Quotes by Thomas Moore

Narcissus lays his head on the grass by the pool, and then he quietly disappears into the underworld, where he continues to gaze at the image in the waters of the river Styx. Our images, especially those that appear in life and play important roles in episodes of transformation, stay with us forever. Once we have entertained an image, it is always potentially present to our gaze. You visit the Uffizi Gallery and see Botticelli's "Primavera," and then for a lifetime you dream of it or you talk about it frequently as a measure of beauty. Unexpectedly it presents itself in a moment of thought or in a discussion, reminding you of its eternal presence. This fragment of the myth suggests that we might continually make soul out of our narcissism by preserving and tending to the images that have come to us throughout our lives. This is the basis of art therapy or journal-keeping: making a home for certain images that have been transforming. Certain photographs or old letters might be related to the pool of water. Culturally, of course, we are constantly invited into the depths of ourselves by the plays, paintings, sculptures, and buildings of past centuries. Art can be a cure for narcissism. The words "curator" and "cure" are essentially the same. By being the curator of our images, we care for our souls.

Rather than look for ways to be further in control, we may have to surrender to the vitality that is trying to get some representation. Rather than understand our dreams, we might be understood by them--reimagine our lives through their challenging images. Rather than get life together, we might allow life to have its way with us and get us together in a form that is a surprise. True personal strength is not to be found in an iron will or in superior intelligence. Real strength of character shows itself in a willingness to let life sweep over us and burrow its way into us.

I spent many years trying to become conscious, but all that effort led merely to self-consciousness, which in turn generated guilt, anxiety, and ambition. I was told that higher consciousness was a worthy goal and that its opposite, unconsciousness, was the result of laziness and ignorance. Around the age of fifty my ideals and values began to change, so much so that many of them turned upside down and inside out. Now I see great value in laziness, understood as giving up both effort and the attempt to justify my life. I have come to appreciate the teaching I have found in many religions that praises holy ignorance. And I have been discovering how to live with little consciousness

Emerson once remarked that it is advisable to live without consciousness of the workings of the body, and I wonder if the same recommendation applies to the whole of life. Perhaps in some ways we do have to become conscious, and that may be the proper work of the first half of life. But then all our education and learning experiences may fade, not into oblivion, where they are simply lost, but by a process of absorption into us, so that they become us or we become them.
I have always thought that the most remarkable statement James Hillman ever made about the soul, and he has made many startling observations, is that the soul leads us into unconsciousness, and that for our own benefit. When we fall in love or become absorbed in work or are seized by a powerful depression, we lose control and perspective. The soul takes over and from a dimmer place takes the lead. We don't know exactly what we are doing or whether we should be doing it. By remaining in this psychic fog, we may end up in a place we have been searching for all our lives--with the right person, in a good job, with a new level of self-possession.

Rainer Maria Rilke said, "I live my life in widening rings." It may well be useful to note the expanding of the circles in which we live, but it is also important not to lose the sensation of cycles, which may be painful to anyone living in a culture dedicated to the extending line. Maybe in life we never really develop, but only expand the rotations that give us our firm identity. Maybe we should expect always to get into familiar trouble and to repeat both the glorious and the defeating themes that are embedded in our soul.

Writing about duende, the inspiring and enlivening spirit throbbing within any vital activity, Frederico Garcia Lorca says that it rises up from the feet, that we "climb each step in the tower of our perfection" by fighting the duende, and that there are no maps or disciplines to help us find it. We will not have a strong sense of self until and unless we sense the wind of this spirit in our words and actions, and yet no one can teach us how to reach this point.

Something in us doesn't want to be civilized, linked too closely with Apollo and all his humanitarian accomplishments--medicine, music, ideas. It doesn't want any kind of union, but desperately tries to preserve its individuality and integrity. Something in us wants to be wooden, untalkative, and impenetrable. It wants to revert to dumb nature. Something in us doesn't want to be loved or desired. A tree's beauty is purely unintended and purposeless.
Daphne is wooden. She is that which doesn't want to be communicative, available, friendly, present, or articulate. Instinctively she flees from the most noble of attentions, the most humane of admirers. She would rather be like a tree than a person, an it rather than a thou. The Daphne spirit is so pure that it has no use for the sentimentality of relationship.
Modern psychological thinking doesn't appreciate the necessity presented in this myth. We consider it normal and healthy to be intimate with each other and communicate well. We interpret flight from intimacy as neurotic, abnormal, and practically immoral. But within this myth, flight from interpersonal contact is the norm. Resistance to humanitarian sensitivity is valid. Disappearing from the human scene somehow protects and preserves Daphne in a completely acceptable way.
Rather than judge each other and ourselves for our failure to be sociable, we might reconsider our biases and assumptions, even our sentimentality, about relationship. Perhaps some of our narcissism is a symptomatic attempt recover as strong unrelated sense of self. How can we reach out to another anyway, if we don't have strong devotion to our individuality?

In order to have soul, we need to be taken from, and that necessary emptying requires some collusion on our part in the theft, some neglect in our defenses, some distraction that interferes with our intentions. It won't do to make a project of keeping the door ajar. It has to come from a distracted mind, one that is not so excessively preoccupied with defending itself that theft is not possible.

Our neuroses are the raw material out of which an interesting personality may be crafted. They are sometimes dangerous and debilitating but nonetheless valuable. They are the basic stuff of the soul in need of lifelong refinement. Working this annoying and embarrassing material for a lifetime is a realistic work compared with the search for psychological hygiene--ridding ourselves of failure and confusion.

Living in the moment can become a moralistic principle, a burden rather than a way to intensify life. The difference might depend on who takes the lead in the dance and who chooses the music. The soul is a community of many interior persons, many of them capable leaders. The ego is only one among them and probably should not always run the show. A good dancer or musician allows the music to take over, becomes absorbed in the complex harmonies and tempos, and is the servant of the materials at hand. The secret of a soul-based life is to allow someone or something other than the usual self to be in charge.

True change takes place in the imagination.