April 30, 10-10:30 am (Mountain time, Edmonton, Alberta).  (20 min session followed by 10 min Q&A)  
Location: Google Hangouts. Upon registration, link will be sent to you
Fees: $0. FREE.

Title: Cultivating the Inner Ear for Imagining a New, Possible Future for Humanity

Description:  Muslim mystics called the Sufis have been emphasizing the significance of listening (sema) to cultivate your inner TRUTH for ages; how can their wisdom be applied today in the present crisis of the global pandemic: COVID-19 to find our way from our personal dilemmas and collectively imagine and create a new future for humanity? The Muslim poet, Rumi sings: “Listen, as this reed, pipes its plaint, unfolds its tale, of separations. Cut from my reed bed, my crying ever since, makes men and women weep.”

In this presentation, I will discuss my ethnographic (and secondary) research in Sufi sema (listening) across South Asia, Middle East, and North Africa and how it has empowered me to transform my potential breakdowns into personal breakthroughs. I will show my journey of resilience within my artistic practice, teaching, research, and performance, to share with you how my spiritual awakening from the moment that represents “crisis of faith” during my late teens to the present moment today has pushed me to seek the wisdom of tradition and cultural heritage and imagine a new future. By pursuing my inner calling and dreams, I emerged from a place in life where I confronted roadblocks, melt-downs, and abusive relationships to a place of phenomenal creativity: where I was researching, teaching, composing, and performing music amongst people who supported and appreciated my voice: its tangible beauty as well as what I had to say. By pursuing my inner calling, I have created a world that is not perfect but it is surrounded by people who recognize my strengths, my brilliance, and believe that I have many assets with which I can serve humanity in this time of crisis.  I urge you to develop these assets by invoking the power of your ancestral heritage and traditions because it is in our personal and collective journeys to relate our cultural wisdom within the present time that we will find a greater balance between our Reason and our Intuition and in doing so imagine and create a new and possibly better future for humanity.

Instructor: Shumaila Hemani, Ph.D. , Adjunct Instructor, University of Alberta, Music Faculty, Semester at Sea, Colorado-State University (CSU)

Registration link:   (you can share this form!)

This is part of the Maskwacis Cultural College Microlearning Series and is open to the public.
Contact Manisha Khetarpal by email via mkhetarpal@mccedu.ca