I'll begin with the first stanza from Khalil Gibran's 'On Love' in The Prophet:
When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden.*
As I began to emerge from that long, 'dark night of the soul' described in Reflections 3, the spiritual journey began to take on the narrative and form of Love. And truly, what better way to keep a 23yr old going than send him a proverbial Eve? Life really knows what its doing sometimes :-)
So Love foremost, and loving this woman as an expression thereof, became my everything and my blind, sincere, anchor to purpose. Of course what Love had in mind for me, and what I thought was going on, were two very different things. I thought I was going to be with this person, walk with them along a spiritual road of deepening and realization. Love's plans....well, lets generously call it grace.
Where I sought to build, Love came to raze. For my dreams of a future with this person, Love summarily dispersed as imagination. The relationship went on for 4 years, across countries, continents and many heartbreaking discontents. And over and over I learned Love's one lesson for me, that Love is deeper than it's forms.
I had tried with everything I had to love someone else, and to receive Love in return through this effort. I realized later, that I did so as a means of hanging on to an idea of myself, to achieve a sort of small salvation on my own terms. Fortunately, life kept pulling me deeper, and though the disillusion was sharp and lasting, the undoing of Love had made me pliant and ready for the next step.
*The Prophet is a wonderful read, and full of wisdom and beauty
You can read the full section On Love here: http://www.katsandogz.com/onlove.html
I'll also post it separately, as its beautiful and worth sharing.
I inscribed Love on a tree, after a forest fire. An apt metaphor.
