An Uncommon Bond

by jeff brown

  I needed something to hang on to to, something to shepherd me through. I went back into the woods and wrapped my arms around a sturdy oak tree root, clinging to it for dear life. With mother earth to root me, I went deeper into the letting go.

  When I felt ready, I moved off the root and rolled around spasmodically on the forest floor. Like a snake, I slithered from tree to tree, fully letting go of one tree, and then clutching on the next. As I moved in deeply primal ways, I felt my body merge into the natural world. I felt myself resist. Letting go is a process, but it’s also a choice. Then, taking a deep breath, I dove deeper into the pain, summoning the letting-go from the marrow of my being. It was time to embody the farewell, just as I had embodied the hello. With mother-earth to root me, the pain washed over me in waves, as a swell of goodbyes flooded my consciousness. I vomited twice, as my body released the dream. One last “fuck you” to God, and then I heard myself say aloud: “She isn’t coming back. She isn’t coming back. She isn’t coming back.”

  She isn’t coming back.

  She isn’t coming back.

  After two hours on the forest floor, I finally believed me.

  She really wasn’t coming back.

  I got up off the earth as the sun was setting and walked down the mountain in peace. It wasn’t a once-and-for-all process, but I had made real progress. I longed to hold her hand for all eternity, but recognized within the pocket of my deeper knowing that eternity would have to begin in the next lifetime. We had walked as far as we could go in this one.

  That night, I went for my final treatment in the healing pool. As I was being moved delicately through the water, I saw Sarah’s face in my heart’s eye. Soft tears fell as I surrendered to the grace of loving her. Although the loss hurt terribly, it also hurt beautifully. Hanging on had shielded me from my pain, but it had also severed me from the satisfaction that came with having loved so abundantly. With no attachment to a shared future, perhaps I could love her now without expectation. Perhaps.

  Afterwards, I soaked into the wee hours of the morning. The pool emptied, until it was just me. Me and God. And, we weren’t enemies, after all. She had risen into view in my ecstasy, and now she had risen into view in my suffering. And it was finally crystal clear that she hadn’t inflicted this pain on me. It wasn’t God’s choice, God’s doing. She had graciously handed us the opportunity of a lifetime. What we did with it was in our hands alone.

  Path Show-er

  The next morning, I woke up feeling a newfound sense of serenity. Something sweet had come through the darkness. My struggles felt like blessings that had birthed a kinder, gentler order. But I still wasn’t clear: what was the gift? What was the GIFT?

  My gaze had shifted from the blame-filled outer world of aggressors and wrongdoers to the inner world of self-responsibility. Blaming God had tied me to a victim consciousness, but I didn’t want to be a victim. I wanted to become a victor. I was ready to ask the real questions: Why did I bring these circumstances into my life? Why did I attract a soulmate who would crush me? What was at the heart of this journey of the heart?

  I went for a long ponderous walk, looking for answers. None were found. I headed toward the river and sat on a large rock in the center. I looked down into the water, searching for clarity like a miner searches for gold. I imagined myself with a sieve in my hands, separating the gold from the dross. But what was the gold? What was the dross? And what was the alchemical process that would convert my dross into gold? I asked myself—is it the suffering that refines the gold? If so, is that the gift of suffering?

  While looking at my own reflection in the river, my mind wandered back to the moment when I first encountered Sarah by the river near Boulder. Such a glory-filled moment. I had appeared behind her, and we had simultaneously stared at our shared reflection in the water. In that moment, I tasted my first experience of wholeness. I was made whole by her presence and by the love we shared.

  Yet, from that moment forward, my wholeness was dependent on something outside myself. In truth, I had never fully experienced wholeness on my own. Was that the gift of this love? To point me back in my own direction? Is that what it takes for many of us to realize that we had it all along? The savage dismantling of our illusions of completion with another? Was that the crushing gift of this love?

  When I returned to the village, I went directly to the massage office to book a session with Miriam. I needed to be in the presence of one who understood. Divine timing—she just had a cancellation. It was meant to be.

  When I arrived at her cabin, she was outside smoking a cigarette again. I knew the drill. I went inside and lay down on the table. Many minutes later, she entered. This time, she started on my crown. Her hands were on fire. I loved those trembling hands—they were tentacles of divinity. This was a woman who had taken her affliction and converted it into love. Soulrebral Palsy—the trembling hands of God.

  I closed my eyes and surrendered to her knowing. After she uttered some Sanskrit mantras, she went completely silent. Within seconds, I felt myself moving—not on the table, but through a brightly lit energetic portal. The pace accelerated, and I crossed into a valley at the end of a hollow tunnel. The space I entered was brilliantly fragrant, with a luminous sky, like the northern Lights. There I was—both my self, and a consciousness witnessing me. And both the experiencer and the witnesser had the most profound sense of completeness.

  After removing her hands from my body, she began to speak. “You have to become the love and pass it on.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “You have to become the love you experienced. You have to embody that expanded heart consciousness, and bring it to the world. That’s how you keep the love alive.”

  “Like, become whole without her?”

  “Yes, but its more than that. You become the love, and then you share it with the world. You are a carrier now. You have seen something magnificent. You are called to bring it to humanity. You just have to discover the form that works for you.”

  “You mean find the gift, right?”

  “Partly, Lowen, but it’s more than that. You actually become the gift. It continues to live on through you, even in her absence. You become whole when you find a way to express that in your life.”

  “But we failed...”

  “Failed! How can love ever fail? If you can be in heartbreak, and keep your heart totally open, you are living so very close to God. Love is the great door opener. It opens our guarded hearts, grants us a glimpse of another universe, leaves us with a taste of the divine. Love doesn’t fail us—it’s our expectations that fail us. We expect it to last when it came for a different reason altogether.”

  I lay there for a few more minutes, trying to fully download her meaning.

  “What happened to your great love?”

  “She’s in Bali.”

  “Are you still connected to her?”

  “Connected at heart—forever. Connected in this body, in this life... No. We chose goodbye.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh Goodness, don’t be. The gift is unwrapped, and I am blessed. It’s easy to confuse those who show us a path with the path itself. But they are just path-showers, that’s all. They show us a path we couldn’t see on our own. Once you see the path, it is for you to continue walking. Once you understand that, you will stop suffering.”

  With that, she got up from her stool and left the space. After a few more minutes, I stumbled outside to say goodbye. She was nowhere to be seen. Somehow that was perfect.

  18

  Premature Emancipation

  I spent my last few days at Rockwood feeling light as a feather. I had undergone a remarkable transition in only two weeks. It felt as though everything had momentarily transformed into the light at its source. Was this the gift of Sarah fully unwrapped?

  The positive feelings continued after I arrived back in Toronto, like the universe had burst my pain balloon in one fell swoop. I felt free of suffering, free
of confusion, free of longing. If nothing else, I had left my closed heart in Arizona. It was all good.

  With a tremendous outburst of energy, I poured my focus into new beginnings. Over the course of the next month, I threw out half of my belongings, bought new bedroom and living room furniture, and repainted the entire apartment—even Sarah’s remaining graffiti remnants.

  When the house was complete, I channeled my boundless energy into transforming my law practice. Through this more enheartened lens, traditional litigation felt too harsh and incongruent. It was a ruthless game, and I was determined to enhance the world in a real way. With the support of a friend with a bustling mediation practice, I began to weave mediation and alternative dispute resolution into my legal practice. In a matter of months, I was doing very few criminal trials and finding greater purpose in my work for the first time. The gift of Sarah was beginning to take form.

  By the following spring, I felt ready to bring my hopeful energy into my relationship life. I began dating Janice, a beautiful nurse with a kind heart. I really enjoyed her company but I felt repelled whenever we got intimate. Being naked with her felt like a radical fall from grace. Thud! I wanted to want her, but I just didn’t want her. Good woman, wrong soul. Oh no, not this again.

  The same situation occurred with two more women. Good company, attraction, definitely a basis to explore further. And then the disconnect every time we approached intimacy. With one of them, Renee, I actually had intercourse, of sorts. She was fully present, but I was nowhere to be found. While I was inside her, I was overcome with images of Sarah lying beneath me. I closed my eyes to imagine her, but Renee didn’t cooperate. She kept shrieking as I was thrusting, an ear-piercing reminder that that she wasn’t my beloved. After she left the house that night, I drank a bottle of Amaretto to help me forget—and I hate Amaretto.

  After this experience, I fell into a quiet depression. It was not dark and hopeless like before—I truly had released an iceberg of pain at Rockwood—but it was much more confusing. Before, I knew why I was depressed—I hadn’t even begun to process the pain of loss. But now... why? I had moved a weight of darkness out of me in Arizona. Everything in my life was forward-moving. I felt ready to begin again. Why so sad?

  I looked for Dude to help me, but he was nowhere to be found. In fact, I hadn’t seen him in months. Where have you gone, my houseless mystic?

  I was again riddled with questions. Is it natural to jump back and forth between darkness and light, shackles and liberation, after a beloved is gone? Is this part of the healing and integration process? Is it possible to release the pain once and for all, or does it keep returning, like a wave that cycles back to shore? Does one ever come into balance after a loss like this?

  The lingering heaviness persisted for months. Despite my claims that it was all good, it clearly wasn’t. Premature emancipation, all over again. Yet, this time there was a new sliver of understanding. It was beginning to dawn on me that this was the nature of the growth process. Once one plateau is reached, another calls to us, inviting us to do the necessary work to arrive there. If we honor the invitation, we expand toward a greater peace. If we ignore it, we become depressed from resisting our own expansion. Part of being truly on your path is being available to grow to the next level.

  I was becoming stagnant at this level of healing. I felt the nudge from within—it was time to grow forward. I knew intuitively there was more. And I realized I could use some support in getting there. But how? I wasn’t sure in what form the support would arrive. But I was ready to receive it.

  Sally

  I woke up one Sunday morning agitated after dreaming about Sarah. She was walking just ahead of me on a familiar Toronto thoroughfare: Harbord Street in the student Annex. Every time I got close to her, she would magically land steps ahead. In dreams as in life, I always seemed to be a step behind the beloved.

  I rose from bed, and made my way for the Annex. I didn’t imagine Sarah would be there, but perhaps something else was. As I turned onto Harbord from Spadina Avenue, I spotted a woman sitting on the steps of an old Brownstone about a block away. From a distance, she could easily have been Sarah. Same wavy blond hair, same style of dress, same small frame. Same feeling as my dream.

  I picked up my pace, determined to see her up close. I intuitively knew she wasn’t Sarah, but I wanted 30 seconds of fantasy. When I got there, I saw a beautiful young woman, probably around 20, talking on her cell phone, getting up to leave. She smiled at me as she passed by, in that kindly way that a young woman smiles at an older man who could easily be her father. Humbled yet again.

  I looked up at the building. It had a series of brass name plates fastened to the wall. I walked up the steps to take a closer look. My eyes fixed on one of them: “Dr. Sally Lesser, Humanistic Psychologist.” An electrical current surged through my body. I had the strangest feeling that I had to call this woman. Following that impulse, I booked an appointment with her for the very next day.

  When I walked into Sally’s eclectic office for the first time, I immediately felt a sense of home. She came out and greeted me, and looked so familiar, like a long lost member of my family. Or, maybe this is what it feels like to reunite with soul-family. A tall, slender, brown-haired woman in her late 50’s, she looked entirely conservative, with the exception of funky purple-framed glasses. A very warm and grounded person, it was immediately obvious that she had a keen and depthful intelligence.

  I sat down across from her in a cozy leather chair, in her colorful little office—a fascinating mix of East Indian, Egyptian and new Mexican decor.

  “Tell me what brings you here...” Sally invited.

  Without hesitation, I began outpouring... just about everything. I didn’t hold back. I simply couldn’t. A built up reservoir of expression was being released.

  Throughout my sharing, Sally’s gaze did not waver. I felt her truly with me. Her unwavering presence invited me to keep speaking, and revealing, layer upon layer. It was the first time I truly got to tell my story without inhibition. A warm relief flooded my body. Deep exhale.

  When I was done, she said with confidence, “I know exactly what you’re speaking of.”

  “You really do, don’t you?”

  “Yes, although not firsthand. This is a special and sacred subject that has always engaged my interest. And I have worked with rare couples who have encountered this experience. I even wrote my master’s thesis on this subject. It was best explained in the writings of a woman named Jeanne Achterberg. She gave these types of unions a name: Uncommon Bonds. They are way-showers for the evolution of consciousness.”

  I let the words seep in. Uncommon Bonds.

  Sally went over to her book-shelf, handing me a copy of an article written by Jeanne. “Here take a look...”

  I scanned the article and immediately my eyes fell on a few sentences:

  The unions have what appear to be transcendent or transpersonal elements. The relationships appear to have been destined and are frequently described as resulting from grace.

  I felt a stirring in my soul.

  Then my eyes fell again:

  Parapsychological, or paranormal events—synchronistic occurrences and nonlocal communications—that defy known laws of time and space are often present.

  And then, dropping in for more:

  The bondeds described having recognized one another as cut from the same cloth or as having occupied the same body in a previous life; they felt they were distantly related or were one soul residing in two bodies.

  With that, my teardrops sprinkled the page.

  “Bring that home with you,” she said. “Read it and absorb it. And let’s explore more next session.”

  As I walked home, I felt like I was holding a sacred text in my hand. This was no ordinary writing. It was a transmission from beyond. And so was Sally—I had clearly come to the right place.

  Instead of going straight home, I wandered over to Bellwoods Park and propped myself against a tree. I knew
I would need some support, as I drank this in.

  I couldn’t stop reading, ravenously consuming—it was water to my thirsting soul.

  Any soul work is likely to be arduous, complex, and accompanied by many ‘dark nights’ as well as, often, incredible bliss during the course of the transformative process.

  Suddenly the pieces of the puzzle began to gracefully fit together. I wasn’t insane. This wasn’t some outlandish phenomena. There was a reality to this. It was like I had discovered the master key.

  I went in for another drink:

  Sexuality is clearly a spiritual practice for them...

  A sea of memories emerged of me and Sarah together, touching the divine through our body temples: the first time I touched her G(od) spot, my first exquisite taste of the yoniverse with her back pressed against an oak tree, our first cosmic penetration in the meditation sanctuary, the unseen galaxies we co-created while lovemaking in my Toronto apartment. And one memory in particular—that very first kiss in Rocky Mountain Park—when we dunked our hearts in the rivers of essence and everything became God. God has such soft wet lips.

  I sat against the tree and read the same pages over and over again, as the cosmic tumblers clicked into alignment, finally making sense of my experience, deepening my understanding of the paths Sarah and I had walked. Finally I felt seen. Jeanne’s description presented the form of the relationship in such perfect detail. Now it all made sense: the soul’s familiarity, the sexuality portal, the relentless synchronicities, the transpersonal energy, the ecstasy and despair, the sigh of relief as if coming home after decades of wandering. It was us. It was comforting to know that we were not the first people to walk this way.

  As the days passed, I felt myself encircled in a glow of new understanding. Everything was up-framed into its true context. I could now begin to see the once-elusive backdrop that held our bond. It was peeking through in all its splendor. No wonder I had felt perpetually unsettled. I had no framework of understanding to explain what I had experienced.