Experiencing a Miracle

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 slowly, copying the pattern drummed by the teachers, I closed my eyes and focused entirely on the sound. We drummed on and on (it takes a long time to still the monkey mind!), building to a furious crescendo of sound and motion. I lost myself in the rhythm. I have no idea how much time passed before the drumming slowed and finally stopped, but as we slowed down, I noticed (with my eyes still closed) that my drum was wet. Well, no wonder! I was sweating profusely, as if I’d run a marathon.

When I opened my eyes, however, and looked down, my drum wasn’t covered in sweat, but in blood. 

Then I shifted my gaze to my hands, and gasped. My hands, and all ten fingers, were swollen like balloons. They were black and blue and aching. The blood was coming from the lines in my palms, where the swollen skin had split.

I stormed up to the teachers, hands held out in front of me, angry and horrified. “Look at my hands! How can I go to work tomorrow?” I demanded. “I certainly can’t type like this! I should go straight to Emergency.” The other students gathered around to look, making shocked and sympathetic noises. My husband put his arm around my shoulders and glared at the teachers.

“Just go home and go to bed,” said Adnan. “You’ll be all right in the morning.”

“Are you joking? Look at my hands! They’re a mess!” But I could see neither teacher was apologetic, or even concerned about my injuries. I started crying. Finally, seeing that I wasn’t going to get anywhere with them, I said, “Okay, I’ll just go home and soak my hands in ice. What could I tell the doctors in Emergency anyway?”

“You don’t need ice,” said Harry, taking my hands gently, and wiping the blood away with a damp cloth. The bleeding had already stopped, but I could barely feel his ministrations. My hands were numb with pain. “Just go to bed. You’ll see. You’ll be all right in the morning.”

I didn’t believe him, of course. I had fallen off a chair a few years earlier, spraining a couple of my fingers. They’d looked just like this, and it had taken a full year for them to heal! What was I going to tell my boss, my coworkers? How had I done this to myself? Luckily, my husband Dave was there to drive me home, because I couldn’t have curved my damaged fingers enough to grasp the steering wheel.

It was hard to get to sleep. On top of being upset, I had to find extra pillows to rest my injured hands on, because anything that touched them was excruciating. However, hours and hours of drumming is exhausting, and I did finally drift off.

When I woke up, guess what I saw when I looked at my hands? Nothing. Nothing at all! My hands looked, and felt, as if the whole experience of the previous evening had never happened. I kept turning them over, but the swelling was completely gone, and there was no sign of discolouration. There were no scabs on my palms where I had been bleeding. I had to check my drum to confirm that the blood stains were still there to believe my injuries had been real at all! 

I had never believed in miracles up until then, but I gave it some serious thought after that. You might have trouble believing this story, but it's actually true. Though if you had told this story to me before that day, I wouldn't have believed you, either, so I understand if you don't believe me now.