The soul is a shy presence.

"The secret and the sacred are sisters. Our times suffer from such a loss of the sacred because our respect for the secret has completely vanished. We need to shelter that which is deep and reserved within us. That is why there is such hunger in modern life for the language of the soul. The soul is a shy presence. Maybe one of the ways to reconnect with your deeper soul-life is to recover a sense of the soul's shyness. Though it may be personally difficult to be shy, it is an attractive quality in a person. In an unexpected piece of advice, Nietzsche says one of the best ways to make someone interested in you is to blush. The value of shyness, its mystery and reserve, is alien to the brash immediacy of many modern encounters. If we are to connect with our inner life, we need to learn not to grasp at the soul in a direct or confrontational way. In other words, the neon consciousness of much modern psychology and spirituality will always leave us in soul poverty."

John O'Donohue
"Anam Cara"

Photo: Limber Pine bark "blush," with Long's Peak in the background, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, March 16, 2015