18

Premature Emancipation

I spent my last few days at Rockwood feeling light as a feather. I had undergone a remarkable transition in only two weeks. It felt as though everything had momentarily transformed into the light at its source. Was this the gift of Sarah fully unwrapped?

The positive feelings continued after I arrived back in Toronto, like the universe had burst my pain balloon in one fell swoop. I felt free of suffering, free of confusion, free of longing. If nothing else, I had left my closed heart in Arizona. It was all good.

With a tremendous outburst of energy, I poured my focus into new beginnings. Over the course of the next month, I threw out half of my belongings, bought new bedroom and living room furniture, and repainted the entire apartment—even Sarah’s remaining graffiti remnants.

When the house was complete, I channeled my boundless energy into transforming my law practice. Through this more enheartened lens, traditional litigation felt too harsh and incongruent. It was a ruthless game, and I was determined to enhance the world in a real way. With the support of a friend with a bustling mediation practice, I began to weave mediation and alternative dispute resolution into my legal practice. In a matter of months, I was doing very few criminal trials and finding greater purpose in my work for the first time. The gift of Sarah was beginning to take form.

By the following spring, I felt ready to bring my hopeful energy into my relationship life. I began dating Janice, a beautiful nurse with a kind heart. I really enjoyed her company but I felt repelled whenever we got intimate. Being naked with her felt like a radical fall from grace. Thud! I wanted to want her, but I just didn’t want her. Good woman, wrong soul. Oh no, not this again.

The same situation occurred with two more women. Good company, attraction, definitely a basis to explore further. And then the disconnect every time we approached intimacy. With one of them, Renee, I actually had intercourse, of sorts. She was fully present, but I was nowhere to be found. While I was inside her, I was overcome with images of Sarah lying beneath me. I closed my eyes to imagine her, but Renee didn’t cooperate. She kept shrieking as I was thrusting, an ear-piercing reminder that that she wasn’t my beloved. After she left the house that night, I drank a bottle of Amaretto to help me forget—and I hate Amaretto.

After this experience, I fell into a quiet depression. It was not dark and hopeless like before—I truly had released an iceberg of pain at Rockwood—but it was much more confusing. Before, I knew why I was depressed—I hadn’t even begun to process the pain of loss. But now... why? I had moved a weight of darkness out of me in Arizona. Everything in my life was forward-moving. I felt ready to begin again. Why so sad?

I looked for Dude to help me, but he was nowhere to be found. In fact, I hadn’t seen him in months. Where have you gone, my houseless mystic?

I was again riddled with questions. Is it natural to jump back and forth between darkness and light, shackles and liberation, after a beloved is gone? Is this part of the healing and integration process? Is it possible to release the pain once and for all, or does it keep returning, like a wave that cycles back to shore? Does one ever come into balance after a loss like this?

The lingering heaviness persisted for months. Despite my claims that it was all good, it clearly wasn’t. Premature emancipation, all over again. Yet, this time there was a new sliver of understanding. It was beginning to dawn on me that this was the nature of the growth process. Once one plateau is reached, another calls to us, inviting us to do the necessary work to arrive there. If we honor the invitation, we expand toward a greater peace. If we ignore it, we become depressed from resisting our own expansion. Part of being truly on your path is being available to grow to the next level.

I was becoming stagnant at this level of healing. I felt the nudge from within—it was time to grow forward. I knew intuitively there was more. And I realized I could use some support in getting there. But how? I wasn’t sure in what form the support would arrive. But I was ready to receive it.

Sally

I woke up one Sunday morning agitated after dreaming about Sarah. She was walking just ahead of me on a familiar Toronto thoroughfare: Harbord Street in the student Annex. Every time I got close to her, she would magically land steps ahead. In dreams as in life, I always seemed to be a step behind the beloved.

I rose from bed, and made my way for the Annex. I didn’t imagine Sarah would be there, but perhaps something else was. As I turned onto Harbord from Spadina Avenue, I spotted a woman sitting on the steps of an old Brownstone about a block away. From a distance, she could easily have been Sarah. Same wavy blond hair, same style of dress, same small frame. Same feeling as my dream.

I picked up my pace, determined to see her up close. I intuitively knew she wasn’t Sarah, but I wanted 30 seconds of fantasy. When I got there, I saw a beautiful young woman, probably around 20, talking on her cell phone, getting up to leave. She smiled at me as she passed by, in that kindly way that a young woman smiles at an older man who could easily be her father. Humbled yet again.

I looked up at the building. It had a series of brass name plates fastened to the wall. I walked up the steps to take a closer look. My eyes fixed on one of them: “Dr. Sally Lesser, Humanistic Psychologist.” An electrical current surged through my body. I had the strangest feeling that I had to call this woman. Following that impulse, I booked an appointment with her for the very next day.

When I walked into Sally’s eclectic office for the first time, I immediately felt a sense of home. She came out and greeted me, and looked so familiar, like a long lost member of my family. Or, maybe this is what it feels like to reunite with soul-family. A tall, slender, brown-haired woman in her late 50’s, she looked entirely conservative, with the exception of funky purple-framed glasses. A very warm and grounded person, it was immediately obvious that she had a keen and depthful intelligence.

I sat down across from her in a cozy leather chair, in her colorful little office—a fascinating mix of East Indian, Egyptian and new Mexican decor.

“Tell me what brings you here...” Sally invited.

Without hesitation, I began outpouring... just about everything. I didn’t hold back. I simply couldn’t. A built up reservoir of expression was being released.

Throughout my sharing, Sally’s gaze did not waver. I felt her truly with me. Her unwavering presence invited me to keep speaking, and revealing, layer upon layer. It was the first time I truly got to tell my story without inhibition. A warm relief flooded my body. Deep exhale.

When I was done, she said with confidence, “I know exactly what you’re speaking of.”

“You really do, don’t you?”

“Yes, although not firsthand. This is a special and sacred subject that has always engaged my interest. And I have worked with rare couples who have encountered this experience. I even wrote my master’s thesis on this subject. It was best explained in the writings of a woman named Jeanne Achterberg. She gave these types of unions a name: Uncommon Bonds. They are way-showers for the evolution of consciousness.”

I let the words seep in. Uncommon Bonds.

Sally went over to her book-shelf, handing me a copy of an article written by Jeanne. “Here take a look...”

I scanned the article and immediately my eyes fell on a few sentences:

The unions have what appear to be transcendent or transpersonal elements. The relationships appear to have been destined and are frequently described as resulting from grace.

I felt a stirring in my soul.

Then my eyes fell again:

Parapsychological, or paranormal events—synchronistic occurrences and nonlocal communications—that defy known laws of time and space are often present.

And then, dropping in for more:

The bondeds described having recognized one another as cut from the same cloth or as having occupied the same body in a previous life; they felt they were distantly related or were one soul residing in two bodies.

With that, my teardrops sprinkled the page.

“Bring that home with you,” she said. “Read it and absorb it. And let’s explore more next session.”

As I walked home, I felt like I was holding a sacred text in my hand. This was no ordinary writing. It was a transmission from beyond. And so was Sally—I had clearly come to the right place.

Instead of going straight home, I wandered over to Bellwoods Park and propped myself against a tree. I knew I would need some support, as I drank this in.

I couldn’t stop reading, ravenously consuming—it was water to my thirsting soul.

Any soul work is likely to be arduous, complex, and accompanied by many ‘dark nights’ as well as, often, incredible bliss during the course of the transformative process.

Suddenly the pieces of the puzzle began to gracefully fit together. I wasn’t insane. This wasn’t some outlandish phenomena. There was a reality to this. It was like I had discovered the master key.

I went in for another drink:

Sexuality is clearly a spiritual practice for them...

A sea of memories emerged of me and Sarah together, touching the divine through our body temples: the first time I touched her G(od) spot, my first exquisite taste of the yoniverse with her back pressed against an oak tree, our first cosmic penetration in the meditation sanctuary, the unseen galaxies we co-created while lovemaking in my Toronto apartment. And one memory in particular—that very first kiss in Rocky Mountain Park—when we dunked our hearts in the rivers of essence and everything became God. God has such soft wet lips.

I sat against the tree and read the same pages over and over again, as the cosmic tumblers clicked into alignment, finally making sense of my experience, deepening my understanding of the paths Sarah and I had walked. Finally I felt seen. Jeanne’s description presented the form of the relationship in such perfect detail. Now it all made sense: the soul’s familiarity, the sexuality portal, the relentless synchronicities, the transpersonal energy, the ecstasy and despair, the sigh of relief as if coming home after decades of wandering. It was us. It was comforting to know that we were not the first people to walk this way.

As the days passed, I felt myself encircled in a glow of new understanding. Everything was up-framed into its true context. I could now begin to see the once-elusive backdrop that held our bond. It was peeking through in all its splendor. No wonder I had felt perpetually unsettled. I had no framework of understanding to explain what I had experienced.

In the weeks to come, I allowed this new understanding to integrate and weave into my cells, reshaping me, just as the love had. The only gap in my understanding was the knowing of WHY it came. Uncommon, to be sure, but why did we summon this bond into our lives? Why manifest something so impossible? What was the point of such a profound relationship, if not to grow old together? How did such a sacred connection lose its way? And still the lingering question: what was the gift?

The Integration

I began dialoguing very deeply with Sally, bringing to her what I assimilated throughout the week, in my readings, and in my deepening heart-explorations. She had no answer to my key questions—they were for me to answer—but she did know how to support my process. From her studies, she was able to acknowledge that these connections do tend to fall apart, particularly if at least one of the individuals isn’t egoically strong enough to handle the intense merging of their soul with another. In her words, “strongest me, strongest we.” A healthy, sturdy ego to come home to is essential to sustaining the bond, particularly when the shadow emerges. Without it, there is a tendency to push the bond away until it can be developed.

“Could this be why she fled?” I wondered.

“Yes, it’s likely a part of it. She was only 26. Evolving beyond the familiar into a higher way of being is a great challenge for anyone, even more so when two people attempt it when they are younger. Does that feel resonant?”

“Yah, kind of like dying to an old paradigm and being born to a new one...”

She quickly added, “Yes, and without any terms of reference or teachers to guide them.”

“Oh yes, you can say that again. I remember during some of our intensely rocky patches—I wished we had someone to shepherd us over the terrain. Someone who had been there before.”

“Yes, something like a ‘Love Elder’,” Sally laughed. “Well...” she continued, more serious, “Love Elders are out there. Not many, at this stage of development, but some. As more people awaken to love as a spiritual path, more Love Elders will spring forth. And, people like you are also clearing the way for those who are just beginning their conscious relationship journey.”

I sat with that for some time, reflecting on Love Elders, and remembering my own challenges with opening to this new way of being, and, even more so, the challenge of figuring out how to process the ending.

I continued the dialogue mid-thought: “...perhaps that is also why closure has been difficult.”

“Tell me what you mean...” she invited.

“Well, I felt like all my traditional ideas of healing and resolution got thrown out the window here. Some healing was possible, but it wasn’t a simple process of healing and letting go. It was much more complicated than that.”

“Because you were attached on a soul level?”

“Yes, for sure—the world definitely made no sense in her absence, but not just because of that...”

I went quiet again, knowing I was coming close to understanding something essential. And then it came. “It’s like this. The love didn’t just touch my soul. It transformed it. It polished it, worked it, kneaded it, kind of like clay. The love itself was the sculptor. And when she fled, my sculpture ruptured, cracked, parts fell off. I was in between forms, in a way. It’s hard to heal something that doesn’t even know what it is anymore. It’s like trying to heal a disease when you don’t know where the host is. It was like I was ‘Soulshaping.’ Does that make any sense?”

“Yes, it does, and even if you were feeling solidly rooted in the next ‘soulshape,’” she echoed. “The soul doesn’t heal like the psyche. It requires different understandings, different techniques, a timeline all its own. Transformed in the unseen realms, it has to heal there too, in ways that us humans haven’t even begun to grok.”

What a remarkable gift to be able to have such a transparent and elevated conversation with another human being. Bit by bit, the pieces were coming together.

In a key subsequent session, Sally initiated a conversation about the heightened nature of uncommon bonds. I would soon realize why.

“These connections are often reported initially as ecstatic in nature, a kind of sky experience where the lovers’ feet seldom touch Mother Earth. Not to pathologize them, but just to acknowledge that higher level connections have a tendency to catapult one’s consciousness up, up and away from the earth plane, one breath closer to heaven.”

“Yes, that was entirely my experience.”

“Of course, they usually come crashing back to earth. As one aspect of the lovers’ consciousness reaches for the heavens, another element inevitably seeks the stability of Mother Earth. If both lovers are grounded in their consciousness, they can manage the landing while holding the connection safe. But if one or both lovers are even somewhat ungrounded, they tend to come crashing back to earth, shattering the relational cord on the way down. It’s like landing without a parachute—a soft landing isn’t possible. This isn’t a personal failure. That they were able to enter the portal at all is a triumphant act of tremendous courage. The inability to remain there is a reflection of the distance the culture has yet to travel before it can hold divine life safe. It’s a delicate and subtle art to integrate and interweave both realms—earth and sky—one that few people can sustain. Most of us don’t have the developmental girders. It takes a solid and sound maturity—psychologically, spiritually and within their personalities—to hold an uncommon bond together over the long haul.”

I knew where she was guiding me. She was guiding me to look more deeply at my own immaturity and ungroundedness. Then she said it, “While you may have been slightly more mature than Sarah when you both met, I’m not convinced that the relationship would have ended any differently if she hadn’t fled it. I wonder if you wouldn’t have eventually left because of your own earthly issues. Is it possible that neither of you had the developmental girders in place to sustain this relationship at that stage of your lives?”

It was an annoyingly good question, one that challenged my belief that I was the capable one in the connection. That I would never run or flee. That I would never reject such a gift. Maybe I would, or maybe I wouldn’t, but it’s true that the connection never felt safe enough for my own engulfment issues to emerge. I was too busy chasing Sarah to imagine running in the other direction. What would have happened had she stopped running? Would I have put on my sneakers and made for the next off-ramp?

Sally continued, “If this therapy is going to serve you, we have to do more than just help you to contextualize where you have been... we also have to prepare you for the next soulmate that walks through your door. Whether she actually arrives in tangible form, or not. What has to mature and solidify so that you—not Sarah, not some other person—but YOU can hold love safe? What has to happen so that you can hold sky and earth in your consciousness at one time?”

After some resistance, I began to focus our session work on my own ungroundedness. Yes, it was fundamental to the heightened nature of the experience, but I knew there was more to it than that. Born into that chaotic family dynamic, my imprinting played a role as well. It wasn’t obvious when interfacing with my willful personality, but a part of my consciousness did always want to get out of here. I was aware of my tendency to jump to the ecstatic sky at a moment’s notice, without first ensuring that the foundation was solid. I even felt it in the way I walked, particularly when life became difficult—quick on my feet, not lingering on Mother Earth for any longer than I had to. Almost like a bird that’s ready to take flight at any moment. Not unlike Sarah, my migrating beloved. For both of us, it felt safer up there.

And for those who knew me well, there were many signs of a similar immaturity on the earth plane. Those signs included financial irresponsibility, unreliability with friends and family, and a certain youthfulness akin to Peter Pan. There was a part of me that wanted to delay adulthood for as long as possible.

With this awareness, Sally encouraged me to work deeply on the physical plane to ground and integrate the higher planes of consciousness that I had traversed. I wasn’t a bird, after all. We devoted many sessions to simply grounding my feet: rubbing them into the earth, digging my soles into golf balls, and learning how to stand my ground firmly and unwaveringly. As she knew it would, this work brought me deeper into many uncomfortable elements of reality, including a giant vat of unreleased primal pain that I had never accessed in my previous healing work. My body was like a museum, filled with toxic artifacts from childhood. It was early stuff, too early for words, but the body knew. With her support, I worked those holdings, healing more of the early life material that had catapulted me away from the earth.

One of my clearest realizations was related to my own isolation, which seemed to live at the heart of my depression. When Sarah arrived, my faith in the universe was restored after decades, lifetimes, of aloneness. It wasn’t just a homecoming between our two souls, it was also a restoration of my faith in humanity and a benevolent universe. Finally, I could exist in relation to something outside myself and not get disappointed. Finally, someone up there was watching over me. Finally, my entire existence was infused with purpose.

When she left, I not only lost my love, I lost my faith in God. If my beloved couldn’t hold me safe, there was nothing and no one that could. I was right back in my locked childhood cage, alone and unprotected, while the universe poked sticks at me between the bars. My isolation had returned, with a fierce vengeance. Finding Sally seemed to be a sign from the universe that I really wasn’t alone—the universe had brought me someone who could help free me from my cage.

As our work together deepened, I became certain that this healing phase was not solely about my personal healing. I wasn’t just crying for me. This ocean of tears was too vast for one soul alone. I was also crying for Sarah, and the entire collective. In the same way as we had entered the collective heart when we fell in love, we had also entered the collective wound. In the same way as our ecstatic moments had elevated the collective vibration, these moments of release contributed to its healing. I cried for my loss, her loss, your loss—all those moments when all of us had longed for love, retreated from love, lost love before it could be fully lived. Oh my God, there is so much unfulfilled love on this troubled planet. Doors that opened and closed before their time. All the salt in the oceans must come from the unshed tears of humanity. When will we learn to honor love when it comes?

As I worked both intensively with Sally and independently, over a two year period, the healing work integrated within me, inspiring change on many different levels. Perhaps most significantly, I grew to feel more mortal, more capable of holding the space for all elements of reality at once. Instead of looking for heaven up there alone, I was better able to search for it down here in the nuances of daily life. And I also developed the capacity to hold both at once: light and shadow, shopping list and unity consciousness, fresh mangoes and stale bread. It was all God, even the dust that fell off my awakening heart. In a way, I had gifted the earth back to myself—finally, after many decades of internal rootlessness. Dude was right—it doesn’t mean anything to have a house, if you don’t feel at home in your own skin.

Surprisingly, I also felt my heart opening to the idea of another relationship. What would the universe bring my way? Or rather, what would I walk my way into next?

Lover’s Leap

Almost four years to the day of our first meeting, I felt ready to move to the next stage of letting go. I woke up early that Saturday morning and gathered my things for a trip to the Elora Gorge, a natural wonder a few hours outside of Toronto. I now understood what happens when we say goodbye too soon. It comes back to haunt us. So I waited until I felt truly prepared internally. Today was that day.

I picked Elora because it had a particular symbolism for the relationship. We had gone there once and made love by the side of the Grand River, at a time of the year when no one with good sense would take their clothes off. But we did, and the heat from our bodies turned the chill of autumn into summer’s fiery furnace.

After reaching an exquisite climax together on the riverbank, we climbed back up to the trail above. On the hike back to the car, we spotted an overhang called Lover’s Leap. At the end of it, there was a plaque with a story on it. The story goes that a heartbroken Aboriginal Princess had jumped to her death here after receiving news that her beloved had died on the battlefield. After reading the plaque, we sat down on the ground beneath it and prayed for their spirits.

I wanted to let go here.

I drove to Elora, and parked in front of Café Creperie, the wonderful restaurant that we had eaten at after our riverside adventure that afternoon. I went inside and wandered over to the same table we had sat at, and ordered the same crepe we had shared. I was testing myself. Was I ready to let go? Although I felt quietly sentimental, I also felt an unusual sort of peace. It was clear—that was that crepe, and this was this crepe, and there was no crepe in between. It was a new day.

After a wonderful conversation with the owner about love and life, I made my way to the river. When I found a quiet spot, I reached into my wallet and took out my favorite picture of Sarah. It was a shot of her sitting in a grassy field at the Ascension Institute in new York. It was a beautiful picture she had taken with one hand, while her other hand rested gently on my face. I had always refused to remove this photo from my wallet, no matter what went on between us, including the past years of our torrential separation.

It was time.

I reached down and placed the photo on a small angular rock in front of me. After several minutes, water began to gather under the picture. I watched the photo rise until it began to merge with the current. It was just about to be carried away... when I snapped it up.

I lifted it away from the water and looked at it one last time. The final reach-for. Such a beautiful picture. Such a magnificent love, perhaps too magnificent to hold on to. I lifted the picture to my lips and kissed it softly. As I gently held the photo, it seemed so impossible, so complicated, to even imagine letting go. After all, our souls were involved—how could we truly let go? As I released the photo, it dawned on me—it wasn’t a letting go. It was a letting through. Letting the pain through the holes it left behind so it could find its ultimate destination. I wasn’t letting go of the love. I was only letting go of the dream of being together. I watched the current carry the picture away. My tears splashed on the rock below, joining the journey home.

Everything was still. Sweet surrender.

As I made the climb back up the cliff, I had no illusions about my process. It was a pivotal moment, to be sure, and one with great symbolic meaning, but I now understood that dramatic moments are not the end of the story. The most lasting transformation happens in the subtleties, in those private moments of acceptance when the bond loosens its grip and the heart readies itself for new possibilities. One soul step at a time.

And perhaps there is never an end to a love story. Once the gateway has opened between two souls, it never fully closes, even if they imagine themselves separate.