Divine Slavery
An African-American Muslim Psychotherapists’ Spiritual Awakening with a New Client — White Men
I peeked out the passenger side window as Kristy’s Mini Cooper hugged the mud weary mountain road. She was the only Catholic school friend who supported this newly-formed Sabrina who covered her head, prayed five times a day, built bridges in churches and synagogues, and sat in circles with strangers all over the world.
She picked me up every time I landed in the Bay Area, always willing to take me to any destination within a 100-mile radius. Our drives were loaded with Starbucks and memories.
This time, we were headed to the top of a mountain for my Sufi healing course.
Kristy understood the assignment of driving her only Black Girl BFF from the Bronx “over the river and through the damn woods” to Pope Valley, California. Our banging-on-the-dashboard laughter quieted the roaring nausea in my belly each time she rounded a hairpin curve. My heart reminded my anxious stomach that every past visit to this barren land took me closer to my two favorite guides from the Other Side — my Sufi spiritual teacher, Sidi, and Big Mama.
When we landed at the mountaintop, I was beginning to dread the descent back to San Francisco, still a full week away. I hugged my sister-friend tightly, kissed her goodbye, and watched her cute little car head back to civilization.
I turned back to the retreat building, dropped my bags, and prepared for the first session with my cohort, led by my teacher, Ibrahim. Ibrahim was one of Sidi’s top American students. Sidi entrusted Ibrahim with teaching the secrets of Sufi healing. I was the sole African-American woman in an eclectic group of healers — reformed Jews, Roman Catholics, Muslims, and Wanderers, all striving to follow the Sufi path of submission, surrender, and love. We were all excited and slightly nervous about our upcoming mystical experience; my profession calls it “hypnosis” or “imagery.” Our Sufi community calls it “traveling.” Most of us in the room that morning had some experience traveling with Ibrahim, who always led us on unforgettable journeys.
Ibrahim’s gray curls and light olive skin reminded me of the many Israeli and Palestinian men whom I met at Sidi’s home in Jerusalem. I felt safe in the presence of his stocky arms that once held men “down for the count” in the wrestling matches of his youth. I trusted his capacity to hold and guide me not just to where I wanted to go, but to where Love was leading me in this next chapter of my life.
I found a comfortable floor chair, put warm socks on my feet, and closed my eyes, drifting deeper into a trance. Under the mindful container of Ibrahim’s baritone voice, I was swept to an area of my consciousness far beyond the confines of the room, the building, and the mountains that surrounded us.
In the safety of Ibrahim’s presence, images emerged, rushing through the cinema of my imagination at warped speed : Wooden slave ships. Brown bodies flying into blue seas. Rapes. Lynchings. Blood in every scene. The primal screams of my paternal cousin, raped and murdered by her pastor. Big Mama, held at gunpoint for the crime of being related to a heroin addict. All of the heroin addicts, the world’s empaths, criminalized for feeling too much. Grandpa Willie, an unclaimed body in a borough of ashes.
The depth and care of Ibrahim’s voice kept me safe: “Yes, beloved Saarah Sabrina, that’s it . . . let it move through you . . . If there are tears or even a sound trapped in there, let it out.”
An unfamiliar sound was rising, a scream that permeated my bones, tightened my bowels, and hammered at my uterus.
While traveling with me, Ibrahim also began to walk with John Amin, a white man who was struggling to overcome his prostate cancer. Sidi had given him the name, Amin, the man of faith. As my brother Amin began to shed tears over his losses, I felt my images slow down, transforming into a collage of stories of many people outside of my lineage. I saw lonely white men with overbearing fathers and disconnected mothers, surrounded by brown bottles and filth. I peered into their eyes and witnessed their loneliness and physical discomfort in their own skin. Delete weeping for the souls of my people expanded to include that of my white brothers who had lost their souls, vacating their spiritual homes in the pursuit of material mansions.
I was in the barzakh, the invisible barrier between two spiritual realms. A voice welcomed me into this elevated state:
Love the men who your mother told you were unlovable.
What? Who?
The ones who’re crying behind you.
My traveling hit turbulence, as I landed at the intersection of jamal and jelal, the beauty and the severity of living. My weeping for the souls of my people expanded to include that of my white brothers who had lost their souls, vacating their spiritual homes in the pursuit of material mansions.
Now, you are headed to the secret.
I was suddenly aware of a powerful light bathing my eyes, cupping my legs beneath me, and gently raising me. The images disappeared into mist, as I became an entity of sensations — tingling in my legs, warmth in my hands, and an intoxicating buzz. My body was reminded of a thousand moments of snuggling in bed with my beloved, with just enough cold air from the outside to keep us tucked under the covers for a few more moments. My Sufi spiritual guide, Sidi, called this rarely-visited oasis, fana. I wondered whether I could live there forever.
Ibrahim summoned Amin and I back to the room. I sat, nailed to the floor, equal parts ecstatic and terrified; Oh Lawd, what did I just sign up for? As my eyes became aware of my surroundings, my legs refused to grant me permission to stand. Ibrahim looked down at me, his booming voice responding to my unspoken fear: “Get to work.”
My work had actually begun years earlier, when I heard an older white man speak of angels at a professional training. It continued when a white male physician sat in one of my healing groups and apologized for the racism and misogyny in his lineage and in him.
My capacity for this work expanded with every lecture, every relationship, and every couple who sought my guidance. After teaching about the trauma of oppression for years, I was being called to serve the people who had been tricked into following the commands of the thief that hates us all — racism.
Ibrahim later taught the entire group about the meaning of Divine Slavery: “A true slave of Allah is free.” My longing for true slavehood propelled me to follow Sidi’s teachings into places and spaces that had the potential for pain. Yet, I also knew that in the core of witnessing that pain, I would also find my purpose.
A week later, I descended back to San Francisco, minus the sound of Kristy’s laughter, and less terrified of the Pope Valley mudslides. As I sat in the airport, reading a ten-day backlog of emails, it seemed the world had been eavesdropping on my mountaintop conversations. I received messages from random white men asking for healing sessions. Working with white MEN? Alone? In my office? That’s a big ask. All of this has been a big ask.
My best option in that moment was to pull out my journal and chat with Her:
Whoa. Did that really happen?
Yep. It did.
You know those pictures I saw are real.
They are our realities. Don’t you ever forget them.
Help return those white men back to their hearts. If they are coming to us, they’re already almost there. Let the One Love use you.
Divine Slavery feels messy. And frightening.
It is. And many won’t understand this side of your work. But if you want to work for peace? You gotta be ready to fight for what is right.
Do the work.
Do your part.
Set us all free.
Dr. Sabrina N’Diaye is a wife, mom, seeker, teacher, therapist, and bridge. She is currently completing her first memoir/self-help book, Big Mama Speaks: Love Lessons from a Harlem River Swan, based on the timeless messages from her maternal grandmother.