This was written in response to a request by a friend for something to go in their book of "things friends have written about themselves and friendship". I don't know if it was what she meant when she asked.

There's a quote from Walt Whitman, in _Salut a Monde_, that goes:

My spirit has pass'd in compassion and determination around the whole earth,
I have look'd for equals and lovers and found them ready for me in all lands,
I think some divine rapport has equalised me with them.

I drew this quote up, in ink and coloured pencil, and it hangs on my wall where I can't fail to see it. It's a reminder of the one thing I feel I mustn't ever forget: that I am here to love people, and that I do, and that I take them within my heart and never cease to care, to love, to feel affection, regardless of how I feel I can show it. That we are all linked in one way or another, and that linkage is to do with love as much as it is with anything else. That loving people can make them your equal in a way you didn't expect, because you value them for themselves as much as you value yourself for yourself. And that you can always find reasons to love people -smiles-.

It also reminds me that the people I love and like are important to me, great gifts that I have been graced with. It's a reminder not to take such people for granted. Such reminders are important to me, having spent so many years upon one road or another, always a wanderer at heart, taking stability only from the constancy of loving other people, and strength from being loved by others. My home has always been "that place where I am loved". Now, as a druid, it's a little more than just the place where people are that love me - it includes all the creatures of the land and the sense of place itself. But the basic definition is still the same -smiles-.

Walt Whitman again, from _Song of the Open Road_:

From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines
Going where I list, my own master total and absolute

To wander is the great freedom, to be free to find new laughter, new joy, new love, without being constrained to only that which you have already found. For there is so much out there, in one large sharing, waiting for a heart large enough to hold it -grins- I don't know if I can, but I'm willing to try!