How do we cultivate lasting friendships rooted in love?

Earlier this spring, during our caravaning trip through Europe, we reached France. Our first proper stop was a visit to my partner’s old friend and their home, nestled in a beautiful mountainous region near the Pyrenees. Another friend and another couple, also friends, joined us from Paris to spend a long weekend together. They caught up after months and years of separation, enjoying playful and deep conversations, cooking, eating, playing, and hiking together. It was a blend of cherished old and new friendships, loves, connections that endured and evolved through time and space.

As a natural observer, I loved witnessing the intricate shapes and folds of these bonds—the growth and changes, and the genuine effort put into staying in touch and caring for one another. It made me reflect deeply on the cultivation of friendships rooted in care and, dare I say, love.

I believe that true love is singular, a majestic experience that perhaps transcends human language.

Love is a high vibration, capable of connecting souls from different cultures, even when words fail. It’s what children depend on for their very existence, whether it’s abundant or scarce.

We’re born into love, longing to find our way back to it.

However, what we’re often taught about love is merely what is left of it —what has endured, fought, and remained resilient amidst a world that often takes its essence for granted.

I think there is only this one Love and then there is “LovePlus”. For example: Love + self,  Love + attraction, Love + family, Love + friendship, Love + community, Love + life. The core of love informs all additions/ bonds of connections.

The source always remaining pure and secure. Untainted and untamed.

I have recently been reading Bell Hooks book “All about love” and  I resonate deeply with her quest to understand what Love truly is. To know when she has found it, how to care for it, how it looks and feel and what it is not.

Her value of love is a holistic and expansive, inclusive of community and platonic relationships. We ought to experience and desire love in more ways than the only one we are encouraged to obsess about.  Love + attraction aka Romantic love.

We are all better off being well loved, feeling well loved and walking through the world as beings that have love and know love.

Eager to pass it on, in all our connections with each other.

Our relationship to love, whether marked by abundance or scarcity, plays a profound role in how we navigate the branches of human connection. Sometimes as kids, we were lied to about what love is and we walk through life with a skewed/destructive understanding of it. The wounds of past heartaches serve as cautionary signposts, urging us to tread carefully, yet the knowing of true love’s embrace encourages us towards, openness, vulnerability and authenticity in its pursuit.

Travelling through life, I am recognizing how the search for kindred spirits is another quest for love itself. In a world where connections are often kept swallow and distances vast, the quest to find those who resonate with our souls and desire to nurture that connection becomes one we must  pursue with kindness. To remain trusting, daring to be full of good intention and consistent, to speak up for our ideals and show up for them with integrity. Even at the fear of rejection and failure.

Yet still, like Sade´s “Soldier of Love”, to warrior-on with open-hearts willing to take another risk at vulnerability in pursuit of true loving friendships and communities to build our world around.

Whatever I seek in others, I do my best to embody and be good at giving too. Finding kindred souls who see you, love you for you, cheer you on and remind you of your awesomeness in times of discouragement and despair, is a precious thing. One that requires the same from you. To show up  fully as myself for a fair chance at true connection.

Bell Hooks said, “The greatest gift one can give is that of thyself.” For it is only when we are truly ourselves, clear, honest and present that we can attract those who align with us.

In the inconsistent nature of nomadic life, friendships can take on a different hue. Some become fleeting yet profound, intimate yet distant. You form bonds with fellow travelers, fellow seekers, knowing that our paths may diverge at any moment. And yet, in those fleeting connections, we find echoes of ourselves, reflections of our own journey in another.

Amidst the transient encounters, there are those precious soul connections that become constants in the ever-changing tapestry of our lives. That sustain shared effort in preserving a valued connection. These are the kindred spirits, the friends who journey alongside us, even when miles apart. With them, we share not just experiences, but values, dreams, and fears. They are the ones who understand the language of our hearts without the need for common words.

As Bell Hooks reminds us, “Love is an action, never simply a feeling.” And so, in our quest for kindred spirits, we learn to embody love in all its forms – compassion, empathy, understanding, grace. To be willing to open our hearts, to embrace vulnerability, to forge connections that value and honor love too.

So, to all my fellow kindred spirits, my nomads on this quest for soul tribes, I say:

Journey with open hearts and open minds, knowing that in each encounter lies the potential for a true connection rooted in love, knowing of love and caring to nurture its blooming wherever it is planted. Dare to show up with the kind of friendship love that you seek to have.

I truly, truly hope that we find each other..