I recently happened upon this and found it beautiful and thought provoking. Would like to share it with you.
In the Celtic tradition, there is a beautiful understanding of love and friendship. One of the fascinating ideas here is the idea of soul-love; the old Gaelic term for this is anam cara (pronounced muh aun-im-KAHR-ah). Anam is the Gaelic word for soul and cara is the word for friend. So 'anam cara' in the Celtic world is 'soul friend'.
The Celts believed each soul radiates around the physical body. It is like an aura radiating light and energy. They also assumed that when two people connect and are genuinely open and transparent, their souls flow, becoming each other’s Anam Cara.
In everyone's life, there is a great need for a true anam cara. In this love, you are understood as you are without mask or pretension. The superficial and functional lies and half-truths of social acquaintance fall away, you can be as you really are. Love allows understanding to dawn, and understanding is precious. Where you are understood, you are at home and you are safe.
The anam cara experience opens a friendship that is not wounded or limited by separation or distance. Such friendship can remain alive even when the friends live far away from each other. Because they have broken through the barriers of persona and egoism to the soul level, the unity of their souls is not easily severed.
When the soul is awakened, physical space is transfigured. Even across the distance, two friends can stay attuned to each other and continue to sense the flow of each other's lives. With your anam cara you awaken the eternal.
This text was rather shamelessly copied from Philo Thoughts (sorry) and then more or less rewritten. It just grabbed me!
Dirk
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