Chapter 28: The Farewell ~ Gibran’s The Prophet with Journaling Prompts

And now it was evening.

And Almitra the seeress said, Blessed be

this day and this place and your spirit

that has spoken.

And he answered, Was it I who spoke? Was

I not also a listener?

*****

Then he descended the steps of the

Temple and all the people followed him.

And he reached his ship and stood upon

the deck.

And facing the people again, he raised

his voice and said:

People of Orphalese, the wind bids me

leave you.

Less hasty am I than the wind, yet I

must go.

We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier

way, begin no day where we have ended

another day; and no sunrise finds us

where sunset left us.

Even while the earth sleeps we travel.

We are the seeds of the tenacious

plant, and it is in our ripeness and our

fullness of heart that we are given to

the wind and are scattered.

*****

Brief were my days among you, and

briefer still the words I have spoken.

But should my voice fade in your ears,

and my love vanish in your memory, then

I will come again,

And with a richer heart and lips more

yielding to the spirit will I speak.

Yea, I shall return with the tide,

And though death may hide me, and the

greater silence enfold me, yet again

will I seek your understanding.

And not in vain will I seek.

If aught I have said is truth, that

truth shall reveal itself in a clearer

voice, and in words more kin to your

thoughts.

I go with the wind, people of

Orphalese, but not down into emptiness;

And if this day is not a fulfilment

of your needs and my love, then let it

be a promise till another day.

Man’s needs change, but not his love,

nor his desire that his love should

satisfy his needs.

Know therefore, that from the greater

silence I shall return.

The mist that drifts away at dawn,

leaving but dew in the fields, shall

rise and gather into a cloud and then

fall down in rain.

And not unlike the mist have I been.

In the stillness of the night I have

walked in your streets, and my spirit

has entered your houses,

And your heart-beats were in my heart,

and your breath was upon my face, and I

knew you all.

Ay, I knew your joy and your pain,

and in your sleep your dreams were my

dreams.

And oftentimes I was among you a lake

among the mountains.

I mirrored the summits in you and the

bending slopes, and even the

passing flocks of your thoughts and your

desires.

And to my silence came the laughter

of your children in streams, and the

longing of your youths in rivers.

And when they reached my depth the

streams and the rivers ceased not yet to

sing.

But sweeter still than laughter and

greater than longing came to me.

It was the boundless in you;

The vast man in whom you are all but

cells and sinews;

He in whose chant all your singing is

but a soundless throbbing.

It is in the vast man that you are vast,

And in beholding him that I beheld you

and loved you.

For what distances can love reach that

are not in that vast sphere?

What visions, what expectations and what

presumptions can outsoar that flight?

Like a giant oak tree covered with apple

blossoms is the vast man in you.

His might binds you to the earth, his

fragrance lifts you into space, and in

his durability you are deathless.

*****

You have been told that, even like a

chain, you are as weak as your weakest

link.

This is but half the truth. You are also

as strong as your strongest link.

To measure you by your smallest deed

is to reckon the power of ocean by the

frailty of its foam.

To judge you by your failures is to

cast blame upon the seasons for their

inconstancy.

Ay, you are like an ocean,

And though heavy-grounded ships await

the tide upon your shores, yet, even

like an ocean, you cannot hasten your

tides.

And like the seasons you are also,

And though in your winter you deny your

spring,

Yet spring, reposing within you, smiles

in her drowsiness and is not offended.

Think not I say these things in

order that you may say the one to the

other, “He praised us well. He saw but

the good in us.”

I only speak to you in words of that

which you yourselves know in thought.

And what is word knowledge but a shadow

of wordless knowledge?

Your thoughts and my words are waves

from a sealed memory that keeps records

of our yesterdays,

And of the ancient days when the earth

knew not us nor herself,

And of nights when earth was up-wrought

with confusion.

*****

Wise men have come to you to give you

of their wisdom. I came to take of your

wisdom:

And behold I have found that which is

greater than wisdom.

It is a flame spirit in you ever

gathering more of itself,

While you, heedless of its expansion,

bewail the withering of your days.

It is life in quest of life in

bodies that fear the grave.

*****

There are no graves here.

These mountains and plains are a cradle

and a stepping-stone.

Whenever you pass by the field where

you have laid your ancestors look well

thereupon, and you shall see yourselves

and your children dancing hand in hand.

Verily you often make merry without

knowing.

Others have come to you to whom for

golden promises made unto your faith

you have given but riches and power and

glory.

Less than a promise have I given, and

yet more generous have you been to me.

You have given me my deeper thirsting

after life.

Surely there is no greater gift to a man

than that which turns all his aims

into parching lips and all life into a

fountain.

And in this lies my honour and my reward,--

That whenever I come to the fountain

to drink I find the living water itself

thirsty;

And it drinks me while I drink it.

*****

Some of you have deemed me proud and

over-shy to receive gifts.

Too proud indeed am I to receive wages,

but not gifts.

And though I have eaten berries among

the hills when you would have had me sit

at your board,

And slept in the portico of the temple

when you would gladly have sheltered me,

Yet was it not your loving mindfulness

of my days and my nights that made food

sweet to my mouth and girdled my sleep

with visions?

For this I bless you most:

You give much and know not that you give

at all.

Verily the kindness that gazes upon itself in a mirror turns to

stone,

And a good deed that calls itself by

tender names becomes the parent to a

curse.

*****

And some of you have called me aloof,

and drunk with my own aloneness,

And you have said, “He holds council

with the trees of the forest, but not

with men.

He sits alone on hill-tops and looks

down upon our city.”

True it is that I have climbed the hills

and walked in remote places.

How could I have seen you save from a

great height or a great distance?

How can one be indeed near unless he be

far?

And others among you called unto me, not

in words, and they said,

“Stranger, stranger, lover of

unreachable heights, why dwell you among

the summits where eagles build

their nests?

Why seek you the unattainable?

What storms would you trap in your net,

And what vaporous birds do you hunt in

the sky?

Come and be one of us.

Descend and appease your hunger with our

bread and quench your thirst with our

wine.”

In the solitude of their souls they said

these things;

But were their solitude deeper they

would have known that I sought but the

secret of your joy and your pain,

And I hunted only your larger selves

that walk the sky.

*****

But the hunter was also the hunted;

For many of my arrows left my bow only

to seek my own breast.

And the flier was also the creeper;

For when my wings were spread in the

sun their shadow upon the earth was a

turtle.

And I the believer was also the doubter;

For often have I put my finger

in my own wound that I might have the

greater belief in you and the greater

knowledge of you.

*****

And it is with this belief and this

knowledge that I say,

You are not enclosed within your bodies,

nor confined to houses or fields.

That which is you dwells above the

mountain and roves with the wind.

It is not a thing that crawls into

the sun for warmth or digs holes into

darkness for safety,

But a thing free, a spirit that envelops

the earth and moves in the ether.

If these be vague words, then seek not

to clear them.

Vague and nebulous is the beginning of

all things, but not their end,

And I fain would have you remember me as

a beginning.

Life, and all that lives, is conceived

in the mist and not in the crystal.

And who knows but a crystal is mist in decay?

*****

This would I have you remember in

remembering me:

That which seems most feeble and

bewildered in you is the strongest and

most determined.

Is it not your breath that has erected

and hardened the structure of your

bones?

And is it not a dream which none of you

remember having dreamt, that builded

your city and fashioned all there is in

it?

Could you but see the tides of that

breath you would cease to see all else,

And if you could hear the whispering of

the dream you would hear no other sound.

But you do not see, nor do you hear, and

it is well.

The veil that clouds your eyes shall be

lifted by the hands that wove it,

And the clay that fills your ears shall

be pierced by those fingers that kneaded

it.

And you shall see.

And you shall hear.

Yet you shall not deplore having known

blindness, nor regret having been deaf.

For in that day you shall know the

hidden purposes in all things,

And you shall bless darkness as you

would bless light.

After saying these things he looked

about him, and he saw the pilot of his

ship standing by the helm and gazing

now at the full sails and now at the

distance.

And he said:

Patient, over patient, is the captain of

my ship.

The wind blows, and restless are the

sails;

Even the rudder begs direction;

Yet quietly my captain awaits my

silence.

And these my mariners, who have heard

the choir of the greater sea, they too

have heard me patiently.

Now they shall wait no longer.

I am ready.

The stream has reached the sea, and

once more the great mother holds her son

against her breast.

*****

Fare you well, people of Orphalese.

This day has ended.

It is closing upon us even as the

water-lily upon its own tomorrow.

What was given us here we shall keep,

And if it suffices not, then again must

we come together and together stretch

our hands unto the giver.

Forget not that I shall come back to

you.

A little while, and my longing shall

gather dust and foam for another body.

A little while, a moment of rest upon

the wind, and another woman shall bear

me.

Farewell to you and the youth I have

spent with you.

It was but yesterday we met in a

dream.

You have sung to me in my

aloneness, and I of your longings have

built a tower in the sky.

But now our sleep has fled and our dream

is over, and it is no longer dawn.

The noontide is upon us and our half

waking has turned to fuller day, and we

must part.

If in the twilight of memory we should

meet once more, we shall speak again

together and you shall sing to me a

deeper song.

And if our hands should meet in another

dream we shall build another tower in

the sky.

*****

So saying he made a signal to the

seamen, and straightway they weighed

anchor and cast the ship loose from its

moorings, and they moved eastward.

And a cry came from the people as from a

single heart, and it rose into the dusk

and was carried out over the sea like a

great trumpeting.

Only Almitra was silent, gazing after

the ship until it had vanished into

the mist.

And when all the people were dispersed

she still stood alone upon the sea-wall,

remembering in her heart his saying,

“A little while, a moment of rest upon

the wind, and another woman shall bear

me.”

 

~ Chapter 28 “The Farewell” from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

Spirit Nourished Earth created the image in this post in collaboration with DALL·E 3

 

 

 

Journaling Prompts for Self-Reflection

 

The Journey of the Soul

The prophet speaks of returning in a richer form, with a clearer voice.  How does the idea of spiritual evolution and re-emergence resonate with your journey of growth and transformation?

The Nature of Love

Gibran suggests that love is constant, transcending the changes in human needs.  In what ways does love persist through the cycles of your own life, even when your desires or circumstances change?

Seeking the Greater Self

The prophet describes seeking the “larger selves” of people, those who walk the sky.  How might you cultivate a deeper connection to your larger self beyond the limitations of the body and mind?

 

Transcending the Material World

Gibran writes that we are not enclosed within our bodies; rather, our spirits envelop the Earth and move freely in the ether.  How do you relate to the idea of being more than your physical form, and how can this awareness influence your daily actions and interactions?

 

 

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