Last weekend, Khush and I were invited to anchor a wedding ceremony for two very dear friends, Marian and Aslinur, who hosted Awakin Istanbul in 2016. Beautiful 3 hour ceremony, with offerings from different cultures including prayers, songs, music, dance, stillness and lots of tears, laughter and pure joy. It was a wonderful chance to pay-forward this experience to these incredible couple, as we thought of various unions that have inspired us in the past.

At the moment, I am currently at a Sufi Dergah in Yalowa where every year for a pre-decided number of days (anywhere from 9 to 114 days), Dervishes gather for a marathon 24-hours-per-day whirling to live music.  

If ever Maitri Tunes had a physical form and space this would be it -- with musicians coming from all over the world just to offer healing music as a gift. Food that is mostly vegetarian (and vegan too) is offered to all, and you can stay in tents on the lawns or in sleeping bags in a large hall without any exchange of money. Much like Vipassana, the whole space has been running on donations and contributions of past participants.

Today I met the Murshid (teacher) Dr. Rahmi Oruc who is a world renowned clinical psychologist researcher on music as therapy. For inspiration, he picked a book of Sufi stories and asked me to turn to a random page -- turns out the page I picked was a written correspondence between an Indian man and Rumi. There are no coincidences. :)