{"id":9247,"date":"2016-03-03T09:23:53","date_gmt":"2016-03-03T17:23:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/?p=9247"},"modified":"2026-01-21T16:14:39","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T00:14:39","slug":"pondering-the-soul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2016\/03\/03\/pondering-the-soul\/","title":{"rendered":"Pondering the Soul"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Do souls exist before they are incarnated? What is a soul? I perceive soul as energy. When it is embodied, it expresses through the filter of a personality. Personality is shaped by genetics, temperament, and experiences. Does a soul retain the particular &#8220;flavor&#8221; of personality after the body dies? I would like to think so. I would like to believe that the infinite universe can hold the essences of all the soul-personalities that ever existed. Although I have no empirical evidence, the mystic in me is intuitively open to this possibility. <\/p>\n<p>Where does Love exist? We exist <strong><em>in<\/em><\/strong> Love. We forget this, so we create suffering for ourselves and others. Love is the mystery of the universe; it exists in all forms as well as that which is formless. A body that dies loses its form. Yet the soul-personality remains with us in Love.<\/p>\n<p>As to what these soul-personalities do, whether there is reward or punishment, I do not know. I do not believe there is a ruling God who decides on an eternal afterlife for each soul. I sense that when we leave our bodies and lives on earth, whatever that has separated us from complete union with Love is removed, and this is healing and redemption.  <\/p>\n<p> &#8220;Love is our liberation. There is no other place to go.&#8221; &#8211; Karen Maezen Miller<\/p>\n<div class=\"photopost\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/mindfulone\/68791629\/in\/photolist-dsNqUm-9hBukV-9gj5RU-5EoVYJ-6nwpa-7mvWP-75zmz\" title=\"seeing into the heart of the matter - art every day month 05 - day 30\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm1.staticflickr.com\/12\/68791629_d1baf1e7d5.jpg\" width=\"391\" height=\"500\" alt=\"seeing into the heart of the matter - art every day month 05 - day 30\"><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do souls exist before they are incarnated? What is a soul? I perceive soul as energy. When it is embodied, it expresses through the filter of a personality. Personality is shaped by genetics, temperament, and experiences. Does a soul retain the particular &#8220;flavor&#8221; of personality after the body dies? I would like to think so. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[111,217,30,219],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buddhism","category-meditation","category-quotes","category-spirit"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9247"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9256,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9247\/revisions\/9256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}