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 2025
Dear Friends,
This Winter theme is Letting Go and includes our heartfelt memories of Murshid Kiran Rana, friend and teacher for many of us.
For Spring, let’s consider the theme of Friendship. What does it mean to you?
How do you support and value it? Do you have friendships that span a lifetime? This also includes our relationship with the Friend, as Rumi says. Try to limit prose to around 500 words, poems to one page, and send them along to the email address below no later than March 10th, 2025.
Have beautiful holidays, no matter what or how you celebrate! And let’s welcome the return of the light and float a prayer for our planet.
In This Issue
Always Letting Go
Pir Elias Amidon
Kiran
Jeanne Rana
The Three-Octave Certificate
Anna Zweede
Living, loving, and letting go.
Suzanne Inayat-Khan
Fall-ing
Heath Thompson
YOU WERE IN MY DREAM AGAIN
Jeanne Rana
Qawwali tears
Amrita Skye Blaine
Visitations
Basheera Kathleen Ritchie
Letting go
Roos Kohn
Memo for Kiran
Umtul Valeton-Kiekens
And This
Amrita Skye Blaine
Upcoming Programs
Always Letting Go
by Pir Elias Amidon
Kiran and I were close friends. We knew each other for over fifty years—we taught together and talked endlessly and corresponded and argued and played and travelled together into unexpected adventures around the world—and all of it now is gone, let go, gone. There are memories, yes, but those are frail things that wave like old flags over a distant, unreachable country. This is as it must be, of course, what is past is past. I can get wistful about it, but even that wistfulness blows away and I can’t help but let it go, let it join the once-vivid country of our actual experiences together.
What is left? Only this thankfulness and love that make my moments now wider, deeper, clearer. That’s all, but that’s enough.
At Kiran’s memorial I read a portion of two emails he and I exchanged back in the summer of 2020, and I’d like to share part of them here, in print, before they too are let go. Perhaps in them you will hear echoes of this theme—letting go—which is at the heart of all of our experience of this human life we share.
At that time Kiran was in the hospital with a serious recurrence of cancer. A large tumor had been found in his abdomen and he was about to begin chemotherapy again. Here’s my letter to him:
Kiranji —
Speaking to you on the phone last night I heard how your voice had changed its timbre—it was different, how it emerged from your being to bridge the space between us was different, there was no hint of ambition, the young man in you and the old man were reconciled, and when I said you may have another decade to live, you laughed and asked me to hold that thought. You said it as if hope was a pretty pebble you picked up on the beach and handed to me. I felt unsure what to do with it, as if to cherish it was what I most wanted to do and yet knowing that cherishing would leave you alone in your hospital room, would betray the sadness in my heart and yours. You had written that your tears were not about you, about the uncertain timing of your certain end, and I asked why. You said, “There’s a personal life to be mourned, and also to be rejoiced.” I feel now the humble nobility of your being, your embrace of the exquisite, sad, exultant beauty of impermanence and your love of the Mysterious One of which we are an illumination. I am blessed and thankful to know you as my friend and my teacher.
— Ami
(Kiran always called me “Ami”)
Here’s his reply—written from his hospital bed:
Beloved brother and friend and Pir —
Every one of those words so meaningful, such is the depth opened to us and in us through what we have shared and become as we joyfully vanish, vanish as we want yet still casting regretful glances because something feels unfinished, maybe it wasn’t fully tasted or she really did want to be kissed or perhaps just the perfect bon mot was left not perfectly placed on the present, the package to the ever beloved that is also our little prize to ourselves, that little inner smile of self- satisfaction before we turn to the next moment, the moment of theater, for all the depth of being and feeling that churns us and forces up the ugly beauty and beautiful vanity and groveling truthfulness longing to be known from within, there is still that moment of action, of being the actor, of standing in the way of that force field of feeling and saying: move me into being—showing—releasing into life the verité, the truth of this, so others can see, can see what human is, can be, unabashed, in essence and beyond sense, surrendered, free.
Today a pebble in your hand
tomorrow a love amulet around someone’s neck
today a piece of light caught by the sun to look like a thing
tomorrow a diadem in Athene’s tiara
— Kiran
Kiran…
by Jeanne Rana
Dear ones,
This is part of my speech at Kiran’s memorial on September 14. I can’t figure out a better way to honor him here in Fresh Rain.
Kiran was raised in a Sikh family and wore a turban until he was an adult. He studied to be an engineer at IIT, the Indian equivalent of MIT. From his stories, it seems he was much more interested in theater than in engineering. He was a Sufi teacher, a qawwal, who sang, composed, and taught ecstatic Sufi music, he was a publisher, and after he sold his company, he took advantage of the classes offered by Stagebridge, a theater arts company in Oakland for people over 50, acting, singing, writing plays, doing improv, and storytelling. You can see him performing some of his stories on YouTube. He was a most inspired storyteller. He was a wordsmith, a poet. He joined the choir at First Unitarian Church two years ago. This was a huge challenge, as he did not read western music. Kiran was always up for a challenge. In his last two years, he was planning a zoom seminar on spiritual responses to the climate crisis. This was to be 5 weekends long, with many speakers, plus music, meditation, poetry, movement. Unfortunately, Kiran’s health failed him before this conference could be achieved. Ironically, it was called A MATTER OF LIFE.
I met Kiran forty-two years ago, in Claremont, California, doing aikido, a somewhat gentle martial art. He was irresistible to me. By the end of six months, we were dating, and in 1986 we began living together. In 1991 we moved to the Bay Area. In 2008, after I had a serious illness, we decided to get married. We were married for almost sixteen years.
Kiran showed me a new world. I feel blessed for many reasons, one of the main ones being how I have been accepted and loved by his family. His parents, his sister, all passed now, and his three nieces, and many cousins continue to shower me with love. I have an Indian family as well as an American family. I have been so fortunate to share in their world.
Kiran also brought into my life music, travel, adventure, a spiritual depth I craved, mental stimulation. He was always up to something. I was never bored. We worked together at the publishing company for ten years, and after that we established Bay Dervish, a Sufi center in our home, holding meetings once a month. He supported my poetry and pushed me to get poems published.
His illness was not a surprise. This was a second recurrence of lymphoma. His oncologist had told us it would be back, probably in two to four years. It came right at the 4-year mark. In six months he was gone. He died at home, at peace, but there were things he had not finished. He was planning a huge conference. He wanted to write a book based on his course, A Taste of Sufism. He wanted to start a qawwali school. I know he wanted to continue to deepen his relationships with his mureeds.
Kiran left us too quickly, and some of us feel we did not get to say our goodbyes. I suggest we imagine he has left us with a chilla, to accept his “quiet exit” and learn from it. He gave me a huge chilla: to learn to live a joyful life when he is not physically here with me.
He loved deeply, he had strong opinions, he was quick to anger, quick to forgive, he was fierce and tender, he was a loyal friend, he was full of fun and mischief, he was intense, charismatic. He could be harsh and judgmental. He doubted himself. Sometimes he was hard to live with. He was, shall we say, “complicated.” He had a beautiful mind.
He had a beautiful soul, and a beautiful mind.
So, Kiran, I salute you.
I love you.
I miss you.
Thank you.
The Three-Octave Certificate
by Anna Zweede
My mind lets go a thousand things…
Thomas B. Aldrich “Memory”
The date and place, those usual markers of importance, are no longer with me. His face, his voice, his hands—those I remember well.
After 2001, before 2010. A weekend music workshop. In Surrey, not at Four Winds. I almost missed the train back on the Sunday, a kind soul driving well over the speed limit to get me to… could it have been Guildford?... in time get to London and board the Eurostar. But I digress.
Kiran was one of the teachers. He seemed mildly disgruntled at the beginning of the session he led. Tired, perhaps, or having to adjust the content to the group he found himself with. It seems to me that he opened with a question about the participants’ familiarity with qawwali. For me, and I believe several others, it was close to nil. He nodded, taking that in.
We began slowly, humming a note.
“Listen,” he said. “Tune to each other.”
We tried hard. We did our best. This very likely didn’t help at all.
As I write, shards of other experiences surface, and the memories intertwine. I acknowledge them and the people whose names they bring to mind, and they gently float off again.
Kiran, warmed by his art, relaxed into the moment as we sang together. We moved into the lower register, returned to medium range and then slowly moved up the scale.
“You’re close,” he remarked at a certain point. “Another two notes and you can get your three-octave certificate.”
Then he smiled. It began with a light in his eyes that spilled over onto the tops of his cheeks and spread to illuminate his entire face. And the room.
“Relax your forehead,” he told us. Later, repeating the same advice, he added, “You don’t sing with your eyebrows!”
To help us remember—because of course our faces furrowed and contorted with the effort we believed we needed to make, particularly singing in the higher range—he regularly brushed one hand over his own forehead. All of his notes were pure, seemingly effortless, and his entire face was completely relaxed. It was an early lesson for me in an entirely new perception of mastery, one I might now call engaged surrender. At the time, I could neither fathom that allowing is more essential to singing than control, nor imagine with what grateful tenderness I would remember Kiran’s teaching decades later.
Living, loving, and letting go.
by Suzanne Inayat-Khan
I have not so far let go of my love or even some memories of all the beloveds in my life who have passed. In the empty silence without warning their essence arises and fills my breath and being. Sometimes my mind recalls an imprint. Sometimes it’s just a kind of recognition. A re-membering of the love stream that flowed between and within. Knowing the other and being known, beyond shape and form, beyond time. That seems to become even more apparent and real after their passing and I hold it as sacred.
Kiran, Bhajan, Thalassa, Patrick, Jalilah, Nannan and Papa, Martine, Murshid, Sitara, Aunty Moira, Caz, Little Rabia, Sara, Mahara, Munir, Julie, Hasan, Aranthe—oh, there are more, I know it, but space and time limit this word offering. I want to add, shared moments were not always easy, but always there was love.
When visiting Glasgow recently to pay my respects to Patrick’s beloveds, my precious silver moonstone necklace vanished. There’s a letting go story behind that and probably around a campfire with a glass of wine I will share it.
Fall-ing
by Heath Thompson
It is Autumn here in Austria. Not many leaves left on the trees. There’s a fresh dusting of snow in the garden. And I was happily humming along, when I suddenly noticed that the roses were gone. I was certain they were still in bloom but not even petals remain.
And I was reminded of all this change. All around me. The falling leaves. The drifting snow that wafts in and out of my thinking. And I don’t know why, but as I looked at my old cottage, I thought, I have worked for forty years for this. Every week for forty to seventy hours. That’s over 100,000 hours of my life. And for what?
A ramshackle house, a used Fiat Panda, most of my clothes are over ten years old, and right now, I am wearing socks with holes in them. Was this worth 100,000 hours of my life? 100,000 hours of precious time on this beautiful planet in exchange for what I now have?
All these thoughts happening in a flash. I didn’t invite them in. I had been happily humming along to myself when suddenly I am questioning my life.
Falling leaves, vanishing rose petals, and countless hours lost to work. No money to repair a cracked chimney, or to restore parts of my house that are gradually falling into disrepair. And I notice a sense of frustration and sadness beginning to creep in.
But how do I know I am feeling that? How do I know I am having these thoughts?
There must be something listening to thoughts and sensing feelings. If I am only thoughts and feelings I would disappear when they are not present, right? So, what I am is something else. What is that?
When there is no thought or feeling I am not aware of no thought and no feeling. Seeing still happens. Feeling still occurs. Yet something observes the seeing and notices the feeling. I had the thought to write this article, but I really didn’t have that thought at all. I noticed thoughts appear, as I witness typing happening. But what is this I? If I look there is only silence looking at itself. A silent observer not drawing attention to itself? All my life, it saw me angry, in love, frustrated, overjoyed, desperate, successful, and failing. Yet, in each of these moments, this silent self was at peace. At peace while witnessing anger. Untroubled when feeling love. Undisturbed at failure or success.
All this noise coming and going against a silence that is.
I glance at the trees and the same silent observer feels like an endless stillness within them. But only it is noticing this. It senses life through them. It is within the leaves and experiences falling. And in the trees, it encounters letting go. And the space between the leaves and the trees is also its presence.
And you know, that very same silent observer is present in you? This means that the One who is typing is the same One who is reading. If we think we are letting go, we are the One attempting to let go of itself. And I don’t think that can be done. Can you let go of yourself? I wonder.
And more thoughts arrive… if it cannot let go of itself, and if everything is already it, then nothing can make it better or worse, richer or poorer, more present or less so.
Forty years of effort! Can I let go of what seems like a wasted life? No. What I thought of as my individual me is a lie.
If there is no me, what feels this sadness, and is it wrong to feel it? Then I see, that like thought, it arises of itself, from life’s events and patterns. Despite my thinking, I might weep for the loss of something or someone, but the crying comes out of love, love for the beauty of that expression of presence that only appears to be lost to us but hasn’t left. That is wonderful. To feel the loss of something beautiful. To be alive to experience this love so deeply it brings us to tears. Yet, while this occurs, we are that which peacefully watches.
Was it worth 100,000 hours of my life in exchange for what I now have? I don’t own anything do I? Never have. So, is having nothing worth all the effort? Well, that’s quite a story because no effort was made, no I was here to make it, and what is, is what is. And in this, a great peace is revealed.
So, I stop now. I return to humming a tune and watching leaves falling.
YOU WERE IN MY DREAM AGAIN
for K
I dreamed we were new,
your hair black, mine brown.
We were learning to touch each other,
our fire wild and dangerous.
Now we are old friends
singing, walking slow.
We are old lovers,
our fire warms, not burns.
We have had adventures
ecstasies, catastrophes.
I have loved you desperately.
Now I love you gratefully.
—Jeanne Rana
Dec 2, 2023
Qawwali tears
for Kiran, the Qawwali friend in the poem
taught to swipe
my tears away, flick
them to the ground
rage or grief
delight, love
distinction didn’t matter
a Qawwali friend
suggested
don’t dismiss them
honor the gift they are
rub them in
with love instead
tentative, I tried
I remember
that first time
smoothing tears—
warmth toward them
changed my life
my view
this messiness
this untapped well
I make it welcome here
—Amrita Skye Blaine
Visitations
After the wrenching death of a loved one
come, by grace,
the visitations.
So personal,
his essence inside you.
Instant recognition:
here, now,
he is present.
Don’t mistake them for grief
though they sneak up,
unexpected,
bringing you, sobbing,
to your knees
on the floor.
Imagine
visiting a beloved, in joy,
only to witness
their wracking response--
sudden collapse,
agonies of sorrow.
Perhaps
(you might think)
keeping distant is better.
Grieve for your loss,
when separation gnaws you
but rejoice in reunion
when your dear friend fills you.
In welcoming him
the healing begins,
tears of gratitude,
the heart’s embrace
—Basheera Kathleen Ritchie
Letting go
Taking in words
Meaning expectations
Desires as fears
of understanding what
silence is upon us.
Wanting to fit
In oneness to
belong, live long
alone and all one
with The One
with everyone
Dance, breathe,
letting go
In silence
Sharing
hoping
listening
smiling to
the child
the wind
the flower
the cloud
your friend,
you love dearly
your change
your chance
to let go
to let The One.
Courage, wisdom
will be there
when I let go
of me, of being,
breathing
—Roos Kohn
Memo for Kiran
Half a century flew by on a whim
Starting in Katwijk where you lived in a shed,
In the garden of our publishing house.
You worked during late hours always,
In deep concentration
We had long conversations,
Discussions too and we liked that,
Because it was not in order to be right
There was no need for a winner
We loved each other deeply too
Our love was a spiritual one …
If there was anything not loving
I make a deep bow here and now
And apologize
The picture where you look at me so lovingly
Was taken during a programme at Four Winds
and you look wholesome,
Handsome.
Cannot remember what the programme was about, but
Surely it softened you and your companions,
Looking at us now so lovingly …
Thank you Kiran for having been my friend …
Loved your wisdom too and you are
Always
In my heart
—Umtul Valeton-Kiekens
And This
— Amrita Skye Blaine
the deal
The pain I feel now is the happiness
I had before. That’s the deal.
—C. S. Lewis
that hawk, coasting
he dips to one side,
his wings just so, to catch
the shifting air I stand
and stare, the fugitive
moment
there was a time,
caught in my own
self-importance, too
busy to soak in what’s
fleeting now as I grow
old and absorb all
will be lost, snapshots
of grace are salve
and consolation
not to be overlooked
or wasted
borrowed
I am traceless
and faceless
filled with knowing
yet not known
walking the life
I was granted
called seeker
wife, mother
teacher, poet
old woman
I am none
of these
they are shawls
I slip on
and slip off
useful
I am breath
in a lifesuit
borrowed
for a while
before I must
give it back
and yield
