Of where the heartless may truly lie
In one of the birds’ speeches from The Conference of the Birds, an excuse is offered for not undertaking the journey to the Simorgh, where the bird highlighted in the passage below is not wrong about rubies — about the life therein — but wrong about his reason for stopping there.
“Crimson with raking Rubies from the Hill, And clattering his Spurs—'Wherewith the Ground I stab,' said he, 'for Rubies, that, when found I swallow; which, as soon as swallow'd, turn To Sparks which though my beak and eyes do burn. Gold, as you say, is but dull Metal dead, And hanging on the Hoarder's Soul like Lead: But Rubies that have Blood within, and grown And nourisht in the Mountain Heart of Stone, Burn with an inward Light, which they inspire,
And make their Owners Lords of their Desire.'“ ¹
— Farid Ud-Din Attar
The bird’s reasoning is quite clever, sophisticated even. It distinguishes between gold, calling it a “dull Metal dead” that weighs on the soul “like Lead,” and rubies, which carry blood, which grew in living stone, and which burn with inward light. The bird sees that what matters is the vitality of substance rather than its value. The ruby has blood — life — and it was nourished, so much so that it burns. This is the excuse given for not making the journey.
Mulling this over, I wonder which is more harmful? The bird who hoards gold, or the bird who chases rubies, given that both are clearly lost, but the bird who chases gold pursues but dead weight, and the bird who chases rubies has mistaken genuine perception of vitality for the thing itself, falsely thinking that one can become something else or some great transcendence through consumption and absorption. This gives the illusion of transformation with consumption dressed as illumination. The bird then calls itself “Lord of its Desire,” an irony when you consider that a lord of desire cannot also be a servant of truth. Thus, not a pilgrim, but a Lord.
On the first few readings of this passage, I can make out that the world is full of gold-chasers, people whose heartlessness — through selfishness, self-centeredness, and willful ignorance — is weighed down by dead metal, whose souls have turned to lead. But what I find interesting is that, though that is more commonly true, it isn’t the primary concern here, and it's quickly dismissed in two lines. But the ruby bird gets a full speech, my full attention, filled with genuine beauty and insight despite a fatal flaw: a seductive conflation of outer and inner truth, and the bird’s self-deception that follows.
The ruby bird’s mistake is truly profound for it illustrates a more frightening version of heartlessness, one where people who have correctly identified that accumulation is dead, who speak passionately about vitality and meaning and authenticity, whose mouths and eyes burn with borrowed — no, stolen — fire, and have thus, fatally, made the perception of aliveness into an outcome in itself. They swallow the living, falsely believing they can convert it into personal radiance — inner light. They have weaponized the language of soul, heart, and authenticity into another form of consumption. The ruby bird may be very different from the gold bird, but neither is making the necessary journey. Both have traded truth and wisdom for its illusion.
And when I stop to consider that the rubies are “nourisht in the Mountain Heart of Stone,” I can see that they grew in stone that has a heart, in a mountain that is inert, geological, and inhuman, and has a heart that nourishes a vitality of blood-red fire. And despite the implication that even the inanimate world carries a profound interiority, the heartlessness isn’t in the stone. It’s in the bird that thoughtlessly tears the ruby out of the mountain’s very heart and swallows it whole.
Notes:
- A passage from my copy of The Conference of The Birds by Farid Ud-Din Attar, translated by Edward FItzgerald (1889).
By D. Bowman | Nomina Numina is a journal of my reflections, moments, and meaning-making between worlds. Reply by email.