Soul

There is something engagingly fatalistic about the tradition of referring to people aboard a ship as 'souls.'

Maybe fatalistic isn't the exact word. It's that the word 'souls' focuses one's attention on the fact that one is aboard is indeed aboard a ship – and subject to the risks inherent therein.

The soul is one of the weirdest notions that we have come up with. Millions are sure that there are souls, but what they may be, who knows? In the beginning, the soul was known: it was what one could see in cold weather, being breathed in and out. It was the breath, the *pneuma*. It could be felt against the hand. It was the thing that we feared we might lose when we sneezed: would it find its way back into us? That was before we had any notion of AIR, of GASSES. We knew only breezes, winds, gusts, things we could feel and sometimes see in vapor and whirlwinds. When once we knew of air and gasses and atmosphere, the notions of souls, spirits, & ghosts were fixed in our minds, and many of us continued to believe they were all about us.

A soul mate is someone to whom we feel profoundly connected as though the communing that takes place between them are not intentional efforts, but a divine grace; a rare form of intimacy, but nothing more precious in life.

With this gift of a small jade fish comes a piece of my soul.

The very notion of soulless chills us, even those who find such concepts difficult.

By the book : Being without a soul, or without greatness or nobleness of mind; mean; spiritless.

»Slave, souless villain, dog!« – Shak

we do not -have- souls. we -are- souls experiencing the world's limitations. we'll get over it.

I pity the poor who weep for lack of food. I sorrow for the wretched who cling to hope when hope is lost. I grieve for those who cannot grieve for themselves. But I will not give them my soul.

What your heart is to your body, your soul should be for all your thoughts.

Soul is the music of the night. It is the language of the heart. This is the way it has been, and it is the way that it always will be.

That aspect of man which appears to persist beyond the physical.