Oil on canvas, 72 x 90 cms.

 "About the series The Language of Birds"

 This series of paintings has images that have emerged from my reading of the work of the 12th century Persian author, Farid ud-Din-Attar. Yes, I read a lot of Persian authors since I came across them reading about the imaginal world in Henry Corbin, which led me to discover the wonders of Persian culture and the jewels of Arab-Muslim culture in Al-Andaluz (Andalusia, Spain today).

 Let's put our Western prejudices aside, there are many treasures there and this beautiful book is one of them. What is it about? Well, "it narrates the assembly that is promoted among the birds by the appearance of a feather detached from the Simurgh bird and the subsequent journey that several of them undertake in search of it, a metaphor for the spiritual journey to reach divinity."

 The hoopoe is what I call the guide bird. I am in a painting where you can see it with its little head like a crown. It is she who organizes this feat, who raises their spirits and tells them various truths to answer their excuses and fears for undertaking the journey, very typical of a human being who is an expert in self-deception.
 They will go through 7 valleys: The Valley of Search, the Valley of Love, the Valley of Mystical Knowledge, the Valley of Detachment, the Valley of Oneness, the Valley of Perplexity and the Valley of Poverty and Annihilation. It is tremendous. Tremendous and of enormous beauty, and that is a translation that surely already loses half of the linguistic perfection and perhaps even of ideas.
 Even so, it has generated a lot of images in my mind and I will have them there for a couple of years.
 Thank you Farid ud-Din-Attar!!