Listen...listen with your heart... and allow this listening to lead you into a spinning dance that opens your heart and connects you to the greater universal field of love where you can be nourished with blessings from the infinite, and become a channel to nourish our impoverished and traumatized world.
If you long to meditate with movement and feel drawn to truly ground your spirituality in your body and gain practical tools for living a more energized, peaceful and lucidly creative life, this workshop is for you.
In this 1-day Introductory Workshop, Banafsheh will initiate you into the sacred dance of Sama or whirling through a clear, accessible method she has developed from years of experience.
Guided by the teachings of Rumi, delve into grounding and centering techniques that awaken your body and re-connect you with the Earth and your core, so you can open your central channel and your heart, and align with Spirit.
The new physics informs us that everything we see as matter is actually space spinning. The spin function goes from the universal size all the way down to protons and subatomic particles. This is how everything comes to exist. Space time spins itself into protons, atoms, planets, stars, galaxies, clusters, super clusters, universes.
Life forms become coherent through the spin. – Nassim Haramein
How profound it must be then to step into the spin consciously as a way to reconstitute our fragmentation and create coherence between the body, heart and mind. Rumi’s poetry that we love so much flowered from him as he whirled. The words just poured forth in a miraculous fountain of perfect rhyme and meter in the Persian language. This is a testament to the power of this ancient sacred dance that unites body, heart and mind into one coherent expression of love, beauty and goodness that can bring the dead back to life!
This workshop demystifies turning, offering access to Sufi whirling meditation in a few simple steps. This method allows people of all experience levels to turn for a long period with ease. An age-old practice of the legendary Sufi masters Rumi and Shams, the Sama is an inner journey and a direct path to creativity. It dissolves mental chatter into the vast ocean of presence, and you begin to simply be…unchained, free, present, and wildly inspired.
Explore some of the love poems that poured forth from Rumi as he whirled, and the symbolism and philosophy of the Sama, one of the most direct ways to “embody the transcendent,” which the Dalai Lama calls, “the true meaning of life.”
Like the ground turning green in a spring wind,
Like birdsong beginning inside the egg,
Like the universe coming into existence,
The lover wakes and whirls
In a dancing joy that kneels down in praise.
— Rumi
Meet Master Persian Sacred Dancer
Banafsheh Sayyad Master Persian sacred dancer, choreographer, transformational teacher and founder of Dance of Oneness®, Banafsheh Sayyad performs and teaches internationally, initiating people into the wisdom of their body, inspiring them to live their everyday life as a sacred dance. Banafsheh is one of the only dance artists who has mastered a fusion of high level dance technique with spiritual embodiment. She is among the few bearers of authentic Persian dance in the world, and the pioneer in creating a liberated feminine expression in the Sufi dance genre previously performed only by men. Her signature style of holy wildness has inspired many dancers and choreographers who have followed in her dance steps. With a Masters of Fine Arts in Dance and Choreography from UCLA and a Masters in Chinese Medicine, she is dedicated to individual and collective healing through conscious dance. Banafsheh's award-winning work has been presented in North America, Europe and Australia. Her dance film, In the Fire of Grace traces Rumi's journey of the soul in dance. Based in Los Angeles, she performs and teaches across North America, Europe and Turkey. Visit www.banafsheh.org to learn more about Banafsheh and her online courses.
Preparation
- Make sure you have an unobstructed area of 5×5 feet or 1.5×1.5 meters to dance
- Please don’t eat within 2 hours prior to the session
- Have soft-soled shoes or socks handy to put on when needed
- White attire is recommended
- Prepare a place to sit in mediation on the ground after the whirling