How Do You Spell "Soul"?

                                                                      How Do You Spell Soul?

​Do you spell "soul" ... s-o-u-l ? Of course you do, and, on the one hand, you are exactly correct... but, on the other, not so much... Because soul is not a thing, nor is it an it... and it is more than person... S-o-u-l is not something that a human possesses... rather, it is more like our secret, unfolding, identity which we build, form, and unleash with the assistance of the Divine Beloved... 

There are quite a number of ways in which we can spell "soul"... like, eye-gazing, forest-walking, gardening, music, poetry, sexing, praying, and playing... S-o-u-l is a moveable feast, centered in our heart-mind, that exists as an open invitation into the being-ness of the Beloved, and the joining in the loving-action of that same Beloved... S-o-u-l is not something that we have as an add-on to our bodies, nor is it an invisible thing that pervades our mind-body-being... S-o-u-l is the very delight and wholeness that is ours for the building...

S-o-u-l is the hunger of the Divine for a Divine Mutuality... Or, as Simone Weil said, "We have been created by Love, for Love, to become Love"... This is not a "little thing"... It is, instead, something truly extraordinary! We have been invited to "become Love"! This is soul-making, our truly great human purpose and meaning...

​David Hinton, in his extraordinary book Existence, explains the insight of the Tao Te Ching and of Taoist philosophy as the no difference between empty awareness and expansive presence... Here in the beginning, there is this existence-tissue open to itself, miraculously and inexplicably aware of itself, when there might just as well be nothing but opaque existence, existence blind to itself! Vast and deep, everything and everywhere -- the sheer presence of materiality is open to itself through our eyes, aware of itself here in the beginning. The story of existence is a self-portrait... (Existence, pg. 9)

​S-o-u-l is our personal contribution to the self-portrait of the Existence Beloved...

​Obviously, this begs for some clarity on the how? 

​My preference is to boil my thoughts down to a fine, clear, broth and then to work backwards from there: I define that "clear broth" as a Rule, or Way, of Life: 1) Cause no harm; 2) Because that is a virtual impossibility, cause as little harm as possible; 3) Be available to inspiration; 4) Be open and vulnerable to life (the Divine); and 5) This is not a test... but a lifestyle... And lifestyle is always a beginning with the Kingdom of God is within you (Yeshua bar Alaha), or as I might rephrase, the Home of the Beloved is within you...

​Chopping wood, carrying water is the way an ancient Chinese Zen Master put it: in other words, it is precisely in your daily life that the Home that you seek is located, and at least occasionally found... Spiritual development is not going to church, temple, mosque, forest, or hot tub... It could very well include any or all of the above, but it is not other than your everyday life... So the essential question is how to make the everyday part of your path and to experience the holy right there? 

​This business of living is not unique to you: whew! There has got to be some liberation in that awareness! But, there are a number of threads common to nearly every human life, and these threads are: family, intimacy and sex, work, play, prayer, body-care, mind-care, community action, and community building... Henry David Thoreau seriously suggested that we read well... so I guess that that means, in the context of this blog, to read folks like Rumi, Mary Oliver, Wendell Berry, along with a favorite Sacred Scripture source... Perhaps not too much, but certainly enough to intentionally cultivate open eyes...

​The opening of your hands and hearts, into limitless expansion is the work of a lifetime... Intentional, gifted service to others, especially to folks who have been marginalized by poverty, injustice, harm, and addictions (response to harm), is of great importance! Thoreau famously wrote Simplify! Simplify! Simplify! And I would add Service! Service! Service! Free service to / for / and with folks in need is essential spirituality... So that your heart will begin to experience an expansion of its boundaries... (which can be limitless! after all, you have been made in the image and likeness of the Divine!)

​Finally, s-o-u-l means the intentional cultivation of thoughts that are directed to compassion, kindness, nonviolence, and contemplation... Prayer without ceasing is the shared wisdom of the Masters, regardless of the particular spiritual path that they trod, male or female, it matters not... The easiest way of such prayer is to link it to your in-coming and out-going breath (you do breathe in your every moment, don't you?)... Select a Holy Name of the Beloved, and link it with your breath... Sit, several times a day, for contemplative re-charge... And, as often as possible, say I love You and I thank You, to the Beloved whom you adore (as to the beloveds of your life): this is, as it were, the Golden Thread of Soul...