Care of the Soul in Times of Dying

The following are some notes I wrote 12 years ago when I was studying the work of Thomas Moore and James Hillman. Thomas Moore wrote the book ‘Care of the Soul’ which had an enormous influence on my thinking. He is a Psychotherapist, who spent time in monastic orders in a Catholic Monastery and had studied Master programmes in Music, Theology and Psychology. This eclectic mix means that he has a very diverse approach to issues and often draws on very deep texts to explain what happens on a psychological level. Moore also edited ‘A Blue Fire’ which was a book of selected writings of James Hillman. This was my first introduction to the work of Hillman and of Archetypal Psychology.

Thomas Moore had visited the Schumacher College in Devon, England. Here he had run a course and as part of the course he gave an evening lecture. I bought a copy of the video of that talk and took some notes as I watched it. Here is what I wrote:

Soul in extremis – the soul in times of dying. People who are dying talk to each other, tell their stories. This is so important. There is nowhere to go to tell stories in our modern world. Hospices and hospitals are full of expensive equipment, but there is nowhere to go to talk.

We have lost the importance of food, and the memory in it. Is this a communion right? Eating baked banana bread, eating the memory in it. The dying person asking for food as an act of communion.

Intuition is so important in care of the soul – pay attention to it. Make sure that the intuition is a voice which is heard, that the still clear quiet voice within is heard and that we pay attention to what it is telling us. 

The importance of maintaining ruins – when things lose their function the soul comes out. We shouldn’t restore everything. Memories brought forth from ruined remains help us to get in touch with the soul. 

 Soul exists to maintain and preserve our humanity.

Not having a clue what is going on is a very good place, an opening for the soul to come in. ignorance, a cloud of unknowing.

Just a few fragmented thoughts, but they remind me how much I learnt from studying these writers about the need to go down into the intuition and listen deeply. This was the most remarkable antidote to the analytical and logical training I had received earlier in my life when studying Philosophy. I was shifted to a different way of thinking. I think it is time to revisit some of this work and really immerse myself in it.