Elias Amidon is co-director, with his wife, Rabia, of the Boulder Institute for Nature and the Human Spirit which runs national and international training programs in support of human rights, citizen peacemaking, environmental ethics, and indigenous cultures. During the 90’s he taught in the masters program of Environmental Leadership at Naropa University in Colorado; he is a trained wilderness quest guide and has led quests for over 12 years. With Rabia, he is co-editor of the books Earth Prayers, Life Prayers and Prayers for a Thousand Years.

Elias is a Murshid, senior teacher, and lineage holder of the International Sufi Way, an inner school in the lineage of Indian Sufi master Inayat Khan. Over the years he has studied and practiced Sufism in America, Europe, India, North Africa, and the Middle East. He is also initiated into the Qadiri Sufi order and the Soto Zen Buddhist order of the White Plum Sangha.

Rabia Elizabeth Roberts, Ed.D., is a peaceworker, women’s advocate, and senior teacher in the Sufi Way, as well as a practitioner and scholar of Buddhist teachings. She has served on peace teams with Elias in Nicaragua, Burma and most recently Iraq. In 2002 she was elected to the Governing Board of the global Nonviolent Peaceforce and serves on its executive committee.

A trained wilderness rites–of–passage guide she uses a pan-cultural approach to personal transformation and wilderness experience. She helped to found the Institute for Deep Ecology, the Environmental Leadership Department at Naropa University, and the Spirit in Education Movement (SEM) in Thailand. She has taught philosophy and social advocacy at Harvard and Marquette Universities and written books and articles on prayer, mysticism, and social action.