Whirling Dervishes

"Come, come, whoever; whatever you are. Come again infidel, idolator

or fire-worshiper come again. Our monastery is not a place of

despair. Even if you have violated your oaths a hundred times, come

again."

 

Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi

 

 

The "dance" of the Whirling Dervishes is called Sema. Sema is a part

of the inspiration of Mevlana as well as part of the Turkish custom,

history, beliefs and culture.Sema represents a mystical journey of

man's spiritual ascent through mind and love to "Perfect." Turning

towards the truth, his growth through love, desert his ego, find the

truth and arrive to the "Perfect," then he return from this spiritual

journey as a man who reached maturity and a greater perfection, so as

to love and to be of service to the whole of creation, to all

creatures without discrimination of believes, races, classes and

nations.

 

For more : http://www.mevlana.net/sema.htm

I love it! The motion, the ethereal atmosphere, very powerful!

The splendid picture i have the honor to criticize here, represents three dervishes dancing in a suggestive background. First of all it is remarkable the composition: the two upper dancers are in the descending diagonal while the bottom one is straight on the 1st-third horizon. Composition perfectly balanced also because the luminosity gradient bottom left to top right. We must underline about this gradient that the author chose to put the lighter part to the bottom left and while the eye switch to upper right side, away from the dancers, it's darkening. Due to our occidental writing we use to read the picture left-to-right and in most shots this kind of gradients are reversed: from a dark bottom left to a brighter top right ascending. The actual picture is indeed more and more resonant with the oriental point of view by having this "lecture key" from right to left. The Dervishes during their dance represent the axis mundi, if you want, the Meru Mount from East Cosmogonies. The long times are perfect to give out the perception of their movements around themselves. The spin also give a fascinating feature to the picture: we are in front of the Maelstrom, the Cosmic Mill. An excellent shot. Congrat.

 

Pit.

This is just simply excellent. Great of tones, textures, and timing. One of the best images today. Well done and thanks for sharing.

Awesome, timing, tone, composition. Your pics are wonderful.

Fantastic!