The Nightingale

• he is a fickle lover
• believes he is a true/best lover and knows everything about love
• he loves a rose. However, the rose never lasts for very long and does not care about the nightingale
• he is drugged with passion
• does not realize how much he's been cheated of love

The Valley of Annihilation

• "Here, all is nothing and nothing is all"
• "The world is drowned, those who know they're null/ Are submerged then dissolve in joy and peace"
• " impure/ Souls remain as stone and aloe, hard and bitter things,/ Vainly resisting existance's fate, they're insecure/ And opaque, no light shines in them, they cling/ To the hook of self"
• "those who submit and merge/ With the greater whole retain their beauty, purge/ Themselves so they are when they cease to be./ This the mind cannot hold no matter how it tries to see"

Main Idea: those who are impure will cling onto their bodies as their souls try to leave, those who are pure will let their souls leave their bodies to join a greater energy, pure souls will purge themselves when they die because they are gaining something greater than themselves, the mind cannot understand it

The Valley of Astonishment

• "Bewildered into this unseen world that's the sum/ Of low spirits"
• "fire does not warm, depression/ Is your qualification in this domain, no higher place/ Seems to open to you"
• "The Valley of Unity was grace:/ It taught you to forget all, emerge and dissolve./ You start from the depths where nothing is known/ Neither the inviolable middle nor the remote resolve/ Themselves in you. All sense of self has flown"

Main Ideas: Only love survives, you are unsure of what is in your heart but you want it to be read, you are lost in emotion

The Valley of Unity

• "In this valley all is broken into your sight/ Then restored again into the One"
• "Ten thousand heads from a single source/ Are raised"
• "But that confusing number rises from one force/ That makes ten thousand again, thus begun/ The whole you perceive becomes a multitude"

Main Ideas: everything is in one and one is in everything, this is a reference to the Simorgh, saying he is one, yet within all of us

The Valley of Detachment

• "When the soul and body join together to render/ The world a distance, a gaze of non-attachment"
• "In this valley nothing has value old or new"
• "If a thousand souls drowned in a mighty sea/ They would be but a flea despatched in a drop"

 Main Ideas: everything we see and know is nothing because there is a greater universe, you cannot take life for granted

The Valley of Understanding

• "Its origins as sure/ as a firefly in the marshy distance"
• "To see the Way you must work to become whole,/ Disperse inattention and sloth, avoid death/ Of spirit"

Main Ideas: Nothing is clear or easy to understand, once you understand you should not be self-obsessed because you cannot reach knowledge otherwise, you must focus

The Valley of Love

• "Love is not something to be borne./ To work out, to reasonably apply"
• "try to hear the cry/ Of a wolf baying at the candid moon/ And you shall sense the nature of love"
• "To love be transparent, ready to give all/ Or else you have none of love's flame"
• "You are ruled by your senses, a pall/ Of reason chokes your will to give/ Yourself whole"

Main Ideas: devoting yourself completely, reason prevents us from giving ourselves, you cannot feel love fully if you do not give your all, love can be too strong/destructive (compared to a raging fire) if you are too taken up by love, love is not easy