Faith brings link to loved one beyond death.

Byline: FROM HEART TO HEART By Anna Armaiti For The Register-Guard

It has been almost a year since my beloved partner, Ishaq, passed from this world into the next. Or, as Ishaq would say, `completed his breathing practices.'

It's been a year where I have found my faith traditions have not only given me strength, but validated the experiences I've had with Ishaq, who, now freed from physical form, has shown me in many ways his continued presence and love.

When Ishaq first died, I had no idea how I would get along without him. He was my soulmate, my singing partner, my teacher and confidant. What I have found is that he isn't gone. His presence and love surround me and have guided and held me close over this first walk around the sun since his passing.

I follow several spiritual traditions, being a Sufi initiate but also a person who walks the paths of the Red Road and Earth spirituality. Through my Sufi practices of zikr and reciting sacred phrases, I have found comfort and connection with the wonderful man who was a Sufi sheikh for more than 35 years. Through my belief in nature as sacred I have found Ishaq communicating with me by sending signs and feathers from across time and space. In dreams and visions he comes and gives me love and guidance.

I'm not the only one who receives these comforts from him. His family and students have come to me and told me of signs or dreams from him. Ishaq always seemed to me to be comfortable in other realms, his yearning for oneness with the Beloved always evident in the way he lived his life.

Ishaq had been a diabetic since he was nine, so his death before mine was something I knew might happen. Before he passed, I used to think I would be so angry at the Divine/Creator/Great Spirit for taking him from me that I would never do another practice again.

Instead, my faith in the divine and my belief that we continue as spirit once we leave our bodies has only grown stronger over these months. I have found that through my spiritual practices and through ceremony and ritual, there is nothing to fear from death, even the death of my true love, because through the divine, Ishaq and I are connected forever.

Inayat Khan, the great Sufi master, writes: `The one who is conscious of the spirit, to him his body is a coat, and as by taking off one's coat one does not die, so even by the death of this body the spirit realized soul does not die.'

Ishaq may have taken off the coat that was his body, but his spirit continues to love and guide me. I know he will continue to be with me for the rest of my life in this body. And I know that when my Earth walk is done, he will be there waiting to take me in his arms and guide me on the steps of my next adventure.

Anna Armaiti is an initiate in the Sufi Ruhaniat International, and also follows the Goddess/Nature Spirituality and Red Road (Native American) paths. This column is coordinated by Two Rivers Interfaith Ministries, a network of more than 35 religious and spiritual traditions in the Eugene-Springfield area. For more information, call 344-5693 or visit www.interfaitheugene.org.