Oct 10 | The Song of the Reed, Part 1 (Letters from the Coast)

This is the first of a four-parter entry on attending RumiFest, which functioned as my retreat this year.

6am.

I’m sitting in a plastic orange chair which at this point feels grafted to me. I can’t tell whether I’m holding my smaller harp up or she’s holding me up. I think an oud is playing, but I’m not sure.

I’ve been sitting here for about an hour and a half, and my fingers don’t really want to work anymore, so I’m just chanting the name of God in a hypnotic, driving beat: “ALL-ah, ALL-ah, ALL-ah.”

Before me, two dervishes turn. One of them is someone I met last night. The name he was born with is Scott, but here we call him Suleimann. Most of the people I’ve met in my journey into Sufism have been given Arabic or Turkish names. All of them are beautiful: Raqib. Amineh. Junayd. Cennet.

The other is Meliha. The first time I saw her, she was turning at Christ Church Cathedral, which was open all day to facilitate prayers for those who had died during the fentanyl overdose crisis. She was in a corner by the Christ the King window, wearing a kerchief over her brown hair and a blue layered outfit, turning, turning, for at least an hour or more.

Tonight she’s all in white, and has been turning almost ceaselessly since 7.45pm.

That was when sema began.

It will end 24 hours later.

My introduction to Western Sufism was by stages. First, I met Raqib Burke, who came to turn at an event hosted by UBC. I’m not sure what the focus of the evening was, but I suspect it was early Arabic music and art. We were in a building downtown that I remember had columns in the room, framing him as he entered in his tennure and destegul, the white sleeveless robe and long-sleeved jacket. His sikke, a softly conical greyish-brown felted camel’s hair cap, stood tall on his head. Nearby, an oud player plucked strings meditatively, while another man blew haunting cries of sorrow into a ney, a reed flute.

Raqib moved very slowly, tracing a circle around the space of turning, and finally made it to the centre, where he began with his arms folded over his chest, like someone lying in the grave. In a sense, this is the intended image: all of the dervish’s clothing and much of the ritual itself symbolizes a sort of death, but a death to one’s ego. In the more formal Mevlevi sema, this is further underlined by the dervishes entering wrapped in long black cloaks, which they shed just before turning.

At a certain point only known to him, Raqib’s arms opened and began to creep up past his shoulders until they were in the more familiar dervish position: the right arm held up with palm open, and the left arm alongside but palm down. Later it was explained to me that this was to act as a sort of channel, allowing heavenly energy to pass through the hands and into the earth.

Raqib not only turned for at least half an hour, but he did it all with his eyes closed.

I was utterly spellbound.

Then I saw him again, maybe a year or two later, at a VST interfaith event held during the usual time of our community worship service. I recognized him immediately, there with several other semazens, including a woman wrapped in a beautiful veil, with a little boy in her arms.

This, I would soon learn, was Seemi Ghazi, my gateway into Sufism.

All of us who attended were then led into what I would learn was a Yalova style sema, which was a less formal version of the prayer service. We were instructed to get into a circle and hold hands, and taught several chants and movements, such as stepping to the left as in round dance, or lifting our hands together. As we got into the rhythm of things, I felt myself tilting into a whole new world of worship, one that I as a buttoned-up Anglican with a secret mystic’s heart had never encountered before. Imagine my delight as the two vested dervishes and Seemi began to whirl within the circle, Raqib playing a daf, or frame drum, and Seemi holding her young son, whose face absolutely glowed with delight as he whirled with her.

Something happened there. I couldn’t say what. I just remember being changed by it, and feeling sad when it was over.

When could I get some of this again?

It took another three or four years before that question would be answered, at a Diocesan Clergy Day on Islam. We arrived thinking it would be some sort of panel discussion: informative, but fairly dry.

It was the furthest thing from that.

Instead we were led into the main presentation space, which was laid out with prayer rugs, and introduced to Seemi Ghazi, a sessional lecturer at UBC who taught Qur’an, Islamic languages, and feminist theology. I kept looking at her, and the more I looked, the more I realized she had been the woman I saw turning with her son.

Instead of a panel or a Powerpoint, she explained that she would give us a more artistic than academic encounter with Islam. Then, for the next forty-five minutes or so, she told us the story of the birth of her daughter, in a presentation that was half spoken word, half narrative.

Imagine my surprise when Raqib arrived to help her to tell this story.

Seemi began to speak about an evening on the beach when, unable to sleep, she had brought herself and her pregnant belly to a zhikr held around a bonfire. She told us the Qur’anic story of Maryam, the mother of Jesus, at the palm tree, hearing the call of the angel Jibreel. As she told us about the drums overtaking her and her in utero daughter, Raqib played his daf and brought me there immediately: the smell of salt and embers, eyes stinging with ash, skin prickled with cool darkness.

It was such a more intimate encounter with Islam than I had expected.

Seemi also taught us how to do salat, which is what the prayer rugs were for. And before the day ended, we were led in another sema, and I got to see Raqib turn yet again.

Feeling drunk (a condition familiar to Sufis, who use the phrase as shorthand for a state of religious ecstasy), I went to thank her. Like Raqib, grace seemed to pour forth as she grinned at me.

“Every time I encounter this,” I said, “I feel absolutely transported. How can I get more?”

“Come to zhikr with me,” she said. “I’ll tell you when and where. All are welcome.”

“Am I really?” I asked, feeling shy. “Is it okay even though I’m a Christian?”

“Oh, we love Jesus and Maryam too,” she giggled. “There’s nothing precluding you as long as you’re open. Besides, this is Inayati Sufism. It’s interfaith.”

Only a few months later, I went to my first Unity zhikr.

It’s still dark as 6am creeps toward dawn.

I slide out of the orange chair, no longer able to chant or play, too tired.

But I’m not finished.

I take my place among the weary dervishes and begin to turn myself.

The world around me melts away.