“I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the Heart’s affections and the truth of the Imagination.” ~ John Keats
Sometimes I forget about the centrality of love and creativity/art/imagination, whatever you wish to call it, in healing but never for long. The quote from Keats opens Thomas Moore’s Care of the Soul–published several decades ago I just started reading it last week. His way of caring for the soul has much in common with mindfulness–it’s also imbued with a shamanic understanding of healing, which holds that soul loss underpins illness. Moore speaks of the way modern society fragments the soul contributing to soul loss.
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Moore says, ” ‘Soul” is not a thing, but a quality or dimension of experiencing life and ourselves… I do not use the word here as an object of religious belief or as something to do with immortality… Care of the soul begins with observance of how the soul manifests itself and how it operates. We can’t care for the soul unless we are familiar with its ways.”
Observing, being aware, gently and tenderly caring for our soul and spirit–the essence of mindful living.
I will read Care of the Soul slowly and savor it for a while. What books will you savor as summer slowly turns to autumn?
