James Hillman and Thomas Moore both wrote extensively about the soul similar to what you have presented. The Soul's code in particular talks about how our early life experiences hone and shape our gifts that the acorn(our soul) has to share with humanity. I think one example was a famous bullfighter who was bullied as a child and very frightened and as he grew he developed courage to face adversaries....not that I see some poor bull who has been provoked into attacking a fighter as an adversary but the principle being the choices to utilise our early experiences, to craft them into an art piece of a life that is unique to us... and with time and perspective starting to feel gratitude for perhaps the hypervigilance to others emotions or the people pleasing .....for the skills developed so early on that they are finely honed. It's great to hang a conceptual framework over our lives for fit - but really the real contributions we give each other through our stories, our disclosure of our personal vulnerabilities and our struggles especially as your title suggests "broken times".
There is an austerity of human connection when we linger in the abstract, the practice, the theory - perhaps we are afraid of judgement - our own or others, perhaps we just have got familiar with the intellect and emotions are a warzone, perhaps we feel better if we can think we have the answer.... who knows... but I didn't feel nourished by this piece in my own broken times, there felt to be no personal hand outstretched over the internet saying - I'm fucking freaked out by the break down of our society... it's completely normal and here's how I am coping by... maybe writing abstract intellectual treatises - I could then feel connected with your humanness rather than your intellect.
Seems like my soul is provocative, impatient and irritated and interested in waking people up to feeling shit not just talking about it from a distance...( the acceptable form of drug taking of the modern world...thinking.) That's not quite so pretty perfect and neat and tidy where we are all dancing around with daisies in our hair. Soul is messy, the blood and shit of childbirth, raw vitality not safe or pretty at all
Thanks for engaging again, Yinchi Moon. We're all fucking freaked out, or many of us are. There's nothing particularly intellectual about what I'm writing – I find elaborate ideas and 'metacrises' and the like frustrating. However there are sometimes thoughts and ideas that are helpful to me, and in conversation with others. That's what I write about...
I guess I can't expect that you are nourished by what I write – and I don't write for that reason anyway, though it's obviously good when it happens. I do hope you find something that does nourish you, however Yinchi, as we all need that in these times...
You're right that soul is shitty and messy, and Hillman at least recognised that, though I'm not sure I read him the way you do in relation to early life experiences! The Souls Code seems to me about the original acorn or image that emerges regardless or in spite of childhood experience... That's what makes it so radical, I reckon...
Thank you this, Steve - wrestling to find the words for something that‘s not materialism, not religiosity, not New Age hoo ha. It really strikes a chord.
Thanks Maggie, that's a lovely comment, and good to hear from you. it's what I've been wrestling with for ages - as you know! it feels like a lot of people go for the hoo ha, and pretend its not...!
James Hillman and Thomas Moore both wrote extensively about the soul similar to what you have presented. The Soul's code in particular talks about how our early life experiences hone and shape our gifts that the acorn(our soul) has to share with humanity. I think one example was a famous bullfighter who was bullied as a child and very frightened and as he grew he developed courage to face adversaries....not that I see some poor bull who has been provoked into attacking a fighter as an adversary but the principle being the choices to utilise our early experiences, to craft them into an art piece of a life that is unique to us... and with time and perspective starting to feel gratitude for perhaps the hypervigilance to others emotions or the people pleasing .....for the skills developed so early on that they are finely honed. It's great to hang a conceptual framework over our lives for fit - but really the real contributions we give each other through our stories, our disclosure of our personal vulnerabilities and our struggles especially as your title suggests "broken times".
There is an austerity of human connection when we linger in the abstract, the practice, the theory - perhaps we are afraid of judgement - our own or others, perhaps we just have got familiar with the intellect and emotions are a warzone, perhaps we feel better if we can think we have the answer.... who knows... but I didn't feel nourished by this piece in my own broken times, there felt to be no personal hand outstretched over the internet saying - I'm fucking freaked out by the break down of our society... it's completely normal and here's how I am coping by... maybe writing abstract intellectual treatises - I could then feel connected with your humanness rather than your intellect.
Seems like my soul is provocative, impatient and irritated and interested in waking people up to feeling shit not just talking about it from a distance...( the acceptable form of drug taking of the modern world...thinking.) That's not quite so pretty perfect and neat and tidy where we are all dancing around with daisies in our hair. Soul is messy, the blood and shit of childbirth, raw vitality not safe or pretty at all
Thanks for engaging again, Yinchi Moon. We're all fucking freaked out, or many of us are. There's nothing particularly intellectual about what I'm writing – I find elaborate ideas and 'metacrises' and the like frustrating. However there are sometimes thoughts and ideas that are helpful to me, and in conversation with others. That's what I write about...
I guess I can't expect that you are nourished by what I write – and I don't write for that reason anyway, though it's obviously good when it happens. I do hope you find something that does nourish you, however Yinchi, as we all need that in these times...
You're right that soul is shitty and messy, and Hillman at least recognised that, though I'm not sure I read him the way you do in relation to early life experiences! The Souls Code seems to me about the original acorn or image that emerges regardless or in spite of childhood experience... That's what makes it so radical, I reckon...
Thank you this, Steve - wrestling to find the words for something that‘s not materialism, not religiosity, not New Age hoo ha. It really strikes a chord.
Thanks Maggie, that's a lovely comment, and good to hear from you. it's what I've been wrestling with for ages - as you know! it feels like a lot of people go for the hoo ha, and pretend its not...!