What kind of planet do I want to live on? I want to live in a world where people tend soul. Like most Americans, I sit in front of the nightly news feeling bewildered and helpless with pictures of genocide in places like Kosovo and Rwanda–and shocked to see Paducah, Littleton and Jonesboro children killing other children. I see the world of this new millennium hampered by a great paradox: we are living in the most expanded and connected time in history –with technology at the peak of its powers –yet nothing on the planet seems to be working properly.

For decades, people have understood that the world is in physical chaos, precariously perched at the brink of its own destruction through potential nuclear and ecological tragedies, but today we are realizing that there is also something fundamentally wrong at home. Some people believe that Western culture has lost its soul.

Critics talk about soul-less-ness on personal, cultural and world levels. Scientist Rupert Sheldrake speaks of "the soulless, the de-animated soul of our own species."  Patrice Malidoma Somé, born into the West African Dagara tribe and educated at Cambridge University, has a cultural perspective. "My elders are convinced that the West is as endangered as the indigenous cultures it has decimated in the name of colonialism. There is no doubt that, at this time in history, Western civilization is suffering from a great sickness of the soul."

Psychologist Robert Sardello has been an eloquent voice on the state of soul in the world. He declared, "this world is characterized by  outer appearance only; world as a vast source of resources to be used up in creating more power, a world devoid of the quality of soul."

I began to take a hard look at the soul of Western civilization during the Gulf War. Like many people, the live television bombings of Baghdad–rather with a seven-second delay–was my wake-up call to the reality of war. One day, an Iraqi mother with a baby at her breast flashed her eyes with contempt at the highest point in the sky. She shook her fist, angrily and screamed, "Damn you Americans! Damn America!" In one-split second, the rational justification for the bombing–to save our oil; teach evil aggressor Saddam a lesson, use technological superiority to avoid sending our boys to the front lines–melted away. I intuitively knew that something was terribly wrong with that picture–and even if I had no direct involvement in the war, I had to take responsibility for this woman’s angst because I was part of the Western mindset that threatened her existence.

I  remembered the words of Indian spiritual teacher Krishnamurti who said, "the world is in disorder because we are in disorder, each one of us." Writer Ken Wilber articulated the problem, "We have run up against our own limitations. We have met the enemy, and of course it is us."

We have been so intent on following the Newtonian-Cartesian scientific-technological framework–the mental, rational, industrial worldview–that somewhere along the line forgot part of our inherent humanness.

Our ancestors during the Greek civilization believed that soul is the animating principle that gives life to all living things-- both plants and animals. But in the seventeenth century, Descartes seriously affected our thinking by saying that nature is inanimate–a machine. "In effect, he withdrew the soul from nature, from all animals and plants, and from the human body as well. Before that, the soul was believed to permeate the whole body," notes Sheldrake in Natural Grace.

In fact, Descartes relegated soul to confinement in the minuscule pineal gland. With the Cartesian revolution, it was just a matter of time before soul slipped away as an important consideration in our lives. We went down a gilded road of affluence, but it just doesn’t satisfy us any more. Today, we are a society that has come to a dead end with no raison d’être. But as always, when something is missing, soul waits to enter at the turn of the cul-de-sac.

Finding our way back to soul is no simple task. First of all, even unearthing a satisfying definition is like unraveling the cultural patchwork of Yugoslavia–so mysterious and illusive is its meaning. Around 400 BC Greek philosopher Heraceitus claimed, "You could not discover the frontiers of soul, even if you traveled every road to do so; such is the depth of its meaning."

But, for thousands of years people haven’t been able to resist trying to define it. Singer Ray Charles attempted a contemporary definition: "soul is just the way black folk sing when they leave themselves alone."

Professor Dawn George explained it this way: "soul is a meeting place between spirit and matter--the Western idea of inner and outer--consciousness and unconsciousness. There are no boundaries to soul…so profound is its logic." Every culture has a name for soul and it is usually equated with breath–the immaterial essence, animating principal or actuating cause of an individual life. Many cultures talk about it in terms of world soul. "What the Greeks called psyche toukosmou, the soul of the universe, and the Neoplatonists anima mundi, the soul of the world, the Eskimos called Sila, an overarching power that asks us not to be afraid, to be respectful of the spirit, the genius, the intangible forces hidden beneath the surface of all things."

Finding and tending soul is in direct opposition to the old scientific intellectual pattern of rational thinking. As Aristotle told us, the soul contains an irrational element which opposes and runs counter to reason…yet paradoxically, seems to be receptive of reason.

There are no quick fixes for people in a culture that is obsessed with them. Many Americans sense that soul inspires depth and meaning in their existence, yet use the word flippantly in our quick-bite media culture. So the search for soul is like negotiating a minefield, because we must rethink our core values and basic identity.

Inspired by the Iraqi woman, I set out on a course to retrieve soul in my life and culture, but first I needed to understand what soul is missing from. Starting with America, I noticed
that much of our national rhetoric does not match our real motivation and interests. Is our culture really about justice, tolerance, and equality for all?

Psychologist James Hillman believes we are clinging to an antiquated utopian dream of America. "People came over and landed in a myth." America is an idea or philosophy–a story that people decided to believe about the right to happiness and freedom set forth in the Declaration of Independence. Idealistic rhetoric rang in my ears: the vast land of opportunity for the free and the brave, where an individual’s pursuit of happiness reigns supreme.

Isn’t America really about money, shopping malls, football games, plastic cups, being the best–and the Disneyfication of everything? "Without the concept of soul, America is just unrestrained desire, and we lose the very impetus that created such a thing as Americans," says writer Michael Ventura.

It’s easier to talk about what soul is not, than what it is. Soul is not about power and short-term gains. It’s not about going after what you want without thinking about the other guy. There is nothing devious about soul. Yet, soul seems to take in everything: all our ancestors, scars and twists of fate; and encompasses yesterday’s dinner, personal stories, and what we watch on TV. And here’s one of the tricky parts: Soul inspires and brings depth to all things–and that can mean traffic jams, Styrofoam cups and beer cans as long as we respect them says Hillman.

Soul gives us a sense that we’re connected–that life matters. In its highest sense, soul seems to be some inherent instinctual knowing that demands authenticity and inspires honor; understands the rhythm, balance and interaction of all things; gives dignity to human beings as well as inanimate objects; respect to the environment; honor and richness to everyday activities; and moves humans towards wholeness and unity. Soul is essential to the human condition.

So where do we find this magical quality–or field as Sheldrake calls it? Nowhere. Soul cannot be found. It lives in a place of no place. And yet, it’s as if soul comes from a higher place bringing with it what people describe as feelings of love, tenderness, kindness, gratitude, peace, holiness and unity. When soul is ready, soul enters. Soul has a life of its own, and rises up, so to speak, to displace the sensual and disruptive elements in our lives–in our psyche.

"When the imaginal aspect of the world can no longer be recognized, when the soul of the world becomes repressed so that everything is taken as literal, that is, as being without soul, then the individual soul erupts violently into a world unable to meet its force with counterforce, notes Sardello. 

Soul’s mysterious language comes through symbol, thought and feeling and is best reached by reflection. It seems to have its own connection to something bigger and more knowing than any human being at his highest capability could ever hope to reach. "Soul is imagination, a cavernous treasury–to use an image from St. Augustine–a confusion and richness, both," says Hillman. He believes that true meaning must be able to emerge of its own accord. It’s as if one allows it to come forth–like reading the land and letting it speak.

In my experience, free-spirited soul enters the psyche in two ways. I call it the heaven (joyous) and hell (underworld) rising of soul. My first hell-rising erupted at age 32, just when things seemed to be going perfectly. I had been sucked into the uncomfortable dark and scattered like Osiris, all over Manhattan. Elevators became prisons. Window panes dissolved on high office floors. Tests came in steady waves to fight the vice of logic. I floated in the abyss. After weeks in therapy, the fears I had stuffed down deep as a teenager began to emerge. I don’t know if hell-soul created the storm–refusing to allow me to coast along and stagnate, but it must have been lurking close by, just waiting to arise. As soon as I let go of some old inappropriate beliefs, soul entered and brought wisdom. The goddess of soul is the wise
Sophia.

According to some writers and psychologists, Western culture is in neurosis and has been living in its shadow-side for most of this century. For instance, W.B. Yeats and Carl Jung saw our culture resting in the Sidpa Bardo as described in The Tibetan Book of the Dead –the lowest realm of hellish apparitions and wrathful deities. Jose Arguelles believes that WWI pushed humanity’s psyche into the dark side, while Mark Epstein is convinced that the bomb at Hiroshima broke the planet’s crust and took us to the underworld.

It is my belief that many Westerners are searching for soul–if not by name, in principle. Some are taking action, seeking alternative ways of being in the world–giving up their addiction to progress and expansion, emphasis on empty values, dreams of abundance, belief in scientific certainty, individualism as any cost, and rediscovering their misplaced social and dormant spiritual energies.

In 1996, Paul Ray documented a new subculture–he calls the ‘Cultural Creatives’ which at that time represented fifty million Americans, a whopping 24% of the population. Today my guess is that with planetary crisis from finance, to geothermal, and pollution,  is that this figure is more like 100 million people. Many CC’s are forcing change in a quiet, experimental way through a path of self inquiry. Key to their success is relocating the old lost part of themselves experientially, as well as replacing old values with the new. What has propelled one-quarter of the population into action.

Theologian Thomas Moore believes, "When the soul is neglected, it doesn’t just go away; it appears symptomatically in obsessions, addictions, violence, and loss of meaning." To recapture our full identity as human beings we need to taste the breath and feel the depth of soul. Healing will begin with each individual, for as Malidoma Somé observes, "In the face of all this global chaos, the only possible answer is self-transformation."

Since being confronted by the Iraqi woman, I have searched for antidotes to the diseases of modernity that have the effect of reviving, tending, an finding soul. I found inspiration from old ideas and practices, often from indigenous and third world cultures that seemed to instinctively live with a healthy relationship to soul.

For instance, shamans in the Ecuadorian rainforest taught me that one’s roots go beyond family, culture and the physical world; rural Chinese with radiant eyes and welcoming smiles along the Yangsee River rekindled the magic of trust and connection I knew as a child. I found it essential to go beyond the intellect, my former sanctuary of trust and power, and initiate new ways of thinking. I explored the imaginal realm–the creative, sacred, non-linear world–the playground for soul–and rediscovered ancient wisdom found the world over–unchanging truths about humanity, nature, the universe, and my connection to spirit.

Slowly, as I began to bring this vital energy into my life, I found a sense of unity and dependency of all life–as well as personally building intuition, inner strength, and independence.

Moore believes that the emotional complaints of our time–emptiness, a loss of values, meaninglessness, depression, disillusionment, yearning for personal fulfillment and spiritual hunger–reflect the loss of soul and lets us know what the soul craves. I believe the challenge of the new millennium, for each individual is to find the lost part of ourselves and to bring soul back into our lives. It is only then we will affect our culture.

While each one of us paves an individual path to soul searching, soul finding and soul tending, I thought it might be useful to show some ways I have personally been able to connect to soul. I first list Western problems, then list soul antidotes–attitudes, techniques, ideas that I’ve found help to tend the loss of soul.

Soul Loss: Consumption
& Short Term Greed
are Out of Control

The top 20% of the world’s population benefits from 82.7% of the total world’s income. Even more astonishing is that the world’s 358 billionaires have a combinednet worth roughly equal to the total income of the world’s poorest 2  billion people–nearly half of humanity.

"Economics and money work together as the primary
veil covering direct perception of the soul of the world."
--Sardello

SOUL ANTIDOTE 1
Recognition of the Oneness of Being

Serious recognition that we are all interconnected began when earth’s inhabitants first saw the stunning blue and white photograph of earth from space in the 1960s.

"There is no division, psychologically, between us all.
We are the world, psychologically, and the world is us.
That is not a conviction, that is not a conclusion, that is
not an intellectual theory, but an actuality, to be felt, to
be realized and to be lived."
– J. Krishnamurti

SOUL ANTIDOTE 2
Understanding That True Surrender Enlarges People

In India, spiritual teachers counsel people to surrender their lives to the Divine–because the greater whole of consciousness will not diminish, as it is so often feared, but will fortify and aggrandize the personality. The Mother, a disciple of Indian sage Sri Aurobindo put it this way, "It is as when a drop of water falls into the sea; if still kept there its separate identity, it would remain a little drop of water and nothing more, a little drop crushed by all the immensity around, because it was not surrendered. But, surrendering, it unites with the sea and participates in the nature and power and vastness of the whole sea."

"That which you are looking for is
what is looking."–Sufi proverb

Soul Loss: Malaise and Depression Are Rampant; Avoidance of Pain the Norm

Americans do everything they can to avoid pain and depression, but in pushing away our shadow side, we are abandoning soul because that's a primary moment when it comes to expand our consciousness. The rate of depression is doubling every ten years in industrialized countries. There is widespread use of Prozac, the depression drug, even in the wealthiest communities, with over five million prescriptions written since 1987.

Hillman believes that depression is a manifestation of the times because "We've lost the gods. We've lost what once was behind it. That's why it's so depressing." 

"I can now imagine nothing more detrimental to the world than the illusory success of removing pain of a psychic nature, for to do so obliterates completely the presence of soul that might be available as the most vitalizing regenerative resource for the outer world."
–Sardello

SOUL ANTIDOTE 1
Using Pain and Depression to Restore Balance

One of Hillman's important themes is that soul comes in when you are forced to stop —when your symptoms take over. "Soul makes the ego feel uncomfortable, uncertain, lost, and that lostness is a sign of soul." So, if Hillman is correct, there is a lot of soul-entering these days. Many writers today speak of depression and pain being an invaluable gift that rights the wrongs in people’s lives–restores the imbalance and helps us grow.

"Through depression we enter depth and
in depths find soul."–Hillman.

SOUL ANTIDOTE 2
The Body is a Natural Healing Instrument

Decades ago, the mystic Edgar Cayce remarked, "Remember healing — all healing comes from within." He believed that by coordinating the physical with the mental with 'correct direction from the spirit,' that one will be whole. But it took a U.S. medical system to be in shambles for people to embrace alternative medicine–now a multi-billion dollar industry–and rediscover their own, personal sophisticated healing instrument. To the 3 billion people on the planet already getting natural remedies and healing this is no surprise.

Psychologist Carl Jung stated: "It is a well-known fact that the problem of spiritual healing has been seriously occupying the most venturesome minds of the East for more than two thousand years, and that in this respect methods and philosophical doctrines have been developed which simply put all Western attempts in the same line into the shade."

Writer, biologist Lyall Watson found watching a young healer in Indonesia like "being present at the moment of creation." He said the girl touched the offending part of the body for a moment–and a burn healed in seconds rather than days, or a tropical ulcer cleared up in days rather than weeks.

SOUL ANTIDOTE 3
Using Nature and Prayer to Heal

It isn't natural to go crazy, or to linger in debilitating depression. It is interesting to note that an Amish community has less than 1/5th the rate of depression than people in nearby Baltimore. There is no depression in the Kaluli Tribe of New Guinea.

Westerners are discovering what people in other cultures have known since the beginning of time: prayer heals. Today, science is trying to document the phenomenon.

Anthropologist, Rupert Sheldrake sees energy shifting through fields–the body itself being a field, as well as soul. Therefore, "soul goes wherever our mind and our heart go: all the way out to the one trillion galaxies, that’s our soul at work."

SOUL ANTIDOTE 4
Accepting Death as a Natural Part of Life

Most cultures have a built-in system to handle the issues of death and dying. In Bali and Tibet, like many countries, death is celebrated as a time of rebirth with elaborate rituals. At Japanese funerals, relatives are allowed to select a souvenir bone of the person just cremated. Tibetan Buddhists study death throughout life. Their Bible is the Tibetan Book of the Dead, a handbook for states and conditions of dying. They believe that the state of mind at death in this lifetime can influence the quality of life in the next, so negative emotions are abandoned or overcome.

"You cannot live until you have faced death fully and
completely – physically, emotionally,
mentally."–Gangaji

Soul Loss: People Disconnected
from Nature

Gregory Bateson, author of Mind and Nature, describes how animals slowly go crazy in a laboratory, outside of the wild–their natural habitat. American prisoners, incarcerated with no cell window and limited access to the outside world, begin to show signs of disorientation. One wonders about the affect of the concrete jungle on city dwellers. Despite the myth of the love for wide open spaces, Americans don’t have a deep connection to the land–rather they view land as property to buy and sell. "We have an environmental problem because we don’t have a deep sense of the world as being operational."

"I attribute the social and psychological problems of modern society to the fact that society requires people to live under conditions radically different from those under which the human race evolved..."
--From the Unabomber Manifesto

SOUL ANTIDOTE
Recognition that All Nature is Alive and Intelligent

The philosophy that "the whole world is alive and all things are 'ensouled'" as Hillman put it, "strikes at the heart of our Western scientific belief system. It expands the traditional concept beyond nature and the food chain to the extended self where all the elements and forces of life work in an interconnectedness together."

In Flat Rock Journal, Ken Carey defines natural intelligence in a way some may find shocking. "…intelligence for a rock is different from a bird and tree and cloud. It is the awareness which is structured for each species (including minerals, etc.) that allows them to interact with their environment. I believe some of the most advanced forms of the universe are right here…a blade of grass…dogs, wild flowers clouds, etc. It’s there within us. All we have to do is stop doing what we are doing and listen."

Soul Loss: Younger Generation is in Crisis

The homicide rate in our nation rose 24% for kids 14 to 17-year-olds from 2000 to 2009. Every year nearly 3,000 juveniles aged 10 to 17 years are arrested for murder. Even more frightening are the recent headlines of murders of children by children. Kids have become cynical about their futures–skeptical of things this country was founded on: church, education, strong government and big business.

Why? Many reasons. For one, today’s youth don’t believe that the time-honored values of responsibility, respect, good judgment, honor and integrity work in today’s system. "We
learn in school that the world is inanimate, that the universe is dead, and that the Earth is an island of life in a lifeless Universe…. And we forgot the language of the rivers, of the mountains, and stopped speaking face to face with God," says Alberto Villoldo who introduces Westerners to indigenous cultures. Suicide is the 3rd most common cause death among young U.S. adults after car wrecks and homicides. Is it any wonder the younger generation is grappling for their identity when their parents are still searching for theirs? "Violence or power or sadism or domination keep us from sensing soul."

SOUL ANTIDOTE 1
Look for Ways to Help Kids Rekindle the Magic

I am currently involved in a program called Teens Plan for Planet Earth: It’s Our Tomorrow, where New York city teens were asked to create a positive bus poster and action plan that responded to two questions: What kind of a planet do we want to live on? and How can we make our lives better? Arriving at school front lines, mentors were shocked to find kids who were so lethargic, despondent and hopeless, they couldn’t begin to create a positive vision of the future. They didn’t believe one person could make a difference, and they certainly didn’t believe they could create a winning bus poster. But through visionary techniques, encouragement and support from mentors and dedicated teachers, hundreds of students submitted such incredible entries that the judges decided to honor 30 entries, representing over 100 kids, rather than just the three initially planned. We must never forget: the time of the child is the time for vision. "To an Indian child high in the Andes, or on a Hopi reservation in the Southwest, life is a mystery, the sky is inexplicably wondrous, and rocks are Beings that talk to you and counsel you. They know that rivers don't lie, that when the mountain speaks it whispers with a voice that was heard on the first day of creation," notes Villoldo.

"Magic…is the soul of the world creating itself,
according to its own laws."–Sardello

SOUL ANTIDOTE 2
Thoughtful Initiation Can Direct Virile Male Energy

According to Hillman and Somé, youth gangs perform surrogate initiation rites because there is no positive cultural outlet for virile young male energy today. Somé, who experienced the powerful month-long initiation accompanied by his elders, says that initiation helps a male overcome the fixation of the body, successfully reunites him with the energy of the vegetable world, and helps him find his true self and purpose. He and his fellow initiates left the village accompanied by elders for the month-long initiation, and sang this song:  

"My little family I leave today. My great Family I meet tomorrow. Father, don't worry, I shall come back, Mother, don't cry, I am a man. As the sun rises and the sun sets My body into them shall melt, And one with you and them Forever and ever I shall be..."
– Dagara Tribe initiation song.

Soul Loss: People are Disconnected
from Families & Community

Social isolation is prevalent in the West. Not only are one-fourth of American households single, but also electronic wonders of the age, like television, the internet, and cell phone can give people a false sense of connecting to others. The average American watches 28 hours of TV a week. Youth in our nation ages 2 to 17 watch over 3 hours every day, and now texting seems near continuous. Somehow all those time-saving devices do not seem to make people less busy, quite the contrary. But perhaps most damaging is the change in structure of the family unit, both immediate and extended, breaking down before people’s eyes.

SOUL ANTIDOTE 1
Ritual, Ceremony & Magic Can Bind People Together

Ritual and ceremony brings symbols–the language of soul. "Without images, we tend to loose our way," Hillman reminds us. In a ceremony, chanting and rhythmic drumming is often the way in for the whole group goes into an altered state of consciousness just by participating in the ceremony.

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the
mysterious. It is the source of all true art and
science."–Albert Einstein

SOUL ANTIDOTE 2
Connection to Ancestors and Elders Bring Wisdom to Life

Listen to the wise ones:

"All day I think about it, then at night I say it. Where
did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing? I have no idea. My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that, and I intend to end up there."
–Rumi

"There are two successes: one is being successful in the world, the other is being successful in life. One can be successful in the world without
necessarily being successful in life."
–Native American Wisdom

Soul Loss: Spiritual Longings are
Unmet in the West

Many people believe that as religions have become dogmatic and institutionalized they have lost sight of the mystic’s original messages. Formalized religion no longer works for many people. The once powerful Church of England is a shambles with only 2 1/4% of the population attending regularly.

"The physical hunger in India is nothing compared to
the Spiritual Starvation of the West."–Mother Theresa

SOUL ANTIDOTE 1
One Can Trust His Own Internal Guidance System

According to Jung, who was a pioneer into the exploration of the depths of the psyche, "The collaboration of the unconscious is intelligent and purposive, and even when it acts in opposition to consciousness its expression is still compensatory in an intelligent way, as if it were trying to restore the lost balance."

Meditation, reflection are practical ways to exercise one's guidance system. I developed mine like a muscle, through years of journaling. In the beginning I had to shake off my Western orientation–the need to know  and to trust the unknown. The irony was to learn that we are already connected to our best teacher–ourselves.

"Ancient wisdom tells us, if we're willing to listen to our
own guidance, it always protects us from our own
nature"
–anthropologist Angeles Arrien.

SOUL ANTIDOTE 2
Altered States of Consciousness Opens The Door to Soul

Altered states of consciousness take a person’s external rational world to a deeper level of information not accessible in the normal waking state. "All the ancient and pre-industrial cultures have held non-ordinary states of consciousness in high esteem," says psychiatrist and pioneer in the field, Stanislav Grof. "They valued them as powerful means for connecting with sacred realities, nature, and each other, and they used these states for identifying diseases and healing. People are finding non-addictive access to altered states today through breathwork, bodywork, shamanic rituals, hypnotic regression, yoga, tai chi chuan, biofeedback, and meditation.

"With the breakdown of our culture’s value system and desire for religious experiences, people are finding various ways to access altered states of consciousness."
–psychologist Charles Tart

Soul Loss: Globalization Is Destructive to Self, Family, Community & Nature

Technology is eliminating more jobs than it is creating. The 500 largest corporations employ 120th of 1% of the world’s people yet control 25% of its output and 70% of trade. In our race for expansion and creating the latest technological feats, we have forgotten the myth, the magic, and the beauty in everyday experiences.

SOUL ANTIDOTE
To Dignify Others is to Honor All

We cannot stop progress, but we can create new technologies and systems consciously so as to honor all of humanity.

"The community is a body in which every individual is a cell…One must learn how to function as a healthy cell in order to earn the privilege of staying in the body and keeping it alive."
–Tribal wisdom

Soul Loss: Western Civilization
Has Lost Its Soul

In his book Natural Grace, Matthew Fox recounted a statement by philosopher Charles Fair who said that when a civilization loses its meaning of soul, it is coming to an end. Fox countered, "the good news is that when we can come to new images of soul, we’re launching a new civilization." But the bad news is that confusion comes before clarity.

 

SOUL ANTIDOTE 1
Be Alert to the Existence of Soul

As journalist Fred Friendly said, "It’s not just knowing what’s right, but doing what’s right." Being vigilant to a new way of consciousness is a 24-hour job. We must also develop the inner realm of our psyches.

"The manic urge to create a technological world rises
when soul can no longer be felt as a creative force in the world. Strengthening the forces of soul, of imagination, can bring about a balance — a balance that does not require abandoning technology but considerably diminishes the fantasies invested in it."
–Sardello

SOUL ANTIDOTE 2
Myths & Dreams are Soul Bearers

The industrialized world has forgotten the power of sacred stories, the myths that unveil life’s mysteries and connect people to the hidden universe of their ancient origins. Joseph Campbell brought myth back into popular culture with his popular PBS television conversations with Bill Moyers. "The myths and rites are means of putting the mind in accord with the body and the way of life in accord with the way that nature dictates. Rich words, images, and experiences can lift us to a higher level of consciousness.

"Remember ourselves back to the Wild woman soul. Let us sing her flesh back onto our bones. Shed any false coats we have been given. Don the true coat of powerful instinct and knowing. Infiltrate the psychic lands that once belonged to us.  Unfurl the bandages, ready the medicine. Let us return now, wild women howling, laughing, singing up The One who loves us so."
--Clarissa Pinkola Estés

SOUL ANTIDOTE 3
One Can Find Soul in Ordinary Experiences

In Care of the Soul, Moore gives ‘homiletic advice on finding soul’ by cultivating ordinary things in such a way that soul is nurtured and fostered–what he calls caring for soul. Practically it means sharing your dreams with your loved one or ritualistically washing or gardening–slowly, methodically, thoughtfully. One can develop soul by the books one reads, the beauty one sees, the values one holds dear, and the resolve to stand by one’s principles, because it seems to be inside all of us–waiting to be developed.

"When you are washing the dishes, washing the dishes must be the most important thing in your life"…"each act is a rite, a ceremony."
– Thich Nhat Hanh

SOUL ANTIDOTE 4
Interact with Shamans–the World’s Soul Retrievers

For some 40,000 years, Shamans from Siberia to South East  Asia to Africa have been known to retrieve souls–as well as perform the role of priest, doctor, social worker, magician, storyteller psychotherapist, healer and mystic on call 24 hours-a-day in many tribal communities. Westerners are rediscovering their extraordinary power, connected to the spirit world through a deliberately altered state which allows them to tap the energy of the universe, the vast reservoir of intelligence. There is growing respect for shamans, in the West, particularly, for their healing powers.

"Shamans often retrieve lost souls, communicate with spirits, emphasize the interconnectedness of their patients with the community and the earth, facilitate spiritual purification for those who have violated social taboos, explain dreams and visions, and stress the importance of spiritual growth, life purpose, and being of service to humanity and to nature.
–Stanley Krippner

Every day, I find evidence of soul returning to Western culture. Recently, I found an example of soul rising up through James Cameron’s experience with the sunken ship, Titanic. The technically-oriented director of the Terminator films–that capsuled images of a possible future without soul–seemed to lift his vision to a new level to create his record-breaking movie, Titanic. In a television interview, Cameron spoke about his first underwater encounter with the sunken ship. He described going to that deep, dark place in the sea and as his little submergible pulled away from the wreckage, a white rainbow "manifested" around the Titanic. Cameron explained that he is a "very rational" man and "not particularly religious," yet took this as a "special sign" representing the 1500 people who died from the sinking. He knew he had to "get it right." This is the work of soul. This deeply-felt unfathomable experience not only inspired him, but rippled onto others. This was evident in the speeches of Cameron’s associates as they accepted their record-tying number of Academy Awards and alluded to Cameron’s inspiration on them during the making of Titanic.

I see the ship Titanic as a metaphor for America–the biggest and best in the world, and supposedly unsinkable. Both were built on the implied belief that man was supreme over nature. Both came to represent a set of cultural values that some might question. At the time of the Titanic, wealthy men were considered more important than third class children, so more survived–because they were given seats in the lifeboats. In the West today, the competitive edge–whether in sports, wealth, or influence usually takes precedence. Many of us in America like the Cultural Creatives have begun to question our national values–especially surrounding consumerism and materialism. Are we experiencing the sinking of America’s utopian dream? Will soul be recognized in time–before we hit our own iceberg? Can America–and the entire Western culture–delve deeply into reflection and resurface with the soul needed to raise our vision before we sink and take the rest or the world with us?

Today, I am on a personal quest to recover soul–in my life and Western culture. I believe the loss of soul is at the heart of what ails us. As we face the new millennium, we are rewriting the new myth of Western culture. I believe, if we bring the practice of tending soul into the new millennium, we will create a planet where a life can be truly worth living.

Animae Mundi Colendae Gratia: For the Sake of Tending Soul in the World–That’s a Life Worth Living

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Pat Frantz Kery won the prestigious Alexander Imich Award for this essay