Someone asked me what I already had a deep knowing about. Good question. My first reaction was that my deep knowing was about all the sad things: the state of the world, the harshness of living alone, but then immediately after that it was the deep knowing of the people around me who care, my friends and my soul-tribe. I deeply know that I am loved.
Friends and soul-tribe. I make that sound like the same group of folks, but they’re not. They’re intersecting but separate groups. Some of my friends are soul-tribe (and therefore by definition vice versa), but not all. Some of my friendships are based on things other than what I see as my soul-calling, my soul-work. They are based on our shared lived experiences. They are based on shared interests and the way we have fun together and learn together and just be together.
Likewise some of my soul-tribe are people that I may never have met, they might never even know of my existence, but we share the same soul-space, we’re trying to do the same things – sometimes in similar ways, sometimes in very different ways.
I am blessed by having friends. I am blessed by having figured out who my soul-tribe is. I am doubly blessed by knowing that the two intersect but do not merge. That might also sound strange. But here’s the thing: soul-work is still ‘work’. And we all need a break from it. We all need to cut ourselves some slack, hang loose, chill out, kick back…just stop ‘trying’ to be / do anything and laugh (or smile wryly if that is more your humour-style).
I know that some of my friends don’t understand my soul-work. They’d never go as far as to mock me for it, but they will joke about it, leg-pull, or just simply not “get” what it is and why it matters. And that’s ok. With some of them I don’t really want to talk about it. I just want to swim and laugh and eat good food and listen to music.
I also know that some of my soul-tribe would drive me demented if I invited them into my silly-space. Or my geek-space. Or maybe I would do the same to them. That’s also ok.
I know my life is richer for having the three subsets: the friends who are only friends, the soul-tribe who are only tribe, and the soul-friends / friend-souls who inhabit both spaces. To be clear there is no hierarchy here. Not one of those three sub-sets is in any sense ‘better’ or ‘more important’ than any of the others. My life would be infinitely poorer if any of the sets did not exist.
What I’m learning is that it is important to figure out what kind of relationship each one is at the moment. The sets are fluid. Anyone can move from any one space to any of the others, and back again, or not, or out of the arena altogether, just as other people come in all the time. The spaces are defined (in my head) but not bounded, and definitely not finite. All edges are porous.
That same someone read to me Ann Spencer’s poem “Translation” by way of an invitation to think about inner and outer journeys. The line that resonated was “Our deeper content was never spoken, but each knew all the other said.” When I first responded, I understood that word ‘content’ as subject matter – but what if the poet meant ‘content’ as in ‘contentment’? A thought I may need to come back to another time. This time, I started from the point of "the unspoken". I wondered: why do I not speak my soul?
Is it because she (my deeply feminine soul) has retreated against another’s anger and darkness, no longer wanting what isn’t there? Or is it fear of mockery and hurt: the knowing I’m not wanted?
Or is she wise now, my soul, and just waiting for the inevitable – the one promise that was made at the outset, which was that the other did not want the dream she was weaving? The dream that was so obvious that it was rejected before it even took form, and now it lies unfinished, already unravelling, back into tangled threads.
My soul’s knowing is that it must gather them up again, those frayed threads, un-spin them and spin a-new, weave a new pattern, a new dream that will be welcomed somewhere by one unafraid of promises and expectations. The one who will make and meet them, the one who is unafraid of loving and living and taking all the risks for the joy and beauty of that trek into the far country.
My soul is wiser than my heart, wiser than my mind.
My heart is freely given; my soul knows patience. She knows her worth and has the strength to walk alone. She does not search, but waits. Trusting. She has known love and lovelessness. She has been cherished and neglected. She knows the difference. My soul is loving, even when she knows it is not reciprocated. Where my heart may be broken and still bleeding, or still healing, my soul is strong and whole.
My deep knowing, it seems, is that not only am I worthy of love, but that I will find it again, stumble into it somewhere unexpected. The soul that is worthy of my soul knows that I am here, waiting. Strong enough for the adventure. Tender enough to need cherishing. Wild enough to love.
Oh! Now there’s a phrase: wild enough to love.
Wild enough to warrant loving…or wild enough to dare to love?
Yes, and yes.
The books all talk about our “higher self” – it is not our ‘higher’ self we should turn to, but our ‘deeper’ self. The part that does not pretend to be above, but sits quietly within. The soul is not on some higher plane. It is not our ‘better’ self, merely our ‘truer’ self. It is our essence and our purpose combined.
Why, then, do we overlay it with all the mundane wearies of the world? Why are we so scared of being seen and known? My soul wants to be known again. Held as gently as starlight captured in an outstretched hand. She wants to know another – not one who is too timid for her wilderness – rather one brave and gentle and wild-enough themselves to have no need of taming her.
She wants to stand and share. She wants to be present in every magic moment that rolls in off the oceans, to dance in water, to rest easily in the darkness. She wants to shed the world, unclothe herself of its pettiness, unwrap the present gift. She wants to stand naked, unadorned, but be adored. She is a child, innocent and certain of her place in the universe.
And today she is speaking freely again – at least on the page. She is telling the heart and the mind and the body that all of these things are true.
What a strange thing it is to listen to one’s own soul as if it were another being entirely. So far disconnected have I become. So harried by what others think and feel, that I don’t pause to notice how I can (sometimes) make them think and feel otherwise…if only for a moment. I can write from my imperfection, weep onto the page, speak my fears and tears so strongly that others feel them too.
What is soul-work, after all, if not the work of uncovering our own soul? This means baring it in all its beauty, and bearing all the weight of its accumulated wisdom. It means listening to our own inner guidance. Our weakness is only mindset – and the weight of the world. Our soul is the place of our retreat when that is too much – or too little – to bear. Too little? Oh yes, emptiness is a heavy burden too.
My soul knows that emptiness is down-dragging illusion. She sees the abundance and richness of a life lived wildly and true. She walks in grace, which is gratitude by another name. She walks in beauty, which is the light of eons. She walks in wisdom, hard won and distilled to purity – even if sometimes seen obscurely. She is untameable.
My soul is holding me today – a mother to my fragile mind, reminding me of who I am – the me that others see and so often I do not. She it is who puts down the words when they flow freely, when I get out of my own way. She it is that braves the world to stand and read them aloud. She it is who trusts heart-words to find hearts to land within.
She is my deeper self, my wild child, my wise mother, my only guide.
~ / ~
Go talk to your deeper self and see what he or she or it has to share with you.
