Whirling Dervish...

I sometimes dream I’m flying. I guess we all do.

When I wake from my dreams I occasionally make a doodle in my doodle book to capture it and keep it fresh. Here’s one I made after one of my flying dreams and how I think that I came to dream it.

When I was a boy, full of energy and life, I was hardly ever still. I was a whirlwind in constant motion, ‘a Whirling Dervish’ as my Dad used to say. Now I’m not sure if he knew what a Whirling Dervish’ was but it stuck in my mind and remains firmly stucked there still. Holly is like that today, never still, a storm of energy and movement – A Whirling Dervish Girl Thing - as Misty would say.

So, since childhood, thanks to my Dad, I’ve been fascinated by the mystic and exotic world of the Dervish - a mystical dancer standing between the material and spiritual worlds. Their dance is a sacred ceremony in which the dervish rotates to a precise rhythm, around and around, faster and faster. It represents the earth revolving on its axis as it orbits the sun. The whirling dance allows the Dervish to empty himself of all distracting thoughts, placing him in trance as he is released from his body, conquering dizziness.

Conquering dizziness! Incredible! ‘See me spin, see me spin, dizziness overcomin’’.

Sometimes in my flying dreams I’m a whirling dervish flying high over the minarets and spires of Istanbul - empty of all distracting thoughts, in a trance, released from my body - I whirl higher and higher up into the air towards the sun (see me spin, see me spin, dizziness overcomin’). In that dream, I have no tongue - made mute in the great uprising. I spin, a Dervish of the east, ever faster until transported by ecstasy, I fly into the flames of the sun in a final act of whirring.

It’s just a dream, but the Whirling Dervishes are real.

Watch the DERVISHES HERE. Watch until the end and see their serenity.