Have you ever wondered if soul has a sound? We may experience the sound of soul more than we know. Any time you move your attention to the inner dynamics of what lies behind your body and your mind, your soul will reveal itself to you.

Soul can be experienced outside your body and your mind as well. Just the other day, I was riding in my car with my friend Suzanne. We drove by an old barn that was caving in upon itself.

At some point, this barn stood upright. It was strong and enclosed many vehicles and animals for years. As with people, this barn aged over time. What once was a structure capable of containing many experiences of life, now, became a broken reflection of moments filled with life suspended in time.

You and I are a structural mind/body system that holds experiences within us just like this barn. As we recall these memories, these past experiences move our awareness toward an expression of experience where stillness allows us to re-live soulful memories filled with life and vitality. These inner visions, feelings, and experiences are our soul’s way of speaking to us.

In silent reflection, our attention moves into expressions of living that are eternal. It is the part of us that is aware of our awareness. The part of us aware of our awareness and not identifying with the need to compete, become successful, or any other manifestations of the material world.

Our soul is the identification with what lies behind all appearances of separateness. This part of us needs no eyes to see, no ears to hear, no hands to touch, no tounge to taste, and no nose to smell. Our soul is completely free of any expression of our world. Our soul is the part of us that infuses all these qualities of attention.

Our soul is the silent spaces between every thought, word, and deed. It is a pregnant silence, all pervading, all knowing, and filled with eternity. Our soul is a connecting point from the world of flesh and the world of Spirit. The sacred human relationship between the form and formless states of our being create a spacial quality of existence within and beyond us whereby infinite possible correlations become the path of our soul.

* Try this exercise:

The next time you wake up in the morning, listen to your surroundings, just listen and do not analyze any sound. Let your attention be drawn into the sounds around you. Notice how far they are from you or how close. Do not try to define anything - just notice. You may hear birds, cars on the street, or the sounds of your home. Now, notice the part of you noticing all these sounds. What does this part of you sound like?

There is another sound within you. It is the part of you constantly speaking, analyzing, and judging. This part of you begins to plan your day, organize, and worry. It is the part of you that drives you out of silent witnessing all the events taking place around you. This part of you will get you out of bed in the morning.

At this point, learn to integrate the two consciously. They are going on anyway. This way ordinary events in your life will become sacred human awareness and a life filled with gratitude for every moment. Did you notice the difference between these two sounds? One moves your attention into the material world. The other moves you deeper into silence - the part of you aware of life’s inner qualities the Sound of Soul.

Sam Oliver, author of, “A Fish Named Ed”

It is the nature of soul to grow, to heal, and to love. As we enter into the world, we emerge as a tiny child. We are open. We do not have conditions placed on us by our parents or ourselves. We have not closed ourselves off from any possibility. It is though the world lay at our feet. We are a bundle of unconditioned purity.

As we age, conditions are placed on us to direct us along our paths intended to keep us from harm. Even if we manage to stay out of harms way, we move into a state of stimulus-response reactions toward life. This draws us further and further away from the natural state of pure being we came into the world with as an infant.

How can we return to our natural state of being? How can we call our soul back and gain a sense of spiritual well-being? The following are ways we can return to the wholeness and healing we seek as spiritual beings incarnated into the human race:

1. Do Something Creative.

Creativity engages our heart, our mind, and our imagination. These activities allow us to utilize our whole being. Our attention moves from outer expressions of the world and enters the inner dynamics of living giving rise to our heart and our imagination. When our heart and our imagination are given attention, we enter into the realm of insight. Insight is our ability to see from within just how sacred and magical our lives really are.

In the realm of soul, our humanity becomes sacred. Through creativity we are aware how life flows through us and not from us. The more we identify with these qualities of attention flowing through us, the more we are identifying with qualities residing in us that are whole and healing. It is our natural state.

2. Spend Time With A Child.

Children have a way of drawing our attention away from activities and responsibilities defining us as adults. All a child wants to do in this world is have fun. They seem to never tire of such activities. Children are constantly motivated by play.

As adults, we tend to think of play as wasted time. Adults who lose a sense of play and joy in their lives are in danger of losing self-motivation. The kind of self-motivation I am referring to involves the desire to have fun in life. This can lead to a depressive state lacking creativity, spontaneity, and the heart of a child.

Each of us has the heart of a child within us that never tires. It is the part of us fully participating in and with life. As our imagination and heart begin to guide us over the mind, we are in soul. In soul, our mind is in its proper perspective. This part of us is our inner awareness not bound by the pressures of the world. When we return to soul, the possibility of living whole and healed becomes a reality.

3. Become A Child.

The next time you look into a child’s eyes try to feel their heart. Notice the difference and similarities of your heart and their heart. Is there a difference? Is this awareness a long or short distance from where you were as a child?

What happened to that little boy or little girl inside you? Since we cannot retrieve childhood physically, maybe we can from within. Remember your past as a child - the good times and the bad times. As you look at your life through the eyes of a child, recall how active your heart and imagination were. Embrace it. Let this inner vision penetrate your entire awareness. Let go of your adult interpretations of your childhood and view it with innocence and love.

Our true nature is to live in the world without being fully of it. Inside us are endless avenues that can move us toward the experience of joy. When we let go of our tendency to view the world as right or wrong, good or bad, we leave behind dualism and enter into Unity.

This Unity behind all appearances of diversity is a healing state of unconditional love. It is the part of us bringing all life into being, leading us through life, and what will lead us home. It is the force of nature giving us life. It is our soul.

Samuel Oliver, author of, “What the Dying Teach Us: Lessons on Living”

Have you ever had a sense that there is more to something than what appears on the surface? As a child, you may have walked by a pond and picked up a pebble. Then, energy grew inside you directing your mind to send signals within you and pick up this rock with your hand. As your mind, body, and spirit united, a coordinated effort took place resulting in a thrust of energy tossing this rock into this pond.

The effects of this driving force created a ripple affect on the surface of the pond making its way to the outer edges of the pond. You and I are this same driving force at the core of our being. Everything is energy. We all know its there even though we may not readily see it.

There are five experiences in our life allowing us to touch this energy or our soul.

Remember this: “What is the most human to us, often, is the most sacred.”

We touch our soul in the following ways:

1. The Sense of Smell.

When we breathe, we embrace our world. We draw in various aromas into our inner self. It is our opportunity to take in the world around us, and allow it to fill us with its essence. As we breathe, our soul absorbs the world around it through identification with the earth merging into what cannot be seen. It is the experience of spirit expressing itself in unlimited ways.

2. The Sense of Taste.

Taste allows us to tangibly experience different qualities of our world. As a child, we experienced our world through the sense of taste. It was as though our life was meant to be devoured. In a real way, our sense of taste helps us to determine if we like or do not like what is before us i.e. food, experiences, or way of life.

3. The Sense of Touch.

Our ability to feel the world awakens our body. Touch sends vibrations throughout our body in the form of tingling sensations. These tingling sensations are expressions of consciousness helping our body understand the direction of spirit in our lives and our place in the world. It is the home of our soul, yet our body cannot fully contain it alone. At the same time, our body is a symbol radiating our unique expression of our soul.

4. The Sense of Sight.

The gift of sight enables us to take in the world through visual contact with the world around us. As we draw in our environment, we become part of it and it becomes part of us. Eventually, we deepen this sense of sight creating the ability to see from within. At this point, we are able to see through our eyes, and not, just with them. Here, we see with the eyes of soul. We see with the eyes of unconditional love.

5. The Sense of Hearing.

What do we really hear? Sounds are echoes, vibrations interacting with the vibrations of another entity. Behind every sound or word is a tone, a quality of sound, we can connect to within us. The resonance of sound creates signals inside us that we may choose to repel or encompass. As we discern these inner qualities of what appears before us in sound, we are getting in tune with the soul of another person, place, or thing.

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When you throw a rock into a pond, I suspect you have a difficult time watching it float all the way to the bottom. The deeper your rock enters the pond, the harder it becomes to see with your five senses. A higher sense of yourself is engaged.

As your imagination and your heart begins to direct your perspective on this experience, your soul is revealed. It is the part of you able to sense and know your rock eventually reached its destination. Although you may not be able to see the foundation of the pond below its surface, you know it is there.

Sam Oliver, author of, “Integrating the Feminine Spirit: Returning to the Womb of Creation”

At the dawn of spring, I am reminded by my children the joy of anticipating new life.

They will usually see a flower or two that has made its way through the soil to a world beyond itself. What starts out as a seedling or bulb is transformed by nature’s capacity to evolve.

Inside each of us lies dormant an awareness, an identity, an ability to grow beyond what we appear to be. Every moment, we are being challenged by others and by circumstances to create a life that exceeds our present state of living.

To move toward our highest good takes a willingness on our part to let go of what we know to what can be known in and through us. You and I are part of the Created Order we see around us, and we are participants in Creating Order out of what we have been given to care for.

With this in mind, let us turn to ways our soul can be described in the characteristics that make up a flower:

1. The Ground.

The ground nurtures, protects, and gives birth to a flower. Inside the womb of the ground, life is taking root long before we can see it. Because we cannot see a flower that has been planted in the earth, does not mean life is not being created. To be full participants in our world means to be fully connected and rooted in the world we have been given.

2. The Stem.

The stem begins its growth in the earth below and into the sky above. This part of the flower is the connecting characteristic of the plant. Much like humanity, we are in this world without being fully of it. This creates a sacredness to our lives. It is our unique ability to live and grow in a way no one ever has, is, or ever will.

3. The Flower.

In full bloom, a flower is the illumination of all the life that has preceded it. The radiance and color that pour out of it create life. Notice the next time you look at a flower how you are affected by it. You may notice your heart open and be filled with joy. Or, you may notice more energy and clarity in your vision for being blessed with great beauty.

4. The Spirit of a Flower.

The spirit of a flower is the life force moving in and through it. It is the essence of a flower that identifies with your spirit. This part of you opens from the inside out and becomes ONE with the spirit of a flower. It is the same energy that runs in and through you. Like a flower, you begin to radiate your own soul from the essence of your own being.

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Each spring, take the time to notice the part of you opening up to new life. Just like flowers, we grow from the inside out. What illuminates in our life began inside us. We nurture these inner qualities of attention until they eventually take root and grow into our daily lives. The growth that follows is created from what we attend to or hold our attention on within us.

Like the pedals of a flower opening to the world around it, we create a presence of awareness. In full bloom, the beauty or the lack thereof touches the lives of everyone around us. As our inner patterns of attention move through us, the world illuminates the seeds of awareness contained within us for so long. Here, a life is created. It is the life of our soul.

Samuel Oliver, author of, “What the Dying Teach Us: Lessons on Living”

Hospice patients come to our care after being cut, burned, and poisoned. Surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation treatment are the normative methods of care for most of the patients who enter a life-threatening disease. Hospital staff members are trained to be aggressive about curative care.

Hospice care is a phase of care whereby aggressive treatment is no longer appropriate. Palliative care becomes the norm. Patients have been probed physically, mentally, and emotionally. In many ways, patients may be reluctant to any type of care beyond the experiences that led to his/her doctor sharing that no more can be done.

The purpose of this article is to claim that much more can be done. Our Doctors and Nurses are trained to help patients receive medication that stabilizes and even diminishes pain and suffering physically. Social Workers are trained to help patients and families deal with emotional, practical, and legal issues surrounding loss and grief. Spiritual Counselors help with the integration of emotional well-being and a sense of faith and hope beyond one’s self-awareness.

There are three aspects of the grieving process I wish to mention in this brief article:

The Heart of Care,

The Heart of Compassion, and

An Awakened Heart

Since I am a Spiritual Counselor for Hospice Care, I will take a spiritual approach to grief care.

The Heart of Care

The heart of care centers it’s attention on the needs of the patient who is dying. Any attempt to move a patient away from his/her authentic character becomes a war of wills. As we listen and care for a person just as he/she is, we are allowing a person to die the way he/she lived. Our ability to meet a person in unconditional love will draw out the desire to be fully known by the patient. Here, we are given opportunities to meet him/her in grace and mercy.

Patients are not a disease. Patients are awakening into soul. Mary was a strong-willed person who did not want to die. She had a strong personality. She had many roles she carried out in life, and she wanted to hold on to them all. She was a mother, friend, wife, among many other roles.

About two weeks before Mary died, she shared with me that she became aware of two identities: one was her strong personality and the other was a presence of peace she could not explain. The closer Mary came to her dying, the more she could identify with wanting peace over suffering. This identity with her soul became more appealing to her than living in a body that was failing her. She was awakening into her authentic self.

The Heart of Compassion

A dying patient gives up so much in their dying that he/she is tempted to hold on to what is left in their life. Even if holding on means more pain and suffering, some patients do try to do so. As care givers, we need to be sensitive to this aspect of a patient’s letting go process. A patient needs support and guidance to simply learn to move from letting go (an act of the will) to letting be (getting into harmony with one’s dying). A person offering care will enter into the heart of compassion by giving a patient space to enter into this process of moving from “letting go” to “letting be.”

As a person dies, their personality will give way to their soul. In the process, a heart is broken. This desire to escape a painful body and embrace peace (one’s authentic-self) is complicated by the desire to remain with those he or she has loved. This built up tension creates a path one has to choose inside them that transcends individual and collective conscious awareness. In essence, this is a matter of survival for the soul. This path moves a person’s soul forward.

Funeral services remind us, it is the soul of a person that draw us to face death and not the deceased body. These services serve as a symbol of transition for the loved one who has died and those reflecting on the life of the deceased. A relationship that once was created outside us and in the body of another person no longer applies. Now, relationships with the deceased are internal and completely within us creating an invisible bond forever linking our awareness to a spacial quality within us drawing those left behind deeper into soul.

An Awakened Heart

An awakened heart knows there is more to life than what appears on the surface.

Dying people lead us to this place where eternal relationships are forged into the deepest aspects of our nature. It is our nature to love and feel love. Even grief has the capacity to deepen our sense of sacredness toward those we love.

A year ago, I gave a talk for the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization in Los Angeles, CA. I was gone about a week. When I returned, my youngest son gave me a big hug. I missed him and he missed me. I could feel him literally fill my heart with love. In a real way, my soul was touched by my son’s soul. An awakened heart knows that this is the heart of relationships.

In the landscape of the soul, what matters in life IS NOT matter. When we begin to look through our eyes and not with them, we enter into a view of life from the perspective of soul. Insight, to see from within, enables us to encounter death with hope, with faith, and with love.

As we grow in our capacity to see from within, we enter into the heart of grief. This emergence into the nature of soul will sustain us through death and into life - eternal. May the Creator of us all give us strength for the journey.

Samuel Oliver, author of, “What the Dying Teach Us: Lessons on Living”

Hide and Seek is a wonderful game to play with your children. The next time you play this game observe what happens. If you are the person hiding your eyes and counting to 10, feel what happens to your heart as you look for your children.

If you pay attention, my hunch is that your heart and imagination will heighten. Since you cannot see your children in front of you, a movement from the perceptual world to the intuitive world becomes your path into soul. You are, now, being guided from within. In soul, you will feel your heart come alive. You will feel your heart open. And, you will experience your heart become ONE with your children.

1. Feel Your Heart.

Close your eyes and place your attention on your heart. Look at your heart from within using the inner vision of your mind, and not, the ones you use in the material world. This simple act of noticing and placing your attention on your heart enables you to feel your heart.

2. Feel Your Heart Open.

The next time you hug someone you care deeply about, feel how warm and open your heart becomes. It is a similar feeling you get when you receive good news or visit someone you haven’t seen in a long time. An open heart is able to receive the love and attention of another person who wants the same. This mutual receiving and giving love connect hearts as one cohesive unit.

3. A Unified Heart.

A heart in unity with the world, itself, and others around it knows wholeness. Wholeness is the feeling of being ONE with all that is alive and well. It is the feeling of being loved, blessed, known, and cared for. This feeling of being connected to the unified whole called the universe is our ability to identify beyond our own individualized selves. This transcendent state of being creates an awareness of what infuses our heart with eternal love.

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Notice what happens when you play Hide and Seek with a small child. The closer you get to finding them, the more you will feel your heart. Your heart will open to a channel of expression and experience where physical eyesight is no longer necessary. This guiding force enabling you to feel your heart, allow your heart to open, and create a path merging two hearts as ONE is the heart of soul.

Sam Oliver, author of, “A Fish Named Ed”

When was the last time you closed your eyes and simply paid attention to the inner world in you? As you close your eyes and pay attention to your inner self, insight is awakened. You are able to become conscious of what infuses our external world. Each of us has individual awareness or ways we interpret the world around us. Because of our unique experiences of the world, we take in multiple images across the span of a lifetime. These experiences are imprinted in our psyche and our soul.

The act of recalling these memories creates expressions or feelings in our heart. These past expressions are pondered in the inner vision of our mind and our heart as though we are re-living them in the present. In so doing, we are retrieving our soul at various points of interests that have lodged a sense of importance to our individual awareness. The movement from the world around us to the world within us is a shift in attention. This shift in our attention is a conscious choice. Here, we realize that the world around us has hidden aspects to it reminding us just how privileged we are to be aware of our awareness. This realization alone gives us identification with whom we are.

You and I are conscious beings who live in a body, but this isn’t our real home. We inhabit space and time, but our real self, our authentic self, our individual awareness (soul) is a unique expression of spirit infusing our lives from an infinite number of possible correlations. We make choices every day on how our life will be lived. Each choice creates a pattern. These patterns become a statement of our character. Our character becomes a living testimony on the inner processes of our thoughts incarnating into the world we live in.

As such, the life of our soul is revealed. Every moment, we are given the opportunity to experience our soul in a variety of ways. These experiences are facets of our inner world that manifests themselves from a single expression we call spirit. The intent to focus on our past, our present, or our future desires leads us to a path. This path is a revelation of our soul seeking out an opportunity to live out our purpose. Purpose gives us meaning and hope beyond our present circumstances. It is a path into what can no longer be seen and moving our lives and our soul - into SPIRIT.

Sam Oliver, author of, “A Life in Review”