Seeking Magic

In Istanbul, I watched the ritual of the Whirling Dervishes. It was not the crazy, frenetic madness that I expected. It is a controlled, ecstatic ritual – if such a thing is possible. I was moved and inspired.

Earlier in the day, at the Santa Sophia Cathedral, my cheeks still damp with tears of awe, I wished at “the Sweating Column”. I slipped my thumb into the sea-shell looking hole (thinking that it could also be the eye socket of a skull). Then I swept my fingers around the circle and wished: “Please, let my full-time work be that of author.”

Brianna also wished and I teased her, “Did you wish for that million dollars?” She said, “Oh, no. That would be a waste of a good wish.” My beautiful child!

The ritual of the Whirling Dervishes began with a concert of Sufi music. Four men came out, dressed in black robes which they removed and handed to the musicians. Then they stood as in a square or circle. They begin to spin in place and raised their arms, one hand facing down toward the Earth, the other facing toward Heaven.

As the music played and Dervishes spun, I knew that my wish had already come true: that I am already a full-time author.

I felt a sense of the magic of creation and creativity. Fine storytelling is not the perfect sentence nor the most complex character. It is magic. Developing the skills of plot, description and evocation are paths to the magic. They can lead to deeper understanding and thus to more powerful magic. But they are not the magic. Ritual and practice and passion for detail lead to controlled ecstasy; the dance of whirling beautifully in one place.

This is what I seek in storytelling, I seek the sublime.

And this means I must move beyond myself. I am in the way. To achieve magic, to even touch magic, I must know it in my heart, my eyes, my spine, my fingers, my toes – bones, blood, cells. And then, I must spin away.

The more I learn about storytelling, the closer I come to magic.