Language, Gender, and Divine Imagery

Focusing on the feminine side of religion, Omid Safi and Willow Brook express how divine love and connection transcend all binaries. 

This episode was originally recorded for the Wild Heart Podcast with Willow Brook - a podcast that explores divinity in daily life with themes of love, mysticism, grief as a spiritual path, and sensual embodiment. Learn more: Wild Heart Podcast | On Youtube

This time on Sufi Heart, Omid Safi chats with Willow Brook about:

• Navigating this mass global suffering 
• Tapping into love while going through crisis 
• Remembering that the self and collective are wrapped up together
• Connecting to the lived experience of others
• What it means to make love and beauty real
• Lessons from great activists like MLK Jr. and Malcolm X
• How essential black women have been in the civil rights movement
• Expanding our notions of love beyond the romantic
• The divine mother and feminine wisdom within Islam
• Deeply knowing that we are never apart from God
• How we are all living in the same spiritual ecosystem, the same divine womb
• The dichotomy of form and formless, body and spirit 
• Love as embodied service

About Willow Brook:

Willow Brook is a love coach, interspiritual companion, and earth-rooted educator dedicated to helping people awaken to deeper intimacy, presence, and love. For over a decade, she has guided individuals and groups through transformational spaces around the world, weaving somatic intimacy practices, ritual, meditation, and song to support the alchemy of heartbreak into embodied and nourishing connection. Through her signature coaching program, Open to Love, Willow supports those who long for fulfilling and soulful relationships with their bodies, partners, and the divine but feel held back by the pain of the past. As co-founder of Wild Heart with Mirabai Starr, she also facilitates community grief gatherings and ceremonies rooted in the divine feminine for people of all genders. Listen to Willow's The Wild Heart Podcast to hear more about the intersections of love, spirit, and embodiment. You can also keep up with Willow on Instagram.

About Omid Safi:

Dr. Omid Safi is the director of Duke University’s Islamic Studies Center. He specializes in the study of Islamic mysticism and contemporary Islam and frequently writes on liberationist traditions of Dr. King and Malcolm X, and is committed to traditions that link together love and justice. He leads spiritual tours every year to Turkey, Morocco, or other countries, to study the rich multiple religious traditions there. The trips are open to everyone from every country. More information is available at Illuminated Courses & Tours.

Check out Omid’s books Progressive Islam and Radical Love for more progressive perspectives on wisdom from ancient sages 

“If we are both in the same divine womb, what atrocity would I commit without it also coming back to me? How would it change our idea of environmental responsibility? Not only because this is our only home in all of the infinite galaxies, but because we are living in the same spiritual ecosystem and all of that is contained in the divine womb.” –Omid Safi

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