Soulmate Stories?

Is there such a thing as a soulmate story?  Have I been hopping about on a single leg far too long?


Remember how I used to share that we get into relationships for two reasons? These two lessons kept repeating themselves from dreaming to scarring.


One, is because we have to finish something that we didn't learn fully in that past life with them.


The second, is because we are meant to learn something with this person in the now.


If that's true, then what is a soulmate?


Then again, how can there not be such a thing as a soulmate, as everyday that we are apart--my heart roams through the wild earth in the whisper of prayers and fords this distance to see you, if but only to breathe?


If it is true then that we are meant for someone...


Why is it my heart is calm but waterfall-loud when beside yours?


You say it may just be a justification to be in and out of relationships. These two methods to learn. You may be right after all. Tell me, what then is the truth to having a twin soul? No don't tell me, it may already be in your eyes.

[Primeval man] could walk upright as men now do, backwards or forwards as he pleased, and he could also roll over and over at a great pace, turning on his four hands and four feet, eight in all, like tumblers going over and over with their legs in the air; this was when he wanted to run fast …Terrible was their might and strength, and the thoughts of their hearts were great, and they made an attack upon the gods ... Doubt reigned in the celestial councils. Should they kill them and annihilate the race with thunderbolts, as they had done the giants, then there would be an end of the sacrifices and worship which men offered to them; but, on the other hand, the gods could not suffer their insolence to be unrestrained. At last, after a good deal of reflection, Zeus discovered a way. He said: 'Methinks I have a plan which will humble their pride and improve their manners; men shall continue to exist, but I will cut them in two and then they will be diminished in strength and increased in numbers; this will have the advantage of making them more profitable to us. They shall walk upright on two legs, and if they continue insolent and will not be quiet, I will split them again and they shall hop about on a single leg.'

—Aristophanes, Plato’s Symposium,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soulmate

After Silence

I was so proud of you before,
You had learned how to say sorry.
In front of many, you had confronted your fears.
You had overcome your self.

Then things went awry.
Things always come around full circle.

What matters is what we do with with it--when it does come around.
Whether we make the same mistakes,
Or whether we take courage and reach out in humility, or even more simply
Out of acceptance.

The kind of acceptance that doesn't judge or assume,
The kind that accepts for good or bad.

That kind of courage that we see in children.
When they are hurt they cry out.
When they are happy they share their joy.

That kind of humility we find in our elders.
When in doubt they ask.
Or, they hold their silence until ready.

What matters is we live without carrying the weight
Of the mistakes and failures we had to make
To grow into that acceptance, that strength to say sorry.
That letting go of the self.

I was so proud of you before.
And I say to you that things will continue to come around full circle.
What matters, is whose hands, you hold when it does.

06 September 2008