Celebrate the season by listening to soul needs

Yoga instructor Erin Gael Chambers shares two reflective quotes in her April post "The Yoga of Surrender". One by medical doctor, Jungian psychoanalyst, and activist Jean Shinoda Bolen includes the passage, "To be a soulful person means to go against all the pervasive, prove-yourself values of our culture and instead treasure what is unique and internal and valuable in yourself and your own personal evolution." Chambers also shares Thomas Moore's observation in his book, Care of the Soul:

"It's important to be heroic, ambitious, productive, efficient, creative, and progressive, but these qualities don't necessarily nurture soul. The soul has different concerns, of equal value: downtime for reflection, conversation, and reverie; beauty that is captivating and pleasuring; relatedness to the environs and to people; and any animal’s rhythm of rest and activity."

Chambers concludes her remarks with, "The rising energy of Spring is infectious, and we are all excited to be able to go outside, de-clutter our spaces, and progress on the paths we are on. Let us also take time in this busy moment of the year to listen to what our souls are asking for. Let’s follow Moore's advice and appreciate beauty, both outside and inside ourselves. Most importantly, let's allow ourselves to take pleasure in the revolutionary act of pausing for a moment to just be."

Moore offers "Lazarus, Come Out!" in e-course

Finding the Questions site mentions Spirituality & Practice’s current e-course, The Spirituality of the Gospels, with Thomas Moore in the post, "Where in your life do you need to come alive again?". For today’s lesson about Lazarus, the blogger includes the poem "The Lightest Touch" by David Whyte.

Blogger believes in keeping mystery of soul alive

In today's post, "The Importance of Mystery" for his Writing in the Spirit blog, Gerald Schiffhorst mentions Thomas Moore's book, Care of the Soul, when he writes about immortality and the soul. Schiffhorst includes, "Thomas Moore in his popular Care of the Soul avoids any definition of soul; he skirts the issues of immortality but would probably agree that it is a divine spark within us that connects us to the divine. It has to do with love as well as immortality."

Schiffhorst's focus is on maintaining mystery. He writes, "After years of reading theology and philosophy, my idea of the soul remains vague. Yet this is as it should be. Like so many invisible realities I believe in, it is a mystery, and no efforts to define it or imagine it are worth much. . ." before concluding, "The goal of science, B. F. Skinner once said, is the destruction of mystery. But enlightened scientists today include mystery as a basic part of our ongoing discovery of the complexity of what is real. I believe in keeping mystery alive."