Tag: friendship

Thank Goddess for Wonderful Friends

On By Alethea KehasIn Reflections11 Comments

who push you into the uncomfortable, knowing you can thrive.

Not a peak (Mt. Washington) from my drive up I89, but you get the idea

Friday night I drove two hours up I89 to celebrate my friend Heidi’s birthday in Vermont. The drive, although filled with highway miles, was beautiful. When you drive north in New Hampshire, you reach the land of peaks and valleys. It is stunning in winter, and in all seasons. Winter may be the landscape of dusted gray, but it is also the season of exposure. The frozen elements call the eyes to look deeply. To peer into the stasis and see what is being revealed. Here in northern New England, it is the geography of the land’s stories that grab ahold of you in wonder.

The drive took me back to my Goddard days, to sixteen years ago when I traveled this highway to study writing along with ghosts and friendships. This is where I met Heidi. She is the wood and metal to my water and earth. We are opposites on the spectrum of elements, which is probably one of the reasons our friendship formed quickly and endured. We see those places inside of each other that need to be revealed. We see what needs to flourish and grow and what needs to be tempered and tamed.

It was during this celebratory weekend that Heidi told me I should start writing a business plan. Naturally she would find this exciting. It is a total task of joy for woods and metals. Action-packed order. I resisted, naturally, because I am predominately a mixture of water and earth. I relish in the dreamy world of visions, but I also like to manifest them into reality. Heidi knows this, and as all good friends are, she was patient and nonjudgmental as she listened to my tired excuses. “Well,” said. “Do I really need it if I’m going to live there. I know it’s going to be a work in progress.”

“It will be fun,” she told me. “Trust me. It will allow you to begin forming it into manifestation more clearly.” She has seen my visionary template. This working document that has the semblance of structure, but keeps adding on more watery wishes.

Imagine her surprise, and mine, when I returned home the following day, found a business plan template, and began filling it in. “I guess I don’t need to send you mine,” she replied to my text. I hesitated to mention that I was, in fact, having fun in the process. It felt like a capitulation to metal. I didn’t want to sacrifice my water for fear of losing fluidity.

But, I could not deny this watery world of dreams eager for structure and definition. That swirling sea of seeds eager root into growth were waiting for my permission to take form. And as I began filling in the lines and white blocks with words, imagine my surprise and delight with how natural and joyful it felt. Yes, perhaps I was actually having fun with a task that I had told myself would be tedious and dull.

Although I may be mostly water and earth, like all who seek balance, joy arrives when we feed what needs equal nourishment. It is here that we find our hidden strengths, flourish, and spread our winged forms. So in the moment of pause from working on the rather lengthy document that contains the structures of the elements of my vision to create a nature-based sanctuary of connection, I am celebrating the joy of a balancing friendship and the gift of kindness that pushes us into the uncomfortable phase of growth.

Some Kind of Wonderful #Friendship

On By Alethea KehasIn Reflections26 Comments

We found our way to Plum Cove Beach ten minutes before a group of our daughter’s friends pulled into the parking lot an over-stuffed SUV. It was well before the waking hour of many a college student on a Saturday morning, and the weather that greeted the cheering squad was less than welcoming. The temperature trying to reach 40 degrees has the could opened to rain. The water in the cove beside the halfway point of the Gloucester half marathon was rushing its night caps to the shore. Beside the porta potty, parka-wrapped volunteers offered paper cups of water and lemonade amidst the chanting lyrics of Bon Jovi on automatic repeat, “we’re halfway there!”

The Halfway Point

As we greeted our daughter’s friends, I remarked upon the windy, wet cold, but no one complained. Instead, they looked tired, but happy as they pulled their hoods over the heads and extracted their hand-crafted signs from the trunk. Despite the marathon traffic, everyone had arrived with ample time to spare, and after checking locations of the runners on our phones, we gathered back into our cars for some warmth as we waited for the impending descent down the hill towards the cove.

Cheering Friends with Signs of Encouragement

Back in the car, I began to think about how lucky our daughter was, while intermittently worrying about her leg, which had a tendency to go numb through over-use. How lucky she was, I thought between worry, that she had these remarkable friends who chose to spend a cold, rainy, and very early Saturday morning watching her run a half-marathon. Friends she had met less than two years ago, but whose bond was forged with the strength of shared joys and hardships experienced through college life that included their first year studying abroad together in London.

A northern adventure of friendship during their year in London

We made our way, parents and friends, back out into the blustery elements well before the anticipated trio crested the top of the hill. While my husband and I positioned ourselves for optimal photography, the younger crowd gathered with signs and smiles on the opposite side of the road. Where, I realized later, they would be able to sweep the tired runners into their arms for a brief embrace before they continued on. My husband and I, positioned to be voyeurs rather than active participants, were in for a rare treat.

Without any knowledge of our watching presence on the other side of the road, our daughter waits for a chance to run into the arms of her cheering friends.

In our twenty years of raising our children, my husband and I have been witness to a multitude of moments filled with the highs and lows of friendship. On this marathon morning, we were poised to watch the wonders of what friendship can be at its finest. More than once. There we stood, as our daughter turned the corner and began her descent down the hill. Her eyes, immediately zeroing in on her group of friends never wavered from their destination as her tired (and numb) leg(s) carried her down to the bend near the cove and into the opened arms of her cheering friends.

Some Kind of Wonderful, Indeed

Never once, in those moments of passing the halfway point did our daughter turn to notice her parents were also there, which, in my mind, was more than okay. In fact, it was, in my eyes, perfection. Every loving parent wants to give their child the best of the world, but one of the gifts we cannot bestow upon them is friendship. And here we ware watching the best of the best of that precious gift. Friendship not only found, but forged with the bond of loving support.

More than halfway there

With two eyes brimming with unobserved tears and a heart filled with renewed warmth, I headed back to the car to begin our journey to the finish line. Finding ourselves once again with ample time to spare, I was able to observe how much my body had relaxed its tension. Sure, I was still worried about our daughter’s physical wellbeing, in particular, the leg that had been a chronic issue, but my worry had was mostly replaced with the knowing that she was running beside and backed by friendship.

The hands of friendship are a precious balm

And suddenly there she was, making another turn around a bend in the road with her two companion runners nearby. With about 300 meters to go, I could see the fatigue in my daughter’s gait, and doubt began to tug at wonder as I watched with breath held as one leg, and then the other pulled her forward. At about the 200 meter mark, I heard the voices of her friends as their bodies matched her stride to bookend her. “Come on, Ava,” they called out to her, “You can do it.”

Anything is possible with friendship holding your hands

That was the moment awe returned and fiercely shook away doubt. First one hand, and then another, grasped the hands of my daughter and held fast as three sets of legs made their way to the finish line.

Anything is possible with friendship holding your hands
Mission Accomplished

The Friend That Brings Us Back To Earth #friendship #covid19conspiracies #truth

On By Alethea KehasIn Reflections8 Comments

We are lucky if we have one, and I do. That friend that gently grasps the etheric cord of the umbilicus and brings us back to Earth. In these days of uncertainty and heightened paranoia, peppered with more than a fair share of outlandish conspiracies, one can easily feel lost, trapped, or simply over-whelmed. The tribe of belonging can feel tenuous at best as we look around and search for meaning and understanding and find so many who have fallen off the deep-end of fear, anger, and blame.

Thank goodness for these friends who bring us back to Earth. I am thinking of one in particular, and she’ll know who she is so there is no need to put a name on the page. I have known her since our daughters were best friends in preschool, and even though distance has long since separated us, our bond of friendship has not been severed.

She was the first person I had ever met with whom I could really talk. You know, about those things that other people might think you were crazy if you uttered? And, she never thought I was odd. Together we explored our experiences beyond the everyday sense and shared books and ideas. And, each time I felt I might spiral into some sort of otherworldly chaos, I knew she would be the constant to pull me back down to Earth.

It is not easy to find a balance when one chooses to be a “walker between worlds,” yet long ago this was the norm of existence. In this era of “New Age” spirituality now enmeshed in conspiracy, I have seen so many people I know tipping into the realm of paranoia and even vitriol. Many self-proclaimed “Lightworks” are making it a daily practice to spread anger and accusations (as opposed to “light” and “love”) all over their social media pages without a thought to their impacts on themselves and others, making them no different than the enemy they have claimed as their own.

Some of these people were my friends, and perhaps they still are, but I am finding it more and more difficult to feel as though they are still of a tribe I want to belong to. The other day, my friend and I were having a conversation about this, and the only conclusion we could draw from this need to conspire and point the finger of accusation and anger instead of love, in every possible direction, was the need to “feel special.” The need to somehow be privy to information that others are in the “darkness” about. This, in essence, is how conspiracies spread.

I think we must ask ourselves, and I think this friend would agree, the why before the sending out. Why do we feel the need to spread fear if we cannot 100% know it is the Truth? Just because someone you trust told you there are microchips in vaccines, or that Covid-19 is really a virus manufactured by man to kill innocent people, should you be propagating this self-proclaimed evidence without hard, concrete data? We live in a world where anything and everything can be said and spread globally with the click of a button in less time than it takes to form a rational thought inside of the mind. Sadly, most people I know who glom onto the outlandish have not immersed themselves in the science they choose to discredit and thus have no basis for their claims, but simply trust the words of the dissenters.

We cannot know everything, and these days humility and wonder seem to be a precious commodity that is rapidly being lost to arrogance and anger. It is difficult not to feel lonely in this strange, turbulent sea that is humanity right now, which is why I am ever-grateful for these friends who are constants, grounded in Earth, but open to wonder that always spirals back to the source that is love. We cannot love when we are filled with hate and blame. Division is a force that opposes unity. If we cannot understand or truly know the how or the why, should we be fixated on spreading what we cannot know to be true? What means does that serve, but more division?

Even though the hand is not there in physical form for me to grasp, I know it is always extended by this friend of mine. And in this ever-spiraling chaos, I am so grateful to have it to grasp in friendship and the knowing that in her the rational mind is still grounded in love. That when she answers the phone I can find home in the senseless and the knowing that maybe, just maybe, we will all find our way back to unity and the knowing that we all, in essence, are one.

One Down

On By Alethea KehasIn Energy Healing2 Comments

Today I crossed off #14 on my List to the Universe. It was my most recently added item: “Alethea has a turquoise necklace like the one in her dream.” Yesterday a good friend gave me that necklace, along with a pair of matching earrings. I was deeply touched by her act of friendship.

About a month ago I saw myself during my dream state wearing a beautiful necklace draped with stones of turquoise. It was the only image of the dream (at least remembered), this magnificent necklace around my throat.

Throat, I realized later was the take away message. About a week after my dream I was sitting in class listening to my instructor talk about crystals and stones and how they can relate to and work with the chakra points on our body. When she got to the fifth chakra, the throat, she introduced us to turquoise.  As you might have guessed, a light-bulb clicked on. I had been given another way to work on that throat chakra.

Within a week of hearing about my experience, my friend Rachel made me a necklace much like the one in my dream. The stones, the color of robins’ eggs or a cloudless sky, now surround my neck, nudging me to create; to crack open the imagination and let new life take flight.

Thank you Rachel for your wonderful gift!