Dances with Dervishes

It is a sunny Sunday morning as I slowly arise, do exercises and prayers and now completing my journal entry.

As I walked along the seawall yesterday evening, under a canopy of rose-colored sky streaked with wispy clouds I could still hear the chanting of the dervishes representing Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Palestine and many other Middle Eastern countries who had put on performances that afternoon at the Art Gallery for the Fifth Canadian Islamic Cultural Expo that took place on the fountains lawn as it does every year.

As I wandered downtown yesterday, I had no idea this would be happening but I could hear the drumming from a couple of blocks away and was drawn into the confluence of people gathered for the event.

I arrived just as a dervish demonstration was ending and as they left the courtyard where they had been dancing and doing zikr (chanting praises of Allah) I was surrounded by them and swept up in their effusive energy. There must’ve been 30 young men in their late teens and twenties and the energy of celebration was palpable.

It was strange to come from a very Western-style new age spiritual celebration at the Quaker Hall with the women of Ruby (see yesterday's post) the night before and to find myself once again and so soon immersed in a stream of devotees.

It was like standing in an electric current. In a few minutes my whole body was tingling with energy that had not been present moments before.

It was also strange that I seemed to be invisible to them, as they circled all around me barely brushing me (but never once jostling me) with their robes and congratulating each other on their performances, their smiling faces full of light and joy.

Picture standing in a group of BC Lions players just after they score a touchdown…it was like that only far more subtle but with just as much (maybe more) energy. If I had seen them coming I probably would have got out of the way.

The young men (of Palestinian origin I think) were holding long white batons about the size of spears which were stripped in green, like candy canes. They wore turbans wrapped around little conical hats that gave them the appearance of soldiers/knights/stage players celebrating days of glory.

On scene next came the contingent from the Peninsula of Saudi Arabia dressed in full headgear and waving not batons, but long curved swords.

It was like a scene out of Lawrence of Arabia. And within minutes I was drowned in the boom of the big drums and the drone of voices lifting me out of the realm of the ordinary into another place, another time.

And as I was leaving another synchronistic happening very much in tune with the energy of the past two days…I passed the Turkish tent and stopping to read a passage from Rumi’s Masnawi that was posted I was drawn into conversation with another young man who asked if I had ever been to Turkey. As I left he handed me a DVD of The Whirling Dervishes direct from Konya, which was recorded in Calgary…and included a full classical Turkish orchestra performing for a Sema (or the celebratory dance of the dervishes).

So last night I played that back to back with Ruby’s CD On the Way of Love: Songs inspired by Rumi.