The Universe Is Smiling: Friendship

Monika's weekly inner voice drawings:

Q: What is today's wisdom?
A: "Strangers are just friends waiting to happen."
- Rod McKuen  
Posted by Unknown at Sunday, August 01, 2010
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4 comments:

  1. Paul LichtenbergAugust 3, 2010 at 1:20 AM

    I think it is also true that friends are strangers waiting to happen when relationships fail to realize that relationship is work (I like calling it work/play). What I like about this drawing is the very thing I would challenge (which for me makes the IVD experience so imaginative and psychologically useful). The light spiraling down is the light of friendship: what the Greeks call agape, or communion. But, the light is also simultaneously ascending, and so eros, or autonomy. Without this balance of autonomy and intimacy-- which requires ongoing attention to relationship for the relationship to grow-- the relationship is in danger of estrangement. There is a kind of purity reflected in this drawing that simultaneously lends itself to its opposite: ignorance. If we mistake idealization for love, we can never truly see the other as other; and so, never reach the level of awareness of seeing other as inseparable from self. This is the beautiful paradox of mind, like IVD, drawing out of its concealed recesses, the excesses of meaning that will take the drawer to the land of abundance.

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  2. UnknownAugust 3, 2010 at 10:24 AM

    I agree with you, that "friends are strangers waiting to happen" ... and then again, being strangers they might become friends again. What struck me with this drawing was the kind attention or reverence that these very different creatures seem to give to each other, which suggests, that we, no matter who we are, have the capacity to cross the racial, emotional, and spatial divide and engage with each other in a positive way - if we want to, of course :)

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  3. Paul LichtenbergAugust 3, 2010 at 10:42 AM

    "Capacity" is such a beautiful word and idea, isn't it? It means "able to hold much." And then, "to cross," which, of course, points to intention, intendere, to stretch. When combined, as your lovely drawing-- which emerges from your jewel heart-- shows, with openness, discernment, and wisdom, we can reach out beyond ourselves to, not only touch, but equally important, to be touched by relationship. This "divide," this boundary, when infused with compassion, will never harden into barrier. With that said, many of us have experienced trauma, which has resulted in a ruptured capacity to stay open, give and receive love. if true, our intention begins with healing. This is the therapeutic aspect of IVD. With your light and wise guidance, Monika, the drawings help us open to those very emotional wounds that have hardened into barriers and, in the very seeing of our own creative process, our capacity to heal now gathers strength and further motivation to heal and grow. Difference then begins to be seen as part of the abundance and limitless beauty we call life.

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  4. UnknownAugust 5, 2010 at 10:35 PM

    I love your comments. I am going to collect them in a special folder. Thank you so much for your continuing wit(ty)ness.

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