J. B. Jackson, a historian of landscapes, makes a crucial point about such things in his essay “The Necessity for Ruins.” Things in decay, he says, express a theology of birth, death, and redemption.
What if we thought of the family less as the determining influence by which we are formed and more the raw material from which we can make a life?
The point is not merely to succeed but to become a deeper, more complex, more mature person through your struggle. You allow the alchemy of your challenging journey to etch itself into your character, making you into a rich personality. Then whatever work you do will have the quality of your experience and your capacity to be ripened by it. Doing.
All illness is meaningful, although its meaning may never be translatable into entirely rational terms. The point is not to understand the cause of the disease and then solve the problem, but to get close enough to the disease to restore the particular religious connection with life at which it hints.
A calling is the sense that you are on this earth for a reason, that you have a destiny, no matter how great or small.
Jung called this process I’m describing individualism, becoming an individual, a real person not continually swept away by his passions of influenced by his culture. Each person has a unique opus, a soul work, because each has a particular makeup and history. For Jung the opus was a process of getting to know yourself deeply, not only a psychological process of painful advance in self-knowledge; but a religious initiation involving spiritual ideals and the search for meaning.
Aging brings out the flavors of a personality. The individual emerges over time, the way fruit matures and ripens. In the Renaissance view, depression, aging, and individuality all go together: the sadness of growing old is part of becoming an individual. Melancholy thoughts carve out an interior space where wisdom can take up residence. Saturn.
Part of finding your soul is to wake up to this habit of thinking like others and go your own way. It may be painful to separate from those people who have given you a sense of belonging and purpose, but your soul is at stake. A.
But real virtue can’t be bought with repression; real virtue is the rare innocence that comes from taking life on and owning your passions.
It’s often the case that in the bodies of several friends we see one soul. – Marsilio Ficino, Letter to Almanno Donati.
If you take Christmas to heart and get past the anxieties in arranging for gifts and parties, you will rediscover yourself every year at this time and experience a birth in yourself, just like the one so beautifully described in the Gospel stories. It will be a celebration of both the birth of Jesus and the birth of your soul.
You have to make your own world, instead of succumbing to the one that presses on you. You have to turn the tables on what appears to be fate or the full weight of society. Against the greatest odds, you have to keep your wits about you and refuse to surrender to anyone or anything less than divine.
If you are highly neurotic, or worse, you don’t have to become normal and healthy to live a creative and loving life. You can learn to transform your insanity into eccentricity.
Part of the pain of love is that no person, however suitable and satisfying, completes the desire for love. There is always a remainder, because love takes us beyond the human sphere. It puts you in touch with the ultimate object of desire. It invites you to transcend yourself, to be more than you ever have been.
Every day you have choices. You can do things that wound your soul, like being dominated by the work ethic or compulsively seeking more money and possessions, or you can be around people who give you pleasure and do things that satisfy a desire deep inside you. Make this soul care a way of life, and you may discover what the Greeks called eudaimonia – a good spirit, or, in the deepest sense, happiness.
I sometimes wonder if I’m built from old videotape. I feel archaic, worn from overuse and increasingly obscure. One day I’ll get caught up in the grinding wheels of my own life and unravel.
Few things are more important than finding a home and working at it constantly to make it resonate with deep memories and fulfill deep longings.
The preparation of food also serves the soul in a number of ways. In a general sense, it gives us a valuable, ordinary opportunity to meditate quietly, as we peel and cut vegetables, stir pots, measure out proportions, and watch for boiling and roasting. We can become absorbed in the sensual contemplation of colors, textures, and tastes as, alchemists of the kitchen, we mix and stir just the right proportions.
Many people think that the point in life is to solve their problems and be happy. But happiness is usually a fleeting sensation, and you never get rid of your problems. Your purpose in life may be to become more of who you are and more engaged with the people and the life around you, to really live your life. That may sound obvious, yet many people spend their time avoiding life.
The darkness doesn’t exactly come from outside, but is a revelation of something in your nature. In your black moods and dark fears you find and essential part of yourself.
We cultivate soulfulness in a relationship by honoring its vernacular life. We deal with the given relationship and forgo the indulgence of imagining something better or different. We respect its style and its unfolding qualities. These vernacular qualities of family, marriage, or friendship may not appear in a flash, but may take years to be revealed. Only through time and experience do we discover the nature and styles of actual people.