Soul mate

Have you ever chanced upon what some might refer to as a "soul mate"? Perhaps your soul mate is a best friend, a family member, a lover or even a stranger...it doesn't matter the depth or length of time of your encounter with this person...the common thread is that this person made a lasting effect on you or your life.

I believe you can have many soul mates in your life time: a chance encounter with a stranger on a bus, who just so happens to strike up a conversation with you and somehow you gain insight into a problem that has been weighing upon your shoulders for some time...perhaps this is no chance encounter, but a soul connection, a fated meeting to help you along the way as you travel this path of life; a love relationship that has no future, but has transformed you in permanent ways that has allowed you to grow as a person; a constant companion who helps you learn and grow every day. I believe that as long as a person has had some profound influence or effect on your life, you can consider them a soul mate, regardless of if they currently still are and continue to be in your life, or are now just a lasting memory.

I once found a beautiful poem describing soul mate love that I feel the need to share:

Unending Love by Rabindranath Tagore

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times...
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,
In life after life, in age after age, forever.

Whenever I hear old chronicles of live, it's age old pain,
It's ancient tale of being apart or together.
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,
Clad in the life of a pole-star, piercing the darkness of time.
You become an image of what is remembered forever.

You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount.
At the heart of time, love of one for another.
We have played along side millions of lovers,
Shared in the same shy sweetness of meeting,
The distressful tears of farewell,
Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.



Hope you enjoyed this poem as much as I do!
~Amy

Food for thought...

"Smell is the sense of memory and desire..." ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

What is a "memory"? How accurate could one's memory be? Is it like a portrait - that frozen smile, the uncomfortable pose and unnatural atmosphere? Or is a memory more comparable to that of a candid shot - a snapshot in time where the photographer has captured a rare and special moment between his unaware subjects?

A memory is a million things, an object or a smell that conjures images in one's mind, a sensation of familiarity, something that brings a smile to one's face, a sparkle in their eye, a tear that falls, or a feeling of suffocation from reminded pain. Words written in a journal, lilting notes of a haunting melody, lyrics from a song that reverberates in the sub conscience, a keepsake....

Like the worn pages of a favourite book, a memory can fade with time: it becomes soft around the edges, blurred like that of an image from a dream. Or a memory can change with time, transformed - like spices added to leftovers from the night before - it can become sharper, resplendent, improved.

Memories...
Resplendent in flashes,
Picturesque tableaus in the mind.

Memories...
Frozen in time:
Capturing a moment
Vividly reminiscent
Of a portrait

Memories...
Like keepsakes
In a memory box
of the mind.

~ Amy