We came whirling out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust. The stars made a circle, and in the middle, we dance. - Rumi I now direct your attention to the whirling dervishes, engaged in a spinning dance of prayer and meditation, a practice inspired by the 13th century Sufi Persian poet, Jalaluddin Rumi. The dervishes wear a tombstone hat which symbolizes the death of their ego. They wear huge white skirts (the “shroud of their ego”) which rise and fall like ballroom s