In the early 1990s, my (then) husband Dave and I participated in the Sufi ‘work’ in Hamilton with two men I remember only as Adnan and Harry. We did chanting, belly-dancing, drumming, and yes, the well-known whirling (the Sufis are the original ‘whirling dirvishes’). At first, it all just felt kind of silly, and I often asked myself why I was bothering. I had given up on religion, so why was I following teachers from a strange Islamic sect? Well, in terminology I’m borrowing from Buddhism, each of these activities was aimed at occupying the ‘monkey mind’, enabling one to (occasionally!) enter a trance-like state, so that the True Self might be heard. I had some interesting epiphanies over the two-year period of doing this work, but the experience I want to tell you about now happened as a result of a drumming meditation. I am never one to do things half-heartedly. If I commit to a practice, I do it with all my heart and soul.   So when we began the drumming circle, drumming very