"All holiness is about learning to hear the voice of your own soul." – John O'Donohue

   Here we are, you and I, walking through time with our lives on the line. What do you see?

   Suddenly, O'Donohue's words illuminate your journey. Every bit of holiness you honor is about learning to hear the voice of your very own soul (and what does it mean to own your soul?) 

   The holy is ineffable. Yet, the truly alive are passionate and must pursue what cannot be caught: the secrets of the sacred. That is why painters paint and poets write and lovers love. 

   Sometimes, the curtain slips open. Through the seam lovers catch a tantalizing glimpse into the mystery of the precious.

   Is ecstasy the music of your soul singing through your body?

   This is the challenge of understanding the spirit with our earth-based minds. You cannot think your way into sacred mystery. You can only feel her truth.

   O'Donohue writes that the voice of the soul is "deeper and surer than all the other voices of disappointment, unease, self-criticism and bleakness." Why listen to anything else?

   The world's transactional noise interferes. Imagine your serenity if you could live dancing with the feet of your spirit instead of marching to the clatter that confounds your days.  

  The ghosts around us must be amused by the ways you and I occupy our bodies. After all, they don't have one. And they cannot experience the physical sensations that tell us we are en-fleshed.  

   O'Donohue writes, "The voice of compassion is not absorbed with itself…it is imbued…with healing." 

   Your finest and most healing hours come when your body transmits your soul's voice. That is when you sing life's most holy hymn: Love. 

-Erie Chapman

Photograph: "Night Sculptures" – Erie Chapman