Soulmates don’t come easy and they often don’t appear where you are looking for them. It can be a long time between drinks. Here are three of mine.
My German Buddhist friend Jutta, whom I see rarely, is possibly my best friend. She may not know this. We converse sometimes by email and catch up in person every two or three years. Back in 2002, we shared a house for a while, when I was in UK visiting my family. I used to make disaster cooking – learning new recipes that frequently didn’t work out – and she was working, studying Buddhism and being broadly social. Something about her forthright German nature and pragmatic view of life appealed to me. A refreshing honesty infused our interactions and she was ready to accept herself, but at the same time recognised her shortcomings.
Personally, I prefer a soulmate with a quirky sense of humour, spiritual leanings and a very curious mind. Someone who can hold a deep conversation. Even to this day we seem like an odd pairing, but her company feeds my soul and I miss her terribly between whiles. The soul mate quality that we enjoy is a deep acceptance of one another, un-strained. We never fight and we laugh a LOT, whether we spoke yesterday or last year.
My newer soul mates are a bunch of guys I met at a men’s retreat in Queensland, far from my home. The connection there is so gentle and undemanding, it just flows over me. They have made an artform of holding space for one another, that feels like being wrapped in a warm blanket but leaves their masculinity curiosity intact. Not a sensation I’d normally expect from a gathering of men. I guess it reflects their comfort level with every part of their humanity and their solid standing in manhood that can’t be diminished. If I had to compare their collective energy with anyone, I would hazard the Dalai Lama.
Hand on heart, my other soul mate is a dog. She’s long gone now, but the perfection of our acquaintance had an extraordinary impact on my life. She was a sleek brown seal of a dog, a reject of indeterminate genus. She came to me at about 8 weeks old and velcro-ed herself to me from the start. I would take her for little walks around the streets of Bondi off leash because each time I pulled up she would sit gently down by my ankle. She was an adorable magnet to passers-by, soft coated and soft-mannered. Everybody loved her, particularly me. The wonderful thing about dogs, apart from the playfulness and enthusiastic greeting, is that they’re great listeners. Easy company, they are a life anchor for a rudderless person like me.
What do my soul mates have in common – a quiet, undemanding energy, strong on empathy and fun, light on moodiness. They are extraordinarily kind, curious, intelligent and unworldly with a refreshing lack of ego. What’s not to love?
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