Anam Cara

The Soul Is the Home of Memory

Prayer helps us to belong more fully in our own lives. Ingeborg Bachmann said, “It takes so long to learn to take your place in your own life.” The more we come to recognize the subtle adjacencies in our lives, the more easily they can enter our belonging. The more we recognize the neglected and unseen dimensions of our lives, the more enriched and balanced we become. It takes a lifetime’s work to belong fully in your life. It is almost as if each event, encounter, and experience is a pathway to be explored and lived. Then the wisdom of the soul harvests it and brings its treasures back in along that pathway until they belong to the deepest circle of your self. Each day we voyage outwards, and at evening our souls bring home what we have suffered, learned, and created. The soul is more ancient than consciousness and mind. Each day your soul weaves your life together. It weaves the opaque and ancient depth of you with the actual freshness of your present experience. The soul is the home of memory. When you pray, you enter that sanctuary where the repository of unlived and lived things opens to embrace the mystery of what you now live. You cannot break into this place inside you. All attempts to force entry will be circumvented by your wily soul. However, when you pray into your own depths, they might open for a moment to offer you a glimpse of the eternal artistry that is at work in you. This eternal longing is put beautifully by Fernando Pessoa:

So all recalls my home self and, because

it recalls that, what I am aches in me.

Because prayer comes from such a deep space within you, it can afford you glimpses of yourself. Prayer satisfies the longing of the unknown to find you. It helps transfigure the barriers to your inner world. You come to discover that there is no distance between you and the deepest core of your being.