I was rereading my favorite book (book)" The Prophet by Khalil Gibran the other day. Every time I read his chapters on Love and Marriage, I feel like my body is overflowing with joy and awe. Gibran has an innate ability to tackle the most complex issues of our lives with poetic simplicity and reach the heart of the matter. When the mystical Prophet is broached on the subject of love, he speaks eloquently,
"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….For even as love crowns you so shall be crucify you, Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning."
Gibran views love as something both uplifting and humbling, and tells us lovers, to take pleasure in both the pain and the ecstasy that falling in love can offer. He goes on to say,
"If in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure, then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor, into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears."
I have found this to be painfully true in my experiences with love. To truly fall in love, means to feel the joy and fulfillment of having your beloved at your side and feel the utter calm and safety of his arms. But, it is also necessary to feel loss, to know the agony of longing for his return, and experience the depths of our own pain. How would we ever come to appreciate joy, beauty, selflessness, love, and affection when it is all we've every known? Our lives are a study in contrasts. When we lose someone or something, it is then that we truly appreciate their value in our lives. Perhaps losing love is necessary, so that when we find it again, our new beloved doesn't feel the pain of being taken for granted by us.
When he goes on to speak about marriage he tells us,
"Let there be spaces in your togetherness, and let the winds of heaven dance between you….Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls."
Gibran knew that building our entire life around another human being is a surefire way to push that love away. If is in knowing our own passions and joys, and pursuing our dreams with fervor that we are able to bring fulfillment to our partners. There is no need for co-dependence, we must be strong and fulfilled on our own. When your heart is filled with joy, you can then come together and build an empire from love and not neediness. The joy each partner feels can then overflow into the other's life. Gibran's writing feels to me like life itself,always bittersweet, he saw the beauty in everything from birth to death and spoke beautifully of the growth we can experience from fully experiencing all of the moments of our lives and learning the lessons of each breath we take.
