Lecture 7: Soul-Making

What is Soul-Making?
• Soul making is connecting to our deepest nature. It is communicating deeply with the inner realm,
being fully awake and aware by flooding our consciousness with eternal images.
• Soul-making is about recognizing the limits of the self and the uniqueness carried in each of us. It
is about both belonging and freedom: a belonging that goes beyond family, community, culture,
tribe and nation, and a freedom that recognizes our responsibility to all these layers of human
community and to the natural world from which we evolved.
o More on exploration
o How can you convert your experiences into something artistic?
• The term soul-making is a metaphor.
• The word 'metaphor' is comprised of two Greek words Meta - above and Phero to carry. So, a
metaphor is an image or phrase that carries the reader above the literal sensory real.
• Like myth, metaphor enlists the truth of imagination over the truth of literalism. When Bruce
Springsteen sings, "Ohhh, ohhh, ohh, I'm on fire", he is in the realm of metaphor, as opposed to
Michael Jackson's Pepsi commercial when he spoke literally, "Ahhhhh, I'm on fire!" I'm into the
realm of invisible imagination.
• Soul-making is a metaphorical term. Therefore, the term will never be adequate for those logical
positivists or rationalistic materialists.
• Soul making can be performed by crafting images, stories, poetry and interests for performance.

Crafting Images
• refers to imaging or representing in any form which may be through painting, sculpting, drawing,
storytelling, poetry, dancing, composing or taking notes. It's just like weaving quilting or doing
crochet. It is not creating works out of nothing if this rooter in their own personal experience is our
personal and counters and events, the triggered are reflection recall and judgment.

Crafting Stories
• are the moment we write, engrave and inscribe our own thoughts, ideas, commentaries, criticisms,
and positive and negative emotions

Seven(7) steps to craft a story for a promising story idea.

1. Craft your premise.
Your story should answer the following questions:
a. Who is the protagonist?
b. What is the situation?
c. What is the protagonist's objective? d. Who is the opponent?
d. What will be the disaster? Conflict?
2. Roughly sketch scene ideas. Write a list of everything you already know about your story.
3. Interview your characters to be able to craft a cast of characters that can help your plot reach
its utmost potential you'll need to discover crucial details about them, not necessarily at the
beginning of their lives but at the beginning of the story.
4. Explore your settings, dig a little deeper to find a setting better suited to your plot, theme, and
characters.
5. Write your complete outline, work with a comprehensive outline.
6. Condense your outline, weed out extraneous thoughts and summarize the entire outline into a
scannable list for easier reference.
7. Put your outline into action.
Poetry Making is Soul Making
• The word 'making' in 'soul-making' comes out of the Greek word poieo which means 'to be the
author or maker of something'. Our English words poet, poem and poetry come from this word. The
reason for that term, for example rather than soul-builder or soul- grower, is that the emphasis is
on creative, intelligent authorship.
• The making is not done by impersonal processes, but by Intelligent Forces. So then, soul-making
is really psycho-poesies or soul poetry.
• The poetic aspect is critical to understanding soul-making, the Universe is not a lifeless debris field
resulting from the Big Bang, but a living organism, the Universe contains Intelligences beyond our
current scopes and research methods. Some Quantum physicists are hypothesizing in that
direction, but we have yet to 'prove' it with instruments.
• The Universe is animated, or a Living Soul (Psyche). Humans exist in this Psyche. Human beings
don't contain souls any more than a fish contains sea water. Like fish in the sea, we swim in the
Sea of Psyche.
• Psyche is comprised of many brilliant aspects - ranging from numbers and geometric shapes, to
qualities like Life and Death, Chaos and Order. We don't question that numbers were here before
we arrived; why would it be so shocking to discover that Qualities were here as well. These are
archetypes or the original qualities which are universally recognized by all human beings.
• We are co-creators in the soul-making process. We choose the words and the words choose us. If
you have seen magnetic poetry on refrigerator doors, you have a good illustration of soul-making.
The refrigerator is like the universe, the magnetic words are the archetypal or original energies.
When you make a refrigerator poem, certain words jump out, form phrases and then you make a
poem.
• If you are observant, you will see that the words chose you. Our human desire for poetry comes
from the Higher Realms, not vice versa; we write and read poetry because we are poetry.
• The eternal words are infinite, interactive symbiotic energies. Our human word and artistic symbols
carry them from the heavenly realms into the arena of soul-making. Anyone who has done any kind
of art knows the fascinating Interaction that goes on as you dance with your creative medium,
whether it be clay, paints, ink, paper, musical notes, cloth, wood or drafting tools. The Greeks called
the mysterious process of inspiration (in-spiriting) the work of Muses.

The Seven Leonardo da Vinci Principles

Leonardo da Vinci was the ultimate Renaissance man – an accomplished scientist, mathematician,
engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, musician, and writer. As a leader, an
entrepreneur, a boss, we can learn a lot from the Principles of Leonardo Da Vinci:

1. Curiosita (curiosity) - You need an insatiable curiosity for life. Great minds have one characteristic
in common: they continuously ask questions throughout their lives.
2. Dimostrazione (knowledge) - A commitment to test knowledge through experience. Wisdom
comes from experience and the principle of Dimostrazione helps you get the most out of your
experience.
3. Sensazione (improvement) - The continual refinement of the senses, especially sight, as the
means to clarify experience. According to Da Vinci, we can best practice Dimostrazione through
our senses, particularly sight.
4. Sfumato (willingness) - A willingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty. An
essential characteristic of Da Vinci's genius is his ability to handle a sense of mystery.
5. Arte/Scienza (balance) - The development of the balance between science and art, logic and
imagination ("whole-brain thinking"). The development of the balance between science and art,
logic and imagination". This is thinking with the "whole brain"
6. Corporalita (grace) - The cultivation of ambidexterity, fitness, and poise. Corporalità is "the
cultivation of grace, ambidexterity, fitness, and poise". Leonardo had amazing physical ability that
complemented his genius in science and arts.
7. Connessione (system) - A recognition and appreciation for the connectedness of all things and
phenomena; "systems thinking." In other words, is systems thinking. One main source of
Leonardo's creativity is his ability to form new patterns through connections and combinations of
different elements.

Summary of the Lesson:

• Soul-making is not an empirical science; interestingly, many scientists working at the level of
quantum reality are wondering whether there is such a thing as empirical, objective science. I don't
know enough about what they are calling the 'uncertainty principle’, except to repeat what I have
read that at the subatomic levels, the elements seem to be influenced by the observer.
• Soul-making is beyond definition. I repeat what the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, "You could
not discover the limits of soul, even if you traveled by every path in order to do so; such is the depth
of its meaning."
• We live in an Intelligent Universe - some form of mysterious intelligence encompasses the
seemingly random chaos and resultant order, an order that is beyond our assumed understanding
of 'order'.
• This Universe is suffused with Poetic Words or Living Energies that are part of the soul-making
process. Each of us is a unique poem, gradually being weaved together into a larger poetic
whole/soul. Every incident and event is part of that epic poem. While there may be tragedies and
betrayals, troubles and failures, successes, and victories - there are no useless words in your
poem; and most of it goes on at levels we cannot see or understand. In that sense, we must trust
the Author(s).
• In Philip Pullman's, The Golden Compass, The Master says to Lyra, "The powers of this world are
very strong. Men and women are moved by tides much fiercer than you can imagine, and they
sweep us all up into the current. Go well, Lyra; bless you child, bless you. Keep your own counsel."