People favor close relatives over others: offspring over extended family, and extended family over people outside the family. Universal Love demands another approach. Families have a sense of kinship that no four strangers would ever have as a team. [attributed to Bradley Walsh] Enslaved people worked hard to preserve family ties and maintain kinship networks. They married, even as the…
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Value for Monday of Week 40 in the season of Fulfillment
Knowing the Soul
“Soul” is a word we use for our innermost experiences.
- . . . ‘twas not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. ‘Twas not my lips you kissed, but my soul. [Judy Garland]
- You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul. [attributed to Swami Vivekananda]
- A sad soul can kill quicker, far quicker, than a germ. [John Steinbeck, Travels with Charly.]
We depart from the conventional idea of a soul, as an entity separate from the body that survives after death: we reject that dualistic idea, which has no basis in known fact. Present while we live, the soul is our innermost and most deeply felt life experiences. “Soul” is a word people use to describe our most deeply felt experiences.
The concept of soul can be traced back to Plato, if not before him. “Freud used the term psyche in referring to human consciousness. Psyche is the Greek word for soul.” “The evolution of the idea of a ‘soul’ is one of the most interesting and curious chapters in the history of human thought, having an enormous influence not only upon our religious, but also upon our philosophical and scientific, conceptions.” “Some writers use the word ‘soul’ to deliberately imply an overlap between psychology and spirituality, or to imply depth of experience or a romantic sensibility. For the psychotherapist, the main importance of this word is that it distinguishes between everyday ego concerns and deeper levels of meaning.”
“For many believers, the soul serves as a comforting explanation for the mysteries of human existence, offering solace in the face of mortality and providing a sense of purpose and meaning.” However: “A belief in the soul may contribute to the stress experienced in the dissecting room”.
Some neuroscientists exhibit an irrational bias in favor of a dualistic conception of soul. “. . . belief in soul decreases when neuroscience provides strong mechanistic explanations for mind. But when explanatory gaps in neuroscience research are emphasized, belief in soul is enhanced, suggesting that physical and metaphysical explanations may be used reflexively as alternative theories for mind. ” Out-of-body experiences have been cited as evidence for the existence of a soul separate from the body but no one has survived long enough outside the body for a reasoning person to draw that conclusion.
Life is shrouded in mystery. People are inclined to settle on explanations they prefer. Whatever people may have chosen to believe, evidence for a soul separate from the body, which survives death, is inconclusive and weak.
We do know, however, that people have experiences they describe as “soul” or “soulful”. We have soul food and soul music, which reach deep down inside us. Critically ill people may say “my soul is empty”. Terms such as “Soul of Scholarship”, “The Soul of Art”, “Soul of a People”, “Soul of the Age”, and “soul of the nation” are frequently and seamlessly used. This implies that soul is best seen as an experience.
A soulful person exhibits several qualities. Among the most notable of these are authenticity and self-honesty. The person who is in touch with her soul is in touch with herself. She can use that profound self-awareness that we might call “soulfulness” as a source of comfort and self-empowerment. The liberated soul, enlightened of and by itself, can then reach up to the spirit and begin to reach out to others.
Real
True Narratives
As African-Americans progressively insisted on being treated with respect and dignity during the Civil Rights era of the 1950s and 1960s, the music of some African-Americans increasingly reflected their innermost feelings. Perhaps no one captures this more fully than Ray Charles.
Soul music:
- Emily J. Lordi, The Meaning of Soul: Black Music and Resilience since the 1960s (Duke University Press, 2020).
- Craig Werner, A Change Is Gonna Come: Music, Race & the Soul of America (University of Michigan Press, 2006).
- Gerry Hirshey, Nowhere to Run: The Story of Soul Music (Crown, 1984).
- Michael Haralambos, Soul Music: The Birth of a Sound in Black America (Da Capo Press, 1985).
- Kevin Phinney, Souled American: How Black Music Transformed White Culture (Billboard Books, 2005).
- Brian Ward, Just My Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Black Consciousness, and Race Relations (University of California Press, 1998).
- James Brown, James Brown: The Godfather of Soul (MacMillan, 1986).
- Robert Pruter, Chicago Soul (University of Illinois Press, 1992).
- Jacqueline Cogdill DjeDje and Eddie S. Meadows, eds., California Soul: Music of African-Americans in the West (University of California Press, 1998).
By no means is soul music limited to the music of Black America beginning in the 1950s. In a sense, all music is soul music because all music addresses our inner experience.
- Joel Rudinow, Soul Music: Tracking the Spiritual Roots of Pop from Plato to Motown (University of Michigan Press, 2010).
- Bert Fentuch, Creole Soul: Zydeco Lives (University Press of Mississippi, 2022).
- Charles L. Hughes, Country Soul: Making Music and Making Race in the American South (University of North Carolina Press, 2015).
- Ruben Molina, Chicano Soul: Recordings and History of an American Culture (Texas Tech University Press, 2007).
- Timothy Rice, May It Fill Your Soul: Experiencing Bulgarian Music (University of Chicago Press, 1994
Soul food:
- Snoop Dogg, From Crook to Cook: Platinum Recipes from the Boss Dogg’s Kitchen (Chronicle Books, 2018).
- Adrian Miller, Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time (University of North Carolina Press, 2013).
- Carla Hall, Carla Hall’s Soul Food: Everyday and Celebration (Harper Wave, 2018).
- Robbie Montgomery and Tim Norton, Sweetie Pie’s Cookbook: Soulful Southern Recipes, from My Family to Yours (Amistad, 2016).
- Pamela Strobel, Princess Pamela’s Soul Food Cookbook: A Mouth-Watering Treasure of Afro-American Recipes (Rizzoli, 2017).
- Edna Lewis, The Taste of Country Cooking (1976; Knopf 2006).
- National Museum of African American History, Sweet Home Café Cookbook: A Celebration of African American Cooking (Smithsonian Books, 2018).
Technical and Analytical Readings
Photographs
Documentary and Educational Films
Imaginary
Fictional Narratives
A trilogy of novels by Rachel Cusk: “All three are narrated in the first person by a writer named Faye whose former life has gone up in flames, but they’re not about how or why the fire started. Instead, the novels describe in precise and haunting detail what it’s like to walk through the world, trailing ashes behind you.”
- Outline: A Novel (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2015): “While the narrator is rarely alone, reading “Outline” mimics the sensation of being underwater, of being separated from other people by a substance denser than air.”
- Transit: A Novel (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2017): “There’s a constant sense of Ms. Cusk’s mind whirling, as if she were forever, in the background, performing an internal disk check.”
- Kudos: A Novel (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2018): “Did the sound of the bells change? Or had she suffered sufficiently that she could now hear another kind of music? Cusk doesn’t answer such questions directly. She doesn’t need to. In the course of this unforgettable trilogy, she has proved they are the same bells.”
Poetry
Here is the efflux of the soul, / The efflux of the soul comes from within through embower'd gates, ever provoking questions, / These yearnings why are they? these thoughts in the darkness why are they? / Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me the sunlight expands my blood?
Why when they leave me do my pennants of joy sink flat and lank? / Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me? / (I think they hang there winter and summer on those trees and always drop fruit as I pass;)
What is it I interchange so suddenly with strangers? / What with some driver as I ride on the seat by his side? / What with some fisherman drawing his seine by the shore as I walk by and pause? / What gives me to be free to a woman's and man's good-will? what gives them to be free to mine?
[Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (1891-92), Book VII, “Song of the Open Road” (7)]
Poetry books:
- Hannah Sullivan, Three Poems (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2020): “She’s writing criticism of daily life – criticism of the state of her own soul.”
Music: Composers, artists, and major works
Ray Charles’ name is synonymous with soul music. He “pioneered the genre of soul music during the 1950s.” Asked what a soul is, Charles responded: “It’s like electricity – we don’t really know what it is, but it’s a force that can light a room.” He sang and played from deep within. That is the essence of soul music. His concerts include Live in Copenhagen in 1973, and Live in Miami with Diane Schurr in 1999. Biographies of Charles are by Ray Charles Robinson, Jr., Janet Hubbard-Brown, Mike Evans, Norman Winsky, and Carin T. Ford. Here are links to his releases, his playlists, his autobiography, and a 1986 documentary film.
Sam Cooke “could exude soul stirring sensuality that went from the sacred to the profane in the same breath.” Biographies are by Peter Guralnick, and Erik Greene. Here are links to his releases, and several documentary films.
Houston Person is best known for soul jazz. His soul-jazz albums include:
- “My Romance” (1998) (56’)
- “To Etta with Love” (2004) (54’)
- “All Soul” (2005) (55’)
- “Thinking of You” (2007) (56’)
- “The Art and Soul of Houston Person” (2008) (163’)
- “Mellow” (2009) (56’)
- “So Nice” (2011) (59’)
- “The Melody Lingers On” (2014) (57’)
- “Something Personal” (2015) (63’)
- “Rain or Shine” (2017) (57’)
- “I’m Just a Lucky So and So” (2019) (56’)
Other soul jazz artists and top albums:
- The Ben Webster Quintet, “Soulville” (1956) (41’)
- Bobby Timmons, “This Here Is Bobby Timmons” (1959) (38’)
- David “Fathead” Newman, “Ray Charles Presents David ‘Fathead’ Newman” (1958) (37’)
- Stanley Turrentine with the 3 Sounds, “Blue Hour” (1960) (38’)
- Kenny Burrell, “Soul Call” (1961) (36’)
- Monk Higgins, “Extra Soul Perception” (1968) (38’)
- The Ramsey Lewis Trio, “Another Voyage” (1969) (36’)
- Cassandra Wilson, “Traveling Miles” (1999) (62’)
- Otis Spann, “Otis Spann Is the Blues” (1960) (44’)
Compositions:
- Sofia Gubaidulina, Trio for Violin, Viola and Cello (1988) (approx. 19-21’)
- Daron Hagen, Orson Rehearsed (2021) (approx. 62’) (quasi-libretto) “is the psychological, emotional, and spiritual journey taken by the American actor, polymath, and creator of Citizen Kane Orson Welles, as he finds himself on the threshold between life and death.”
- Eleanor Alberga, The Soul’s Expression, for Baritone and String Orchestra (2017) (approx. 13’): “A darkly pithy quotation from George Eliot’s Adam Bede links each poem and provides a foil to the rapture within ‘Blue Wings’ and hope in ’Roses’. Languor occupies Brontë’s ‘The Sun Has Set’, while unanswered questions on the mystery of the soul posed by Barrett Browning conclude a work marked by a romantic sensibility and richly variegated string textures.” The work features this poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Charles Lloyd displays a soul-searching quality in his mature work:
- “Wild Man Dance” (2015) (74’)
- “The Water Is Wide” (2000) (68’)
- “Hyperion with Higgins” (2001) (70’)
- “Lift Every Voice” (2002) (130’) - the title track evokes spirituality.
Albums:
- Soul Message Band, “Soulful Days” (2019) (76’): “Together, Foreman and Rockingham cook up a delectably greasy rhythmical groove that underpins this entire program . . .”
- Arooj Aftab, “Bird Under Water” (2014) (31’): “Dark post-pop meets mystic muse, Arooj Aftab's Bird Under Water undulates and scintillates. A masterful expression of lyrical and acoustic soul, tripped out through analog voltage and experimental digital filters.”
- P.J. Morton, “Watch the Sun” (2022) (38’) presents “a collection of tracks for our time that is forward-leaning while still capturing the Cognac-richness of crème de la crème of vintage soul music.”
- Debashish Bhattacharya, “The Sound of the Soul” (2023) (67’) “masterfully builds a bridge between Indian classical raga music and modern traditions from Europe and North America.” “Here, Bhattacharya plays the chaturangui, an instrument of his own design that looks as beautiful as it sounds. A sort-of mix between a hollow-neck lap steel guitar and a hollow-body Gibson, it has a bunch of sympathetic strings that makes it distinctively Indian in its appearance and in the way each note rings out into the ether.”
- “Billy Valentine and the Universal Truth” (2023) (44’): “Jazz meets funk with gospel appeal, the societally-conscious songwriting is matched by an emphatic performance from Billy Valentine, the sense of yearning producing something timeless.”
- Yosef Gutman & Lionel Loueke, “Soul Song” (2023) (61’) “is a tribute to our shared love for honest, heartfelt music. . . When we play together, I hear my soul song.”
- The John Wright Trio, “South Side Soul” (1960) (36’): “Wright’s soulfulness isn’t gutbucket, but his playing does possess an appealing edge and the trio is deft at stylistically enhancing the specifics of the song titles . . .”
Music: songs and other short pieces
- Leonard Cohen, “Suzanne” (lyrics)
- Sia, “Breathe Me” (lyrics)
- Ray Charles, “Georgia on My Mind” (lyrics)
- Otis Redding - "Sittin' on The Dock of the Bay" (lyrics)
- Etta James, “At Last” (lyrics)
- Lynne Arriale Trio, “Soul”
Visual Arts
Film and Stage
- Cries and Whispers: “a testament to the strength of the soul”
- ‘Round Midnight, about a jazz musician: Dexter “Gordon plays the central role with an eerie magnetism. He is a musician, not an actor, and yet no actor could have given this performance, with its dignity, wisdom and pain. He speaks slowly, carefully considering, really making his words mean something. . .”
- The Sea Inside is about the right to die but it is also about life’s meaning at its core. According to The New York Times’ review of the film, the real-life protagonist’s writing may express the theme more effectively than the film does.
- The Red Turtle, an animated fable, is a metaphor for human life and soul.
