Colorado Colors

Stepping out of the taxi, I hand the driver a crumpled £5 note through the passenger side window. He glances down at it for a moment and without much warning puts the taxi into gear and begins to drive away. A plumb of black exhaust explodes out of the tailpipe and as it had times before, assaults my senses once again. My eyelids squeeze together tightly; my face crinkles up as I hold my breath, hoping that this time I will escape in inevitable experience of inhaling the exhaust while it burns my eyes. My attempt at avoiding the exhaust works only marginally, but seems to draw the attention of a few passersby. I take this opportunity to ask a woman to point me in the direction of the Whirling Dervishes in the Khan el Khalili souk in Old Town Cairo.

The hand carved wooden doors at the entrance give some hint as to the age of the building. I enter the open-air square and take a seat close to the stage. A few minutes pass and then the already dimly lit space goes dark. The faint tapping on a tabla begins somewhere off stage. As my eyes begin to adjust to the darkness, figures start to come into focus. The white of their gowns are beginning to become visible. And as abruptly as the stage had gone dark, it is now illuminated by two very large spotlights overhead. What is revealed is a line of 7 men dressed in the traditional Sufi gown and cap.

The music begins and this quite literally sets the men into motion. Slowly, gaining speed with every turn, the men begin to spin. Every spin opens the bottom of the gown a little more. At some critical velocity, the gown makes its final upward movement, and blossoms open before my eyes. The once plain looking gown is now a whirling kaleidoscope of color. The geometric pattern on the main performer’s gown has blended into a disc of color, the pattern no longer discernable.

As much of a moving mediation it is for the Sufi practitioner, I am now witness to the calming and trance like meditative effects of their movements. Time seems to slow as the Dervishes spin impossibly faster. My senses are both heightened and mesmerized; my eyes trying to capture every turn of the gowns, afraid to blink might it snap me out of my trance, my ears tuned so closely that even the sound of my swallowing distracts the perfect rhythm, my nose inhaling some sweet incense, erasing all memory of the pollution that exists all around, and my heart, so inundated with emotion that I want to weep.

I never imagined I would be able to find peace in a bustling metropolis of over 17 million people. It cost me nothing to watch the Dervishes, but it was not the monetary, but rather the spiritual impact of the night that lets me know that this experience was truly priceless.