The Alchemist

I've finished reading The Alchemist last night. Wow! What an inspiring novel! It isn't like The Secret at all. My concerns were unfounded.

I want to have a Personal Legend. Correction– I have a Personal Legend. Doesn't everyone? It's just that some never discover it. They see the omens, they ignore the omens, and then the omens no longer speak because it is too late.

The part of the novel that touched me the most was when Santiago and the alchemist were traveling through the Sahara Desert and they found a seashell. The alchemist told Santiago that the desert used to be ocean, and as Santiago held the seashell up to his ear he could hear the echoes of ocean contained in the shell. The alchemist then explained that that was the ocean's Personal Legend.

As I pondered that it struck me that we leave echoes of ourselves in the hearts and souls of others– echoes that say, “I was here!” We exist in many places at once, much like the ocean still exists in the chambers of the seashell. And even though the ocean wasn't visible, it was in a sense still one with the seashell. Perhaps that is the conspiracy of the universe. Everything is connected, albeit through distant echoes– The Soul of the World! Invisible, but very real!

I want very much to become lost in this Soul. Honestly, my heart aches for it, and I believe that this is what integral is all about. For as we leave whispers and echoes in the heart chambers of others, the whispers and echoes of others are left in ours, for better or for worse. Give and you shall receive! How wonderfully playful this universe we live in!

Will the sea cover the desert, the Beloved, once again? Will Santiago return to Fatima at the oasis? In the Language and Soul of the World, these questions are asking the same thing.

“I'm coming, my Beloved!”