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.

Disappointments in love, even betrayals and losses, serve the soul at the very moment they seem in life to be tragedies. The soul is partly in time and partly in eternity. We might remember the part that resides in eternity when we feel despair over the part that is in life.

If you take Christmas to heart and get past the anxieties in arranging for gifts and parties, you will rediscover yourself every year at this time and experience a birth in yourself, just like the one so beautifully described in the Gospel stories. It will be a celebration of both the birth of Jesus and the birth of your soul

Something deep in human make up needs and longs for a taste of eternity--a momentary release from the relentless pace of time.

A man or a woman can inspire such deep fantasy and emotion that through the lovemaking embrace of a partners body we make break through the limits of the human condition to touch upon another level of reality.

It is only through mystery and madness that the soul is revealed

You might also understand the difference between force and strength, the former pressing too hard to achieve questionable ends, the latter a deep-seated power of soul. You might notice the difference between ego power and soul power, the former anxious and self-centered. Finally, you might appreciate the paradoxes involved, where being more vulnerable in a comfortable way gives you strength, and when you have some deep strength, you can finally feel vulnerable.

You can care for your soul every day by doing things that make your world more beautiful and intimate and by tending the wounds and bad habits that have accrued to your life. Follow your dreams, find the occasion to speak from your heart, and make a life that is more soulful than practical.

It may help us, in those times of trouble, to remember that love is not only about relationship, it is also an affair of the soul.