Whirling on my roof (Photo: Emily O'Dell)
Dancing is not habitual rising;
Unless there be pain, you rise like dust.
Dancing is your rising over both worlds,
Tearing your heart, and rising over your soul…
After I whirled with a group of Sufi women today in Beirut, they boiled some Arabic coffee, and dragged out a few water pipes. “Do you want some hubbly bubbly?” one of them asked me. I had to laugh, since I’ve never heard it called that before–I’m more accustomed to its Arabic names. “Isn’t that what they call it in America–a hubbly bubbly?” she said. Since I don’t smoke, I politely refused the offer of a puff–but I was told I was missing out, since the tobacco from Iran was top of the line…
