More soul, please

Maybe my fundamentalist upbringing thrust me into this lifelong fascination with the soul. Or maybe I am just soulful. Who knows? Who cares?

I have been reading Soul Mates--Honoring the Mysteries of Love and Relationship by Thomas Moore. I read it just a little bit at a time. Any more than a little would make me feel like I had eaten too much figgy pudding.

He says:

The whole world and all of life are nothing but the raw materials for soul-making. Our soul-work is a process of taking these materials and making something out of them. The raw materials are found everywhere--in the family that fate has given us, in friends new and old, in the first scintillating sign of attraction to another person.

The raw material is found in the commonness of every day living. It uses the good, the bad and the ugly experiences to weave a rich tapestry if we will just acknowledge and accept the importance of letting life dirty our ideals. (this is where there is a strong deviation from my "fair, clear and terrible" upbringing.)

Often intelligent people can't lower themselves to own up to being dirtied by the kinds of situations and feelings that EVERYONE gets stuck in. He gives an example of a woman who admitted that she felt victimized by her husband's affair, but she would constantly disown the awareness. She would tell herself that because she was a feminist she was "strong" or "prepared" for this. Her moral position kept her from getting dirtied by the raw material of the betrayal.

And who would blame her? However, it is being present to the good and the bad that sculpts richness into our souls. It serves no soul purpose to try to be above the dirt. Even though perfection appeals to the mind, the real soul does not reside in clean, tidy boxes. The soul does not establish a home in well-structured, ideal unions or relationships.

Instead it thrives where we hurt the most, love the most, lose the most, give the most.

The soul perversely feeds on the wild color of feelings and the messy tones of mood. It gobbles up the mottled shades of fantasy and devours the drama of disillusionment. It bounds forward when we struggle the most.

That is soul work--like a compost heap. Fertile. Steaming. Sometimes putrid. But always promising a rich garden if we will just let ourselves get dirty.