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Persian (a.k.a. Iranian) mythology is filled with fantastical bird stories.
These stories are elaborate metaphors
that have transcendental, universal implications
and are relevant to our post-modern world.
Here is a look at the mythic bird,
Simorq.
The story of Simorq
Simorq (transliterated by others as Simorgh, Simurgh, Simorg, Simurg) is a legendary bird
in Persian mythology.
Check out this link to
read a story about Simorq
compiled from six different versions.
The Conference of the Birds
The picture below is of a mural near the shAh cherAq Mosque in shirAz, Iran.
It shows a bird and the inscription says "Aqebat simorqeshAn simorq shod" which means
"In the end, their thirty birds became Simorq."
This is, of course, a reference to the
Sufi story of a flock of thirty birds that
set out in search of a mythic bird called "Simorq."
At the end of many adventures and spiritual steps, they
discover that they themselves, collectively, are
the "Simorq" which means, literally, "thirtybird".
This story, told by the poet Farideddin Attar,
in "Conference of the Birds",
is usually considered a metaphor/parable about spiritual
awakening in an individual.
It also works very well as
a metaphor/parable for
the power of a diverse community. Each bird represents a different
ethnic or religious group
or type of person. Individually they have their strengths and weakenesses,
but when they unite in
a collaborative effort, they reach their highest good.
We think this is a very useful myth-story-philosophy around which to celebrate
and leverage diversity in a community.
We are therefore promoting a
"Let's get Simorg-anized"
campaign!
You may have noticed that countries often try to use political myths of some sort to define themselves
and to promote unity in nationalism. An article in Iranian.com, entitled "On the Aryan Trail" discusses
this phenomenon.
The article points out that
the two dominant organizing myths for
Iran are the somewhat racist "we're Aryans" story
which looks towards a monarchic past of glorious empire and excludes a considerable portion of the population
who aren't Indo-Iranian; and the religiously exclusive "we're Muslims" story, which
excludes religious minorities and secularists. Both of these approaches are also rather patriarchal.
In contrast, the handy "Simorq" myth includes all these groups and asks that
they be the best whatever
type of entity they are. Unity through diversity. Each group works to better itself in its
own spiritual path, as the whole group of misfit birds migrates to a greater home, better
future, more enlightenment.
This myth is also handy on a fractal level: The individual simorqanizes the conflicting
forces within themselves. The family simorqanizes so that each family member is supportive of
the others and yet each one reaches their highest good. And you keep going:
groups of friends, associations, ethnic groups, every possible group is a variation of the Simorq.
And we move up to the country, to a region, to many countries. Like the American Eagle, which has been
harrassing Iran for so long, is part of the migration of souls as well.
Once you start thinking in terms of a migration of diverse entities who all have something
useful to contribute, it might free your mind to work
on problem-solving from a more fluid, expansive and collaborative perspective. It's not such
a zero-sum-game anymore. All the people around you, no matter how different, are part
of a larger movement.
Might need to meditate on that for a while.
Coining a new Phrase
What the heck? "Simorq-anize?" You can't make up words like that!
Yes, you can, it's a natural part of creativity.
It's what Shakespeare did all the time. And it brings a smile
to my face. As long as
the meaning is clear,
mutant words are cool! Language rocks! It's so flexible!
 First of
all, the entire thing started with the "Simorq" myth itself. In the folk tales, Simorq was always
this one mythic bird. Then it looks like Farideddin came along and said - hey, that's no single
bird, that's "si" "morq"!
And he made up a whole story about this. (If you know more about the evolution
of this story, please
contact us. To me, it appears to be an innovation of Farideddin).
If he can make up a story from breaking apart a word, then I can add to that word and
turn "simorq-anize" into a mantra. But how would we translate that into Persian?
In English, we took "Simorq" and added "organize". Since "orq" and "org" sound so
similar, we dropped the "org" from organize. Can we do something simple like this in Persian? Why not?
[Note: an English speaker is going to think you are saying: "We need to seem organized." Which sounds like we have a superficial goal, like we are slackers who want to "look busy".
This is why you really have to pronounce the "Q" sound in "simorq" (see transliteration).
On the other hand, if someone listens only on the surface and doesn't look into
the matter or understand the story of Simorq, then the spiritual implications of the word will be
lost to them and they will, in fact,
only seem organized. So that actually works on some metaphoric level.]
 Back
to saying "simorq-anize" in Persian: "To organize" is "monazzam kardan." So we want to link "simorq" to
"monazzam." Both have a "mo" sound, so we'll axe it from "monazzam" to get "simorq-nazzam." Then we'll
break up the "q" and "n" consonants with a vowel - and heck, let's give it the Arabicized "ol" twist
thus making the word seem instantly ancient and credible. And so we get:
Yes, this word is not in any dictionary. But now I have unleashed it upon the
world and IT LIVES! Hahahahaha!
Simorq-anizing in Practice
What does Simorqanizing look like in practice? Do we have to actually DO anything
here? The first part,
of course, is awareness. We just start recognizing the people around us as fellow migrants
in a larger spiritual, social, economic, environmental journey. We are already migrating,
always have been, always will be.
And let's expand the awareness to include other entities, not just people. Things like
other species, the environment, the oceans, the atmosphere, clouds of plasma and stardust. All of life is a vibrant, interconnected
collection of diverse entities, ever migrating throughout the universe in perpetuity. That's just
the reality of existence. Get in touch with it. The next step is
to start thinking about
ways to improve the connections, the energies, to get things done
that propel us all forward. Once we get in the practice of collaborating
with
one another (within families
and homogenous groups and across diverse groups), we'll see how
much less strain there is. Put another way, when you get in touch
with the energy
of many people and work
it to your advantage, things become, paradoxically easier. This
sentiment is captured by the Dare to slack poster at Despair.com.
Of course, what they
call "laziness", we call "transcendental laziness" and think of as
a very good thing.
OK, so assuming we all get aware and collaborative with each other, then what?
What's the point?
Exactly!
Where is this migration going? What is the greater home to which it aspires?
Perhaps just getting
in touch with one another
and being supportive
is an end in itself. This is just another thought in an ongoing conversation.
Simorq...kind of sounds like "Cyborg"
 Yes, "Simorq" does sound like "cyborg". A cyborg is
a cybernetic organism. That means that, like Juju the Cage-Bird, it's part biological and part cyber-mechanical-electronic. Simorq is
definitely a cyborg. After all, our communities are now all linked by cyberspace. It's like an extension of our
own nervous system connecting us to one another. The technical elements are all in place to empower this
migration. These are the means, we are the actors, what is the end? Again, where is this migration going? That's what we need to be discussing.
Contact us to add your thoughts here.
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