An Ode to the Soul

In loving witness to a soulful life.

Soul is wild and untameable.

Always expanding beyond ones expectations

Breaking free from the shackles of control or devise.

It is the colours of who we are.

Moving beyond the rationalities of a bounded body

We may tend to its gardens

Sit with it’s whims

participate in its unfolding

Yet if one be thought they can manage soul

Within the lines of a schedule

Or convenience

The sight is lost from the cosmic adventure

And sinks into a dimly fulfilled task

The opportunities that it offers are replaced

By a blind sense of control

Comforted by the illusion of safety

Instead of diving fully into the unknown

Just to see what lies on the other side

The soul longs for attachments

The experiences of the earthly realm

To be moved by desire and invigorated by connection

Soul finds its home in the ordinary, mundane moments

Where life is happening in the most authentic ways

It is not so rooted in the search for meaning or the quest for enlightenment

Soul finds meaning in the happenings of life,

Living for the depth, the mess, the heart, the emotions

Some other element of us desires to transcend these messy conditions of life

Yet the soul lives for them

It is why soul came here.

The souls experience is reverence rather than intellectual analysis

It is authenticity rather than perfection

It’s embodiment is found within the everyday tugs of the heart and whispers of insight

Soul lives within the mythology of a life, the stories, the paradoxes, the threads that weave together all that a person becomes, rather than in the methodical understanding or linearity

It is slow, gradual, mysterious

Honouring the soul means sitting with the imperfections that weave together a life.

It is not that which propels, but that which feels the impact. That which sits with all that lives after the party ends. Sinking deeper, deeper, deeper. In the present moment.

Soul lives within the messy, uncomfortable, ugly

Along with the precious, blissful, beautiful

When we are faced with these experiences, soul communes

What does it mean then, to live Soulfully?

Relishing in the raw yearning of the heart. Where the soul longs for entanglement, the treasures of life, nourishment of the earthly experience and desire. Soul is here to experience. The dirty, the precious, the powerful.

Soul is complex. In one moment longing for one thing, a life of community, family, and in another, desiring solitude and detachment. That is the intricate weaving of the soul. Both are valuable and integral to the experience of soul. Embracing and holding the paradoxes and allowing them their expression. The truth of both/and.

We are guided by our emotions,  by our desire, our pain. There is no perfect balance that can be found within soul, for soul moves in unpredictable ways. Sometimes it looks like moving from one extreme to the other. From slow progress. From error and trying. There is no balance that can be eternally maintained, the soulful pendulum is always in swing.

The opportunity here is to lean into the mysteries, and embrace the polytheistic way of soul. There is no point reached, but rather a journey unfolds

It is deciphering the truth of soul from the falsehoods of fear. And allowing heart to speak, to lead, to guide the way deeper into soul.

And so I leave you here to ponder,

Where is the soul is me?

And once you glimpse it, listen! Follow it. Hear the song it sings. Let soul take you into the most magical, wild places of your inner universe.

In Love.