An Embroidered, Intertwined Life

Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart. –Marcus Aurelius

I read a post once that made me smile. I read about the red thread.

It’s an old belief born out of East Asian folklore that the Gods used to tie a piece of red string around the ankle or pinkie of those destined to meet and help each other or be together in some way. It’s a thread binding two souls, with no concern for time, place, circumstance – all those things which keep you searching for the elusive other part of you.

The difference with the red thread, and the reason it appeals to me, is that it negates the idea of ‘the search’, and simply presents the idea that you’re already bound. It’s not a search; it’s a connection already forged. It runs deeper than finding; it already is. That’s why once in a while, you find that soul-connection.

The original legend goes like this:

A young boy was walking home one day and encountered an elderly man reading a book. He asked what the old man was reading. The old man responded that it was a book of marriages, and that the young boy was destined to marry a particular girl, and showed him the picture.

The boy hated the idea of marriage, and when he saw the girl from the picture, he was horrified, and threw rocks to scare her, and ran away.

Years later, a marriage was arranged by the boy’s parents to a girl in the next village. When he met his bride, she had a scar above her eyebrow. He asked her about it, and she told him that as a child, a boy had thrown rocks at her.

The point of the story is essentially submitting to higher power; something many, if not most, folk are familiar with. It’s pretty much the cement that holds the bricks of this here house together. Submission. Power. What’s interesting is that I subscribe to this legend because it calls to all the different facets of what I already believe:

• Threads that pull together like a tapestry
• Higher power with no discernible name
• Submission
• Fate and destiny
• Connections that traverse time and defy logic, and logistics.

The crux is not fighting it. What’s written was carved deep enough not to be changed. I’m a believer that we can change course, get waylaid, but the destination is always the same.

But the string also denotes loyalty. It’s something you can’t fight, and you can’t break, and you can’t throw away. Who doesn’t want connections like that in life?

But what if you’ve never had them, or what if your threads have frayed? Well, then they weren’t threads of the Gods. They were the threads you tied. It could be a kaleidoscope of colour, but it’ll never be the Red Thread.

I like the idea that no matter where you are in the world, how near or far you are, the thread remains. You could feel distant as fuck from the person you’re tied to, and one pluck reminds you they’re at the other end. Feel the tension, take up the slack. It’s indestructible – so pull that sucker closer. They’re out there, but you don’t have to look.

I see a lot of people use Rumi quotes on their profiles and writings, and I’m reminded of this one:

“The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind I was. Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.”

A quote that resonates with me every time I’m thrown one of the sets of three little words I’ve grown to adore completely.

But what about the threads catching? Getting tangled up? Well there’s the magic. They’re there from birth. As we age, we progress along the thread and closer to the person at the other end. They grow outward from our soul and entwine with someone else’s as soon as we arrive.

Wouldn’t it feel good to throw yourself into the unknown knowing you have a tether line? That someone is there to catch you, to teach you, or to fall with you?

Maybe it’s a less lonely world than we realise.

So let your threads tangle with others, let your colourful cotton splay out and weave into whatever intricate pattern you desire, but remember:

The Red Thread may stretch or tangle, but it will never break.

You were destined to be lovers.