“You Should Cry At Least Once a Week, to Keep Your Soul Wet”
I once heard poet Robert Bly (in a workshop at the Jung Institute in San Francisco) say this, “You should cry at least once a week, to keep your soul wet.” Bly, who left this life at age 94 a few years ago while suffering from Alzheimer’s, taught many of us a lot about grief, when tears naturally flow, about male grief especially, and about doing “soul-work.”
Among the most common occasions for grief is war. Here are two of the most powerful antiwar songs ever written (so, a couple of opportunities for us to nourish our souls):
THE GREAT MANDALA (PETER, PAUL AND MARY):
By the way, speaking of soul, listen especially to Tommy Sands in the following version of Pete Seeger’s “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” Sands began his career as a tinny-voiced “teen idol” in the 1950s, singing with Annette Funicello, and looking for all the world like the clean-cut Bobby Darin. But in Seeger’s song below, singing with the great Irish vocalist Dolores Keane, Sands sounds like a world-weary elder, which indeed he may be. Talk about this life as an opportunity to build a soul, Sands’ voice is the most soulful I’ve ever heard (but then the Irish have that effect on me).
WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE? (TOMMY SANDS & DOLORES KEANE):
