by jeff brown
In the weeks to come, I allowed this new understanding to integrate and weave into my cells, reshaping me, just as the love had. The only gap in my understanding was the knowing of WHY it came. Uncommon, to be sure, but why did we summon this bond into our lives? Why manifest something so impossible? What was the point of such a profound relationship, if not to grow old together? How did such a sacred connection lose its way? And still the lingering question: what was the gift?
The Integration
I began dialoguing very deeply with Sally, bringing to her what I assimilated throughout the week, in my readings, and in my deepening heart-explorations. She had no answer to my key questions—they were for me to answer—but she did know how to support my process. From her studies, she was able to acknowledge that these connections do tend to fall apart, particularly if at least one of the individuals isn’t egoically strong enough to handle the intense merging of their soul with another. In her words, “strongest me, strongest we.” A healthy, sturdy ego to come home to is essential to sustaining the bond, particularly when the shadow emerges. Without it, there is a tendency to push the bond away until it can be developed.
“Could this be why she fled?” I wondered.
“Yes, it’s likely a part of it. She was only 26. Evolving beyond the familiar into a higher way of being is a great challenge for anyone, even more so when two people attempt it when they are younger. Does that feel resonant?”
“Yah, kind of like dying to an old paradigm and being born to a new one...”
She quickly added, “Yes, and without any terms of reference or teachers to guide them.”
“Oh yes, you can say that again. I remember during some of our intensely rocky patches—I wished we had someone to shepherd us over the terrain. Someone who had been there before.”
“Yes, something like a ‘Love Elder’,” Sally laughed. “Well...” she continued, more serious, “Love Elders are out there. Not many, at this stage of development, but some. As more people awaken to love as a spiritual path, more Love Elders will spring forth. And, people like you are also clearing the way for those who are just beginning their conscious relationship journey.”
I sat with that for some time, reflecting on Love Elders, and remembering my own challenges with opening to this new way of being, and, even more so, the challenge of figuring out how to process the ending.
I continued the dialogue mid-thought: “...perhaps that is also why closure has been difficult.”
“Tell me what you mean...” she invited.
“Well, I felt like all my traditional ideas of healing and resolution got thrown out the window here. Some healing was possible, but it wasn’t a simple process of healing and letting go. It was much more complicated than that.”
“Because you were attached on a soul level?”
“Yes, for sure—the world definitely made no sense in her absence, but not just because of that...”
I went quiet again, knowing I was coming close to understanding something essential. And then it came. “It’s like this. The love didn’t just touch my soul. It transformed it. It polished it, worked it, kneaded it, kind of like clay. The love itself was the sculptor. And when she fled, my sculpture ruptured, cracked, parts fell off. I was in between forms, in a way. It’s hard to heal something that doesn’t even know what it is anymore. It’s like trying to heal a disease when you don’t know where the host is. It was like I was ‘Soulshaping.’ Does that make any sense?”
“Yes, it does, and even if you were feeling solidly rooted in the next ‘soulshape,’” she echoed. “The soul doesn’t heal like the psyche. It requires different understandings, different techniques, a timeline all its own. Transformed in the unseen realms, it has to heal there too, in ways that us humans haven’t even begun to grok.”
What a remarkable gift to be able to have such a transparent and elevated conversation with another human being. Bit by bit, the pieces were coming together.
In a key subsequent session, Sally initiated a conversation about the heightened nature of uncommon bonds. I would soon realize why.
“These connections are often reported initially as ecstatic in nature, a kind of sky experience where the lovers’ feet seldom touch Mother Earth. Not to pathologize them, but just to acknowledge that higher level connections have a tendency to catapult one’s consciousness up, up and away from the earth plane, one breath closer to heaven.”
“Yes, that was entirely my experience.”
“Of course, they usually come crashing back to earth. As one aspect of the lovers’ consciousness reaches for the heavens, another element inevitably seeks the stability of Mother Earth. If both lovers are grounded in their consciousness, they can manage the landing while holding the connection safe. But if one or both lovers are even somewhat ungrounded, they tend to come crashing back to earth, shattering the relational cord on the way down. It’s like landing without a parachute—a soft landing isn’t possible. This isn’t a personal failure. That they were able to enter the portal at all is a triumphant act of tremendous courage. The inability to remain there is a reflection of the distance the culture has yet to travel before it can hold divine life safe. It’s a delicate and subtle art to integrate and interweave both realms—earth and sky—one that few people can sustain. Most of us don’t have the developmental girders. It takes a solid and sound maturity—psychologically, spiritually and within their personalities—to hold an uncommon bond together over the long haul.”
I knew where she was guiding me. She was guiding me to look more deeply at my own immaturity and ungroundedness. Then she said it, “While you may have been slightly more mature than Sarah when you both met, I’m not convinced that the relationship would have ended any differently if she hadn’t fled it. I wonder if you wouldn’t have eventually left because of your own earthly issues. Is it possible that neither of you had the developmental girders in place to sustain this relationship at that stage of your lives?”
It was an annoyingly good question, one that challenged my belief that I was the capable one in the connection. That I would never run or flee. That I would never reject such a gift. Maybe I would, or maybe I wouldn’t, but it’s true that the connection never felt safe enough for my own engulfment issues to emerge. I was too busy chasing Sarah to imagine running in the other direction. What would have happened had she stopped running? Would I have put on my sneakers and made for the next off-ramp?
Sally continued, “If this therapy is going to serve you, we have to do more than just help you to contextualize where you have been... we also have to prepare you for the next soulmate that walks through your door. Whether she actually arrives in tangible form, or not. What has to mature and solidify so that you—not Sarah, not some other person—but YOU can hold love safe? What has to happen so that you can hold sky and earth in your consciousness at one time?”
After some resistance, I began to focus our session work on my own ungroundedness. Yes, it was fundamental to the heightened nature of the experience, but I knew there was more to it than that. Born into that chaotic family dynamic, my imprinting played a role as well. It wasn’t obvious when interfacing with my willful personality, but a part of my consciousness did always want to get out of here. I was aware of my tendency to jump to the ecstatic sky at a moment’s notice, without first ensuring that the foundation was solid. I even felt it in the way I walked, particularly when life became difficult—quick on my feet, not lingering on Mother Earth for any longer than I had to. Almost like a bird that’s ready to take flight at any moment. Not unlike Sarah, my migrating beloved. For both of us, it felt safer up there.
And for those who knew me well, there were many signs of a similar immaturity on the earth plane. Those signs included financial irresponsibility, unreliability with friends and family, and a certain youthfulness akin to Peter Pan. There was a part of me that wanted to delay adulthood for as long as possible.
With this awareness, Sally encouraged me to work deeply on the physica
l plane to ground and integrate the higher planes of consciousness that I had traversed. I wasn’t a bird, after all. We devoted many sessions to simply grounding my feet: rubbing them into the earth, digging my soles into golf balls, and learning how to stand my ground firmly and unwaveringly. As she knew it would, this work brought me deeper into many uncomfortable elements of reality, including a giant vat of unreleased primal pain that I had never accessed in my previous healing work. My body was like a museum, filled with toxic artifacts from childhood. It was early stuff, too early for words, but the body knew. With her support, I worked those holdings, healing more of the early life material that had catapulted me away from the earth.
One of my clearest realizations was related to my own isolation, which seemed to live at the heart of my depression. When Sarah arrived, my faith in the universe was restored after decades, lifetimes, of aloneness. It wasn’t just a homecoming between our two souls, it was also a restoration of my faith in humanity and a benevolent universe. Finally, I could exist in relation to something outside myself and not get disappointed. Finally, someone up there was watching over me. Finally, my entire existence was infused with purpose.
When she left, I not only lost my love, I lost my faith in God. If my beloved couldn’t hold me safe, there was nothing and no one that could. I was right back in my locked childhood cage, alone and unprotected, while the universe poked sticks at me between the bars. My isolation had returned, with a fierce vengeance. Finding Sally seemed to be a sign from the universe that I really wasn’t alone—the universe had brought me someone who could help free me from my cage.
As our work together deepened, I became certain that this healing phase was not solely about my personal healing. I wasn’t just crying for me. This ocean of tears was too vast for one soul alone. I was also crying for Sarah, and the entire collective. In the same way as we had entered the collective heart when we fell in love, we had also entered the collective wound. In the same way as our ecstatic moments had elevated the collective vibration, these moments of release contributed to its healing. I cried for my loss, her loss, your loss—all those moments when all of us had longed for love, retreated from love, lost love before it could be fully lived. Oh my God, there is so much unfulfilled love on this troubled planet. Doors that opened and closed before their time. All the salt in the oceans must come from the unshed tears of humanity. When will we learn to honor love when it comes?
As I worked both intensively with Sally and independently, over a two year period, the healing work integrated within me, inspiring change on many different levels. Perhaps most significantly, I grew to feel more mortal, more capable of holding the space for all elements of reality at once. Instead of looking for heaven up there alone, I was better able to search for it down here in the nuances of daily life. And I also developed the capacity to hold both at once: light and shadow, shopping list and unity consciousness, fresh mangoes and stale bread. It was all God, even the dust that fell off my awakening heart. In a way, I had gifted the earth back to myself—finally, after many decades of internal rootlessness. Dude was right—it doesn’t mean anything to have a house, if you don’t feel at home in your own skin.
Surprisingly, I also felt my heart opening to the idea of another relationship. What would the universe bring my way? Or rather, what would I walk my way into next?
Lover’s Leap
Almost four years to the day of our first meeting, I felt ready to move to the next stage of letting go. I woke up early that Saturday morning and gathered my things for a trip to the Elora Gorge, a natural wonder a few hours outside of Toronto. I now understood what happens when we say goodbye too soon. It comes back to haunt us. So I waited until I felt truly prepared internally. Today was that day.
I picked Elora because it had a particular symbolism for the relationship. We had gone there once and made love by the side of the Grand River, at a time of the year when no one with good sense would take their clothes off. But we did, and the heat from our bodies turned the chill of autumn into summer’s fiery furnace.
After reaching an exquisite climax together on the riverbank, we climbed back up to the trail above. On the hike back to the car, we spotted an overhang called Lover’s Leap. At the end of it, there was a plaque with a story on it. The story goes that a heartbroken Aboriginal Princess had jumped to her death here after receiving news that her beloved had died on the battlefield. After reading the plaque, we sat down on the ground beneath it and prayed for their spirits.
I wanted to let go here.
I drove to Elora, and parked in front of Café Creperie, the wonderful restaurant that we had eaten at after our riverside adventure that afternoon. I went inside and wandered over to the same table we had sat at, and ordered the same crepe we had shared. I was testing myself. Was I ready to let go? Although I felt quietly sentimental, I also felt an unusual sort of peace. It was clear—that was that crepe, and this was this crepe, and there was no crepe in between. It was a new day.
After a wonderful conversation with the owner about love and life, I made my way to the river. When I found a quiet spot, I reached into my wallet and took out my favorite picture of Sarah. It was a shot of her sitting in a grassy field at the Ascension Institute in new York. It was a beautiful picture she had taken with one hand, while her other hand rested gently on my face. I had always refused to remove this photo from my wallet, no matter what went on between us, including the past years of our torrential separation.
It was time.
I reached down and placed the photo on a small angular rock in front of me. After several minutes, water began to gather under the picture. I watched the photo rise until it began to merge with the current. It was just about to be carried away... when I snapped it up.
I lifted it away from the water and looked at it one last time. The final reach-for. Such a beautiful picture. Such a magnificent love, perhaps too magnificent to hold on to. I lifted the picture to my lips and kissed it softly. As I gently held the photo, it seemed so impossible, so complicated, to even imagine letting go. After all, our souls were involved—how could we truly let go? As I released the photo, it dawned on me—it wasn’t a letting go. It was a letting through. Letting the pain through the holes it left behind so it could find its ultimate destination. I wasn’t letting go of the love. I was only letting go of the dream of being together. I watched the current carry the picture away. My tears splashed on the rock below, joining the journey home.
Everything was still. Sweet surrender.
As I made the climb back up the cliff, I had no illusions about my process. It was a pivotal moment, to be sure, and one with great symbolic meaning, but I now understood that dramatic moments are not the end of the story. The most lasting transformation happens in the subtleties, in those private moments of acceptance when the bond loosens its grip and the heart readies itself for new possibilities. One soul step at a time.
And perhaps there is never an end to a love story. Once the gateway has opened between two souls, it never fully closes, even if they imagine themselves separate.
19
Truth-Aches
I entered into a place of real contentment in my own skin. Not ecstatically happy like I was with Sarah, but a different kind—the kind of happiness that comes after a long and arduous journey. I was now at peace with path for only the second time in my life, and the first time alone. I enjoyed my soulitude not like a lonely man, but like a man who had seen something extraordinary and would never be the same.
Intrinsic to my peacefulness was an integration of my warrior consciousness. I moved through the world in a more balanced way: a conscious in-coupling of anima and animus, a tenderling warrior who had finally found his balance. The pendulum had landed in the middle. Perhaps this was the real reason Sarah had come into my life—to soften my hard edges, to teach me how to live in my heart before, during and after incredible heartbreak. To become a true warrior of the heart.
The Coin Roller
Qui
te often, I would go and sit with Dude. Just sit and have a drink. Nothing dramatic, the simple enjoyment of one another’s company. I wasn’t looking for answers, and he wasn’t giving them—at least, not without payment. Then one morning he surprised me with some free wisdom. The timing was perfect.
“You’ve worked hard on yourself. Now you need to find someone to love. You’re all opened up with no place to go. You’re overworked and underlaid,” he said firmly.
I protested: “I give my love to my clients and my friends.”
“Not enough. You’re a lover. That’s your path. And, you should be more afraid of avoiding your path than walking it. Time to get back on the love train, bud.”
Oh God, the cliché machine had returned.
“It’s fine, Dude. Really. I’m finally doing good. No need to go looking for love. No need to fix what ain’t broken.”
He paused for a moment, allowing his next bit of wisdom to surface.
“You know, Detachment is the mantra of the walking wounded. The new cage movement can be very persuasive, but don’t believe them. They are locked inside their own avoidance. Detachment is a tool—it’s not a life.”
There it was.
“I’m not detached. I have an involved life,” I said with a tinge of defensiveness.
Then he got to the real point: “You’re much more interesting when you have a lover.”
“You saying I’m boring now?”
He shrugged his shoulders knowingly, while reaching for his coffee cup. “Not boring, just sleepy.”
“Maybe I’m getting caught up on lost sleep.”
“Maybe you’re in a solitary confinement of your own making,” he said firmly.
After a long silence, I spoke the truth: “It’s not easy to love again after… that.”