Making Friends
There’s one thing that I think we can all agree, the world is a much cooler place to be when we’re in it together, creating new memories with as many of our best friends as possible. Kind of like having a solid crew that always has our back, and is always there to cheer us up. So what if you learned to see the living world that's bubbling full of life all around us as the most ultimate team of friends in the history of Earth? Team Life! Out of the whole 3.5 billion-year story of life on our crystal blue water planet, we happen to live in a blink of time that’s filled with quite possibly the most diverse spectrum of awe-inspiring, and almost unbelievable animal, plant, and fungi friends that ever walked, swam, grew or flew around the globe. The best part is we don’t have to go far to come face to face with our wild friends, because no matter where we are they’re always all around us, we just have to take the time to get to know them.
On that note, we are in serious luck my amigos, because we might as well be living in a fantasy world full of Dr. Seuss’ wildest imaginary pals. Our world is a treasure chest of wild friends that are all just trying to do the same thing as us - stay alive and live our best lives. From azurite oceans with dazzling jewels of life-giving fish and air-purifying underwater forests, to rugged continents filled with succulent and sweet wildflowers/fruits and towering trees that breathe clouds of pure oxygen and fresh water, to the lofty skies where hawks soar with mesmerizing peace and the infinitely wise gazing eyes of the owls teach us how much knowledge, skill and experience it takes to survive. Anytime you get to meet a wild friend, like a bird, butterfly or a squirrel that greets you with a surprise “hello!” in the park or on the trail, it’s impossible to ignore that natural feeling that our connection to our wild friends is something that just feels good.
West Friends is all about sharing that memorable feeling of meeting your best friends that we get from experiencing the world through this ecological, community, or what we like to call the “Team Life” perspective. When you get to know and grow a personal relationship/connection to our extended family of non-human friends, the world starts to look and feel more like home. It feels like it’s meant to be. It also feels more like somewhere we want to be, and better yet, a family that we’re lucky and proud to be a part of. A much different relationship to our community of Life than something we’re just living on top of and constantly using up for ourselves. Learning to extend our most human gift of emotional intelligence and awareness to our world of Life is a journey. A journey that can change our outlook from a rat race struggle to survive to a celebration of the greatest show on Earth, the show of Team Life. We can only hope to share the endless positivity that our relationships to our world have brought us with anyone who shares the curiosity to explore what it feels like to join the global family/community of our West Friends. Creating these experiences together brings us closer to each other and closer to Life. That’s what making friends means to us.