Communing With Spirit: Josh Reeves Speaks with Zemirah Jazwierska

[00:00:00] Good morning, Zemirah. Good morning, Josh. That's who I am. I'm Josh and you're Zemirah and we're just connecting today. I've been talking with all of our ministers one by one. Just so people can get to know them a little bit better.

[00:00:14] And to kind of talk about this subject of calling, you ministering and calling go together and all of us have calling, but it's kind of a unique path when people commit themselves to spirituality and then wind up doing something like what you now do for a living.

[00:00:29] But I'd like to begin by, I love your name, Zemirah. And can you tell us what it means and where it comes from? Well thank you and thanks for having me today. Zemirah is a spiritual name that I chose about 15 years ago.

[00:00:46] And it comes from Hebrew and Arabic because the root of Zemirah is Zamir, which is a morning mark. And when I was bestowed with this spiritual name, it has a meaning, joyfulness and music merged together. So joyful melody.

[00:01:08] And you can see how that's a connection with the Zamir, the morning mark. And the reason being is that it's very much linked to my calling in ministry. And that is that essence of joyfulness and the searching for all things spiritual

[00:01:24] that support that as well as music because I was rooted in music instruction and music sharing from a really early age. I love that. Well, I love Zemirah and it suits you really well. I've never known you by any other name by that.

[00:01:43] And it's true as well that you have another spiritual name. I do and that's Bismillah in the Sufi path, which I came across maybe 10 or so years ago through the dances of universal peace.

[00:01:57] I was very called to deepen in the Sufi studies mostly because it is in our faith in nature and it's more of a philosophy, a philosophical approach to spirituality. And so when I became initiated on the Sufi path, my teacher bestowed upon me Bismillah,

[00:02:18] which means literally we begin in the name of God again and again. So you'll see often the word Bismillah in many Sufi chants and many Sufi phrases and used throughout the teachings of Sufism because it means we begin in the name of God.

[00:02:37] I love those names and for you, you are they all one identity. When you're in these names or does it change? Like oh, I'm Zemirah right now. Whatever else may come before. Let's such a good question.

[00:02:50] I think they're pretty much merged at this point because I think it takes a while to when you step into a name it really does I believe have a vibrational quality to it and it has a vibrational impact upon your life.

[00:03:05] And when I stepped into using both of these names in various communities, I noticed shifts in my own consciousness and in my own way of being because of the essence that the name carries and in hearing it in reference to oneself.

[00:03:23] So yeah, I think they're pretty much integrated now. I feel as if I am Zemirah. And this may lie I mostly use just when I'm in the Sufi community and it does carry that spiritual reference to the passages of Sufism and the Arabic name. Yeah. Awesome, awesome.

[00:03:46] My experience of you Zemirah and I think people get into ministry for all sorts of different reasons. But one of the things I admire most about you is I would almost call it socratic in the sense of your love of wisdom.

[00:04:01] The spiritual hunger that I see emanates from you is like a fire that I know is never going to go out. And I hope you receive that as an honoring and I hope you resonate with it,

[00:04:16] but you just want to know where this love of learning, of spiritual growth, of deepening, of understanding. You are so well-read and you're always into something from a place of humility too, not like expertise just learning.

[00:04:32] And so I want to know where did that come from as we enter into this discussion about calling? That's an interesting question. I'm not exactly sure where it came from because I feel it's just like part of my soul.

[00:04:45] You know, like I was born that way. There's a Gaga song I think, you know? Born that way. But I think of that book when we were kids that we read the Little Hungry Cat of Filtler. And that's kind of how it's always been.

[00:04:59] There's always just been this thirst and this hunger for what is the nature of being. And I just can't, you're right. It's just can't get enough. There's a lot of songs built into my response. I think I just can't get enough.

[00:05:13] That was to Peshmo and it's a lot of stuff. Exactly. The Peshmo, the college years. But I think it's always been there. There's just this, I think what happens for me when I really immerse in spiritual teachings and spiritual study is that you enter that space of timelessness.

[00:05:33] And for me, there is never enough time. I mean, two hours goes by and it's like one minute. You know? And you're like, how did that happen? Because there's just this depth and I feel fueled by it. It's my spiritual fuel, like jet fuel.

[00:05:51] And whenever I'm deeply in those teachings, it's like I can completely fall. And then there is no Zamira, right? There's no Bismillah. There's no names. There's none of that. There's just this sense of communion. And for me, that's what the hunger is.

[00:06:07] It's wanting to commune with the divine, wanting to be with the beloved. Because there's an energy of vibrational quality to that that just replenishes. I love nutrients. Well, you're for me. I'm very similar to I'm reading all the time.

[00:06:26] There's part of it that's just about my human process of getting out of a box. I'm reading these spiritual truths. I'm wanting to read people who are smart in the NIM, so that I can think in new ways.

[00:06:36] And the byproduct that for me, sometimes as I experience God, I turned 40 a couple years back and there was some video presentation. Well, it's three years back now. And Bobby Dart, who usually records our podcast, he gave a video message

[00:06:52] and he said something that made me laugh because it is so true. You're not wise, but you say wise things. It's so true. And it's true about me, just in my experience, because I do it in some ways ministries, harmonetics. It's reading things and expressing it to people.

[00:07:11] But what I love about you is that your study is bringing you closer to God. That's what I'm hearing and it helped you kind of embody that. Because I would wonder as well, you know, I'm hearing from a young age, this love for knowledge.

[00:07:26] But I also know that you're someone who's committed to your deepening and gross and has been initiated into these names. So I'm guessing some of this comes from a sense of sometimes feeling broken or not enough or stumbling or being called to shed the skin that you're in

[00:07:44] to step into. And so I'm guessing that's an important part of your calling that has led you into the minister you are now. 100% 100%. I love how you brought up the two pathways, the two sides of the coin kind of if you will to that hunger. Right?

[00:07:59] There's that hunger to commune that hunger for joyfulness, but absolutely. Yeah, I haven't had a path that hasn't had stones, pebbles, boulders, massive crevices. Giant spikes. Massive spikes in it. And I think that is something that propels us deeper because pain is a good

[00:08:20] motivator as well as we know suffering. The sense of when I commune with spirit, when I'm in communion with God, then I am transcending the suffering. But you have to meet that pain. I think so much of the way.

[00:08:39] So yeah, I've had a path that's been fraught with pebbles and instigators if you will. Shadow spaces that have also been propelled me into those studies as well, absolutely, 100%. This is an unfair question. So I'm just throwing it at you.

[00:08:58] What is the story of God's calling in your life? The story of God's calling. Well, it's funny because I grew up at a farm in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Illinois and it's not nowhere. It's the middle of a cornfield.

[00:09:15] I grew up in the middle of a cornfield in Illinois and we had church as a focal point of our community. It was the structure of our community engagement. It was where we went to be with our friends because I didn't have neighbors.

[00:09:27] I know you might be wondering how I have social skills at all. But they did come and mostly they came through vacation. Bival school in the summer times and it was a united method. It is church.

[00:09:39] It was a little tiny, tiny, one room school house in the countryside. But I have to tell you that in the midst of our sort of isolated growing up in the cornfields, it was an oasis for me.

[00:09:53] I would go in there and we would shift through a bunch of ministers. They'd be almost like traveling ministers and they would come and they'd stay for a while and then they'd be off to the next congregation.

[00:10:05] And one in particular came and he was so creative that he set me on fire for the creativity of God. For instance, he would take the scriptures and he would make them like living books of relevance. You know? I remember he united method is turned 200 or something.

[00:10:27] He had this cake with 200 candles. I mean the church almost burned down. But he lit it on fire, but I think what he also was doing is he created a container where we all felt even in the midst of whatever

[00:10:41] challenges and there's some strange, you know, emotional things that I think go on in isolated places and whenever whatever challenges we're going on in our life and our community and our family lives,

[00:10:55] that in the midst of those spiritual moments, it all went away and there was a sense of connection. You know, candle light services would be another one where we'd all hold hands around this little tiny church room

[00:11:08] and I'd feel that just for a little bit it was almost, you know, enchanting. You know, that sense of the divine was here, it was palpable, it was not ineffable. It wasn't unexplainable, it was something that could be touched and tangible and felt.

[00:11:24] So he brought it in and I'd say that's where a bit of the calling was ignited for me first was that sense of connection in community. And in a way that God spoke to you.

[00:11:39] The way that God spoke to me was through seeing it in that connection with everyone. So yeah, I did get a sense that the next calling and I was put on stage to kind of sing and do, you know, Christmas beat.

[00:11:56] I played piano so I played and my mom was the choir director, my dad was my Sunday school teacher. I mean we were super infused in church, we were church mice and we were always in church.

[00:12:08] But I'd say that the calling came from always having a sense that without this, I don't feel real. Like I don't feel like the real bunny, you know, the velvety and rabbit, like I just felt like this is what makes life feel real to me.

[00:12:27] So that was the first little bit of, I guess you could call it God spoke to me but it was more like I felt it.

[00:12:34] And how is that part of your ministry? You know, as I see it expressed here about how it turned beyond is helping to create that experience for people you take it very serious.

[00:12:45] Late not and wow not taking yourself seriously, you know, which is something I really like about you.

[00:12:53] You know, Frederick Beekner talks about listening to your life and listening to God and one of the things he says for those of us who are lost or maybe even separate from God or not believing in God is,

[00:13:02] you know, watch up for those moments of unexpected tears, you know, that hit you in unique moments.

[00:13:08] You know, watching a movie, you know, sitting alone outside and it comes upon you and that's what I thought about when you were sharing about those candle lightings and things there is something really real there that is expressed in ritual.

[00:13:23] But not in our, our train of thought and I love that that experience would continue to guide you in your life. At what time did you say yes minister, that's the thing. I didn't say yes minister, that's the thing until after my practitioner training really.

[00:13:43] I had an inkling of yes minister, that's the thing when I was 15 years old but then I chose the path of psychology and working in the school system instead.

[00:13:55] And I think there was always a little bit of a question even you know when you get the tap on the shoulder and you're like, oh, I don't think so.

[00:14:01] I don't think I qualified for that. I mean have you taken a look at some of the assembly blocks in the path, you know, like that.

[00:14:08] I'm not worthy kind of sent you know, like oh there's too much there's too much shadow in this space for me to be sharing in that way and so that's why maybe that's why I said oh yes psychology.

[00:14:20] And then I can work all these pathways of learning and still support other people with challenges and that was always a call but even in psychology.

[00:14:33] I always gravitated towards the sense of how do I teach kids mindfulness. How do I bring a sense of spirituality in a way, in a secular world and make it relevant and also make it digestible so it's not offensive to the system from which it's being shared.

[00:14:52] So that was my that was always the thing you know my small girls groups in the schools always were about how do I bring them into a sense of connection within themselves, you know like how do I make it so that the tough stuff of their life is not the definition of who they are but just the story.

[00:15:13] That they're experiencing but that they know a sense of who they are beyond the story so that was always the mission.

[00:15:20] But after practitioner training I was like oh I want to eat and breathe and drink these teachings as much as I can in every way of my life so how can I do that. So that's when it really became sort of more official.

[00:15:34] I love that and you know that pragmatic part of the last thing you said which is one of the best parts of ministry is is you at some level we get paid for doing what we loved do.

[00:15:45] And it's so great when your own commitment to growth and deepening the natural byproduct of it is that it helps other people and you know maybe this is my last question for you today but it's it's.

[00:15:58] Those who are listening who are wanting to better connect with their calling bring it forth fulfill it or just discover themselves what is your your advice to them.

[00:16:08] I would say whatever lights your soul on fire whatever takes you into that timeless place whatever you experience in life that brings you. For even a little bit beyond the mundane but also allows you to connect with the mundane in a way that sets your heart on fire.

[00:16:27] I think there's clues there that there's a sense in there for what is what is it that you're here to share and yes we hope that we get paid for this doing what we love but I think any sort of connection with what we love and being able to share that.

[00:16:46] So if it brings you that vibration of I don't call it one this call it joy call it you know set my soul on fire for life. If that brings that anything, that brings that, there's a little clue there.

[00:17:05] And I'd say just fall into it, ask, how can this be fed and grown and expanded in my life and show me the way? Because I think when we become available to it, it starts working its way through us.

[00:17:20] So I just say, and mine wasn't an overnight thing. It was 25 years of, this isn't quite it, but man, I need to drink this stuff on my lunch hour in order to be happy and it was just keep plugging along with that tenacity

[00:17:37] of spirit with spirit that keeps you going. Because I don't believe it is necessarily like I find it in the next day, it's bestowed upon me, but I think if we continue walking it, it just like the, you know, master piece

[00:17:54] inside the marble that, you know, that that wasn't Michelangelo carved out David, that's how it happens in our own life. We just keep chipping and noticing those sparks and eventually you get more of the statue. Awesome.

[00:18:09] Well, tenacity of spirit would be one of my definitions of who you are, and you I'm so grateful for the tenacity of spirit that you bring to the world and especially bring to my high charts, it's just adding such a unique and powerful element that,

[00:18:25] you know, gives me no sense, but that we're headed in a forward and really exciting direction with your leadership and presence. So thanks for who you are and all that you bring here. Well, likewise Josh, thank you so much as well.

[00:18:39] And I know that being here is truly one of the greatest blessings, not just of my life, but I really feel like this entire community is a blessing to the world.

[00:18:51] And so it just, it does set me on fire and it is my absolute joy to be a part of it. So thank you for your invitation to be here. Yeah, thanks for doing this and I'll talk to you soon. Okay.