Karen and I invite you to join our annual Rumi Fest.

Thursday, December 17, 8 PM ET | 

Click to: Join Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 869 1257 8514 | Passcode: rumi

This year, the Super Spreader of Love will take place on Zoom. I have resisted heartily to take Zoom into the sacred spaces, but this year more than any, the need to turn for the world is profound. What a wonderful way to cleanse the psyche of 2020 with love.

Don’t expect a spectacle — this is online. But do expect an opportunity to connect through the heart, beyond time and space, to the Pole of Love. Our friends from the Istanbul Cultural Center will be participating with music and recitations.

If you wish to turn, you can do so in the privacy of your space. The format includes:

• – Welcome and Introductions
• – “Rumi and Shams – The Outside Shock that Changed the World” – brief talk
• – Oud Solo
• – Four poems with music
• – Ney accompanying the Mathnawi 18 lines in Persian
• – Selams I, II, III, IV
• – Fatihat

Followed by:  10 minute break to brew tea
– Sharing and Sohbet

We will turn to soundtracks that blend the traditional with contemporary and that are infused with Rumi’s poetry. My original impulse came from Dede’s statement: “I come to plant Mevlana’s message of universal love in this soil. The way of Mevlana, of Rumi, will grow in the West in its own way.”