This page will get prettier soon, but here's a lot of great video of a very sacred precinct. For more on what was going on, you might read a few blog posts back to the overview of 12/10/08.
being pedestrians in Eyup http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvDoZK0RHrY
scarf people http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL8xN9AUWHY
cemetary at Eyup http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOC8oamO7xI
more tombs and street sign http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QK0pt1y8Xs
enterring the courtyard http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YV-_JXjHiz4
tiles in the courtyard http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w3CzEX5Pvg
turbesi pilgrims and trees of Baraka http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxuXiCUIbhc
tomb of a pasa http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxUe8Xih_7E
inside the turbesi 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52INyGHFTNs
inside the turbesi 2 (could be a nice still frame) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMDWqJV4Y8c
view from the muezzin box Eyup Sultan Mosjid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGpme4MfNA4
masallah http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLVB7qiyFzQ
asr athan Eyup Sultan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoajZPkZHWQ
lots of shuffling http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLcj7-YvGjA
snippet of Ismael http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFKemJza-oE
Friday, March 6, 2009
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Dec 10th journey up the golden horn
on the way to the ferry http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7dRfmpmYW0
ferry dock 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LisWcTTRm6o
ferry dock 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI-BeGKPWqY
ferry dock 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LisWcTTRm6o
ferry dock 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI-BeGKPWqY
Mike McGirr and the chai seller
birdflocks and tea service* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWxVY-jizVA
birdflocks and tea service* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWxVY-jizVA
me with tea on the boat (Michele narrates) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COFU-rR4TB4
.JPG)
cathy and darcy tea and hands http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzubcIg2PSc
.JPG)
cormorants, scaups and paddleboats http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zr_ShXGcKJU
museum of strange craft http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSrW3x3cn9M
boats http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIaCJd-RhWA
Dec 10th, sunrise and our morning sky class
.JPG)
Sunrise over the blue mosque: a short clip with peaks of Aya Sofya, across the Marmara, and a quick bit of one of the obelisks at the Hippodrome
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjqTICOCW1M*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjqTICOCW1M*
.JPG)
In our beautiful rooftop sky classroom, Ibrahim preps us for flexidox edutainment and teaches us about the famous french woman Rumi scholar (Eva Meyeravich?) whose remains will be burried near to Mevlana in Konya later in the week. Her name will be spelled right when you read it on her tombstone! Many faces of our pilgrims are in this clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu8701m0PzE
December 10th in Turkey, an overview
Well, mom says she's caught up on all the video I've posted, so I figure I'd better post more before the rest of you get caught up, too! Dec 10th was a very full day, as we explored Eyup Sultan, Istanbul, and Konya! Dec 10th, 2008 was also the 30th anniversary of my father's death, so I carried those emotions and that awareness with me as I arrived in Konya to celebrate the death (or wedding) of Rumi in the company of Ibrahim, who is a sort of spiritual father, or uncle, or big brother to me.
Here is the first jounraling that I had a chance to do in Turkey, in which I reflect on previous days and especially Dec 10th. The next few posts will illustrate all this and more:
In Turkey it is fajr time on Dec 11th as I barely make out the athan, only because I was already awake. Later in the week, perhaps tomorrow, I anticipate praying fajr at the tomb of Shams-i-Tabriz, where Baba Ibrahim has recommended especially for the women to pray, because everyone prays on the same floor level and by the time of the Sheb-i-Arus, the women praying there may be in the majority. As I sit here an early riser, I have ambitious goals of what I might accomplish. This is the first time I’ve started writing since the trip began. I have been in relationship with my camcorder, and would love to back-up it’s images here on Darcy’s small laptop, as well as to create an outline of my blog and catch up on the days so far. In my dream world, perhaps I would also upload text and video links, creating text for the events of each day as they have so far passed since we left Berkeley around 1PM on Saturday Dec 6th.
However, I sit in a small sitting room just outside three of the women’s sleeping rooms in the Dervish Brothers guest house, which is just right across the street from the tomb of Mevlana (hu). There are beautiful carpets everywhere!
We just arrived late last night, perhaps 9:30 or so, and we have not been shown yet where the tombs and mosques are. It is perhaps true that we are within 3 minutes walk of the essentials, the tombs of both Rumi and Shams. Ibrahim told us yesterday that today we would first visit Shams, as Rumi’s teacher. Then we would visit Rumi.
When we first arrived, after shuffling in slowly through the unassuming doorway across from the carpet shop in the chill night air, removing our shoes, and being shown to our rooms, we heard tell that there were 60 Persians conducting zhikr in “the garden.”
What an experience to join them in a very large room, dimly lit except for the light from the nearby kitchen coming on and off, candles and an anachronistic Christmas tree with flashing blue lights as the drummers drummed and the chanters chanted, and our group became one with theirs in the emotion of the zhikr!
After a while the lights came up and a famous Konya singer, Nur-i-Cennet, welcomed us, making jokes, telling humorous stories and singing poems and prayers. He said how his hair was growing white because of his poetry, and he appreciated the women in the room, expressing how it is easy for them to be closer to and filled with more of Allah.
Yesterday mid-day, what an experience as we went on a boat from Sultan Ahmet neighborhood up the golden horn to the Eyup Sultan tomb. As we approached the main tomb, many dervishes and pashas were buried in dense graveyards. The tombstones reflect their inhabitants, capped by a variety of hats, if they were dervishes, reflecting to what tariqa they belonged. Also, the women’s tombs were capped with tombstone flowers.
In the courtyard, we waited for the muezzin. The ubiquitous cats were, as always, a mercy, bringing smiles at unexpected moments. There is the tomb and also the mosque, and we watched many people in all manner of headress and skin tone bustling in and out of each, and queing up to get into the incredibly beautiful (with tile and silver) tomb area.
In the courtyard, there are trees surrounded by a fence, and sinks at each corner for drinks and ablutions. They don’t call it wudu in Turkey; it has another name I haven’t learned yet (abdesh?). So, I did my best to make wudu with my head covered in my parr lumber knit cap and hoody, with full sleeves and also full pants.
The pilgrims stand in prayer, palms up, at the trees, since the baraka of Eyup al-Ansari, a companion of The Prophet (saws), as well as of all the other saints and holy ones is in the earth from which they grow.
All throughout the day, I was impressed and tickled by how total strangers wanted to be near, blessed by, and photographed with Ibrahim, a merciful and imposing figure at 6’7”, with his beautiful heart, long beard, dervish drag and winning smile!
When I asked his wife, Katherine and then himself about this, I wondered if it was that they could sense his station, if it was because he was large in stature, or why else he might be so popular. He said yes it was these things, and also that they are so thrilled he can speak Turkish, and also that he seems important, especially when they see this group of people with him.
He told me a story about how many people thought he was wealthy and didn’t have to work, because the notion of being a professor in Istanbul with students in the US seemed hard to understand. He said how the folks who did already know him were finally getting to see, through the testimony of our presence, that he DID in fact have a job, and students in the US!
Here in the courtyard, we were eventually met by Mehmet, the muezzin of Eyup Sultan (for the last 30 years there)! What an amazing privilege! We had been told that his twin borther had just died, and so we extended condolences. He quickly cut our large group into the line of pilgrims waiting to enter the tomb.
I would have LOVED to have spent more time in this place, as it was so gorgeous and the atmosphere was so reverent and diverse! However, it was a small space with a steady stream of pilgrims passing through, and so I prayed a few surwar (sp?), took some video, and kept up with the group.
Because of our relationship with the muezzin, we had a special place in the mosque. But before we got there, we were greeted with sugar cubes as we exited the tomb, and someone presented us with a large bag of candy. All of this for the sweetness of life and of the baraka!
In the mosque we were told that we could all pray together upstairs. (We had had a long breakfast debrief that day about events that had happened so far, and about the experiences we had each had with the binary gender segregation at the Blue Mosque). We were also told that our new friend the muezzin would lead the prayer (asr?), and that our artist in residence, Ismael Baba, would lead the call. Because of this, we all went up the incredibly narrow windy stairs (which reminded me of the final stairs at the top of St. Peters in the Vatican) to the second level and entered the box for the muezzin!
Over time, the women were all moved right on the other side of the muezzin box, but because I was in a knit cap and hoody, I was able to pass and remain in the muezzin box. I did definitely feel some pain as I saw those with headscarves being guided out of the box and onto the adjacent women’s section of the balcony. Myself remaining in the box became slightly more challenging as it began to fill up with local male officiants hugging and touching and greeting one another enthusiastically, but Issa cheered me on and Ibrahim assured me that it was okay. Through Issa, part of that reassurance included the phrase “no one can see you.” Surely a mixed blessing! Talk about multiple meanings!
The muezzin box was very tight with maybe 15 or so of us in there, and the floor was heated, so I was sweating in my garb but dared not wear less. It was hard not to feel transgressive, when all I sought was to feel included and to share in the special experience. In a way it reminds me of being gay and holding hands publicly, especially back in the day: when all you want is to express your love, but the history and presence of oppression add multiple layers of meaning to each simple action… rebellion and tansgression and bravery and defiance and the need to interrogate oneself as to motivation(s), rather than simply a more clean experience of expressing love and devotion and belonging.
As with prayers in the blue mosque, I was not always sure what was going on, if we were making sunna or the obligatory prayer. I had wanted to film Ismael Baba making the athan, but I think that didn’t actually happen. He did recite some Qur’an and perhaps I got some footage of some of that. Nevertheless, the experience of being in the muezzin box at the Eyup Sultan mosque, looking out over the worshippers and at all the exqusite decoration was such a feeling!
Here is the first jounraling that I had a chance to do in Turkey, in which I reflect on previous days and especially Dec 10th. The next few posts will illustrate all this and more:
In Turkey it is fajr time on Dec 11th as I barely make out the athan, only because I was already awake. Later in the week, perhaps tomorrow, I anticipate praying fajr at the tomb of Shams-i-Tabriz, where Baba Ibrahim has recommended especially for the women to pray, because everyone prays on the same floor level and by the time of the Sheb-i-Arus, the women praying there may be in the majority. As I sit here an early riser, I have ambitious goals of what I might accomplish. This is the first time I’ve started writing since the trip began. I have been in relationship with my camcorder, and would love to back-up it’s images here on Darcy’s small laptop, as well as to create an outline of my blog and catch up on the days so far. In my dream world, perhaps I would also upload text and video links, creating text for the events of each day as they have so far passed since we left Berkeley around 1PM on Saturday Dec 6th.
However, I sit in a small sitting room just outside three of the women’s sleeping rooms in the Dervish Brothers guest house, which is just right across the street from the tomb of Mevlana (hu). There are beautiful carpets everywhere!
We just arrived late last night, perhaps 9:30 or so, and we have not been shown yet where the tombs and mosques are. It is perhaps true that we are within 3 minutes walk of the essentials, the tombs of both Rumi and Shams. Ibrahim told us yesterday that today we would first visit Shams, as Rumi’s teacher. Then we would visit Rumi.
When we first arrived, after shuffling in slowly through the unassuming doorway across from the carpet shop in the chill night air, removing our shoes, and being shown to our rooms, we heard tell that there were 60 Persians conducting zhikr in “the garden.”
What an experience to join them in a very large room, dimly lit except for the light from the nearby kitchen coming on and off, candles and an anachronistic Christmas tree with flashing blue lights as the drummers drummed and the chanters chanted, and our group became one with theirs in the emotion of the zhikr!
After a while the lights came up and a famous Konya singer, Nur-i-Cennet, welcomed us, making jokes, telling humorous stories and singing poems and prayers. He said how his hair was growing white because of his poetry, and he appreciated the women in the room, expressing how it is easy for them to be closer to and filled with more of Allah.
Yesterday mid-day, what an experience as we went on a boat from Sultan Ahmet neighborhood up the golden horn to the Eyup Sultan tomb. As we approached the main tomb, many dervishes and pashas were buried in dense graveyards. The tombstones reflect their inhabitants, capped by a variety of hats, if they were dervishes, reflecting to what tariqa they belonged. Also, the women’s tombs were capped with tombstone flowers.
In the courtyard, we waited for the muezzin. The ubiquitous cats were, as always, a mercy, bringing smiles at unexpected moments. There is the tomb and also the mosque, and we watched many people in all manner of headress and skin tone bustling in and out of each, and queing up to get into the incredibly beautiful (with tile and silver) tomb area.
In the courtyard, there are trees surrounded by a fence, and sinks at each corner for drinks and ablutions. They don’t call it wudu in Turkey; it has another name I haven’t learned yet (abdesh?). So, I did my best to make wudu with my head covered in my parr lumber knit cap and hoody, with full sleeves and also full pants.
The pilgrims stand in prayer, palms up, at the trees, since the baraka of Eyup al-Ansari, a companion of The Prophet (saws), as well as of all the other saints and holy ones is in the earth from which they grow.
All throughout the day, I was impressed and tickled by how total strangers wanted to be near, blessed by, and photographed with Ibrahim, a merciful and imposing figure at 6’7”, with his beautiful heart, long beard, dervish drag and winning smile!
When I asked his wife, Katherine and then himself about this, I wondered if it was that they could sense his station, if it was because he was large in stature, or why else he might be so popular. He said yes it was these things, and also that they are so thrilled he can speak Turkish, and also that he seems important, especially when they see this group of people with him.
He told me a story about how many people thought he was wealthy and didn’t have to work, because the notion of being a professor in Istanbul with students in the US seemed hard to understand. He said how the folks who did already know him were finally getting to see, through the testimony of our presence, that he DID in fact have a job, and students in the US!
Here in the courtyard, we were eventually met by Mehmet, the muezzin of Eyup Sultan (for the last 30 years there)! What an amazing privilege! We had been told that his twin borther had just died, and so we extended condolences. He quickly cut our large group into the line of pilgrims waiting to enter the tomb.
I would have LOVED to have spent more time in this place, as it was so gorgeous and the atmosphere was so reverent and diverse! However, it was a small space with a steady stream of pilgrims passing through, and so I prayed a few surwar (sp?), took some video, and kept up with the group.
Because of our relationship with the muezzin, we had a special place in the mosque. But before we got there, we were greeted with sugar cubes as we exited the tomb, and someone presented us with a large bag of candy. All of this for the sweetness of life and of the baraka!
In the mosque we were told that we could all pray together upstairs. (We had had a long breakfast debrief that day about events that had happened so far, and about the experiences we had each had with the binary gender segregation at the Blue Mosque). We were also told that our new friend the muezzin would lead the prayer (asr?), and that our artist in residence, Ismael Baba, would lead the call. Because of this, we all went up the incredibly narrow windy stairs (which reminded me of the final stairs at the top of St. Peters in the Vatican) to the second level and entered the box for the muezzin!
Over time, the women were all moved right on the other side of the muezzin box, but because I was in a knit cap and hoody, I was able to pass and remain in the muezzin box. I did definitely feel some pain as I saw those with headscarves being guided out of the box and onto the adjacent women’s section of the balcony. Myself remaining in the box became slightly more challenging as it began to fill up with local male officiants hugging and touching and greeting one another enthusiastically, but Issa cheered me on and Ibrahim assured me that it was okay. Through Issa, part of that reassurance included the phrase “no one can see you.” Surely a mixed blessing! Talk about multiple meanings!
The muezzin box was very tight with maybe 15 or so of us in there, and the floor was heated, so I was sweating in my garb but dared not wear less. It was hard not to feel transgressive, when all I sought was to feel included and to share in the special experience. In a way it reminds me of being gay and holding hands publicly, especially back in the day: when all you want is to express your love, but the history and presence of oppression add multiple layers of meaning to each simple action… rebellion and tansgression and bravery and defiance and the need to interrogate oneself as to motivation(s), rather than simply a more clean experience of expressing love and devotion and belonging.
As with prayers in the blue mosque, I was not always sure what was going on, if we were making sunna or the obligatory prayer. I had wanted to film Ismael Baba making the athan, but I think that didn’t actually happen. He did recite some Qur’an and perhaps I got some footage of some of that. Nevertheless, the experience of being in the muezzin box at the Eyup Sultan mosque, looking out over the worshippers and at all the exqusite decoration was such a feeling!
Sunday, January 4, 2009
12/9 pt 5 -Driving, napping, summary of day & room tour
Driving back from Asitane to Hotel Arcadia, Ibrahim points out some tombs of Companions.Istanbul walls and tombs of Companions (I recommend viewing this in "high quality".) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrY4NCmXvSk
If you haven't watched this one yet, now is a good time! A seagull summary of the day (after napping)* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EI8wzTEO-9Y
Tour of hotel room and video debut of my peace t-shirt (from US band Emma's Revolution) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxaa3mvRBMg
Saturday, January 3, 2009
12/9 pts 3 & 4: Chora Church & Asitane Restaurant
Chora Church Museum in Istanbul is another place where Christianity and Islam seem to be heavily entwined. As we first enter the grounds, we find a tomb for a companion of The Prophet (saws), as well as a tomb for a former tomb-tender.a companion buried at chora http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRk99lByO1o
tombs at Chora http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4djJuHlvDio
Inside the church, mosaics tell stories of Jesus and Mary. I was charmed by this one, which goes back a generation to: The Birth of Mary, featuring her mother Hannah or Anne, depending on your tradition. The folds of the gown seemed particularly suggestive to me of images from older Goddess traditions.*Ibrahim wows us with another scholarly and mystical explanation of some of the iconography inside chora*:
Here's a narrated clip of more mary stories http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Cg9DTYWtaM
and a few more clips from chora
iconography at chora http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3CzYS4eIMM
compassion and comfort in each direction http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y_dm_zY-wE
Then we were called to feast at an amazing Ottoman restaurant right next door, Asitane.
12/9 pt 2: The Ecumenical Patriarchate
This is a really good page in which to make sure that you are selecting "watch in high quality" on the youtube screen (bottom right under the photo on youtube page). It makes a big difference in being able to make out the icons and inlay, etc, inside the church.As far as I can tell, the Ecumenical Patriarchate is the Seat of Power for Christian Eastern Orthodox Churches, including Greek, Russian, etc. They call the Patriarch (who seems a bit like a pope to me) "First Among Equals." I talk a wee bit about the Patriarchate in this video, which you may have watched in my last blog entry: a seagull summary of the day (after napping)* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EI8wzTEO-9Y
The video I'd like to highlight from this part of the day is a wonderful demonstration of the gifts of our Professor, Ibrahim Farajaje. In it, he talks to us about the iconography inside the church, relates it to Rebecca Parker and Rita Brock's book, Saving Paradise, and goes into inter-relationships and overlaps of veneration between this Christian iconography and practices in local Turkish Islam.Ibrahim explains multireligious symbols in the patriarchate* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaLbNPX_daw&feature=channel_page
There is only a little video from this portion of the journey, and I think it's all worthwhile if you have interest:riverrock inlay pathwork such as I have seen at the Chinese Garden in PDX, cyclamen growing(my favorite flower), and Amina Nur imagines nests for cats http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QS31Ps4BDg
Eastern Orthodox Seat of Power http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPhnej4jbWI
inside the patriarchate 1 & 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH2lq_Kd2SQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2ymMBWppcc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2ymMBWppcc
patriarchate http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSEjFAQ4Bz0
it is said she weeps and heals http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOS-b2mdUFg
modern mosaic of accords between sultan and orthodox http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5WOP6pscrM
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