Love always Stays

Love always Stays

By Life Positive

December 2007

This excerpt from the witch of portobello by paulo coelho reflects on the nature of love

…She raised her head and looked at me. “You know who is here, don’t you?”
“Yes. Athena and her divine side, Hagia Sofia…

”The man before me suffers for something which he believes he has never received – my love. But the man beyond your self understands that all the pain, anxiety and feeling of abandonment are unnecessary and childish. I love you. Not in the way that the divine spark wants. We inhabit the same tent, which was placed on our path by her. There we understand that we are not the slaves of our feelings, but their masters. We serve and are served, we open the doors of our rooms and we embrace. Perhaps we kiss too, because everything that happens very intensely on earth will have its counterpart on the invisible plane.”

“What is love, then?”

“The soul, blood and body of the great mother. I love you as exiled souls love each other when they meet in the middle of the desert. There will never be anything physical between us, but no passion is in vain, no love is ever wasted. If the mother awoke that love in your heart, she awoke it in mine too, although your heart perhaps accepts it more readily. The energy of love can never be lost – it is more powerful than anything and shows itself in many ways.

“I’m not strong enough either. I need someone by my side too. But one day, our eyes will open, the different forms of love will disappear from the face of earth. It won’t be long now, I think. Many of us are returning from a long journey during which we were forced to search for things that were of no interest to us. Now we realize that they were false. But this return cannot be made without pain, because we have been away for a long time and feel that we are strangers in our own land. It will take some time to find the friends who also left, and the places where our roots and our treasures lie. But this will happen.”

…“That has always been the aim of everything I’ve looked for in my life – allowing love to manifest itself in me without barriers, letting it fill up my blank spaces, making me dance, smile, justify my life, protect my son, get in touch with the heavens, with men and women, with all those who were placed on my path. I tried to control my feelings, saying such things as “he deserves my love” or “he doesn’t”. Until, that is, I understood my fate, when I saw that I might lose the most important thing in my life.”

“Your son.”

“Exactly. He is the most complete manifestation of love. When the possibility arose that he might be taken away from me, then I found myself and realized that I could never have anything or lose anything. I understood this after crying for many hours. It was only after intense suffering that the part of me I call Hagia Sofia said: ‘What nonsense! Love always stays, even though, sooner or later, your son will leave.’”

I was beginning to understand. ‘Love is not a habit, a commitment, or a debt. It isn’t what romantic songs tell us it is – love simply is.

‘That is the testament of Athena or Shrine or Hagia Sofia – Love is. No definition. Love and don’t ask too many questions. Just love.’…