Mystic Music Festival

Kell and Cynthia were invited to return to Konya, Turkey for the third time for Rumi's birthday, Sep. 30, 2009, and film the Mystic Music Festival held in his honor. Below is a gallery of photos from that journey. The Preview footage will be enfolded into Heaven on Earth Creations' new documentary in development, "Globalized Soul," about the emerging global spirituality and its power to transform our world.  Read more about our vision for the creation of "Globalized Soul." See more about this new film on another page, The Heart of Compassion.

Musicians from around the globe were featured at the 6th Konya International Mystic Music Festival. They included the Iranian American group, the Namâd Ensemble (namâd = epiphany); the Sudanese Sufi music and dance troupe ORUPAAP; the Kazak a cappella chorale group, the Yasawi Ensemble; two shaman from the Altay Republic, Siberia, performing a shaman cermony; the Pakastani and Indian group playing sitar and tabla, Good News; the Turkish ney (reed flute) player and composer, İrfan Gürdal; and, of course, the Whirling Dervishes dancing their rapturous dance to traditional Turkish Sufi music.

Read the biographies of our commentators and musicians for "Globalized Soul."

Got Globalized Soul? Let us know when, where, and how you have experienced Globalized Soul as we did with these inspirational musticians in Konya, Turkey. Participate in the creation of "Globalized Soul."

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Kell filming early murals of aurochs (wild cattle), deer, and humans at Catal Huyuk, southeast of Konya, Turkey, at some of the oldest ruins in the world. Built about 6,500 B. C., Catal Huyuk is one of the first towns on record. The community was a peaceful, agrarian society, some saying that was because it was matriarchal. There is evidence (graves, shrines, figurines) of a strong religion and a reverence for the Great Goddess. Astonishingly, there appears to have been no royalty, no religious hierarchy, and no social distinction on account of gender.

Kourosh Taghavi of the Namâd Ensemble, a Iranian-American group that connects contemporary audiences with classical Persian music. Here he sits by sacred caves near Konya. The Namâd Ensemble's performance, featuring Khosro Ansari singing poems of Rumi in Farsi, was a hit at the Mystic Music Festival in Konya (September '09), which Kell and Cynthia filmed. "Mysticism is nothing more than an inward journey," Kourosh told us.

Members of the Yasawi Ensemble of Kazakhstan, enchanted the audience with their a cappella singing of Sufi devotionals and impressed everyone with their piety, sincerity, and joy. They named their group in honor of Ahmad Yasawi (1093-1166), born in Sayram (now in Kazakhstan, where he is much revered). Yasawi was a Turkic poet and Sufi, the first to compose poetry in a Turkic dialect and a pioneer of mysticism in the Turkic-speaking world.