In the practice of friendship, we might keep this important aspect of soul in mind: its need for containment. Our capacity to keep a secret could be important to a friend who may feel free to talk to us in a spirit of confidentiality. It often happens, too, that what goes on among certain friends has to be PROTECTED from other friendships. Emily Dickinson's biographer Richard Sewall notes that Emily made a separate world of her various correspondents and friends: "the letters to Higginson say nothing about Bowles; the letters to Bowles say nothing about Higginson; the letters to Helen Hunt Jackson say nothing about either of them."
Containment in a friendship is a powerful tool.
I need more Emily's in my life!
A loose tongue could kill the sacredness of two souls. Tammy Delores Lier
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