What is a soul, anyway? Is it a person? An intangible being? A philosophy? Perhaps it’s a vague interpretation of science, linked to an even broader interpretation of spirituality, that would define a soul as the energy animating a body.
But if that’s the case, then what constructs that energy? Quantum physics and metaphysical philosophy would say energy is a compilation of our hopes, our dreams, and our desires. Of our preferences, talents, orientations and thoughts.
Even the dark ones.
“All things have a soul” was the original tagline for Divinity & The Python, a tenet which, in
retrospect, speaks more to the theme than the action (hence the change in tagline to “Divinity:
Where desire and deception both hide in the dark”) in the story. Yet ‘All Things Have A Soul’ remains a powerful premise that threads through the undercarriage of this novel. All things have a soul—all things including the places we live, or visit, most often.
Is that even possible?
In my work as a counselor, I’m well-acquainted with the intensity of emotions, and how
pervasive trauma, in particular, can be on a body—often affecting not only a person’s
psychological construct, but even also their physical health. In fact, data indicate that there is a scientific link between the mind-body-spirit (Ahem! Would that be the soul’s?) experience, that to impact one will impact the others. There are also studies supporting the concept of cellular memory—that is, what happens to our body not only impacts us, but also leaves an imprint on all our future generations to come. Sort of like a bread pan with a dent: every loaf of bread baked thereafter will bear the same mark, the same painful disfigurement.
Ah, but can we (do we?) also leave these same bits of ourselves behind in places? Our passionate pieces, our pained pieces…our punitive pieces?
If you believe that all things have a soul, then you may also believe that we do leave these tracings behind. For consider this: have you ever visited a place and felt queerly, and inexplicably, comforted as you crossed the threshold? Or perhaps you’ve bolted up from the cellar after a strange sense of threat that you can’t explain bit at your ankles. Have you ever been somewhere within which you cannot shake a deep sense of dread?
(If you haven’t then might I suggest you go HERE, then re-examine those same questions):
Some places evoke an intensely emotional reaction simply because they are places where intense emotion has occurred—and what is intense emotion if not powerful energy? (So strong it can propel us into fight or flight).
And we know, scientifically, that energy cannot be destroyed, so…imagine. As you live,
breathe, and think in a building, the building, in turn, begins to live, breathe, and think because...it’s absorbed you.
Half the action in Divinity & The Python takes place in a nightclub called The Python, a place that pulses to the beat of lighthearted fun. Hey—it is a bar, after all. People go there to have a good time. And as they do, The Python inhales them as her own, then reflects them at their best. So it’s classy.
Flashy. Sometimes sassy.
I mean look at this place:
Pretty uptown. Yet ask my heroine, bartender Shaynie Gavin, and she’ll tell you that for all its polish, The Python is, at its core, soaked in booze, boobs, bums, and balls—and she both will, and won’t, be joking. For Shaynie, of all people, knows better than to laugh as the night crawls on. For as the darkness deepens, the blurred lines of booze and bandying veer over one another and if all that energy is feeding a soul, then it is wanton. Wild. Absorbing sensual attraction that morphs into sexual desire—then devouring that same desire as it transforms into lust. And as strobe lights spill sideways into an endless ocean of booze, The Python’s soul starts to shift upon its spectrum, and what was once superficial pink playfulness becomes deep crimson depravity. Blood-drenched darkness. Because if The Python does have a soul, how could it be anything other than human? And don’t we know playful…but also punishment? Innocence and ire? We love…and we loathe.
So does The Python.
So then, knowing both light and dark just like a person—can we truly say that The Python’s soul is evil?
Well…aren’t any of us only what we want to be? All things have a soul, but all things also
have preference, do they not?
Ahem. So does The Python.
Take my advice if you’re one of those whom Shaynie refers to as ‘The Python Pack’:? Play safe...
Purchase link for Divinity & The Python and, when you are finished Shaynie's story, her brother Andrew has had an amazing experience too. There is, after all, a reason why he is so unnerved whenever he visits Shaynie's old morgue. Death troubles Andrew greatly. Discover why HERE: Within The Summit's Shadow
Enjoy my Secrets & Shadows series!