The Prophet Kahlil Gibran on Love – A Gift from a Mother

For this Irish writer and storyteller I follow the instruction of the Prophet Kahlil Gibran on love.   What would it feel like to be able to manifest what you loved into this world through the power of the spoken word?   It would require the ability to have the power of  the magician archetype.  This would be one who could rightly  be called a Prophet.  Such was one who lived as the artist and poet called Kahlil Gibran.

When I first left Northern Ireland to go and live in England I was given a book by my mother.  She only ever gave me two books to read and both have stayed with me since that time.  I often wonder how it was that my mother knew me so deeply when I had never shown any interest other than in soccer and in fly fishing by lakes and streams.  I certainly wasn’t a reader but I was a yearner.  I yearned to belong.  The book my mother gave me was The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran.  It was one of my mother’s favourite books.  It is a book about longing for home and the heart break of leaving what one loves.  The opening lines are,

 

 

Almustafa, the chosen and the beloved, who was a dawn unto his own day, had waited twelve years in the city of Orphalese for his ship that was to return and bear him back to the isle of his birth.

 

It is hard to find someone who writes as well as Kahlil Gibran on Love.  I have identified with these lines in some ways.  I have lived in the city of Orphalese – the city of orphans.  I am the chosen and the beloved who is longing for home.  This isn’t some kind of arrogance but is the statement and the state of the souls longing for home.  This is what we each must return to if we are to truly find meaning and purpose in our lives and especially within the second half of life.  Although Almustafa longs to leave for his home the people of Orphalese are distraught at his leaving.  Their hearts are breaking. They do not want him to go because as some of them readily admit,

 

 

Let not the waves of the sea separate us now, and the years you have spent in our midst become a memory.  Much have we loved you.  But speechless was our love and with veils has it been veiled.

 

 

Here is a man (an it might as easily have been a woman) who loves much and is much loved.  He has the power to speak words that transform lives.  Yet he as a knower of love has the longing that never goes away.  It is the longing for union with the Beloved as symbolically represented in this poem by the return to the land of his birth.  In the Prophet’s opening verses we are told that the people of Orphalese who represent you and I and who feel orphaned in the separate sense of self, do not speak of love and with veils such love has been veiled.  This is what most of us do and it costs us dear.  I have been to many religious talks and gatherings with one intention.  I have gone with the intention to hear those who spoke speak to me off love.  On most every occasion it has not been spoken off let alone been demonstrated.

 

 

In the second half of life the veils of love have to be removed.  The fear of speaking the word love has to be attended too.  If it isn’t you who is attending to its unveiling and its revelation you might wait a long time to find it come your way.  Love is an inside job.  It is a state of being that arises from beyond and it has the power to transform your life.  In order for that to happen Love has to be the primary focus of your intention and your attention.  The Prophet is essentially a series of answers to essential questions.  Each question begins,

 

Speak to us of…….

 

 

The first question addressed to the Prophet Almustafa is by the woman priestess Almitra who asks him the first question and the central question.  You could finish the book here but there is so much more within the pages of this brief book of light and light.  Love is the first question from the priestess of the people of Orphalese.  Notice here that it is a woman who asks the central question..  Would that those who claimed to be prophets in our land would speak to us of Love.  Except that as demonstrated by the bankruptcy evident within most institutions across the land Love is not the central issue but what is the central issue is the one sided pursuit of growth and greed.

 

 

To the question “Speak to us of Love,” Almustafa replies,

When love beckons you to follow, follow him.

Though his ways are hard and steep.

And when his wings enfold you yield to him

 

 

 

This is the call to Love.  It happens especially in midlife and gives rise to a crisis of meaning.  The midlife crises is a way that is often hard and steep.  the real difficulty is that our  culture has not ritual, no true vision of what is beyond this crisis in midlife.  it only offers more of the same which is not the way of love and will not take you on the wings of love into the realisation of loves meaning for your life.  In the 2nd half of life Love is beckoning you to follow the way of Love.  This is the way of giving of yourself where you experience a living paradox.  You find that when you give of who you are that this is what you most enjoy.  This is beautifully illustrated when Almustafa the chosen and the beloved says when asked to speak of giving,

 

 

You give but little when you give of your possessions.

It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

 

 

This is not giving to get.  It is not the life of the bargain hunter even if that bargain hunter is in the marketplace for love.  This is not giving to get.  This is not giving in order to rescue someone.  This is giving from the beauty of who you are as a chosen and beloved.  It sounds arrogant to claim that you might be chosen and beloved but if you were not chosen and not beloved of Creation you would not exist. The fact that you are  means that you are chosen and loved.  You are the love of being. The choice is then to veil that love or reveal it.

 

 

This is the opportunity beyond midlife and the crisis it throws many people into.  In fact, if it hasn’t thrown you into a crisis then pray that it does but remember this one thing.  This crisis is an opportunity.  It is probably the greatest of opportunities.  It is the call from your soul to become the chosen and beloved that you are here to be.  You are a prophet in the making.  You prophesy not death, but life and with enough grace you will know that the life you prophesy is the life eternal.  When you know this you leave the state of separateness that is represented by those who veil their love and who do not speak of it as central to living their life.  Then you can go home to the land of your birth which, metaphorically speaking, is the eternity of Loves becoming and the placeless place of your true hearts desire.

 

 

The second half of life is the choice to speak into manifestation the power of Love as it moves through you of the greater good of all.  This creative power is the way in which you will find true true meaning and purpose in the 2nd half of life.  You will not feel as if you are one of the people of Orphalese who are orphaned from their true self.  For the full poem by Kahlil Gibran click here

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