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Self> What Does
The Soul Want?
What does the
Soul Want?
By Robert M.
Oliva CSW
Published April 2001
What does the soul want? The soul
demands expression. The soul wishes
to speak.
The soul is relentless in its need to be
formed and visible. The soul speaks
in images. Some have called it a pandemonium.
The soul never stops producing imagery that
intrudes into our lives. It is never
ending in its pursuit. The soul has
no beginning and no end. It is neither
here nor there, neither in us nor outside
of us. It is a dynamic, insatiable,
unstoppable process. The soul is an
experience, something that is happening.
It will not sit still. To be in touch
with soul is to be in touch with our selves.
Humans are more mysterious than most of
us are willing to allow. Our conscious
minds want reality to be set and predictable.
Our ordinary selves revel in the mundane.
The soul cares little for predictability.
It cares little for our set lives and contentment.
The soul is not content. The soul
is imagination. It sees what is not
and creates what is new. The soul
wants.
Allowing the soul to
be uncovered is important for all of us
but for the artist, the writer, the musician,
giving assent to the soul is of immeasurable
importance. It is an event of immense
personal consequence.
Although it may be impossible to understand
the soul, it is possible to catch a glimpse
of it by looking around us. Nature
can be our window into the soul.
The Universe is a vast seething furnace
of creativity. The universe gives birth
to countless galaxies, stars and planets.
It has never stopped renewing itself. From
the moment of the Big Bang the evolution
of the universe has been unceasing. New
forms have relentlessly come into being
over billions of years. Through the tremendous
explosions of supernova the elements of
our own existence have come to be. The universe
cooks up new life and new possibilities.
The Earth is the same way. It has been
cooking for billions of years and produced
LIFE. You and I are the product of a dynamic,
never ending process of becoming. As cosmologist
Brian Swimme has so beautifully said it
in The Universe is a Green Dragon:
"Earth was a cauldron of chemical
and elemental creativity, fashioning ever
more complex forms and combinations until
life burst forth in the oceans and spread
across the continents, covering the entire
planet...We are the latest, the most recent,
the youngest extravagance of the stupendously
creative Earth."
Each of us shares this universal dynamism.
In each of our lives we give birth to new
forms, to love, to children, to recipes
for artichoke pies, to poetry, to fixing
leaks in the bathroom, and on and on. To
live our lives fully, it is important to
realize the creative nature of who we are.
When we experience ourselves as creative
beacons in the world, our lives can blossom
with new hope. Again as Brian Swimme has
said:
"To become fully mature as human persons,
we must bring to life within ourselves the
dynamics that fashioned the cosmos. We must
become these cosmic dynamic and primordial
powers in new human form. That is our task..."
The universe is soul. We are soul.
Within us soul is our history. It is not
only a reflection of the cosmic creation
but of our own personal story. The
soul is like a multitude of unconscious
streams that are determining our identities.
It is the ground water of our persona.
We could say that the soul is the land of
the dead. It is the dark, earth bound
place where the universal impulse to imagination
and creation and our own personal histories
meld and percolate. We mimic the universal
process by allowing the universe expression:
we allow soul to speak. Coming to
know soul is coming to know ourselves.
Coming to know soul is coming to know the
world.
Soul creates the artist. The artist
creates the world. The world is soul.
Art is the cosmic process humanized.
The artist has given the soul a voice, has
allowed it to utter the unknown. The
artist breaks the cosmic egg from which
pours forth countless creatures that fertilize
the earth. We can say this in another
way: the artist breaks open the unconscious,
unleashing the hidden energy into our lives
and into our world. The shadows move
into the light.
When I read short stories of James Joyce,
the poems of Allen Ginsburg, or listen to
Verdi, Coltrane and the young Eric Clapton,
I see soul. There is film footage
of Coltrane playing the sax in historic
jam sessions. While performing, Coltrane
was addressing soul. He struggled
to give form and life to the unfathomable.
He was being cooked. He could only
call this experience the divine, a love
supreme.
We are the servants of the soul.
We do not determine what the soul wants
but give it expression.
The act of painting
the image or speaking with it in a poem
is dulia, a service to the image.
–James Hillman
Robert M. Oliva,
CSW is a certified New York State social
worker with over twenty years experience
in psychotherapy, stress management and
wellness. Bob is an internationally known
health writer and is the founder and editor-in-chief
of the health site HealingAction.com. Presently,
Bob is a doctoral candidate in naturopathy
at Clayton College. He lives with his wife
Mary and his two sons David and Chris on
Long Island, New York. Bob also spends a
few hours a week playing with his grandson
Jonathan.
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