The Crystal Attardan I went to the dunes to find and express the fine essence of a particular rose attar, to show the way of things. In summers past, the rose garden was in full bloom. The intoxicating scent of roses drew lovers again and again into the garden. Each day was a rose given to the beloved, massing into a huge bouquet. Summer ended. The garden emptied, pruned down to sticks of thorn. Years passed. Through all the ensuing summers, lovers strolled the same paths in the evenings, their senses alive. In magical beauty the roses in the garden unfurled so naturally. Lovers give flowers one at a time to the beloved, like tasbih beads on a string. Why are those delicate living petals of the accumulated bouquet crushed to mash? No longer individual blooms, not even individual petals. All blossoms mash together in the metal alchemical equipment. Colour is refined away, becoming pure transparency. Finally tears of the roses weep one drop at a time into a glass collecting-vial. Scent pressed into greater service becomes the simple essence of all bouquets of all roses. And then the crystal attardan is sealed. On a short dark winter day the essence may finally be completed: the rose attar. I began to understand that from my birth on through life all my senses are gathering and gathering extraordinary bouquets; exquisite, earthy, angelic, dark and light, blooming buds, rotting fruits, dry sticks, and wide trumpeting flowers too heavy for their tender stalks. All sacrificed at the moment of contact, crushed through the Great Alchemist’s esoteric procedures. Natural essences are fundamentally unstable, so must be refined repeatedly, purified again and again. What is left? A stable essence so refined it is nearly imperceptible even to the spirit. Yet how do we know it exists? We feel it is so. This essence of all is symbolized on earth as rose attar. I unseal and open the jewel-encrusted crystal attardan. Perfume escapes like a genie from an ancient lamp. It expands, enlivening every molecule. It fills the room with magical summer air. This is the way the beloved returns the condensed essence of every rose to every lover. In a flash of the transparent evanescence of the soul, all waters within me shimmer to mirror its chemical configuration. My tears tenderly match the tears of those long-ago sacrificed roses. We call it “Rose Attar.”