Observance is a word from ritual and religion. It means to watch out for, but also to honor and keep as in the observance of a holiday. The serv in observance originally referred to tending sheep. Observing the soul, we keep an eye on its sheep, on whatever is wandering and grazing. — Thomas Moore

When I speak of the soul… I [am] referring to a vital animating core of our embodied selves—a certain essential something that links us (through love) to the divine, to each other, and to the exquisite beauties of the natural and cultural world. We know the soul when we experience it. — Donald Kalsched

Is the soul solid, like iron?
Or is it tender and breakable, like
the wings of a moth in the beak of the owl?
Who has it, and who doesn’t?
I keep looking around me.
The face of the moose is as sad as the face of Jesus.
The swan opens her white wings slowly.
In the fall, the black bear carries leaves into the darkness.
One question leads to another.
Does it have a shape? Like an iceberg?
Like the eye of a hummingbird?
Does it have one lung, like the snake and the scallop? Why should I have it, and not the anteater
who loves her children?
Why should I have it, and not the camel?
Come to think of it, what about the maple trees?
What about the blue iris?
What about all the little stones, sitting alone in the moonlight?
What about roses, and lemons, and their shining leaves?
What about the grass?
— Mary Oliver

Soul is not a thing, but a quality or a dimension of experiencing life and ourselves. It has to do with depth, value, relatedness, heart, and personal substance. — Thomas Moore

According to Jewish legend, evidence for forgetting the soul’s prenatal election is pressed right into your upper lip. That little crevice below your nose is where the angel pressed its forefinger to seal your lips. That little indentation is all that is left to remind you of your preexistent soul-life, and so, as we conjure up an insight or a lost thought, our fingers go up to that significant dent. — James Hillman

It was only a small silvery thing — say a piece of silver clothe, or a thousand spider webs woven together, or a small handful of aspen leaves with their silver backs shimmering. And it came leaping out of the closed coffin; it flew into the air, it danced snappingly around the church rafters; it vanished through the ceiling. I spoke there, briefly, of the loved one gone. I gazed at the people in the pews, some of them weeping. I knew I must, someday, write this down. — Mary Oliver