This is a short story of my friendship with Shelia, with whom I taught second grade in Virginia in the early 80's. Several years ago, I met up with her again for lunch on a short trip to the town where I used to teach. I hadn't seen her in over twenty-five years; our only communications had been a few emails and birthday card exchanges.

But Shelia is one of those special kinds of friends: a friend for all time, a friend where separation doesn't matter. Perhaps you have a friend like this? Someone who is a kindred spirit at heart, someone you can just pick up with even if you haven't written or spoken on the phone for years and years? I hope you do, for friends like this are rare and precious.

After lunch together, Shelia showed me that day's quotation (see above) from her page-a-day desk calendar. The expression on her face was full of wonder and delight as she handed it to me across the table scattered with dishes and the remains of our meal. It was a picture of two young female friends, their arms around each other. And the quotation on it was the one above, from Beethoven. However, it was more than just words to us. It was evidence of sacred synchronicity! No coincidences... only angels looking over our shoulders.

1. Over the next few days, make a list of friends you once had who were near and dear to you.

2. Set an intention to resume contact with one of these friends. Look them up on Facebook, use a search engine and see if you can find an address. Do something. Reach out. Let them know how much their friendship meant to you.

3. Create a SoulCollage® card for a friend of yours from "long ago and far away" and let that card speak to you of how precious the friendship was and is, from that friend’s point of view.

Anne Marie Bennett is a SoulCollage® Facilitator / Trainer, published author, website goddess, and two-time cancer survivor who was mentored directly by Seena Frost. In 2005, she fell in love with SoulCollage® and was inspired to use her professional experience along with web technology as a means to serve the world by putting SoulCollage® "out there" in a really big way with KaleidoSoul. Anne Marie lives in eastern Massachusetts with her middle-aged husband, one adolescent feline, and a treasury of birds, squirrels and chipmunks who keep them hopping. Her other books about SoulCollage® are available here.

Date: Sunday, September 18, 2022

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Some journeys take us places we never expected them to. It’s in this way that a journey into Friendship took a hard detour into the Valley of Grief, through the Deep Waters of Self-Reflection, before finally landing firmly inside the Territory of Joy.

When invited to write this article, I sifted through my Community cards representing friendships, fondly remembering each friend, occasionally asking a card for insights in service of this writing. Then I flipped over a card that stopped me in my tracks. One I’d forgotten, and which brought with it an immediate rush of sorrow. For friendships are not only a source of support and love in our lives, they can also be the source of grief and pain, especially when a friendship we thought was forever comes to a painful end. What are the gifts of such painful endings? And what do these cards wish to say?

Christina was my best friend for seven years, the closest friend I had ever had. She knew me like no one else, and was the first person in my life with whom I felt that I could be my full self. In those days I knew for certain that she and I would be friends until we were cackling crones, ready to give ourselves back to the soil.

But that was not meant to be. Our friendship ended after a series of life transitions on both of our parts. This ending was slow and painful, as she withdrew from my life and I attempted to cling to her with tragic futility. This was one of the most painful losses of my life, largely because of how firmly I believed in the permanence of this relationship. As I grieved and raged, I could feel a part of my heart hardening, the stealthy construction of barriers against deep friendship and the possibility of going through this pain again.

Those barriers, far more than the pain of loss, threatened my long-term happiness and well-being. They threatened my ability to connect with others, my willingness to be generous, my sense of gratitude for what I’ve experienced. And at the deepest level, those walls of mis-placed protection threatened my ability to touch the vast well of Joy within me.

As with so many other issues of great importance in my life, SoulCollage® was an essential part of the compass that led me through the grief, and through the process of deconstructing the barriers to connection I’d assembled. Working with my cards helped me to understand this loss, the parts of myself that were necessary for navigating it, and to begin holding space for what Christina means to me now. I’ll share a few examples below:

Christina, Community Suit (at top of this column): I am one who planted dreams and passions in your heart, which will continue blooming long after I am gone. I made this card after the friendship had ended, with the intention of honoring what remains with me from this relationship. As I return to the card today, years after making it, I can see so much more meaning than I was aware of before. Even relationships that have ended can continue to teach and nourish us.

Painful Transitions, Committee Suit: I am one who walks away from that which no longer serves me. Even though the leaving hurts and breaks something inside, it is good and necessary. This card helped me to come to terms with the fact that I was clinging onto a relationship that had died. Just like the dusty, forsaken room in the card, this friendship was a home I no longer belonged in, and it was time to let go.

Self-Reflection, Committee Suit: I am one who looks at myself unflinching, knowing life’s sweetest rewards come from the courage to know myself and make changes that align me with my True Self. I called on this card to help me move away from my anger at Christina, to look at the ways I contributed to the ending of our friendship, and make changes in my behavior. This was an essential element in moving forward with greater insight, and as a better friend to others in the future.

Joy, Council Suit: I am happiness that does not depend on what happens. I dwell deep within you, always present but sometimes difficult to find. Follow the light let in by the cracks in your life, down into your Center, and you will find me: Joy. The sweet reward for doing the difficult work of grieving, releasing and self-reflecting was a stronger connection to my own center of Joy, not dependent on the circumstances of life, but an ever-present birthright. It’s there within you, as well.

Some journeys take us places we never expected. Often, those are exactly the places we need to go.

Michaela Daystar trained as a SoulCollage® Facilitator in 2013 with Mariabruna Sirabella and Seena Frost, and since then has brought SoulCollage® into myriad spaces, from college classrooms to government agencies. Michaela is also trained in the Japanese origins of the system of Reiki through the International House of Reiki, and teaches all levels of Reiki at her wellness studio in Davis, California, as well as on-line. In all endeavors, Michaela calls on ritual and intimate connection with the land and the seasons to draw participants into our innate ability to connect and collaborate with the Web of Life. Visit Michaela at her website, HeartScapes. 

Art is a soul language. SoulCollage®, Mixed Media, and JourneyCircles™ are the favorite creative ways to participate, and you can expand your journeying with Word Art, Poetry, Paint, Assemblage, Altered Books, and Art Journaling.

Connect with amazing women as you travel your path. Dip in or dive deep with the seasonal energies, lore, sacred symbols and mythic themes offered around the eight seasons on the sacred wheel of the year. Honor your own pace and creative ways, work with sacred stories, mythic memory, phases of life, personal rhythms, and archetypal energies as you connect with an amazing tribe of Quest sisters, traveling together all year.

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