Paolo Coelho

I recently read ‘Eleven Minutes’ by Paolo Coelho and this is what I came across in it. It is the most beautiful description of one of the most sacred acts that we as man and woman do together. Whether it is true or not, it makes absolute and perfect sense.

‘According to Plato, at the beginning of creation, men and women were not as they are now; there was just one being, who was rather short, with a body and a neck, but his head had two faces, looking in different directions. It was as if two creatures had been glued back to back, with two sets of sex organs, four legs and four arms.

The Greek gods, however were jealous, because this creature with four arms could work harder; with its two faces, it was always vigilant and could not be taken by surprise; and its four legs meant that it could stand or walk for long periods without tiring. Even more dangerous was the fact that the creature has two different sets of sex organs and so needed no one else in order to continue reproducing.

Zeus, the supreme lord of Olympus, said; “I have a plan to make mortals lose some of their strength.”

And he cut the creature in two with a lighting bolt, thus creating man and woman. This greatly increased the population of the world, and, at the same time, disoriented and weakened its inhabitants, because now they had to search for their lost half and embrace it and, in that embrace, regain their former strength, their ability to avoid betrayal and the stamina to walk for long periods of time and to withstand hard work. That embrace in which two bodies re-fuse to become one again is what we call sex.’

Enlightenment...or atleast a part of it...

We humans find it so difficult to let go of things and people and more things and more people. We think that everything that we have is meant to last a lifetime. We feel that all good things must be permanent, that forever exists. What we tend to forget is that not even we last forever. It can be argued that our memories do. I held that argument too. But here’s something to think about – those who have memories of us don’t last forever either. And even if our memories are passed on they fade away with time. They become bleaker and bleaker as time passes. Even our face becomes a vague memory. Time passes and with that everything else – memories, people, things…everything. And yet we hold on to them all. We are so scared of dying or loosing those close to us that we forget to savour the memories we create with them. If only we take notice of the little things we do with them or the words we say to them, then I guess we wouldn’t hurt so much on loosing them. Instead we would be thanking them for how much more meaningful they made our lives, wouldn’t we? We get so caught up trying to create memories without realizing that no effort has to be made in that department. Each moment becomes a memory to recall, each word said – good or bad gets stamped onto our minds creating yet another memory. And when we loose that someone or when that someone looses us we cry. We cry for all the words that we should and could have said or not said but never did, we cry for all the deeds we could and should have done or not done but never did.

I just re-read what I wrote…whoa!!! Where does this psychobabble come from…??? But psychobabble or not, it’s true nevertheless…

Recurring dreams...

The sandwich is yummy and I just can’t have enough of it. I am happy, very happy. I can’t stop smiling. It’s not only the sandwich, but because I am with momma and dadda and Ross. My family, happy and content. I don’t know where we are. It looks my old school building. There are a lot of bougainvilleas, pink ones, like the dress momma has worn. And green leaves like the frock I have worn. Everything is peaceful and serene. Everyone’s having a good time. But something gives me the feeling that a storm is coming. Suddenly the sky darkens and the weather becomes cloudy. Dadda has left my hand and is running after someone. I see that momma is missing too. I see Ross running after someone too. In the grim sunlight I see them running after a figure in pink. I strain my eyes against the strong wind to see whom they’re running after. The pink figure becomes clearer. It’s momma they’re running after. She’s left and gone. But why? I don’t know. My sandwich drops to the floor. I have tears in my eyes and now even I am running after her. I cry out to her but she doesn’t look back. She just gets into a cab and breezes out of our lives as we stand there helpless. I have my hands stretched out, in hope that she’ll come back to comfort me as she does always. I am sobbing now. “Stormy, Stormy.” I wake up. It was a bad dream. Mom is comforting me now. I’m holding mom and crying uncontrollably. I can’t stop this wave of tears. “Don’t ever leave me, momma. Please never leave.” “I won’t sweetheart. What makes you think I’ll leave you or Ross? It was a bad dream, baby. I’m here and will always be. Calm down.” I can’t calm down. I can’t stop crying. I open my eyes again and see that the space beside mom is empty. Mom hasn’t gone anywhere but dad left instead.