Cooking with Heart for the Shebi Aruzi

Dear Friends,

Many blessings to you and season's greetings.

This Thursday 17th December is the annual commemoration of the passing of Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi to the realm of “Union with the Beloved”, known as Shebi Aruzi, or "Wedding Night". I invite you to join us in participating together to honour the Master Rumi, and the beauty experienced through him.

This year owing to the Covid 19 pandemic, it isn't possible to join together physically as is customary, to share in a meal, and in the sacred dance and remembrance of the Divine names. However this need not be an obstacle. In the Mevlevi tradition the preparation of food plays a significant role in ‘conscious action’ to remind us of the need and benefit of taking deliberate and conscious action to help us in the development of our ‘real’ selves, to awaken from the sleep of ordinary life, turning to the heart which guides us to the Divine Presence. To this end I invite you to join with me in a simple exercise: Preparation of a simple meal, endeavoring to focus each movement and thought as though whirling in the Sema, or sacred dance.

However simple or complex a dish we cook on Thursday, perhaps something you love cooking, or something you would like to try for the first time and to share with others. It is important that we visualise ourselves as neighbours, friends, companions in this special journey, whether a family, a lone individual or couple. We begin in our kitchens by asking God’s blessings upon our efforts, then proceed to ‘stir the onions’, so to speak.

During this process we consciously at each step combine the ingredients, preparing them with the sole intention of creating dish to nourish our hearts and those of our companions, and the world.

The value in doing this will be to engage in the practice with “presence” and with heart, to see the act of cooking as an act of appreciating life and offering nourishment to others - whether we have friends or family to share it with us, or whether we are alone or with others far away in body but close in heart, through prayer and spirit. Many of us will be on our own in social distancing or isolation.

In the Mevlevi tradition, which kept Mevlana's spiritual way alive over many centuries, cooking is given a key place in training of the inner being. In the traditional tekke (training house) , learning to ‘cook’ was regarded as one of the 18 steps or stages of spiritual education Here the novice would be overseen in the kitchen directly under the guidance of the “Atcha Baba”, second most senior, mature dervish. Stories of Mevlana’s own chef, Atesh Baz, are remembered fondly.

“The one who cooks is cooked” - Mevlevi tradition

Sincerely yours

David Bellak

Tariqat-I Mevlevi