Care of the Soul
Riffing on Eternity #5
“Care of the soul - we take care of ourselves”
How we take care of ourselves to ensure the care of the soul is an intimate topic that opens wide toward the realities of the One and the suspension down through all the causes.
By caring for the soul, through our own care of ourselves, we call and awaken natural principles of transfer of power, love and nurturance down through all the beings of the metaphysical universe.
This brings us into a condition like that of a nursing baby, where love, protection, and sustenance are conveyed through the grace of the mother’s open giving of herself in the most natural human way.
The love of all the mothers pours out like milk down to us all, and in return we send love back, producing gratitude and peace, along with our growth.
And as we grow stronger, we change places, and come to nurture our mothers with our adult care and gratitude - and a state of greater understanding.
In our own way we can become like mothers ourselves, and nurture growth in innumerable ways, and we are given many opportunities for this.
In this concept of care of the soul, I had first thought of writing about theurgy, caring for the soul through invocation of the gods and benign forces for good, and by doing so bringing about an effective and peaceful life in the world, for the world, so there can be care for all the souls that have come here - each for their own purpose.
This also is a way to nurture, but to really work, it can be as natural to us as nursing an infant.
So I propose we nurse our souls, bringing them to the breast and giving them all of ourselves, and allowing them the freedom to grow and expand through this loving care.
This is one way of deep interior theurgy, for the care of the soul shows the intimate love of all the causes that brought the soul into being.
It brings the soul into our realm of life, not as ourselves, in the psychological sense of reducing it to embodied matter, which therefore makes it seem part of the matter of this embodied life.
Our selfless love offers the matter of earth into the soul in such a way that the soul is nurtured and activated. For the milk of this nursing is not actual milk, but love and kindness. And the breast is not the actual breast but a fountain of life itself. One of life’s great fountains.
The activated soul then discovers her purpose, expands herself, and expands her wings.
As this happens, we are further dedicated to the care of the soul, so much so that we dissolve into her.
Our idea of self blurs further and further through this service, and we identify more and more with the face of the soul, less and less with the former face we saw in the material mirror.
The mirror of the soul shows us our true face, and in turn the soul sees her face in the mirror of our face. And more so, she sees her face in the mirror of other souls also, in the eye visibly, but also in the heart as a felt awakened presence.
That becomes part of the purpose of our theurgy, and we call the help of all the gods and beings, ideas and forms, to aid in this purpose, not only for what we knew individually as “our soul” but also for the souls of others, and of our world itself.
Thus the very soul of the universe is nurtured by those who dedicate themselves to this purpose: the awakening and nurturing of the souls of all.
It all begins with gentle loving care that can soothe the infant soul - who never ever was an infant but is a pure true light without other.
The paradox is this light has been buried alive in the darkness of matter and must find her way out.
This is where we come in - we who think we are separate but are actually one. It is the stuff of myth. The infant, mother, soul and self seem to be interchanging and dancing one with the other, becoming each other and shifting emphasis from earth to heaven and back again. Who is who and why is there a separation of soul and self, mother and infant, being and becoming, life and death?
We enter as seeming individuals, and nurture this little god-being inside ourselves until she grows strong enough for us to recognize that her existence means our annihilation, and that this is the purpose of our life - to die to matter and allow the soul her full life. Here the paradox deepens and comes full circle. For, in all this, even in the complete surrender, we are being shown the way to die before death, after which we remain in earthly garb, carrying on this work on wider and wider circles of influence and meaning.
That is our theurgy.
More of my notes on Plato study here, at Riffing on Eternity.
Interestingly enough, I realized that we shift on our own genetic trees. When my father died, I became like sister to my mother, and when my mother passed on, I became like mother to my sister. It just seemed to happen naturally in the order of hierarchy. I enjoyed reading your post. I noted that you had written some interesting pieces and loved the accompanying pictures. It is love that passes on through the generations and I love the subtle changes in it.
And again, Thank you, Carol.