This is essentially the argument for the soul: it holds reality together, it is my offscreen director, my presiding intelligence. I can think, talk, work, love, and dream, all because of the soul, yet the soul doesn't do any of these things. It is me... Everything that makes the difference between life and death must cross into this world via the soul... Soul is a connection between the world of the five senses and a world of inconceivable things like eternity, infinity, omniscience, grace, and every other quality unmanifest.
When we truly open our hearts to each other, there is no burden too heavy for us to carry together, there is no pain too deep for us to hold in each other's arms. And it's in that place that the alchemy emerges. It's in the cauldron of sharing our grief with our community, of gazing at it together and not looking away, that the heartbreak turns to hope.
~ Jeremy Lent in THE ALCHEMY OF HEARTBREAK AND HOPE: A SPIRITUAL PRACTICE FOR OUR TIMES