Is a Crisis of Masculinity Healed Through the Soul?

I’m starting to think it’s the only way.

Photo Credit: Pixabay.

By Sarah Poet

I had the pleasure of going to hear Michael Meade speak a few nights ago when he visited Asheville, NC. Mr. Meade speaks on the topic of the human soul like no other, in my opinion, and if you haven’t listened to it, his weekly podcast called Living Myth is exceptional.

While sitting in the audience, listening to him talk about the need for us to be willing to acknowledge our emotions in order to access our soul, my curiosities wandered to how this impacts men and masculinity in the current cultural context.

The language of the soul is not especially mainstream, though Meade and others — I’d count myself among them — do our best to bring this concept and language to the forefront in our work. Carl Jung was, of course, the pioneer of this inquiry of soul.

What the soul is is not easily defined. James Hillman said, “soul is a deliberately ambiguous concept.” It is a mysteries realm that, to me, involves the depth of a human, the psychological history and what is both conscious and unconscious. The soul is what makes us ourselves, what beckons us forward, what allows us to deeply feel and interact with life.