These valleys are what my Beloved is to me

Lonely valleys are quiet, pleasant, cool, shady, and flowing with fresh waters; in the variety of their groves and in the sweet song of the birds, they afford abundant recreation and delight to the senses, and in their solitude and silence they refresh the soul and give rest. These valleys are what my Beloved is to me.

 

The soul is the totality of your love

The soul is the totality of your love, awareness, experience, ability, memory, emotions, and potential which compromise your immortality. Your mind is the recorder and administrator. In this capacity the mind is a useful and important asset to your existence. But it was never built to be the commander. At the center of your soul is the Sacred Heart. This is the point at which you are one with God... Your heart is centered in a viewpoint of infinity established by your Creator. Thus, the heart honors your individuality, the oneness of God, and the integrated unity of all that is

 

 

All living souls in the world cumulatively make up part of a universal soul

Just as each soul spark of every living cell in our bodies makes up that which we call our soul, so too do all living souls in the world cumulatively make up part of a universal soul. Indeed, mysticism teaches us that the soul giving us vitality is connected to, and draws sustenance from, a universal soul.

The gold that was my hair has turned silently to gray

The gold that was my hair has turned
silently to gray. Don’t pity me!
Everything’s been realized,
in my breast all’s blended and attuned.

-- Attuned, as all of distance blends
In the smokestack moaning on the outskirts.
And Love! A soul’s been realized:
The most deeply secret of your ends. 
 

Everyone has a soul

Everyone has a soul . . . a gift from God. We are born with it, and we cannot destroy it. We can, however, create barriers that limit contact with our own souls. Some people are more in touch with their soul because they take time to nourish it. Those who nourish the soul, who experience themselves as pure soul, often have a spiritual radiance . . . and they are happy: a good reason to meditate in the silence.

Become one yourself

Waste no more time
talking about great souls
and how they should be.
 
Become one yourself.

Confusion still exists concerning the nature and functions of the soul

Confusion still exists concerning the nature and functions of the soul and also of the spirit of humankind. Once spirit comes down to dwell in the flesh it starts to create what is called a soul, for soul is that part of our being which is built up through experiences undergone by our tender inner self during incarnation. Soul can further be described as the feminine aspect of our life, the mother principle. The soul of the world is made up of the feeling of the world; the soul of a nation is created by the feeling of the people of that nation.

October 2006 (Vol. XIX, No. 9)

"Is there enough Silence for the Word to be heard? "

HEARTFELT BLESSINGS, dear friends! As we spend time sitting and listening for the Voice of Silence, may we trust that our souls can plunge deeply into the inner well where truth dwells. There we may discover answers to our heart-concerns, our prayers, and insights to guide our way. May the harmony and balance of the elements, seasons, and music of the spheres ever be mirrored in our souls.

The soul of each one of us has its destination, and that is the Sacred Heart that draws us to Itself. What is true of each one of us is true of all the world. Walt Whitman in his strong, urgent way cries:

One thought ever at the face—
That in the Divine Ship, the world breasting time and space,
All peoples of the globe together sail, sail the same voyage,
Are bound to the same destination.

Some such thought as this is surely necessary for the bare subsistence of a soul, for our soul cannot live without the sense of a destination ... the destination of Divine Love.

~ from CHRIST THE COMPANION by Fr. Andrew
Fr. Andrew Christ The Companion soul Buy on Amazon

The soul possesses an ineffable intelligence that cannot be controlled. Like mist, the soul cannot be forced, directed, or squeezed into a box where it does not belong. It cannot even be fully seen or perceived, for the soul is a timeless, feathered thing that flies in more worlds than one.

~ from THE MIST-FILLED PATH by Frank MacEowen
Frank MacEowen The Mist-filled Path soul

Each of us possesses a soul, but we do not prize our soul as creatures made in the Divine image deserve, and so we do not understand the great secrets which they contain.

~ St. Teresa of Avila, 1577
St. Teresa of Avila soul

What exists between souls is love,
and that is all that exists.

~ Gary Zukav
Gary Zukav soul

Had I taken the fork of despair, I would have remained angry and depressed over the fire, missing a golden opportunity to move West, to be closer to my son. Looking back, I see that I was too attached to my old environment to make the move on my own. I needed the tragedy to push me onward. I don't mean to trivialize the difficulty of certain aspects of life. It is important to look for the larger picture. If we could see that everything, even tragedy, is a gift in disguise, we would then find the best way to nourish the soul . . . "Crises" can help us discover much about ourselves and enrich our lives.

~ from "Soul Gifts In Disguise" by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in HANDBOOK OF THE SOUL
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross Soul Gifts In Disguise, Handbook Of The Soul

What would become of our souls if they lacked the bread of earthly reality to nourish them, the wine of created beauty to intoxicate them, the discipline of human struggle to make them strong? What puny powers and bloodless hearts Your creatures would bring to You were they to cut themselves off prematurely from the providential setting in which You placed them!

~ from HYMN OF THE UNIVERSE by Teillard de Chardin
Teilhard de Chardin Hymn Of The Universe soul Buy on Amazon

Educate your inner being in all aspects of life. Keep to the order you learned during your schooling. You did not begin all of a sudden to grasp the higher subjects; you started by learning the alphabet. The same applies to your soul. It is not good for it to strive toward exalted feats until it becomes familiar with the spiritual alphabet: humility and obedience. Let the whole of your life become a continuous prayer.

~ from ABBESS THAILIA: An Autobiography
Abbess Thailia Abbess Thailia: An Autobiography soul Buy on Amazon

Value your soul as priceless
for a cage without a bird has no value.

~ Sadi
Sadi soul

The soul seeks to serve; it inspires the personality to serve in particular ways and means. As that happens we become less and less interested in the personality aspect and more and more concerned in altruistic service for the benefit of all. The soul has no sense of being an individual, separate self and knows nothing of separation. It sees only the whole and itself in relation to the whole.

~ Benjamin Creme
Benjamin Creme soul

Dark and cold we may be, but this
Is no winter now: the frozen misery
Of centuries breaks, cracks, begins to move:
The thunder is the thundering of the floes,
The thaw, the flood, the upstart spring.
Thank God our time is now when wrong
Comes up to face us everywhere,
Never to leave us til we take
The longest stride of soul we ever took.
Affairs are now soul-size.
The enterprise
Is exploration into God.

~ from "A Sleep of Prisoners" in SELECTED PLAYS by Christopher Fry
Christopher Fry Selected Plays, A Sleep Of Prisoners soul

There are seasons in our souls: times of withering, times of coldness, times of renewal, times of sun and light. May the force which drives nature to its fulfillment be brought forth in us, too. Within each of us is the power to love and care awaiting our wills and our acts to bring it forth. Let us be instruments of the power oflove which comes through us but not from us, the power which waits for us to bring it forth.

~ from CYCLES OF REFLECTION by Robert E. Senghas, thanks to Pat Habif
Robert E. Senghas Cycles Of Reflection soul

This is essentially the argument for the soul: it holds reality together, it is my offscreen director, my presiding intelligence. I can think, talk, work, love, and dream, all because of the soul, yet the soul doesn't do any of these things. It is me... Everything that makes the difference between life and death must cross into this world via the soul... Soul is a connection between the world of the five senses and a world of inconceivable things like eternity, infinity, omniscience, grace, and every other quality unmanifest.

~ from HOW TO KNOW GOD by Deepak Chopra
Deepak Chopra How To Know God soul

Like billowing clouds,
like the incessant gurgle of the brook,
the longing of the soul can never be stilled.

~ Hildegard of Bingen
Hildegard of Bingen soul

The soul knows only the soul; the web of events is the flowing robe in which she is clothed.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson soul

The contemplation of Eternity maketh the Soul immortal.

~ Thomas Traherne
Thomas Traherne soul

The love of God, unutterable and perfect
flows into a pure soul the way that light
rushes into a transparent object.
The more love that it finds, the more it gives
itself; so that, as we grow clear and open,
the more complete the joy of loving is.
And the more souls who resonate together,
the greater the intensity of their love,
for, mirror-like, each soul reflects the others.

~ Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri soul

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