What Are ‘Soul’ & ‘Spirit’?
Reflections on the nature of Soul and Spirit and why I believe we are expressions of life living itself.
I believe that our soul is always whispering to us … but we need to make space to be able to hear it.
Have you heard your inner voice of wisdom and guidance? Your soul’s voice?
It’s a voice that is loving, clear and truthful. A voice which knows what you need to do next. A voice which is supportive and wise and uplifting: a voice you can trust.
Or maybe it doesn’t speak with words. Your soul whispers may come with feelings, images and voiceless guidance.
And it’s that intuitive feeling you have when you just know something is right or wrong for you.
I believe that you will be on the right path when you allow your soul to guide you.
What is the ‘Soul’?
But what do we mean by soul?
And how does it relate to spirit? The two are often – mistakenly – used interchangeably.
Now, I acknowledge that this is a topic with which humanity has been grappling for thousands of years.
And I’m not about to pretend that I have the definitive answer!
I am simply offering you my thoughts on this subject, based on my years of study, wondering and practice, and from a nature-based and Goddess-loving spiritual perspective.
So, in my understanding, spirit is the transcendent part of us that is a connected to the Oneness of all things.
In contrast, the soul is the essence of YOU– your deepest, unique, characteristics and qualities that define you.
This essence – this Soul Self – is a combination of your gifts, aptitudes, values, preferences AND the gifts you were born to share with the world. It’s the true you. The real you.
While spirit is ‘out there’, transcending ordinary life, the soul is embodied, calling us inwards to connect to and live from what is most unique in us.
Spirit calls us to rise and transcend our sense of self.
Soul calls us to descend into our bodies and root ourselves in the truth of who we are and engage with our bodies, emotions and feelings … and listen to the wild call of our yearnings and callings – the messy but beautiful truths of our inner nature.
The Divine Feminine & the Soul
Transcendent spirit has long been associated with the Masculine face of the divine – of sky Gods who look down upon us and judge.
The immanent soul is associated with the Feminine faces of the divine – of life on earth, the seasons and cycles of life, and embodiment.
The soul exists in intimate connection with the ever-changing Sacred Feminine archetypal energies of the cycle of life of birth, growth, release, death, and rebirth.
So I believe that when you connect to cycles, such as your menstrual cycle, or the season of perimenopause, you are activating and nourishing your soul self.
And this soul self is all about embodied wisdom – intellect informed by our senses and intuition. Its energy is about generative fecundity. Compassion, nurturing and acceptance. Creativity and flow. Passion and sensuality. Rest and healing. Allowing ourselves to hang out in the void and inner depths and darkness.
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Now, you may have heard the (mis)quote that “we are souls having a human experience”, attributed to the French Jesuit Priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin - though the quote should actually be: “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience." (1).
But something about this doesn’t quite ring true to me.
It negates our human experience and prizes transcendent spirit above our humanity. It suggests that the ultimate reality is transcendent spirit rather than the messy embodied reality of life on Earth.
To me, this approach sets us on a path of believing that the physical world is an illusion and that the Earth and other beings are inanimate. It sends us yearning for enlightenment and liberation from the earthly plane.
It disconnects us from our humanity.
And it severs us from the Sacred Feminine - from the Goddess - She who is Life.
I find this life-denying. And I reject it.
Instead let us make the descent, back down from the heavens and transcendence and into the land of our bodies, the underworld of our psyches, and return to the Goddess and to Soul.
She is the life-force: the energy that births, nurtures and destroys in order for regeneration to happen and the cycle of life to continue.
She is your life-force. She is the energy that makes your heart beat, your breath flow, and your body heal and regenerate.
She is life. And you are life.
And so in this way I consider the Soul to be a unique expression of life living itself.
So YOU, dear one, are a unique expression of LIFE. Remember this. And treasure your soul’s gifts.
References
(1) That said, it’s actually not clear whether de Chardin said this anyway. It may have been created by Wayne Dyer (see https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pierre_Teilhard_de_Chardin)
