Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Mystical Dance

Daylight, full of small dancing particles
and the one great turning, our souls
are dancing with you, without feet, they dance.
Can you see them when I whisper in your ear?
- Rumi

The Dervishes, followers of the Melvana Rumi, a 13th century mystic, Sufi poet and philosopher perform a 'Sema' ceremony where they whirl and dance (check this video for a glimpse of the ceremony) as they aim towards spiritual perfection. The whirling dance and accompanying Sufi music is quite mesmerizing and transfixes everyone in the vicinity. All over Turkey, there are performances of whirling dervishes most evenings for the tourists - done very respectfully. The ceremony ends with a quote from Quran: "Unto God belong the East and the West, and wither over ye turn, you are faced with Him. He is All-Embracing, All-Knowing"

Whirling Dervishes color pencils 12x9"

9 comments:

Gallery Kuma said...

thanks meera, the editor seemed to find this painting interesting, hence was selected,it does not pertain to any particular article, just depicts the rural life in uttaranchal. your sufi painting reminds me of lovely akhbar joda movie song

thiliMy said...

this is wonderful! I love the color and the cripsness of the pencil ... you should play around with trying to capture this fellows and their flowing robes in watercolor too, though!

Meera Rao said...

Thank you -- I have to find that song from Joda akbar and listen again!

Meera Rao said...

Thank you Mythili :) I want to try the dancers in watercolors too - I hope to try one with minimal details soon.

Kathy Staicer said...

You can feel the movement of the Dervishes spinning. Bravo Meera!!!

Meera Rao said...

Thanks Kathy, We really enjoyed watching the whirling dervishes and I wanted to capture that.

Unknown said...

this is really really lovely! i love the colors. the song from jodhaa akbar is khwaja mere khwaja (i saw the movie when i was last home with mom and dad and downloaded this one song to my ipod)

Meera Rao said...

Thank you Jyothi! I will have to listen to that song now!

Meera Rao said...

here is the link for that song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dG2FK3_NfQ

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