A Discourse on Soul and Spirit

How to describe soul? For she is not all light and fancy goodness. Soul is a powerful force, an archetypic presence that, when fully aroused, is far more willful and powerful than us. She carries the mystic darkness and the unmentionable as well as the bountiful and the warmth. She is not always what we would like, but offers us the richest and sweetest life if we will take the risk with both hands and all toes. nnSoul draws us uncannily inward to the dark of the uncut forest and the deeps below the waves. She is the soul of the water without which we are dry, the green of trees and shrubs without which we are blighted, the black of the night without which we become lazy and smug. An intimate relationship with soul will transform both of you, for soul too has a journey to make, and the highest purpose in life comes when we dedicate our whole being and total energy to supporting that journey.nnShe is the lady of the beasts riding our passions, she is our father’s daughter, and our sister and our lovers. She is the worrisome succubus drawing off life’s juices and the Sofia of Wisdom, she is the cold wraith in the mist and the hallowed nurse, the Cinderella nymphet and the harpy temptress, the bearer of fate, the Persephone of destruction and the Maria of Compassion. She is the darkness of our dreams, the intimacy of love and death and the black night.nnBy comparison the world of spirit is different indeed. Its images blaze with light, there is fire, wind and generation. Spirit is fast, it quickens all that it touches. Its direction is vertical and ascending. It is arrow-straight, knife-sharp, powder-dry and masculine, the active principle in making form, order and clear distinctions. It xemplifies the higher and more abstract disciplines, the intellectual mind, refinement and purification. It is purpose incarnate, pure and implacable. Spirit does not desire relationship, does not long for contact, is not intrinsically sensitive to our humanity. Hence, merging with spirit carries the present danger of inflation and being carried remorselessly beyond our genetic condition.nnBut soul moves in circular ways where retreats are as important as advances. She prefers labyrinths and dark corners. Soul involves us in the flow. She is vulnerable and suffers, passive and remembers. She is water to the spirit’s fire, like a mermaid who beckons the hero into the depths of her passions to extinguish certainty. Soul is imagination, a cavernous treasury, a sepulchre of manna. Whereas spirit chooses the better part and seeks to make all One, soul prefers growth and curiosity. She is love and the intimacy of sharing. She is a blank slate waiting to be formed.nnWhere spirit says “not this and not that” soul whispers “this too has a place, may have significance, and may have its own myth”. Spirit feels impelled to harness and discipline soul, needs to empty its imagination, blunt her dreaming and dry her intimacy. For soul, says spirit, cannot know, neither truth nor law nor cause: soul is all fantasy. nnBut in fact, it is only through the connection of soul can that we be with spirit and remain human - otherwise we too are taken over. Soul is our guarantee of ordinariness and humility midst the temptation of inflation and certitude. It is through soul that we may actively participate in the daily creative unfolding of our universe - because this is the realm where we cannot know, where certainty is impossible and the future sublimely mysterious.nnWe, in ou society, are on a precipice right now. We are in the process of losing the place of soul in our lives. Our material society has reduced the trinity of body, soul and spirit that has lived in our culture for tens of thousands of years, into a duality - the duality of matter and, often as an afterthought, spirit. Our materialism recognizes only that which we can sense and simplistically relegates everything else into a single non-real packet called spirit. nnThis prospect is more disastrous than many think. What we lose with soul is a world of imagination, and passion, of fantasy and inner reflection that is not physical nor material, nor is it abstractly spiritual - yet is bonded to both. To sustain hope, no matter how hard the times nor how painful our circumstances, we need to know that soul holds a winning card of crucial importance: Soul guarantees to lie in wait, dormant yet expectant, until our longing emerges, and then our ache for its fullness and sweetness, its companionship and strangeness will inevitably draw soul to us. With soul we are never on our own. Without we are lost in our own emptiness.