The Crucible of Context
Soul Manifestos 2024 - #04 in a new series
Soul Manifestos introduction
In 2014, I published a book of short poetic essays, Soul Manifestos and Pieces of Joy1. The book, illustrated by my longtime collaborator (and daughter) Ruth Thorp, is currently out of print but has continued to be well received over several editions. We are hoping to re-publish it this year, in an anniversary edition with a new end-piece essay to acknowledge the changes in context over the past decade.
These pieces are written in a similar style to the original small essays in the book – short, poetic and personal – and their content also mirrors the concerns that Unpsychology has been addressing in the past decade. You can find the Series Introduction and first ‘chapter’ in this new series HERE.
Soul Manifestos 2024
#04 : The Crucible of Context
The alchemy of soul-making take place in the crucible of context. In cultures where the ‘ecological’ is still an integral part of the understanding of the self, a practice of soul-making perhaps has more ease than in places where we have lost, or are losing, our connection with Earth. However, there are few places these days where humans are free of the enticements, demands and brutalities of market-capitalism, neoliberalism and increasing authoritarianism; so ‘soul’ can be lost – with tragic results – in indigenous and post-modern societies alike.
Soul-making is an attempt to find ‘soul’ – to be soulful in life – even in the places where this might seem to be hopelessly difficult. It is not a ‘developmental’ task – nor concerned with ‘growth’ in economic , spiritual or social evolutionary senses – but one of lifelong curiosity, mutual contextual learning and collective ecological and social engagement.
Soul-making recognises that humans change as we grow; that there are transitions between different parts in our lives that we have to negotiate. Childhood. Adolescence. Early adulthood and, possibly, parenthood. Perhaps then there are periods in which we might experience a mastery of craft or vocation, and periods that are barren and frustrating. Dead-ends in life, or worse. Then, for some fortunate enough to reach it, ‘Elderhood’, which might or might not hold learned wisdom, but can also be a time of attenuation, diminishment, loss and endings.
The point is that we can and will live in all these places and times with or without ‘soul’, with all the consequences of this for our wellbeing and happiness. Throughout all this, we carry the shadows, wounds and vulnerabilities of our humanity, but we may learn – if we are lucky and spend time paying attention to these things – how to face them and integrate them more fully and authentically into our self – or ‘soul’.
This crafting — ‘soul-making’ — may be how we can become more ourselves as human beings, as human animals, as inhabitants of Earth, as lifeforms who evolved to live on a small blue planet somewhere in some place in a vast universe: “We are significant — insignificant; a centre that is no centre. We are jewel, starlight and spinning dust”.2
The context for soul-making is also the world we make for ourselves — not just one we were evolved to live upon. This ‘world’ of humans is dominated by a particular political and economic system that emerged over the past few hundred years. It has brought great benefits for some humans and great trauma and pain for many others. This ‘system’ is not a natural condition for humans, any more than any other cultural system or civilisation has and will be, and it will give way to another in time.
The world is now faced with the greatest of challenges that has emerged from this systemic, complex and interwoven set of emergencies — with the scourge of human-made climate change at their heart. This ‘hyperobject’ of a crisis (to utilise Timothy Morton’s concept) dwarfs all the other crises that humans have faced and created. Psychologically, we seem to be unable to face it and the consequences it is already bringing, let alone those that will come to dominate our lives in generations to come.
Whatever emerges, we will need the capacity to face the future and to develop the understanding and resilience to live human lives in this Brave New World. This will require great imagination, creativity, connection and a deep trust in our own inherent soulfulness, in order to create a bridge to whatever we can craft for our lives to come.
This cannot be an individual task – but individuals will have to take it on. Those of us who have faith in the future, and in the capacity of humans to ‘make soul’ individually and collectively, will have to start and sustain this work (with no guarantee of success), guiding others gently towards their own personal ‘acorn’, and to the collective, transcontextual ‘soul’ in the world – to re-discover, as James Hillman might say: “the reason we are alive”.
This is, of course, a profoundly spiritual task. Not the flickering spirit of light and transcendence, nor the by-passing of the troubles in our collective and personal psyches with quick fixes and easily appropriated cultural beliefs, but one that requires grounded and spirited, Earth-centred labour undertaken with internal honesty and external service.
Next time in this series: Soul Manifestos #05 - Love Makes a Mess of Dying
Soul Manifestos and Pieces of Joy written by Steve Thorp and illustrated by Ruth Thorp is a collection of small, poetic essays written against the backdrop of conflict in modern culture, politics, economics, ecology and psychology. The small manifestos are written for wonder, wisdom, joy, love, and openness - and for the common good. They describe an alternative and grounded response to the material world, a way in which we might live our lives with depth and soul. It was first published in 2014 by Raw Mixture Publishing.
The lines above are from Blue Marble: an eco-poem about the Earth, how we humans see it, and what we are doing to it, a revised version of which will be available in print later this year from Raw Mixture Publishing. In the meantime you can find it here on Substack:
