The soul moves slowly. As body, mind, and heart fly through existence at the speed of life-today, soul has never enough time to catch up with the rest of us. If we wonder why our lives have become disjointed, perhaps it is because something so important has fallen behind—and with it, our access to creativity, meaning, direction, healing, and our unique spark of aliveness, among many other things, all held within that deeper place. And while we may abandon it, it never abandons us, ever calling out from the dust.

Sometimes its voice is subtle, like a restlessness or inner disquiet, alerting us that something is not right. Other times it is loud, like burnout or a breakdown, forcing us to stop in hopes of finally reuniting us with ourselves. To keep going comes at tremendous cost not only to our wellbeing, but what it means to be human. And human is what we simply, inescapably, and, when done well, gloriously are.

The soul is no less elusive for being slow. While technology strives to take us beyond our humanity—as though that were something to overcome—it can’t capture and manipulate the soul, and so the best it can deliver will only ever be an empty distortion of humanity’s real potential. A life on the run from ourselves is ultimately a false life, which the soul will always reject, because the soul is deep and it is true.

So unless we want to exist, for however long we can stand it, fracturing inside from the conflict between a literally inhuman way of existence, and the enduring life of the soul, we do wisely to disconnect from endless demands on our time and energy. to learn and develop the language of our own soul, and through it, to discover both the power and the preciousness of finite aliveness. to refuse to stay alienated from the rhythms of nature. to stand still with the tree-covered hills, until we gather together again the fragments of our being.