Still Thinking – Soulfulness

This week the Age Newspaper had an article on Docklands, one of the newest of our planned precincts in Melbourne. The article suggested that in eight years the population has grown from almost nothing to over 50,000 people who, “walk, exercise, eat and socialize – or try to” but in an environment with, “no trees, no birds, no grass, a lack of community but a plethora of structures.”  The view of some is that this suburb only 2km from the central business district lacks soul.  I suppose it is the difference between a house and a home, a house provides physical shelter, whereas, “home is where the heart is.”

In the last few years the word soul has popped up in unexpected places.  It is common to talk of the soul of an organization and it doesn’t mean the part of the corporation that lives on after death.  Soul and soulfulness is a way of describing the innate force or energy of life that is a part of every human being and even corporations. So, being soulful means living one's life according to a deeper meaning that brings a commitment to self-reflection and exploration.

The Bengali poet Sri Chinmoy, suggests that the stance you should adopt toward the Holy is one of soulfulness.  He writes, “Do not try to approach God with your thinking mind. It may only stimulate your intellectual ideas, activities, and beliefs. Try to approach God with your crying heart. It will awaken your soulful, spiritual consciousness.” Of course our minds are always involved in our approach to God, nevertheless to draw deeply for the well of the sacred means our emotions and feelings must be engaged and that is the work of the soul.

In contemporary thought the soul is not a part of us that is primarily associated with religion or the spirit.  The Jungian psychologist, James Hillman suggests that “by soul I mean, first of all, a perspective rather than a substance, a viewpoint toward things rather than a thing itself. . . .Between us and events, between the doer and the deed, there is a reflective moment - and soul-making means differentiating this middle ground.” Perhaps it is better to speak of soulfulness rather than “the soul.”

Allison Moir-Smith a Canadian psychotherapist says that to live with soul is:

•   to live reflectively, deeply, and imaginatively,
•   to come into relationship with your deepest self and to live in connection with it,  
• to live courageously in the present moment, with respect for the past and with your eyes firmly focused on who you are becoming.

Perhaps that’s what is missing from Docklands.  The buildings are all there (well no quite, the article also notes that there were at least 8 cranes working on various structures in Docklands) but something is still missing. A town, a suburb needs a history, a community, and a degree of messiness and that’s were soulfulness comes in.  Like creativity the work of the soul does not happen in straight lines. Too much tidiness gets in the way of a soulful life and a soulful suburb.  The soul needs to wander, dream and to engage the imagination and the emotions.  Soul always wants to feel and that can be feelings of sorrow, sadness, joy, melancholy or exuberance.  And the soulful life honours all this emotions as pathways to the full and rich life – and suburb.

Christopher