The soul’s enjoyment
The soul’s enjoyment
of becoming visible and present
In this somewhat regular letter, sprinkles of my wanderings through philosophy, culture, art and, well, life. An attempt to ease some ruffled spirits, perhaps. Mine, at least. This is me on the internet, this is my website.
Hello everyone,
Here’s what I’m doing:
I’m writing. A bit more regular than usual, which (for me at least) is good news. It makes me happy, or: it’s a way for my soul to enjoy becoming visible and present:
The human person deeply desires expression. One of the most beautiful ways the soul is present is through thought. Thoughts are the forms of the soul’s inner swiftness. In a certain sense, there is nothing in the world as swift as a thought…. yet even though they are precious to our own identity, thoughts and feelings still remain largely invisible. In order to feel real, we need to bring that inner invisible world to expression. When we perform an action, the invisible within us finds a form, and comes to expression. Therefore, our work should be the place where the soul can enjoy becoming visible and present. The rich unknown, reserved and precious within us, can emerge into visible form. Our nature longs deeply for the possibility of expression which we call work.
Next to writing, I’m reading: the above is from the wonderful book ‘anam cara’ by John O’Donohue.
Expression can take many forms, of course. And this form may change, just like everything else. However, it is worthwhile finding a way for you soul to express itself. Again, John O’Donohue:
If you allow your nature to come alive, then everything will come into rhythm. If you live the life you love, you will receive shelter and blessings. Sometimes the great famine of blessing in and around us derives from the fact that we are not living the life we love, rather we are living the life that is expected of us. We have fallen out of rhythm with the secret signature and light of our own nature.
The shape of each soul is different. There is a secret destiny for each person. When you endeavor to repeat what others have done or force yourself into a preset mould, you betray your individuality. We need to return to the solitude within, to find again the dream that lies at the hearth of the soul. We need to feel the dream with the wonder of a child approaching a threshold of discovery. When we rediscover our childlike nature, we enter into a world of gentle possibility. Consequently, we will find ourselves more frequently at the place of ease, delight and celebration. The false burdens fall away. We come into rhythm with ourselves. Our clay shape gradually learns to walk beautifully on this magnificent earth.
I love this. It resonates QUITE strongly at the moment. The false burdens falling away by following the thread of your secret destiny. Without that burden: ease, delight and celebration return to their deepest power. The ease and delight and celebration (‘hooray it’s my birthday!!!’) most of us remember from (moments in) our childhood.
The clay shape gradually learns to walk, ever more beautifully. Easy going… and in this movement, blessings of encouragement appear:
Mary Oliver:
I think we’re creative all day long. We have to have an appointment, to have that work out on the page, because the creative part of us gets tired of waiting, or just gets tired. And it’s helped a lot of students, young poets, doing that — to have that meeting with that part of oneself…
Beth Pickens:
Artists are people who are profoundly compelled to make their creative work and when they are distanced from their practice, their life quality suffers.
Also, this guy called Warhol once said:
Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.
In the doing, the unfolding of purpose.
All what is needed, then, is a little bit of heart, coeur, courage:
Which is better—the world or seclusion? Cavafy, who has tried both, can’t say. But so much is certain—either life entails courage, or it ceases to be life.
John O’Donohue:
The soul loves risk; it is only through the door of risk that growth can enter.
So, go, go!! Follow the holy winds of your soul. Let yourself be blown to unforeseen places, land in new times, but always keep your attention to the winds of the soul; keep moving, keep growing!
OK OK I get it!! Let’s get to creating already.
So.
In short: I've been writing a bit. Here then, a letter of news.
This time around a (somewhat) shorter letter than previous entries, consisting mostly of links and short descriptions of my various writings of the past months, so everybody wins! Furthermore, I'll share some stuff that has inspired me over the summer in one way or another.
First, some projects that I’m working on. If interested, please join!
I’ve started a meditation channel, and everyone is very welcome to join! Once or twice a week I’ll guide a meditation of around 25 minutes. Afterwards I’ll read some of the stuff that I am reading or am working on myself. At the end of the meditation a short conversation usually unfolds, but feel free to leave whenever you want. Last week was John O’Donohue week. It might be John O’Donohue week next week as well…
Click on this link to join the whatsapp group with notifications, follow this link to join the Telegram group that I use for the livestream. Also, VERY important: you never have to let me know if you’ll join, and you can leave the livestream (and the group) whenever you want. No need to do anything, it’s almost like meditation!
Er blijven zich nieuwe groepen ‘leven en werken in het ritme van de seizoenen’ vormen. Ik heb nog ruimte voor twee groepen - mocht je interesse hebben om aan te sluiten of een eigen groep te vormen, laat het me weten! Volg de link voor meer informatie.
In de natuur, een dag de stilte in, op een prachtige bosrijke locatie in Maarn. Voor meer informatie of om je aan te melden volg de link in de titel en/of stuur me een bericht.
OK!
A letter of news, then; news on what I’ve been reading, writing, watching and listening to.
First, the writing.
Here goes, in chronological order:
A dream, and then, reality. No matter.
Fragrant Palm Leaves: 3 Parts
I wrote somewhat of a three part piece on Thich Nhat Hanh’s published journals (1962 - 1966) ‘Fragrant Palm Leaves.’ It is quite wonderful to see his thinking, or, his being grow, evolve, come to its centre. That’s the fascinating thing about biographies of those we revere: turns out they’re humans too, humans that have struggled, suffered, and have had to come a long way to find a path to this place, this (seemingly) final being that we have come to know. ‘The path of struggle is the only path worth following’, Hanh says. But that’s part three. First,
Fragrant Palm Leaves: Part One - a mountaintop shows the truth
‘Truth cannot be borrowed’, Thich Nhat Hanh writes. ‘We have to stand up for the truth. We cannot just gather moss like an old stone or assume a false self, once we see the truth.’
Someone else pursuing and speaking truth, like few others in history, was Martin Luther King, Jr. Five days after Hahn muses about truth in his journal, King delivers a speech in Oakland, where he expands on themes that would later be part of his ‘I have a Dream’ speech the next year. Five years later, it seems King knew that him speaking the truth would destroy him:
Like anybody I would like to live a long life, longevity has its place… But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And he’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we as a people will get to the Promised Land…
Watch the speech below. It truly is amazing. A speech he didn’t prepare beforehand. It would turn out to be his last. The next day he was shot and killed. Unbelievable.
‘The storm will break at any moment. We can’t hide our heads in the sand. We must be like the trees. We must dispel all indifference and uncertainty, and be ready to face the storm. We cannot remain attached to our youthful innocence. We must strengthen ourselves for the coming test.’
Trees all around in this blog entry, whole forests even. From songs to poems, to pilgrim Satish Kumar’s meditation on trees:
‘How much I can learn from a tree! The tree is my church, the tree is my temple, the tree is my mantra, the tree is my poem and my prayer.’
‘Casting off the old skin is not something a culture does overnight or without resistance.’
In ‘Tuesdays with Morrie’ this is what Morrie Schwartz has to say about culture:
‘You have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn’t work, don’t buy it. Create your own.’
I saw Tár. I really liked it. Follow the link for a (very!) short meditation on the film.
A short documentary by The New Yorker about a Swedish choir for boys whose voices are breaking. A documentary about change, on what it means to be a boy, a man, an ever-changing human being. In the blog I’ve written down a few things the boys say. Reading these sometimes painfully honest questions and musings on life and the uncertainty of change, it becomes clear their considerations are quite universal and not just about or for teenagers…
I feel like I want to belong
And check it out for some beautiful singing as well, of course.
All the rest of it
Reading:
Listening:
I’ve been keeping up something of a musical diary on Spotify. Every new song that I like joins the gang and whenever the playlist fills up with 101 songs, that one is done and I make a new one. In this way, a music diary emerges.
Those 101 songs then, are the soundtrack of that particular period in my life. It’s an interesting way of keeping up a diary, especially if you don’t like writing. It usually does bring back the underlying feeling, taste, or better yet, the frequency of that time.
I don’t really know why I decided on 101 songs, probably because I’ve always been intrigued by that number. Must have something to do with ‘1984’ and ‘The Matrix. Actually, I never consciously started it as a musical diary. I just happened to realize that it was a diary after the fact. And now I’m thinking… you could play around with it. Keep shorter or longer playlists, or playlists for specific periods in your life, say, a (short) stay in another country. Or during a break-up. That might get somewhat depressing. Anyway, options!
If you want to keep up with my current music diary, losch xi is filling up now. Hmm. This feels strangely intimate now.
The first one is losch ii (losch is the ‘master playlist’). Let’s see, it started back in June 2015, I was 30 years old then. ‘Cornerstone’ by Benjamin Clementine, yes… I remember now. Not the happiest time in my life, but Mr. Clementine was (and is) there!
The current soundtrack is losch xi, with ‘Leaving’ by Hania Rani and ‘clocks’ by Koaraktor being the favorites at the moment, so I guess that’s my vibe at the moment.
Watching:
Forks! Or: episode 7 of the second season of ‘The Bear.’ Please do yourself the favor of watching it. It’s just wonderful.
I think you can get more than enough out of it without having seen the series for context.
It’s about expressing yourself in your own way within the limitations of a somewhat strict culture, about the deep longing of our nature for the possibility of expression in what we call work (thank you John O’Donohue). It’s also just beautiful, insightful, thrilling, tender and loving. That should be worth 35 minutes of your time, surely.
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Ok then! I guess that was it. Follow me on Instagram if you want to keep up more regularly with my writing. Always feel free to contact me for whatever reason and thank you for reading this latest letter of news, or: my soul enjoying becoming visible and present. Hope your soul has enjoyed reading this letter and is having an enjoyable weekend as well.
All right, enough forking around, until next time!
Love,
from,
Louis