Soul vs Spirit: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Times
A few years ago, I had a powerful dream where I was learning the difference between soul and spirit. It took me years to understand fully, deeply, and clearly what the dream was really teaching me—my mind couldn’t comprehend it then. I had to go through many descents into the underworld to truly grasp these teachings. The more I’ve worked with clients in deep spiritual ceremonies and transpersonal work, the more clearly I’ve come to understand that dream from years ago. It’s no wonder I love ancestral work—I see our ancestors as teachers and guides during our darkest nights when we’re deep in pain, seeking to understand how to reach the other side. I often find myself asking, “How can I help my ancestors and recently deceased loved ones?” So my deep love for them has allowed me to gain insights about things that sometimes may take me years to fully comprehend. To feel their love and carry some of their burdens until the pain has been transmuted is one of the most beautiful works I’ve done so far in my life.
In our relentless pursuit of progress and enlightenment, we’ve lost touch with an essential truth that our ancestors understood deeply: darkness isn’t merely the absence of light, but rather its source. And more importantly, the pain we endure is not just a wound but a womb growing a new aspect of ourselves yet to be born.
I’ve come to see the soul as the heart of the dragon—when we descend to do deep healing work, we can align heart and mind. In this process, the Higher/Inner Self takes the seat of power to command the different forces within our psyche. In 2021, while channeling the Awakening the Healer Within program, I was told about the Heart of the Dragon, the seat of the soul, the alchemical stone.
The Dance of Spirit and Soul
At the heart of Western spiritual tradition lies a distinction that has become increasingly blurred in our modern new age perspectives—the fundamental difference between spirit and soul. As described by those who study ancient wisdom traditions, spirit and soul represent complementary yet distinct aspects of our being, each with its own elemental connections and directional pull.
Spirit is associated with air and fire. It rises upward, leading us toward intellectual heights, peak experiences, and transcendence. Sometimes we are easily addicted to these experiences because it’s so magical in all ways. When we speak of being “inspired” or “uplifted,” we’re acknowledging spirit’s natural tendency to ascend. Spirit seeks illumination, clarity, and the rarefied atmosphere of pure thought.
Soul, by contrast, is connected to water and earth. It draws us downward and inward, into the depths of our being, our woundedness, and our connections to others. Soul work involves descent rather than ascent—a journey into the dark, fertile ground of our humanity. Soul is often described as “the light inside the darkness” or “the hidden light,” suggesting that to find it, we must be willing to enter the shadows. This reminds me of the Netflix series “Cursed,” where they mention “the path of the hidden.”
For decades I’ve embraced the idea that to grow and heal we need meditation, contemplation, and reflection. Meditation is the process, but what we do while meditating is crucial. I don’t see meditation as just “letting it be” but as a process of sitting with my body, mind, soul, and spirit to gain perspective about an intention or question.
In ancient philosophical traditions, contemplation—what we might now call meditation—often required retreat into darkness, frequently in caves, mountains, isolation, where the soul could release by working with its shadow material to allow the hidden light to emerge. This practice wasn’t meant to escape darkness but to embrace it, recognizing that genuine wisdom emerges from this descent.
Rising and Descending
Meade, the famous mythologist and fairy teller talks about how in alchemical traditions, there existed a concept known as circularatio—a circular movement between rising into light and descending into darkness. This perpetual cycle mirrors the natural rhythm of day and night, creating a balanced approach to spiritual development that encompasses both spirit and soul.
A conversation years ago I listened to Meade while he shared his perspective on modern culture and our obsession with growth, progress, and constant illumination, refuses this vital descent. We cling desperately to our upward trajectory, fearing any loss of momentum or productivity. Yet by resisting the natural rhythm of descent, we invite more challenges into our lives.
Some of us may feel attuned to the natural rhythm of night and day, the seasons, or the moon cycles. But how many of us truly descend into our bodies to allow our hidden light to emerge through the wounds we carry?
As Michael Meade beautifully articulates: “For a person to become a full person, they have to, through a sequence of changes, rise to the height of their intelligence, the height of their imagination, the height of their spirit. But alternatively, and exchanging back and forth, descend to the depth of their woundedness, to the depth of their human deep connections, and descend and grow the body of the soul.”
True wisdom lies not in naive optimism or cynical despair, but in the capacity to hold tension. It is precisely in this tension of opposites that we can mature and find our middle path, the path of enlightenment.
Through the darknesses we encounter, we find our way back to consciousness—discovering the gift that resides inside pain and suffering, entering gateways to deeper layers of our psyche that lead to greater wisdom.
Ancient wisdom offers this third path: to recognize darkness not as an adversary but as a necessary phase of regeneration and remembrance.
As astrophysics confirms what mystics and shamanic cultures have long known—that the universe is primarily composed of dark matter and dark energy—perhaps we’re being called back to a more balanced relationship with darkness. The light we seek isn’t found by escaping darkness but by penetrating it, by working with our pain and suffering, by embracing the body and its hidden teachings, by reminding our shadows the crystal they hold for us, to release what doesn’t serve us any longer, and finding within its depths the hidden luminosity of soul.
In my dream program, we work with personal stories through deep active imagination. According to Arabian philosophers, “the man’s mind when it’s most intent upon any work, through its passion and affects, is joined with the mind of the stars and intelligences, and being so joined is the cause that some wonderful virtue be infused into our work and things; this, as because there is in it an apprehension, and power of all things, so because all things have natural obedience to it, and of necessary an efficacy and more to that which desires them with a strong desire.” (Henry Cornelius Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy).
The soul—that water-and-earth dimension of our being that draws us downward into the depths—provides exactly the medicine our spirit-obsessed, height-seeking culture urgently needs. Our constant pursuit of transcendent experiences can lead to dissociation, pushing us to seek realms beyond our tangible reality. Yet for our spirit to truly reign as sovereign, we need the heart to open fully, creating a throne within us where wisdom can dwell. By reclaiming this ancient wisdom about how soul and spirit complement each other, we can navigate through our present darkness not by trying to escape it, but by courageously descending into its fertile depths where genuine transformation awaits.
Descend Into Your Dreams, Awaken Your Soul
Are you tired of spiritual practices that only reach for the heights while neglecting the depths? Do you sense there’s wisdom hidden in your darkness that conventional approaches can’t access?
The Dream Program invites you to journey into the fertile territory where soul and spirit meet—where your personal stories transform through active imagination into gateways of profound healing.
This isn’t about escaping your wounds. It’s about descending into them with courage and discovering the hidden light within.
Through ancestral connection, transpersonal work, and the ancient practice of active imagination, you’ll learn to:
- Interpret the symbolic language of your dreams
- Connect with your inner elder and eternal youth
- Transform personal wounds into wombs of creation
- Align your heart and mind to empower your Higher Self
No more spiritual bypassing. No more fragmentation. Only the authentic, whole-hearted integration that comes from honoring both your spirit’s ascent and your soul’s descent.
Space is limited for this transformative journey. Reserve your place now and begin the descent that leads to your most authentic rising.
[Learn More About The Dream Program]
Remember: The light you seek isn’t found by escaping darkness but by penetrating it.
