Friendship is a mirror to presence and a testament to forgiveness. Friendship not only helps us see ourselves through another’s eyes, but can be sustained over the years only with someone who has repeatedly forgiven us for our trespasses as we must find it in ourselves to forgive them in turn. A friend knows our difficulties and shadows and remains in sight, a companion to our vulnerabilities more than our triumphs, when we are under the strange illusion we do not need them. An undercurrent of real friendship is a blessing exactly because its elemental form is rediscovered again and again through understanding and mercy. All friendships of any length are based on a continued, mutual forgiveness. Without tolerance and mercy all friendships die…
Friendship is the great hidden transmuter of all relationship: it can transform a troubled marriage, make honorable a professional rivalry, make sense of heartbreak and unrequited love and become the newly discovered ground for a mature parent-child relationship.
The dynamic of friendship is almost always underestimated as a constant force in human life: a diminishing circle of friends is the first terrible diagnostic of a life in deep trouble: of overwork, of too much emphasis on a professional identity of forgetting who will be there when our armored personalities run into the inevitable natural disasters and vulnerabilities found in even the most average existence…
Friendship transcends disappearance: an enduring friendship goes on after death, the exchange only transmuted by absence, the relationship advancing and maturing in a silent internal conversational way even after one half of the bond has passed on.
But no matter the medicinal virtues of being a true friend or sustaining a long close relationship with another, the ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the self nor of the other, the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.
...
I share these passages from David Whyte's thoughtful take on friendship as I think friendship toward our navigating system we call the self and others is key to human's being healthy and content.
I am heading into my 8th decade,find some kinship with David as I find poetry the transformational language that like music. And at his core, David sees that friendship eclipses the boundaries of life and death, an understanding that we are not individuals but live in fields.
The work in this life appears to be not to follow your heart, but to train it.
If you are interested in a reading list of books I've found helpful to create the slow, thoughtful work befriending myself and others, I've added a list of books that have changed my life.
It is pretty hilarious that this post gets more attention than any of my tree and wildflower art, friendship being a universal longing and wish for understanding.
David has has a long term friendship to this day with his friend John O'Donohue who died too young. Krista Tippet who founded On Being has given the world the gift of hearing John talk about beauty
Hope springs you are well and enjoying the miracle we are here on this beautiful ocean planet.
Our friendship with each other is rooted in what Ursula Le Guin is writing about... it is our suffering that connects us. The work growing into adulthood is to find out that thought is driving the headset that connects us to work, friends and family. Knowing this today, you get to catapult past old farts aka elders like me who grew up finding ourselves learning as cognitive behavioral therapy was evolving at light speed.
Youtube teachers:
Tara Brach for her work on befriending yourself and RAIN
Dick Schwartz can help you see what Walt Whitman was saying "we are multitudes"
Dr. Bobby Price helped me lose 18 lbs and switch to a plant strong life.
Friendship toward our body, our relationship with plants and animals to nonviolent eating benefits animals is a triple win for our heart health, climate change and reducing animal suffering. Ahimsa is key to seeing the shift toward our stewardship society. And he got me to eat in a window of 8 hours so I could lose weight and my belly fat. Plus Dr. Price is a Black man with a generous heart who transcends the structural racism in America and teaches people a new way of seeing "soul food". He's a brother from another mother to me working on peace on Earth.
Plant Strong is a family of intergenerational teachers have helped me make slow changes toward eating mostly plants. Unbelievable to me, I stopped eating cheese. And I'm a cheeseholic who could eat white sharp cheddar. I think the plant strong perspective started me on this path toward friendship to all beings.
Dr. Michael Greger has an encyclopedic presence online about plant strong living.
The Great Simplification is a solid conversation hosted by Nate Hagens toward a stewardship society. Check out his conversations with Krista Tippet, Suzanne Simard and Janine Benyus founder of Biomimicry
Get in touch if I can be a contribution to your own loving kindness and growing sense of self.
I'll leave you with one of my favorite passages by Mary Oliver on our interconnectedness.
onward
Timothy Colman