I will find you,” he whispered in my ear. “I promise. If I must endure two hundred years of purgatory, two hundred years without you—then that is my punishment, which I have earned for my crimes. For I have lied, and killed, and stolen; betrayed and broken trust. But there is the one thing that shall lie in the balance. When I shall stand before God, I shall have one thing to say, to weigh against the rest.”
His voice dropped, nearly to a whisper, and his arms tightened around me.
“Lord, ye gave me a rare woman, and God! I loved her well.

Dragonfly in Amber, Diana Gabaldon

A Love Story With Fire (Book Review)

I just finished Diana Gabaldon’s Firefly in Amber and found it a magnificent study of the human heart, of love, sadness…and that powerful force that draws lovers together…destiny? Desire? Magic?

Through this somewhat supernatural jaunt through 18th century Scotland to modern day this dense novel pulls the reader through tribulation and trial, through life and death, through reunion and separation and yet you never lose the sense that all of these forces are simply cyclical choices thrust upon us by life and answered by our will alone..striving for that….for WHO…makes us whole…and yet the realization comes slowly that with every sense of fulfillment a new barrier arrises…and the cycle continues.

Heartbreakingly touching…this is a novel for those who long to explore both sides of love…

I hope you enjoy it as much as I…xxx c

Dragonfly in Amber: A definition of the PERFECT imbalance of REAL LOVE…

I have been considering what makes LOVE…LONG LASTING…what makes an ENDURING LOVE…

And happened upon a passage while reading “Dragonfly in Amber” by Diana Gabaldon:

The novel is a historical drama set in 18th Century France. Anyway, I came to this passage and was compelled to reflect on my own relationship. Particularly, it asked me to consider the dialectic that we all accept when we REALLY love another person…that imbalance that we navigate between extreme and at times untamable sexual passion, and true tenderness and nurturance…and I realized that this paradox is what truly marks a love…a love worth the effort and time it takes to cultivate and understand that balance:

 ’I always thought it would be a simple matter to lie wi’ a woman,’ he said softly. ‘and yet…I want to fall on my face at your feet and worship you’—he dropped the towel and reached out, taking me by the shoulders—‘and still i want to force ye to your knees before me, and hold ye there wi’ my hands tangled in your hair, and you mouth at my service…and i want both things at the same time.’ He ran his hands up under my hair and gripped my face between them hard.

reading this passage represented a true and rare moment of clarity…I am so thankful to literature…for opening my mind AND my heart…xxx c