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I have two modes: whirling dervish or slow cooker.
That was my response when asked about my creative process.
When I’m in whirling dervish mode, I’m engulfed with a sense of obsessive urgency. There’s a flurry of browser tabs and trips to the hardware store and books. I want to learn. I want to create. And I want to do it right now.
After I shared a bit about my process, Annie, a collaborator on an upcoming project, asked me, “Have you ever seen a whirling dervish?”
Had I? I didn’t think so. And her question made me realize I wasn’t 100% sure what a whirling dervish was. Wasn’t it like a Tasmanian devil?
Annie continued, “It’s a sacred spiritual practice. And I think it’s a beautiful metaphor for the way you like to work. It may look chaotic, but there’s actually a method and a connection to Source.”
Her words were a spotlight, illuminating two truths. First, I needed to read up on whirling dervishes. Clearly, there was a lot I didn’t know. And second, I still felt shame around my whirling dervish tendencies. Why else would I melt at the thought that my chaos could be sacred?
So I fell into a rabbit hole, as I am wont to do. I didn’t expect to find so many parallels to my creative process. Whirling dervishes, in my conception, were whirlwinds of people. They sent energy in every direction but rarely managed to move forward.
I’m not the only Westerner to hold that belief. Professor and author Carter Cast uses the Whirling Dervish as one of his six derailment archetypes. To use his words, the Whirling Dervish archetype “lack(s) planning and organizational skills; they’re often creatively-minded people with a host of ideas spewing out of their brains like a hyper-active geyser—but they have a hard time converting their ideas into action.”
But the concept of the whirling dervish doesn’t come from the West. It started in the Middle East in the 13th century with Rumi. Yes, that Rumi.
Rumi and his circle, the Melevis, used whirling as a spiritual practice. They called it turning. A dervish is simply another namer for a turner. Turning is part of the Sufi Muslim tradition, a form of Islamic mysticism.
The ceremony opens with music and the words of Rumi’s son:
Thou art the unseen and the seen
Had no clue.
Thou art hiding in bodies and souls
Had no clue.
I was looking for a sign of Thine in this world.
At last I have found that the world itself is a sign of Thine;
Now I have a clue.
This incantation could just as easily be an opening for my own creative practice. Whether I’m reading about Solange’s career or Sufi mysticism or facilitating a class on project management or making art, all I’m ever trying to do is find context clues about what makes life meaningful.
After opening up the ceremony, the dervishes turn counter-clockwise, opening their right palm towards the sky and tilting their left palm towards the earth.
The spinning looks chaotic, as do most forms of ecstatic dance. Each dervish has their own style, their own way of communing with Source through this moving meditation. Onlookers may appreciate the beauty of the process. They may write it off as madness. But they’ll never fully understand the mystical conversation taking place.
The onlooker’s understanding is never the point.
Post-rabbit hole, I’d still describe myself and my creative process as a whirling dervish. Turning as bits of ideas, snippets of text, eight counts, and past conversations surround me.
Bumping into each other. Forming new connections. With one hand lifted towards heaven, I welcome any idea that wants to visit. My other hand tilted toward the earth, I let it all flow through me and into its next form.
Thanks to History Today for teaching me about whirling dervishes.
