Ebru: Turkish Marbling and Meeting a Mystic

Along with exploring our district, traveling to Asia, and eating local cuisine, this experience has been enriched by amazing people. Ali and Betul invited our group of 18 to their gallery for Iftar dinner last week. We met their children Emre and Zaneb and Ali's brother Nurdawon.

This week small groups joined Betul in her studio for classes in ebru: paper marbling.  Along with the delight of creating in a stress-free fashion, we met Mr. Erol Dervish.  He welcomed us with dervish tea, interpreted the meaning of some of our work, and sent us off with more dervish tea when our afternoon class ended.  I was especially moved by his interpretation of the piece I'm holding in the picture above.  In fact, he moved me to tears.



As a Sufi, Mr. Erol practices a mystic tradition.  He said that he knew the meaning of my picture because I created from the heart, not the head.  This is what he told me through a translator:

Blue is for the ocean.  This (my design of flowers) represents a family.  The family have great joy with and for each other.  They are separated now but the picture shows that they will share great joy when they are all reunited.


Without any conversation before hand, he spoke my heart.  Having a stranger perceive my life so clearly was a bit unnerving but he was gentle and unassuming.  As I cried on Suzanne's shoulder, he add, "She has a sensitive heart".  Okay, that didn't take any mystical insight, but the main part did.

With my sweet girl at home and soon going abroad to school, my darling boy at boarding school for this term, and my man still en route to meet me here, Mr. Dervish hit home with his analysis.  Oh, yes, there will be great joy.

I believe the afternoon was a huge success.  Our group left Les Arts Turc feeling like we were a bit more immersed in the local culture and as if were were capable ebru artists.