Copyright (C)1997 by William Mistele. All rights reserved. From the
story--The Sylph Capisi. 

The Sylph Capisi 
 
One day the Muse of poetry suddenly sat on 
my shoulder.  He said: "There are no more secrets.  You 
may enter as you wish into the mysteries of all the 
elements."  Well, how could I resist an invitation such 
as that? 
     Consider the statement by Shalpa Rinpoche, "The mind 
is as vast as the sky."  What wonders dwell within our 
mind's eye?  Come with me to a place I haunt, one of my 
favorite abodes.  It is not at all far from the heart 
which overflows with joy nor from the soul which has 
tasted freedom. 
     Come with me into the Sky.  It really matters not at 
all what you believe. The most well-formulated analytical 
thoughts carry no weight at all upon this pathway.  Em-
pirical standards and tests of veracity count for nothing 
here. We are no longer subject to the domain of rational-
ity. We leave its limitations behind us since we shall be 
guided by a greater light. 
     This is a path found within the heart.  And it is 
the heart which, in the end, will claim sovereignty over 
the entire universe.  Where we are about to tread, reason 
and faith are not in conflict.  They are but the twin 
servants of love.  All their powers, all their motivation 
and drive toward productivity, exist only so that life 
may be bountiful and fulfilled. 
     Come with me into the world of the spirit and meet 
one of the eight heads of the air element on earth.  Come 
meet Capisi, a sylph, a spirit of the winds.  She dwells 
not far away.  
     I have known Capisi for many years.  I suspect it 
was she who was flirting with me before my third eye was 
opened.  I was not wise enough then to call her by name 
and welcome her in friendship.  But now, having charted 
forgotten pathways leading between body, soul, and 
spirit, I possess greater experience and skill.  Holding 
a conversation with her, well, I could do it every day if 
I wished. 
     I am sure you understand something of how things 
such as this begin.  There is the feeling a young man has 
right before he is called on a quest.  A silence whirls 
in the air about him.  He wonders if there is not more 
significance to life than what he has been taught.  
     We have all felt that prickling sensation on the 
back of our neck when we are being watched. And there is 
the feeling that we are about to meet someone who will 
change our life. There are times when we have felt a 
greater power guiding us.  And if we listen to the wind, 
the sounds of a forest, the waves on island shores, we 
may hear an enchanting song speaking to us from our 
deepest longings. 
     The heart knows of these things.  It is left to us 
to find the means.  Dreams not only beguile and confuse.  
They enliven and renew the life we have lost or left 
behind us in our struggle to become autonomous. 
     The seer has said of the sylphs that "apart from 
being very shy, they are not at all pleased with men."  
He even suggested avoiding their realm altogether. There 
is a high difficulty factor to overcome if we are to 
converse with the Intelligence which dwells within the 
sky. 
     Ah, but even sages have limitations.  The seer was 
obviously no bard.  He did not have time to describe the 
majestic vistas found in following a path of beauty.  He 
had difficulty enough just staying alive with so many 
enemies relentlessly pursuing him.  But every poet who 
recites and every minstrel who sings knows how to hurl 
their being upon the vibratory paths of the wind.  They 
find time for singing and for composing poetry no matter 
how urgent the demands of the world may be.  
     From sounds and chords they create worlds aglow with 
wonder: Thoughts, feelings, and dreams intermingle so 
real, they are like a kiss that takes the breath away.  A 
touch of lips invades and plunders the special memories 
which we guard so carefully.  The foundations of our 
identities are undermined and altered. 
     There are those who are skilled in reading the 
future or, at least, they like to believe they know which 
values should have first priority. Often they are blind 
to the beauty which surrounds them in the present moment.  
But I have an advantage over the seer and over the guard-
ians of morality.  When it comes to the air element, as I 
said before, I was out sailing before I was born. 
     The sylphs?  You are not quite sure about them?  You 
say, "They didn't teach me about sylphs in Sunday School 
or kindergarten.  In bedtime stories and fairy tales, 
they were absent or ignored."  And you may notice that 
even New Age teachers barely breathe a whisper about the 
existence of sylphs. 
     Well, I can compensate for this void right now.  As 
a bard, I speak for all ages of the world.  Sylphs are 
the very epitome of the balancing principle in nature.  
They dwell within the sky.  Understandably, they like 
clarity, freedom, and detachment--something not always 
found in school or religion.  
     Yet, understandably, sylphs have an extraordinary 
hypersensitivity.  The airy substance which composes 
their bodies makes it most uncomfortable for them to drop 
down to the earth for anything more than a few moments.  
Normally, they would feel uneasy and put off being near 
to the ground--well, that is to say, unless they have a 
very good reason for their visit. 
     Capisi's energy, for example, here, I can feel it 
with my hands:  She is  buoyant, weightless, and float-
ing.  Her body exudes subtle rays of whitish blue light 
which connect her to wind currents and to the thunder-
storms far in the distance over the horizon. 
     She is very aloof, but it is easy to see why.  It is 
because she is so vulnerable and sensitive.  She is 
nearly naked, wearing only a very light filament, a mere 
wisp of a garment.  She likes to feel the air and wind 
directly on her skin.  
     What?  This strikes you as odd, nudity?  Well, 
sylphs,  let me tell you, they have no need to keep up 
social appearances--they do not even like parties except 
perhaps when they get together for a bash during a thun-
derstorm.  And even then the fire spirits, the salaman-
ders, may be invited to play a role in turning the light-
ning on.  
     As for this sylph, Capisi, freedom and harmony are 
her essence.  She strives to balance the natural elements 
while she herself remains completely at ease.  She blends 
contrary impulses, mutually exclusive desires, the whole 
hierarchy of purposes striving to gain an edge one over 
the other.  Freedom--that is what she chooses as the 
highest organizing principle.  And she embodies the har-
mony which never loses its poise nor balance amid any of 
the urgent negotiations between the instincts.  
     I have seen her set a cloud rolling upon itself like  
a mouse on a treadmill running round and round but re-
maining immobile. I have seen her raise her hands with 
her palms facing each other, wave her fingers, and then a 
cloud dissolves before her in moments.  
     And from what she can do with a wind, well, imagine 
twenty different winds moving in twenty contrary direc-
tions all stacked up above and below each other.  She can 
hold them all in the net of her hand.  And at the same 
time with her other hand she stifles a yawn--such is her 
power of aloof,  cool, and detached, sky-styled concen-
tration.  
     With one hand she can guide the winds--changing air 
pressure and temperature over the Grand Canyon so clouds 
drop down within it while the sky is clear overhead.  And 
in the same moment, with her other hand, in a sudden 
gust, she can knock the hat off a state trooper hundreds 
of miles away in Albuquerque.  And this she can do with-
out even rustling a leaf in a tree nearby.  Such is her 
command over the wind. 
     Though each of the four elements have their own 
unique beauty, human women have the bother to combine all 
four within their psyches.  For love and beauty to shine 
through women, they must weave together these opposites.  
     In women, one part of four belongs to the air ele-
ment.  You have seen the sylph in women before.  There is 
that sweet smile, the sanguinity, the care free and 
lighthearted laughter.  There is the capacity to be 
totally relaxed and familiar.  And there is the way they 
touch you casually as if it is nothing when they are 
talking to you.  
     Surely you have met a women who listens so well that 
every word you speak she feels within her heart.  You can 
see it in her eyes, that she cares for you.  She is 
attuned to you.  Her rapport is instantaneous.  
     Yes, I have seen women bring out the sylph within 
themselves, at least briefly.  But then they return to 
the limits of their mortal forms--to concern themselves 
with whether they are connecting well or if there is any 
foolishness occurring.  And when in magical moments the 
rapport approaches a hundred percent human women actually 
worry if they are not going to regret it latter on.  They 
wonder if they are going to fall flat on the ground 
having let down all their defenses. 
     Oh, they can disguise their fears with grace and 
charm, but their caution about opening themselves is 
there nonetheless.  After all, the air element is only 
one among others in their nature so naturally they have 
to work in shifts.  Their airy rapport alternates with 
asserting themselves, with introspection, and being prac-
tical.  How else could it be?
     Ah, but it is not that way with a sylph.  When you 
make a friend of a sylph, it is easy for each of you to 
become fully attuned and in complete sync.  The sylph is 
totally open with nothing at all to hide.  The rapport is 
automatic and spontaneous.  
     But then again, that is the nature of the air ele-
ment.  Air is all around us and we draw upon it in each 
moment and in every breath.  Generally speaking, we don't 
have to do a lot of analyzing to make sure our lungs are 
getting their fill. 
     Capisi has the beauty of a sylph pure and unvar-
nished.  You can see something of her in the very drama 
the sky plays out as we watch it day by day.  Not much 
imagination is needed to enter her domain.  Consider in a 
different light that breeze which comes up to you from 
out of no where on a hot day.  It nuzzles up to your 
cheek and caresses your hair.  If you think of the wind 
as having personality, that it moves with will and intel-
ligence, well, you get my drift. 
     Ah Capisi, Skydancer, today I see she is wearing a 
transparent cape with a ribbon of a scarf fluttering 
around her neck.  Her body too is almost transparent and 
seems made out of pure light though I dare say you would 
not want to offend her.  I should also mention that in a 
gesture with the back of her hand she can knock the roof 
off a house a hundred miles away.  
     I am sure you will understand when I say she does 
not like to be touched!  Her skin is indeed sensitive.  
She can feel the leaves of a Cottonwood tree shaking 
thirty miles away.  On the back of her legs she can the 
feel the sound which ripples make on the surface of a 
lake a half mile beneath her--even the vector and momen-
tum in those ripples as they sail toward the shores. 
     Though her capacity for rapport is profound, Capisi 
resists forming bonds.  Yet in spite of her standoffish-
ness, she knows an entire spectrum of pleasures!  To the 
human who can see her, to the one who is acquainted with 
how to enter her domain,  her touch is pure bliss.  Her 
touch suspends another within a sweetness so vast it 
banishes everything that burdens or weighs the soul down. 
     Come!  This is not so difficult.   You do not need 
to be in a plane, to skydive, nor to float over the earth 
in a balloon.  Forget about all that.  

Warm-up Exercise

Here is our opening exercise.  Notice the chair on which 
you are sitting.  Note its weight and how it rests on the 
floor.  Look about yourself. Imagine that everything in 
the space around you has disappeared and is replaced with 
a light, sky blue color--the blue of a clear and sunny 
day.  
     Now relax.  Take a breath.  That's it.  We are not 
journeying anywhere further away than the air you 
breathe. You are in control.  Take your familiar setting 
and augment it with a three hundred and sixty degree view 
of clear sky. 
     Now too, we will play a little virtual reality game.  
Practice for a moment visualization.  Imagine that in 
this moment you happen to be about forty thousand feet up 
in the sky.  This is a little taller than a skyscraper I 
admit, but it is not much more than jet airplanes usually 
fly.  Do not worry.  This is just an act of imagination 
and concentration.  It is something to enjoy. 
     By the way, did I mention that my mother, when she 
was young, watched the Wright Brothers practice at Kitty 
Hawk?  You remember them, Orville and Wilbur?  Their 
sister, the school teacher, she financed them you know.  
I can easily imagine that back in those days quite a few 
people thought it outrageous that someone was trying to 
invent a flying machine.  
     I can hear the neighbors' gossiping: "Those good for 
nothing brothers, taking their sister's money and wasting 
it like that!  Anyone who respects morality would know 
better than to spend their time stealing secrets from 
nature long forbidden to mankind."
     But think about it.  Our imaginations has been most 
active.  A lot of engineers have been busy at their draft 
boards.  They no longer rely on bird wings for their 
designs.  The lines they draw and then fashion from 
titanium are perfected in wind tunnels and computer simu-
lations.  
     Think of it!  In one lifetime, the dream of flying 
which has haunted mankind with longings for a hundred 
thousand years has been stalked, captured, and mastered 
completely.  And now, almost casually, without premedita-
tion, that dream was passed down to me as part of my 
inheritance.  
     Now, returning to our exercise.  Give your attention 
to the chair.  Visualize around the chair a soft, re-
laxed, and clear sky.  Look off in the distance.  The 
horizon is about three or four hundred miles away.  Look 
above you--just clear blue.  Look down too--don't worry.  
You haven't really gone anywhere.  We are just exploring 
our mind and our imagination.  Look down from about forty 
thousand feet.  Don't fail to notice the beauty of the 
world beneath you. 
     Now for the next step, let yourself become an omni-
potent narrator as in a story or fairy tale. Be a part of 
the sky so that so you become its consciousness.  This is 
like playing a game.  
     The chair, who needs it?  As for your body, imagine 
it is empty inside.  See it filling with blue light as if 
your body is a hologram.  Imagine yourself weightless.  
     Explore this image for a few moments.  See, you are 
here!  This is where I come to meet Capisi.  Weightless-
ness and the vast expanse of the sky--these two concepts 
are the key that unlocks the door to the domain of the 
sylphs.
  The imagination is a vast and mysterious tool.  It 
is very useful when it comes to exploring the universe.  
There are those who would point out that I am an empath. 
They would note that I can listen to the wind for an hour 
without thinking one thought about myself.  But this is 
not so unusual.  I have met 
automative engineers are who far more skilled at concen-
tration than I.  They can work all morning at their job 
without thinking one single thought which validates their 
identity or reinforces their sense of security.  
     Concentration is just a matter of training and of 
giving your heart to what you are doing.  For myself, I 
notice the sky everyday.  The sky is often used as a 
metaphor for the enlightened mind.  Let me summarize.  
When I focus on the sky with my mind I have no difficulty 
finding or speaking with Capisi.  We seem to have formed 
a bond--one of those friendships which are both delight-
ful and which last a lifetime. 
     Just a moment.  I am concentrating.  Ah, here she is 
now.  I greet her.  She touches my arm in response.  This 
is the feeling of liberation.  This is what yogis dream 
of experiencing one day after many decades of striving to 
tame their breath with a "ha" and a "tha" and a mantra 
and a thousand asanas.  Her touch forces me to smile back 
at her with the same smile she gives to me.  This place 
to which I have come is where cheerfulness and freedom 
are contagious. 
     There is no depression here, no feeling of weight on 
the chest, no burden to carry.  There are no muscles 
lining the ribs which are tight and constricted.  Air 
flows through the lungs unhindered and with exquisite 
pleasure. 
     Her touch is a wine from a vine no one on earth has 
yet learned to cultivate, an elixir no one has yet 
learned how to refine.  It is something sweeter than mead 
and more lovingly kind than a mother holding an infant to 
her breast. 
     Her touch?  It reminds every cell in my body to 
sing.  Her touch is the caress of the Sky.  It is the 
power of movement which is boundless, buoyant, and 
breathtaking.  Her caress combines the exhilaration of 
the jet stream with the lover who whispers intimate 
secrets in your ear with a sweet, warm breath. 
     I glance at her hair and see images of tornadoes 
whirling and storm clouds forming.  When her hair swings 
about her neck I see lovers stealing away into groves of 
pine and birch trees to have their bliss. Somewhere on 
earth perhaps there is a harpist with fingers so nimble, 
so magical, her songs could echo the play of Capisi's 
hair in the wind--each hair is a separate song about a 
place where the heart has found true happiness. 
     Capisi knows about pleasure--I see her dancing now 
before me, leaping, spinning, jumping without any con-
straint of gravity.  Updrafts of wind, she rides on their 
crests.  And where winds meet from opposite directions, 
she twirls, driving them into a frenzy.  And on that rare 
occasion when she sleeps amid the sky, the clouds know it 
is not wise to disturb her peace. 
     But she is also serious.  Her aptitude is for air 
pressure--for perceiving where there are highs and lows 
and where air currents collide and disappear. She senses 
the shifts between moving fronts.  Adjusting them just 
so, she creates a harmonious pattern within the atmo-
sphere, setting boundaries in which weather patterns 
move. 
     Ah, that touch again on my arm.  The only thing 
which limits my awareness in this moment are the stars 
above and the earth below. 

An Astral Disturbance

As I spend more time with Capisi, I notice that part of 
her mind is purely reflective--it is shining and clear 
like a crystal ball.  As I gaze into it, I can see re-
flections of the past, present, and future.  I feel times 
when her life was subject to strange enticements.  Her 
life has not always been full of good cheer and songs of 
freedom.  
     There is another note here.  I sense the faintest 
trace of a humming sound like an echo still sounding from 
long ago.  Capisi has been touched by elements other than 
air.  There is a lingering, bitter taste here like a 
smoke ascending from a memory of another time when a 
mortal once sought her out.  
     There, I feel it again.  Something stirs within 
myself.  I have an impression of an ancient hunger puls-
ing with emptiness.  There was once a craving, a desire 
to devour.  A will once sought to bind Capisi.  It wished 
to swallow her into itself.  It wanted her freedom and 
her playfulness.  It wanted her wild joy dancing wanton 
within the sky.  It wanted total control over her. 
     The oddity and contradiction of this impression is 
overwhelming.  What wizard in his tower high did patrol 
the sky with his mind's eye trying to track Capisi down?  
How did he intend to bind her?  What power did he possess 
which was greater than her freedom to rule over the 
winds?       
     Could a human mind be so powerful and yet so barren 
and stricken to have such devouring needs?  How isolated 
and trapped is mankind with its bondage to body and its 
narrowness of mind!  How cut off human beings are from 
nature and love that there are those who must dominate 
nature to feel free.            
     Imagine a wizard, who, for all of his power, was 
still unable to attain liberation from his own dark 
passions. Then, one day, he catches a vision of a crea-
ture so fair her very being is as bright as the dance of 
light on the edges of clouds or rainbows reflected in 
water.  Who set Capisi as the bait in a trap this well 
designed?  Who could take this wizard's mastery of mind 
and unhinge it by confronting it with pure innocence?  
And who was this wizard possessing forbidden knowledge 
left over from a more ancient civilization--one which 
destroyed itself with the wrong kind of ambition?
     Capisi notices my train of thought and seems happy 
to talk with me about her past.  I ask her, "Tell me of 
this man who once sought to bind you in order to distract 
himself from his own painful delusions."

The Wizard Hasan

Capisi answers, "In the beginning, he had only a vague 
intimation that I even existed.  Then, one day when I was 
closer, he felt a disturbance in the air--a rippling 
effect, a riptide moving contrary to the prevailing winds 
as I passed by.  His senses were keen.  He managed to 
take a reading on my aura.  That set him off like a 
jackal on the track of a rabbit.  
     "He followed me through the sky.  He sniffed the 
air.  He noticed every sign that an intelligence was 
operating nearby. I think he could actually taste with 
his tongue the light which my skin gives off.  
     "He tracked my vulnerability.  He could sense my 
essence: my constant need to stretch out my aura to 
encompass the warm air rising in canyons and the moist 
air flowing in from the sea in the evening.  He tracked 
my desire to gather the vast distances of the sky within 
my heart.  He locked in on my thought patterns in which I 
play the weather like a director conducts an orchestra 
urging wind and cloud to attain a harmony envisioned by 
my interpretation. 
     "Then, once his clairvoyant vision spotted me, he 
used his power of will to call me down.  I felt bound-
aries of pure power closing in.  I was caught in net of 
his design.  I looked for an escape route, but wherever I 
turned, I found only the vacuum and emptiness within his 
heart.  I was held at the center of a whirlpool of unsat-
isfied lust. 
     "Finally he reeled me in.  I floated a foot or so in 
front of him right there in the air by the balcony of his 
wizard's tower.  If he had known how to put me in a 
bottle or jar I think he would have done it immediately, 
so great was his desire to possess my freedom.
     "Imagine that!  To put me on the table in the center 
of his laboratory and to pump up his self-esteem and 
pride without limit--to gaze at the very freedom of the 
sky in feminine form bound within a glass!  If eyes could 
salivate and lick, his could accomplish more!
     "Well, I knew I had to bargain fast for his mind was 
a jar worse than one made of glass and he was nearer than 
he knew to doing me harm.  I felt like I was cuffed with 
my hands behind my back.  Ugh! this wizard, such a pa-
thetic excuse for a human being who would master the 
secrets of nature!
     "Though his mind, like a vise, could crush another's 
will, the deficiency within his soul was obvious.  I know 
birds of prey, the vulture, the eagle, and the hawk.  I 
know the clarity of vision which shines in their eyes.  
This wizard had greater ferocity than they, but in his 
heart there was no purity. 
     "It was transparent to me how his own hungers con-
cealed fears he was unwilling to face.  I saw what he 
needed.  It was precisely what he had surrendered in his 
quest for power and independence. 
     "He needed to be a child again, to go out and play 
with his friends. He needed to experience total in-
nocence--to be caught between wonder, amazement, and 
fun--like waves splashing against each other, exploding 
in little jets of spray into the air and then falling 
back, and going at it again without any thought or plan. 
That was the remedy for his disease of soul and the 
antidote for being so mental, so compulsively an adult.  
     "But he had cut himself off from the child's ability 
to taste and feel.  He had locked his childhood away on 
the other side of an abyss--he would not allow light to 
pierce his darkness.  The dreams of youth were lost to 
him.  He would not return to where he was stuck and so 
find the treasures of spirit locked away within his own 
soul.  
     "For the sake of the hatred he bore himself, his 
self-loathing so well concealed, he was going to use me 
as a salve for his pain.  I was to ease it.  His pain was 
to break and wash over me and so dissolve.  He would put 
aside his own limitations in this way, by momentarily 
feeling free each time he smiled to himself and said,"

     Ah, I have this beauty, the wind itself caught in my 
     spell!  This demonstrates my will over fate. As she 
     submits to me,  her femininity is naked and re-
     vealed. I taste her essence. Her vitality and life 
     flow through my veins.  Oh,  the satisfaction! The 
     feelings unleashed as I devour her freedom, as I 
     absorb her being into my belly!
     
"Ugh!  I didn't need a curse nor did I need to call for 
help--forbid I should ever need help from any other 
spirit! 
     "He could in fact hold my very being within the 
power of his mind.  But I knew his own magical name 
better than he did himself--I knew the secret behind his 
craving for me. 
     "And so I struck him a bargain, my freedom for, 
shall we say, a little gift?  If he would let me go and 
never again bother me I would teach him how to call the 
great spirits in charge of the four winds.  I would teach 
him the words then to be spoken--the power to raise from 
the dead!  This was not necromancy, calling a lower 
astral entity to possess and reanimate a dead body.  No, 
I do not ever engage in sorcery.  My magic is as pure as 
the sky.      
     "What I offered him was the spell which would weave 
the breath of life back into the lungs of the departed.  
He could call the soul so sweetly with harmonics of such 
skill, the soul itself could not resist.  It would come 
stumbling back.  As if drunk, it would lie down and then 
wake up within its former body with barely a hangover as 
a reminder that it had crossed over. 
     "Wizards, you see, are like anyone else when it 
comes to needing attention and sweet affection.  Like 
other mortals, they have a weakness for flattery.  All 
those years they spend alone mastering their craft leaves 
them feeling numb and lonely.  They sometimes need to put 
down their wands and acquire a little fame, a touch of 
glory, a sprinkle of prestige to make palatable their 
solitary profession. 
     "I knew I had him.  Ha! Which of us was reeling the 
other in?  I wove a trick he would not soon forget.  It 
was very hard, I tell you, to stifle a smile as I  whis-
pered the details into his ear of how to acquire this 
magic. 
     "Wizards everywhere from now on would know through 
the faint murmurs in the air and the nudges from their 
own conscience to stay away from the sky over which I 
preside--better to imagine a fence with a sign what says, 
`Keep Out: Unknown Dangers Lurk Here.' Beware mortal or 
wizard if you would try to bend the sky to your will!
     "Hah! I told him this: the song and essence of each 
bird are like strings on a harp.  He had to collect and 
master the songs, that is, the magical names, of specific 
birds which roam the sky.  Then he would be able to sing 
such subtle and beautiful notes that the winds themselves 
would gladly come to his side!
     "Little did he know what I had in store for him. 
     "I called a few birds.  The nightingale, of course.  
And the hummingbird, the owl, the blackbird, even a 
vulture, a swan, a sparrow.  I had each bird sit on his 
balcony as I taught him how to sink his mind into its 
heart--
     "The hummingbird, he had to visualize and hold its 
life within his mind.  He had to comprehend its design, 
its environment, and its behavior patterns.  Then, he had 
to subtract from the bird's existence its form while 
retaining the very quality and essence of its spirit. 
     "The hummingbird is a high pitched sound.  This is a 
sound like a whistle, maybe a piccolo.  It adores certain 
flowers.  And though its wings beat rapidly, it pulses 
with a great stillness.  In its eyes, each moment is 
divided into tiny pieces.  That is why it can move so 
quickly.     
     "And we studied the owl.  I taught him how to cloak 
himself, to become pure stealth and to embody the silence 
of the night.  Blending into wind currents, patrolling in 
quiet, his mind learned to strike with blinding light.  
     "His mastery of the owl was superb.  He loved work-
ing with this bird.  Constructing an image of the owl 
perched in a tree, he delighted surveying the habits of 
his prey.  For example, he studied the mice, knowing 
their desires--timidity alternating with harmless greed--
better than they.  
     "Yes, he learned how to observe, staking out a 
territory and memorizing all of its life.  First he did 
the accounting before harvesting in appropriate measure.  
That is why the owl is so wise.  It spends all the time 
it needs learning the ways of its prey.  It has detach-
ment more than sufficient for its feeding habits.  Claws 
concealed within darkness, the owl strikes from the blind 
spot and is the supreme mouse trap!
     "Hasan was enjoying himself.  And despite his pur-
pose, to learn a very rare spell, he nearly became like a 
child at play.  But our bargain was for my freedom.  I 
knew he would not let me go until he had drained me of 
all the knowledge and joy within my soul.  And so he lost 
the one opportunity in his life to be guided through the 
darkness within his inner self.  
     "Too bad human beings are so haughty.  He would have 
made a great student.  If he could have allowed himself 
to be more childlike, more innocent, I could have called 
him a friend one day.  Actually, it was his despair--
weeping tears denied turn to acid which burns the soul 
away--he did not believe love would ever find him.   The 
human race has an unusual propensity for this lack of 
faith. 
     "Still, I had his trust and confidence.  He learned  
many new sensations, songs, feelings, and qualities of 
being.  He took each new task I gave him, devoured it, 
and locked it away in his memory.  
     "Then I set my trap.  It took place when we moved 
from the hawk to the dove.  The hawk you can guess for 
yourself but I will  tell you this.  I called the dove to 
his balcony  and I said to Hasan, `Now this bird is 
different from the others.  You must capture not only its 
song but open your mind in a new way.'
     "`You must hypnotize this bird so that you center 
your will within the light of its eye.  Your must encom-
pass its essence, take its song, and trap it within your 
mind.  Normally this would be a great challenge but, 
considering your power and might, you should accomplish 
this with ease.'
     "That did it!  He opened his mind and thrust the 
full power of his will upon the task: to become master of 
the eye of the dove. What a fool he was!  Everyone knows 
that the song in the eye of the dove is infinite!  It has 
neither limit nor boundaries.  Neither man, god, magi-
cian, nor sylph can contain it. 
     "Excuse me for my laughter. I can't help myself. 
That little trick did him in. It was so funny.  This 
devouring leech trying to swallow the beauty of peace--
what a contradiction. 
     "Well, he tried to chew on that song like  a rat 
scurrying around a large piece of cheese.  He prodded it 
like an ant with mental mandibles nipping at a drop of 
honey. And finally he opened himself totally and took the 
song of the Dove into the core of his being--into that 
vacuum and emptiness which drives the force of his will.      
     "Now there is a proper way to learn how to sing an 
infinite song of peace.  You gradually open yourself.  
Listen for its echo and harmony as it is already alive 
within all things.  You hear it first where love has 
touched you within your own life.  Then you see the 
entire world shining with its own light.  You perceive 
all things in their unity.  This is a very good place of 
departure, a first step.  
     "Not Hasan though, no.  He was so used to exercising 
force of will he forgot about the power hidden within 
innocence and purity.  The bands binding his astral and 
mental bodies were stretched to the limit.  They became 
unglued.  The part of his mind which was pure greed got 
lost in a boundless song--it got lost in a vast dimension 
which we sylphs bask in as we fly everyday through the 
sky.  
     "The result was predictable.  The wolf turned into 
its opposite.  He became docile and taciturn.  He became 
like a child who had forgotten where he had left his 
favorite toy and his security blanket to boot.  He was 
not going to be standing any more on the height of a 
wizard's tower.  Never again would he reach out and 
summon beings from the four elements and beyond.  The 
childhood he had imprisoned and locked away now took 
charge.  It had gotten out of its jar and took possession 
of the adult magician.  
     "There are constraints which bind us all whatever 
form our journeys may take.  The wisdom hidden in child-
hood and infancy is among these. There are times when, if 
we wish to move beyond our present stage of life, we must 
return to our beginnings and lay a new foundation.  When 
Hasan confronted the forgotten magic of childhood, the 
adult got the worse part of the bargain.  
     "Hanan never came around again.  The dreams of 
childhood dissolved his power within their depths.  Long 
ago he had forsaken the journey to the core of his being.  
Confronted with the immensity of his loss, he had no will 
left to misuse."