So, where does your Soul hang out to dry its tears?

Oh crikey! What can I say? I've been away way longer than I would have wanted to. And I feel I've been neglecting this little corner of my soul. And I know it's missed me too.

The interesting thing though, is that I've not been completely away from soul work. You see, I've been writing for an Interior Design blog. And although they're not paying me anyway close to what my writing is worth (never mind the research that's involved), I'm building a profile and, for the moment at least, I'm choosing to think of it as 'being paid to learn'.

(Those of you who read this blog and my other one that bears my name will know that I've opted to slave myself.  At least until I become so well known and sought after that I'll be the one commanding my rates and I won't be shy about it either, I can tell you now).

Oh sure, I'm not making enough to buy myself a decent pizza marinara but hey, I'm getting my name out there. That's got to help. And, I get to write about something I love. Yeah!

Still, all this is not quite in the vein of this blog, So, if you'll excuse me just one moment while I make a slight adjustment to tone, voice, style and content.


Ah, that feels more like it. 

So, I was wondering,which part of your dwelling place you go to when you're feeling sad. Is there a particular room that you find greatest comfort and consolation in? Or, if you happen to live in a no-room studio apartment, which corner or spot do you get drawn to?  Or perhaps it's your garden that provides balm of healing for your soul?

And, what does your sad sanctuary look like? What have you got in it? Does it look anything like these?

""  the soul

vanishes

the soul. vanishes, into the

shape of things"

—ROBERT KELLY, “The Blue”.

  Quoted in "In the Words of James Hillman"

"Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul."  ~Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

What does your Soul want on your walls?

What would you put on the walls of your home if you were totally unconcerned about what others might think? A comment from Design on Design to my last post, Multiple Personalities need Multiple Rooms, prompted me to ask myself this question and now I'm asking you.

What do you currently have on your walls? What effect do they have on you? Do they inspire you? Excite you? Challenge you? Take your imagination on flights of fantasy?  Do they express or feed the many characters of your soul?

There are any number of things we put on our walls -  family photographs, tribal artifacts, collections of souvenirs and paintings, of course.  Would you have art like this on your walls?  If so, which ones? And which walls? 

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3-D Street Art Image from here

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Perhaps something from Amazon?

   

  

 

Multiple personalities need multiple rooms

"I like to imagine a person's psyche to be like a boarding house full of characters. The ones who show up regularly and who habitually follow the house rules may not have met other long-term residents who stay behind closed doors, or who only appear at night. An adequate theory of character must make room for character actors, for the stuntmen and animal handlers, for all the figures who play bit parts and produce unexpected acts. They often make the show fateful, or tragic, or farcically absurd"  James Hillman

Does this at least partly explain why we have different rooms in our homes, each designed and decorated to satisfy  our different characters, their particular moods, fetishes and indulgences?  I'm inclined to think so.

So, how do we create individual spaces for our soul dwellers, some of whom are only too ready to show up for extravagance and vulgar ostentation and others who must be lured out with the assurance of quiet, reflective nooks and brooding crannies. 

"Ah, the perfect brood 'bode" 

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"Now she won't be able to see me"

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"Oh, come on Henry, don't be such an insufferable bore"

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What about you? What kinds of spaces do your characters seek out?

'Going off your tree' - could that be soul-speak for 'normal'?

Not that I've seriously considered living in a treehouse but I do find the idea rather enchanting.

As I was searching for treehouses on the web, I did wonder how living in one might be different to living in a house on an elevated block of land or living in an elevated house on a block of land with lots of trees around it.  Would the views be all that different?

But even if the views were similar, I imagine the actual living would be different. Or would it? As I found more examples of treehouses, I couldn't help feeling that you could pretty much replicate on-the-ground-living up the top of a tree (as you'll see in the last few images).

Still, there's the 'enchantment' factor that you might not find on the ground which to me is the 'soul-factor'. I can't help feeling that the soul is essentially nomadic. It's as if 'going off your tree' is normal in soul-dom.

The soul will not be limited to any one dwelling or lifestyle and yet, it sometimes appears to yield to the egoic mind and its demands for constancy and stability and predictability. Then again, does it yield or is it forced into submission? I don't know. It just seems to have its own je ne sais quoi.

"No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness"  Aristotle

Do you ever detect a part of you that sometimes wants to break out and just do its own thing? Do you ever get the feeling that there's so much of life you want to explore and experience but you eventually settle for something a bit, if not a lot, less adventurous? 

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