Soul care includes listening to the body's desires

Jewelry maker Beth Hemmila blogs "Adornment and Care of the Soul" with an opening quote from Thomas Moore's book, Care of the Soul. Moore writes that cura, the Latin word used originally in "care of the soul," means several things including adorning the body.

In her post, Hemmila shares, "I'm pretty sparse when it comes to material possessions — like a vagabond with only the essentials in my pack. However, my soul wants to wear layers and layers of jewelry and in particular necklaces. The weight, feel, and energy against my chest is so important to me, but I had never allowed myself to indulge in this kind of lavishness. Maybe I'd wear some simple earrings in the past, but apparently layers of gems and precious metals is incredibly important to my soul."

She connects this revelation with "Now I see that this past year and a half of choosing to design for only myself, was a way for me to cultivate a relationship with and care for the deepest parts of my soul. So if you are an artist that has a tendency to want to bring others happiness by going along with their desires, and you feel disconnected from your work, I hope you take an opportunity to step back and see what your soul wants to be making."

Modern realism offers us only a half-life existence

Writer, translator, teacher Clark Hansen blogs about narrative styles in his post "Understanding Archetypes: Thomas Moore" that refers to the work of James Hillman and Thomas Moore regarding the significance of imagination. Hansen’s quote about imagination and modernism from Moore’s Original Self: Living with Paradox and Originality begins:

"It is difficult for a modern person, influenced by the myth of fact so embedded in our thoughts and values, to realize the importance of imagination. We are educated to prove our intuitions with empirical experiments and studies. Anything not verifiable by investigation of the senses we consider suspicious at best.

This materialistic view of things gives us a half-life, a partial view of experience. The images of memory, dream, and fantasy then become useless, if not interfering. We distrust intuition and imagination as superstitious, a charge that quickly wounds our modern notion of intelligence. These other powers make us feel inferior, and we can't wait until our suppositions are proven by some sort of hardware or research design."

Hansen also refers to Hillman’s obituary in The New York Times that includes:

"Some people in desperation have turned to witchcraft, magic and occultism, to drugs and madness, anything to rekindle imagination and find a world ensouled," Mr. Hillman wrote in 1976. “But these reactions are not enough. What is needed is a revisioning, a fundamental shift of perspective out of that soulless predicament we call modern consciousness."

Establish your own authority, then listen to others

Thomas Moore’s book, The Soul’s Religion: Cultivating a Profoundly Spiritual Way of Life, offers ideas quoted by Jessica Schafer in her recent post "On Authority". Her excerpt includes Moore’s view:

 "We can best deal with authority by first having it ourselves. We are the authors of our lives, including our spirituality."

Schafer reports the book "was a good read and often thought-provoking." Following the quotation she asks:
* How does this articulation of authority strike you?
* Who has been a positive co-author in your life?