the-prophet

Kahlil Gibran On Marriage!

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Today, I want to share something familiar, maybe ordinary, yet an important issue: Marriage! Of course, we can translate it into the modern language as a partnership, friendship, bedmate or lifemate, etc.
But the main point is how much a couple should merge into each other, how close they must be and how deep.

 Rene Magritte; Perfect Woman

I’ve had various experiences in the realm of relationships. I’ve had many different connections with different women, and you can imagine how much effort it took to understand the intricacies of this adorable gender. However, my current wife is the first and only one I’ve married. It took me about twenty-three years until to say “yes” and marry her and two more years to move in together. It wasn’t easy for either of us, but we’ve slowly but surely learned to respect each other’s boundaries and individualities over the years. We share one Life but have our own dreams, all while maintaining love and respect for each other.

I have spent my life trying to understand the crucial topic in psychology called individuality. I finally succeeded with the help of Dr. Jung. It is essential for discovering and proving my uniqueness.

With thanks to Lewis Lafontaine

As it turns out, Kahlil Gibran also agrees with me. Here, I share a part of his book, “The Prophet”, about Marriage. I hope you enjoy reading it. Thanks, and have a peaceful weekend.

Image on top: Wings // Sophie Black / #surreal #Photography

Sing and dance together and
be joyous, but let each one of you
be alone.
Even as the strings of a lute are alone,
though they quiver with the same music.

“Love is the only freedom in the world because it so elevates the spirit that the laws of humanity and the phenomena of nature do not alter its course_” Text and art by Kahlil Gibran

On Marriage, From the Book “The Prophet”

An illustration of Khalil Gibran. (Shutterstock)

Then Almitra spoke again and said: And what of Marriage, master?
And he answered, saying: You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness.
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone.
Even as the strings of a lute are alone, they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.

Kahlil Gibran on Laws

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Our moral freedom reaches as far as our consciousness and, thus, our liberation from compulsion and captivity. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, pages 546-547 (from C.J. Depth Psychology)

By Petra Glimmdall 💖🙏

These days, because of my activities in helping the Iranian people, I have been deeply involved in establishing a fair and just system based on sound laws to help the Iranian people. However, finding a suitable constitution for a young nation (in the term of democracy) is not easy. It is not only the laws that make society fair; every individual must learn how to live in a democratic society.

Understanding freedom depends on the laws and anti-laws we legislate! Kahlil Gibran has an excellent explanation. I hope you enjoy it.

From The Prophet

Painting by Kahlil Gibran 1883-1931 – Tutt’Art@

People of Orphalese, you can muffle the drum, and you can loosen the strings of the lyre, but who shall command the skylark not to sing?

 

Then the lawyer said, but what of our laws, master?
And he answered:
You delight in laying down laws,
Yet you delight more in breaking them.
Like children playing by the ocean who build sand towers with constancy and then destroy them with laughter.
But while you build your sand towers, the ocean brings more sand to the shore, and when you destroy them, the ocean laughs with you.
Verily, the ocean always laughs with the innocent.

But what of those to whom life is not an ocean, and man-made laws are not sand towers,
But to whom life is a rock, and the law a chisel with which they would carve it in their own likeness?
What of the cripple who hates dancers?
What of the ox who loves his yoke and deems the elk and deer of the forest stray and vagrant thin?

What of the old serpent who cannot shed his skin
and calls all others naked and shameless?
And of him who comes early to the wedding feast and, when over-fed and tired, goes his way, saying that all feasts are violations and all feasters are lawbreakers?

What shall I say of these save that they, too, stand in the sunlight, but with their backs to the sun?
They see only their shadows, and their shadows are their laws.
And what is the sun to them but a caster of shadows?
And what is it to acknowledge the laws but to stoop down and trace their shadows upon the earth?
But you who walk facing the sun, what images drawn on the earth can hold you?
You who travel with the wind, what weather vane shall direct your course?
What man’s law shall bind you if you break your yoke but upon no man’s prison door?
What shall you fear if you dance but stumble against no man’s iron chains?
And who is he that shall bring you to judgment if you tear off your garment yet leave it in no man’s path?

People of Orphalese, you can muffle the drum and loosen the strings of the lyre, but who shall command the skylark not to sing?

Thank you! 🙏💕💥