Soul Mates: Honoring the Mysteries of Love and Relat

Contents

PREFACE

NEW INTRODUCTION

The Soul in Love

1. Attachment and Flight

2. The Mystery of Intimacy

Intermingled Souls

3. The Magic and Alchemy of Marriage

4. The Family of the Soul

5. Friendship and Community

The Intimate Imagination

6. Conversations and Letters

7. Creative Illusions in Romantic Love

8. Sex and Imagination

Shadows of Intimacy

9. Endings

10. Pathologies of Love

Pleasures of Soul Mates

11. The Soulful Relationship

EPILOGUE: Relationship as Grace

NOTES

About the Author

Also by Thomas Moore

Credits

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Copyright

About the Publisher

Preface

THE ONLY thing as challenging as getting tangled in the underbrush of relationship is trying to write about it. My own experiences with relationship, the good and the bad, weigh heavy as I try to write for others. And so I write in faith, focusing on the soul, without many judgments and without prescriptions for success. I present relationship here not as a psychological problem or issue, but as a mystery in the religious and theological sense, knowing that it is always a mistake to talk authoritatively about mysteries.

I’m also aware that I write as a white, male, heterosexual American with a classical European education, and that many who will read these words do not share that background. While writing, I’ve tried to maintain some consciousness of these potential differences, but to do so at every turn is to become so self-conscious and contorted as to lose touch with my own experience, which is an important source of my reflections. So I ask the reader to allow me to speak from my own context. I hope that what I say from my experience will apply, with reservations and sometimes with substantive changes, to various other arrangements and other cultural and educational backgrounds.

I might give a small warning at the start about my methods and purposes here. It’s my conviction that slight shifts in imagination have more impact on living than major efforts at change. I will try very hard to offer some key shifts in ways of imagining relationship, but I won’t give many concrete, direct suggestions of what to do, because of my conviction that deep changes in life follow movements in imagination. The very idea of soul underscores the importance of being individuals, and every relationship calls for a unique response. The point of this book is to free ourselves of longstanding and rigid ideas and images of what it means to love, to be married, to be a friend, or to live in community.

I also speak here about religion and spirituality. In case there is any doubt, I am not advocating any particular church, tradition, practice, or teaching. The Renaissance theologians, my primary teachers, advocated natural religion—not in the eighteenth-century sense of a rational religion, but as a sensitivity to the sacred in everyday life. Relationships, I believe, are truly sacred, not in the superficial meaning of simply being high in value, but in that they call upon infinite and mysterious depths in ourselves, in our communities, and in the very nature of things.

This book follows my previous book, Care of the Soul, and it develops ideas expressed many times in that book: The soul has a strong desire and need for intimacy, and it loves vernacular life—the particular place, family, friends, and neighborhood that are part of our daily lives. The soul doesn’t thrive on grand schemes of salvation or on smooth, uncluttered principles, nor does it thrive on theories and creeds, and so I don’t offer a way out of the inevitable messes relationships bring, or present yet another theory about how relationships work or should work. Soul does love imagination, though, and so my emphasis throughout this book is on deepening and enriching our imagination.

Although the book is called Soul Mates, it takes that notion broadly, to include the soul in all kinds of relationships. A soulful connection can be found in families, on the job, in the neighborhood, with colleagues, and among friends, among longstanding acquaintances and in fleeting encounters, in socially sanctioned matings and in murky rendezvous. This book extends the idea of soul mate in order to suggest ways of being in any relationship soulfully, and it also celebrates those rare and profoundly satisfying bonds we feel with certain people who in the strictest sense are soul mates.

I’d like to acknowledge the help of a few people who have taught me about relationship and soul, and have made special contributions to this book: in Dallas, Fat Toomay; in the Berkshires, Christopher Bamford and Laura Chester; in Florence, Carmelo Mezzasalma and his students; in Brussels, Léonard Appel and Marie Milis; in London, Noel Cobb and Eva Loewe; in Chicago, Ben Sells; in Michigan, the many aunts, uncles, and cousins of a warm and always supportive family, my brother Jim and his family, and my parents. I also want to acknowledge the extraordinary wisdom and generous friendship of my editor at HarperCollins, Hugh Van Dusen, as well as the friendly and effective support of William Shinker, the publisher of HarperCollins trade books. I have been gifted with an agent of exceptional intuition, insight, and capacity for mating souls and guiding books to the light of day, Michael Katz. I have also been graced to have a fine poet as an editor, Jane Hirshfield, who elicits potential poetry and elusive clarity from my occasionally rough thoughts. Finally, I ask a blessing on this book from my true soul mate, Joan Hanley, to whom, with Abraham and Siobhán, this book is dedicated.

Soul Mates

TWENTY YEARS LATER

Thomas Moore

Even though it is often overused or used imprecisely, soul is a beautiful word. It points to the very depth of our sense of self and the full range of our inner and outer experiences. A person with soul has vitality, a strong sense of identity, and the capacity to relate and connect. Not only persons, but animals and things have a soul. You could even say that our planet and the universe have a soul because they are alive, are potentially lovable, and have unique identities and personalities.

The piano in our house has become a member of the family and is a strong presence in the house. We know that it is more than one hundred years old and had a long history before us, and so its long experience and many relationships give it depth and endear it to us. We don’t imagine ever parting with it. It radiates soulfulness.

I sign copies of my own books sometimes that are yellow with age and heavily marked. People present them as precious objects and tell stories about them and apparently want me to love them, too. Here, signs of loving attention over time give the book a presence that I would call soul.

Traditionally, love and the soul are imagined as cousins or even lovers. The ancient Greeks said that Eros, love in its deepest and broadest sense, makes the world. They pictured it as an egg out of which things are born. That is to say that love is not just the birthright of human beings. Animals and objects have their own kind of love and relationship. And so, when we start to talk about human intimacy, it’s good to have the big picture within which our own personal loves unfold. We can also see how closely connected are love and the soul. You know a thing has a soul because you can love it, and you can love things and animals and people because they have a soul.

It helps to appreciate the many ways soul is embodied in ordinary life, so that we can picture the soul of a relationship in concrete terms, not just as people interacting. When two people connect, worlds collide and intersect, not just persons. When you meet someone interesting, you may be introduced to a new world of activities and places and objects. As you get to know them better, you may meet their family and friends. The very idea of relationship is incomplete without honoring the world that each person brings along.

WE BECOME AWARE OF OUR SOUL WHEN WE FEEL A DEEP stirring inside, perhaps at the sight of a rosy dawn or when we fall in love with a person or a place. This awareness of soul is not just an emotion, because it affects our very being. That’s the point about the soul—it reaches deep and can affect the way we make choices and find meaning.

The soul is not a thing. It represents more an area or region of experience, both inner and outer, that conveys essence, depth, substance, and mystery. You can become aware of that region in yourself when you realize how deeply some event stirs you. It goes further than emotion and can hardly be expressed in words. You can also sense that depth in a geographical place or in an object that is precious to you.

I travel to Ireland at least once a year because I feel the very roots of my identity there. I don’t romanticize the place too much, because I’ve been visiting and living there most of my life. I know its beauties and its difficulties. In all its complexity I find my soul there, but my soul mixes with the soul of the place. Obviously, I love the country, and it’s impossible to separate my love from its soul. Ireland and I have a relationship. In some ways we are soul mates.

My daughter loves Ireland, too, and since she was a little girl, she would step off the plane and take a deep breath. For her, Ireland’s essence is in the air freshened by the winds that constantly blow the clouds over the relatively small island.

For me it’s the green foliage and the rugged coastline that gives me the sense of being at a home that goes back beyond my birth. And, as many visitors say, there is the hospitality and big hearts of the people, always able to twist a metaphor into a witty saying. I also appreciate the intelligence and creative urge in the people, as well as their eagerness to perform music or literature. Some of my warmest memories of all are of sitting at an Irish table listening to someone recite a long poem from memory or singing a soulful lament in Irish.

At the personal level especially, you find the soul when it’s in trouble. People go to therapy, which at its best is care for the soul, usually when they feel disturbed. They don’t call up the therapist when they’ve beheld something beautiful. They look for help with a soul issue when they can’t deal with a big development in a career, a depression, or the ending of a relationship.

Falling in love, working at a marriage, or trying to collaborate with a business partner may waken and stir the soul so much that you have to take notice. You talk to friends and read some books and maybe consult a professional. Soul matters don’t lend themselves to easy solutions, because, even though they may look like emotional problems, they touch on the very structures of life. They raise issues about your being rather than just your feelings. Therefore, the solutions are often philosophical and theological as well as psychological. Often we don’t apply the right tools to such problems and treat them superficially.

Philosophy: The Wisdom of Love

We live in a psychological time, when books on getting along in life, usually referred to as self-help, don’t go for depth as much as clever techniques and experiments. A self-help book might favor a one-fits-all solution. For example, it might value communication between people as the most important factor and then teach how to communicate better. That may be a good idea but may not go deep enough to deal with the root of the problem. Another book might favor personal independence as a cure-all. But a soul problem requires a soul-centered approach. We need soul doctors and books that are philosophical in a practical way, able to reach the base of daily personal issues.

I once had a serendipitous conversation with the writer David Brooks, widely known for his astute political commentary He was turning toward more personal issues in his work, and he felt the way I often do that our writing is not really self-help, a category that is usually demeaned, even though many people end up reaching for such books. I told Mr. Brooks that I use Ralph Waldo Emerson as my model—not self-help, but practical, down-to-earth philosophy.

What drew me to David Brooks initially was his ability to speak directly from his experience, quite openly and frankly. This capacity to open the doors of your soul and let it be seen is a great strength. We might have a more soul-like world if we could all do this. But this frankness is not emotional confession. It’s more thoughtful and reflective, and this is where philosophy comes in.

When you find yourself in a difficult relationship, you might consider overlooking the self-help manuals and instead read some deeper, more philosophical writing. You may benefit from an expansion of your imagination and a tightening of your ideas. You could also read some poetry and good fiction. You can exercise your imagination in this way, just as you exercise your body, and be prepared for the subtleties of love and its illusions.

An example of how a poet might offer insight into relationship is the celebrated passage from Rainer Maria Rilke: Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole and against a wide sky!

Another favorite passage that expresses the soul in relationship is from E. E. Cummings:

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in

my heart) i am never without it (anywhere

i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done

by only me is your doing, my darling)

Here, Cummings shows the feeling of closeness by crowding words and parentheses together. You see, as well as hear, the intimacy he senses.

SELF-HELP PARALLELS A TENDENCY IN SOME FORMS OF counseling to give advice. It’s too easy and too shallow. An alternative is to realize how important painful conflicts in relationship can be. They take us beyond just wanting to feel good about life or be superficially happy. Relationship problems are always initiations into the very depths of your soul. The point is not to relate better but to become a more substantial person. David Brooks speaks of being a real person.

To get to this depth and to seek deeper soul life, you have to think about love as having to do with the soul. It’s that important and that profound. You will miss out on great opportunities if you can’t penetrate past the surface level of a relationship to the soul matters stirring underneath.

Here are a few lessons in treating love this way:

1.Don’t blindly accept what everyone is saying. Think for yourself.

2.Past relationships and experiences easily sneak their way into a current relationship. Look closely for any sign of this influence.

3.Things are often the opposite of how they appear. The one who seems to be dominated in a relationship may be the aggressor.

4.You may have faulty language for your experiences. For example, you may call yourself sensitive, when actually you have a habit of beating up on yourself and feel overwhelmed in a relationship.

5.Don’t judge people harshly as they try to sort out their lives. If you’re easy on others, chances are you’ll be easy on yourself.

Love Is a Soul Process

Love can come along in a flash. You meet someone who you think may be your partner for life or a long-sought friend. But as you get into relationship, the process slows and becomes less smooth and easy. You run into differences and difficulties.

C. G. Jung said that people assume that the one they love is like them and experiences and interprets events in the same way. This innocent assumption gets ruined, and a crisis in relationship may suddenly appear. But difference is exactly what emotional alchemy is all about: mixing different lives and worldview into a new third thing, a relationship, that serves as the vessel for the lives of each person and the particular identity of the couple.

Here is where the soul comes in. People are infinitely deep and complicated. Think about that: infinitely deep and complicated. We usually assume that they say what they mean. But the words they utter may express their confusion and not just their clear thoughts. We have to be patient and tolerant and allow the other person to work out their thoughts and feelings even as they are saying them.

Imagine trying to link up with another soul to soul, one infinite depth to another. Each of us has our own raw material that we start with, our own experiences, and our own temperaments. We have our own under-worlds, the soul stuff that makes us ultimately impossible to read or predict. There is no way to have a simple connection of depth with another person. The complexities are too subtle and the unconscious material too vast. People are not as simple as they may appear to be.

To truly enter a relationship is to take a dive into a full universe of material that lies mostly beneath the surface in the person you are trying to know. Therefore, it makes no sense to be superficial, mechanical, or clever in your efforts to make a relationship work. You always have to look beneath the surface, because that is where love was hatched and is being refined.

To make matters worse, all that soul stuff is alive. The soul in anyone constantly presents the person with new experiences. Soul is not a static thing. If you agree to harbor another person’s soul, you are in for a bout with the unknown. Even that person has no idea what is in store for him and where he will be asked to go next. So when we agree to share lives, we are offering to be part of a dynamic, unpredictable adventure. We bring along our own constantly shifting mixture of fear and desire that leads us into an unknown future. One wonders how people do it at all.

Jung described the journey of a soul as Opus, the Work, with a capital W. A relationship itself is an opus all its own, a process. Even though initially the process promises to be a delight, when you get into the thick of it, there may be little delight in it. For some it can be demanding in the extreme, leading to fantasies of complete separation and even suicide.

But, for all its pitfalls, a deep relationship with another may be essential. It takes you on a journey of ripening and maturing, making you into a real human being and carving out your precious individuality—if you stay with the process. Many are tempted to find relief and get out of the alchemy, but then they may just repeat the process incompletely with someone else. It takes courage, tenacity, and often good support to stay with the soul dynamics of a relationship. At times the emphasis may be on making a better interpersonal connection, but at other times it may be an opportunity for your own self-unfolding.

I don’t mention this alchemical aspect lightly. As a therapist I have witnessed men and women going through the bitter and trying ups and downs of the process of relating. Usually it’s more challenging than anyone might have guessed. A person is tempted to get out and enjoy normal life once again. They wish they might never have started the process at all. They don’t know if they can tolerate going through the entire journey. I find my job to be a support, a guide, and a source of optimism.

Soulful Endings

The real opus may take place when a relationship ends or goes through such a dramatic change that an ending is possible. The chapter on endings in the original Soul Mates has always been a key one for me, and readers have told me that it helped them get through the most difficult moments. Relationships may be beautiful, but ending them is what really tests a person’s mettle.

We may think that an ending is our failure, but that identification with the process—taking most of the credit for it—oddly, may be a defense against the opus. We wiggle out of the pressure by thinking that we have failed in some way. The alternative is to understand that life and love together make a mutual process that we don’t initiate or control. Our task is to participate and not cleverly to back away.

The process of living/loving is full of subtle opportunities for personal advance and avoidances that don’t look like avoidances. I know a woman who lived for years with a passionless man and finally divorced him. Then the man became outrageously angry and belligerent and immediately went off with another woman. His former wife fell suddenly into a pit of jealousy. She asked me, How can this be? I hated this man. And now I can’t stand my jealousy.

I understood how jealousy could come along unexpectedly at that particular moment, because early in my life I went through periods of jealousy that were expressions of my innocence and shallow ways of relating. The jealousy was like walking on coals, a rite of passage in which I learned to be more attached, suitably dependent and involved with the person I loved. Jealousy is a school of surrender to life’s invitations for engagement. Jealous people may not realize how removed they are from life and their loved ones. They live in a bubble of illusion in which they think they are the loving ones. Jealousy is a sign that in some ways and to some degree you are deluding yourself. And so you have to go through a painful initiation into the demands of love.

Therapy for the Soul in Relationship

The alchemical process by which you become a person through relationship may take longer than you would expect. It may be years from beginning to end, but it does end, as long as you give yourself to it. I have the impression, however, that most people pull out too soon. They don’t have the stomach for it. Their friends fail to look deeply enough into what is going on and advise many well-intentioned ways of evasion. Even some therapists look only at the surface mechanics of a relationship and fail to notice the underlying alchemy, and they recommend the peace of withdrawal over the torment of soul-making.

In these matters I tend not to be a champion of marriages and relationships but of the soul of the person asking for guidance. I take the word psycho-therapy seriously with its Greek roots: psyche (soul) + therapeia (service). Psychotherapy is not about good and happy living but about serving the needs of the soul. A relationship has a soul all its own, and in practice I almost always feel bound to serve the soul of the one asking for assistance.

What does this mean, to serve the soul instead of the relationship or helping with life problems? First, you understand that the condition of the soul doesn’t always mirror that of life. You may be going through the torments of separation, and to the soul this process is essential and full of promise. At one level, I would like to end the pain of the person in therapy I have come to cherish, but I know that initiation almost always involves pain and confusion, especially when the soul is making progress.

I serve the soul by recognizing the deep process and supporting it. To focus on making life easier or more successful may go against that process. Years ago I decided to be a true psycho-therapist instead of a life manager. So I serve the soul, even if my efforts go against the surface wishes of my client. It’s typical for me as a therapist to love my client but have a different point of view on almost everything that comes up. The reason for the difference is that the client is immersed in life problems, while I am always focused on the purposes and dynamics of the deep soul.

Like my teachers C. G. Jung, James Hillman, and Rafael Lopez-Pedraza, I acknowledge the importance of the Hermes or Mercury spirit in therapy. Hermes was known as the psychopomp, the guide of souls to the underworld. I see my role as being a companion as a soul finds its depth. In imitation of Hermes, in fantasy I put on my traveler’s hat and jacket and winged shoes and prepare for an interesting tour of my client’s world. Like Hermes, I move back and forth between life issues and the underworld of personal history and hidden feelings.

We each have our own worlds, and each of us has to get to know our world through a soul journey, which may at times be painful and difficult. To be a proper companion I have to know something about worlds of soul and traveling through them. In this sense, a relationship is indeed a ship, a common image, that takes you on your journey, all the more so when it fails.

Together, my client and I are on the Buddhist raft, Tristan’s skiff, Moses’ river basket, and Charon’s ferry across the river Styx. We are with Jesus in the lake boat from which he teaches, and we are on the ship of fools. We are going somewhere, even when it feels that the relationship is stuck. As long as we stay on the boat, all is well.

The Magic of Love

In these mechanical times we like to think of love in rational terms: clear communicating, avoiding codependency, doing it hygienically, affirming oneself. But love finds its power in magic, an invisible plasma of energy that looks like desire or lust or longing. Love is often serendipitous and coincidental. Accidents of time and place bring people together for a shared lifetime. Babies appear when it seems impossible to get pregnant. Families find improbable connections in a worldwide web of fateful opportunity.

We think that people will stay together if they