7. Descendancy is Soul
‘Our soul is everything — mediating between our personality and our essence, and part of both…’
Simon Parke — The Beautiful Life
As discussed in the Introduction, the term descendancy is used in order to describe those aspects of life that I am suggesting represent its soulfulness. It might be more appropriate to say that the soul reaches out to body and nature rather than reaches down (as implied by descendancy). Descendancy however is being used to contrast with ascendancy. We are already ‘down’ as it were, but we often do not recognise this. Again, it is to employ the method of contrasting a polarity in thinking and to look at what happens when the less-favoured of the binary oppositions is given prominence. What does it mean to favour soul over spirit or descendancy over ascendancy?
The attributes of ascendancy are largely regarded as male attributes and those of descendancy as female. Wisdom — ‘Sophia’ — of course is also feminine. It is in the economy of descendancy that we find wisdom. In previous chapters we have identified concerns with the dominant ascendant attributes in philosophy, religion, science and culture. Much of this can be attributed to an underlying male-domination in the way that Western thought has developed. The feminine has been suppressed and given no voice. As a result, both women and men have suffered.
The centrality and importance of the soul — now so often neglected by our modern dualistic societies – is well expressed by Thomas Moore:
‘Throughout history the soul has been discussed in a trinitarian context where mind and body find their humanity in a third place, the soul, where behaviour and belief are deepened in imagination, and where emotion and mind join in intelligent, deeply felt values.’
Thomas Moore — The Re-enchantment of Everyday Life
W.B. Yeats says simply: ’There is only one history, and that is the soul’s.’ Likewise, Simon Parke, in his book The Beautiful Life, emphasises the essential but neglected importance of the soul:
‘The soul is not given … It is a creation with endless variation of shape and nature, which starts with a desire in your mind, and can become anything.’
And again:
‘…when we use the word soul, we use it to describe a cascading waterfall of experience, all power and fluidity, all change and force, all energy and life, a crashing vastness of possibility and engaged at every level of our physical and psychological well-being.’
Both quotes from Simon Parke — The Beautiful Life
The soul is essentially quite happy to immerse itself in nature and is not that interested in any kind of ‘development’.
Meister Eckhart says:
‘The soul loves the body.’
(Contrast this with St. Augustine: ‘The soul makes war with the body.’)
Meister Eckhart again:-
‘The soul is not in the body, but the body is in the soul.’ And Meister Eckhart further tells us: ‘Our souls grow by subtraction not by addition.’ Learning, or a self-directed program of ‘spiritual growth’ might detract rather than enhance the soul. The distractions of wealth, work and possessions may not satisfy our souls and therefore ultimately not satisfy our true selves. In fact any kind of holding onto things - be they material things or beliefs or attitudes — can be a problem. There needs rather to be a letting go on the one hand and on the other hand a creative engagement with others and with the world around us. Thomas Moore again:
‘The soul needs to be fattened, not explained, and certain things are nutritious, whilst others are without taste or benefit. Good food for the soul includes especially anything that promotes intimacy; a hike in nature, a late-night conversation with a friend, a family dinner, a job that satisfies deeply, a visit to a cemetery. Beauty, solitude and deep pleasure also keep the soul well fed.’
Thomas Moore — The Re-enchantment of Everyday Life
The soul thrives on dreams and imagination. Thomas Moore again:
‘The soul has an absolute, unforgiving need for regular excursions into enchantment.’
‘… the soul craves charm and fascination. Its natural emotions are longing, desire, interest, attachment, surprise, and pleasure, as well as darker feelings of melancholy, fear, loss, envy, jealousy and anger.’
Both quotes from Thomas Moore — The Re-enchantment of Everyday Life
And according to Joanna Macey (The Work that Re-Connects) the future is:
‘…not constructed by our minds as much as to emerge from our dreams…We will never be able to build what we have not first cherished in our hearts.’
Even authors with no particular religious or spiritual intent make use of the idea of the soul to illustrate our situation as human beings. Take this quote from psychologist Alexander Lowen:
‘A person who does not feel he is part of a larger scheme, that does not sense that his life is part of a natural process that is bigger than himself, can be said to be without a soul.’
Alexander Lowen — Pleasure
Lowen continues:
‘If he has a soul, a man can break through the narrow boundaries of the self and can experience the joy and ecstasy of oneness with the universal. If he doesn’t have a soul, a man is locked in the prison of his mind and his pleasures are limited to ego satisfactions.’
When we considered the ascendant, spirit side of life, we noted that in many aspects of culture and in religion there is an abstract goal to which we might aspire. Often this abstract goal is associated with a representation or image. The abstract goals and associated image are often not recognised as being unrealisable, as we saw in an earlier chapter. The emphasis in Part 2 of this work will be how we can dig down into life. How do we make the ideals and aspirations of spirit manifest in the real world? How do we acknowledge and fulfil genuine desire? How do we bring soul back into life, by understanding our embodiment and our place in nature and by honouring instead of suppressing the feminine? How do we balance Eros and Agapé — ascendancy and descendancy?
I hope that it is obvious that there is a very decisive split between the aspiration of spirit on the one hand and the needs of the soul on the other. Both our contemporary culture and much of organised religion in the West reflect the ideals of the economy of ascendancy. By contrast, Thomas Moore tells us:
‘The soul does not evolve or grow… Its odyssey is a drifting at sea, a floating toward home, not an evolution toward perfection.’
Thomas Moore — Original Self
The contrast between our two economies, ascendancy and descendancy, are further explored by Matthew Fox. Fox, instead of contrasting spirit and soul, contrasts ‘Jacob’s ladder’ with ‘Sarah’s circle’. A Jacob’s ladder style of thinking and acting is characterised by:
We have considered some of these points in our chapters on ascendancy. We can note here though the jealous, competitive, ruthless, violent and judgmental characteristics that Fox mentions — all very much related to the male-dominated nature of western civilisation. Contrast this (point by point) with Sarah’s circle thinking:
We will be exploring some of these points in future chapters. In particular the meaning of panentheism is of relevance to our discussion, as is the contrasting points 15 in the two scenarios Fox presents. The soul recognises its context in nature and in the body. Its relation to both is generally one of delight. The economy of descendancy recognises the economy of ascendancy and can act as a corrective to the tendency of spirit to aim for abstract goals. The economy of ascendancy fails to recognise the economy of descendancy or tries to reframe it as some kind of ‘spirituality’.
