Passover evening, I am driving to Kibbutz Gonen to celebrate the Seder together with my sister and her family who came for a vacation in the north. My children went few hours earlier to Jerusalem to be with their father's family.
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From the moment I enter the car my wings are quivering.. I had always celebrated my life transitional moments by riding my car.
Spring songs are being played on the radio and right before my eyes an intoxicating colorful party, the Chrysanthemums yellow is turning into bright patches of pink, purple and green, after which ever more carpets of wild colorfulness.
Dancing through the open window, a warm wind is caressing my skin, carrying with her aromas of perfumed blossoms. The road is expanding in front of me wide and long.
And something in me sings. I clearly remember, here on the very same road, I have traveled exactly a year ago. Sadness was lapping my shores constantly at the time, most of the time I felt as a tree disconnected from the root, as if a large cold scissors cut all my connections in one slash.
I yearned desperately to return home, to feel connected again, but whatever I tried made no difference. Three years after my 20 years marriage came to an end I was still "alone", without the love of being a married couple, and inside me a sense of a huge missing part grew ever deeper, I felt that until I find this kind of love I will never find joy.
When I was 23 a sentence, with its words I fell in love then, hanged above my bed. A sentence my spiritual teacher used to say "You are never alone and simply will never will be"
When in captivity, it is hard to believe a sentence like this for long, and I, for a time that now seems like eternity, was in captivity. My wings were folded and the darkness all around made me forget the sunlit world waiting outside.
One day something had occurred.. I raised my eyes to look at my own personal warden and suddenly I knew who he was. At the very same moment I knew that as soon as I call his name he will vanish and I will be able to be free. I knew and yet hesitated.. I had never excelled in departures, even from wardens.
But deep inside I have begun digging my freedom tunnel. Whenever my warden arrived, I looked straight in his eyes and studied him more and more. And one day it had happened. He stood in front of me and I suddenly understood he has no power over me. "I know who you are", I told him quietly, "I also know how you snuck in and kidnapped me to this place" and then I called him by his name and exactly like in the renown legend of theMiller's daughter and the demon, I saw how my frightening warden evaporates instantly leaving behind him a small pile of ashes, the heavy iron door of my prison had opened and I was free.. Outside a whole world awaited me, bustling with life and sunlit.. It is still there and it is wonderful, so hugging and pleasurable. To captivity I am not coming back.. I choose freedom.
More and more I understand that my warden was - a story. Yes, a story. An enticing story which was told long before I was born, again and again across history, across the culture of our time, a story etched on my skin, flowed in my blood, which I heard since being a child, which spoke to my romantic soul. I so believed in it that I approached it carelessly, letting it warping me in its binding web.
Now I am opening other of the car's windows letting the good wind carried with her the remnants of the web.. my two wings are quivering with joy, spreading widely towards life and life is flowing into me with the rush of a river whose heavy stones had been removed from its path.
In front of me cars are passing by.. families and more families, Passover is a family holiday. In a moment I will too meet my sister and her dear family, soon we too are going to be warped by love. Yes, I am still a great believer in love. Only that nowadays I know it has many faces, I meet her everywhere, in every human I meet, in every smile of a round-cheeked baby, in every couple who chooses to celebrate their love with me, in every moment with my soul-beloved people, in every intoxicating colorful party of spring.. God had planted around us so many seeds of love, joy and happiness. Today I know for sure that love had never intended for us to be imprisoned in her name in a small darkened cell.
Right was my dear teacher, I am never alone and I shall never really be alone
Ma'ayan Ben Aryeh
Ma'ayan is a story teller and guiding empowerment meetings for individuals, couples and groups in Israel
Greetings,
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