Finding a soul mate

MANILA, Philippines - People all over the world are fascinated with the idea of having a soul mate. The eternal question of “what if somebody is truly out there for a person other than the one you chose to be with” is truly an exciting and interesting point of view, which has forever mystified many people, including myself. In Brida Paul Coehlo captures the imagination of his readers through his character, a young woman who has taken the path into the mystic life as a witch, and finds her soul mate too late for him in that lifetime.

The story revolves around Brida’s search for her soul mate and learning the path to the knowledge of magic. Her journey leads her to cross paths with a Magus, who was rumored to be a black magician who murdered a man whose wife he fell in love with.

For all his notoriety, the Magus strikes Brida as quite a contradictory and controversial man. He accepts Brida as his student and this starts their rather confusing journey as student and teacher.

It is like being struck by the same spark of lightning she was trying to find — a treasure that was buried in the same territory where she started her search. Irony of ironies, it turns out that the Magus was the soul mate she was looking for. But how come she does not realize this sooner? How could she have missed the signs? Maybe the rules are not fair since even as the Magus recognized the signs that Brida was his soul mate, he cannot tell her what he knew. As a rule, the only natural way is for her to recognize him herself.

The book reveals two ways to find a soul mate; one is through magic (as in the case of the Magus and Brida) and the other is through making mistakes and learning from them (like the Magus and his lover). When one falls in love with another person and later on finds out that this is the wrong person, this is when he or she realizes there is one right person is still out there, waiting to be found. One can recognize a soul mate through a spark in the eyes that only a mutual soul mate can identify.

Yet the conflict does not end here, because even as soul mates meet in the same plane and time, some of them are quite not fit to unite or the circumstances do not allow them to be bound together as they were in their past lives, like in the case of Brida and the Magus whose age difference is big enough to make them father and daughter.

Even if Brida is willing to succumb to attraction, the Magus, in contrast, surrenders with all his maturity and wisdom to recognize and respect that Brida should be set free to find her own space, to grow and learn and become who she is, without him hindering her destiny.

It is enough for the Magus to recognize and find her, that he somehow imparts part of himself to her in his capacity as a teacher. His is a love that goes beyond physical longing — it is a spiritual admiration that defies the call of flesh. In spite of the urges he feels when a situation is presented for him to access Brida as a woman, he holds himself back. A self-sacrifice that only a true soul mate can afford given the “needs and wants” warranted during a moment of frailty.

Many interesting incidents in the book show emotions that we can relate to, like extraordinary experiences of being in a trance with a familiar object or incident, “a state of being in the same place at the same time” or deja vu.

Coehlo presents the plot with a unique vision, and convinces his readers with the strong appeal of breaking against time and its elemental pull. It has always been a challenge for humankind to go against time and its ravages, or to reverse it and go through a phase of cleansing through it. This is what Brida shares — a telescopic view of time and making this channel seamless and interconnected through incidents that loop endlessly.

Coehlo also shows the basic human devotion to defy anything in order to unite and create an ideal reality; this is shown in the characters’ struggle to break away from the conflicts in their current existence.

Brida is about being human, being soft and fragile, being breakable and yet retaining that hint of immortality as the characters defy age and time. It also shows the morality of respecting the laws of nature while unraveling the possibilities of the occult and the realm of magic. It shows human sacrifice as well because of the many instances when the Magus has to remind himself that Brida is not just a soul mate to him but also a student and a young woman with a future.

Life and love, if true and pristine, are pure and selfless. Though love strives to keep the object of one’s passion, it also carefully holds the value of giving it freedom to be whatever it can become. This is true for the Magus and his love for Brida.

In a lifetime we may be given a chance to find a soul mate, or maybe miss that moment except for a glimpse. It is probably like an escape artist breaking rules, defying age and time, and presenting alternate truths. This is what humanity is all about, a dance with the impossible, a trance that leads us to unexplored recesses and possibilities. Typical of Paulo Coehlo’s books, time is an element that lets readers shuttle to and fro moments as if the barriers do not at all exist.  Beyond our daily normal paradigm is a shift that leads us to a magical world that only books like Coehlo’s can take us — and get a forward glimpse of the past while living retrospectively in the present.

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Michelle Punongbayan-Ochoa is a journalism graduate from UST. A writer and essayist living the life of a normal corporate citizen, she dreams of traveling to places and becoming known for her writing. She is “a  Pasigueña, orphaned at five, a mother at age 18, an awakened artist at 40.”