"Like anyone just awakened the soul cannot look at bright objects. It must be persuaded to look first at beautiful habits, then the works of beauty produced not by craftsmen's skill but by the virtue of men known for their goodness, then the souls of those known for beautiful deeds . . . Only the mind's eye can contemplate this mighty beauty . . . So ascending, the soul will come to Mind . . . and to the intelligible realm where Beauty dwells." (Enneads I.6.9)

       After setting up camp in a Death Valley campground, how inspiring it is to stand in the wilderness looking up at the sunset! Facing west, you watch as the sky glows yellow, orange and bright red. It is breathtakingly beautiful! You think, "There is no greater beauty than this." Then, in the morning, as the sun prepares to rise in the east, the sky glows in a spectacular display of color. "Wow! This is amazing!" You feel the beauty in your solar plexus in the center of your chest, and tears flow down your cheeks. It's overwhelming!

      What happened? Something in the body and in the psyche is touched in a special way. We feel awe -- a numinous experience, as if we were in the presence of the divine. What enters us as numinous often is accompanied by an aesthetic response, where the beauty (or ugliness) can be felt throughout one's very being. It is difficult to say which comes first, but it seems to me that when we sense a divine presence in a glorious experience, the soul "sings" and we call it "beautiful." We can have a fearful response to the divine as well, and while it is numinous, the inner response approaches dread. Similarly, becoming conscious of what has previously been unconscious, such as uncovering a shadow part of ourselves, can arouse the numinosum, because the awareness is like a revelation. Consequently, it appears that what is numinous may not necessarily be associated with beauty, but the deeply felt aesthetic experience is very likely to be numinous as well. The response to any stimulus, however, is a very personal and idiosyncratic one. Some people, exposed to a spectacular sunset (in my view), might not even notice the occurrence or casually look in the sky and say perfunctorily, "Hmm, pretty" or "Interesting," and turn unmoved to another interest. For that person the experience would be neither numinous nor aesthetic.

      Years ago, I was leisurely strolling through a residential neighborhood, when I stopped in front of a house magnificently landscaped with an abundance of colorful, flowering plants. The variety and arrangement of blossoms struck me as exceptionally beautiful. I stood soaking in the lovely sight and said a silent prayer, "Thank you, God, for creating such beauty!" Then, as I continued to admire and appreciate the sight, a cat walked across the grass between the garden and me. It did not hesitate for a second to view and enjoy the beauty of the flora. It seemed totally uninterested. Revelation! I suddenly realized that the beauty was not out there in the garden, and I rethought my prayer: "Thank you, God, for creating in me the ability to experience and appreciate beauty." Since then, that is the gratitude I continue to hold. Something similar happened several years later. I was in my garden in the spring looking over my rose bushes. One red rose was especially large and glorious, and I exclaimed out loud, "You're beautiful!" A strong but soft inner voice spoke to me and said, "The beauty isn't out there! The rose doesn't make itself 'beautiful;' like everything else, it just IS. Beauty - an inner experience -- lies wholly inside you." "Hmm," I thought, "that must mean I have something of beauty in me that I project onto the rose." "Exactly! You're the one having the delicious feelings that you associate with beauty, not the rose," the voice asserted.

      In this essay, the concept of beauty, the positive aspect of the aesthetic experience, does not refer to a collective idea of what is supposed to be beautiful. Common expressions, such as, "She's beautiful," "That was a beautiful book," "That was a beautiful thing to say," "What an unattractive piece of furniture," or "How could s/he do such a thing; that's awful" all smack of collective "shoulds." The inner Critic, which holds to collective standards for its critical attacks on us, is likely to be saying, "That's the way one should look to be judged beautiful," "That book was written the way books should be written," "You said what you ought to say to be considered nice," "People don't display that kind of furniture; it's too garish," "You shouldn't be doing things like that; its wrong." None of these inner attacks or the feeling of guilt felt by the inner Child could be considered an aesthetic response. Rather, the experience of beauty or ugliness has a depth that I find difficult to describe, a depth that the inner Child cannot fathom. The sense of beauty lies solely within the Soul and does not lie within the inner Child - nor in any of the other archetypal parts of us. But the inner Child can bask in the pleasure of the Soul's aesthetic response.

      The aesthetic experience has come to be the primary motivation in the way I spend most of the moments of my life. Freud emphasized "the pleasure principle," but pleasure does not necessarily imply beauty, just as displeasure does not necessarily imply ugliness, even though the experience of beauty is usually pleasurable and ugliness is generally associated with unpleasant feelings. We can enjoy rides at an amusement park, but the pleasure gained would not likely be considered beautiful. Eating food when one is hungry, satisfying one's lust, cross-dressing, or compulsively pointing out others' assets and faults can be very pleasurable and even feel joyful, because it satisfies a longing. But generally speaking, no experience of beauty is derived from satisfying those bodily or emotional needs. Food can please the palate and can also fill one with a sense of beauty, like listening to music that "sends" one, but I doubt that the taste of food and aesthetics accompany each other very often.

      Beauty does not necessarily accompany pleasure, and pleasure does not necessarily accompany beauty. However, it is more likely that we would feel good when we experience beauty than feeling good would evoke the experience of beauty.

      Aesthetic reactions do not only apply to sensations. Beauty can be experienced in activities (especially creative endeavors), in harmonious relationships, and in successful communications. We can sense ugliness in morally destructive activities, dysfunctional relationships, and fruitless communications. Again, I caution the reader to distinguish between conventional, traditional, or otherwise collective ideas of what is beautiful and what is felt in the Soul. The latter has nothing to do with others' concepts; it lies solely within each of us independently, because each of us has a unique relationship to Soul.

      Using punishment to discipline our children can often feel bad. As loving parents, we surely would rather not cause our children pain, discomfort, or displeasure. But in the total picture of the child's development, carefully designed discipline can be a source of beauty, especially if it is fair, respectful, and constructive in honest intent. A father decided to discipline his daughter for a repeated infraction of a rule. Her discipline was to sit in a chair in the corner of a nearly empty room and not move from the chair nor speak for 10 minutes. She cried and begged him not to make her do it and promised not to misbehave again. But she had been warned before. The father's heart was in pain at her apparent grief and from her pathetic pleas. She sat in the corner and a timer was set. When the time was up, she stopped weeping and ran to her father and threw her arms around him and said, "I love you daddy!" (My interpretation of the child's remark is this: "I need you to love and care for me, Daddy, and you did what I needed you to do.") The father found beauty in the honesty with which nature expressed herself in his daughter's reaction to the discipline.

      The question has been posed to me more than once: What is the Soul? Well, to begin with, it is not a "thing" one can point to, describe, or illustrate. Since I am not a theologist, my concept of the Soul tends primarily to be personal, based on my own inner psychological work. Briefly, I define the Soul as that part of us which connects us with the life process and with God, the Creator, Nature, a Higher Power, or whatever name one gives to the Ultimate Source.

      The Soul appears to me in my 'active imaginations' as a feminine figure and voice. Carl Jung proposed that the Soul appears in feminine form to men and in masculine form to women. In her book, Knowing Woman, Irene de Castillejo says that for her, the Soul is feminine. Marie Louise von Franz, another Jungian author, told me that for her the Soul is masculine. Perhaps the gender attributed to the Soul is a personal matter rather than arising out of a principle or whether one is male or female.

      When connected with the Soul, one feels at peace. It is a true inner peace, not dependent upon any particular person, thing, or activity, such as a minister or guru, an ankh, or meditation, respectively. We may experience physical or emotional pain, sadness, or any other emotion, but if we are aligned with the Soul, the sensation or emotion rests on a bed of inner peace and beauty. It feels "right" - not right in a judgmental sense, but there is a sense of wholeness, feeling "centered," or feeling at one with God, nature, or the universe.

      Out of extensive self-examinations, it appears to me that the experience of beauty or ugliness is a direct experience of the Soul. The aesthetic response fills the body and mind with a kind of joy or horror, which appears to reflect the Soul's sense of fulfillment or devastation.

      If Carl Jung is correct, archetypes within the unconscious struggle against ego resistance, striving to become conscious. In their indefatigable effort, archetypal efforts to enter awareness mask the "still, small voice" of the Soul. As a result, the Soul remains concealed from one's awareness. Consciousness can easily be invaded by one undeveloped complex or another in such forms as dreams, fantasies, addictions, projections, unintentional acts, emotional outbursts, and a multitude of psychological symptoms. When we feel a strong affect or severe physical pain or when consciousness is focused on such acts as complaining, making judgments, or coping with an insatiable longing, anxiety, fear, or depression, we cannot be open to experiencing the Soul or beauty. While the Soul surely suffers in silence from our suffering the archetypal invasion, it cannot connect with our consciousness, because we are too preoccupied in dealing with the insurgences from the unconscious.

      Struggling with all of these demanding issues strengthens the personality. Accepting and integrating their underlying sources tend, over time, to diminish the 'noise' made by their demands for attention. Dedication to this exacting work ultimately can reduce the intensity of that 'noise' so that the Soul can connect with consciousness.

      For me, Soul is often found in inner silence -- in providing space and an openness to whatever arises from within or without. One can only receive beauty in quietude. That is, beauty can only enter when the Soul is bathed in silence. Consequently, inner silence may be the ultimate form of beauty and the place where the Soul fills all the space.