Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are intuitively precious things that cannot be taken from you.” – Oscar Wilde

The idea of the soul has long fascinated me. How do we think and talk about that which we cannot see or quantify? Are we more than our physical body and what do we mean when we talk about our soul’s purpose?

I first became intrigued by these questions after discovering Vedic meditation. Starting the practice as a way to process stress, I have since found it to be a way to tap into higher consciousness and spirituality. While this might sound rather lofty, spending 20 minutes a day doing nothing but being is reason enough to pursue it.

At RUSSH we’ve never shied away from going a little deeper. While we don’t claim to hold all the answers to the questions, we certainly aim to spark the imagination along the way.

In this issue, we tackle the idea of soul mates: so prevalent in pop culture but do they exist in real life? Victoria Pearson looks into this rarefied relationship – perhaps the person best suited to penning this article due to her experience as a civil marriage celebrant.

And, when confronting the realms of the soul, death is an inevitable part of the puzzle. We explore how our own mortality can help us live more honestly. As Anna Harrison writes in Life After Life, many cultures see death as part of the rhythm of living. The Kingdom of Bhutan boasts the highest happiness index in the Asia Pacific, perhaps due in part to this philosophy. Such worldviews offer alternative perspectives on the notion of fulfilment.

Spiritual teacher Gary Zukav, who has brought the notion to a wide audience, sums up the concept of the soul so succinctly: “You experience your soul each time you sense yourself as more than a mind and body, your life as meaningful, or you feel that you have gifts to give and you long to give them.”

The Soul Issue is available for purchase here.