Illuminating Rumi: Workshops
Return to Illuminating Rumi, November 21–23, 2008.
Friday evening, 7:30–9:00 pm
Rumi’s Message to Our Times
Andrew Harvey
The extraordinary popularity of Rumi is a worldwide, mystical phenomenon that could lead to great and positive consequences for our future. Rumi was a living example of what it is to live and act from divine love in ways that transform chaos into order, desolation into joy, and apocalypse into grace. His poetry offers a vision of the essential divinity of human consciousness and a vision of the absolute sacredness and holiness of creation as the manifestation of the divine. It also provides an understanding of how necessary the crucifixion of the full self is as a prelude to the birth of the divine human. Andrew Harvey will present Rumi’s essential message for our time and celebrate its supreme relevance and inspiration to the movement of Sacred Activism that is growing in response to our time’s challenge and danger.
Saturday morning
A Morning with Zuleikha and David Darling
Poetry of Motion/The Body and Remembrance with Zuleikha,
9:30–11:00 am
Finding Your Long Lost Musician with David Darling, 11:00
am–12:30 pm
Come, come whoever you are. This caravan is not of despair.
—Rumi
International performer and teacher Zuleikha has developed her own contemporary movement technology based in traditional music and movement languages of the East and West. She will lead the first part of this two-part workshop, combining movement, the sacred space inside the breath, and the inspiration of the mystics. In the second half of the workshop, David Darling will create an environment in which each participant has the opportunity to discover and work with his or her musical abilities. David will provide inspiration and tools for lifelong musical appreciation and performance. The workshop will close with a 30-minute integration of the two experiences. Everyone is welcome and no prior experience in meditation, dance, or music is required.
Note Bring instruments that you would like to play; piano and percussion instruments will be provided. This workshop is a prelude to a collaborative reading/performance by poet and Rumi translator Coleman Barks; Zuleikha; and cellist David Darling that will take place Saturday evening at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday afternoon, 2:45–4:45 pm
The Crucifixion of Divine Love: A Conversation with Coleman Barks and Andrew Harvey
Andrew Harvey will speak to Rumi’s understanding of the mysterious and terrible process of what the Sufi’s call "fana," or annihilation. This "wisdom of the dark night," with its secret knowledge of how surrender to suffering and mystery can birth the divine human, is, Andrew says, "essential for all human beings now as the world goes through the dark night of the species." Andrew and Coleman Barks will then share thoughts and reflections on Rumi’s poetry—the universal appeal of his poems, the timelessness of his words, the challenges of translating his words, and understanding the veiled messages in his poems.
Saturday evening, 7:30–9:00 pm
An Evening with Coleman Barks, Zuleikha, and David Darling
A lovely evening of poetry, stories, music, dance, and song. In celebration of Rumi, his poetry will be honored as well as the other poets and community of mystics of the thirteenth century. Zuleikha will offer stories, David Darling masterful improvisations on the cello, and Coleman Barks will read some of his own poetry.
Admission: $20 for general public; $15 for in-house guests; free for participants in the Illuminating Rumi program.
Sunday morning
Sacred Relationships
Andrew Harvey
In our closing session, we’ll talk about sacred relationship, focusing on the relationship between Shams and Rumi and how it reveals the potential for a new kind of relationship among human beings-a relationship of profound sacred love, respect, tenderness, and wonder. We’ll also have time for questions, answers, and reflections on our weekend experience.
