Recovering the Soul

by April Bender

The soul is deep, watery, soothing, mysterious and unsettling. It is the deepest parts of the ocean, reflecting back the deepest part of self. At times calm and serene, sometimes terrifyingly tumultuous, and still other times wavy and playful. Mystical and alluring in its beauty and depth, and yet unsettling when experienced as a darkened void. The souls speaks to one through restless nights as well as blissful days, through one's deepest joys as well as their pain. It reflects one's earthy humanness, in the most exquisite shades and hues, reminding one of what it means to be truly alive.

The soul is one's own fluid nature as a child of Earth/Gaia/the Goddess, and she is a living, conscious manifestation of the blessed Divine Mother. Her soul is that of the World's Soul of which one's soul is a part. One often thinks of the vertical dimension in relation to its spiritual height, but one must not forget the treasures to be found in combing the soulful depths below, or the womb-like realm of the feminine. Consider the following description:

"Soul is the invisible, mysterious, and softly radiant element that fuses your being and makes you human. Like plasma is in your veins, it gives you a sense of meaning, feeling, connection and depth. If you have soul, you have a visible glow and are alive and present."
        -Thomas Moore, A Religion of One's Own

I would add that Soul is one's source of vitality and sense of belonging on Earth as a child of the Divine Mother/Moon/Earth Goddess as well as the Heavenly Father/Sun (as dual aspects of Source, stepping down into materiality). This is why in many of the older cultures and languages of Earth, objects or nouns were designated as either masculine/feminine.

Let us now make the distinction between Soul and Spirit. Consider the following description of Spirit:

"Spirit directs your attention to the cosmos and planet, to huge ideas and vast adventures, to prayer and meditation and other spiritual practices, to a worldview and philosophy of life. Spirit expands your heart and mind, gives you vision and courage, and eventually leaves you with a strong sense of meaning and purpose."
          -Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul

I would also add that Spirit connects one to the overall unfoldment of the Divine Plan and comprises one's spiritual essence or that which is eternal. Whereas the soul is a vehicle of planetary/material life. The Soul provides one with their personalized curriculum of life-lessons and experiences in order to learn, grow, evolve and flourish while enrolled in the school known as Earth. It is found in the practical, the day-to-day, the relational. The following quote illustrates this well.

"Soul is more intimate, deep, and concrete. You care for your soul by keeping up your house, learning how to cook, playing sports or games, being around children, getting to know and love the region where you live. Soul allows you to become attached to the world, which is a kind of love. When the soul stirs, you feel things, both love and anger, and you have strong desires and even fears. You live your life fully, instead of skirting it with intellectualism or excessive moralistic worries."
         -Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul

Soul serves as a prompter through feeling and desire, as well as a collector of memory, experience, and wisdom (or lessons learned). Both Spirit and Soul influence and shape the other, and herein lies one of the great mysteries: mystical union or the intersection between Spirit and Soul. All spiritual initiates should aspire to become conscious conduits or vessels of this union. For within it is created an endless exchange of information and higher impulses between the two - at multiple levels of creation. Creating harmony, well-being, a greater sense of interconnectedness, and heightened states of awareness and flow for the individual as well as the collective.

This is why one should never make the mistake of valuing one aspect over the other. For example, in the current culture the feminine and/or things of Earth and/or your planetary realm, including one's humanness and soulful underworld, have often been tinged with thoughts of its lowliness, sinfulness, and/or darkness. At best it was disrespected and disregarded, at worst violated, trampled and raped. Many fear-based beliefs and misconceptions still abound in one's present culture concerning the realm of Soul. Is it no wonder that the world looks and feels the way it does? The denial of Soul in the collective is devastating in its effects, is it not? Although a great deal of light and awareness is now rising within this respect, one should not underestimate how deep this cultural conditioning still runs.

It is my hope in sharing this information that it further demonstrates why it is necessary to cultivate and commune with both aspects of self equally, Soul and Spirit, and to bring them into greater alignment and conscious partnership (as previously discussed). For it is through the cultivation of your superpowers, utilizing all three aspects of self: Soul, Spirit, Physical (as the vessel and outer expresser of that union), that the experience of ascension and/or greater unity consciousness is manifested on Earth. In turn, uplifting the experience of all orders of Life (seen and unseen) on your planetary world as well as spiraling out to all connected systems.

All that is needed has been given and continues to be gifted. The rest is up to you. Listen carefully in the days ahead to what both Soul and Spirit have to say.

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