The Melancholy of Aging

"The melancholy that often characterizes aging may have to remain a tonality in everything you do. But, melancholy is not the same as depression. It is a mood and a coloring that doesn't necessarily compete with happiness and vitality. It is more a quality than an affliction, and it has many gifts to offer you.

The melancholy of aging can make you reflective and even occasionally wise, as you advance in years. It can keep you quiet and allow you to slow down in appropriate ways. It can give weight to your thoughts and pronouncements and can allow you to be the advisor or youth, a significant way of offsetting feelings of irrelevance that may come with the breakdown of your physical powers."

~~ Thomas Moore, p. 295, Dark Nights of the Soul: A Guide to Finding Your Way Through Life's Ordeals

While listening to my iPod while walking on a treadmill, I thought that I was listening to 'on the go' music, so I was surprised when Thomas Moore began speaking about 'The Dark Night' brought about by aging. Unwittingly, I had started playing 'all the songs' and it randomly began playing one of the chapters of his book in audio format. When I got home, I began reading the chapter that 'the universe' had chosen for me and was surprised by how much it related to some recent feelings.

His encouragement that melancholy doesn't have to negate happiness and vitality was what I needed to hear. He writes about the difference between regret and remorse, how to avoid irrelevancy, and how aging can be an initiation into 'deeper' living. I'm intending to extract some of this for you in the days to come. I'd sure be interested in hearing from any of you in the same stage of living.

The Beginning ...

For those who don't follow me on Facebook, you need to know that after watching a spot on Zen Gardens on the CBS Sunday Morning show, a space in our yard cried out 'Empty me'.
So below is the space that called to me.

... and below is the few free rocks that I found in the vicinity.

I may not continue to show intermediate photos, but if I do I'll try a view that covers this same initial image.

Thomas Moore writes about how the Irish, drink Scotch Whiskey after talking about 'soul'. I find that after I work on something for my soul, like this garden is a reason to drink Scotch. Up to now I've saved my drinking for when I run the vacuum for my wife. I only have to be careful when I do the stairs.

Contributing to Humanity Gives Us a Sense of Purpose

@thomasmooreSoul: We can all focus our work so that it makes at least a small contribution to humanity and in turn gives us a satisfying sense of purpose.

‎Thomas Moore's Twitter feed can be seen at: http://twitter.com/#!/thom​asmooreSoul

Nourishing Our Souls, by Thomas Moore: from Daily Word

Our Choice in every Moment, to Live Mechanically, or to Live with Soul. - "The approach which brings out our humanity is one which calls on us to be compassionate and empathetic toward other people. Our lives are shaped by that empathy and by that compassion, and we then become people who live with others—not as machines, but as loving, caring humans in a family, in a marriage, and in a community."

Nourishing Our Souls, by Thomas Moore: from Daily Word

Philosophy of Life? Life's a Dance, You learn as You Go!

In his online course, Thomas Moore asks participants to decide on a Philosophy of Life that has room for both the good, uplifting, inspiring times and those difficult times that come to us all, at one time or another. I wrote this as mine:
"Life is a Dance!" (short version) or "Dance to all the Rhythms and Notes of Life, including the spaces in between the Notes" (Long Version.

Of course, there is always a country music song that speaks of real life (especially the downside). Here is a video of John Michael Montgomery's "Life is a Dance, You learn as You Go".


.... and just in case, you can't watch videos, here are the lyrics:
When I was fourteen I was falling fast
For a blue eyed girl in my homeroom class
Trying to find the courage to ask her out
Was like trying to get oil from a waterspout
What she would have said I can't say
I never did ask and she moved away
But I learned something from my blue eyed girl
Sink or swim you gotta give it a whirl

Life's a dance you learn as you go
Sometimes you lead, sometimes you follow
Don't worry about what you don't know
Life's a dance you learn as you go

The longer I live the more I believe
You do have to give if you wanna recieve
There's a time to listen, a time to talk
And you might have to crawl even after you walk
Had sure things blow up in my face
Seen the longshot, win the race
Been knocked down by the slamming door
Picked myself up and came back for more

Life's a dance you learn as you go
Sometimes you lead, sometimes you follow
Don't worry about what you don't know
Life's a dance you learn as you go

Life's a dance you learn as you go
Sometimes you lead, sometimes you follow
Don't worry about what you don't know
Life's a dance you learn as you go
Life's a dance you learn as you go
Sometimes you lead, sometimes you follow
Don't worry about what you don't know
Life's a dance you learn as you go

Life's a dance
Life's a dance
Life's a dance
Take a chance on love
Life's a dance
You learn as you go

Keep Dancin'

Recognize the Diversity in Yourself - Thomas Moore

I was exploring the recent update to one of my favorite websites, BARQUE: THOMAS MOORE AS CATALYST. It was entitled, Thomas Moore writes about the sounds of silence , and contained a link to the Resurgence Magazine article on the subject. Of course I had to explore to see if the British magazine had made Moore's other articles available and I found an extremely meaningful article.

It's title, Your Many Selves: Recognise the diversity within yourself and you will begin to see it in others , immediately sparked my imagination. I'm sure that I've read this before, but it seemed to have a renewed immediacy for me. I imagine that this concept, of "many selves within each of us" is the reason that I began to be comfortable with the different aspects of my own complex personality and so, too, demands that I return to Moore's work.

Beginning to Care for the Soul

While listening, again, to "Soul Life", a six cassette "Care of the Soul" retreat by Thomas Moore, I began to be aware that I was having thoughts of my own while listening to the words spoken by Moore. I remembered what he said at the beginning of tape 4 entitled 'Art and Soul'. When someone asks him, "How can I begin to care for my soul?", he answers "...respond to however the soul is making itself felt at the moment. Before I said it might be something in the house that needs attention. It might be an aspect of relationship. Pay attention, ...noticing what the soul is asking for at this particular moment." As I paid attention to my responsive thoughts, I remembered a practice that I learned for the first time, years ago.

I was attending, and my life was deeply emersed in what I, now, believe, was a very cult-like church. One of the characteristics that flow from a cult-like culture, is that there is no distinction between the individual and the organization. You lose tract of your own thoughts, feelings and experiences and everything is filtered through the doctrine of the organization. Somewhere along my journey, however, I learned a very power practice that, I believe was instrumental in separating me from the organization. I read or heard somewhere, "Do not write down what I say, but what you think, as a result of what I say." It may take some deliberation, to understand how subversive that practice is. As I sat in church, instead of feverishly writing copious notes on what the preacher said, I began to write about my thoughts, memories of experiences and images that came to my mind. I began to recognize myself and my thoughts and experiences as being separate from that of the church and sometimes in opposition.

For the life of me, I can't remember where I first heard about that practice, but I strongly believe that I first heard about it from Charlie "Tremendous" Jones, a Christian, Sales Trainer, Motivator, Speaker and Life Coach long before there were any Life Coaches. He wrote "Life is Tremendous" and was a great advocate for the power of enthusiasm, reading and books. I had forgotten about the practice for a long time until I was reading Parker J. Palmer's book, "Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation". Palmer is a practicing Quaker and author and activist in the field of Education, holding workshops and retreats on how to combine "Soul and Role" helping educators to bring heart to their classrooms. In "Let Your Life Speak", he describes how people who come to workshops take notes about what the retreat leaders say and even participants whom they deemed wise, but seldom wrote down the words that they,personally, uttered. He began recommending that they write down their words and I would add: write what you think as a result of what you hear.

Palmer writes, "Verbalizing, is not the only way our lives speak, of course. They speak through our actions and reactions, our intuitions and instincts our feelings and bodily states of being perhaps more profoundly than any through our words. We are like plants, full of tropisms that draw us toward certain experiences and repels us from others. If we can learn to read our own responses to our own experience - a text we are writing unconsciously every day we spend on earth - we will receive the guidance we need to live more authentic lives." Doesn't that sounds like the "soul" that Thomas Moore talks about!

So, as I try to remember, everyday, to not just consume the "great" and "not so great" posts on the internet, or in my reading or TV watching, I'd be interested in your thoughts as a result of what I wrote....and of course, I'll pay attention to how I respond to what you write....and we'll care for our souls, together.
Namaste

Thomas Moore on Good Morning America Health

Barque: Thomas Moore posted that there would be an interview about "Care of the Soul in Medicine" on ABC's Good Morning America Health. This interview was done on ABCNEWS Now, available on some cable outlets but I found THIS VIDEO ON HULU. I just received a link on ABCNEWS videos. Hope you are able to view one of these links.

Namaste

Beyond Assembly-Line Health Care

While I'm waiting with great anticipation for the release of Thomas Moore's next book, "Care of the Soul in Medicine", I did find this excerpt through the Barque website. I'm sure we have our own horror stories of soul-less, inhumane medicine, but Moore uses his alchemic skill with words to describe an experience, which are for us, indescribable. The book will be published by Hays House on this coming April 15 and this excerpt was published in their newletter, Present Moments. If you are interested in a longer excerpt, be sure to check out Google Books. I'm wondering if posting your own stories of good and bad experiences with modern medicine might be useful either here, or on Facebook, or better yet, on Barque: The Thomas Moore Forum.

Care of the Soul in Medicine Beyond Assembly-Line Health Care by Thomas Moore Why a hospital without a soul is just a body repair shop . . . A few years ago I was feeding my two dogs, one an aged collie and the other a young and energetic mutt. I had a bowl of dog food in each hand, and when I tried to walk into the house from the porch I tripped over a doormat and fell, hitting my forehead hard on the sharp edge of the doorjamb. I was alone in the house and was dazed at first. When I came to, I saw blood all over my hands and felt a lump on my bleeding head. I sat down, not knowing what to do, since I couldn’t think clearly. At that moment my wife and daughter arrived from a shopping trip and drove me immediately to the emergency room of our local hospital. I walked into a crowded reception area and was told to wait my turn and get my insurance information out. I couldn’t think very clearly, but I had enough presence of mind to see that this visit would be good material for my book. My first impression was not a positive one. The receptionists were too busy and rushed. Maybe they did a quick triage and decided I had minor abrasions. There were people present with serious problems. But I was treated brusquely and felt no sense of care. I didn’t feel that I was in a place of healing as much as a “factory” where the assembly line was moving too quickly. Eventually a harried doctor came and gave me a dozen stitches. He didn’t introduce himself and I didn’t think he went about his work with a great deal of care. The scar on my forehead even today is very noticeable, while the work the plastic surgeon did on my face when he removed my precancerous lesion is impossible to detect. Maybe it was just a matter of skill—a plastic surgeon versus an emergency room resident. I suspect that the lack of soul in that place was also a factor, because ultimately it is the soul that heals, even when it is only a matter of stitches. The soul is the invisible factor that draws people together, brings out their humanity, and gives depth and meaning to whatever they do. When you treat people as objects, as cases and syndromes and machines in need of repair, you will not be a healer, not even a doctor or nurse. You will be a technician, a human repairman, a functionary in a world of objects. Soul will not enter into your work, not into your skillful use of techniques and not into your relationship with your patients. Your work will not satisfy you, not because it isn’t worthy work but because there is no soul to give it a deep human pulse. On the other hand, when soul is present, when you are capable of being present as a human being and making a connection to a patient, even simple applications of your skills will make your work fulfilling and bring you close in touch with the people who come to you for help. A hospital with soul is a place of healing. A hospital without soul is a body repair shop. The depth of human feeling and care will show itself in the people, in the building and in the atmosphere. In a sense, it is the atmosphere that heals. Religion scholar Karoli Kerenyi once wrote that you sense the presence of the god in the atmosphere of a place. In a hospital you may sense the presence of Asklepios. If you do, whether or not you name him, you will know that the place has soul and that it has what is required to heal. Thomas Moore has been a monk, a musician, a university professor, and a psychotherapist. In 1994, he added best-selling author to the list when he challenged us to bring more depth to our lives by nurturing our souls. The result was his blockbuster book Care of the Soul. Today, he is a renowned spiritual writer and teacher who continues to remind us that healing is so much more than just simply treating the body. His latest book Care of the Soul in Medicine will be released on April 15. You may order this book online at either BarnesandNoble.com, Amazon.com, or wherever books are sold. To meet Thomas in person at one of his upcoming workshops, click here. For more on Thomas’ work, visit www.careofthesoul.net.

LYRICS TUESDAY - Every Stranger has a Story!

Everyone who know me, knows that I like traditional country music. I don't care for most of what is called country music today. For me, I enjoy the stories that are told in country music. I guess that is consistent with some of my other interests. Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul, sees stories as a way to care for the soul. And I really am glad to see the book and website of Christina Baldwin, called Storycatcher, Making Sense of our Lives through the Power and Practice of Story.

I've been noticing that while I'm listening to my ipod music while on the treadmill at the Y, I'm hearing lyrics that mean something and sometimes, remembering stories associated with that song. Recently, while listening to the title track of "Every Stranger has a Story" by Corbin/Hanner, I remember how impressed I was at the emotionally touching lyrics of almost every track. So today I want to post the lyrics of that title track and hope you will follow up and perhaps borrow the CD from a local library. Of course on several sites you can even hear some of the melody. I've embedded a link to the website where I got those lyrics.

I'd like to know, from your comments, if the words had any impact on you.

Bob Corbin, Randy Van Warmer (Bro N' Sis Music,BMI;Coljes,BMI;
Dixie Stars Music/Vanwarmer Music,ASCAP ) 1995

Stand on any corner, on any street in any town
Choose any one you see, pick any face out of the crowd
If you could take a look inside, read the pages like a book
You'd see passion and desire, fury and fire
Anywhere you care to look
Every stranger has a story, every heart has a tale to tell
Every life has it's pain and glory, a fall from grace, an escape from hell
Every stranger has a story, so listen well
You walk right by someone, you don't know where he's been
What he's seen and what he's done, or what's been done to him
Don't judge him by his cover, all that glitters isn't gold
For every line in his face, there's a time and place
When his blood ran hot or his luck ran cold
Every stranger has a story...
From the first cry, to the final sigh, like actor in a play
The scenes unfold, the story's told, a page is turned each passing day
Every stranger has a story...


Thank you Corbin/Hanner for such a soul lifting song.

Reviewer says: Moore Gently Gardens through our Soul

The Literary Addict - Compulsively Experiencing Words

While browsing for reviews of Thomas Moore's "A Life at Work", I believe that I discovered one that Barque: Thomas Moore does not have. The review seemed to be life offering an answer to my emotional comment on Opus Day 2, Living Creatively. The author of Reading Thomas Moore's "A Life at Work", her entry of March 9, 2008, is Lorette Luzajic. Luzajic is, herself, a published author of The Astronaut’s Wife – Poems of Eros and Thanatos, a collection of poetry. She quotes Moore's comment concerning her poetry on her website. Moore said, "Your book of poems is wonderful. I like the style very much. Imaginative, witty, blessedly free of normal logic, surprising, profound, very human, touching, sassy. I like them and thank you for sending them. Looking forward to the next book.”

After beginning with a quotation that I haven't read in the book yet, about the Icarus syndrome, she writes,
"Moore points out the glory of thinkers like Icarus: “…the spirit of Eternal Youth may give rise to idealism, inventiveness, enthusiasm, and a strong urge to be creative.” But the pitfalls are there to smash us mid-flight: “On the negative side, it is often unrealistic and wishful. At its core there often sits a smoldering narcissism- excessive self-regard, extreme self-consciousness….(he) thinks up one project after another and rarely completes any of them.” Later, although acknowledging hurt, she writes,
"While this Icarus spirit seems like an uncommitted madman, my narcissism glows after the above bruising when Moore points out, “Out of all the visionary hopes and dreams may come brilliant ideas. The lives of inventors and artists are full of the struggle to get their novel ideas grounded in real life. A youthful spirit keeps you young and flexible. It may also be the basis of a fervent spirituality…”

After talking about other teachers that she has besides Moore, including her father, she returns to Moore and his treatment of alchemy:
"Moore always finds a way to bring in some of his favourite topics like alchemy, and he illustrates how we mix and temper our past experiences, good and bad, with our hopes for future possibilities. He shows us how to come to terms with our work past- from the mundane to the once glorious and failed. He shows us how to remain open to the opus we may not yet see patterning in our lives. He doesn’t say a word about how to make a resume or impress a corporation we’re hoping to move into. Instead, he gently gardens through our soul and reminds us that whatever we have planted or grown or lost, our life is not over yet."

Finally, An Erotic Dream!

I never dream! Rather, I should say that when I remember, they are never of a remarkable nature. More often than not, I dream of being stuck trying to get help loading my vehicle with building supplies at a Home Depot. With all the problems getting customer service, these days, perhaps that dream is in our collective unconscious. This morning, something seemed different.

Last night, while sharing my remaining awareness with Insomnia playing on the TV in the background, I decided to browse Thomas Moore's book, "The Soul of Sex: Cultivating Life as an Act of Love". I have been listening again to Moore's audio cassettes, "Thomas Moore on Creativity" and "Thomas Moore on Meaningful Work". In both of those presentations, Moore talks about the importance of Eros in everyday life. He reminds the listener that in addition to sex, is the need of the soul for desire, pleasure, beauty, deep satisfaction. Chapter titles and sub-titles got my attention for deeper consideration: "The Role of the Erotic Imagination", "The Sex Life of the Soul", "The Erotic Life of Things" and, the most appealing to me, "Earthly Pleasures: The Epicurean Life".

The result of this pre-sleep exploration was the most sexually explicit dream I've ever remembered. Although there was no naked bodies, there was playful, seductive conversation and propositioning. What does it mean? My approach comes from my listening to Moore, that is not to take it literally. Since I've been dealing with a heart problem over the past year, I've been focused on diminished expectations about life more than looking for those experiences that bring pleasure and satisfaction. I see it as a reminder to tend to my soul by noticing what brings me pleasure, like our dancing, and satisfaction, like keeping the dining room table clear of that mail that needs attention.

Have you had any dreams that reminded you to tend to your soul's erotic life?

On Soul Life (the cassettes)

Halleluia!
Since I, again, have a working cassette player in my van, I am re-listening to "Soul Life" by Thomas Moore. It's called
"An audio session as spiritual retreat. In six contemplative audio sessions, Moore helps the listener focus on the depth, mystery and intricacy of the life of the soul." From AudioFile.

The six cassette titles are:
1) Introduction to Soul Life
2) Soul and the Family
3) Work and the Soul
4) Art and the Soul
5) Soul and Place
6) Religion and Soul

This set is not just an audio version of Care of the Soul. It is, in fact, Thomas talking directly to the listener in a very conversational style. In case you want to try to borrow them from a library or purchase them online, here are the ISBN numbers:
Oct 1993 1-56455-248-9 and
Jul 1997 1-56455-567-0

I have borrowed the unabridged audiobook (on CD) of Care of the Soul (Narrated by Nelson Runger) from the library and I prefer the Soul Life cassettes over the audiobook. Even if Thomas, himself, would read his book, I would imagine it would be without soul. (Some of his cassettes are of him reading his material and I don't prefer them either).

I don't know that he says anything different than his writings and tapes since, but it's great returning to them, again and again to recapture the freshness of the ideas.