Oct 24 | The Song of the Reed, Part 3 (Letters from the Coast)
This is the third entry in a four-parter on attending RumiFest, my retreat for the year.
The pashmina I was wearing suddenly slipped and fell over my face. I decided to leave it there, and was entranced by the sight of the dervishes through a layer of magenta fog. Here, unable to see, sweat pouring down my face, I was forced to listen, and trust in those next to me.
I leaned into it like a blindfolded lover.
When I finally had the chance to get it off my face, I became enthralled and delighted with two women across from me, who, as we chanted, turned rapidly toward each other, then away, toward, and away, grinning and giggling like little girls, as if telling each other a delicious secret about the God of Love.
Later, Baba brought us back down again and gave us teaching through Cem. He said we must love one another, must strive only to see beauty in the other, must reject gossip. Then, he told us to embrace one another.
We did, some of us with lingering gazes which I’ve discovered is common among dervishes. It makes one feel exposed but deeply seen.
I turned to Baba, whose face broke out into a grin and who enfolded me saying, “Ah, jan, jan, jan.”
“My life, my life, my life.”
Baba went to sit back down and not long after, he left for bed. I stayed, watching the turning.
One woman, who I would later learn was called Samiye, was dressed in layers of incredible silk and linen, with a veil over her head in black and gold. She was olive-skinned, with a beatific smile, turning with hands held out in prayer, and as she turned she became Maryam to me.
Later, I asked Seemi, “Did Maryam turn when the Spirit overshadowed her?”
“Of course,” Seemi said.
Another woman nearby, dressed in red and black, turned with her.
“And did Mary Magdalene turn when she was liberated from seven demons?”
Seemi grinned.
Next to the woman in red turned a woman in blue. This was Azra, one of my favourite new dervish friends, fiery and emotional like me. The two of them together looked like fire and water, or maybe, my Johannine heart whispered, blood and water.
It was only later that I realized that was not only a Jesus image, but a birth image.
It was well past 1am when I decided to take a nap. A room was set aside for that purpose, laid out with sleeping pads and sheepskins.
Music still played softly outside, and a few errant snores greeted me as I lay down with only a sleeping bag and a few pashminas for a pillow.
I had forgotten my earplugs. There’s no way I’ll get more than a nap in here, I thought, but still drifted off.
When I awoke, I discovered that I’d actually slept for about two hours and bolted to my station, monumentally embarrassed.
Raqib found me, panting and bright pink, in the kitchen. “We’re past our limits,” he said gently.
Rafi was barely conscious. He gave me a lopsided grin.
I took my spot and started to play.
I began with a song I had played some time ago while preparing for worship in the semahane back home, a snatch of one of my favourite hymns:
“No storm can shake my inmost calm
While to that rock I’m clinging
Since Love is Lord of heaven and earth
How can I keep from singing?”
A ney player nearby joined me when he could, switching from ney to concert flute to a very large and deep woodwind I had never seen before. Rafi did too, although eventually he went to take a much-needed nap.
I moved from that piece into one of the songs from a Rachael Weasley booklet I’d received from the composer herself at the Queerest and Dearest Day Camp I’d attended in August. This one, much shorter and simpler, drew joy from me as I saw the dervishes, particularly Azra, whose eyes were closed and who smiled endlessly, join in:
“One who sees me, soak me in your love
One who knows me, soak me in your love.”
I played for about an hour and a half, incorporating hymns along with my own songs, some Taize, and Loreena McKennit’s arrangement of “The Dark Night of the Soul.”
Then I decided to take what felt like a big risk.
I set myself up for “Starsail,” a piece of my own, which I had written years ago while on retreat studying the sacrament of baptism.
There are two versions of this song, a fast one (the “comet version”) and a slow one (the “starfield version”). With few changes, I played the starfield version:
“Two or three have come up to sail
Love our Pilot to take the wheel
Can you feel the heat? Can you feel the beat?
Can you feel the sweet call, a gorgeous pain?
We’re here together, have no fear
The millions stretch back through the years
A star burns out but its light still carries on, the story never ends.“
Now Raqib was smiling too.
˜”‘Cause the wind is high in my hair tonight
˜”‘Cause I won’t be fooled by St. Elmo’s fire
“‘Cause I won’t accept a second guess
All I have to give is one precious life
One wild, precious life.”
Raqib paused in his turning, reached over to the bandstand, and picked up a tambourine. Slipping back easily into the turning, he beat it gently along with me. I felt like I would float right up to the ceiling.
I finally ran out of steam, which brings us back to 6am, and the turning.
Meliha had nearly collapsed as I took over for her. There had to be at least two of us turning at all times, as well as at least one musician.
I didn’t know how I’d have the energy to do what needed to be done, but I did.
And I turned for forty minutes, the longest I’d ever turned before.
In the beginning, turning can feel quite artificial, as one focuses on one’s feet and small exercises to not become dizzy. One prays for the moment when such things melt away and turning happens without distraction. I did get to that point, although it was brief.
Later, Azra said, “I would never have known you hadn’t been turning for years.”
That’s what a little sleep deprivation and uninterrupted hours of worship will get you, I think.
I finally took a nap around 8.30am.
When I awoke, Raqib and Suleimann had come together within a small circle of dervishes seated on sheepskins. At the moment I looked up they had fallen into perfect sync, turning as though they were figures on a wind-up toy. I watched for a long time.
Someone beckoned me to the circle, and I got up to find that Junayd had laid out an absolutely massive tesbih. This, he had told me, was crafted from deconstructed beaded seat covers, and he had brought them to be strung by all of the dervishes, which I had seen people doing throughout the previous evening.
There were one thousand beads on this tesbih, and I saw that the circle was passing them along from left to right, again murmuring the name of God. I sat down to take my place among them and did the same, overwhelmed with the smell of rose oil, within which they’d been bathed.
I wrote a poem about it some time later:
Bead by bead
Between my fingers
Leaving rosewater-scented kisses
We pass prayers counter-clockwise
Around a circle of wild lovers on sheepskins
Treasuring them as they click by
As if we’ll ever run out
A thousand beads
A thousand prayers
pass between us
As we sigh your name like we’re making love
and I suppose we are
Passing breath back and forth
As if we’re afraid we’ll run out
Finally Junayd gathered them up again and we rose to turn for a while longer. I didn’t turn for quite as long as I had before…but this time I was able to do it faster.
Then, sleep again.
In a journal, I wrote, Allah, you are too much for me.