Testimonials

"I was able to enjoy this unique experience today. Salima has an amazing gift and experience to share. I learned so much about myself in a few hours, with an art piece to remind me and reflect on. I'm looking forward to the next one. Thank you Salima " P.

"Wow Salima.. You are such a gift. what a discovery to find you on this crowded earth. Thank you for such a beautiful and lovely afternoon. My son is very excited to come to the class and he named about 5 of his friends he wants to come.They were looking at my picture and they were telling their own story.It was a great conversation piece for tonight". T.

" I came to the conference with the hope of opening up a flow, of heart, of creativity. Your workshop was my key, and you the gentle midwife of an extraordinary new freedom of expression." .J.

''It was such an honor to meet you, I still can't stop smiling ;) I wanted to wait few days to see if my Joy was still with me, I feel excited again about life, my ideas start to feel so possible and everything in life seems to be different, it's like if I woke up from a dream and now I can really see. My collage is in a very visible place, and every time I see it, it makes me smile and I feel so happy.

I love my uniqueness and the way I see the world, with bright colors and amazing people, full of Joy and Greatness. To work with you have been one of the most fantastic experiences of my life, to experience art has been amazing, I feel so so happy and full of Joy. I am so inspired to do great things in life and be an example for others while enjoying life at the fullest.

The positive feelings have taken over my heart and soul, and the negative thoughts and fears have vanished. A big block is gone.I will follow your advice and will get involved in art, music, singing, dance, paint,writing,... I always felt a big connection to all arts. Now, I understand why I was so empty. "M.

" I had a profound experience during your ABB workshop on May 17 and I am really looking forward to another workshop sometime in June.Also the idea of drawing or painting anything at all was a great challenge for me as I have never been an artist. I had a hard time fully getting into the visualizations but I tried my best to focus and "go with the flow". Each step in the process was a challenge for me as I am not very practiced in visualization, or meditation and definitely not drawing or painting. However, I did as you instructed trusting that somehow God would work through you and the process.I nervously approached the paints on the table, but once I started painting and then mixing colors I felt Joy! as I have not felt in a very long time. I was exuberant and Joyful like a child. The next step, creating a collage was new too, but I did it and I absolutely love my collage! Interesting that in the first magazine, I found 90% of the images I used. I still gain hope and joy from my collage and it shows my hopes and dreams in such a beautiful, visual way.

In the week that followed your workshop, there were times that I would have gone into old (negative) ways of thinking or emotions, but I was able to swiftly keep moving my thoughts/energy in a positive direction. I attribute being in a lighter" place to the clearing/ shifting that I was able to accomplish with your ABB workshop.

I would LOVE to do another workshop with you as I am currently trying to breakthrough certain patterns that are holding me back. I really want to be able to move forward and your ABB method worked so beautifully and was such a loving experience for me." N.

"My obsession with doing and having great expectations rob me of my serenity.My need to do really wrecked the creative flow of my poetic memoir in January and February. I decided to lay my "doing" down at an all-day workshop entitled Art, Being, and Becoming: A Sufi Exploration facilitated by Moroccan artist Salima Raoui at the Sacred Circles Conference on February 13th at the Washington National Cathedral. The workshop was a healing experience that offered me space to be quiet, meditate, chant, reflect, pray, create, witness, listen, and share without an agenda. One of the three most liberating experiences I had included coloring with crayons, creating collages and a collage box, journaling and writing a poem about my artwork, chanting with the other participants. These experiences opened my heart and allowed me to touch a soft doing-free place. In this place I discovered a sweet spot of silence that offered me refuge in the midst of sacred community. I sat with myself and artwork with very little conversation and a huge dose of connection with other women sitting at my work table. It amazed me that I could connect with these ladies without much discussion. It reminded me of the power of being quiet. That was an aha moment of pure serenity... one I have bookmarked as a helpful reminder when I meet another day or moment that contains serenity stealing drama".Peace, Gratitude, Serenity, Joy, Laughter, Light, Love, and Creativity,

Ananda Leeke (Sacred Circle February 2009) For more than 20 years, Leeke has been actively pursuing her career as an author and artist. Through her poetry chap books and participation in the Washington, D.C. arts movement, her poetry appeared in Beyond the Frontier: African American Poetry for the 21st Century (2002).  She penned Love’s Troubadours – Karma: Book One, a novel (2007), That Which Awakens Me: A Creative Woman’s Poetic Memoir of Self-Discovery (2009), and Digital Sisterhood: A Memoir of Fierce Living Online (2013). Her six-word memoir was published in It All Changed in an Instant: More Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure (2010).

"Selima liberated my artistic sensitivities, awakened in me an inner knowing and felt experience of my capacity to create beauty and to express myself artistically in a way that is uniquely mine. And it is good, this liberation and freedom that I now feel inside. Selima helped me make contact with and befriend the creator, the artist that was sleeping inside me for the past 32 years. Wow - that's freedom, and it's also excitement,and pleasure, enthusiasm and joy! Pretty spectacular effects for a mere few hours in her exceptional presence." 

M.O

Témoignages - Creative Art and Healing Expression

"Peu importe le thème, à chaque fois que j'ai eu le privilège de participer à un des ateliers ECC de Salima Raoui , qu'il s'agisse de spiritualité, de chakras ou encore comme depuis cet été,...

http://salimaraoui.com/preview/29a1db8d379b2e98ba3c990b80ea7022a3a1b45d

A Spa day for the soul - Creative Art and Healing Expression

I met Melina during Sacred Circle in 2009 at Washington National Cathedral where I gave 2 days Sufi Art Retreat.(program in the flyer below) She wanted to have another retreat later during the ...

http://salimaraoui.com/preview/340546eac21827117ec8f0aa5ebe585c85268e9a