or place to go to find it ~ beyond waking up to the free medicine of pure presence.
Sufi Inayat Khan again writes:
The highest perception of freedom comes when a person has freed themselves from the false ego, when they are no longer what they were. All the different kinds of freedom will give a momentary sensation of being free, but true freedom is in ourselves. When one’s soul is free, then there is nothing in this world that binds one; everywhere one will breathe freedom, in heaven and on earth.
Certainly in my own journey on the Open Path under the guidance of Pir Elias, I am reminded again and again of the insubstantial nature of my thoughts and beliefs—my habits and preferences—and just how persistently my mind chatter is generating an illusory sense of self and what is real. This ‘being human’ business can be unbelievably exhausting! So the longing to be free from the constraints of a fixated ego, and to be surrendered into spacious reality as a free soul, is incredibly alluring.
Inayat Khan’s phrase that everywhere one will breathe freedom is especially expansive since it flexes our awareness that through awakening we both receive but are also able to breathe out, as gift, an essence of freedom into the world. Freedom in this representation is not an object or an end state; rather it is a resonance, a vibration, a becomingness to which all beings can attune.
Then, I turn the kaleidoscope again.
What comes into focus is the broken body of a child in the rubble of Khan Yunis, their parents weeping in despair. The scene is mirrored in endless other conflagrations visible through time and space. At that moment, through the rubble comes an aid worker ~ a neighbour perhaps but also part of a team helping those in distress, risking their life to come to the aid of others. They help to dig the child out from under the debris whilst calling on others to carry the child to what limited medical help can be found. Freedom, of any kind, feels very far away.
I wonder, as I often do, how to reconcile (if that is even possible or desirable) such scenes of suffering with the tenets of spiritual awakening. The spiritual aspiration to die before you die sounds cruelly insensitive where early, persistent and violent death, or the complete absence of conditions to support flourishing, afflicts the lives of so many.
Roshi Joan Halifax asks:
How can we stand on the threshold between suffering and freedom and remain informed by both worlds?
Her response is to not turn away from either but to embrace all that arises with an open, compassionate heart and the wisdom of loving and courageous action. By doing so, one becomes a fragment of freedom in our wounded world; a piece of the kaleidoscope that radiates brightly.
Some people look for a beautiful place, others make a place beautiful says Inayat Khan. The person who reaches out to the suffering of others with compassion and love, and with courageous action, is doing just that. Reminding us all to be the best that we can be.
An early morning walk
by Umtul Valeton-Kiekens
She took a walk in the forestry dunes nearby her house and pondered about what it meant to her being free.
‘Well’ she thought—during this time especially in Europe —we commemorate the liberation from the German Nazi regime 80 years ago. But that is not the kind of freedom I mean.’ She continued her pondering, ‘Freedom does not just mean to me being liberated; this is a kind of freedom that comes from the outside and is a great blessing, of course.’ The freedom she would like to explore is inner freedom, not being intoxicated by a stream of thoughts, fears, what-ifs, other anticipations and to-do-lists.
She walked on and listened to the birds and noticed she was still being caught up in all that. Stop!
Then she took a deep breath and waited … watching her breath and sensed she was slowing down, suddenly it appeared to her that the bird songs were more vibrant, the air purer and the growl of the sea in the distance more profound.
Slowly she walked on, her pace more tender now and continued watching her breath: ‘O how wondrous this all is, how does this fern know that this is the place it would thrive best? And look how those trees have grown in an eternal embrace and there high up there is a group of tail tits eating the nuts of the pine cones, twittering away.’
She felt her steps became ever more light and her head ever more empty, she was just being, a being that continued to walk and was in awe all along about what came into her sight or hearing.
She sat down at the lake further down towards the sea and the water reflected the light in little wrinkles on the sandy soil. Beyond, there was a little early morning damp coming from the water, however the colours around her were brilliant! The heather was in full bloom, purple reflecting into the lake and the beautiful sandy dune-tops reflecting the light as well. A heron landed close by staring in the water as well, giving her a sense of belonging.
The silence was light and yet profound.
Here she experienced the freedom she was longing for and her to-do-lists were at her desk at home but not in her head.
The kind of freedom that exists only in light heartedness, light headiness, an emptiness of all things and yet coinciding with All.
She Who Knows
She who knows
does not chase after results
realising this moment is an outcome
that naturally arose out of Itself.
To give up on wishing for one thing or another
is to be free.
Her likes and dislikes
do not disturb her settledness
they simply arise and fall
as a response to events.
She neither loves the beginning
nor fears the end.
Once she realised all appearances are a single Face
she lost herself
and wandered freely
in the empty space of Nowhere.
—Heath Thompson
Freedom
No gaze behind—Love surrounds, my heart’s own guide,
It sparks the way, where I wander, yet abide.
This Now, eternal, where spirit and clay entwine,
We swirl as one, in the Divine’s intoxicating wine.
No I remains, no we, in the silence of the All,
The self dissolves, where the One’s own names call.
In the Dance of Being, all ends, all begins anew,
I bow, undone, to the Beloved’s endless dew.
—Roos Kohn
Ghazal 1
A new leaf born from the damp earth, unfolding now
From the dark to the light, new birth unfolding now
A story that is constantly being told
and the one that you have never heard, unfolding now
Spring time, birds unceasing songs fill the air
The brave blackbird with no reserve, unfolding now
Two beings, we have shared so much together
Deep love born through all these years, unfolding now
Our old dog, still struggling on her last legs
Those soft eyes, compassion that’s hers, unfolding now
Immigrants hearts full of hope and glowing dreams
Seek anything that will give them worth, unfolding now
This world we share, create and relate to
Sweet fragrance of the Friend called forth, unfolding now
The brushes, the paint, the pen and ink in his hands
David, whatever there is to observe, unfolding now.
—David Chapman
And This
— Amrita Skye Blaine
beyond understanding
labyrinthine
to put into words
what cannot be spoken
pointing, yet off
the mark
no mark to point to
let the scent
of jasmine slow me,
feast of white flowers
feed my eyes
stroke a lamb’s ear leaf
soft as a baby’s nape,
tune to murmuring owls
as they settle into sleep
this dawn, eternal now
awaken
there is no time
that moves toward—
only this,
leaves dipping
in the breeze,
early sun
warming soil,
dove roof-pacing,
waiting her turn
on the feeding ground
we call it morning
a label on top
of what is one
tiny planet rolling
into sunshine
like a septillion others
unique
but not special
isness, is-ing
just this
