Where Sufi and Native American traditions meet

I recently went to participate in an Inipi sweat lodge from the traditions of the Lakota Tribe in North America.

The native American ways and traditions were a path that I was walking for a while in my past through Forrest Yoga. The ceremonies, the prayers, the medicine songs were a huge part of my healing and bringing me back into my body, healing layers of trauma and unblocking my voice and the music of my heart and soul to be expressed in the world.

I began to sing again (after decades of addiction and abusing my body where I lost my voice and the music of my soul) and write medicine songs and found deep healing and transformation in the ceremonies and prayers.

I held full moon fire ceremonies, despacho ceremonies and partook in plant medicine ceremonies (ayahuasca, San Pedro and mushrooms) and sweat lodges.

I began a shamanic apprenticeship and began to hold space as a shamanic healer and coach.

And yet, over the years I noticed a feeling that there was still something missing for me that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

And what that was, I finally came to understand, was a deeper surrender to God.

I was still in a place where I was resistant to ‘God’.

That word ‘God’ still held a huge amount of charge and contraction around it.

I could easily use the words ‘universe’, ‘source’, ‘Great Spirit’ but the word ‘God’ made me feel extremely uncomfortable…maybe even angry and defensive.

And so began an exploration into why that was…but that is for another story.

This story is one about a curiosity arising in me to explore where the Native American and shamanic medicine path I was once walking can meet the Sufi path I am now walking.

A curiosity began to arise in me in the last 9 months as I began to venture back out into the world and meet people, teachers and environments from my past.

The years before 2020 where I retreated from the world to find a new way of being and living and God led me to the Sufi Path.

In 2016, I went to a yoga bodywork training in Newcastle, with Forrest Yoga Guardians Jambo Truong and Brian Campbell and also a month long intensive Forrest Yoga Teacher training where my voice really began to open again. Where I sang the first ever medicine song I wrote. A song that was the medicine that helped me to have the courage to express my heart and be heard and seen again. Where I learnt some songs from the Cherokee tribe which fed and nourished my heart. Where I learnt to open sacred space by calking in Great Spirit and the directions. Where my consciousness began to expand and my perception of my life and the world began to change. This was such a significant time in healing and transforming my ‘self’, my heart and my life as I knew it. From this time, I began to write many medicine songs that continue to be sung in Forrest yoga ceremonies.

From 2020 to last year, I left that world and those songs behind and began a letting go of all those identities. Again, another story for another time.

This was, yet again, another big death and deeper surrender.

As I surrendered and retreated into what felt like the wilderness…I began to forget many of those songs and that world I was so immersed in.

Last year, 2025, I went to Newcastle again…a reunion bodywork training. For me…a sort of coming out as a Sufi and a coming back into the world. I sang some of my old medicine songs and others from this new place within me and felt their transmissions in a completely different way. I began to experience their place in my life again and honour these words that helped me heal and help others to find their voices.

As this path began to open again, I began to be curious how this part of my past and the ‘me’ now fit together. How and where these paths may meet in prayer, in ceremony, in worship and devotion to God.

What I now call ‘Allah’, is the same as ‘Great Sprit’…the Creator.

At the root of it…my orientation towards the world had changed and was anchored more in Allah and not my ‘self’. (although that is not always the case and is in itself a journey of forgetting and remembering)

During Ramadan this year, a woman came to stay with me who was exploring Sufism but was walking the medicine path of the Lakota tribe and supporting this man who held Inipi sweat lodges.

Synchronistically, I had been thinking for a while, how I would love to build and have a sweat lodge on the land here at Home House. I had participated in several sweats in the past which I had found to be deeply healing and this felt like a sign and an opening. Especially as it was Ramadan and we were in a more purified state and container than usually. I didn’t do anything about it but was aware of the opening.

A few months later, I saw on instagram that there was an Inipi sweat lodge happening soon. This mans account popped up on my feed and following a pull, I immediately messaged him to ask if he would be interested in coming and holding a sweat here on the land. He was and was open to talk…which we did…and he invited me to come and experience the Inipi sweat the following week.

So off I went.

The sweat lodges were deeply sacred and holy places of prayer and purification.

A different form of purification as the Sufi practices, but still purification.

The prayers and songs were of a different language and transmissions, but still beautiful sincere powerful prayers and transmissions all the same, calling on the power of the Creator. Within the sweat, I offered Sufi prayers which was openly received.

The ceremony itself was honourable and sacred. The women wearing dresses that covered shoulders and knees and some wore head coverings. The men wore shorts or skirts. The women sat on one side and the men on the other.

I found this beautiful place where these two paths, these two traditions meeting in prayer, in ceremony, in devotion and worship of the Creator.

A place of honouring the sacredness of The Creators creation; earth, fire, water, air, spirit, ancestors.

Sitting in the womb space of the Inipi, representing the divine feminine, in the fire of the divine masculine. Purifying our bodies and hearts with the elements and in that space of death and transformation, calling on the Creator in prayer in the womb space of death and rebirth.

Crawling out of the Inipi, like crawling out of the womb, birthing our ‘selves’, asking for veils to be cleansed and purified so we can step out into the world again...reborn. Again aligned with the Sufi teachings, die before you die. Over and over again. Inshallah. Each sweat is an opportunity for this.

It was so deeply moving to experience the beautiful unity of two different paths.

What also happened during the sweat, was at the end of one round (there are 5 rounds), all elder women were given space to share any wisdom if they felt called. Women are considered elders from 52 years onwards. I had just turned 52 a few weeks previously and I suddenly was made aware of this experience, this ceremony was like a rites of passage for me. Moving me into becoming an elder woman. Subhanallah. It was like Allah had guided me here to be initiated. Again deeply moving moment.

That evening, a Peyote ceremony (a cactus that has psychedelic qualities and the Lakota’s use as a medicine to receive guidance and healing within a deeply sacred space held by a Chief) was being held which some part of me was feeling the pull to join and another part was resistant. So I chose to just sit with all of this, praying for a sign from Allah to know what He/she wanted me to do. It had been many years since I had sat and journeyed in a plant medicine ceremony and the Sufi path is a path of sober journeying with God. I knew that my teachers and guides advise against participating in these ceremonies.

As I sat, I realised that the part that wanted to join, was the old part of me that desperately wants to belong, to not miss out, to be loved and accepted in a family. And the other part that was resistant was Allah saying, ‘this is not for you anymore my love. This is your sign. This is your guidance’

After discussions with others who were also not participating, I realised, that if it’s not a resounding ‘yes’, it’s a no. If any part of me is in doubt, it’s a no. That was from Allah. This sign, is one that I have often not listened to in my past, and I have suffered the consequences of not listening to it. What I listened to was driven by the pull of longing to belong, to be loved, to be a part of a family, chasing something that was not for me and not trusting my own inner guidance.

Allah was showing me and teaching me discernment…again…another opportunity to listen and follow where in the past I had not. Teaching me how to follow and recognise the signs of what to do and what not to do.

So, I gratefully declined participating in the ceremony, honouring and respecting this beautiful medicine that is for others, but no longer for me…standing in the sovereignty of the path that has been chosen for me to walk.

This moment, was a beautiful moment where I realised where these two paths do not meet but can stand side by side, in honour, respect and love for each other. To stand together in the unity that all paths lead to Allah. All paths lead to God.

It was a profound moment where I was able to stand fully in alignment with Allah and what He/She wants for me. To accept the path that has been chosen for me to walk and to gracefully walk away from something that has not been chosen for me.

That evening, I went back to my tent and listened to Quran for a few hours and journeyed with Allah in a different way. My heart felt full and my soul at peace.

What this experience has opened up for me more, is a radical love and acceptance that all paths come from Allah, everything is Allah’s creation and what is good for one person, may not be good for another. A love, gratitude and acceptance of the Sufi path I am walking and that ultimately, whatever presents itself to me along the way, Allah is guiding me, teaching me how to discern what is for me and what is not.

I am grateful for this teaching, this experience and I pray that I will continue to be able to recognise the signs along the way.

May Allah bless all of these sacred paths of ceremony and prayer and show us all how to stand together in unity, love, respect and honour for all of His/Her Creation.