Please introduce yourself

[Barque]

Greetings, we now have nine members in the forum. It might be helpful if we shared who we are, why we joined the forum, what attracts us to Moore's writing.I know lots of reasons to lurk on listservs. Please contribute at least one post telling us about your interests in Moore's work.

[kay graham]

I am a retired schoolteacher (art). My all time favorite book in the world is The Reenchantment of Everyday Life. It truly changed my life. I live in Carlisle ,Pennsylvania and garden alot.I also have two used bookstores and sell books on the net. I am also learning to bind books.

[Barque]

Thanks Kay for taking the plunge and joining me in the pool. In a future post, I hope you'll tell how The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life changed your life. Are you taking a book binding class or learning this on your own?

[kay graham]

Well!!! It seems as if something may get going. I am so happy that you started this website.In answer to your questions I have been taking classes in bookbinding. I also bound in art school a bezillon years ago As to the importance of the Moore book. I was at a very interesting time in my life ,at 60 I both fell in love and came across a sudden waterfall in a woods, both given as examples in his introduction. The book was then read to me as I cooked for a time during the beging of the relationship. Sharing a book such as that was a window into someones soul..

[Paul Nicholls]

Hi Deborah--good to see that the forum is now gaining some well-deserved momentum! I am a semi-retired university professor (Library & Information Science) who is now about to move to a remote area of the Philippines. From Canada! Probably to teach ESL but I mainly work at research and writing on the Internet. I like this site and the forum because I have always found Moore's books very insightful and thought-provoking. I bet other forum members have as well and will want to talk about them moore (I mean--more). Hanggang sa muli!

[Sarah Meisner]

Hello, Everyone. I'm glad I found this forum and I'm hoping to join some discussions. A friend recently recommended that I read Dark Nights of the Soul, and I'm glad I did. I thought it was a profoundly moving book, and I've gone on to read Care of the Soul and Soul Mates. I can really identify a lot with what Moore has to say as far as living life soulfully. I would like to participate on this forum, and I'd also be interested in sending private messages back and forth with members so we can talk about more specific things.

[Barque]

Hi Sarah, Welcome to Barque: Thomas Moore Forum. Forum members are introducing themselves and sharing why they're interested in Thomas Moore's work. I hope we'll feel comforable enough expressing our interests by the time his next book is available in February. Thank you for joining and feel free to start a discussion about a Moore topic that interests you. Also, check out Barque:Thomas Moore for updates about Moore's work.

[Barque]

Thanks Ken for your introduction and sharing your interest in Moore's writings. I hope we can generate discussion that will help all of us live more soulfully.

[Rob]

I was given a copy of Care of the Soul as a college graduation present. The woman who gave it to me knew Thomas Moore and has one of her books listed in the recommended reading section of Care of the Soul. I don't think I really read the book back then, but I certainly gained a lot from it the second time around. Other books by Moore have spoken to me as well. I feel a kinship with Thomas Moore when I read and listen to his words.

I teach ESL at a local college. I've been doing this kind of work for about a decade. I'm currently completing my Master's degree. My undergrad was in Film and TV Production, and I worked in the entertainment industry for a spell before moving to Europe for a couple of years.

Thank you for providing this forum. May we find the soul in cyber-communication!

Rob

[Barque]

Hi Rob,
Welcome to the Barque: Thomas Moore Forum. Thank you for telling us about yourself and about your interests in Moore's writings. We'll see how the forum develops ... D.

[Gary Hodges]

Who I am: I just became a member, fell upon this forum accidentally. I started out, while registering, to fill in my profile. I wasn’t sure what to say at first, but found and older post about introductions.

Anyway, who am I, in relation more so to this forum, I could take you as far back as a teenager, wherein I would have many dreams come true. Those years were particularly trying due to circumstances surrounding me. Since then, in order, I have studied dream interpretation; Edgar Cayce, Occultism, Theosophy, Mysticism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Zen, Esoteric Christianity, Siddha Buddhism and of course, nearly everything Thomas Moore has written. My next book to read of his will be “The Soul's Religion.

Probably my most profound and perhaps Thomas Moore’s, most profound work, for me was/is Soul Mates. By far, no other writings have impacted my life in a more truly spiritual way has his works have. To which, I have been an active poet since, entering into one of my most impacting ‘dark nights”, my first divorce. Since then I have written over 100 poems.

As an inspiration, “Soul Mates”, prompted me to write this poem. Some of the words are from this book, some are my own take on them, others are musings. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it:

“Untitled”

To your soul I'm related.
Looking beyond your intention,
and my expectation.
Did I forget to mention,
that I'm offering to tolerate
a broken heart?

Your mystery presents itself,
then fills the shadows with light,
and the holes with more ground.
Pain is my involvement.
I am tortured by your warm intimacy,
yet, it uncovers my soul and its potency.

The push of the distant connections,
for which it only quickens;
as I never, really, want to arrive.

by Gary Hodges

Probably the second most impacting and insightfully filled book of Moore’s, and for me personally, is “Dark Nights of the Soul”. I am about to have read it twice in less than 1 month and highlighting it to death. :)

[Neill]

I am the aging, rotund father of three wonderful daughters, grandfather to one terrific grandson and a good friend to at least one genuinely good person. :-)

Years ago, I read Thomas Moore at the urging of a friend. I read "Re-Enchantment..." first, and was captivated with the idea of giving depth to my life through what surrounds me in my personal environment. But it's when I read "Dark Nights..." that I was most captivated by the idea of the darkness being a kind of hero's journey, and that gifts can be brought back from the journey through the symbolic darkness. Also fascinating me was the idea of re-imaging the darkness of the clinical state of depression to a natural event in lives, not to be rushed through but learned from, as in Rilke's Tenth Duino Elegy (translated by Stephen Mitchell):

How dear you will be to me then, you nights of anguish. Why didn't I kneel more deeply to accept you,
inconsolable sisters, and, surrendering, lose myself
in your loosened hair. How we squander our hours of pain.
How we gaze beyond them into the bitter duration
to see if they have an end. Though they are really
our winter-enduring foliage, our dark evergreen,
one season in our inner year-, not only a season
in time-, but are place and settlement, foundation and soil
and home.

I suffer badly from depression, having been hospitalized more times than I can easily count, and finally I need to live on disability. If someone were to tell me I could bring gifts to the world when I am in the midst of such pain and separation from all that is good in the world, I would likely cold-cock them. But afterwards it is what I believe, and there are many things I've learned, among them understanding, humility and gratitude.

OK. Sorry to go on so long. It's nice to be here. Hopefully I can learn more about soulful living and how to live it.

[Gary Hodges]

Ok, your getting me started Adrianne, :) if I may give a poetic reply, (a song, really.) I often speak to a topic better in poetry or song. Seems I have this music inside me, yet, I sing inside the silence of words written.

A Rose

I was walking in the rain.
on the sidewalk was a stain,
the darkend red of someone's pain;
is this where I'm going again?

Walking down the street,
like my heart, these feet,
in steps that do repeat;
the sounds of retreat.

I was talking in the tears
of the times, the years,
and the mindlessness of these fears;
then a trampled rose appears.

Walking down the street,
like my heart, these feet,
in steps that do repeat;
the sounds of retreat.

I was thinking when I should not,
it only makes my heart caught,
in places that are a plot;
you know what the grave bought.

It bought a familiar place,
as my soul could not face,
the love that had no trace;
in the mud it was erased.

Walking down the street,
like my heart, these feet,
in steps that do repeat;
the sounds of retreat.