Whirling Unto A Dervish

Whirling around to find ecstasy
Finding my love, in my eyes to see

Faster I whirled, faster I get there
How long can I turn in this ecstasy?

Finding my balance in tip toe and heel
How long can I kneel to my own addiction

Poem by Blogger



Dervish dance of Sufi, they choose to live in poverty and only have the robes on their back and metal bowl for their belongings on their neck.

A Whirling Dervish is a classic Rumi signature, where their turn to find ecstasy and get closer to go and find spiritual ohm, Rumi started his dervish movement abandoned his family and wife to his wealth, in search to find his gay lover "Shams'e Tabrizi" . rumour that he was killed by the hands of Rumi's sons but he continued on his search from now eastern Iran to turkey, where he wrote many poems and Masnavi's and whirled unto a Dervish till he passed away.

The whirling is a huge tourist attraction even through it’s is only meant to be in form of prayer and meditation.

Some classical writers indicate that the poverty of the Dervish is not merely economic. Rumi, for instance, says in Book 1 of his Masnavi.


Water that's poured inside will sink the boat
While water underneath keeps it afloat.

Driving wealth from his heart to keep it pure
King Solomon preferred the title 'Poor':

That sealed jar in the stormy sea out there
Floats on the waves because it's full of air,

When you've the air of dervishood inside
You'll float above the world and there abide
By Rumi
12 centrury poet
(in my opinion first openly gay poet)


It was his meeting with the dervish Shams-e Tabrizi on 15 November 1244 that completely changed Rumi's life. Shams had traveled throughout the Middle East searching and praying for someone who could "endure my company". A voice said to him, "What will you give in return?" Shams replied, "My head!" The voice then said, "The one you seek is Jalal ud-Din of Konya." On the night of 5 December 1248, as Rumi and Shams were talking, Shams was called to the back door. He went out, never to be seen again. It is rumored that Shams was murdered with the connivance of Rumi's son, 'Ala' ud-Din; if so, Shams indeed gave his head for the privilege of mystical friendship.[27]

Rumi's love for, and his bereavement at the death of, Shams found their expression in an outpouring of music, dance, and lyric poems, Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi. He himself went out searching for Shams and journeyed again to Damascus. There, he realized:


Why should I seek? I am the same as He.
His essence speaks through me.
I have been looking for myself!



I like this form of poetry as it rhyme and easy to digest as its melody to the ear and food for the soul. In some ways the addiction and the rehab process is like whirling dervish to me where you have to give up everything in order to get there, and find happiness in your self.