Last week I was in Germany, at the Sufi summer school that I go to each year. On the Wednesday afternoon, there’s always a market, where participants offer for sale things that they’ve made, and I took some of the embroidered boxes that I’ve been featuring on this blog.
I was really pleased to sell about three-quarters of the boxes that I took, and all three of the miniature framed pictures. People often sell jewellery, or ethnic-style clothes suitable for dancing, but no-one else was selling anything embroidered.
They have all gone to good homes – some of them, to the homes of senior Sufi teachers, as several people who bought a box told me that it would be a gift for their teacher.
The Dervish design box is one of these – it will be given to a woman in America who is well known for her beautifully graceful dervish dancing (‘turning’).
One of my firends, who is half Scottish and half Australian, bought the box with ‘Allaho Akbar’ in Arabic calligraphy on it – the first box in this series that I ever made.
And one couple bought a Sufi heart and wings box to put their wedding rings in when they get married next month, which I think is really sweet.
So, I only have a few left, now, and they will probably be given as either birthday presents or initiation presents to people that I know. Well worth the time it took to make them all, I think 🙂
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Janet Granger's Blog 
That is absolutely fantastic! Well done, Janet! I must say, though, that I’m not at all surprised by these beautiful pieces selling as well as they have done. They’re stunning. ALL of them! Yes – I agree about them being perfect and beautiful gifts for teachers (and students, as well).
I would’ve loved to experience that Sufi summer school, if only as a seeker rather than a practitioner at this time. I’m sure in amongst the ‘work,’ there was also lots of play, as in beautiful music and of course, the meditative and evocative turning of the whirling dervishes. I would love to learn how to dance that way. I am very much inspired by Eastern / Asian / Indian / Arabic / Middle Eastern music, including A.R. Rahman (though he is known more for his Hindi film soundtracks, he is a converted Sufi) and Peter Murphy (who is best known in the West for being a ‘goth’ musician in the band Bauhaus, but who is also a converted Sufi for many years now, and lives in Turkey).
Speaking of Peter Murphy, I was wondering if you’ve heard his absolutely stunning CD called ‘Dust.’ It is rich and layered with Islamic/Arabic/Sufi-inspired instrumentation and percussion, as is his singing throughout the album. I’ve been listening to it constantly over this past weekend while working on my own Celtic mandalas, and I find that this particular offering from Peter helps me focus as well as ‘play’ while I’m painting, in a meditative, calm and transquil and highly creative state.
Oh! And I would’ve absolutely loved to have been at that market, too. It’s just wonderful that you’ve done so well at the market, Janet. I’m truly delighted for you. Thanks for sharing your good news with us. It has further inspired me in my own craft work.
Thank you! It hadn’t actually occurred to me where the boxes would be going, but I was pleased when I found out 🙂
You don’t have to already be Sufi to go to the summer school – it’s for people ‘thinking about it’, as well as for those who want to deepen in their spiritual practice – there are always beginners classes for people who just want to find out what it’s all about. Each class starts with a dance, and sometimes ends with one, too, with the teaching in between, so they’re very good at intertwining the work and ‘play’ part. The Ruhaniat Sufi lineage that I belong to does Dances of Universal Peace as our spiritual practice (like circle dancing, with mantric singing), not turning, although Ive seen the turning once or twice, and it is very graceful, and deeply spiritual, when done by an expert. I think it’s the Mevlevi Sufis who specialise in the ‘turning’ (usually referred to as ‘whirling dervishes’) that people associate with Sufis from the East. The kind of Sufism I am into is Universal Sufism, started in the West in 1910 by Hazrat Inayat Khan.
I haven’t heard of the people you mention – I’ll have to Google them!
Janet, These boxes are absolutely stunning. Thank you for making them and sharing their images with us! I hope to see your work in person one day.