Studying old photographs of dervishes (Photo: Emily O'Dell)
Learning whirling in Turkey (Photo: Emily O'Dell)
What is sema, do you know?
It is the hearing of the sound ‘yes,’
Of separating from yourself and reaching the Beloved,
Seeing and knowing the state of the Friend,
And hearing, through the divine veils, the secrets of the Beloved.
— Rumi
Nothing could have prepared me to learn the sema whirling ceremony in Turkey. Even though I’d been a dancer my whole life, it didn’t matter. And though I’d studied tanoura in Egypt, that didn’t matter. What I thought mattered, didn’t–and what did matter, is not what I had thought…at all…
To learn how to whirl, one often has to seek and receive permission–which is no easy task. Before even beginning to learn the mechanics of whirling, a dervish must often prove herself first in service. In Rumi’s time, a dervish had to complete a retreat of study and service for 1,001 days. Today, long retreats are rarely required. In Rumi’s day, a series of ascetic tests were also given to assess the resolve and longing of an aspirant’s heart–but today more aspirants are welcomed than turned away. Because whirling is about much more than spinning, a dervish doesn’t learn how to “whirl” until many months have passed. Because whirling begins in the heart, that is where the training starts too.
Each aspect of the whirling ceremony is highly symbolic–and related to the cosmos and grave. To learn the symbolism of the sema ceremony in depth, I completed an intensive 40 day retreat in Istanbul with a Mevlevi sheikh–who taught me much more than just the mechanics of how to spin. Though the formalized ceremony of whirling did not emerge until after Rumi’s death, “sema” is the ritual most associated with his order. As you can see in these photographs, the right hand is open to the sky to receive love, and the left hand is pointed down to the earth for the dervish to deliver the love received–while whirling between the two worlds…
Whirling on my roof (Photo: Eddie Chu)
