Sema · the turning

The Mevlevi ceremony: dervishes in white shrouds and tall tombstone hats turn on the left foot, right palm open to heaven, left palm turned to earth — receiving with one hand, giving with the other, keeping nothing. They rotate on their own axis and orbit the hall together: planets around a sun, electrons around a core, the pilgrim circling the House. Rumi's claim is that turning is not a symbol of the cosmos but participation in it — everything that exists is already circling its source, and the dervish merely consents to the motion. Judaism circles too: the hakafot around the bimah with the Torah, seven circuits around Jericho's walls, the bride circling the groom. The turning is a rhyme the body makes before the doctrines have said a word.