Spinning

When I was an undergraduate, my friends Amy, Megan and I (and probably others I've now forgotten) went to see a film called "Baraka."  It was the strangest movie I'd seen at that time in my life, and perhaps the most beautiful.  

Fifteen years after I saw the movie, I wrote a poem based on what I thought was its most beautiful image: light-skinned men in tall, conical hats and long gown-like coats, spinning 'round and 'round with arms out, one hand in limp surrender to the earth and the other facing up, gently lifting air.

Whirling dervishes.

It isn't certain why this image struck me so.  Something about the double spin of their dance: their bodies are gracefully spinning 'round while they are orbiting around the center of the space.  An orbit, being and not being.

In the film, there is no Sufi music in the background, so the audience misses the full effect.  It is also shown in slow motion.  But the image is still striking.  The men spinning, and another man in a darker cloak walking calmly amongst them.

Tonight, I learned that Candomble has an orbit of its own.  

First on the south side, and then on the east side of Sao Paulo, I attended two celebrations for the great spirits of Candomble, the creative and hopeful faith of seemingly powerless African slaves who were forced to labor in the sugar fields of the Catholic Portuguese.  At both celebrations, men and women of all shades, mostly dressed in white, danced 'round an offering in the middle of the room while three men (at both places) beat on drums with their hands.  Apparently in some kind of trance brought on by the great spirits of West Africa, the celebrants spun 'round on their own skillful axis while also dancing around the center.  Some of them wore masks, one danced with a large basket of bread on his head, another wore a curtain of beads dangling in front of her face, looking like a traditional wedding veil of Yemen or some such place.   

They were absolutely as graceful as the whirling dervishes.  And their music was contagious.  I found myself dancing along with them, only on the outskirts of the tribe.  

Watching as men and women were overtaken by the feeling, trembling and jumping and then dancing and spinning 'round, I wondered: what is it about spinning on an axis that is so mesmerizing?  It's got to be more than dizziness.  Why do the spirits need this twirling, or why do people need this whirling, to feel their interbeing with the gods and their normally unimaginable energy?  What is it?

I think I know what it is.  After you've been spinning for so long, your body feels weak, you sweat, and yes, you are dizzy.  You must surrender to the feeling, or give up the twirling.  You must depend on others to take care of you: to wipe your head, to tighten your clothes, to protect you from banging into something or someone, to chant and sing and clap out the rhythm of the accompaniment, to encourage you to keep going.  

In that action, the spinner and the nonspinner become one, inseparable, interdependent.  

I wonder if the Buddha ever tried spinning.  If so, I hope someone had his back.