Soul Medicine: A Physician's Reflections on Life, Love, Death and Healing
Written and Narrated By: Judith Boice
Length: 4 hrs and 24 mins
Meditations on nature, spirit, what it’s all about
Judith Boice has written Soul Medicine as a series of essays in four parts: Each season is covered, but I’m too big a buffoon to tell ya EXACTLY what’s different in each season as all of them cover pretty much the same thing.
It’s not that the book gets repetitive… until it does. Sure, each season chronicles the differences Boice observes in Nature (And she does a truly fine job in writing them—very poetic and lyrical!), it’s just that her thoughts are pretty much the same no matter what.
Plus, they’re kinda scattered.
You’ll find a few snippets about her children, a few snippets about some friends who’ve made a difference in her life and in the way she navigates her way through the world, and SEVERAL stories about her spiritual quests. But not much in the way of healing. Rather, Soul Medicine is her meditations on meditating in several parts of the world: India, Scotland, you name the place and Boice has meditated there.
There is one story, however, that stuck with me and that’s of one quiet, somewhat sullen man she met during a retreat. He’d been living with cancer for some time, and she was moved to make him a gift of a single smooth stone as a memory of friendship and the universe’s love. He took it rather abstractedly, but it changed him in profound ways in that he was suddenly able to feel his grief and fear. He later joyfully reported to her that he was able to get in touch with his sorrow and set it free through a torrent of tears and gratitude.
And I s’pose that’s the way it is with the whole of the book. Boice’s essays, and her soothing tones as she narrates this herself, reminds us that we’re not alone in this vast universe and perhaps we are capable of huge and infinite lives. The book reminds us to appreciate the world we live in even as we look to our next lives, or phases of spirit.
If you’re profoundly religious, you might find her thoughts of the continuity of spirit and the possibility of a life after this one (or one before this one) disturbing or offensive. I didn’t as Boice comes across as warm and loving, as all-accepting, and as non-judgmental. Plus, she doesn’t come across as someone who thinks she’s got all the answers.
At barely over 4 hours, this is a nice book to dip into as a way to get away from the rat race. It might go super well during a traffic-botched commute, I dunno. But I CAN tell you that it was a mighty nice listen as I did little mini-jaunts throughout the neighborhood, especially enjoying her descriptions of winter as I slogged through a Central Texas summer…
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