Conference of the Birds
July 2004, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
A group of birds led by Hoopoe set out to find the mythical Bird of God: The Simurgh. "Many are called, but few are chosen." The birds I have portrayed are: Mountain Quail and California Quail, Hoopoe, Hummingbird, Mourning Dove, Swan and Seagulls, Simurgh, and Anhinga.
I have written in verse: “Language of the Birds — It Is All the Mirror of God”. It is my own original adaptation of Farid ud-Din 'Attar’s: Conference of the Birds.
I worked from C.S. Notts' wonderful rendering into English from Garcin de Tassy's translation of the Persian into French prose.
Farid ud-Din Attar, who was born possibly around 1136, was a great and an original poet who produced numerous religious and didactic works. He was essentially a mystic, and as such exercised a great influence on Rumi. The best known of his works, the Mantiq ut-Tair (translated by Fitzgerald as the Bird Parliament) , is a mystical allegory in which the birds all set off in search of the mythical Simorgh, whom they wish to make their king. The story, which symbolizes the quest of the soul for union with God, ends with their discovery that they have no existence separate from the object of their search.
The Simorgh then addresses them thus:
Pilgrim, Pilgrimage and Road
Was but Myself toward Mvself, and Your
Arrival but Myself at my own Door.....
Come, you lost Atoms, to your Center draw
And be the Eternal Mirror that you saw:
Rays that have wandered into Darkness wide
Return, and back into your Sun subside.