Brida, by Paulo Coelho

Brida is a novel by the Brazilian author Paulo Coelho. The book was
published for the first time in 1990 and its original language is Portuguese, but
since then it was has been translated translated into another 39 languages.
The main character of this book is Brida,a modern young Irish woman
of our time. She studies literature in the University of Dublin and, at the same
time, she works at an office as a secretary. She lives alone, she is in love with a
man around her age and she is quite content of her life.
However, for a long time she has been interested in magic as well. It is
an internal call for the mystery of the Universe, a spiritual search for the
essence of things that drives her. Despite the prejudice for magic she had
learned from her Christian family, she cannot ignore her inner voice to search
for something more.
Her search leads her to people of great wisdom. She meets a Magus, a
wise man who dwells in a forest near Dublin. He’s a teacher of the Tradition of
the Sun, and he teaches her about the Dark Night, “that the search for God is
a Dark Night, that Faith is a Dark Night”. He also teaches her to trust in the
goodness of the world.
But the Tradition of the Sun is for men, no woman can learn it before
she learns about the mysteries of the Tradition of the Moon. Her quest leads
her to seek help from an occult bookseller, who introduces her to a woman
named Wicca. She teaches Brida how to listen to the constant music of the
world and how to dance to that music. Wicca helps her to dream one of her
past lives in order to awake her Gift as a witch and she tells Brida about the
importance of finding her Soulmate. She explains toher that “only by
understanding the Soulmate can we understand how knowledge can be
transmitted over time”.
As Brida seeks her destiny, she struggles to find a balance among her
relationships with her boyfriend Lorens, with the Magus to whom she was
greatly attracted - despite the fact he is old enough to be her father - and her
desire to become a witch. She overcomes her fears and she finds her Soulmate
in the Magus, who teaches her the Tradition of the Sun. But her boyfriend
Lorens, although he’s not a Magus he’s also her Soulmate. With Lorens’ help,
she meets the Force of Nature, and she finds her way to her initiation ritual.
And although she has to choose between those two men, she becomes a witch
and she accepts her Gift, the ability to connect to the invisible and learn from
it.
This exciting novel touches themes that fans of Paulo Coelho will
recognize and treasure. It is a tale of real love, passion, mystery, and
spirituality from this master storyteller. I would strongly recommended this
book to people who seek inner peace and are intrigued by the thought of a
travel for spiritual evolution.