Soul: An Archaeology- Readings from Socrates to Ray Charles - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0062502395 ISBN 13: 9780062502391

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1994

Synopsis

What does soul mean? Is it, as in Aristotle's classic definition, the "life-giving principle"? Is it the shiver up your spine when Aretha Franklin sings the blues? Or is it the simple, breathtaking beauty of a Pablo Neruda poem?
Soul defies definition, yet it surrounds us, permeating every aspect of our lives and culture - from art, music, and literature to religion, society, and identity. Long fascinated by the conundrum of the soul, author Phil Cousineau set out to follow its elusive trail by collecting the voices of those who have, since ancient times, sought their own understanding of the "inner universe."
Scanning "history's long bookshelf," Cousineau harvested a rich collection of writings that trace the evolving definition of soul, from an ancient Sufi master's eternal question to a reflection on soul food, which somehow makes you feel "that all's right with the world." A captivating "soul reader," Soul offers a spectacular range of stories, essays, poems, myths, and songs that sample the ways in which soul has been expressed through the ages and explores its myriad dimensions - philosophical, spiritual, theological, and even alchemical.
Arranged in seven sections mirroring the "spiraling path of the soul," Soul traces The Fall of the Soul into Time, The Seat of the Soul, Heart and Soul, Soul Crisis, Soul Work, The World Soul, and Soul and Destiny.
Selections include writings from such literary and historical luminaries as Carl Jung, James Joyce, Willa Cather, Thomas Aquinas, Susan Griffin, Tracy Kidder, St. Teresa of Avila, Raymond Carver, Jack Kerouac, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Alice Walker, Milan Kundera, Albert Schweitzer, T. S. Eliot, Wassily Kandinsky, Thomas Moore, and many, many more.

About this title

About the Author:

Phil Cousineau is an author, teacher, adventure travel leader, editor, photographer, and documentary filmmaker. His life-long fascination with the art, literature, and history of culture has taken him on journeys around theworld. He lectures frequently on a wide range of topics from creativity, mythology, and film to soul, writing, and travel.

Born at an army hospital in Columbia, South Carolina in 1952, Phil Cousineau grew up just outside of Detroit. While moonlighting in an automotive parts factory he studied journalism at the University of Detroit.His peripatetic career has also included stints as a sportswriter and photographer, playing basketball in Europe, harvesting date trees on an Israeli kibbutz, and painting forty-four Victorian houses in San Francisco.

His books published by HarperCollins are Soul: An Archaeology: Readings from Socrates to Ray Charles, The Soul of the World, Prayers at 3 a.m., The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work, and UFOs (from theperspective of myth). The Art of Pilgrimage: A Seeker's Guide to Making Travel Sacred, Soul Moments: Marvelous Stories of Synchronicity and Design Outlaws: On the Ecological Frontier are his most recent books. A book of his travel stories and reflections, The Book of Roads, will be published in early 1999. Deadlines: A Rhapsody on a Theme of Famous Last Words is anothertitle. Cousineau worked with the drummer John Densmore on his best-selling autobiography, Riders on the Storm: My Life with Jim Morrison and The Doors,and is a contributor to twelve other books.

His articles, reviews and poetry have been widely published in magazines and newspapers around the country. He has collaborated and appeared with Huston Smith, Joseph Campbell, Robert A. Johnson, Robert Bly, GioiaTimpanelli, Marian Zimmer Bradley, Mort Rosenblum, Brother David Steindl-Rast, Noel Riley-Fitch, Brian Swimme, Marija Gimbutas, John Densmore, David Whyte, Chungliang Al Huang, David Darling, Angeles Arrien, Robert Moore, Fred Alan Wolf, Mike Pindar, and Jamake Highwater.

His screenwriting credits in documentary films, which have won more thantwenty-five international awards, include: Ecological Design: Inventing the Future, The Wayfarers: The Revival of Polynesian Navigation, The PeyoteRoad, The Red Road to Sobriety, Your Humble Serpent: The Life of Reuben Snake, Wiping the Tears of Seven Generations, Eritrea: March to Freedom, The Presence of the Goddess, The Hero's Journey: The World of Joseph Campbell,and the 1991 Academy Award-nominated Forever Activists: Stories from theAbraham Lincoln Brigade.

His current projects include a television series, "The Soul of the City,"with Cousineau as host, currently in development with PBS, to be co-producedby Delilah Films and Pacific Ocean Post, Santa Monica, as well as three newbooks: Riddle Me This: A World Treasury of Riddles, Body and Soul, and Once and Future Myths, which will all appear in 1999-2001.

Since 1984, Cousineau has also led eight art and literary tours, intimategroup journeys to soulful places in Ireland, England, France, Greece, andTurkey. In 1999 and 2000, he will lead more tours including "BohemianParis," "The Troubadour Country of Provence," and "Italian Pilgrimage:Rome, Assisi, and Tuscany."

Cousineau lives on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco, California with hiscompanion Jo Beaton and their two-year-old son, Jack.

From Booklist:

Collecting writings about the soul has been a hobby of sorts for editor Cousineau, whose earlier projects include a book on Joseph Campbell. Here he has gathered his favorite passages, drawing upon rich and eclectic sources that include Egyptian, Mesoamerican, Arabian, Celtic, and Hawaiian myths, Jewish legends, and African folktales, as well as the work of philosophers, theologians, psychologists, poets, and artists. Cousineau explains his approach to fathoming the soul in a prologue that swings boldly from esoteric musings to memories of his childhood in Detroit and his love of soul music, a manifestation of this awesome power if ever there was one. This all-inclusive outlook granted Cousineau the freedom to select a group of strange bookfellows, to coin a term, including Plato, Thomas Aquinas, Hildegard of Bingen, George Santayana, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Carl Jung, Walt Whitman, Milan Kundera, May Sarton, Wassily Kandinsky, Black Elk, Eldridge Cleaver, Raymond Carver, Ansel Adams, Alice Walker, and Ray Charles. Donna Seaman

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0062502395
• ISBN 13: 9780062502391
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 249
• Editor: Phil Cousineau