Recently a friend hit a frustration point with the "Twin Flame" information on the web that, after she vented to me, she asked that I help clarify things a bit.
Why me? Because, whether or not others believe in it, I've met my Twinnie (as he and I like to call it). We've ties to one another that are enough to make my atheist husband a believer.
While people now confuse the notion of Soul Mates, two souls that long for one another to be one, with Twin Souls the notion of the split human is actually not as New Age or esoteric as the current culture would have us believe.
The first historic mention of this notion actually appears in a work of fiction by Plato. In his play the character Aristophanes wrote of humans with four arms, four legs, one head with two faces. These humans had three genders; male, female, and androgynous (containing both male and female). When the Gods saw how powerful humans were, Zeus split each into two and Apollo stitched the individuals up. Males were from the sun. Females of earth. Androgynous from the moon. This diminished the power of humans and created more individuals to worship the gods.
This story was fully about gods exerting control over humans, and perhaps served as a parable to explain the longing or ties we occasionally feel for another person. Yet, the fact remains, it was a work of Greek fiction.
The most common findings of the Soul Mate/Twin Soul theory can actually be found in more contemporary religions. The Bible tells us that Eve was created from a rib bone from Adam.
In the Jewish faith there are plag nishmase, the concept that men and women are half souls that eventually unite in matrimony.
The fact that a culture that shuns much of formal religion, especially Christianity, readily embraces a notion set forth by them is quite intriguing to me.
Moving back to Plato, which started as three genders, gives more support to the idea that not all Twin Souls would have to reunite as romance. A male or female soul split in half and reuniting with another fe/male soul need not be homosexual, just as an androgynous soul need not be straight romance. Were this to be the set rule, there would actually be a population issue where only the androgynous would be the ones to breed. This is also stating that, with the other common belief held with Twin Flames, reincarnation, that we would continually reincarnate in similar form, mindset, emotion, etc. This does not lend itself to the growth we are supposed to encounter in each life. If we end up continually with the same soul, or even the same circle of people, our soul experience would not be expanded and its growth prohibited.
While reincarnation has been embraced with the Twin Soul concept, there is absolutely no evidence of the two existing together as part of a religious anthropology. Somehow this is tied to the belief that we spend our lifetimes pining and searching for our other half, and that our life is simply a half existence without connecting with that person.
This fills me with tremendous sadness.
New Age, Pagan, and alternative faiths are dedicated to personal strength, connecting to self on a deeper and stronger level and yet here we are being filled with the contrary, and potentially harmful, ideas that we are incomplete without another person to fill that empty half.
Fast forward to my meeting my Twinnie. It was an uncanny connection almost immediately, but it was not a Lifetime Movie style romance. Very often we were so alike that we clashed, but when we worked together it was..powerful. Magical. We were able to accomplish, to tap into, strengths and happenings that we did not know were possible. The journey was not easy and as often happens, all paths split. He chose one path, while I selected another that lead me to my husband, a relationship now 18 years and going strong.
Twinnie and I have gone periods of time without speaking but we've never lost our connection, one so strong that sometimes we even feel each others physical pain. We understand one another, at times when no one else does. It's a connection that can't be denied, and I love my Twinnie, but it's not romantic.
My husband would probably be very upset if it were.
Not that it was always easy on him either. A firm follower of science and a believer in what can be proved, my husband spent his fair share of time confused and exercising his patience to limits I'm not sure he knew he had. There were times he asked if it was worth the downs, and the tears that came with them, for me to stay in contact with my Twinnie. Hub asked me questions that, instead of my just jumping into a common definition of what the mythos or play tells us Twin Flames should be, forced me to really define what it is to me, what Twinnie and I are to one another. At the time I thought that perhaps Hub was feeling insecure, but now I know that I had a horrible time explaining it and he was searching for clarification, which gave me such delightful clarity for myself.
In the end Twinnie walked me down the aisle at my wedding, and when Twinnie finds a lady worthy of his affection, Hub helps explain the Twin Flame connection to help ease the new lady into the relationship. Still, and here's the important part that people miss, my life was not incomplete without my Twinnie. I have a full, wonderful life of joy and wonder, of love and connection. I have worked hard for it, because no one person, no one thing, will fill a void if we feel we are incomplete, and that is an unfair burden to put on someone that we are supposed to care so much about.
Instead my Twinnie makes my life richer, happier, and more wonderful with his presence, with our connection. He is not a bandage to what is wrong in my life. Instead he is a valued addition to this life, as he has been in my past lives, because he is worthy of that respect as my Twinnie and as my friend. Where we began, why we were divided, will most likely always be a mystery and that's okay. Looking back to where it started is not nearly as important as moving forward together enough to support on another and apart enough to keep things interesting.
Because love is not the exclusive domain of romance, and neither are Twin Flames.
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