“By soul I mean, first of all, a perspective rather than a substance, a viewpoint toward things rather than a thing itself. This perspective is reflective; it mediates events and makes differences between ourselves and everything that happens. Between us and events, between the doer and the deed, there is a reflective moment — and soul-making means differentiating this middle ground.
It is as if consciousness rests upon a self-sustaining and imagining substrate — an inner place or deeper person or ongoing presence — that is simply there even when all our subjectivity, ego, and consciousness go into eclipse. Soul appears as a factor independent of the events in which we are immersed. Though I cannot identify soul with anything else, I also can never grasp it apart from other things, perhaps because it is like a reflection in a flowing mirror, or like the moon which mediates only borrowed light. But just this peculiar and paradoxical intervening variable gives on the sense of having or being soul. However intangible and indefinable it is, soul carries highest importance in hierarchies of human values, frequently being identified with the principle of life and even of divinity.
In another attempt upon the idea of soul I suggest that the word refers to that unknown component which makes meaning possible, turns events into experiences, is communicated in love, and has a religious concern. These four qualifications I had already put forth some years ago. I had begun to use the term freely, usually interchangeably with psyche (from Greek) and anima (from Latin). Now I am adding three necessary modifications. First, soul refers to the deepening of events into experiences; second, the significance of soul makes possible, whether in love or in religious concern, derives from its special relation with death. And third, by soul I mean the imaginative possibility in our natures, the experiencing through reflective speculation, dream, image, fantasy — that mode which recognizes all realities as primarily symbolic or metaphorical.”
The above extract from Re-visioning Psychology by James Hillman (and cited at http://www.mythosandlogos.com/Hillman.html) is where I wish to commence my exterior journey in learning about the soul. Having said that, I feel it is important to be clear that no ‘journey’ is ever exclusively ‘exterior’. Every journey simultaneously traverses an interior terrain which frequently commences as a thought or an urge (a stirring of the soul, shall we say?), sometimes clear and loud, at others, indistinct and almost imperceptible.
From the above imaginings of the soul by James Hillman as well as my readings of other material by him, I have taken note of the following signposts, landmarks and places of interest, both nondescript and signal:
myth mystery imagery unknown soul-making meaning events and experiences deepening psychology-religion-love-death chaos multiplicity ambiguity divine spark archetypal psychology mythologizing reality fantasy will-fate asthetics-ethics soul’s code
In the course of my journey, I intend to follow these signs, explore these places of interest and attempt to understand the origin and significance of these landmarks. In fact, there is one landmark, ‘soul-making’, that immediately intrigues me! I shall have something to say about it in my next post :-)
Love Always, Lucy
How shall I serve you, my Love?
For Online and Offline Mentoring/Meditation/Workshops/Retreats Contact lucy@lucylopez.net
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