Transformation into the wind

The Transformation into the Wind is the supreme test and apotheosis of Santiago's journey in Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist. After being captured by a hostile desert chief who accuses him and the alchemist of being spies, Santiago is given three days to demonstrate that he can turn himself into the wind—or be executed. Through a series of dialogues with the elemental forces of the desert, the wind, and the sun, and finally through a wordless prayer to the Hand that Wrote All, Santiago achieves a miracle that not only saves his life but proves that one who has fully realized his Personal Legend can transcend the ordinary limits of human existence. The event is the novel's most dramatic demonstration of the principle that "when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it."

Capture and Ultimatum

Santiago and the alchemist are seized by armed tribesmen dressed in blue, with black rings around their turbans and faces hidden behind blue veils, their eyes conveying the strength of their souls and speaking of death. They are taken to a military camp where the chief is holding a meeting with his staff. One of the men declares, "These are the spies," but the alchemist answers, "We're just travelers." The chief reveals that the two were seen at an enemy camp three days earlier, talking with one of the troops there. The alchemist explains that he is merely a man who wanders the desert and knows the stars, acting as a guide for his friend. When the chief asks who his friend is, the alchemist answers, "An alchemist. He understands the forces of nature. And he wants to show you his extraordinary powers." Before Santiago can speak, the alchemist seizes the boy's bag and gives all his gold coins to the chief, saying the foreigner has brought money for the tribe. The chief accepts the gold without a word—enough to buy many weapons—and asks what an alchemist is. The alchemist replies, "It's a man who understands nature and the world. If he wanted to, he could destroy this camp just with the force of the wind." The men laugh, but each feels his heart beat faster, for they are men of the desert and fearful of sorcerers. The chief demands to see the demonstration, and the alchemist says Santiago needs three days to transform himself into the wind. "If he can't do so, we humbly offer you our lives, for the honor of your tribe." The chief grants the three days, and Santiago is led away, shaking with fear. The alchemist warns him not to let them see his fear, for they are brave men who despise cowards. The boy cannot even speak until they have walked through the center of the camp. Their horses have been confiscated, and the desert, which moments ago had been endless and free, has become an impenetrable wall. Santiago protests that the alchemist gave away everything he had saved in his entire life, but the alchemist answers, "Well, what good would it be to you if you had to die? Your money saved us for three days. It's not often that money saves a person's life." The boy is too frightened to listen to wisdom; he has no idea how to transform himself into the wind. The alchemist asks a soldier for tea, pours some on Santiago's wrists, and a wave of relief washes over him. The alchemist mutters words the boy does not understand, then says gently, "Don't give in to your fears. If you do, you won't be able to talk to your heart." Santiago insists he has no idea how to turn himself into the wind, but the alchemist replies, "If a person is living out his destiny, he knows everything he needs to know. There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure." When Santiago says he is not afraid of failing but simply does not know how, the alchemist tells him he will have to learn, for his life depends on it. "But what if I can't?" the boy asks. "Then you'll die in the midst of trying to realize your destiny. That's a lot better than dying like millions of other people, who never even knew what their destinies were." The alchemist adds, "Usually the threat of death makes people a lot more aware of their lives."

The Three Days of Preparation

On the first day, a major battle is fought nearby, and wounded men are brought back to the camp. Dead soldiers are replaced by others, and life goes on. Santiago thinks, "Death doesn't change anything." He hears a soldier say to the body of a companion, "You could have died later on. You could have died after peace had been declared. But, in any case, you were going to die." At the end of the day, Santiago finds the alchemist in the desert, feeding his falcon. He repeats that he still has no idea how to turn himself into the wind. The alchemist reminds him, "The world is only the visible aspect of God. And what alchemy does is to bring spiritual perfection into contact with the material plane." When Santiago asks why the alchemist is feeding his falcon when they may both die, the alchemist replies, "You're the one who may die. I already know how to turn myself into the wind." On the second day, Santiago climbs to the top of a cliff near the camp. The sentinels allow him to go, having heard about the sorcerer who can turn himself into the wind; they do not want to go near him. The desert is impassable anyway. Santiago spends the entire afternoon looking out over the desert and listening to his heart. He knows the desert senses his fear; they both speak the same language.

The Dialogue with the Desert, the Wind, and the Sun

On the third day, the chief calls the alchemist and says, "Let's go see the boy who turns himself into the wind." Santiago takes them to the cliff where he had been the previous day and tells them all to be seated. "It's going to take a while," he says. The chief answers, "We're in no hurry. We are men of the desert." The boy looks out at the horizon—mountains in the distance, dunes, rocks, and plants that insist on living where survival seems impossible. He speaks first to the desert. The desert asks him what he wants, reminding him that he spent enough time looking at it the day before. Santiago says, "Somewhere you are holding the person I love. So, when I look out over your sands, I am also looking at her. I want to return to her, and I need your help so that I can turn myself into the wind." The desert asks what love is. Santiago answers, "Love is the falcon's flight over your sands. Because for him, you are a green field, from which he always returns with game. He knows your rocks, your dunes, and your mountains, and you are generous to him." The desert objects that the falcon's beak carries bits of it away, that it cares for the game for years only to have the falcon dive and take what it has created. Santiago replies, "But that's why you created the game in the first place. To nourish the falcon. And the falcon then nourishes man. And, eventually, man will nourish your sands, where the game will once again flourish. That's how the world goes." The desert asks if that is what love is, and Santiago says yes: "It's what makes the game become the falcon, the falcon become man, and man, in his turn, the desert. It's what turns lead into gold, and makes the gold return to the earth." The desert says it does not understand, but Santiago insists it can at least understand that somewhere in its sands a woman is waiting for him, and that is why he must turn himself into the wind. The desert finally agrees to give its sands to help the wind blow, but says it cannot do anything alone; Santiago must ask for help from the wind. A breeze begins to blow. The tribesmen watch from a distance, talking among themselves in a language Santiago cannot understand. The alchemist smiles. The wind approaches Santiago and touches his face. It knows of his talk with the desert, because the winds know everything; they blow across the world without a birthplace and with no place to die. Santiago asks for help, reminding the wind that one day it carried the voice of his loved one to him. The wind asks who taught him to speak the language of the desert and the wind. "My heart," Santiago answers. The wind has many names: in that part of the world it is called the sirocco, bringing moisture from the oceans to the east; in the distant land Santiago comes from it is called the levanter, believed to bring the sands of the desert and the screams of the Moorish wars. But the wind comes from no place at all and goes to no place; that is why it is stronger than the desert. The wind says, "You can't be the wind. We're two very different things." Santiago replies, "That's not true. I learned the alchemist's secrets in my travels. I have inside me the winds, the deserts, the oceans, the stars, and everything created in the universe. We were all made by the same hand, and we have the same soul. I want to be like you, able to reach every corner of the world, cross the seas, blow away the sands that cover my treasure, and carry the voice of the woman I love." The wind says it heard Santiago talking with the alchemist, who said everything has its own destiny, but people cannot turn themselves into the wind. Santiago asks only to be taught to be the wind for a few moments, so they can talk about the limitless possibilities of people and the winds. The wind's curiosity is aroused, something that has never happened before. It wants to talk about those things, but it does not know how to turn a man into the wind—and look how many things the wind already knows how to do: it creates deserts, sinks ships, fells entire forests, and blows through cities filled with music and strange noises. It feels it has no limits, yet here is a boy saying there are other things the wind should be able to do. Santiago says, "This is what we call love. When you are loved, you can do anything in creation. When you are loved, there's no need at all to understand what's happening, because everything happens within you, and even men can turn themselves into the wind. As long as the wind helps, of course." The wind, a proud being, becomes irritated and blows harder, raising the desert sands, but finally it must recognize that even making its way around the world, it does not know how to turn a man into the wind, and it knows nothing about love. The wind says, "In my travels around the world, I've often seen people speaking of love and looking toward the heavens. Maybe it's better to ask heaven." Santiago asks the wind to fill the place with a sandstorm so strong that it blots out the sun, so he can look to heaven without blinding himself. The wind blows with all its strength, and the sky is filled with sand; the sun becomes a golden disk. At the camp, it is difficult to see anything. The men of the desert recognize the wind as the simum, worse than a storm at sea. Their horses cry out, and all their weapons are filled with sand. One commander turns to the chief and says, "Maybe we had better end this!" Another commander says the same. But the chief says, "I want to see the greatness of Allah. I want to see how a man turns himself into the wind." He makes a mental note of the names of the two men who expressed fear, planning to remove them from their commands as soon as the wind stops, because true men of the desert are not afraid. Santiago then speaks to the sun. He says, "The wind told me that you know about love. If you know about love, you must also know about the Soul of the World, because it's made of love." The sun replies that from where it is, it can see the Soul of the World; they communicate, and together they cause the plants to grow and the sheep to seek out shade. The sun says it learned how to love: "I know that if I came even a little bit closer to the earth, everything there would die, and the Soul of the World would no longer exist. So we contemplate each other, and we want each other, and I give it life and warmth, and it gives me my reason for living." Santiago says the sun knows about love and the Soul of the World, but the sun tells him its greatest problem is that only the minerals and vegetables understand that all things are one—that there is no need for iron to be the same as copper, or copper the same as gold. Each performs its own exact function, and everything would be a symphony of peace if the hand that wrote all had stopped on the fifth day of creation. "But there was a sixth day," the sun says. Santiago replies, "You are wise, because you observe everything from a distance. But you don't know about love. If there hadn't been a sixth day, man would not exist; copper would always be just copper, and lead just lead. It's true that everything has its destiny, but one day that destiny will be realized. So each thing has to transform itself into something better, and to acquire a new destiny, until, someday, the Soul of the World becomes one thing only." The sun thinks about this and decides to shine more brightly; the wind, enjoying the conversation, blows with greater force so the sun will not blind the boy. Santiago explains that this is why alchemy exists: "So that everyone will search for his treasure, find it, and then want to be better than he was in his former life. Lead will play its role until the world has no further need for lead; and then lead will have to turn itself into gold. That's what alchemists do. They show that, when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too." The sun asks why Santiago said it does not know about love. Santiago answers, "Because it's not love to be static like the desert, nor is it love to roam the world like the wind. And it's not love to see everything from a distance, like you do. Love is the force that transforms and improves the Soul of the World. When I first reached through to it, I thought the Soul of the World was perfect. But later, I could see that it was like other aspects of creation, and had its own passions and wars. It is we who nourish the Soul of the World, and the world we live in will be either better or worse, depending on whether we become better or worse. And that's where the power of love comes in. Because when we love, we always strive to become better than we are." The sun admits it does not know how to turn Santiago into the wind. Santiago asks whom he should ask. The sun thinks for a minute, and the wind listens closely, wanting to tell every corner of the world that the sun's wisdom has its limitations. "Speak to the hand that wrote all," says the sun. The wind screams with delight and blows harder than ever. Tents are blown from their ties to the earth, animals are freed from their tethers, and on the cliff the men clutch at each other to keep from being blown away.

The Wordless Prayer and the Miracle

Santiago turns to the Hand that Wrote All. As he does so, he senses that the universe has fallen silent, and he decides not to speak. A current of love rushes from his heart, and he begins to pray—a prayer he has never said before, because it is a prayer without words or pleas. His prayer does not give thanks for his sheep having found new pastures; it does not ask that he be able to sell more crystal; it does not beseech that the woman he met continue to await his return. In the silence, Santiago understands that the desert, the wind, and the sun are also trying to understand the signs written by the hand, seeking to follow their paths and to understand what was written on a single emerald. He sees that omens are scattered throughout the earth and in space, and that there is no reason or significance attached to their appearance; he sees that not the deserts, nor the winds, nor the sun, nor people know why they were created. But the hand had a reason for all of this, and only the hand could perform miracles, or transform the sea into a desert… or a man into the wind. Because only the hand understood that it was a larger design that had moved the universe to the point at which six days of creation had evolved into a Master Work. Santiago reaches through to the Soul of the World and sees that it is a part of the Soul of God. And he sees that the Soul of God is his own soul. And that he, a boy, could perform miracles.

Aftermath and Legend

The simum blows that day as it has never blown before. For generations thereafter, the Arabs recount the legend of a boy who turned himself into the wind, almost destroying a military camp, in defiance of the most powerful chief in the desert. When the simum ceases to blow, everyone looks to the place where Santiago had been, but he is no longer there; he is standing next to a sand-covered sentinel on the far side of the camp. The men are terrified at his sorcery. Two people are smiling: the alchemist, because he has found his perfect disciple, and the chief, because that disciple has understood the glory of God. The following day, the chief bids Santiago and the alchemist farewell and provides them with an escort party to accompany them as far as they choose. The transformation into the wind is the novel's ultimate proof that the Personal Legend is real, that the universe does conspire to help those who pursue it, and that the boundary between the human and the divine is permeable for those who have learned the Language of the World.