May Ziadah was a regular contributor to leading newspapers
and periodicals of her age. Her work as
a reviewer of new literary work introduced her to Kahlil Gibran, whose
influence on her thought and style can be seen everywhere in her works. Although the two had only known each other
through correspondence, a fascinating literary and love relationship came to
exist between them: they seemed to have
achieved a harmony and understanding rare even among people who are more
intimately connected.
Her home was in Cairo
Kahlil and May were both Lebanese writers living in
different parts of the world. They knew
one another solely from the letters they exchanged and from each other’s work;
they never met except in their imaginations and dreams, through the roaming of
their spirits in search of eternal reality and of each other as kindred souls.
The love letters between Kahlil and May began in 1912 and continued
right up to Kahlil’s death in 1931. At
first the letters took the form of literary correspondence. The relationship changed from mutual
admiration to a firm friendship, than to the final admission of love. Kahlil and May were united in a Sufi yearning
and striving towards the “God Self.” The
“Blue Flame,” which Kahlil used as the symbol of God in man, also became the
symbol of his eternal love for May. The
two lovers joined in a spiritual procession towards the Blue Flame, the eternal
flame of reality. For him love needed no
words to express itself because it was a serene hymn heard through the silence
of the night; the mist and essence of all things.
Kahlil felt that man’s only path to self-realization lay in
Love. In his first book, The Madman, the
only sane person able to remove his masks and look reality straight in the face
is considered a madman by his fellows.
In May he found in one person the incarnation of everything that his
soul yearned for. The sketches and drawings on the sides of many of his letters
to her show how much at ease he felt with her, and how near to him she was.
~Great Pain is great purification.
Reference~Gibran Love Letters 
