Anima Mundi

Some flowers are solar, and follow the sun in it's course through the daytime skies. Other plants are lunar, awakening to greet the moon in it's rising and falling. The sun pushes the wind which brings in a front which requires me to sport an umbrella for the day. The moon pulls the Ormond Beach tide, bringing the salty waters up to my toes while whisking away the sand beneath my feet as it recedes. All this interconnectedness, this cooperation of the Cosmos and the Individual! The philosophers saw man in the Cosmos, and Cosmos in the man. Just as the Sun shoots it's rays to the moon, which in turn reflects the rays to the Earth, my heart shoots it's rays to my mind, resulting in right action and kind words, reflected to those around me. When one considers all the likenesses between self and Cosmos, and all the interconectedness of things, it is easy to see why the Ancients conceived of a Universal Soul, where foul matter, in the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, the Earth, and the stones, metals, vegetation and animals is animated by the Soul. This Soul, the Soul of the World, in Latin is called the Anima Mundi. And if nothing else, we do live in a World in Motion. The heavens are lively in their whirl about the axis mundi. The Earth lives and breathes as sure as I do. Animal, vegetable, or mineral, the Universe is certainly charged with life! Evelyn Underhill, in her book entitled 'Mysticism', said that the Universe comes from Life, Life does not come from the Universe. And when Jesus promised us Life, and Life more abundantly, I think He included in this the dawning that I share Life, and Soul, with the Life-charged Cosmos. The soul, according to western mysticism, embodies thoughts, emotions, and expresses personality. And surely we can look upon the World, and see that the stars, the heavens, the earth, then nature, all express personality and at times, even thoughtfulness. There are coincidences, synchronicities, chance happenings, all that point out there might be more to the Universe than mere randomness. The soul, again in western mysticism, is the meeting place of dumb action and intelligent thought. It is the bridge between that mortal lower animal part in man, and that higher, spiritual realm in man that survives Death. One can look upon the tree whose buds produce fruits, which in turn produce seeds, which go on to produce the sapling, a circular manifestation, a soulful representation of the anima mundi. Where birth, growth, decay and rebirth are found in all their guises, these are manifestations of the world soul. And as we acknowledge these monads in ourselves, we realize we are an individual manifestations of the whole, mimicing the divine found throughout Creation.