All of my learning journeys, growing in and growing out, carry me along my spiritual path.
Along this path, I have studied many traditions, practices and rituals to help me discern what aligns with my personal spirituality, my current understanding of the universe and my presence in it.
So far this has been a never-ending process of continual growth and ceaseless seeking. At least in this lifetime.
There is one constant everybody seems to agree exists.
I have collected notes and quotes from countless others describing this thing we call the soul.
And, they seem to agree that just as the divine source, the something greater that many call God, is perfect, complete, and I’d add incomprehensible, so is a soul.
The soul is indescribable and when I try, I fall into paradoxes, truths that seem unable to coexist and yet they do:
- it is not a thing and yet it is everything.
- it is without self, feelings, personality and yet uniquely me.
- it makes me weep while filling me with love.
My soul connects me to the universe, to everything, to all beings, to life — this deep community.
While I’ve only sensed that mystical connection of “touching my soul,” once or twice, the truths I received have remained.
My soul is, and thus requires no growth. My soul is always with me, thus requires no seeking.
“As time goes on, we are subject to powers of deformation, from within us as well as without, that twist us into shapes alien to the shape of the soul,” wrote Parker Palmer in A Hidden Wholeness. (italics in quote added for emphasis)
“But the soul never loses its original form and never stops calling us back to our birthright integrity…we are invited to conform our lives to the shape of our own souls.”
Growing in and growing out helps reveal the shape of our own soul.