Soul in the Middle

Carlos Quevedo

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I have come to think that care of the soul requires a high degree of resistance to the culture around us…

~ Thomas Merton

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In many shamanic societies, if you came to a medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask four questions: When did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories? When did you stop finding comfort in the sweet territory of silence?

~ Gabrielle Roth

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In the fifteenth century, Marsilio Ficino put it as simply as possible. The mind, he said, tends to go off on its own so that it seems to have no relevance to the physical world. At the same time, the materialistic life can be so absorbing that we get caught in it and forget about spirituality. What we need, he said, is soul, in the middle, holding together mind and body, ideas and life, spirituality and the world.

~ Thomas Moore