It's Up To God

They said: “You are crazy in love!”
I said: “May God increase my Love.”
They said: “But your being has vanished.”
I said: “It’s not in me, God knows.”
They said: “You are filled!”
I said: “I wish I were empty.”
They said: “You are burned out!”
I said: “I wish I were ash!”
They said: “You are fading.”
I said: “I wish I had died.”
They said: “But you are dead.”
I said: “Insh’allah.”
“The cup,” they said.
“Let me be quenched,” I said.
“Drink!” they said.
“Let me turn, ” I said.
“The moth,” they said.
“Let me burn,” I said.
“Fool!” they said.
“So be it! It comes from God,” I said.
They said, “O Zeynep, you will be heartbroken,
drunk on love for the rose, like the nightingale.
In the end you will go mad in the way of truth.”
I said, “What can I do? It’s up to God.”

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"The whirling of the Mevlevis requires physical precision and groundedness. The left foot never leaves the ground; the right foot repeats an exacting movement that allows the turner to move with extraordinary grace, neither wobbling nor bobbing up and down. While seeing the physical world turn around his [or her] own still axis, the semazen [worshiping dancer] is inwardly repeating the name of God with each revolution.

The arms are extended, an expression of longing and submission – the right palm up receiving spiritual energy, the left palm down bestowing that energy to the world. The semazen becomes a transformer of cosmic energies through conscious intention, love, and the electrodynamic effect of the human nervous system revolving in relation to the earth's magnetic field. " - Kabir Helminski

Photo - Female whirling dervish
            - Mystic and prophet: the Taksim Square whirling dervish, photographed during last summer's anti-government protests in Istanbul.