Viewed this way – as a time
to stop and ponder and consider – perhaps we too could take a day or so to do
the same. To consider our own soul, and especially how and where our unique
soul fits within the world-soul.
To say that we rarely
take such opportunity in this crazy, fast-paced, busy-busy world is perhaps
stating the obvious. But, it needs to be stated. We need to stop and consider,
and ponder.
How do we fit within the
world-soul?
What is the world-soul?
Around 360 BC., Plato
wrote one of his dialogues, Timaeus, and in it described the anima
mundi (world-soul) and declared that,
“…we must declare that this Cosmos has verily come into existence as a Living
Creature endowed with soul and reason [...] a Living Creature, one and visible,
containing within itself all the living creatures which are by nature akin to
itself.”1
The anima mundi (world-soul) then; is the life force, the
animating principle, the very essence and soul, of a fully interconnected
entity. A connected entity in which we all are a necessary and integral part, one
in which the complexity and diversity is such that we conscious human beings
cannot grasp the magnitude of this complexity. We can only gaze with awe and
wonder at the mystery of it all.
Each of us has our own unique soul, even if we deny this, or do not
actively seek or recognise it.
Centuries after Plato the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung further explored
the anima mundi, and lamented our disconnection from the soul of the world.
He wrote that,
“The development of Western philosophy during the last two
centuries has succeeded in isolating the mind in its own sphere and in severing
it from its primordial oneness with the universe. (Humanity has) ceased to be
the microcosm and eidolon (image or
representation of an idea – ed.) of the cosmos, and “anima” is no longer the
consubstantial scintilla, spark of the Anima Mundi, World Soul”2
Perhaps
today, as the sun stops to linger and ponder on its back-and-forth journey, we
too, could pause and consider our soul’s place in the world-soul.
Notes:
1. Plato, Timaeus 30b–d,
translated by W.R.M. Lamb
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