Friendship Makes the World Go Round!

You've got to have friends, all kinds of friends.  Friends are how the world goes round.  Friends are the extension of our hearts, those individuals who are with us no matter what, giving us strength to rely on when we feel ours is gone, loving us when we need a boost and sharing in the sad and happy days that make up in equal parts the days of our lives.  

Friendship is forged not so much by time but through

understanding with compassion, 

laughter, tears, invitations, insights, hugs, 

heartaches, happiness and the joyfulness

of time spent in sharing our hearts with another.

Whether new friends or old, whether friends we see everyday or friends that live in our hearts across great distances.  Friends are the vessel through which we feel the wholeness of who we are, safe and sound and in complete connection to our insular Tahiti and that space of heaven on earth. -- Excerpted from The Bare Melcessities.

We are in a time where we have lost our sense of the breath of humanity. Globalization has widened our viewpoint but has not increased our connectedness. Instead, barriers have been established, freedoms have been undermined and blinders have grown and grown. Rabbit holes have sprung up along the way and millions have segmented into these holes.  Within this framework, our friends, whose experience brings us wisdom, whose intelligence and caring teach us the meaning of kindness, whose presence stand with us, connecting, coinciding, collaborating, and sharing in this adventure of life.

The Bible offers two notable examples of friendships. The first is that between Jonathan and David, in which Jonathan walks a slender tightrope between his loyalty to his friend David and his devotion to his father Saul. The second is that between Ruth and Naomi, which gives us the beautiful verse that has been adopted by lovers but in its spirit holds the heart of true friendship....

“Wither thus goest, I will go, and where though lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God, where thou diest, will I die, and there will be buried: the Lord do so to me and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.”

Samuel Johnson, who knew the fragility of friendship and said that “life has no pleasure higher or nobler than friendship,” tended to place friendship on the same level of significance as marriage a joining with a brother in a space of safety and joy and peace.

Friends are the family we choose.

Here's to all our friends, our soul families and all the interconnections that nourish our spirit.

In Rumi’s Frog and the Mouse

A mouse and a frog meet every morning on the riverbank.
They sit in a nook of the ground and talk.

Each morning, the second they see each other,
they open easily, telling stories and dreams and secrets,
empty of any fear or suspicious holding back.
To watch, and listen to those two
is to understand how, as it’s written,
sometimes when two beings come together,
Christ becomes visible.

It is said--

They don't have spiritual friendship without the ocean:

Nicholson translated less literally, "they feel no spiritual

Joy without the Sea."

The mouse starts laughing out a story he hasn't

thought of in five years, and the telling might take five years!

There's no blocking the speechflow-river-running-

all-carrying momentum that true intimacy is.

Bitterness doesn't have a chance

with those two.

The God-messenger, Khidr, touches a roasted fish.

It leaps off the grill back into the water.

Friend sits by Friend, and the tablets appear.

They read the mysteries

off each others foreheads.

But one day the mouse complains, "There are times

when I want 'sohbat', (Barks: conversation)

and you're out in the water,

jumping around where you can't hear me.

We meet at this appointed time,

but the text says, Lovers pray constantly.

Once a day, once a week, five times an hour,

is not enough. Fish like we are need the ocean around us!”

(Barks:  I love that!)

Do camel bells say, Let's meet back here Thursday

night?

Ridiculous. They jingle

together continuously,

talking while the camel walks.

Do you pay regular visits to yourself?

Don't argue or answer rationally.

Let us die,

and dying,

reply.

This post is sourced material for Mel's new upcoming work VANESSA BY THE SEA.

Enjoy this sound bite from Oprah and Maya Angelou talking about the best advice they have received forming the basis of a friendship that continues to entertain, enlighten and uplift.

#LoveLand101