There is a mystic inside every one of us
I feel like the ground, astonished
at what the atmosphere has brought to it. What I know
is growing inside me.
​
-Rumi
LETS
GET
DEEP
🌱
About Shams
I'm a Nashville-based producer, DJ, and mystic, sharing music, ideas, and life.
I believe that as humans we should work to integrate all that is good and true, which means living holistically and in pursuit of physical, mental, emotional, sexual, and financial health.
Music is an incredible celebration of human creativity and community, and I try to use it as the basis for creating deeper connection with your soul, your friends, and your community. Much love 🫶
The story of Rumi and Shams
Near the middle of the 13th century a relationship was kindled between two Sufi Mystics that would become the source of legend. Around the age of 30, Rumi--one of the most well-known Sufi poets and at the time a respected teacher--met Shams, an older nomadic mystic traveling through ancient Turkey. Their connection very quickly became an intense friendship of divine proportion, sharing ideas, poetry, prayers, meditations, games and dance. Over time Rumi began dedicating many of his poems to Shams, often invoking his name as a metaphor for the divine presence that pervades the world at every moment. Although their's was not a romantic love, it was incredibly deep and intimate, representing the beautiful incarnation of divine radiance that is possible when two souls open their hearts to one another in loving awareness. The two would often stay up late into the night--even for days at a time--in Sohbet, a Turkish word for 'spiritual conversation and fellowship'.
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I'm really not quite sure how I came to pick up a copy of "The Essential Rumi", but within a few pages the connection I felt with Rumi was unmatched with anything I've ever felt. It was as though this Sufi poet was somehow bridging space and time, reaching across centuries to connect with my soul, sharing my very consciousness.
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I was on an airplane over Kansas when this first began and I remember openly crying from how moved I was.
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Since then I've read, and reread, and reread Rumi's work many times over, returning to his poetry almost every morning for the past several years, every meeting a Spiritual Sohbet, bringing me back to that mystical connection with my Sufi friend.
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After several years of friendship, legend has it that Shams was called to the back door one night while in conversation (Sohbet) with Rumi and he was never heard from again. Rumi searched for years to uncover the truth of what happened, but Shams was never found.
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Shams' absence became the muse for much of Rumi's work during the time, even naming one of his volumes, The Works of Shams Tabriz. To Rumi, Shams' absence represented the intense longing of the soul to return to the 'source' of life and love, the longing to dissolve illusion and ego and to merge with divine consciousness.
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Although I've not met Shams il-Tabrizi, I've met Rumi, and I feel the same love for him that Shams il-Tabrizi must have felt, the same devotion. I experience that spiritual Sohbet when we're together, that shared longing for love and life.
And though we're separated by centuries and oceans, I am "with Shams" in the sense that we can ALL be with Shams, becoming one with the soul of the universe through conscious awareness, spiritual practice, and mindful presence.
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