After posting the recent article about Luzita Davila’s passing, a few days later her husband, Ralph passed away. For more details on Ralph’s passing, please see this information on Luzita’s Caring Bridge Page.
And, this week, Mardiyah Tarantino, a long time Subud member for over sixty years, passed as well!
Mardiyah and Rashad were mentors to many of us in the early days of Subud in San Francisco. Rosada, my wife at the time, was pregnant with our first child, so she babysat the Tarantino kids while the rest of us went to the 1967 world congress in Japan. It was my early days of doing photography work, and I took many photos at that congress and Mardiyah was in a lot of them!
She was a model Subud sister and friend to many of us for over sixty years! She served as a helper and did work in Cilandak in the secretariat for Bapak a number of years ago. She also wrote a book about the life of Muhammad called ‘Marvelous Stories from the Life of Prophet Muhammad‘.
In a 1995 video interview in the Subud Archives site (Welcome – WSA Archives) Mardiyah describes her experiences traveling with Bapak and Ibu Siti Sumari in Mexico and South America. She was asked to go to translate Bapak’s words into Spanish and was a companion to Ibu. Mardiyah writes about these experiences in her book Bapak Lost in the Amazon. She speaks about Bapak’s compassion, about asking for forgiveness, laughter, testing with Bapak, how Bapak could also be stern, and about living and working in the Sekretariat at Wisma Subud typing letters for Bapak. Mardiyah describes a time in Mexico City in 1968 when Bapak gave an extraordinary talk to women and did testing with them. This particular occasion was remembered and described by many of the women who were there that day.
Both her books and her interview in which she describes her Mexico trip are available to Subud members in the Subud WSA Archives site. For details on how Subud members can access the WSA Archives, please see this article.
Luzita, Ralph and Mardiyah will be missed by their families and many Subud members! They have truly earned the title of ‘Subud Pioneers’ for their many years of service to Subud!
Below is a link to photos of her over a number of years in Subud!
https://photos.app.goo.gl/8bqMptLHwmDxQk8F7
Below is a link to an article about the Subud Archives and how to gain access to it for Subud members.