The soul is the center of our being. It’s how we know ourselves, trust ourselves, and root into the core of who we are and our place in the world. The soul is the locus of creativity, spirituality, and our sense of meaning. When we lose touch with soul, we lose touch with our truth, our wisdom, and why we’re here.
Oh, how easy it is to lose touch with soul in a world that barely acknowledges the existence of this essential part of who we are. For the soul’s requirements for remaining a pulsing, breathing element are antithetical to many of the ways we live.
The soul needs slowness. It needs to move at the rhythm of nature, which unfolds according to laws that have been in place since the beginning of life on this planet.
But our world is moving at an unfathomably fast pace.
The soul needs to do one thing at a time: to make food when it’s time to make food; to have a conversation without having a secondary conversation with a screen; to walk while listening to birdsong and the rustle of leaves. Nothing in your ear except life itself.
But the world vies for your attention, grabbing you out of this moment and into another so that you’re never fully in just one moment. We are forgetting the goodness of doing one thing at a time.
The soul needs uninterrupted time. It needs even ten minutes or an hour to be in its own field, to think its own thoughts, to listen to its own voice.
But how challenging it is to carve out even a few minutes without something or someone pinging through our silence.
On the heels of a much-needed break from Instagram, I wrote a poem last week. Or my soul did. I’m sharing it here, and I’d love hear any musings from your soul in the comments: what you notice when you quiet the noise and take time to listen to the still, small voice within .
***
The world has become too loud,
too many voices in my ear and
my brain. Even the good voices clutter and
clatter until I can no longer hear my own.
There is a stripping away now, a
quieting so I can become
reacquainted with the quiet
because it’s only here that I can hear the
smallest whisper of my soul.
Maybe the world has always been loud.
Maybe the task of the soul has always been to
find itself amongst the crowds of strangers who
vie for attention,
who jostle out solitude so that
we never have to spend
one second alone.
Perhaps in the past
those voices were of family and neighbors and
the opinions of everybody in the town square.
But now the square is everywhere.
And also nowhere.
I would like to meet my sisters at the well.
I would like to gather at the river’s edge while we
wash our clothes together.
I would like to hear them laugh as we
chop onions and carrots for the evening meal and
knead bread that will rise by morning.
But we are scattered across time zones and
the best we can do is stick each other in our ears while we walk.
Or sit across from one another by the miracle of a screen.
It’s good,
but it’s not enough.
Sometimes when I walk,
I stop to talk to a neighbor and
my soul gets happy.
It thinks, “This is how it’s supposed to be, to see each other easily.”
In morning or evening I stop to hear about the
neighbor’s son who got married this summer and
we clap together in delight at the prospect of grandchildren.
Other neighbors asked if we would
watch their cat while they were away.
Of course I said yes.
I was happy.
I talk to the trees, too: rows of evergreens planted neatly to follow fence lines,
maples ablaze now in reds and oranges.
Without anybody in my ear,
I hear the crunch of yellow leaves underfoot and
marvel at autumn’s bittersweet majesty.
It is not only for me that I walk in silence.
Trees brighten when they are seen.
Waters lilt with joy when they are heard.
No matter what we think, we are never alone in this world.
I started this walk empty, and now I am full:
full of the goodness of my own soul who
only needs some quiet time to sing her song.
So beautiful Sheryl, as always. Your way with words never ceases to amaze me. It’s funny, over the years I’ve slowly let go of the noise- I don’t watch the news anymore, got rid of instagram, so I don’t have any social media at all. My husband and I were even thinking about getting flip phones! But it’s a fine line to balance- I don’t want to make my life smaller and smaller in a world that just doesn’t honor that type of life.
Thank you, Steph. I think the hope is that as our online life gets smaller our real life gets bigger!
Thank you so much for this, Sheryl. Your poem really speaks to me. Much needed reminder. I am trying to sit and look out the window when I drink my morning tea. Sometimes I feel like there are complicated morning routine ideas but that just looking out the window mindfully can be just as soul-filling. I wrote this poem when I was looking out the window last week:
A procession of clouds
their colour shifting with
the sunrise, from palest blue
to a deep, rich mauve,
marches across the sky,
as if in a parade,
full of pride,
to show off their beauty.
How does water vapour,
hanging in the air
by the laws of physics,
create such delicate structures,
create such shapes of art,
create such a stirring in my heart?
As they make their way
slowly, deliberately
from left to right,
they are almost asking,
will you look up,
will you pay attention this morning?
A poem for a poem :). How happy is my soul to hear from you, George, and, more specifically, to receive this beautiful offering from your soul. Thank you.
I love your poem George :’) Thank you for sharing it.
Thank you Sheryl. Your blogs always remind me to slow down every week, which is especially hard with the addition of a second child to our family recently. I have been finding I need even just 5 minutes per day to dedicate to my soul. Last night while I was breastfeeding my daughter I just listened to the hail outside the window, without being on my phone or listening to so something and it was so peaceful.
One of my favorite ways of returning to soul is to listen to rain or hail. It brings us right back to the core of who we are. And yes: it doesn’t take much time. Even 5 minutes of quiet presence without a phone can return us to soul.
So beautiful
“Trees brighten when they are seen.
Waters lilt with joy when they are heard.” brought tears to my eyes.
nothing like the simple contacts of everyday life with fellow humans and the natural world.
🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽
Amazing insight and such a needed topic of discussion
🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽
What a beautiful poem and story. I felt like I was walking with you, or I was walking alone in rhythm with your words.
I also felt the grief that is front and center in this season. That the bare months are nearly here.
So much infusion of life to be experienced by being HERE.
Thank you
I’m so glad you came along with me, Lisa :).
This spoke directly to me tonight, Sheryl. This captures so much of what I have been yearning for in recent years. Why is it so hard to prioritise Soul in this modern life? And what are we collectively losing as a species when we don’t nourish Soul with our attention and reverence? Maybe Soul is literally made up of moments of still, quiet, respectful consciousness.
Great questions, Clara. Two of the most important questions we should be asking right now.
Love! I feel much the same. Silence and my full attention to the little pieces of nature always quiet my mind so that my soul can come up for air
❤️❤️❤️