Almost 10 years ago, I read the book ‘The Forty Rules of Love’ by Elif Şafak. It planted dozens of seeds for some important encounters and transformations that would follow later in my life. The book recently came into my hands again. I felt called to dive into it again. Grateful for this decision, I would like to write more about it here. And if you haven’t read it yet and feel ready to take on the challenge, don’t wait any longer!
“No matter who we are or where we live, deep inside we all feel incomplete. It’s like we have lost something and need to get it back. Just what that something is, most of us never find out. And of those who do, even fewer manage to go out and look for it.”
This quote written by Aziz Zahara, the mysterious sufi writer in the book, shows how this book is intended for value seekers. For those who want to move beyond the status quo and what is supposedly expected of us by our neighbours and society. That feeling that something is missing, that something is not quite right, is for many people an expression of hidden feelings, repressed memories or even hidden trauma. Elif Safak, the Turkish-American author of the book, describes with gusto how the various characters each deal with that feeling of ‘incompleteness’ in their own way.
The beggar Hassan avoids confrontation with his fellow citizens, the sex worker Desert Rose bravely embarks on a spiritual quest against the wishes of many men in the city (yes, women were also oppressed in 1243), the sufi mystic Shams Tabrizi goes on search for his soul mate (the then famous and respected teacher Rumi) and Suleiman the drunk finds solace in the wine. The main character Ella rebels against her emotionally inaccessible husband, who thinks his way of finding happiness by cheating. At one point, she even neglects her self-proclaimed duty as a mother. She also slowly abandons the household chores. Carefully at first, but then she loses herself faster and faster in the grip of true love, true intimacy.
Elif Şafak zooms in on the underlying patterns in each character’s behaviour in the book. But especially Ella we get to know well. A devoted, nurturing mother and wife (I deliberately do not use the gender-stereotyped word ‘housewife’ here) who is always, without exception, there for others. She completely ignores herself. Out of unconscious resentment towards her own mother, she wants to compensate as much as possible in her own life for what she herself has been wronged. She consciously chose to marry within her religion, Judaism. She consciously chose a man who gave her security and confirmation. Sex and passion are secondary to domestic warmth and affection. All these protection mechanisms that have supported her all these years in order to master the world (these cliché protection mechanisms in women are unfortunately still maintained by family, media and society). But that was not counting the written meeting with Aziz, and with his book “Sweet Blasphemy” which she had to read as a test reader for a publishing house.
In 40 lines, Shams tells us everything about love, about #trueintimacy. One of my favourite lines is also an important line in cuddle workshops, about the power of silence: ” Most of the problems of the world stem from linguistic mistakes and simple misunderstanding. Don’t ever take words at face value. When you step into the zone of love, language, as we know it, becomes obsolete. That which cannot be put into words can only be grasped through silence.”
Or this inspiring quote about (often ecologically irresponsible 😉 ) travelling to nowhere: “East, west, south, or north makes little difference. No matter what your destination is, just be sure to make every journey a journey within. If you travel within, you’ll travel the whole wide world and beyond.”
When we glimpse what #trueintimacy can mean in our lives, there is no turning back. The seed has been planted. You can then choose to continuously push that seed back into the ground or to destroy the young plant. But the seed is persistent, even with the poisonous Roundup you can’t get it down. It will forever obscure your view of your inner garden. But you can also choose to really look at it for the first time, to water it, to feed it and to be nice to it. Who knows, the seedling may grow into a beautiful flower, shrub or tree. Who knows, #trueintimacy may become part of your garden…
