Friendship

I did hike up the hill behind Dad's to the site of the soul retrieval and leave my offering. That hill is steep, there are cow pies on the way and I am amazed a cow can get up and down that hill, and I had trouble finding the spot. Country girls should be in better shape than I am today. I left the orange and asked for a safe trip to Boise.

I do not have much to write about today, and I am missing my friends, so I am choosing my own enlightenment topic, Friendship, with the poem "On Friendship" from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran,

Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
And he is your board and your fireside.
For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.

When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the "nay" in your own mind, nor do you withhold the "ay."
And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart;
For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed.
When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.
And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.
For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.

And let your best be for your friend.
If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.
For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?
Seek him always with hours to live.
For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

My favorite line is, And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit. The poem is about friendship, but could just as well be about love, that is the real kind of love, not the ego-centered kind that we mostly see today. I like to remember this line when my friends are not being what I want or when I am trying to find my responsibility in a problem with a friend. I would not have the spirit for my adventure without the friendship I have known over the last six years and today, as those ducks just will not get in a row, I am missing the little things.