Monday, January 22, 2018

SOULFUL

                             Price Lake, Blue Ridge Parkway, NC

Thomas Moore in his book Care of the Soul, takes care to distinguish the religious belief of an immortal soul and “the quality or dimension of experiencing life and ourselves…When we say that someone or something has soul, we know what we mean, but it is difficult to specify exactly what that meaning is…It has to do with depth, value, relatedness, heart, and personal substance…Just as the mind digests ideas and produces intelligence, the soul feeds on life and digests it, creating wisdom and character out of the fodder of experience.”  And I like to think of our soul as comparable to our developed character and the person we become when we’re alone, stripped of all pretenses and personalities exhibited to the outer world.  The human job description is to develop our character.  Moore writes “The soul is partly in time and partly in eternity.  We might remember the part that resides in eternity when we feel despair over the part that is in life.”  I like to think of the spiritual soul residing within our body like God resides in the universe.  

Just what is it when we find ourselves saying that an individual has soul?  Perhaps its that elusive something also called charisma, meaning divine favor and gift.  We really can’t say what has caught our imagination, but it’s there nonetheless.  President John F. Kennedy comes to mind as charismatic and Billie Holiday was one of the most soulful singers that ever performed.  And life partners that have developed a special connection are seen as soulmates.

Withdrawal or retreat from the world and the merry-go-round of hectic everyday life can be a soulful exercise.  I’ve happened upon a number of locations around the world that presented themselves to me as soulful.  Interestingly, many of them have a common denominator of calm, still waters and morning light.  Three that readily come to mind are summer hiking back into Maroon Bells National Park outside Aspen, Colorado, standing at the autumn shore of Price Lake off the North Carolina Blue Ridge Parkway and drifting on the mirrored waters of the Sea of Galilee in Israel.  These experiences were outside the limits of ordinary life.

Many of the hiking trails in the mountains involved beautiful vistas and others were more treacherous paths along a rocky ledge.  Moore writes that “This is the goal of the soul path—to feel existence; not to overcome life’s struggles and anxieties, but to know life first hand, to exist fully in context.  Spiritual practice is sometimes described as walking in the footsteps of another: Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.”

We observe things of this world that seem to “speak to our soul.”  I’ve had this feeling on many occasions looking through the lens of a camera.  I’ve especially been touched by the sight of weathered old barns and wooden windmills standing steadfast against a storm on the central plains.  Renaissance paintings by long deceased artists still speak to me such as Van Gogh’s paintings of a vibrant olive orchard and black crows hovering over a waving wheat field.  His tortured mental state cries out through the canvas.  And songs from the musical Les Misérables like Empty Chairs at Empty Tables pierce the soul of those touched by the images of the young patriots that sacrificed their life for a just cause.

Thomas Moore observes that “The Renaissance magus understood that our soul, the mystery we glimpse when we look deeply into ourselves, is part of a larger soul, the soul of the world, anima mundi.  There is certainly a sense that this existence is part of one greater spiritual consciousness.   

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