I am so impressed that I am finally reading this book and I want to share it with people.
I will post essays and excerpts as I go through the reading. I have been carrying the book around in my head and heart for almost twenty years. A good friend gifted me it soon after publication in '94.
What has me now is Moore's embrace of depression. Saturn's child is one phrase. And he is well worth following down this path. How much have we gained in trying to "fix" depression?
Maybe it is there for a good reason. From page 141:
When, as counselors and friends, we are observers of depression
and are challenged to find a way to deal with it in others,
we could abandon the monotheistic notion that life always has to be cheerful,
and be instructed by melancholy. We could learn from its qualities and follow
its lead,
becoming more patient in its presence,
lowering our excited expectations,
taking a watchful attitude as this soul deals with its fate
in utter seriousness and heaviness.
In our friendship, we could offer it a place of acceptance
and containment.
Sometimes, of course, depression, like any emotion, can go beyond ordinary
limits, becoming a completely debilitating illness. But in extreme cases, too, even in the midst
of strong treatments, we can still look for Saturn at the core of depression and find ways
to befriend it.
Whadaya think?
Thomas Moore - Care Of The Soul - Posting Group
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