2024 Teacher Bios

Ahura Grace Henke

I had my first Sufi experience at the NWSC in 1982, and have attended most of the camps since. I danced for 10 years before ever leading a dance, and 20 years before asking my guide Majida Inayat Nelson to train me to lead Zikr. I am a self-professed “Zikr junkie”, and have spent much of my life traveling to experience it from many different teachers. Zikr is my primary practice: the way it takes me out of the layers of personality and thinking, connecting to my direct guidance, helping me stay balanced in the world, and not being so overwhelmed.

Basira Beardsworth

Basira has been a student on the Sufi path for 45 years and since 2009 has served as the secretary of Sufi Ruhaniat International. A musician, gardener, lover of nature, and dabbler in folk arts, she lives with her husband Fred near the Columbia River in southern Washington.

Chela Sloper  

The more I flow with you all on this stream of Love, Harmony, and Beauty, the more deeply grateful I am that this lineage is bejeweled with singing and dancing! Sharing in song — both when we are moving together and also when simply joining voices — is such a beautiful way to bring our bodies, hearts, and minds together! It is such a joy to continue collaborating with Zahir, and we hope to bring more joy and delight to your NWSC experience! 

& Zahir Moree

Like almost all humans, the first voice I heard was my mother’s; the first rhythm, the beat of her heart. While I was in the womb, she sang love songs to Jesus, most likely while washing dishes, as I remember her doing throughout my childhood. My father constantly sang to us, sea songs from the Bahamas, or little ditties he was always making up for and about us. We sang all the time in church, rocking, rhythmic choruses, lifting people up in the Spirit so that they could soar. I started singing with the Radical Faeries, a group of gay male pagans, and re-encountered rhythm, through the drum, ecstatic dance, and body prayer. I came to the Sufis formally in 2003 and was immediately drawn to the Dances, and to zikr. I loved, and still love, that the Sufis are musicians, poets, lovers, mystics, gardeners, students, teachers. I’ve been involved for many years now in making music daily in some form as my personal practice and as training for group encounters with dance, singing, rhythm, chant, poetry, and zikr.

Kalama Reuter

Ever since I was introduced to the Kalama Dance, I’ve been drawn to whirling. I guess being a kid and spinning around until I fell down or my high school ice skating experience counts as well. There are so many ways to let go of the small self, but embodied focus is one of the gifts of our Sufi path. I found the Dances to be a form of attuned moving concentration on heart connection where all of me could be included and expressed. Once Jelaleddin Loras brought the Turn to us, something deeper opened in me. The Turn is a beautiful teacher and I continue to practice getting out of the way of my Alhamdulillah.

Majida Inayat Nelson

I came to the Sufi path like many fellow students: through a friend, my college friend Irene Rokstad, in the early 1970’s.

And as a singer and creator of music finding the teachings of Pir-O-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan was like hearing my own soul speak: why are people happy or unhappy? Why are humans oblivious to the natural world? What is the best way to be with one another, to create a happy life for ourselves and others?

After initiation with Murshida Qahira Qalbee Fraley, studies in meditation with Pir Vilayat Khan and immersion in Indian Raga, I found an unexpected link with my heart teacher, Pir Moineddin Jablonski, who continues to inspire my life.

I have experienced the NW Sufi Camp as director, Board member and President, and as a staff member. I have read the esoteric papers for students for over thirty years and lead classes in astrological walks, public zikr and dance meetings.

Presently my life energy is focused on creating sustainable native plant gardens and on wildlife suport in Birch Bay, Washington, where I am retired from public teaching and immersed in creating the full scale renaturescaping of my community.

Saladin Pelfrey

Saladin has been actively walking the mystical path for the past 50 years. He finds spiritual expression in the many aspects of this wonderful journey. Holding the Message in his heart as a khalif in the Ruhaniat, teaching classes and workshops, being a khilvat guide, a cherag, DHO Initiator and a ziraat Experienced Farmer are all part of this expression. Saladin spent several years teaching meditation and pranayama. He has had the deep blessing to study with teachers from many different traditions. He has worked as a psychologist/psychotherapist and osteopathic massage therapist in Moscow, Idaho, (retired) and lives in Hamilton Montana where the woods and mountains are his beloved playground.