Shakespeare on Body & Soul
While reading a short piece on the ancient Hawaiian teaching of Ho’oponopono, I came across a reference to the following Shakespeare sonnet. It describes how the body and soul are intertwined, the body being the slave of the soul ultimately paying the price for that which the soul endures. When you take time to quietly and patiently observe and intently listen to what your soul has to say through the body, you cannot help but hear every word.
William Shakespeare: Sonnet CXLVI
Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
these rebel powers that thee array;
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? is this thy body’s end?
Then soul, live thou upon thy servant’s loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more:
So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,
And Death once dead, there’s no more dying then.
Laura Stadler Consulting 