Teacher
-
Sheikha Khadija RadinSheikha Khadija Radin has been teaching Sufism and whirling for more than 40 years in both the Sufi Ruhaniat International and the Mevlevi Order of America. She has been an ordained nun in the Rinzai Zen tradition for 25 years. Khadija is featured in and on the cover of Women Called to the Path of Rumi. She teaches in India, Israel, Palestine, Turkey, and the United States. Khadija founded the Dervish Retreat Center near Ithaca, New York in 1991 and is also founder and director of Body Mind Restoration Retreats which hosts over 300 people from around the world every summer.
Location
Program Description
Saturday and Sunday, 2:30–5:30 p.m. each day. Attend one or both sessions.
This is an opportunity to study with one of the finest whirling teachers in the world and avail yourself of contemplating and practicing subtleties of the Sufi tradition. The daily schedule of the workshop will include a whirling class (involving both traditional and freestyle whirling), meditation, and sohbet (spiritual dialogue). Experience this sacred movement meditation to aid in developing both an inner awareness as well as an awareness of the body moving in space, and to help improve focus and balance.
“There is a life in you, search that life,
Search the secret jewel in the mountain of your body,
Hey you, the passing away friend, look for with all your strength,
Whatever you are looking for, look in yourself not around.”
—Hz. Mevlana Rumi
In turning, the turner confronts the notion of the Self and where it resides by being taught to sense an axis within the body upon which to turn around. By doing so, the body itself is objectified and the axis is identified as the place of residence. As the turner refines the turn, they refine the axis. The axis becomes finer than a strand of silk to the point that everything that was previously taken to be “the body” is now whirling around the still point which has become so fine it actually has no physical residence. This is the “kiss of death,” for in this place of no physical residence, one ceases to be experiencing the body as the Self. The place of no physical residence, where the body is no longer the home of the Self, is a placeless place where the deepest understanding of no Self and nothing can actually be visited.
—Sheikha Khadija Radin
All levels are welcome and are invited to attend either one or both days, though if you come for only one day it is highly recommended that it be the Saturday session.
Participants are encouraged to bring an extra pair of socks, or two, which can provide additional support and cushioning during the turning practice.