Spiritual Art Blog - *Ed P

This blog is updated weekly with a Thought for the Week, Inspirational Quotes and News about Ed P and his Pictures. To make sure you don’t miss anything, type in your email address in the Subscribe panel on the right. 
Thanks for visiting and please leave a comment on anything that stirs your imagination.

Glimpse of God

This video is based on my picture Glimpse of God which was inspired by Gabriel Ezutah's book Trail of Immortality. The music is by Rosemary Duxbury and works well with the story and visuals. It took me about six months to put this together as I tried to get the water in the picture to move convincingly. It was nice to have Gabriel play his own role as the dreamer in the picture. Have a look and let me know what you think.

Friendship

Thought for the week

Friendship is one of the ways love comes into our lives. It is like a bright star which lights up everything around it.  Some friendships develop slowly. We notice someone or we are introduced to them. As we get to know them we discover some traits we like or find attractive. We then establish a relationship with them and so our friendship begins.

Love at first sight
Sometimes a friendship can begin immediately from a first meeting where we feel at home with a person. It seems like we know each other for ages, yet we have just met. This type of friendship, when it happens with couples is often referred to as 'love at first sight'. A friendship where we feel we already know the person is probably an old friend from another lifetime. We are just reconnecting again because of the bond of love between us. We know and love each other. If we have an understanding of past lives and the fact that we continue to develop as we go from one life to another, we can then see that these friends who we seem to know well, are indeed friends from previous lives. If we loved a person in a previous life, we will love them again in this life. This is a simple explanation the “love at first sight” phenomenon.

Accept their wisdom
Friends are often the people we learn easiest from. We like them and we respect them. They may occasionally challenge us but because we like them we accept their wisdom easily. Some friends are good because they can tell us some uncomfortable truths which we may not be aware of or wish not to hear. On reflection we often see that they were right. It's at this point we discover the the quality of their friendship. Their strength of character and understanding of us allowed them see what was best for us.

Inner friends
Some of us have inner friends who we turn to when we have nobody else. Some have a family member who has moved on to the inner worlds. Others have saints or a holy person who offer guidance. For some this inner friend is the Life-force or Holy Spirit offering guidance in many aspect of their lives. Often this guidance comes as intuition or a knowing or a feeling of something which is right. It just feels right and therefore is the only right thing to do.

Be friends with ourselves
One of the most valuable and positive friendships we can develop is with ourselves. If we can be friends with ourselves, love ourselves and be aware of the goodness within us we will be a more balanced and positive individual. While there may be some aspects of our personality we don't like, deep down we are a perfect person. We have our individual traits so that we can learn from them and also so that others can learn from us.

We are here on a temporary basis, our personal traits whether they are skills or disabilities, good or bad personalities, nice features g or ugly, sociable or a reclusive, these are all temporary. When we move on from this life we move closer to our more perfect self, Soul. As Soul we are perfect but we are still learning to appreciate and become aware of this. If we can begin to see this perfection within ourselves we will begin be more accepting of ourselves and develop an inner friendship with ourselves. This inner friendship will help us be better friends with everyone we know.

Soul to Soul
When we see the love in our friends, we are catching a glimpse of Soul. When we show love to each other we are working as Soul to Soul. This accounts for the wonderful feeling we feel when we are “in love”. It is a flow of love from them and to us. We are getting closer to each other as Soul. This is one of the blessings of friendship. We receive love and we have the opportunity to give love. As we give and receive love we are touching the life-force, which maintains our worlds. Friendship is a source of love, a way of touching the Holy Spirit.

Wishing you love and friendship in your life.

*Ed Parkinson

For more insights into love and friendship, visit the Spiritual Writings page by clicking here.

Friendship Quotes

“People with the Golden Heart are full of love and have the ability to give all of themselves. They are the shining lights.”
Harold Klemp

“Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.”
George Washington

“Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It's not something you learn in school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned anything.”
Muhammad Ali

“Real friendship is shown in times of trouble; prosperity is full of friends.”
Euripides

“Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.”
Elie Wiesel

“If we would build on a sure foundation in friendship, we must love friends for their sake rather than for our own.”
Charlotte Bronte

“Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.”
Jane Austen

"Fiendships are discovered rather than made.”
Harriet Beecher Stowe

“Friendship at first sight, like love at first sight is said to be the only truth.”
Herman Melville

“Our scientific age demands that we provide definitions, measurements, and statistics in order to be taken seriously. Yet most of the important things in life cannot be precisely defined or measured. Can we define or measure love, beauty, friendship, or decency, for example?”
Dennis Prager

There can be no friendship where there is no freedom. Friendship loves a free air, and will not be fenced up in straight and narrow enclosures.”
William Penn

“Love is like the wild rose-briar; Friendship like the holly-tree. The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms, But which will bloom most constantly?”
Emily Bronte

“The rule of friendship means there should be mutual sympathy between them, each supplying what the other lacks and trying to benefit the other, always using friendly and sincere words.”
Cicero

“Secret forces are bringing compatible spirits together. If the man permits himself to be led by this ineffable attraction, good fortune will come his way. When deep friendships exist, formalities and elaborate preparations are not necessary.”
eathian
I Ching

“I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship. I see your beauty. I hear your need. I feel your feelings. My wisdom flows from the Highest Source. I salute that Source in you. Let us work together for unity and love.”
Mahatma Ghandi

“Friendship is the source of the greatest pleasures, and without friends even the most agreeable pursuits become tedious.”
St. Thomas Aquinas


For more insights into friendship and love, visit the Spiritual Inspirations page by clicking here.

Friendship

A friend asked me to do a cover for a newsletter with the theme Friendship. This is the first rough concept which I will now work into a finished piece.