Session
6
Seeking the Sacred: Leading a Spiritual Life in a Secular World
AWAKENING THE SOUL - Marion Woodman
"...when we understand the joys and sufferings of life, and still operate out of hope and light, the world has the opportunity to create Heaven on Earth."
Index Chapter Summary Media Links Discussion References
Summary Notes -
Soul and Spirit.

In our discussion last week the questions arose: "What is the Soul?", "What is the Spirit?" and "Are these the same?" The biblical roots of this are Greek. The early conception was that human beings were composed of spirit (pneuma - breath), soul (psyche) and body (soma).

While some religious and spiritual traditions speak quite authoritively on just what spirit, soul and body mean, for most people there is a flexibility to it all. Life was simply breath itself, that which animated the body. And soul was the eternal part of a person. So it continues. As we learn to direct our attention and intention to our living and our purpose, the ancient metaphors still speak to us.

I have selected about 150 photos of flowers to illustrate my notes. For flowers are another metaphor of the holy.
The Awakening Soul - Some Readings.

Some excerpts from Secrets of the Heart by Kahlil Gibran that speak superlatively to the topic.

"Like you, I have been here since the beginning, and I shall be until the end of days. There is no ending to my existence, For the human soul is but a part of a burning torch which God separated from Himself at Creation. Thus my soul and your soul are one, and we are one with God,

My soul preached to me and taught me to love that which the evil abhor, and befriend those whom they revile. Before my soul preached to me, Love was in my heart as a tiny thread fastened between two pegs. But now Love has become a halo whose beginning is its end, and whose end is its beginning. It surrounds every being and extends slowly to embrace all that shall be.

My soul preached to me and taught me to listen to the voices which the tongue and the larynx and the lips do not utter. Before my soul preached to me, I heard only clamor and wailing. But now I eagerly attend Silence and hear its choirs singing the hymns of the ages and the songs of the firmament announcing the secrets of the Unseen.

My soul spoke to me and said, "Do not measure Time by saying, 'There was yesterday, and there shall be tomorrow.'" And before my soul spoke to me, I imagined the Past as an epoch that never returned, and the Future as one that could never be reached. Now I realize that the present moment contains all time and within it is all that can be hoped for, done and realized.

My soul preached to me exhorting me not to limit space by saying, "Here, there, and yonder." Before my soul preached to be, I felt that wherever I walked was far from any other space. Now I realize that wherever I am contains all places; and the distance that I walk embraces all distances.

My soul preached to me and said, "Do not be delighted because of praise, and do not be distressed because of blame." Before my soul counseled me, I doubted the worth of my work. Now I realize that the trees blossom in Spring and bear fruit in Summer without seeking praise; and they drop their leaves in Autumn and become naked in Winter without fearing blame.

My soul spoke to me and said, "The lantern which you carry is not yours, and the song that you sing was not composed within your heart, For even if you bear the light, you are not the light, And even if you are a lute fastened with strings, you are not the lute player."

My soul preached to me and taught me much. And your soul has preached and taught as much to you, For you and I are one."
--Meister Eckhart

"I have a capacity in my soul for taking in God entirely. I am as sure as I live that nothing is so near to me as God. God is nearer to me than I am to myself; my existence depends on the nearness and the presence of God."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Within man is the soul of the whole;
the wise silence; the universal beauty;
to which every part and every particle
is equally related; the eternal One."

--Mathnawi by Rumi

"What is soul? Soul is conscious of good and evil, rejoicing over kindness, weeping over injury. Since consciousness is the inmost nature and essence of the soul, the more aware you are the more spiritual you are. Awareness is the effect of the spirit: anyone who has this in abundance is a man or woman of God."

Gary Zukav, a new age physicist says:

"Love, compassion, and wisdom do not come from the personality. They are experiences of the soul. Your soul is that part of you that is immortal. ... It is a positive, purposeful force at the core of your being."

"Every experience that you have and will have upon the Earth encourages the alignment of your personality with your soul. Every circumstance and situation gives you the opportunity to choose this path, to allow your soul to shine through you, to bring into the physical world through you its unending and unfathomable reverence for and love of Life."

Another new age voice Richard Bach says:

"Every person, all the events of your life are there because you have drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you."

"There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts."

"You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however."

--Dag Hammarskold

"We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny. But what we put into it is ours."

--Alan Watts

"We might say that the ground of man's being is the immanent presence of God, which at every moment supports and energizes both soul and body - a "beyond" which is "within"."

Thomas Moore in "Care of the Soul" says:

"'Soul' is not a thing, but a quality or a dimension of experienceing life and ourselves. It has to do with depth, value, relatedness, heart, and personal substance. I do not use the word here as an object of religious belief or as something to do with immortality. 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. Care of the soul begins with observance of how the soul manifests itself and how it operates."

"Care of the soul is interested in the not-so normal, the way that soul makes itself felt most clearly in the unusual expressions of a life, even and maybe especially in the problematical ones."

"For Jung, there are two kinds of shadow: one consists of the possibilities in life that we reject ... [ and the other, that ] ... there is evil in the world and in the human heart. If we don't recongize this, we have a naive attitude that can get us into trouble. Jung thought the soul can benefit by coming to terms with both kinds of shadow, losing some of its naive innocence in the process. It appears to me that as we open ourselves to see what our soul is made of and who we really are, we always find some material that is a profound challenge."

Marion Woodman is a soul worker (and a Jungian). And from her familiar ground she encourages us in this chapter to "awaken" our souls. Her descriptions of the soul are very poetic.
The soul is bound up with destiny and our very being.
The Soul transforms false wants into self-love and allows us to be centered in our own reality, in our own voice.
The soul is embodied, but not restricted to, the perimeter of the body.
The soul exists before we are born and will exist after we die.
Soul is a profound mystery.

How then to awaken our souls? By setting out to meet our purpose, and not the purposes of others. In fact she says, people who do not find their purpose lead troubled lives. Addiction starves our souls by subverting our true purpose. Ignored enough, our souls go to sleep, where they continue as ever to communicate in the metaphors of dreams.

Even when we cannot love ourselves because of something dark within us, our souls will show us the meaning of this shadow and the metaphoric means of transforming ourselves. Dreams should be shared - with friends and family, in writing and journals, with counselors.

"Night by night, dreams take us closer to the soul and facing our own suffering, making our own sacrifice brings us closer to others who have done the same. We know them instantly and we love them. Our souls are present to each other. That ability to love ourselves and each other as we are ... is a great gift, a great discovery."

"The divine marriage between soul and spirit brings forth a new life, a new path. The soul works through us, opens itself to spirit. This dialogue with the soul grows until we heal and are born anew."

Here we see her notion that soul and spirit are in a creative relationship. The spirit our energy, the soul our true self. The soul the potentiality, the spirit the breath of our life.

"Though we are living in a darkening world, there is new hope, new life, new strength, new love. As dark as the world is, I think we have to remember that this is our time to be living.

Marion Woodward has written the forward to The Sacred Prostitute: Eternal Aspects of the Feminine - Nancy Qualls-Corbett, which is scanned now into the new books.google.com database. Her concluding words there are an excellent conclusion to business of awakening soul to its lifework.

"Light does not come through incessant wallowing in the dark. All our rage, all our bitterness, all our fears, are stepping stones that lead through darkness into light. But they are merely stepping stones. Only from a clear vision of oneness, an experience of genuine love, can we live our own truth. Whether this experience is given through another human being or through a solitary connection with the divine, this is the experience that illumines our lives."

On YouTube.com I found two suitable videos. The first is a one minute snippet of an interview with Carl Jung himself as he speaks on individuality. We are reminded we are our experiences. We cannot stand a meaningless life.

The other is a 4 minute part of a lecture by Marcus Borg on Christianity as The Way. Borg is a modern theologian who reminds us that Christianity originally focused on practice and not belief. As so also do the authors in this present bookstudy on the secular practice of spirituality.
Media Links

Here is a slide introduction to the 13th century Sufi poet Rumi, William C. Chittick explores 'The Sufi Doctrine of Rumi'

As an ending meditation, the following exquisite video of a Gaelic Blessing - from a Baha'i site with 3 dozen similar pieces.
Discussion - Discuss: What do I undertand by the term "soul" and what connections do I make between "soul" and "social justice?"
Listen to, and live the voice of your soul "There is no transformation without sacrifice"
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St. David's United Church.Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Jan
2007