Live a mythical life based on fundamental truths

Father Ron Moses Camarda answers "What seems to be a myth by which I personally live?" in his post about becoming a Roman Catholic priest. He shares Thomas Moore's definition of myth from Care of the Soul while telling his story: "According to Moore, a myth is a sacred story set in a time and place outside history. It describes in fictional form the fundamental truths of nature and human life. (p. 220)"

Camarda planned to leave his training for the priesthood during retreat because he felt unworthy, however he was convinced by the retreat director that such a response indicates that he was truly "ready". A month before ordination, Camarda went on another retreat: "This time I meditated on the writings of Teilhard de Chardin. Humans (including me) tend to get out of synch, psyche and soul. I journeyed into the woods and celebrated Mass with nothing but my story and all of creation. Thomas Moore gave me the impression that my lifelong need of ritual along with my need to go reverently (and occasionally irreverently) beyond the rubrics (and myth) is essential to being soulful." Camarda is author of Tear in the Desert: A journey into the heart of the Iraq War (2008).

Unitarian sermon looks at ways to heal loneliness

Rev. Brian J. Kiely, Unitarian Church of Edmonton writes a sermon, "Healing Loneliness", in which he discusses differences between being alone and lonely. Kiely mentions the writings of Thomas Moore throughout his piece while sharing his own observations.

He includes: "Thomas Moore writes, 'A person oppressed by loneliness can go out in the world and simply start belonging to it, not by joining organizations, but by living through feelings of relatedness ― to other people, to nature, to society, and to the world as a whole.'"

Kiely recommends: "There is one last alternative I would suggest, and it may sound strange coming from a Unitarian Universalist minister. You could try praying. I have spoken of this before. The act of praying might reach the ears of some external god, but that is not so important. The act of praying or meditating reaches deep inside us to a very deep source of strength and wisdom. It can sweep one up and bathe them in healing energy. That kind of activity is soul work, for it attends to the whole self instead of the symptoms. Meditation and prayer and embracing a healing practice are great gifts to our solitary selves. They can be a self-blessing, an act of acknowledging ourselves as hurting beings without being self-pitying about it. Try it. If you don’t know how, talk to me."

Blogger regards distraction as tool of propaganda

The writer of All Things Religious shares her summer reading of two books in yesterday's post "Got Soul?":  
Care of the Soul by Thomas Moore (1992)  
What Really Happened: John Edwards, Our Daughter and Me by Rielle Hunter (2012)

She slips into equating soul with spirit while linking historical events with current political concerns, "For you skeptics or atheists I would say there is an essence or spirit in us and around us that offers energy and life lessons. These forces, as I have experienced them, have both light and darkness. Many people label energy, people and events as good and evil, of God or the Devil. As you wish. The problem is that when you are busy labeling the source, you may miss the message. Socially this matters because in the labeling, we distract each other from the root of the suffering that then goes unaddressed. The most powerful tool of propaganda and oppression is DISTRACTION."

Before sharing an original poem about animal friends, the post concludes, "So I thank Rielle Hunter for telling me an interesting story on my vacation. And I thank Thomas Moore for reminding me to listen to the subtle and too quiet songs of my soul."

Healing includes alchemical distillation of events

T. Byram Karasu, M.D., Silverman Professor of Psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine mentions Thomas Moore in yesterday’s Psychology Today blog entry, "Healer Loves the Other". Karasu writes about contact between therapist and patient:

"Not every minute of the session can have the same degree of profundity, but even when what the patient says seems 'meaningless,' it is never without meaning. Thomas Moore tells an anecdote of those in therapy often asking him, 'Aren’t you tired of hearing the same things over and over again?' 'No,' he replies, 'I am quite happy to hear the same thing.' He believes in an alchemical circulation, that the life of the soul depends on a continual going over and over of the material of life. I personally never hear the same thing. Each time it’s different, though seemingly the same. 'New veins can be found in old mines,' said S. Ferenczi.

Amazon.com’s description for Karasu’s book, The Psychotherapist as Healer (2001)includes, "T. Byram Karasu says that healing, at best, is not what the healer does, but what he is; that what really matters are not the schools of psychotherapy, but the psychotherapists themselves."