Workshop : By the river Piedra I sat down and Wept

Hola!! este libro me encanto!! es el primero ke lei de pablo y de ahi me hice adicta a sus escritos, es increible la historia, como llega y como uno sueña aveces que las cosas en la vida se den asi de hermosas y vivir un amor como el de los protagonistas

un abrazo gigante!!

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Dear Mr.Paulo Coelho,

I would like to express my delight in your literature. It’s tremendously overwhelming the feeling of inner peace, happiness, contentment every time i read your words in your books. I am a great admire of your literature. I cannot express enough my appreciation for your most knowledgeable, loving, understanding way of writting your words in your books. I had many painful trials and tribulations for the past 15 years of my life with one man, who I dearly, faithfully love. He is the most intriguing, wonderfully, angry, full of sorrow soul I have ever met…..Through all the pain he has put me through he has loved me as well in his only capable way, in his childish way, with fear and shields not to let his soul get more bruises….however, I loved him with all my soul, conversely i acquired many scars, bruises in my soul….still I love him. How can I not?! He is God’s creations, he his God’s reflection of love…..however life experiences throughout these many years, torned his soul and along I can one day wanting to give him love…and I became his victim. We no longer are together, through your words in your books I managed to grow the inner strength, knowledge and wisdom to bring an end to this love story. Together, and above all, my faith in our Almight Lord and his protection, for I am his child as well, I allowed me to keep mentally strong and not break down so i could still look after my dearest, beautiful angel in my life my daughter. I wish I could tell my story to the world, another beautiful love story……I am happy that Almighty has allowed me to experience love, however there is no love without pain. Dear Coelho, It would be the greatest pleasure to meet you one day and tell you personally how your words have made a difference in my life. I was born in Portugal, moved to England – London when i was 19 yrs old, been here since….a few years have gone by. If you are to visit London in the future, kindly inform me. I shall be there in that line anxiously waiting for my turn, to meet the person that through his words have reached and touched many souls.
My congratulations for your wonderful words. I thank God for your soul and gift.

Regards,

Miss. Silva

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Este Libro Fue eL primero Que tuve en mis manos escrito por PauLo Coelho… Y desde La primera Linea me enamore de su forma de hacer sentir a Las personas.

Estuve leyendo a mis amigos (porque asi lo siento) que escribieron sus sentimientos con el libro. Me identifique tanto.

Mi forma quiza es rara de Tomar y comprar libros voy a la libreria y los tomo en mis manos si siento algo extraño en ellos los compro es asi como encontre a Paulo. Lo tome y senti en mi corazon algo extraño y lo compre, de hecho aun no era tan famoso como ahora. Pasaba una etapa turbulenta en mi vida estaba herida y buee.. el que haya sufrido por amor me entendera.

Cuando Lo lei cambio mi vision de las cosas, les puedo decir que mi viejo libro con notas y muy usado me lo robaron pero no robaron el amor que le tengo a eL. Asi que compre otro libro y lo volvi a trabajar. La otra de Pilar se parecia tanto a mi, LLore mucho de hecho lloro mucho al releer el libro. Pero entendi que el amor es entrega total y lo vence todo y me prometi que un dia yo encontraria a alguien que por mi amor haria eso y mas. Y gracias a Mi Dios Esta conmigo ahora y me demostro que por el amor se lucha y se entrega.

Soy Fan de PauLo y sus libros, su forma de vida y de pensar, es parecida a la mia y me hace feliz toda mi vida pense que estaba loca jajaja (cuando lei a Veronica decide morir dije oh! mi vida narrada) ahora se que soy diferente y especial.

Cada que leo un libro de Paulo coeLho siento que el esta siendo el narrador de mi PROPIA VIDA no se porque pero cada libro lleva parte integra de mi describe demasiadas cosas de mi vida personal jajaja mi madre me ha comentado tmb eso que cuando los lee me ve ami en los personajes jaja quiere escribirle a Paulo para la comision jajaja No se como No se porque pero siempre encuentro mis respuestas reflejadas ahi.

Todos tus libros son magicos, pero Este A ORILLAS DEL RIO PIEDRA ME SENTE Y LLORE, siempre sera para mi muy especial. Porque todo lo que dices es REAL, El lado femenino, el ritual, La presencia del agua, La esperanza y el amor.

Larga y prospera Vida… nuestra Virgen Te protega PAULO!
Te amo con todo mi corazon.

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Compartió conmigo tantas enseñanzas, cosas esenciales para vivir, para crecer y para amar, me siento como pilar, pues no se me ocurren palabras bellas para expresar lo que esta historia significo para mí, pero también aprendí, al igual que como aprendió pilar, que solo basta abrir la boca para comenzar a hablar de lo que siente el corazón, el alma.
Me llevo a otro plano espiritual, a pensar mejor las cosas y a llevarme sin querer a encontrar que es lo que en verdad quiero; también despertó muchas dudas, curiosidad y ansias de descubrir la verdad, la verdad que me hará libre. Me valore y me amo más como lo que soy: MUJER, quiero conocer ese lado femenino de Dios, sentirme abrazada y amada, con amor de madre, de amiga, compañera de mi vida.
Mi corazón saltaba de emoción en cada instante en la vida de pilar, era como si a veces me encarnara en ella, podía ver esos bellos paisajes, montañas, ríos, casas, fuentes, iglesias, cuevas. El descubrimiento del amor, de los sueños, deseos y ganas de volar. Ame tanto a ese personaje extraño y hermoso, el cual la llevo de la mano, a descubrir nuevas cosas y a amarlo otra vez. Me enamore.
Creo que aprendemos el ejercicio del otro en el momento justo de nuestra vida, eso es tan cierto, gracias e infinitas gracias a la vida a Dios por eso. Por no sentirme tan insignificante, y darme valor.
Quien no quiere vivir experiencias como esas, pero verdaderamente al leer esta transformadora historia, te sientes parte de ella, tú eres parte de ella, es impresionante. Ame los momentos tan deliciosos de lectura, a veces sentía ganas de comerme la pagina, la sentía tan mía. Amazing!!!!
Gracias Paulo, por devolvernos aquello que nos fue quitado, y que aun nos cuesta entender, pero que dejaremos que el amor inunde nuestro ser. Gracias.

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Once someone I knew asked, how I was able to read a book like the Paulo’s book ‘By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept’. Neither me or my family is religious, but yet the story’s plot consists mostly of two subjects: belief and faith in God. (I think I don’t have to mention the obvious – love, which doesn’t miss from any of Paulos books)

I didn’t know how to answer to that person who asked me that, because it simply didn’t occur to be a distracting or disturbing factor for me, while reading it. I tried to look beyond the outer image of the words and the people, and concentrate to their souls, thoughts, and their story. Living through it, while reading this book, as if it was my own.

I think, it was a miracle, how that story pulled me in itself. I heard the words that I needed to hear at that exact time. These words were: believe, and let go (of the other).

It changed my perception, and indeed I let go, of the old feelings. That’s the time when I started to feel with my whole heart. Not just with a part of it.

Thanks for writing this (and every) book, Paulo.
I have no idea, what made You write it, or where You got the idea from, but it’s wonderous, how Your work slips in peoples arms, their eyes observe the text, breathe it in and let it out, and they realise something new, often becoming a better person for themselves and the world.

This is Your experience and Your perception of things, Your belief. And I’m thankful that You’re sharing it.

Love,
Liina

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Dear Mr Coelho,
as an avid reader of yours i have read most of your books. I couldn’t help my self than notice that each an every book in one way or anoher even in book “The Devil and Mrs Prym” in plot there is a couple that through diversities they end up together sometimes not physically but mentally.
Love starts in our mind passes through our body and ends up to our heart.
You know women too well i think that you describe their personalities, thoughts ect much better than most of women-writters allthough your hero is always a man the woman heroine is the one who will lead, save or redime the man?Do you know women so well or you try to tell us (in another level) something by that?
I really would like more than anything to meet you (as most of your readers of course). Who knows maybe someday you will come to my country.
Am i sound like a crazy for telling that?

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Este livro é incrível,eu realmente sentei e chorei,eu li este livro em 24 horas,não dormi só para poder terminar a leitura,é fantástico,eu me envolvi completamente! Paulo Coelho me fascina muito!!

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Namaste,
I read this book in one weekend. I couldn’t put it down. I just love it. I need to read it again, though before I can talk about it. I think I read it too fast. It read like poetry to me… the river is an excellent metaphor for how this book flowed for me. It was graceful and deep with profound changes. Great work for which I am grateful!

Love to you

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I really never believed that love was real..
MAybe i just pretended.But after I read this book knowingly or unknowingly i began to apply it to my life.Today,I know what I have is all because of the Faith in my Love.As the book saysthe “other” developes inside me at times.But all that matters inthe end is Love and its worth fighting for it.I did and i know i have succeeded.
Thank you Paulo…Wish i could ever meet you…

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This book saved the marriage of my sister and my brother in law.

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The first time I read Piedra, I was caught up in the love story of the couple meeting after many years of having been apart, to discover that their first love, is the true love. Now, the second time I read it, the spiritual story has much more caught my attention, and taken me on a charismatic journey. There is the belief in Magic Moments, the instant when one’s life is suddenly changed forever. Every day, we can find moments in which we can change everything that makes us unhappy, the seminarian tells us. His message is to listen to the child who lives in our soul, and be crazy as the lunatics, because they invented love! The seminarian appears to have the ability to perform miracles, to heal sick people. He tells Pilar not to be frightened, when she resists his love and his faith.

She was born and raised in a Catholic country, had lost her faith, and now slowly starts to pray to the Virgin again. Will the seminarian choose to seek the path of love in following a religious vocation, or in accepting the true love between him and Pilar? During the years apart, they have kept in contact writing letters to each other. It is the seminarian inviting Pilar to come to the conference and to go with him. Pilar struggles first with not being able to return the feelings he has for her, then with a feeling of getting in the way of his spiritual life. He has seen the Virgin. She was smiling to him. He had also sat with masters of magic and of meditation in India and Egypt, united with God and had become able to perform miracles.

The seminarian takes Pilar to worship with a group of charismatics, who are close to the original truth of Christianity, and who is guided by the Woman Dressed by the Sun. Both prayed intensely to find an answer to what path they would take next. A priest, a superior of the seminarian, visits Pilar and helps her finding an answer to what to do. ‘Don’t blame yourself, my child’ the padre said’ (p. 124) We can serve God in many ways. The psalm, By the river of Babylon.., tells of exile and of the Jews wanting to return to the promised land, but cannot. We suffer when we want to return to paradise before it is time to do so. Pilar finds her childhood love has turned into a man with an incredible spiritual force. He is no longer of this world, but lives in communion with God. Pilar prays to Our Lady, to give her back her faith. The seminarian and Pilar kiss. It’s not his or her path any longer. It is Our path, they choose to follow.

It is very sweet to think about; what if I had married the first love of my life. In our society few of us do marry this person. Do we ever find a love more dearly than this first love? Once, doing voluntarily work for a small community of people with and without handicaps, living together (see http://www.trooglys.no/Mariahuset.htm ) I was blessed with having the opportunity to be together with a group of charismatic individuals. The community follow Jean Vanier’s l’Arche idea of ordinary people finding God in company with people with disabilities, with mentally handicapped people. It is a community of faith and light, Foi et Lumiere, where one can be unconditionally accepted, and is a sign of hope where people of differing intellectual capacities, religion, social origin and culture can bridge the differences dividing us, and live in harmony.

I didn’t meet my first love again yet, but during a summer camp for l’Arche groups in Europe, I met a wonderful religious man, who later became my best friend for years. In the company of these jumping, limping, dancing individuals with brain damages, these children and adults who needed so much wordless love caressing, who was so intensely happy or sad, who are so free to be themselves, they took us to some meals and prayers which miraculously, would change our stone hearts to hearts of flesh and blood. ‘Hurray’, one would yell when the priest celebrated Mass. ‘I want the little bread in the little Church’. They would talk in limping sentences. Milk. Bread. Night. Sad. Love. You, mentally handicapped, in you I can see Gods own smile. You send me to find you something to eat. You love the plate with polka dots, and you jump in the grass to sunbath there. You see the shy and hidden smile in humans, and hear the scared cry in us. You see it right away. Soon you dance with Jesus-priest, with tiny steps. How much a child God is. How hungry God is. We dance in a ring. The feeling of mistake, ruin all joy. The pains cannot come out in words. What is important, is to belong to a small community, and sing Salve Regina at the bed side today and all days. (these words have been inspired by Vera Sæther’s ‘Praise to you, Sister Bread. Texts about a human child’ see http://www.weras.net/saether.html).

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you know, only yesterday i was wondering to myself whether there would maybe be some link that connected St John of the Cross [whose poetry I adore] to Teresa of Avila [who is talked of here]…
some excuse to write his poetry and share it here i guess..

but anyway.. there ARE.. today as i search for the relevant poem to write here, i see their two names shared on a saints day, celebrated by the lutheran church.

A romance on the psalm “By the waters of Babylon” [Ps. 137].
by St. John of the Cross

By the rivers
of Babylon
I sat down weeping,
there on the ground.
And remembering you,
O Zion, whom I loved,
in that sweet memory
I wept even more.
I took off my feastday clothes
and put on my working ones;
I hung on the green willows
all the joy I had in song,
putting it aside for that
which I hoped for in you.
There love wounded me
and took away my heart.
I begged love to kill me
since it had so wounded me;
I threw myself in its fire
knowing it burned,
excusing now the young bird
that would die in the fire.
I was dying in myself,
breathing in you alone.
I died within myself for you
and for you I revived,
because the memory of you
gave life and took it away.
The strangers among whom
I was captive rejoiced;
they asked me to sing
what I sang in Zion:
Sing us a song from Zion,
let’s hear how it sounds.
I said: How can I sing,
in a strange land where I weep
for Zion, sing of the happiness
that I had there?
I would be forgetting her
if I rejoiced in a strange land.
May the tongue I speak with
cling to my palate
if I forget you
in this land where I am.
Zion, by the green branches
Babylon holds out to me,
may my right hand be forgotten
(that I so loved when home in you)
if I do not remember you,
my greatest joy,
or celebrate one feastday,
or feast at all without you.
O Daughter of Babylon,
miserable and wretched!
Blessed is he
in whom I have trusted,
for he will punish you
as you have me;
and he will gather his little ones
and me, who wept because of you,
at the rock who is Christ
for whom I abandoned you.

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I have to confess, that this is the book that introduced me to Paulos work and led me to read further.
The book has a special meaning for me, because it was an encouragement for me to finally figure out who I am, what I need to do in life to feel fullfilled. And even moreso, it governed me to believe in myself more and trust in the possibility of changes, which we, in this blog, like to call transformations. I wanted to stop feeling sorry for myself, start appreacitaing life and start to believe that I was worth a good life.

Most of the people, who I have encountered with, whilst talking about literature, either love his work or hate his work (Paulos books). Also mainly the first book that they have gotten in touch with is the Alchemist, or Veronica Decides to Die. Alchemist has become a sort of a pearl in my region and most people, who have read it, praise it.

For me, as mentioned before, it was By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept. Getting this book into my hands was by a good accident. My brother had been given a gift card for a bookstore in Tallinn, and somehow he ended buying this book. It ended in my hands and I happened to read it before my brother was able to. I remember clearly, that it was an evening, maybe around 7 or 8 pm when I started reading it, and I finished in the morning at around 5-6 am. I was so catchy and I was unable to stop reading. I can’t describe how it felt, but I can say that it felt great – to have a book in my hand and not wanting to stop before I finish it to the last page.

For some reason, I am humble enough to not discuss the characters, the plot, the framing of this book. I believe, everyone have different experiences and different connections with different parts of the book. Some like one thing, other one feels more connected to something else. Since I am no authority and basically I know nothing about literature, I will stay amateur – silently. On the other hand, what I would like to share is my connection with the book: what I learned or what it made me think about while reading it.

Since 2003 I have read the book from cover to cover 3 times. But I remember, that reading it for the first time made me think deeper. At that time I was in a crossroad of my life. I wanted a change, but I wasn’t sure if I can pull it off, and it seemed unreal to accomplish some of the things just because I did not believe in myself. When I was around 10 years old, I was taken advantage of, as a young girl, by two young men of the age around 17. And this went on for several summers. At that time, of course, I didn’t know any better. I didn’t even tell anyone about it, until around 2003-2004. That’s the year of some of the biggest changes in my life. This was the year that I moved to another city, about 200 km-s from home, starting to study in the university. I remember having a hard time, the first two semesters, because I had never been away from home for longer than 5-7 days and it was odd to be all by myself, in an unknown city, for me. It was also a city I had never been to before. But after the first year I started loving it.

Right in the beginning of my studies in the university I was taking a class called ‘Clinical Psychology’. There they talked about different psychical diseases. As I observed, it suddenly recurred to me, that these incidences happened to me. I had forgotten about this event for more than 10 years and this class brought it all back. For the first time in my life I understood, why I had been living all these years in depression and supression, not coming out of my shell, at all. I simply had forgotten about it. And forgetting about something for a period of time does not solve the problem/incident. It only prolongs it. So I made a choice – this is a time to do different. I wanted to break out of it.

After another year a girl of my class came to me and confessed: “Liina… you know, at first, I did not dare to even speak to you. You seemed mean, and arrogant. I have no idea, why I thought so, but now I am glad that I got to know you and finally see who you really are…”
These words really made me think. I was on a verge of changing, and seeing, that taking charge and actually having even little steps or goals which to follow, can turn your life around enormously. Week by week, day by day I started to come out my shell a little bit. And for that I thank everyone that was in my circle, everyone that had an impact on me, from my family to a writer I have never met before, but with who I can identify with.

This book of Paulo was also included in this period, and it was the final sign for me to be sure of myself and so to say, jump in the river of life. I can’t explain this feeling, it was so liberating to let go of all the old feelings and concentrate on right now, today, and the every day possibilities and every day miracles.

There is also another post in my online-journal about this book at:
http://anaby.livejournal.com/86637.html

In conclusion: I am sure, that every person has it’s own connection to different books, different characters in the books, and even with different authors. Every day, people are touched with different messages that can have the power to change our lives, if taken seriously. I am glad to share mine, and I am hoping to read about another connections. I am also thankful for all the things that happened to make me come out of my shell and Paulos book was one of them.

Gracias once more.
Warmhearted love from Estonia,
Liina L.

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Um livro maravilhoso, eu sentei na beira da minha cama e chorei também, uma estória linda, o amor dela por ele abrange tudo a sua volta, ela ama sua vida além dele próprio. Achei interessante o título, melhor não seria possível, afinal, é o momento marcante do livro.
Até hoje (li este livro certa de 4 anos atrás)lembro da mensagem inicial onde o jovem padre fala sobre o momento especial que cada um temos, todo o dia tem seu momento. Desde que descobri isso meus dias melhoraram.
Obrigada!

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In a way the title of this book is unusual, being as long as it is. I was wondering about the river. Who called it Babylon and who calls it Piedra? Guess it is the same river. Neat how the reference below, links to your novel! Definitely puts your novel in a broader light.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psalm_137

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