| 
A Summons of the Soul
By Denis Ledoux
"Halfway along our life's path," wrote Dante, he became lost in a dark woods. The passage comes from the Inferno and refers to a "dark night of the soul," a time when we lose our bearings and seem to be wandering in meaninglessness, passing through the stormy seas of despair, grief and fear.
Who has not lived this experience of sensing to the core that some essence that we once depended on, felt we could trust, was now missing? Who has not lost the sense of self that was an anchor that kept us securely in place and has not drifted into shoals where every next movement risked being the last? Sometimes this moment comes from an unexpected source -- the death of a spouse or being fired from a job we dearly loved -- and at other times the crisis comes from a realization that the experience of the past is no longer a vessel that will bear us to the future that our souls long for and we must look elsewhere for safe passage.
For those of you wishing for a topic to write about, this "summons of the soul" is certainly a worthy one.
Exercise
1. Make a Memory List of a time in your life (See Chapter Two of Turning Memories Into Memoirs) when you engaged with the summons of your soul for change, when you stepped into the deepest ocean. What precipitated the crisis? How did it feel to be adrift? What sorts of things did you do then that were to your benefit or not to your benefit? How did you finally reach a safer shore?
2. Determine the crisis point and develop at least two or three episodes that led to it.
3. Rather than write with abstract words such as "I was in turmoil" write concretely: "I made many phone calls, one after the other, hardly waiting for the person I was speaking with to help me."
Need help with your writing? Click here for information on Soleil Co-Authoring (Ghostwriting) Services.
copyright 2009 © Soleil Lifestory Network
|