The popular explanation for the concept of soulmates is two halves of one soul. Does that even sound possible?
People, especially those who espouse New Age concepts, like to think that there is a perfect match for them: someone who completes them in every way. I’m not sure about that.
Some have even suggested that, if you meet your soulmate, your work on earth is done. Perhaps…
The Right Person at the Right Time?
It seems far more likely to me that people come into our lives to help us achieve our goals, to spur us on to higher consciousness. Past lives together may have happened, but it is more likely that decisions to meet up were agreed upon before birth.
Take for example, Richard Bach and Leslie Parrish: Bach’s books (One, and A Bridge Across Forever) recount their coming together for a time and then, silence. It turns out that they got a divorce in 1999, even though Bach was sure that they were soulmates. If he can get it ‘wrong’, so can the rest of us.
An Ongoing Connection
I think what Edgar Cayce said makes the best sense, in that there may be more than one of these connections in any lifetime.
That may account for an unusually high relationship ‘failure’ rate in this day and age. Note that the word “failure” is in quotes, because the more correct understanding would be that whatever was bringing you together had been accomplished, and so, on to the next challenge.
Love Is All You Need
Yes, it is a mystery how this happens. But, if it weren’t for love, this would be a very lonely world: don’t you agree?
When I began to do research for this piece, I quickly realized that Jonathan Livingston Seagull had been reviewed to death. My fallback position (Plan B) was to discuss some of Richard Bach’s sayings. Even that has been overdone. Now I am just going to share what his words have meant to me over the years since I started reading his books in 1970.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Seagulls are a nuisance. They are everywhere. They scavenge through landfill sites and tear up garbage bags in their constant search for food. They make a lot of noise, too. In many ways, they are a lot like humans.
Richard Bach liked to fly his airplane. Most, if not all, of his books use flight as a metaphor for trying to advance from, and get above, ‘ordinary’ life.
I was skeptical when I first read this book. After all, who puts spiritual truth in the mouths of foul creatures like these? But slowly, slowly I began to see what (or should I say ‘who’?) he was aiming at: the ordinary Joe.
The Film
The subsequent film was a disappointment for me. Sure, with Jonathan in flight, there could be no better cinematography, but the other scenes were tedious and boring, especially when he was around other ‘unenlightened’ birds. I guess that was the point entirely.
The soundtrack was something else again.
The theme of spiritual searching seems to have inspired Neil Diamond to write some of his best songs. Here is “Be”:
Echoes
In 1985, I was inspired to write my own ‘bird’ poem, Flight of a Canada Goose. Where Richard Bach had a Livingston(e), I had a Stanley. The truth however is that I, personally, was wanting to soar like an eagle, but I was more stuck on earth than his creature.
It took years of searching to find come back to this one simple point:
