Letter from a Friend

For today I just want to share a tiny part of a beautiful letter I received from a dear friend. I've never met him, but he warms my heart deeply. Here is what Eclecticon has to say, and, if you are facing tough times, I hope this helps you stay strong.


Stay deep, Toddy. Examine the vast new territory that has been opened up to you by this relationship. I don't know how I know this, but I sense that there are great new magical places that you can now explore that would have been closed to you a year before. However, for this, you need courage, stamina, a sense of adventure and your friends. Oh, and love. There's lots of that around you. Notice it. Cherish it.


At first, this will be painful, but observe how plants flourish - particularly blooming plants like roses. At the end of every blooming season, you want to rid them of all their greenery. Strip off the leaves. Denude them of all those gorgeous leftover blooms. Pare back branches that steal away precious nutrients. Why? Because it's time for the core of the flower - the roots and the stem and the branches - to grow, get stronger, reach out, and prepare for ever new greenery, leaves, flowers, a new season of spectacular glory.


This is you, Toddy. Life is stripping things away. It is so severe it feels as if the very flesh is being flayed from your bones. Stand tall. Observe how life must now rebuild your core, make you stronger, make you MORE. Draw strength from it. Meditate on it. Find a quiet place where you can sit for a long time (which, for you, would be about two minutes, forty seconds), and feel the earth under your spirit. Look inside yourself for the new lands. What is it like, there? Try to see the newness. Clear away the scars of this last year so that you can explore yourself.


This is not a process for the weak - but you are not weak. However, it is also not a process for loners. Your strength, Toddy, comes from Auburn Pisces, the Math Whiz, the Handsome Prince, Auburn Aries, the Toddtender, Pony, Chopper, (Makers Mark!) - all those people who have remained constant in your life. Ground yourself in their love and their presence. Go to each one, look in their eyes, search out their love, and then GIVE. Pour out your love and affection to them. Give them hugs. Kisses. Where appropriate - gropes. Admire them. Let them know what you love about them and then seek to encourage them in all the ways you have been denied. When they seek to give to you, gratefully accept, and then pour the blessings of their love back upon them. Take these new lands, find the wells and the lakes and the oceans and channel them into fountains of joy, love and peace.


You can do it, Toddy. I know you can.


Seek magic. It's there. It's in you. It's beating upon you to be let out.


Love,
Eclecticon