“Say not, “I have found the truth,” but rather, “I have found a truth.”
Say not, “I have found the path of the soul.” Say rather, “I have met the soul walking upon my path.”
For the soul walks upon all paths.
The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed.
The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.”
―
During the summer, it’s always exciting to watch the birds drinking water and cooling themselves in the birdbath in the garden. The birdbath image in this collage was stencilled by me over twelve years ago and is framed and hangs on a wall in our home. The flowers in the collage are from the garden and the clouds were photographed recently when I was lying on the grass looking up at the skies. The idea for putting these images together came to me as I observed a bird having a great time in the outdoor birdbath yesterday. I wondered whether this was a soul thing.
I don’t know what a soul looks like, and for that matter, I don’t think anybody else does. Yet we all have those stirrings within us that seem to beckon and call us to certain places and certain things – travel, writing, volunteering, teaching, and sometimes even stencilling and photo collaging, among other things.
It seems to me that the soul likes to create. It feels to me too that the soul likes to enjoy as in the enjoyment of seeing the birds enjoying themselves in the birdbath. The soul definitely loves clouds and flowers.
“When we discover our creativity, we begin to attend to this constant emergence of who we are. Our creativity is excited by what is new, different and concealed within us. While the outside world has long settled for who we are in terms of name, personality and role, when we creatively engage our life, we enable the signature, taste and imprint of our uniqueness to emerge.” (John O’Donohue)
As I enjoyed watching the birds in the birdbath outside, I hope you enjoy this indoor birdbath collage. I’m still trying to figure out the “soul” for myself and seeing how it emerges.
“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.” ~ Rumi