Some Are For You

Once in a while, making a new friend is like discovering someone you have always known. There is a deep connection that cuts through the normal defenses we erect as protection. This is not a frequent happening, and perhaps we have to maintain a certain openness for it to happen at all. When I encounter such people (although it is a rare and special event), it is more like seeing an old friend who has just returned from obscurity. There is a certain immediacy that leaps between us, a level of understanding that eliminates the need for explanations. Perhaps this is what the painter/mentor Robert Henri meant in The Art Spirit when he observed that "you see people on the street, some are for you, some are not." It is a source of fascination to me how this miracle of deep friendship actually occurs. And when you are separated from such friends, the next time you meet, you resume as though there was no interval of separation...time and distance have no impact on the intimacy of shared perception and understanding. Such friendships can take us to deeper levels of conscious awareness and awaken energies and ideas that take us beyond ourselves.