she whirls, and 🌀

back from palestine & practicing certainty

It was a foggy evening in Ramallah, in an attic of an old stone house, when I saw a dervish whirl. The musicians - a singer, an oud player, a guitarist, and a tabla player - sit behind an empty swath of floor, an intimate audience wrapped around the perimeter. During the second song, the dervish arrives at the threshold of the door, her arms crossed over her chest, hands resting on opposite shoulders. A dream state emanates from her, eyes downcast. She moves to the center of the emptiness, her feet moving to two beats, the same yet distinct, one of the heart, and the other of the music. Arriving at the center, she rests in stillness. Mirroring the pace of a bud opening, she unfurls, her hands lifting off her shoulders and descending ever so slowly in front of her. Wrapping her body from right to left, over her heart, she whirls. Her palms face the sky. She whirls, and her symmetry breaks, one palm rising to the sky, and the other falling towards the earth. Her hands shift throughout the journey of the song, and she whirls. We never see her eyes. The only thing remaining constant is the axis around which she whirls – her heart.

I’m back from Palestine and thinking about movement as a form of devotion. I’m thinking about this planet we reside on, how we whirl around the sun, how the moon whirls around us. I’m thinking about how in the midst of countless whirls, the word universe literally means one turn. I’m thinking about my own movements in life - how the older I get, the more clarity I have around my devotions.

Before Mecca, Muslims prayed in the direction of Jerusalem. In Arabic, the term for the direction of prayer is qibla. On my last night in Ramallah, I meet up with my friend Rand at a cafe called Sufi. We sit on the balcony; Rand translates the various Rumi quotes on the wall for me written in Arabic. I ask about the word qibla, and she speaks of how it can be used poetically as anything one orients their life around, an object of devotion. Space emerges in our conversation and in the silence, we notice a pigeon in the rafters nestled in a planter, her baby close to her body.  

I roll up my sleeve and show Rand my new tattoo, a line drawing of a whirling dervish. She says something beautiful about how movement is a through-line in Sufism, whether it be in the nomadic nature of Sufis themselves or in the dance of the dervish. She explains it as a reflection of movement, or change, being the only constant in life. I’m reminded of how the solar system in which we’re placed is hurtling through space. I’m reminded of Octavia Butler’s words:  All that you touch, You Change. All that you Change, Changes you. The only lasting truth is Change. God is Change.

On one of my last days in Ramallah, I connect with a new friend, a former journalist and political activist turned healer, artist, and teacher. A dervish herself, she whirled the previous night at Al Aqsa on what’s thought to be the holiest night of Ramadan, Laylat al-Qadr, the night of power. We sit in my garden. Mosquitos bother her, so she picks lavender and rubs her arms. She listens to me think out loud about my book idea. She tells me a story from an encounter she had with a Palestinian freedom fighter and encourages me to explore the spiritual concept of yaqeen, certainty. She says: iman (faith) is acceptance whether something happens or doesn’t happen. Faith happens in your head. Yaqeen is something more powerful — the deep knowing of what is. It’s something you experience in every cell of your body. The scent of lavender fills the air.  

I think about how I crave transformation, how I want my mind to be changed. I want to live life in a way that expands and softens me, making me receptive to new ways of being. I think what I mean by transformation is that I want to know myself deeper. Something about this trip reminded me that learning to know ourselves is less of an act of accumulation, but a shedding of all the things we’re not. I spent two weeks in Gaza on this trip. While there, I wrote in my journal: love reminds us who we are.

I think the opportunity to be transformed is omnipresent. Returning to Palestine as a writer, I was porous and receptive and curious towards the world around me. I can be like that anywhere, any day. Transformation is less of a singular event, but more of a way of life, I write down. 

I write a second version of the above two paragraphs, with a small tweak:

I think about how I crave [inspiration], how I want my mind to be changed. I want to live life in a way that expands and softens me, making me receptive to new ways of being. I think what I mean by [inspiration] is that I want to know myself deeper. Something about this trip reminded me that learning to know ourselves is less of an act of accumulation, but a shedding of all the things we’re not. I spent two weeks in Gaza on this trip. While there, I wrote in my journal: love reminds us who we are.

I think the opportunity to be [inspired] is omnipresent. Returning to Palestine as a writer, I was porous and receptive and curious towards the world around me. I can be like that anywhere, any day. [Inspiration] is less of a singular event, but more of a way of life, I write down.

I feel anxious my last few days in Palestine, afraid to leave a place and experience where I feel connected. When I left Palestine in 2021, it was with a heavy heart. I had faith then that a return would be possible, but not certainty. I let my anxiety run its course and notice what it feels like to practice yaqeen in this moment. My heart feels lighter in my final days, the same lightness found in a dervish’s feet, as I sink into the certainty of life’s unyielding flow and circularity.

After a particularly grueling experience in Israeli airport security, I collapse into my seat for an 11 hour overnight flight back to the States. I can feel my heartbeat as the anxiety from my airport experience dissipates. I wrap my body from right to left, orienting myself towards the window for take-off.

Looking down from the dark sky, Palestine becomes a sea of stars. ✨