Poet's voice still echoes
by Ron Csillag Dec. 17, 2005. 01:00 AM
World Rumi Day marks 13th century Persian mystic's metaphysical journey home to the Beloved Toronto woman screens film of her own spiritual odyssey that Rumi inspired, writes Ron Csillag.
Shakespeare, a devotee once wrote, has had neither equal nor second.
Don't tell that to lovers of Mevlana Jelalludin Rumi.
The 13th century Sufi writer of ecstatic love poetry has been dubbed "the Shakespeare of mystics" and "the Shakespeare of the soul."
More than any other poet in any other religious tradition, Rumi saw the unseeable and expressed the inexpressible. He found the sublime in everything — in song, in dance, in nature and in friendship.
At a time when God was either King or Avenger, he dared to speak of the divine as pure love. Rumi's God was "the Beloved."
And talk about bookstore boffo: in the past 20 years, the English translations of his works are said to have outsold those of Shakespeare. Books like The Essential Rumi and The Illuminated Rumi by American translator Coleman Barks have sold more than 500,000 copies.
Rumi's verse has even been called the "Persian Qur'an." Time magazine, in its Dec. 31, 1999 issue, crowned him "Mystic of the Century."
Anyone who's read him may know the feeling of being transported to a place of wonderment, of getting lost in the trance-like swirl experienced by "whirling dervishes" — members of the Mevlevi Sufi order founded by Rumi's followers and which continues today.
A dreamy new film about one woman's spiritual odyssey comes close to capturing the feeling.
Rumi — Turning Ecstatic, by Torontonians Tina Petrova and Stephen Roloff, was inspired by something no one would consider very inspirational: a near-fatal car accident.
It happened Dec. 21, 1997, when Petrova, born a Roman Catholic, was driving to a Buddhist monastery deep in California's Mohave desert, and plunged off a small cliff. That was after a mysterious hitchhiker she had dropped off warned: "Don't drive off the cliff today."
Petrova, a 50-year-old retired actor and now a filmmaker, didn't know it at the time but it was the beginning of a journey that would change her life. She had driven off the metaphorical cliff all right — and straight into the pillow of Rumi's lap.
Back in Toronto a year later, "broken and humbled," still in a rib brace and unable to work, she prayed a novena to the Virgin Mary for guidance. That night, her plea was answered by a vision of a robed figure she recognized as Rumi.
As Petrova puts it in the film: "A Muslim mystic appearing to a Tibetan Buddhist answering a plea to the Virgin Mary ... welcome to my life."
Inspired, she organized the Rumi Festival of Peace in Toronto in 1999, bringing together Barks, a diverse group of dervishes, musicians and actors. It was just the start of a mission that could well have been fired by Rumi's words: "Sometimes in order to help, He makes us cry."
The film follows Petrova on a pilgrimage-like journey of recovery as she seeks out others dedicated to following Rumi's path "in word and action." Appearances are made by Barks; Shaikh Kabir Helminski, the western representative of Rumi's Mevlevi order who leads a group of dervishes in California; author Andrew Harvey; and architect Nader Khalili, whose innovative designs are inspired by the Persian mystic.
Born in 1207 AD in what is today Afghanistan, Rumi's family fled Mongol invasions and settled in present-day Turkey. Rumi was a scholar of traditional Islam and its mystical branch, Sufism, and taught at his father's religious school until a meeting with a dervish named Shams of Tabriz changed his life, and the course of mysticism.
Upon hearing that the wild monk Shams had been murdered, Rumi, the story goes, began whirling in grief, verses of ecstatic poetry pouring from him so fluidly that scribes could barely keep up committing them to paper.
He spent the rest of his life addressing his love for God and love for absent friends as two sides of the same coin. His best-known works are the Divan i Shams, comprising about 3,500 poems, and his magnum opus, Mathnawi, a work of 35,000 lines in six books that is considered today a classic of Middle Eastern literature, held with a reverence not far below the Qur'an.
In the West, Rumi's work is getting wider play. A 1998 tribute CD released by New Age health guru Deepak Chopra featured spoken word and music performances by Madonna, Demi Moore, Martin Sheen, and the late civil rights icon Rosa Parks. Director Oliver Stone is said to be developing a full-length Hollywood treatment on his life.
Why does Rumi's voice echo after 700 years? Some point to his interfaith approach: "I am not Christian or Jew, not Hindu, Buddhist or Zen," he wrote. "I'm not from the East or West. I belong to the Beloved."
Or as Harvey, the author, puts it, Rumi's embrace of all paths to God speaks to us "at the moment when the human race needs that inspiration like oxygen ... (it's) a midwifing voice in an apocalyptic time."
Despite his broad view, Rumi was "very much a Muslim writer. To him, Muhammad was the perfect man," says Maria Subtelny, a scholar of classical Persian literature at the University of Toronto. Even so, "there is a universalism there and if his writings inspire people who can derive spirituality from it, that's testament to his genius."
Subtelny isn't the first scholar or fan to believe God spoke to Rumi directly. "There's no question in my mind that he was divinely inspired," she says.
Petrova needs no convincing.
"He had a direct connection with God. This man was on first-name terms with God."
A reporter can barely get the question out — Why did she make the film? — before Petrova launches into a 15-minute outpouring that is, well, poetic.
Following her vision, "I really had no choice. The mystical dream I had, the vision, the building force of the love of Rumi coming through me ... it almost knocked the wind out of me. I was propelled forward on this journey and certainly there were times I felt I was drowning."
She isn't counselling anyone to run out and become a Sufi. "I just wish for people to heal their woundedness." Neither is she ready to say that she's healed. "I'm saying that the journey has been painful. It's been excruciating but it's also been uplifting and blissful. I wish everyone on the planet could taste one sip from the wellspring of love I have been graced with."
She quotes a Rumi verse from memory: "Those tender words we said are stored in the heart of heaven and one day, like the rain, the whole world will grow green with their love."
Petrova believes that day is today. "I think Rumi's words offer a profound ray of hope for humanity. There's something about his poetry that cuts right to the centre of the human heart. His writing speaks of loss and longing and separation and love and union and bliss — the whole gamut of the metaphysical journey home to God, and indeed is a roadmap home to the Beloved."
Today, literally, is special for another reason.
All over the Muslim world, Dec. 17 is auspicious: It's Rumi's "Wedding Day," the day he met his Beloved and lifted the final veil, or the day of his death in 1273. Petrova has helped brainstorm the event into World Rumi Day, which she envisions as an annual tradition.
Rumi — Turning Ecstatic airs on Vision TV, a partner in the film, on Jan. 18 at 10 p.m. For a list of local venues screening the film today, see http://www.rumi-turn ingecstatic.com.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ron Csillag is a Toronto who specializes in religion. He can be reached at csillag@rogers.com.
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Sunday, January 08, 2006
Rumi — Turning Ecstatic, a film by Tina Petrova and Stephen Roloff
Poet's voice still echoes
by Ron Csillag Dec. 17, 2005. 01:00 AM
World Rumi Day marks 13th century Persian mystic's metaphysical journey home to the Beloved Toronto woman screens film of her own spiritual odyssey that Rumi inspired, writes Ron Csillag.
Shakespeare, a devotee once wrote, has had neither equal nor second.
Don't tell that to lovers of Mevlana Jelalludin Rumi.
The 13th century Sufi writer of ecstatic love poetry has been dubbed "the Shakespeare of mystics" and "the Shakespeare of the soul."
More than any other poet in any other religious tradition, Rumi saw the unseeable and expressed the inexpressible. He found the sublime in everything — in song, in dance, in nature and in friendship.
At a time when God was either King or Avenger, he dared to speak of the divine as pure love. Rumi's God was "the Beloved."
And talk about bookstore boffo: in the past 20 years, the English translations of his works are said to have outsold those of Shakespeare. Books like The Essential Rumi and The Illuminated Rumi by American translator Coleman Barks have sold more than 500,000 copies.
Rumi's verse has even been called the "Persian Qur'an." Time magazine, in its Dec. 31, 1999 issue, crowned him "Mystic of the Century."
Anyone who's read him may know the feeling of being transported to a place of wonderment, of getting lost in the trance-like swirl experienced by "whirling dervishes" — members of the Mevlevi Sufi order founded by Rumi's followers and which continues today.
A dreamy new film about one woman's spiritual odyssey comes close to capturing the feeling.
Rumi — Turning Ecstatic, by Torontonians Tina Petrova and Stephen Roloff, was inspired by something no one would consider very inspirational: a near-fatal car accident.
It happened Dec. 21, 1997, when Petrova, born a Roman Catholic, was driving to a Buddhist monastery deep in California's Mohave desert, and plunged off a small cliff. That was after a mysterious hitchhiker she had dropped off warned: "Don't drive off the cliff today."
Petrova, a 50-year-old retired actor and now a filmmaker, didn't know it at the time but it was the beginning of a journey that would change her life. She had driven off the metaphorical cliff all right — and straight into the pillow of Rumi's lap.
Back in Toronto a year later, "broken and humbled," still in a rib brace and unable to work, she prayed a novena to the Virgin Mary for guidance. That night, her plea was answered by a vision of a robed figure she recognized as Rumi.
As Petrova puts it in the film: "A Muslim mystic appearing to a Tibetan Buddhist answering a plea to the Virgin Mary ... welcome to my life."
Inspired, she organized the Rumi Festival of Peace in Toronto in 1999, bringing together Barks, a diverse group of dervishes, musicians and actors. It was just the start of a mission that could well have been fired by Rumi's words: "Sometimes in order to help, He makes us cry."
The film follows Petrova on a pilgrimage-like journey of recovery as she seeks out others dedicated to following Rumi's path "in word and action." Appearances are made by Barks; Shaikh Kabir Helminski, the western representative of Rumi's Mevlevi order who leads a group of dervishes in California; author Andrew Harvey; and architect Nader Khalili, whose innovative designs are inspired by the Persian mystic.
Born in 1207 AD in what is today Afghanistan, Rumi's family fled Mongol invasions and settled in present-day Turkey. Rumi was a scholar of traditional Islam and its mystical branch, Sufism, and taught at his father's religious school until a meeting with a dervish named Shams of Tabriz changed his life, and the course of mysticism.
Upon hearing that the wild monk Shams had been murdered, Rumi, the story goes, began whirling in grief, verses of ecstatic poetry pouring from him so fluidly that scribes could barely keep up committing them to paper.
He spent the rest of his life addressing his love for God and love for absent friends as two sides of the same coin. His best-known works are the Divan i Shams, comprising about 3,500 poems, and his magnum opus, Mathnawi, a work of 35,000 lines in six books that is considered today a classic of Middle Eastern literature, held with a reverence not far below the Qur'an.
In the West, Rumi's work is getting wider play. A 1998 tribute CD released by New Age health guru Deepak Chopra featured spoken word and music performances by Madonna, Demi Moore, Martin Sheen, and the late civil rights icon Rosa Parks. Director Oliver Stone is said to be developing a full-length Hollywood treatment on his life.
Why does Rumi's voice echo after 700 years? Some point to his interfaith approach: "I am not Christian or Jew, not Hindu, Buddhist or Zen," he wrote. "I'm not from the East or West. I belong to the Beloved."
Or as Harvey, the author, puts it, Rumi's embrace of all paths to God speaks to us "at the moment when the human race needs that inspiration like oxygen ... (it's) a midwifing voice in an apocalyptic time."
Despite his broad view, Rumi was "very much a Muslim writer. To him, Muhammad was the perfect man," says Maria Subtelny, a scholar of classical Persian literature at the University of Toronto. Even so, "there is a universalism there and if his writings inspire people who can derive spirituality from it, that's testament to his genius."
Subtelny isn't the first scholar or fan to believe God spoke to Rumi directly. "There's no question in my mind that he was divinely inspired," she says.
Petrova needs no convincing.
"He had a direct connection with God. This man was on first-name terms with God."
A reporter can barely get the question out — Why did she make the film? — before Petrova launches into a 15-minute outpouring that is, well, poetic.
Following her vision, "I really had no choice. The mystical dream I had, the vision, the building force of the love of Rumi coming through me ... it almost knocked the wind out of me. I was propelled forward on this journey and certainly there were times I felt I was drowning."
She isn't counselling anyone to run out and become a Sufi. "I just wish for people to heal their woundedness." Neither is she ready to say that she's healed. "I'm saying that the journey has been painful. It's been excruciating but it's also been uplifting and blissful. I wish everyone on the planet could taste one sip from the wellspring of love I have been graced with."
She quotes a Rumi verse from memory: "Those tender words we said are stored in the heart of heaven and one day, like the rain, the whole world will grow green with their love."
Petrova believes that day is today. "I think Rumi's words offer a profound ray of hope for humanity. There's something about his poetry that cuts right to the centre of the human heart. His writing speaks of loss and longing and separation and love and union and bliss — the whole gamut of the metaphysical journey home to God, and indeed is a roadmap home to the Beloved."
Today, literally, is special for another reason.
All over the Muslim world, Dec. 17 is auspicious: It's Rumi's "Wedding Day," the day he met his Beloved and lifted the final veil, or the day of his death in 1273. Petrova has helped brainstorm the event into World Rumi Day, which she envisions as an annual tradition.
Rumi — Turning Ecstatic airs on Vision TV, a partner in the film, on Jan. 18 at 10 p.m. For a list of local venues screening the film today, see http://www.rumi-turn ingecstatic.com.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ron Csillag is a Toronto who specializes in religion. He can be reached at csillag@rogers.com.
by Ron Csillag Dec. 17, 2005. 01:00 AM
World Rumi Day marks 13th century Persian mystic's metaphysical journey home to the Beloved Toronto woman screens film of her own spiritual odyssey that Rumi inspired, writes Ron Csillag.
Shakespeare, a devotee once wrote, has had neither equal nor second.
Don't tell that to lovers of Mevlana Jelalludin Rumi.
The 13th century Sufi writer of ecstatic love poetry has been dubbed "the Shakespeare of mystics" and "the Shakespeare of the soul."
More than any other poet in any other religious tradition, Rumi saw the unseeable and expressed the inexpressible. He found the sublime in everything — in song, in dance, in nature and in friendship.
At a time when God was either King or Avenger, he dared to speak of the divine as pure love. Rumi's God was "the Beloved."
And talk about bookstore boffo: in the past 20 years, the English translations of his works are said to have outsold those of Shakespeare. Books like The Essential Rumi and The Illuminated Rumi by American translator Coleman Barks have sold more than 500,000 copies.
Rumi's verse has even been called the "Persian Qur'an." Time magazine, in its Dec. 31, 1999 issue, crowned him "Mystic of the Century."
Anyone who's read him may know the feeling of being transported to a place of wonderment, of getting lost in the trance-like swirl experienced by "whirling dervishes" — members of the Mevlevi Sufi order founded by Rumi's followers and which continues today.
A dreamy new film about one woman's spiritual odyssey comes close to capturing the feeling.
Rumi — Turning Ecstatic, by Torontonians Tina Petrova and Stephen Roloff, was inspired by something no one would consider very inspirational: a near-fatal car accident.
It happened Dec. 21, 1997, when Petrova, born a Roman Catholic, was driving to a Buddhist monastery deep in California's Mohave desert, and plunged off a small cliff. That was after a mysterious hitchhiker she had dropped off warned: "Don't drive off the cliff today."
Petrova, a 50-year-old retired actor and now a filmmaker, didn't know it at the time but it was the beginning of a journey that would change her life. She had driven off the metaphorical cliff all right — and straight into the pillow of Rumi's lap.
Back in Toronto a year later, "broken and humbled," still in a rib brace and unable to work, she prayed a novena to the Virgin Mary for guidance. That night, her plea was answered by a vision of a robed figure she recognized as Rumi.
As Petrova puts it in the film: "A Muslim mystic appearing to a Tibetan Buddhist answering a plea to the Virgin Mary ... welcome to my life."
Inspired, she organized the Rumi Festival of Peace in Toronto in 1999, bringing together Barks, a diverse group of dervishes, musicians and actors. It was just the start of a mission that could well have been fired by Rumi's words: "Sometimes in order to help, He makes us cry."
The film follows Petrova on a pilgrimage-like journey of recovery as she seeks out others dedicated to following Rumi's path "in word and action." Appearances are made by Barks; Shaikh Kabir Helminski, the western representative of Rumi's Mevlevi order who leads a group of dervishes in California; author Andrew Harvey; and architect Nader Khalili, whose innovative designs are inspired by the Persian mystic.
Born in 1207 AD in what is today Afghanistan, Rumi's family fled Mongol invasions and settled in present-day Turkey. Rumi was a scholar of traditional Islam and its mystical branch, Sufism, and taught at his father's religious school until a meeting with a dervish named Shams of Tabriz changed his life, and the course of mysticism.
Upon hearing that the wild monk Shams had been murdered, Rumi, the story goes, began whirling in grief, verses of ecstatic poetry pouring from him so fluidly that scribes could barely keep up committing them to paper.
He spent the rest of his life addressing his love for God and love for absent friends as two sides of the same coin. His best-known works are the Divan i Shams, comprising about 3,500 poems, and his magnum opus, Mathnawi, a work of 35,000 lines in six books that is considered today a classic of Middle Eastern literature, held with a reverence not far below the Qur'an.
In the West, Rumi's work is getting wider play. A 1998 tribute CD released by New Age health guru Deepak Chopra featured spoken word and music performances by Madonna, Demi Moore, Martin Sheen, and the late civil rights icon Rosa Parks. Director Oliver Stone is said to be developing a full-length Hollywood treatment on his life.
Why does Rumi's voice echo after 700 years? Some point to his interfaith approach: "I am not Christian or Jew, not Hindu, Buddhist or Zen," he wrote. "I'm not from the East or West. I belong to the Beloved."
Or as Harvey, the author, puts it, Rumi's embrace of all paths to God speaks to us "at the moment when the human race needs that inspiration like oxygen ... (it's) a midwifing voice in an apocalyptic time."
Despite his broad view, Rumi was "very much a Muslim writer. To him, Muhammad was the perfect man," says Maria Subtelny, a scholar of classical Persian literature at the University of Toronto. Even so, "there is a universalism there and if his writings inspire people who can derive spirituality from it, that's testament to his genius."
Subtelny isn't the first scholar or fan to believe God spoke to Rumi directly. "There's no question in my mind that he was divinely inspired," she says.
Petrova needs no convincing.
"He had a direct connection with God. This man was on first-name terms with God."
A reporter can barely get the question out — Why did she make the film? — before Petrova launches into a 15-minute outpouring that is, well, poetic.
Following her vision, "I really had no choice. The mystical dream I had, the vision, the building force of the love of Rumi coming through me ... it almost knocked the wind out of me. I was propelled forward on this journey and certainly there were times I felt I was drowning."
She isn't counselling anyone to run out and become a Sufi. "I just wish for people to heal their woundedness." Neither is she ready to say that she's healed. "I'm saying that the journey has been painful. It's been excruciating but it's also been uplifting and blissful. I wish everyone on the planet could taste one sip from the wellspring of love I have been graced with."
She quotes a Rumi verse from memory: "Those tender words we said are stored in the heart of heaven and one day, like the rain, the whole world will grow green with their love."
Petrova believes that day is today. "I think Rumi's words offer a profound ray of hope for humanity. There's something about his poetry that cuts right to the centre of the human heart. His writing speaks of loss and longing and separation and love and union and bliss — the whole gamut of the metaphysical journey home to God, and indeed is a roadmap home to the Beloved."
Today, literally, is special for another reason.
All over the Muslim world, Dec. 17 is auspicious: It's Rumi's "Wedding Day," the day he met his Beloved and lifted the final veil, or the day of his death in 1273. Petrova has helped brainstorm the event into World Rumi Day, which she envisions as an annual tradition.
Rumi — Turning Ecstatic airs on Vision TV, a partner in the film, on Jan. 18 at 10 p.m. For a list of local venues screening the film today, see http://www.rumi-turn ingecstatic.com.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ron Csillag is a Toronto who specializes in religion. He can be reached at csillag@rogers.com.
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