I thought when I graduated, I would have unlimited time to read books and do crafts. This was true for a month or two. But life moves quickly and once I started making friends and getting involved in the community, it has been difficult to find time to immerse myself in someone else's fictional life.
Last week I started readin
The Witch of Portobello by
Paulo Coelho. Unfortunately, I kept having to put it down, but not by choice. This was one of the most engrossing stories I've read since graduation (another is
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant). This book touched on many themes that I am struggling with in my own life.
The story of Sherine Khalil, who calls herself Athena, is told through the eyes of those who knew her best and were a significant part of her journey. On her search for meaning, Athena learns to connect with "The Great Mother" (Mother Earth) through ritual dance. Athena struggles against traditions in her attempt to bring knowledge to the world.
One of the themes I connected with immediately was this struggle against tradition. In my work and my life, I have questioned "the way its done." The message Athena brings is embraced by many she touches, but she also sees a brutal backlash which threatens her work, her life and the safety of her family. The institutions and powers that be (i.e. the Church), feeling threatened, use the media to bring her down. They distort her message and tell blatant lies about her intentions and rituals.
So many wise, intelligent, forward-thinking would-be leaders are brought down before they are able to achieve their "mission," as Athena refers to it. The world is stuck in the traditions of capitalism and an idealized 1950s mentality which threatens to destroy the very planet which sustains us. In June 2010, I attended the
US Social Forum where I was part of a movement to advance progressive ideas here in the United States and abroad. Thousands of people flooded the streets of Detroit, Michigan in a peaceful march and attended workshops for one week. There was no national media coverage of the event. Missing white children, Tea Party bloggers and the latest political sex scandal filled the airwaves instead. The winds of change may be blowing, but we are locked up inside our air-conditioned suburban homes and cannot feel the refreshing breeze. Athena is called "a woman of the twenty-second century living in the twenty-first." I can relate to this feeling, but I believe that I am a woman of the twenty-first century. I believe we live when we are meant to live. There is a purpose for me to be here at this time. I hope that purpose is to bring people out from their ivory towers and their glass houses and in to their communities. That is my "mission" and I know I will not survive to see it fulfilled. But I, with like-minded friends and strangers, will continue.
 |
| US Social Forum Opening March 2010, Detroit, MI. |
Another theme in
The Witch of Portobello is Love. Coelho's depiction of love is quite different than our usual vision of love. In Athena's final interaction with another central character, she explains that "Love is not a habit, a commitment, or a debt. It isn't what romantic songs tell us it is-- love simply is." I tried to analyze this quote to show that I understand, but this is not an academic paper. I understand this quote because I have suffered through a habit believing it to be love, I've tried to force a commitment from someone I love and I have loved purely because I was loved. I understand because I've lived our incorrect perceptions of what love is supposed to be.
But I will admit, I love love. I drop "I love you" like its "pass the salt." Love is one of the driving forces of my life. I don't need to look for love because I am surrounded by it. Love flows like a river from my lips and my hands and my heart -- sometimes the water is high and the current is strong, sometimes a dry spell slows the waters, but the water always flows. One thing I'VE LEARNED is that there is always more love. Love is not a sum-zero game. You do not replace those who you used to love with those who you love now. The river may change directions, a new tributary flows in, a new stream may branch off from the main river, but my river, hopefully, will continue to flow.
ALLLL RIGHT! Enough with the sap and the metaphors. Time to start a new book. I will pass this one on to as many people as I can find to read it because its lessons should be shared with all those willing to listen.
This past summer, I read The Witch of Portobello, by Paulo Coelho. On the cover, it said "from the best selling author of The Alchemist." By chance, I found a 25 cent copy of this best seller at a thrift shop not too long afterwards. However, I did not read it at the time because I started reading A Song of Ice and Fire. 
