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.
Winter 2026
Dear Friends of the Sufi Way,
My name is Warda Kohn and I am the present-moment editor of Fresh Rain. If this work fits into my already full life (trade-union advocacy by day, running a small community centre in Amsterdam by night, and being mother to two university students), I will be deeply honored to continue tending this garden with you.
After ten rich years, Amrita Skye Blaine has laid down the editor’s pen to give more time to her own writing. Her legacy of tenderness and intimate curation is the light we will keep walking by. May that same gentleness continue to hold this space.
This Solstice issue circles the question “Who Am I in Openness?” You will meet naked winter trees, four absent birches, snow that knows we are almost ready, and many voices learning to stand transparent before the Beloved. The Spring theme will be “Longing & Belonging.”
This is our shared space. Please keep sending whatever is moving through you (poems, prose, essays, photographs, drawings) to freshrain@sufiway.org. Every voice is welcome.
In This Issue
Can’t Say
Pir Elias
Four White Birches
Isha Francis
Untitled
David Chapman
This Winter’s Love
Deniss Lagdza
Take a Moment
Angus Landman
Days of Stillness
Deniss Lagdza
Sitting with myself
Felice Rhiannon
Untitled
Peter de Jong
Who Am I in Openness?
Umtul Valeton-Kiekens
Solstice
Anna E. Zweede
In openness
Yona Chavanne
Primary Wonder
Amrita Skye Blaine
Upcoming Programs
Can’t Say
by Pir Elias
In openness, you ask, who am I? I am your asking! I am this pen wondering what to write. You make me leap out of my personality when you say the word “openness” and then ask who I am. I can’t say! It’s an odd feeling not to have a “me” to describe. It feels like my chest is made out of sky. Every time I try to settle back into my usual me, that damn word of yours — openness — pulls the rug out. What have you done to me? Where am I? Things keep happening on their own and I’m just what’s happening. I glance out the window and see a great mountain rising up behind my house. Am I that glancing, or the mountain, or the air between us? Where am I in this openness? Of course I have my “ways” of showing up, unique to me, but are they therefore “me?” I really can’t claim them. My mother made them happen, and my 4th grade teacher, and the trillion moments I’ve lived, shaping this responsiveness that I suppose “I” am. But the “openness” that your question insists on doesn’t let me stick to anything, any “I.” What have you done to me? All I can say is your question has made me happy.
Four White Birches
by Isha Francis
I’m sitting outside on the wooden deck. A tentative breeze whispers through the August leaves that surround me. A few birds cruising to and fro without much chatter. A dog or two letting me know they are here.
Just inside the screened door, Radha sits, maybe dozing, though her ears seem always awake. Then she smoothly lays down on one side with an appreciative yawn and stretches out, elongating her body into an arch that seems to extend all possibility.
My neighbor cut down my view of the four tall white birches sitting so comfortably and quietly along the side of his house near the road. It shocked me, not just that it was done, but that it was done so sloppily. A matter of money I imagine; paying some fellow to come out in the evening and hack away until they were, all four, down and gone.
In this moment as I sit here and glance across in the direction of the four not yet forgotten birches, I realize that it is in their absence I can now see further out and beyond with a new and sweetly satisfying view of beauty in small wooden areas previously hidden.
What do I make of this I wonder?
The leaves are still whispering though the sky is quiet and Radha now sits up, staring at me.
She enfolds, caresses, and comforts, she
shines as a polished mirror, shines
inside every growing plant, inside
us in every moving cell, making us
visible in constant creation, the visible
invisible unknowable love that is invisible.
– David Chapman
This Winter’s Love.
This winter touched me to the bone.
And I thank it for teaching me to love
In that lonely way only winter can—
When everybody else has gone
Except those who have nowhere else to go
But stay and listen, and one day understand.
– Deniss Lagdza
Take a Moment
Whenever you can
take a moment,
not to pray but to be prayed for.
Notice the resistance to that invitation.
Be interested,
as there, right there,
lies the shame of The Fall.
You think you’ve “got this”
but you know, deep down, you haven’t.
The more you can hand
it over,
the more you will be,
as the flowers of the field,
able to give your beauty to the world
and be blessed without ceasing.
– Angus Landman
Days of Stillness
Suddenly I saw myself
a moonlit lake where
one sensation arises,
then another
touch of a waterbug here,
there the jumping fish,
while wave after wave
breaks at the shore.
Meanwhile, a deep silence
rests below, touched
by a sacred source.
– Deniss Lagdza
sitting with myself
25/ 15 November
sitting with myself
silence fills the void
unchanging
nightingale sings words
recognized only in stillness
this moment
drunk on the wild wine
of love flowing
dawn awakens me
never-ending love
gives abundantly to all
sun beams everywhere
from the womb of love
all creation sings
(also in new moon chilla 24 August 2025)
– Felice Rhiannon
I was very busy for quite a while
Now I can look
at myself
and see a self
that thinks he is me
Now I can see
how busy
the self was to be
Now my job
is easy and free
Just look and smile
– Peter de Jong
Who Am I in Openness?
Quiet as the snow
Empty as the frozen air
Transparent as the waters
Steady as the beeches
Withstanding all conditions
Present with this All
Creative as the shadow of the trees
Reflective as a sunset
Burning as a sunrise
Cold as the frost on the waters
Dark as the darkness of the bushes
Present with this All
Quiet, empty, transparent, present
Reflective, burning, frozen, longing
For the ultimate reunion
Not being present with this all,
But Be Present
– Umtul Valeton-Kiekens
Solstice
A moment in suspension:
Our sun seeming to
Remain stationary –
Hold still –
on its arc.
A date appointed as the first
Of a new season;
This one, winter.
Here, colder and darker, but
Adorned with garlands, warmed
By hearty soups and mulled wine,
Brightened by joyful music or made
Holy in gentle silence.
December 2025
– Anna E. Zweede
In openness
— Where am I?
— Am I?
— I am not
— Am I?
(Zikr of Ontowardness)
Am I
a sort of humming potential?
a transparency, a voice, a presence
a soul dreaming of itself?
Am I
a dream?
an illusion? a ray of light?
Am I? ain’t I?
Am I?
Yes. It feels so.
I apperceive when I move—
a walking mystery…
Am I
the one asking this question?
Does an ant ask questions?
Do we know?
Am I
a smile when joyful…
tears when grieving…
When I walk, who walks the next step?
Was I born from Adam’s bones?
Am I free to be?
Am I free to doubt, to relax,
free to praise, to love, to be?
– Yona Chavanne
Oct/Dec 2025
Primary Wonder
This openness behind my eyes, inside my chest, has no edge even though my body has its edges. Strange. I am embodied openness.
— Elias Amidon
Embodied openness
miraculous, peculiar
The primary wonder
of the world,
enigma at the root
of all others
Grander
than human-made
more mysterious than
deep-sea canyons
It is higher than Denali,
wilder than Iceland’s
stratovolcano
steaming beneath
its glacier
Openness and edges
seeming two
living one
— Amrita Skye Blaine
Write to us at warda@sufiway.org with
“Creators List” in the subject line.
We can’t wait to see what you create!
