Oct 17 | The Song of the Reed, Part 2 (Letters from the Coast)

This is the second entry in a four-parter on attending RumiFest, my retreat for this year.

Arriving at my first Unity zhikr, I had no idea what to expect.

The first person I saw was Meliha, sweeping the floor, who introduced herself with her English name. I remembered her from the prayer day at the Cathedral, and she remembered me from St. Paul’s Labyrinth. I was given some very basic turning lessons, and to my very great surprise managed to turn for ten uninterrupted minutes before I had to stop due to dizziness.

There followed close to two hours of chanting. I felt myself slipping in and out of time while we did it. I was able to rock and raise my hands, something I had never done before in a communal religious setting. I sang along (when I could figure out the shape of the Arabic words in my mouth). Most of all I remember: the Compassionate, the Merciful.

We ended with snacks and tea. That part was familiar!

I remember thinking, I can’t wait to come again.

And I did, many times.

Earlier this year, I was invited to play Celtic harp for a visit from Sherif Baba, a teacher to many of the dervishes I met, including Seemi.

Seemi was the one who invited me. She knew I could sing, encouraged improvisation during zhikr, and had felt honoured by a rendition I’d sent her of the Turkish song we often sang to open zhikr: “Merhaba.”

She was adamant: “You have to come for Baba. Play at Unity zhikr on Friday, then come to the semahane on Saturday and play there, just for us.”

I was just as adamant. “No way! I don’t know anything about Turkish music!” Friday’s zhikr would also be open to the public. They had invited Dawn Avery, an accomplished Mohawk cellist, to sit in with the band. I had never played anything like this before, and I knew enough about the group to know that there would be no sheet music and no practice or rehearsal time.

Seemi didn’t have any such reservations. Her certainty bewitched me. Whenever I was with her I hung on her every word, and would rush to do what she asked. I wasn’t the only one. When she was able to come to zhikr, word spread among the dervishes: “Is Seemi coming? Seemi will be here?! YES!”

She may not be an officially ordained imam or sheikh, but that really didn’t matter in the mystical spheres of God’s good humour. I recognized her as such.

So I obeyed.

I brought the harp to zhikr, sat down in utter terror, and saw Baba enter and sit before the assembled crowd, his large and ruddy companion Cem by his side to serve as translator.

We began, and somehow, despite everything, the music flowed. There was no chord chart, no score, no knowledge of basically any songs at all.

It didn’t matter.

Later, someone said, “And how long have you all been playing together?”

We all fell into giggles. “Um…three hours?”

The next day, I did go to the semahane, a prayer space constructed in my friend Cennet’s backyard. I played more, this time with endlessly smiling Rafi the oud player, and Dawn, the cellist, who gave me a copy of her new album before it was released. We played, and Baba taught. It was all aşk, fiery divine love. That was the most important thing.

Sherif Baba

I chalked it all up to Baba. His energy, his playfulness, his light — all of that provided a sort of semahane in itself for my heart to turn.

All of this was what led to 6am Saturday, October 5th.

Part of my Rule of Life is to take a retreat every year, but this year, plans fell through and my time was cancelled. I searched in vain for an alternative, but there was none, until I received an email from Rafi asking for musicians to sign up for the early morning slot in the continuous sema at RumiFest.

Northwest RumiFest was a gathering of dervishes from up and down the west coast. This was its third year, and it would be held in Seattle. I had ignored the emails going back and forth because, of course, I had planned to be on retreat.

Now, I thought, plans had changed.

Feeling a bit reckless, I signed up for a slot, and arranged a ride and housing. On Friday afternoon, I piled into my friend Junayd’s van and we trundled down to the States.

That year the gathering was held in a large hall. In the rooms below, folks had set up tables and chairs with snacks and things to buy: Tshirts, music, books, and tesbih, Islamic rosaries. This was a specialty of Junayd’s, and I had bought a gorgeous aura quartz one from him several months ago, which I brought with me, wound around my wrist.

I ate and then went upstairs, where zhikr was ready to begin. Rafi invited me to sit in with the band, and I did, feeling static-y with anticipation. A bearded and bespectacled dervish appeared and introduced himself as Michael. He took a seat behind some drums right at my feet.

“I’ll try not to kick!” I joked, and he looked over his shoulder and smiled.

“Unless you want me to go faster!”

Rafi introduced us to the space, and we fell into a familiar movement: music, poetry, turning, and dancing. Three teachers presided: a man who I only knew as Efendi, a Mevlevi sheikh; Sherif Baba, with Cem beside him as always; and a woman, Khadija Goforth, a Mevlevi murshid.

The service opened with two women reciting a poem together. One would read the passage in Arabic, and the other would read the same passage translated into English. They read with their arms around each other, a living symbol of a union all of us longed for:

Listen to the story told by the reed of being separated: Since I was cut off from the reedbed I have made this crying sound. Anyone apart from someone they love understands what I say. Anyone pulled from a source longs to go back.

As they read, their voices floated on a bed of wind as the ney, fashioned from this very reed, wailed.

At any gathering I’m there, mingling in the laughing and the grieving, a friend to each, but few will hear the secrets hidden within the notes. No ears for that. Body flowing out of Spirit, spirit up from body, no concealing to see the soul.

The woman speaking in English, who I would later learn was called Amineh, said emphatically:

“The reed is played with fire, not wind, and without that fire, we will never survive. Be that empty.

She explained that the reed was the body, the fire the aşk, or divine love. That phrase rang in my head like the echoes of a bell for hours.

The songs and turning continued, men and women together, different musicians leading songs and dances for universal peace.

People began to drift away around 10 or 11pm, getting snacks and tea. I left and came back as needed as well. The space was quite relaxed.

Around midnight or so, Baba rose from his chair to join the dervishes. He guided them to stand in a row, and stood among them. Cem followed him with a daf.

Transfixed, I left my chair and joined them.

We stood together, chanting, as dervishes turned and we started to peak, our hands coming up and then down again emphatically. Baba cried out several times with a loud voice, full of vigour and delight: “ALLAH! ALLAH! HAYY!”

He directed us to hold hands. I was standing next to the woman holding his hand, who stood on my right. He looked at her and grinned. “Hold on. Strong hold!”

“Yes, Baba.”

We started to bob and rock, up and down, back and forth, as he led us in the chant: “Hayy, hayy, hayy!”

I was transported back to zhikr on Good Friday in 2017, dancing in a much smaller circle as Meliha turned within it, chanting the beautiful Arabic word for “life,” which sounds so much like breathing, thinking Meliha looked like a seed bursting open underground, reaching tendrils up to touch the surface of the earth and break through into sunlight, like Jesus had done.

Held hands crept up until we had our arms wrapped around each other, leaning and bobbing, and Baba cackled, “Like drunk people!”

“We are, Baba,” I cried. “We are!”

As we continued, Baba, eyes full of concern, suddenly reached out to one of the dervishes, a young woman, taking her shoulders. He pulled her back toward him and held her up.

I never figured out what it was that he saw, but it could have been dizziness, or maybe tears.

Either way I fell a little more in love with him.

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