On Friendship

"Friendship must be about something." --C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis wrote a classical interpretation of many emotions central to human life. In his book, The Four Loves, he addresses the meaning of friendship. Drawing upon rich resources such as the ancient Greeks, Romans, traditions borne through millennia, his view may be termed as western, if not universal.

Lewis delineates the many views of friendship; he describes it as mutuality, as 'seeing the same truth, looking outward, much as French writer, St. Exupery does; he explores friends in the context of erotic love; the search for Beauty, the engagement of spirituality, companionship, and he asserts that it's the least jealous of all the loves.

Where Lovers seek privacy, friends experience enclosure between themselves and the 'herd' rushing around them, and they may not be jealous so are often willing to admit another into their circle.
The American poet Emerson posed the question of a friend several times, simply asking, 'do you care about the same truths as I do?' The answer to this is the point at which a companion may move to a friend.
Shared activities and insights may be a draw for companions who 'share the road.' But a deeper, inner sense recognizing certain truths brings them into the realm of friend.

And while friends may not fully draw the same conclusions, they generally agree on the importance of questions. Seeing the shape of the world in similar fashion draws them to similar questions, if not responses.

Further Lewis argues simple friendship is entirely free of the need to be needed. He writes, "in a circle of true friends, each is simply what he is: stands for nothing but ones' self."

While Eros seeks out naked bodies, friendship seeks naked personalities. There is no absolute duty to friend anyone, nor is there a legal contract such as marriage. 

Friendship comes freely, entirely unencumbered with these other types of strictures.
Yet in modern, industrialized societies friendship is so often undervalued in favor of contractualized relationships as if these are somehow inherently better, more legitimate.
One cannot fail to notice the number and degree of divorces that abound in any given community.

Friends form moreover an appreciation of each other. They not only travel the same roads but their values within the realm of truths inform their judgement, leaving them more clear-eyed about one another.
They are observant of a mutual love and knowledge, and this forms itself into an appreciation a sentiment that often leaves one feeling in his deepest heart, humbled, what is he among those seemingly better, how lucky to be.
And when together among these friends, there is the knowledge that each brings out as if by magic the better in one self, the best, the funniest, the most clever, the beauty. In the conversation, the mind opens to something more, a perception of the self previously unknown comes into view. Life has no better gift to give than a good friend or two.

Love Transcending, Walt Whitman

"How beautiful is candor..." Walt Whitman 1855, preface Leaves of Grass

Published in 1855, just prior to the American Civil War, Leaves of Grass was Whitman's work written in a sensuous manner for the more ordinary in society, the common, everyday man of America. While many writers of the period wrote for the elite about the elite and their day to day lives, Whitman determined that for his work, he would not follow in like fashion.
He stated in the preface of the 1855 volume that his desire was to 'united the physical flesh with the spiritual,' to be a poet of the physical, a poet of the soul. He was striven to accept all of life as revealed to him on simple, equal terms. While many of his contemporaries were offended by such overt references, Whitman excluded nothing, accepting all in nature.

Like author D. H. Lawrence who wrote in the 20th century, Whitman was intent on exploring the mind/spirit/body connections of everyday life. His frankness was shocking to many, and the book was declared obscene immediately upon publication in 1855. This however only added to its cachet. And yet clearly his stated intention is not the intent of those in the 20th and 21st centuries who wish to use him and his words for their and their own devices.

"A woman waits for me, she contains all, nothing is lacking, Yet all were lacking if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the right man were lacking. Sex contains all, bodies, souls, Meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations, Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal milk, All hopes, benefactions, bestowals, all the passions, loves, beauties, delights of the earth, All the governments, judges, gods, follow'd persons of the earth, These are contain'd in sex as parts of itself and justifications of itself. Without shame the man I like knows and avows the deliciousness of his sex, Without shame the woman I like knows and avows hers. Now I will dismiss myself from impassive women, I will go stay with her who waits for me, and with those women that are warm-blooded sufficient for me, I see that they understand me and do not deny me, I see that they are worthy of me, I will be the robust husband of those women. 

They are not one jot less than I am, They are tann'd in the face by shining suns and blowing winds, Their flesh has the old divine suppleness and strength, They know how to swim, row, ride, wrestle, shoot, run, strike, retreat, advance, resist, defend themselves, They are ultimate in their own right--they are calm, clear, well-possess'd of themselves. I draw you close to me, you women, I cannot let you go, I would do you good, I am for you, and you are for me, not only for our own sake, but for others' sakes, Envelop'd in you sleep greater heroes and bards, They refuse to awake at the touch of any man but me. It is I, you women, I make my way, I am stern, acrid, large, undissuadable, but I love you, I do not hurt you any more than is necessary for you, I pour the stuff to start sons and daughters fit for these States, I press with slow rude muscle, I brace myself effectually, I listen to no entreaties, I dare not withdraw till I deposit what has so long accumulated within me. Through you I drain the pent-up rivers of myself, In you I wrap a thousand onward years, On you I graft the grafts of the best-beloved of me and America, The drops I distil upon you shall grow fierce and athletic girls, new artists, musicians, and singers, The babes I beget upon you are to beget babes in their turn, I shall demand perfect men and women out of my love- spendings, I shall expect them to interpenetrate with others, as I and you interpenetrate now, I shall count on the fruits of the gushing showers of them, as I count on the fruits of the gushing showers I give now, I shall look for loving crops from the birth, life, death, immortality, I plant so lovingly now."

--A Woman Waits for Me 1856 by Walt Whitman, American Poet

The Transcendentalism of his age is spelled out here, clean within the lines, the poet makes the statement that all is in the world, all joined, simple frankness. And he writes of America as if it were a woman, curiously of sons and daughters fit for these (united) states.What's more, Whitman attributed his 'fire' to the American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, leader of the transcendentalist movement,whom he said brought him to himself, to his fire. In December 1856 Henry David Thoreau paid Whitman a visit. He wrote later that, "he (Whitman) does not celebrate love at all.It is as if the beasts spoke... But even on his side, he has spoken more truth than any American or modern at present." 
 Whitman, through sexual energy, identifies with the generative aspect of nature itself. And he holds a belief in both the seen and the unseen.
As for Emerson, he declared that 'every man should commune with the divinity of the animating soul within himself.'
These thoughts have animated spiritual thinkers for the modern age and beyond.

The Poets of the American Religion

"I think of love, and you, and my heart grows full and warm, and my breath stands still... I can feel a sunshine stealing into my soul and making it all summer, and every thorn, a rose." --Emily Dickenson 1852

Art, wrote Emerson, "is the path of the creator to his work. The paths, or methods, are ideal and eternal, though few men ever see them, not the artist himself for years, or for a lifetime. The painter, the sculptor, the composer, the epic writer, the orator, all partake one desire, namely, to express themselves "symmetrically and abundantly, not dwarfishly and fragmentarily." They found or put themselves in certain conditions, as, the painter and sculptor before some impressive human figures; the orator, into the assembly of the people; and the others, in such scenes as each has found exciting to his intellect; and each presently feels the new desire."

"He hears a voice, he sees a beckoning. Then he is apprised, with wonder, what herds of demons close him in. He can no more rest; he says, with the old painter, "By God, it is in me, and must go forth of me." He pursues a beauty, half seen, which flies before him. The poet pours out verses in every solitude. Most of the things he says are conventional, no doubt; but by and by he says something which is original and beautiful."

That charms him. He would say nothing else but such things. In our way of talking, we say, `That is yours, this is mine;' but the poet knows well that it is not his; that it is as strange and beautiful to him as to you; he would faint hear the like eloquence at length."

"Once having tasted this immortal, he cannot have enough of it, and, as an admirable creative power exists in these intellections, it is of the last importance that these things get spoken. What a little of all we know is said! What drops of all the sea of our science are baled up! and by what accident it is that these are exposed, when so many secrets sleep in nature! Hence the necessity of speech and song; hence these throbs and heart-beatings in the orator, at the door of the assembly, to the end, namely, that thought may be ejaculated as Logos, or Word. "
-- by Ralph Waldo Emerson

"A moody child and wildly wise
Pursued the game with joyful eyes,
Which chose, like meteors, their way,
And rived the dark with private
ray:
They overleapt the horizon's edge,
Searched with Apollo's
privilege;
Through man, and woman, and sea, and star,
Saw the dance of
nature forward far;
Through worlds, and races, and terms, and times,
Saw
musical order, and pairing rhymes.

Olympian bards who sung
Divine ideas below,
Which always find us
young,
And always keep us so."
--R. Emerson

"For, as it is dislocation and detachment from the life of God, that makes things ugly, the poet, who re-attaches things to nature and the Whole."

Beyond this universality of the symbolic language, we are apprised of the divineness of this superior use of things, whereby the world is a temple, whose walls are covered with emblems, pictures, and commandments of the Deity, in this, that there is no fact in nature which does not carry the whole sense of nature; and the distinctions which we make in events, and in affairs, of low and high, honest and base, disappear when nature is used as a symbol."

And more:

"Thanking God for having made you; thanking Him that I love you with all my heart and soul; above all, thanking Him because He has permitted you to love me..." --Eugene O'Neil, 1914

Walden, perhaps the most famous work of Henry David Thoreau, exemplifies the American spirit, the transcendent nature of the American mystical tradition, exploring the good and the beautiful exemplified in nature. It is a great spiritual feeling he writes of:

"Even the utmost good-will and harmony and practical kindness are not sufficient for Friendship, for Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody. We do not wish for Friends to feed and clothe our bodies--neighbors are kind enough for that--but to do the like office to our spirits."

"Things do not change; we change."

"Man flows at once to God when the channel of purity is open."