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@lilatheseries

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𝐉𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐝
𑁍 𝐷𝑜𝑐𝑢𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐷𝑒𝑣𝑜𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑇𝑟𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠
𑁍 𝐻𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑆𝑎𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑀𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑐 & 𝐷𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑃𝑖𝑙𝑔𝑟𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑔𝑒𝑠
👇🏼 𝑪𝒐𝒏𝒏𝒆𝒄𝒕 𝑾𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝑼𝒔:

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Meet Amira Radwan & Omar Aena 🌙✨🌀

We’re honored to welcome the founders of LILA to ACACIA, where psych3delic science meets Arab culture.

LILA is a sacred arts organization dedicated to creating pathways to the divine through global devotional music and dance. As students of the Sufi path and practitioners of Sema whirling, Amira and Omar root their work in the living transmission of sacred tradition, approached with reverence, curiosity, and devotion.

At ACACIA, they join @dreeemy for our panel:
🥁 Rhythm, Ritual & Release Across Ancient & Modern Dancefloors
🕑 2 PM

📍 @micasabk , Bushwick
🗓 Friday, October 23
☀️ Day-to-night: talks, ritual, live music & DJ sets from SWANA voices and artists

🎟 Tickets at the link in bio

Presented by the @arabpsychedelicsociety × @brooklynpsychedelicsociety

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Most people don’t know that these traditional Turkish Sema garments are a masterclass in aerodynamic fashion engineering.

The massive volume at the bottom actually comes from multiple narrow panels stitched together, which creates a huge circumference at the floor while keeping the waist sleek.

For deep dives into these structural silhouettes, check out the archival curation at @britishvogue and global pattern trends on @bof

If you look closely at the hem, a wide hidden band of quilted material is sewn inside to act as a functional weight.

Aspiring designers can look at professional breakdowns on @inhousepatterns and @daria_patternmaking to see how weight transforms a drape.

This weight pulls the fabric outward as they spin, fighting air resistance to create those perfectly smooth, floating folds that look like a piece of living history displayed beautifully inside the historic @galatamevlevihanesi museum.

To watch more independent documentary filmmaking and authentic cultural preservation of this beautiful Turkish ceremony, explore the works over at @lilatheseries

For official tourism highlights and breathtaking imagery of the city where this heritage thrives, discover the content across @go__istanbul and the national heritage pages of @goturkiye

#garmentconstruction #semadance #patternmaking #fashiondesign #kineticfashion

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This Sufi journey through Turkey , land of Mesopotamia civilisation and beyond in Anatolia has felt like a miracle—an experience far beyond anything I could have imagined. To travel with Sufi Baba, Baba Cem , and immerse myself in the presence and energy of these sacred places has been an extraordinary gift.

I had never expected to visit so many sites associated with the prophets: the birthplace of Prophet Abraham; the place remembered for the meeting of Hazrat Khidr and Moses; the well of Moses; the grave associated with Joshua; and the sites in Mardin and Diyarbakır connected with the messenger and companions of Prophet Muhammad. Alongside these was the Church of Saint Peter. Together, these visits opened up for me the intertwined histories of Judaism, Christianity and Islam—their relationships, their dialogues, and the sacred presence that moves between them.

What touched me most was witnessing how the Sufis inhabit this shared spiritual landscape. They enter these places with love, reverence and devotion—with bhakti—moving seamlessly across the boundaries through which religions are so often given separate political identities today. In their presence, I felt how the spirit recognises the divine across these boundaries.

At our final visit, to the place associated with Khwaja Khizr, something came full circle for me. Revered in Punjab and associated with water and journeys, his presence brought this pilgrimage close to home. I carry Khwaja Khizr back in my heart.

This journey has been the universe’s gift to me on my sixtieth birthday. I receive it with wonder and gratitude.

Thank you, Guruji. Thank you to the prophets and my Gurus, whom I hold together in one vast space of sacred presence.

May I always remember that there is one source: Ek Onkar, Akal Purakh—the One from whom we arise and into whom we all merge.

Graves of the companions of Prophet Mohammad

Well of Moses

Cave of the birth place of prophet Abraham in Urfa

Shrine of Joshua , Gaziantep

First church, cave of Saint Peter in HATAY

Shrine of Khwaja Khizr, marking the meeting place of Khwaja with Moses on the sea shore of Samandag

Baba Cem, the heart beat of this tour 🙏🏽💜.

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In a little over two weeks, I return to the sacred lands of Anatolia for the fifth Heart’s Turn Sufi Pilgrimage with @lilatheseries .

Each year has been a deepening; love for the Beloved, for ancient culture, sacred music, movement and friendship. It’s basically a caravan of friends traveling together for 11 days, seeking to create a more beautiful experience of life together.

While I know it’s last minute, we do have a few spots left. If you’re feeling the adventurous pull of the heart to go on this journey, you are welcome. You can find the link in my bio or DM me and I’d be happy to share more.

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Blessed to be a part of an amazing 24-hour Sema ceremony! @reed_society @sema.collective @lilatheseries @akera.experience @tumata.tr

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It’s been hard to be here, in this technological exchange, these last few months. Not because I didn’t want to connect or did not have things to share, mostly because life has been so full, she has required my full attention and I could not but devote myself to her sacred request.

We are too often scattered in our modernity, our attention fails, our capacity to be intimate with the miracles of the every day diminishes. We feel anxious and fragmented, without realising that this is not an inherent condition, it is because we turn our attentions and hearts in the wrong direction, because our spirits are not educated, contemplated, they are left behind, denied, forgotten.

And yet, how many of us are hungry to resurrect a world of soul? A world where life’s magic is restored. Where heart meet heart. Where we heal each other through love and presence. Where we see beyond the layers of density and realise that we are divine energy walking on earth. And that this earth is divine herself.

This is not a utopia. It is reality. We might not see it, this doesn’t mean it’s possibility is not there.

And yet, in order for such a world to be fully restored we must choose it, at every moment, at every breath, turn our gaze there, towards the heart, towards the beyond, believe in what you sense, intuit, open your perception, don’t contract your mind, keep it open, flexible, let is breath, awaken your senses, let your body make love to your spirit.

To what and who are you devoted to?

Where do your thoughts wonder?

How often do you rest in the centre of you?

What are you feeding at your altar?

We are so humbly powerful.

These last months I have been devoting myself to the erection of a memory at @terra___elaya a place for the soul, for the heart, for healing and remembrance.

So much gratitude for the hundreds of souls met there. Until we meet again.

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Oshún, gracias por protegerme, acompañarme y endulzar mi camino, que nunca dejen de llegar proyectos tan hermosos como @lilatheseries gracias por esta experiencia, fueron días intensos de grabación, pero cada instante valió la pena. 💫

Está hermosa voz de @nani_roez cuando la escuche supe que tenía que acompañar este reel ✨

Maferefún Oshún y que su bendición nos alcance a todos, hay energías que no necesitan explicación, solo presencia. 🌻💛🍯

👗: @rumba.allstars

#reelsinstagram #bailarinesporelmundo #bailarina #diosa #rumbaallstars

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Proof of life | January - May 2026

- National Museum of Women is the Arts w Maëlle
- Helping Maëlle build her Ana Inciardi print collection
- Threshold of Change a movement and journaling workshop I hosted on Imbolc
- Sweet Baby Angel I (temporarily) adopted. Mooni enjoyed having a sister for 3 weeks.
- SXSW for work
- Mindblown. Obvi, the video does not do it justice. I have described this experience as a brain massage. Happened upon this after not getting into the Alanis show.
- Whatever this was 10/10
- Moo patiently waiting for me to find my keys, phone, wallet so we can hit the road
- Writer friends - ily all and our Tuesday evening sessions
- Soul Collage with Ryanne at Art & Soul
- Snapshot of my desk when I was trying to do a before/after photo of me cleaning and organizing it (never made it the after photo)
- Mooni’s DNA. My Granny has been telling me since I adopted her that she has Border Collie in her. Well she’s right!
- El Khat at The Blue Room
- Hind Ennaira
- Koutoubia Mosque in Marrakech
- Pre-Lila Smiles
- Starting the Lila
- Mid-Lila Play
- Post Lila debrief
- Joy personified

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Sketches of #lahabanacuba + #mantanzas // @losmunequitosdematanzas @lilatheseries

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dispatches from a scorpio rising, under a full moon in scorpio, while the horrors persist / take me to the horses, then to the ocean

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News from the worlds part II - Ramadan Kareem + 恭喜發財 w/Some Love, Rage and Rupture from the worlds ( total eclipses full moons new moons Saturn and Neptune in Aries, and other irreversible movements)

1. @ahmad_abwryma - Ahmad Abwryma playing a traditional wind instrument in the desert, Palestine

2. via @fernando_anuanga - traditional Maasai song, chorus

3. via @_karen_hernandez__ - live flute performance with band on stage

4. via @dsharts - Sevdah, dir. Vojtěch Jasný (1988)

5. via @ece.temelkuran - For the first time we are mourning the future

6. via @houniuhoni -Some weeks ago we visited the town of Sur in Balochistan. As the name suggests, it was the most sureeli community I’ve ever encountered. We were there to record the suroz player Fida, student and nephew of one of the greatest Surozi’s of Makran ever, Ustad Omar.

7. via @lilatheseries - Mariem Hassan, the voice of the Sahara

8. via @jazzisdead - Paulo Moura (1978), directed by Paulo Martins, Morro da Mangueira — Rio de Janeiro

9. via @kapoorhimani - cutest owl dancing on @arrahman so g sang by @kapoorhimani

10. via @tludovic - organ reiteration of “Falling Away From Me” by Korn

11. via @alangogoll - acoustic guitar improvisation

12. via @senegalretro - Youssou N’Dour explains mbalax (1992)

13. via @jazz.curation.daily — Hoho mouth harp, a traditional Nuosu (Yi) instrument from southwestern China

14. via @siphamandla_arts_group_ — “Sukuthula,” led by ANOYIOLO S.A.G.

15. via @laepocasalsa_and_giafu - funeral of Willie Colón in New York

16. via @leuminee - Isseu Niang in *Même le vent…*, dir. Laurence Attali (1999)

17. via @jamesblake - “This Is Trying Times,” title track preview

18. via @filmforumnyc - Silvana Mangano in Riso Amaro - Bitter Rice, dir. Giuseppe De Santis (1949)

19. via @duroolowo / Aïssa Maïga performing “Naam” (Christy Azuma & The Uppers International, 1976) in *Bamako*, dir. Abderrahmane Sissako (2006) @aissamaiga

20. via @filmarchive -Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41* (女囚さそり第41雑居房, Joshū Sasori – Dai 41 Zakkyobō), Toei Company, 1972

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Two weeks in Cuba listening to the pulse of its music with @lilatheseries

Running around with a filmmaker from Egypt telling the stories of Afro-Cuban music and spirituality, lost in the streets of La Habana riding taxi carts and eating ropa vieja, smoking cigars and being hypnotized by the waves crashing along the Malecón.

Here's a recap of some of what we witnessed along with a group of travelers immersed in the culture of Cuba. Endless gratitude to be amongst fellow seekers and adventurers in pursuit of knowledge and wisdom. Our efforts now transition to the editing process for a documentary on these Cuban traditions. To be continued... ❤️

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