Musical Interlude
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“Love is Coming
to Set You Free”
from
The Leadership of Love DVD.

 

TRAVELOGUE:  SPIRITUAL JOURNEY TO TURKEY by Cynthia and Kell  “There’s a strange frenzy in my head, of birds flying, each particle circulating on its own. Is the one I love everywhere?”                                                 Rumi

We begin our spiritual journey in Istanbul, where we see the magnificent domes and minarets of the mosques and palaces of the Ottoman Empire gleam with gold and rose in first light of the morning.  The Golden Horn of the Byzantines, second only to Jerusalem in its value to both Christians and Muslims, presses out in the wide Bosphorus Strait, the prize that both separates and brings together Europe and Asia.  The Bosphorus fills with ships, all of them going out or returning to this great awakening center of civilization. 

“So the sea-journey goes on, and who knows where?
Just to be held by the ocean is the best luck
we could have.  It’s a total waking up!”           

                                    Rumi

Seagulls, circling the waters, seem to come out of nowhere, their wings beating like white flags on the breeze, as we look at the ancient blue passage to the Black Sea that carried Jason and the Argonauts to Medea and The Golden Fleece, then returned them home as heroes across the Aegean.  Throughout the day we will hear five calls to worship erupting from loudspeakers around this great city like birds bursting forth from their shells.

“Like birdsong beginning inside the egg.
Like this universe coming into existence,
The lover wakes, and whirls
in a dancing joy
then kneels down
in praise.”

                                    Rumi

We spend our afternoons filming the breathtaking, soul-filling beauty displayed in the unparalleled architecture and interior art of The Haghia Sohia, The Blue Mosque, and The Topkapi Palace of the Ottoman Empire, immersing us in the rich historical context of this part of the world where Rumi would emerge in the 13th century.

“Every moment and place says,
‘Put this design in your carpet!’”

                                    Rumi

POSTCARD FROM EPHESUS

We continue our sacred journey back in time to view the incredible ruins of Ephesus, one of the greatest, most complete ruined cities in the western world.  Originally a Greek city in 1000 B.C. that served as a center of worship for the Anatolian Mother Goddess, Cybele, Ephesus became a chief port on the Aegean for the Romans.  Lined with Ionian and Corinthian columns, the streets lead us to film the magnificent Library of Celsus and the Theatre where St. Paul is said to have pleaded for his life.  It is in Ephesus that we glimpse monuments to the majestic Western culture that absorbed and was absorbed by the majestic Eastern culture from which Rumi blossomed—like these yellow and white wildflowers we see pushing through the cracks of the stones over which we walk.         

“. . .I am not from the East
or the West, not out of the ocean or up

from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not
composed of elements at all. . .

My place is placeless, a trace
of the traceless.  Neither body or soul.

I belong to the beloved, have seen the two
worlds as one. . .”

                                    Rumi

POSTCARD FROM KONYA

The highlight of our “God-soaked” journey to Turkey comes in Konya during the joyous Rumi Festival on Dec. 17, the night Rumi left his body 800 years ago that is celebrated as his wedding night with his Beloved (Shebi-Arus).  We are transported as we witness the transplendent performance of prayer by the Whirling Dervishes.  We capture on high-definition film the ecstatic dancing of dozens of white-skirted dervishes whirling gracefully, like particles and planets circling the sun.  They are separate, yet they seem to float as one entity.  Their arms uplifted, having sprouted spirit wings, with beatific faces turned upward, they seek union in bliss—like the birds we will film at dawn circling the Eyup Mosque back in Istanbul on the last day of our trip.

“The sun is love.  The lover,
a speck circling the sun.

A Spring wind moves to dance
any branch that isn’t dead.”

                                    Rumi

FROM TURKEY WITH LOVE,
CYNTHIA AND KELL

P.S. Our spiritual journey has taken us back to Turkey in spring to see the beauteous nature brimming with divine Essence about which Rumi wrote so many poems.  We met and filmed dervishes who live Rumi’s Sufic values of ecstatic, compassionate love in contemporary Konya, Istanbul and Edirne.

*All of these translations of Rumi we have used in our TRAVELOGUE are by Coleman Barks, whom we recently interviewed for “RUMI RETURNING."