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Looking at these words that call one to reflect, this heart remembers us friends turning together in the countryside of Finland. Among us there were some new ones and those who have been polishing not just the bottoms of their left-foot sock, but also their hearts together for some time.
Sometimes when we gather for sema, there are attempts to understand what this is about. Eyes looking around. A mind reading its own letter, like Hazrati Shams portrays it in Rumi’s Sun (p. 38). “What am I getting out of this?” “Why are they bowing when beginning?” “Should I also get up and do this?” are just some of the words being written.
One might melt a bit by just being there. Maybe it’s the moment of insecurity that turns out to be a threshold, when we meet it, friendly, like a guest arriving to our guesthouse. If one takes up turning, the torrent of the act itself can pull to the heart the holy names that soften and enliven it. In the end, it is the heart that understands, through tasting.
As the heart tastes, its eye might start looking. Not like the eyes that sought to understand, but as an eye looking for a way to partake in love. Soon that eye turns into an ear, listening for guidance, with the passion of love, a yearning to serve.
Someone takes up a drum. Another one surrenders into being turned. A voice suddenly becomes more clear as it understands its purpose in serving the whole. Someone just looks and senses with presence, letting the light of the sun and the stars shine on the sacred space of the heart, illuming the whole sema.
Rumi’s Sun says it clearly: need is the way. This heart continues; to serve the needs of another one is to travel on that way. To serve together is to travel together.
A need, a remedy, and the one who serves the remedy. Who is the beloved, who the lover, and who the love in this story? As the intellect gets lost again, the heart guides it gently by the hand: “Let’s not think, let’s just serve.”
In our sema we were supported by a recording from an earlier sema in Istanbul, Turkiye. The currents of love connected us through time and space, and it felt like our friends in Istanbul were serving us. By taking part, we were serving them. Maybe we need to need each other, to grow in this need with each other.
These words are being written in a public library. I feel the Friend smiling on this heart, and it is reflected on this heart and face. May this smile reach you across time and space.
Harun is a dervish (in the making), following the scent of roses. |
