Searching for Love, scrapped knee, broken heart and all…

Brida is a young Irish girl (or lass as the Irish would say), intent and hell-bent on achieving her wish to learn witchcraft. Her search takes her to a man, The Magus – a teacher of the Tradition of the Sun and also to a woman, The Wicca – a teacher of the Tradition of the Moon. Her search also brings her face to face with some of her deepest darkest fear – the biggest of them being love and commitment.

Brida, another book by Brazilian author Paulo Coelho, is a passionate tale of love, passion and mystery. With a healthy dose of spirituality (which in this instance is about the two traditions mentioned above) that would make you want to re-examine the importance of believing in something, an authority higher than that which we know scientifically.

Coelho, as always, examines life and love in his own fashion.

On life, he brings Brida through the rituals of the traditions – rituals that reveal her past lives, which in turn reveals her Gift in the science of witchcraft. He also brings Brida to points of frustration where she could either bend until she breaks or bend and bounce back to be a stronger person than before. He makes Brida examine her beliefs and her decisions on her life todate and he shows us, the reader, how each examination brings about a certain kind of growth – one which we often neglect to appreciate.

On love, Coelho brings Brida to cross-roads: her current love who is so different from her, or a man who is on surface her teacher on her quest, but with whom she feels a certain affinity that runs so deep it confuses her. He brings her to look at her boyfriend without the rose-coloured glasses that one normally wears when one is in love, and showing us that while it is a risk to look at our object of affections up close and so personal, the rewards can be so enriching in return.

One of my favourite part of the book is Brida’s experience of the Dark Night – which in my humble opinion, sums up each experience that we would have had when fear tightened its vice-like grip around our hearts, immobilising us to the point of paralysis. While Brida may have experienced the Dark Night in a forest with wild animals (but mind you, no snakes because they were all driven out of Ireland by its Patron Saint – St Patrick many years ago), the emotions and torment that she goes through would be no different from yours or mine, even if ours were within the four walls we call our room, office or car.

I have always found Paulo Coelho’s books to be profound and eye-opening but with Brida, his unmistakeable talent of turning something so complicated called LOVE into something so simple, is at its very best.

Brida – it would actually make you sit up and recall the many nights spent in agony over a broken heart, wondering why in heaven’s name did you have to experience so much pain. And if you allow it, it would hand your wounded heart back to you, all taped up and healed – ready to take on life and love once again.

Book information:

Title: Brida

Author: Paulo Coelho

Publisher: HarperCollins (266 pages)

ISBN: 978-0-00-727446-8

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