Intimate Relationships

All intimate relationships require some degree of magic, 

because magic, 

not reason and will, 

accomplish what a soul needs.

(Thomas Moore, Soul Mates, p. 49)

Dick Henthorn

26 Feb 2018

Friendship

Friendship is not essentially a union of personalities, it is an attraction and magnetism of souls. Friendships often begin in a soulful way through the workings of fate. We might “just happen” to meet a person and find even the slimmest basis for a relationship. Over the years, each of us encounters many, many people, and yet only a few become friends, and over a lifetime maybe only a very few become truly intimate friends - soul mates.

(Thomas Moore, Soul Mates, p. 96)

24 January 2016

Letters

Letters 

Letters take time to write, usually more time than talk. They require a certain level of artfulness and thoughtfulness in expression. Then they remain, to be reread, perhaps to be stored away for another day of reading, or even to be encountered at some distant time by a future, unknown eavesdropper.

All of these aspects of the letter invite soulfulness:

• rereading is a form of reflective meditation; 
• keeping letters honors memory and not only daily living; and 
• speaking to a reader not yet present in this life respects the soul's eternal nature.

(Thomas Moore, Soul Mates, p. 125)

19 November 2015

Attachments

The soul is inclined toward the past rather that the future, toward attachment to people, places, and events rather than detachment, and so it is not quick to move on. In outer life, we may leave a person or a place, but in memory and dream the soul clings to those former attachments.
(Thomas Moore, Soul Mates, p. 6)
22 September 2015

Growing Old

Growing old is one of the ways the soul nudges itself into attention to the spiritual aspect of life. The body's changes teach us about fate, time, nature, mortality, and character. Aging forces us to decide what is important in life.
(Thomas Moore, Care Of The Soul, p. 216)
30 May 2015

Music and Art

A person should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of their life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.
(Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe in Whispers Of Blessing, Day 150)
13 June 2014

Storytelling

Storytelling is an excellent way of caring for the soul. It helps us see the themes that circle in our lives, the deep themes that tell the myths we live.
(Thomas Moore, Care Of The Soul, p. 13)
1 April 2014

Live From Your Soul

You can live from your soul rather than your self. This means to be less in control, less certain of the truth of things but more in touch with your intuitions and emotions. It means to be less focused on the self and more identified with others.  It means to understand that you are part of nature and that your soul, which is the source of your identity is a piece of the world's soul. Your roots reach downward, not into the brain, but into the soul.
(Thomas Moore, Dark Nights Of The Soul, p. 294)
18 November 2013

Creativity

Creativity is not just about making fascinating inventions or great works of art. It has to do with shaping your life and cultivating your very soul. (Thomas Moore, Dark Nights Of The Soul, p. 199) 29 June 2013

The Reality Of The Present

A society that has lost its soul looks for security in the future and is willing to deny the reality of the present. But a society can't move ahead if its values and ideals are jammed behind failures and mistakes. It has to own up to its neglect and its atrocity, while at the same time proclaiming its highest values. It is possible for a society to deal with the moral pollution of its history. Gestures, language, acts of compensation, and rites of forgiveness can all be effective. But they have to be done sincerely, without guile and without mere formalism. (Thomas Moore, Dark Nights Of The Soul, p. 64)
24 February 2013

Music

Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. 

(Berthold Auerbach, Touchstones, 1 November) 

1 December 2012