+ As he sat there thinking, he sensed movement above him. +Looking up, he saw a pair of hawks flying high in the sky. +He watched the hawks as they drifted on the wind. Although +their flight appeared to have no pattern, it made a certain kind of +sense to the boy. It was just that he couldn’t grasp what it meant. He +followed the movement of the birds, trying to read something into +it. Maybe these desert birds could explain to him the meaning of +love without ownership. +He felt sleepy. In his heart, he wanted to remain awake, but he +also wanted to sleep. “I am learning the Language of the World, and +everything in the world is beginning to make sense to me…even the +flight of the hawks,” he said to himself. And, in that mood, he was +grateful to be in love. When you are in love, things make even more +sense, he thought. +Suddenly, one of the hawks made a flashing dive through the +sky, attacking the other. As it did so, a sudden, fleeting image came +to the boy: an army, with its swords at the ready, riding into the +oasis. The vision vanished immediately, but it had shaken him. He +had heard people speak of mirages, and had already seen some +himself: they were desires that, because of their intensity, +materialized over the sands of the desert. But he certainly didn’t +desire that an army invade the oasis. +He wanted to forget about the vision, and return to his +meditation. He tried again to concentrate on the pink shades of the +desert, and its stones. But there was something there in his heart +that wouldn’t allow him to do so. +“Always heed the omens,” the old king had said. The boy recalled +what he had seen in the vision, and sensed that it was actually going +to occur. +He rose, and made his way back toward the palm trees. Once +again, he perceived the many languages in the things about him: this +time, the desert was safe, and it was the oasis that had become +dangerous. +The camel driver was seated at the base of a palm tree, +observing the sunset. He saw the boy appear from the other side of +the dunes. +“An army is coming,” the boy said. “I had a vision.” +“The desert fills men’s hearts with visions,” the camel driver +answered. +But the boy told him about the hawks: that he had been +watching their flight and had suddenly felt himself to have plunged +to the Soul of the World. +The camel driver understood what the boy was saying. He knew +that any given thing on the face of the earth could reveal the history +of all things. One could open a book to any page, or look at a +person’s hand; one could turn a card, or watch the flight of the +birds…whatever the thing observed, one could find a connection +with his experience of the moment. Actually, it wasn’t that those +things, in themselves, revealed anything at all; it was just that +people, looking at what was occurring around them, could find a +means of penetration to the Soul of the World. +The desert was full of men who earned their living based on the +ease with which they could penetrate to the Soul of the World. They +were known as seers, and they were held in fear by women and the +elderly. Tribesmen were also wary of consulting them, because it +would be impossible to be effective in battle if one knew that he was +fated to die. The tribesmen preferred the taste of battle, and the +thrill of not knowing what the outcome would be; the future was +already written by Allah, and what he had written was always for +the good of man. +
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