Dervish Path

This Saturday marks the two year date of my Mevlevi initiation.  Two years ago this coming full moon, I had an extraordinary adventure!  


In my MA course, for a module titled the Socio-Politics of Dance, I decided to write about Mevlevi whirling.  I had seen the government group from Konya, Turkey perform in North Carolina two years earlier.  Upon finding out that the practice had been made illegal in Turkey, only to be appropriated by the government for tourist and folkloric purposes 30 years later, I was intrigued.  Dance practices do not die out.  They go underground, they migrate, they re-emerge.  


As it turned out, my tutor for the module had links to The Study Society here in London.  The Study Society is one of the places Mevlevi turning migrated to, mixing with the esoteric philosophies and practices already in place at the society.  In no time at all I was witnessing the full ceremony, enacted by British persons, in the heart of London.  I began attending practices and ceremonies regularly, and wrote my MA dissertation on the whirling practice as it is carried out in London.  As part of my research for the MA writing I sought out Mevlevi across the world.  I found them in America, as part of the Mevlevi Order of America, and in Australia, Mexico, and New York as sister sites for The Study Society.  I also made links with lovers of the whirling in Turkey, and arranged a visit to the birthplace of the tradition.

once upon a time...

Hours after handing in my dissertation I was on a plane to visit academic colleagues in Turkey, and to see the government ensemble enact the ceremony on the high holiday of December 17th in Konya.  The day before I left, however, my point of contact in Istanbul had to go away for a special and spontaneous performance event.  Not speaking a single word of the language, and not backing out of my adventure, I got creative.  I contacted the one woman I knew of Istanbul who spoke English, and she agreed to meet me.  I stayed at a hotel down the street from her house, and they picked me up for dinner a few hours after I arrived.


Well!  It turns out that her husband is a member of the Celebi family, the family of direct descendants of Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi.  That very night, in their home, I received my initiation.  I had no idea this was coming for me!  We had hours of esoteric conversation, and after awhile they asked me, would I really like to be Mevlevi?  Did I really know what this meant?  I replied that I could not be entirely sure what it meant, but that I trusted the universal coincidence that I was there in the home with them, and that I was ready.


We performed a small ceremony and I stayed with them for three days.  They showed me around the city and we had a great time!  Then I went to Konya.  Several colleagues from Izmir came up to meet me there, and further loveliness unfolded.  First, I was asked to speak on Turkish National Television about the turning, and then we witnessed the ceremony.  Later we hung out with the semazens and musicians, smoking hookahs and eating pastries and drinking chai late into the night.  Over the next few days I met with and interviewed several of the Mevlevi elders in Konya.  This was an incredible exception and we were all amazed that it happened!  The founder of the government ensemble gave me his blessing and said, "Hannah do not worry about a thing.  You have a magnetic heart that will attract all that you desire to yourself.  We are brothers and sisters, I would pray at the tomb of Mary with you."  We visited the tomb of Mevlana, I bought my first pair of turning shoes, and made my night bus back to Istanbul with only minutes to spare.  We hugged and cried and there was love all around.

symbols of our journey

Once back in the UK I embarked on the 5 month intensive training process needed to be a semazen at The Study Society.  The Society received the practice in 1963 from Sheikh Reshui Baykara and has been transmitting it virtually unchanged ever since.  Several methods of training have sprung up in the diaspora of whirling, as it were, since 1925 when it was first outlawed in Turkey.  The method of training here in London is one of the most rigorous of the models, and I appreciate that.  


Being a dancer, I understand the need for repetition and discipline.  I appreciate an ever elusive practice which challenges one to engage at the deepest level on every instance.  Five months later, through tears of annihilation and surrender, glorious breakthroughs of joy, and deepening bonds within The Society, I turned/whirled in my first ceremony.

first sema

I have been turning ever since.  My life turned upside down, it is re-created.  This week, I take time to thank my lucky stars for this outrageous and special esoteric practice.  Each time I robe and enter into ceremony new vistas open, new experiences of the heart unfold, and I push my body to the limit.  It is a demanding path.  And a rewarding one.  And a life changing one.  Nothing is ever the same again.  I have become steeped in the lore and beauty and complexity of the whirling, it has influenced my artistic output a great deal, my academic path even more so, and comes into many of my daily conversations.  With enormous gratitude and sparkling eyes, thank you Mevlana.  Thank you my Celebim in Istanbul, thank you my Shehim and friends at The Study Society.  Thank you to my MA tutor, and to the many many friends who have witnessed/shared in the incredible journey thus far.


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