The Soul lies above the Mind, Heart, Body, and Psyche in every garden I draw. And yet, despite its prominence, it often remains empty or marked only by a few sparse twigs like this one below. Today’s exploration focuses on the Soul, its sparse vegetation, and its emptiness. Can we find meaning in what is not shown?

As usual, slide the vertical line to see how the garden section grew.

Deep Purple on a Dark Moor

At the center of the drawing lies a moor of black, grey, and brown tears and peat. Red shadows appear on the left near the Mind section, with a pink counterpart on the right near the Heart. The moor leaves a reverent blank space under the word Soul.

Heavy dark colored plants grow from the turf, deep purple in the middle rising toward the word soul as if wanting to bridge the white space, but also they stay at a respectful distance from it. Bright red blades of grass rise on the left and touch the letter “D” of the word mind while a dark khaki set of twigs rises towards the Heart section to barely touch it without trespassing.

The vegetation on both sides continues its progression towards the outside beyond the word Soul. On the right, dark blue offshoots grow along the line between the Soul and the Heart sections. They intermingle with small pink blades of grass that end before a patch of brown earth bordered by a patch of dark blue. A hairy shape forms at the very top of the drawing, coming out of the dark blue patch, like a primal life form that had not yet decided what it would become. On the left side, towards the Mind, the red grasses touching the letter “D” lead towards a cluster of red bushes evolving along the top left border, interrupted by another brown earth patch near the letter “S” of Soul.

And then there is the wide, empty, white patch in the outer Soul section, separating the two strands that reach inward, leaving space for either creation or despair.

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A Lid and Two Escape Routes

Returning to the notes I wrote on the same blank garden template that day (I use the template twice for each drawing: once for the drawing itself that I show in the blog and once to jot down comments on how I feel and what occurred around me), I had noted in the center: “Grounded in ideas and reading + relationships, a solid feeling of solidity.” I particularly enjoy how the drawing reflects this with one side towards the Mind rooted in ideas and knowledge, the other side appearing in characteristic red and pink tones of relationships in the Heart section. If there had been any doubt about the meaning of the dark earth patches within the moor and their offshoots left and right, the grounding analogy can dispel it.

The purple plants in the center of the moor are harder to interpret. I described them as reaching toward the word Soul while keeping their distance. My impression is that the horizontally drawn, deep purple word SOUL weighs down on the section, suppressing inner feelings from surfacing above it. Visually, the word acts like a lid, capping spiritual experiences of life’s meaning. But these feelings seek escape routes, bypass the word by diverting left and right toward the Mind and the Heart where they find an easier terrain to grow.

Mind and Heart at Help

External events that nourish the meaning of my life, as I described the outer Soul section of the garden in a previous Q&A, are absent here at first. However, they’re clearly visible on either side: the Heart grows pink and blue plants along its boundary, while the Mind emits red bushes resembling cloud messages. My written notes mention friends (on the right), novel reading, and religious knowledge on the left, echoing the vegetation on both sides. It is nice to see also that each side features a brown earth patch like an outpost of the central moor, reinforcing the grounding feature.

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Freedom

At first glance, the outer Soul section seems empty, as if lacking purpose. Yet it is the richness of its surroundings that shapes this silence, just as musical notes carve meaning into the stillness that follows them. With the Mind and Heart as helpers, the Soul has cleared a space free of illusion and outside distractions, in which it can grow outward, gradually inhabiting the space it has already defined.

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