In the candlelit mevlevihane of Konya, the semazen casts off the black cloak of the ego. Beneath it, the white tennure unfolds like a resurrection shroud — a garment that says the body is already gone, and what turns is something else entirely.

The ney begins. Its breath is not music in the common sense — it is the sound of separation, the cry of the reed torn from the bed and hollowed so that air might pass through it. The semazen hears this and begins to turn.

We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust.

— Rumi

One palm faces upward to receive, the other downward to give. The head tilts slightly to one side, the sikke hat a camel-brown axis around which the white skirt flares. The room is Iznik cobalt, the tiles catching candlelight and returning it as gold. Against this darkness, the robe is the only figure.