Follow Love
You will not only find ecstacy, but also destruction.
When love beckons you, follow him…
“For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.”
These beautiful words by Kahlil Gibran speak to my soul. When you are high on love, you don't contemplate how it may one day break you. But break it will. This is the price we pay for love. It will take you to places you have never known existed. It will help you discover your tenderness, but it also show you the edge of the sword.
You cannot expect love to be always only beautiful. There are times when it will become unbearable. It is the natural order of the Universe. It will lift you to the heavens one moment, and throw you down a cliff next. It will make you feel strong and weak at the same time.
But if in your heart 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.
It is futile to believe you can exist in love by only the joy it will bring you. It also comes with unbearable pain. But let me tell you, that love will also sustain you when there is nothing left to hold on to. When you feel bereft with deep sadness, it will give you strength to fight and survive the agony.
My son's death brought all these words into focus for me. It is because of the love I had for him, that the loss almost destroyed me. It was unbearable. But it brought me closer to my spiritual side. Even amidst the destruction and ruins of my broken heart, my soul felt tenderness and holiness. I was walking on sacred ground, filled with awe that the love and the pain could make me feel so close to God.
As Gibran says, you will be wounded by your own understanding of love, and I hope you will bleed willingly and joyfully!
Namaste
This pierces me. I, too, have felt love’s blade carve landscapes into my soul—how it breaks us open to make room for what we cannot yet imagine. My daughter’s battles with mental illness shattered the future I thought she’d inhabit, but in its place grew a raw, uncharted wilderness of resilience. Grief is love’s shadow; it clings because it, too, is holy ground. Your words remind me that we don’t survive the crucible in spite of love, but because of it. The same fire that unmakes us births our courage to reach, trembling, toward what comes next. Thank you for this sacred mirror.
Khalil is the man. THE MAN. Love is the great defiance, the thing that exists despite war, despite ruin, despite the certainty that one day, we will lose everything.