Dec. 2, 2020: How goes it with your Soul?

Greetings,

How goes it with your soul?

Wait… Soul, you say? What I mean by soul is nearly what Carl Jung meant, or seemed to me to mean, although for Jung and his intellectual progeny, something like “soul” couldn’t be exactly quantified.

This definition comes from Thomas Moore in Care of the Soul:

It is impossible to define precisely what the soul is. Definition is an intellectual enterprise anyway; the soul prefers to imagine. We know intuitively that soul has to do with genuineness and depth, as when we say certain music has soul or a remarkable person is soulful. When you look closely at the image of soulfulness, you see that it is tied to life in all its particulars—good food, satisfying conversation, genuine friends, and experiences that stay in the memory and touch the heart. Soul is revealed in attachment, love, and community, as well as in retreat on behalf of inner communing and intimacy. (Care of the Soul, xi-xii)

If the Jungian notion of soul intrigues you, click here for some further exploration.

So, when I ask, How goes it with your soul, what I mean to say is “how are you doing, not physically, not psychologically, not cognitively, not even emotionally… but something that is made up of all of these and something more, that elusive quality we may call soul or spirit?”

On Facebook, I posed the question, “On a scale of one to ten, how are you doing?”

About 2 dozen of my 1500 “friends” answered. The respondents included UU ministers, distant relatives, and high school classmates. I have no way of knowing how many saw it and didn’t reply. Their estimates ranged from a 3 to a 10, but most acknowledged that they went up and down depending upon the day. That seems perfectly understandable, given the current state of things.

What struck me was how honest and vulnerable people were.

One person even said, “thanks for asking.”

The thing is: just asking ourselves, or one another, this question is important. It may be uncomfortable at first, but it can lead to healing. If you think asking about their soul is a bit much, perhaps you could say, How are your spirits? I think you will be surprised at how much folks long to be listened to!

Ultimately, we might consider having fewer wild swings and more times on the upper end of the scale. That can be called equanimity.

In today’s meditation session, our teacher suggested we take time throughout the day to check in with ourselves. Three breaths. This, to me, is how we care for the soul. It doesn’t have to be complicated, or time consuming. Best of all, it’s free. Just breathing, knowing we are breathing, and knowing that there is wisdom available to us within, if we allow it space.

In December, our Soul Matters theme is “Stillness.” I hope you will join us in our Zoom gathering each Sunday for music and inspiration.

How is it with your soul?

Love, Cynthia