The Blackberry Walk

Rewatching Spice and Wolf over the past couple weeks has reminded me of Maid Dragon - one of my favourite anime. The similarity? The loss and regaining of soul. Let's start off with what soul even is. As a metaphysical construct, soul has existed since time immemorial across every culture on earth. The very fact that we have a conscious experience of the world must've been a sticking point for many peoples. How can we be both spiritual, transcending our own bodies through mystical experiences and rituals, yet simultaneously have a physical form, a body which is very much 'grounded' in the material world around us? From those starting blocks, the notion of a soul, an immaterial aspect to one's existence, must exist to make sense of being a human. What does the soul consist of then? That is a matter which culture after culture and philosopher upon philosopher have queried. However, there are some points upon which most agree. Soul is typically seen as something generative, creative - a lush forest from which ideas and thoughts spring. Meandering rivers of emotions and intuitions, dotted with mountain ranges of mental hangups. The soul can only really be understood by metaphor - it isn't physical after all. Even if the idea of soul is downtrodden by most people as 'un-scientific', most people you meet act as if there is in fact a soul. People respect you and act politely towards their loved one's not out of some egoistic expectation of reciprocation but rather because they sense something conscious in you and see you as more than a hunk of meat. Just like them, you too are conscious, and you too have a soul, a conscious lived experience of the world, just like them. What is it then to lose soul? The idea originates in hunter-gatherer communities, where losing your soul is what we'd call in the west 'depression'. Perhaps not depression in its most extreme form - hunter-gatherers live like man was designed to and have far fewer mental health issues - but it's losing contact with life and being cut off from the creative life-force of the soul. Cut off from the part of you which gives you the drive to take life by the horns and feel passion for being alive. But what could be more vivifying a feeling than love? When you are with your 'soul-mate', you see your soul in human form. Your lover energises you and fills you with joy and purpose, 'completing' you, as many would say. Plato too said in the Symposium that man was split asunder in the primordial age and ever since each and every man has forever been looking for their other half. We can never truly meet our soul. We can never form a permanent fusion with our other half and live out the rest of our days in total unity and bliss. But we can enshrine union through marriage and such to get as close as possible to it. Both Spice and Wolf and Maid Dragon exemplify this vision of soul loss and having a visit from their soul perfectly. Lawrence in Spice and Wolf is a merchant through and through. He lives and breathes the merchant life. However people are more than just their professions - there is so much more to life, after all. To identify yourself with the mask of your profession can be very restricting. Therefore he is visited by the wolf god Holo. Kobayashi from Maid Dragon is much the same. She's settled down and stagnated in life, working long hours as a programmer. Once you begin to stagnate, the novel things which were once fun and filled you with life are no longer new and are instead blunt. You no longer get the feeling of the creative rush which your soul releases. Tohru, then, is the soul image for Kobayashi. She's the joy and love which the day in day out 9 to 5 monotony beats out of you. For both of these characters who live persona-possessed lives, they're visited by a goddess - a messiah - someone to show the extra dimension of life, the child-like joy, which they didn't even realise they had lost. What's common to both series is the attachment which forms. Both Lawrence and Kobayashi have moments when what's most important to them - their souls - is about to be taken from them. For Lawrence, he nearly lost Holo in the first arc of the second series when an enterprising boy wished to steal her hand in marriage. For Kobayashi, Tohru's father had come to collect her - the father being symbolic of culture and the imperitive work ethic of the Japanese salaryman - which wishes to take away Kobayashi's soul once more. Threats to dispossess us of our souls are abound. Strong personalities and tempting mythologies are forever trying to tempt us out of our own rhythm, out of our own 'plotline', and into theirs. Often we're willing to yield our souls, to yield ourselves, to these 'fathers' - strongmen, cultures and ideas - in order to yield our responsibility and instead be spoonfed solutions to your ills. It is a kind of castration. A kind of Faustian pact. I will sell you my soul... but please give me direction! Please give me destination! Guide me, please! But something is lost in the process. Lawrence and Kobayashi come to realise this. They know they can't just give up their souls again. They don't want to sell their soul to their profession, to their culture, to the Great Father, because they now realise it's what's most important. It is the spark of authenticity which gives character. Without soul what are we? Are we not just mechanical beasts on autopilot? Without creativity, without passion, without zeal, are we really alive at all? If you lose your soul, you must find her again. If your soul has been stolen, you must fight for her back. You may lose every penny and risk bankrupcy like Lawrence, you may have to fight the dragon king of the chaos faction like Kobayashi, but even if a great Bowser or Gannon of culture stands in your way you must fight for her. Since to lose your soul, is to be dead. It is to lose contact with what matters. And with every bone in our body we must fight for what is us.