24/02/2026
In the Celtic tradition your Anam Cara is your soul friend(s)
Good morning, friends! This first full week of Lent, we have the gift of Jeremy Frye's words about Spiritual Friendship in our space again:
Every winter, two of my dearest friends and I make the same mini pilgrimage together. We leave behind our calendars, our screens, and the low hum of the obligations that fill our ordinary days, and we travel to my family’s cabin for a short getaway. There, nestled in the stillness of trees and time that doesn’t demand anything from us, we reclaim something that often slips through our fingers in the pace of daily life: attention.
We watch old movies. One of our traditions is that each of us brings a film the other two haven’t seen—something we love and want to share. Sharing stories we love with people who will understand why they matter to us. We linger over meals. We talk about the things that have shaped us, the hurts that haven’t healed, and the hopes we don’t often name out loud. We laugh more than usual. Sometimes we cry. But more than anything, we are present to one another.
We see each other regularly in our everyday lives, but this time is different. It is marked by intention. We have chosen to step away from the noise—not only the noise of devices and news, but the quieter noise inside us: the pressure to be useful, to be efficient, to keep up. For a couple of days, we lay all of that down. Not to escape life, but to remember what it feels like to live it wholly.
Over time, I’ve come to realize that this weekend functions like a kind of trumpet blast. Not loud or jarring, but unmistakable. It calls me back to myself. Back to friendship. Back to the truth that life is meant to be shared, not managed. It wakes me up to how fragmented my days often become—and how easily I accept that fragmentation as normal.
Keep reading at https://anamcara.com/resisting-the-powers-that-fragment/ or at the link in our bio.
And as we begin this week, consider: What are the things that call you back to yourself? "Back to friendship. Back to the truth that life is meant to be shared, not managed"? How do *you* find this kind of attentiveness? How do you resist the powers that fragment?
