Definitely one of the more recent developments in my awareness has been around the Soul.

Religion talks about the soul, new age hippies talk about the soul, it is a concept often talked about and, for me, it became just that – a concept, a word, without an embodied reality.

The shift for me definitely began during my time at the Florida School of Massage, very possibly during one of the many rounds in which we were asked to: “feel what is going on in your body, your heart, your soul”.  I was confused, mentally, “what is going on in my soul?”.  I assume I have one, yet how come I can’t simply answer the question?  So many instances in which that word -soul- shows up and yet I can’t answer this question?!

The body, the physical body, was, for example, feeling achy after all the climbing the previous night.

The heart, my emotional state, was feeling excited, excited and happy.

My soul though… and I often answered “clear” or “curious” because I either came up to a blank or an unknown.

I now don’t remember when (or even if) there was an exact moment in which I began to really understand how to tap into what my soul felt.  But I do remember the multiple ways in which I saw and felt my different interactions in the world.  It was like learning about this extra sense, a sixth sense.

I remember one time I was sitting at a Vipassana circle, on a Wednesday, where Paul Linn was, after the meditation, addressing a woman who was having some difficulty in waking up early enough to sit before starting her hectic day.  She expressed how it just felt so good to lie in bed for that extra half-hour instead of getting out of her comfortable, warm, state to dozzily sit cross-legged.

He said, and this is not a quote, that there is a great and undeniable pleasure that comes from waking up in the early hours of the day, before the sun has rise, and snuggling even tighter into the warm bed and going back to sleep.  And yet, there is a different pleasure that comes from getting out of bed and sitting in meditation.

This different pleasure – what is that about?

And at some point the shift happened and I came to better understand many things in a different light.  I reflect on how I value my need to go climbing even though I may be pressed for a work deadline, or go dancing even though my body is tired.  I reflect on the ways in which a long night out partying and drinking can affect me the next day, or how telling a small, insignificant, lie can sometimes stay in my mind for a while.

I used to walk by a piece of trash on the floor and think: “Should I pick it up, something is inviting me to pick it up but it’s not my trash.  Should I?”

I think the main catalyst for the shift came through the presence of particular friends.  The experience is that different people have different qualities, possibly different qualities of presence.  The truth of that experience is that I am fed in different ways by different people, and whereas certain people feed my body, others feed my heart and others feed my soul.

There is a sense that is more subtle than the others, subtle in that it is commonly less evident (even though it is always more evident).  Tapping into this sense is in a way tapping into the reason behind things, behind the thoughts, the words, the actions.  Tapping into living according to this sense is becoming an immensely joyful experience, joyful in that wide-eyed way akin to watching those videos where the camera was zoomed in on some region of the Earth and gradually zooms out until one sees the whole planet, then the whole Solar System, then the whole Galaxy.  It is the “Ahhhhh” of understanding that spontaneously comes out even though there is not understanding, no words.

I can ask myself now: “Is this action necessary?  If not then why would I want to do it?  What does it feed in me?  What does it satisfy in me?  Does it feed my soul?”

Example of picking up litter.

Many years ago i found myself questioning myself and others about relationship.  The question I would ask them would be something along the lines of: “If you eat because you are hungry, then what is the root of the wanting to be in a relationship?”  Somewhat related (and this I did not ask people) is “what is Love?”

Is it physical? – Sex, need of physical touch

Is it emotional? – Fear (of being alone), insecure (and needing reassurance), or other

Is it soulful? – Greater than you

A quote by Nietzche comes to mind:

“Was aus Liebe getan wird, geschieht immer jenseits von Gut und Böse.

What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.”

There is a sense of alignment, and possibly clarity, that comes from walking down the street and picking up a stray piece of trash.  Not because you/I should, should has nothing to do with it, but because it feeds that sense of alignement.  There is some more expansive calmness that comes from getting out of the comfy warm bed and washing one’s face, gently stretching, and then simply sitting quietly.  Not sitting because one should sit, not sitting to save the world, or to become enlightened, just sitting because it promotes that same Ahhhh, that same expansive calmness, and there is something in that, beyond words and explanation but definitely something… “beyond good and evil”.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,

there is a field.  I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,

the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase each other

doesn’t make any sense.” – Rumi (translated by Coleman Barks)