Your soul is not only your true nature, it is your true place in nature.
We’re all born to occupy, serve, and nurture our place within the ecosystem of the universe. ย
But tragically, in the 21st century, our species has come to perceive existence as something to consume and use, rather than to truly forge a relationship with and appreciate.
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Finding your Soul Place, while an unusual and largely forgotten avenue of self-discovery, can help us reconnect with the living earth, and therefore ourselves.
Table of contents
- Lessons From the Magical Australian Outback
- What is a Soul Place?
- What We Can Learn From Indigenous Cultures
- Examples of Collective Soul Places
- How to Find Your Soul Place
- 11 Signs You’ve Found Yourย Soul Place
- Do I Have to Find My Soul Place to Be at Peace?
- Your Soul Is Not Only Yours; It’s Also Part of the World’s Soul
Lessons From the Magical Australian Outback
A few years agoย I had an experience in the Australian outback.
On a walk, I found a beautiful stone lodged into the earth. After picking it up and admiring it for a bit, I put it back down and continued walking.
The Aboriginal man that was with me laughed, shook his head in disbelief, and exclaimed, “It’s strange! Usually, white man always wanna own everything he sees and touches.”
I pondered his words and realized that something (a stone in this case) only retains its beauty and value when in its own setting.
Away from the Outback, the sand dunes, and the sun, the stone simply becomes a “thing” to be hoarded and left to gather dust on a bookshelf.
Just like this rock, we too have places and spaces that most resonate and ‘fit’ us.
And when we’re put in foreign settings that don’t match our energy or essence, we inevitably feel out of place.
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What is a Soul Place?
The concept of having a special ‘Soul Place’ in this world is not new.
We see mentions of this fascinating concept from ancient shamanic cultures who believed in power places to modern psychologists such as Bill Plotkin.
In essence, a Soul Place (or power place) is a special site or spot where we experience unique feelings of belonging, empowerment, expansion, and energetic rejuvenation.
We all have at least oneย Soul Placeย in this world.
As I mentioned before, many eco-centered cultures knew of Soul Places. The Australian aborigines, for instance, believe that each person has one place in the natural world where they most belong โ a place that is as much part of us as we are part of it.
In finding that place, we also find and reconnect with the soul within us.
What We Can Learn From Indigenous Cultures
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
โ David Wagoner (Lost, Traveling Light)
are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
and you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
you are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
where you are. You must let it find you.
Indigenous cultures and shamans have known for thousands of years that there are special places in nature that have a sacred personal connection to us.
Unlike our modern ecologically disconnected cultures, their awareness of the Spirit realmย allowed them to create ceremonies that were specifically aimed at initiating them into spiritual maturity through nature-based practices.
Here in Australia for example, theย aborigines have a cultural tradition called the “Walkabout.”
A walkabout occurs when an aboriginal youth wanders through the bush completely alone for weeks, sometimes months. As the youth wanders, they avoid all human interaction, going in search of a place they feel at home.
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Another example can be found within the indigenous people of the Sahara, the Tuareg.
Saharan women who are pregnant occasionally wander into the nearby desert with the intention of finding โ or being found by โ a sacred site.
This sacred site would then be the place for birthing their child.
While this rite of passage sounds terrifying to the Western mind, these women report not feeling alone or scared because they feel a great depth of relationship and bone-deep kinship with the land.
Examples of Collective Soul Places
While a Soul Place might sound personal, it isn’t. Soul Places can also be shared by collective groups of people.
Examples of collective Soul Places include Bear Butte in Wyoming and Uluru in Australia.
There are also human-made power places such as the Great Pyramids in Egypt, the megalithic temple ofย Stonehenge, and the mind-boggling subterranean passageways at Chavรญn de Huantar.
Soul Places can also be formed through religious and spiritual beliefs. Majestic examples include the Great Mosque of Mecca, Saint Peter’s Basilica, the Golden Temple, and the Shrine of Bahรกสผu’llรกh.
How to Find Your Soul Place
Most shamans have special places in nature that hold personal significance to them. These places might be locations where they enter the Spirit realm, or places where they first experienced their callings or spirit guides.
However, as exotic and mysterious as a Soul Place might sound, it doesn’t have to be.
Soul Places can be simple, humble, local, and even largely unknown (or ignored) to others.
Your Power/Soul Place, for instance, could be a local park, hidden creek, or back-alley bookstore.
Your Soul Place could be near an ocean or woodland, or a childhood home filled with memories.
Your Soul Place could even be the restaurant where your partner proposed to you or a chapel you happened to stumble into on one rainy day.
Our power places can be virtually anywhere!
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So how do you find your power place?
The most important thing to look out for is a place that allows you to experience deep emotions.
Pay attention to any place that feels intimate or divine to you; a place that allows you to experience timeless moments of beauty and hyper-awareness.
These holy places will facilitate your ability to go inwards and touch something deeper. You may experience moments of awe, gratitude, joy, and interconnectedness with life.
Whatever the case, your Soul Place will be a whimsical friend of your soul.
11 Signs You’ve Found Yourย Soul Place
Many people wonder how to identify a Soul Place. Is it a space where you feel cozy, like a nook of your house? Do you have any mystical experiences?
Here are some signs that may help you to confirm that you’ve found your Soul Place:
- If it’s a new place, you’ll feel a sense of familiarity.
- Colors may look brighter, almost like a surrealist painting (this happened to me in my first encounter with my Soul Place).
- You’ll feel a greater sense of inner and outer harmony.
- You might intuitively sense that “you’re finally home and can rest now.”
- You can tune into the interconnectedness of life.
- A sense of awe, wonder, peace, and joy bubbles up inside of you.
- You’ll feel inspiredย and have spontaneous creative thoughts/ideas.
- You’ll feel a sense of freedom.
- You’ll feel introspective and contemplative.
- You’ll feel recharged and energized.
- You feel expanded, less centered in the ego, and more connected with your deeper essence.
Sometimes our Soul Placesย can also be imagined places within ourย minds.
If you’ve ever entered altered states of consciousness and pierced the veil of reality, you’ll realize that there’s no distinction between each of the different layers of reality.
In other words, the places within ourย minds exist in the world just as much as the places within theย world exist within ourย minds.
Do I Have to Find My Soul Place to Be at Peace?
No. You don’t have to find your Soul Place to be at peace.
The whole point of the spiritual awakening journey is to live from your inner Home, no matter where you are.
When our inner peace is based on an external condition (which can be taken away), then we suffer.
So the point of finding your Soul Place isn’t to reach a promised land or escape your current life. Instead, your Soul Place is a doorway to accessing:
- spiritual guidance and direction,
- spiritual healing,
- inspiration,
- relaxation,
- conscious expansion, and
- Oneness
Your Soul Place is a gateway of Soul retrieval โ it is merely a tool that can assist you in bridging the gap between the ego and the Higher Self.
It’s important to mention this misconception about one’s Soul Place because many people use this pursuit to avoid developing qualities of present-moment mindfulness.
When we learn to live in the moment, any place can eventually become our Soul Place.
As Sufi mystic Rumi once wrote,
Today, wherever you stand,
โ Rumi (The Essential Rumi)
Be the soul of that place.
Your Soul Is Not Only Yours; It’s Also Part of the World’s Soul
Your soul is IN and OF the world, like a ripple in a river, a wave in the ocean, or a twig on a tree.
The human mind tends to fragment existence. But the closer we look, the more we see how interconnected everything is โ and how connected to It All we are.
The reality is that we are an integral part of the Whole, just as much as a mountain, tree, whale, or cloud is.
The human Soul and the world Soul (or ‘Anima Mundi’) are inextricably entwined.
As such, mystical experiences of belonging aren’t divorced from the world around us. We don’t have to ‘ascend’ or leave this body and planet. On the contrary, Home is rooted in this physical reality!
The world’s greatest souls all found their sacred places: Moses on Mount Sinai, Jesus in the desert, Muhammad in a cave outside Mecca, and Buddha under the bodhi tree.
Your place of power is more than a sanctuary.
It is a place (or many different places) in the universe where you feel at home โ it is a doorway into greater self-awareness, internal evolution, clarity, awe, and joy.
Where is your Soul Place? Let me know in the comments.
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I have come across several soul places in my life. When I went to Notre Dam cathedral in Paris, there were hundreds of people waiting for the doors to open. Yet, when we finally entered the catherdral, as I looked up to the Rose window, they all disappeared. I was alone with the Universe and felt such love flooding over me. It only lasted a moment, but I can still call up that feeling.
Since I was 15 (I am now 48), I have been called to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. I finallygot therecwhen I was 35, and could feel the energy of the trees filling me and calling me. I was at total peace and in awe at the strength and knowledge of these โGrandfathersโ I could feel their awareness of me as a very young life and the respect I felt for them led me to think of them as elders, as Grandfather, someone with so much knowledge to share. I am working to move closer to that soul place in the next year.
Thank you for the knowledge and teaching you share so freely. It is so beneficial to be reminded of our inner self in this very busy outside world.
I love the naming of the trees as โGrandfathersโ, they have that level of groundedness in the world that we could only aspire to someday. Thanks Shannon :)
i feel like my soul place isn’t here but rather on the astral plane. those familiar places i have visited thousands of times nightly during my life. they are consistent, follow a timeline much like my waking life does with changes and such. my childhood street exists there too. it’s like i never left it. i look forward to resting because i know i will be doing things in amazing places. and when i return to my bed in the morning, my soul is re-energized and, for the last few years, receiving new insights.
not sure if that makes sense but yeah.
Thanks an interesting one Lyn. I don’t know either if I’d call it a soul place, to me it seems like it needs to be something that both honors our human side, being a physical location that we can feel the energy of, and our spiritual side. But if it serves a purpose for you, then it’s pretty special nonetheless regardless of what we call it. :)
I really enjoyed this article, as I have been to quite a few places in my life that have felt like my soul place, usually in the woods or countryside. My favorite soul place would be the woods and fields behind my childhood home. I can only go to those places in my mind now, but they still feel as familiar and comforting as they did when I was there as a child. Thank you for sharing!
Thank you Kimberly :)
Iโve found a place where Iโve felt at home before, not sure if itโs my soul place. Where I live now Iโve never felt comfortable or at home, it was only after I was travelling for a few weeks that I found somewhere I felt safe and happy. Iโd love to get back there some day
That’s beautiful, it’s definitely worth going back someday and seeing if it rings true to you Nicole :)
Dear Lonely Wolves,
You are as ever so synchronistic and like one of your readers said, the only site I really do take note of and draw from. I always feel pacified and energised reading your posts, which are ALWAYS in sync with my thoughts and experiences, as if I had a question in my head that the Universe wants to answer immediately.
After many twists and turns brought on by the pandemic, and experiencing the loss of my previous soul place (which was my place of work for 13 years) I have, finally, found my new soul place, and it has exactly the same feel, vibe, and resonance as the old one, in fact I feel the old one has guided me to the new one in many ways.
My new soul place is a stunning local museum where I am now a volunteer as many days a week as I can fit in. It feels exactly like where I was before, there are countless parallels with the two places and the knowledge I acquired in the old one is serving me extraordinarily well in my fledgling role as tour guide and anecdote raconteur, which all the visitors enjoy tremendously. I feel a strong connection with all the inhabitants of all the ages of history (350 years since first built) and I feel them alive inside me, I feel their joy at being represented and sometimes I say things that I genuinely don’t know where they come from, but I know deep down it is a spirit given feeling to add interest, humour and passion to my tours.
You are right in saying that once you are part of a place it has its DNA in you as much as yours in theirs, it never leaves you, it is a real, living thing of the highest order.
Thank you so much for all you do, you are amazing.
Lots of love,
Marie-France
That’s so wonderful to hear Marie-France, I guess it’s how you know you’ve found the right virtual tribe when so much of what you share is in sync with them :).
I love the volunteering at a museum aspect, I’d definitely do that if there were more museums where we live, as I’ve fascinated by history and art which serves as the matrix that holds our cultures together.
Keep up the great work!
My soul place is a park, Heaton Park Manchester (doesnโt seem that glamorous!). The park has an old family mansion, lakes with geese, childrenโs play area, horses and areas to walk full of trees and mystical paths with tree branches bent to form arches above the pathways. I love the different smells of each area of the park. I spent a good amount of time there with my family as I went through some difficult times of my spiritual awakening and recovery after an abusive marriage.
Thank you Ameena, I also love Parks as a mini reconnecting back with nature. We’re lucky here in Australia they adopted the English habit of park creations so there’s a huge variety which serve as an oasis for those who are seeking to connect back with nature, and back with themselves. :)
The Soul place is any number of places that nurture the Soul. From the beauty of a flower in bloom, the silent words of a Psalm read very slowly, the awareness shift you find from the words of a great shaman or gifted spiritual writer. The first light of dawn or the melting pot sun of sunset can all trigger altered states of mind and emotion. Links that call us to indwell on Soulfulness.
Other times it can be the inner call found during prayer or meditation within profound silence of the night or early morning. If we go with the flow and honor the change of awareness an inner flower blooms as the higher self addresses our needs of growth healing or change.
When we switch off the desires, worries, and demands of the outer world, and just stop and listen and go within.
For me, this happens in my favorite recliner chair. It is my personal inner sanctuary for meditation, reading, drawing, and sometimes just pondering on deep thoughts. But Soul place can be anywhere you feel at peace, safe from distractions of the outer world, preferably rebalances that come from nature.
I found my soul place (or at least one of them) just 3 days before this was posted. Love the synchronistic timing! It’s a waterfall at the end of a short valley in the Canadian Rockies. Had the coolest mystical experience there!
Wonderful Eric, I love synchronicities also, they speak to us in a non-verbal language. I’ve mentioned in a past comment the power that water seems to have in these soul places, I think this is especially so with waterfalls as they feel so charged with power and energy. I’ve heard of many sitting by near waterfalls to meditate and like you, entering altered states of consciousness which sounds fascinating.
Ko Opuke te maunga
Ko Rakaia te awa
Ko Whakamatua te roto
These are the names of the mountain/maunga, the river/awa, the lake/roto that I grew up with. This is one of the first things you learn to say in Mฤori language lessons. “Ko” indicates they are like people, they are your parents. I am not Mฤori. I’m 5th generation Pฤkehฤ, but this is where I come from, and this is where I have wanted to return for many years. The city has been interesting, but it’s not my place. The water always has been. I grew up swimming and fishing in the Rakaia high up in the mountains. Then in my middle years I kayaked on many rivers. Curiously now I’m sailing on the sea and I have unaccountable desire to sail out into the middle of the Pacific Ocean, but I also want to return to the mountains. It’s like my life’s journey has been from the mountains to the sea. In my mind the Pacific is the ultimate vast serenity, nothingness, the ultimate subjugation of your human rhythms to the moods and dictates of nature, and it could also be terrifying. With great serendipity I am now together with a man who shares these dreams and can help me with the work and expertise to make them come true. My elderly mother has just died a timely death and my youngest daughter is about to leave school. Things are falling into place. It feels like wading through treacle sometimes doing the house and boat work required, as well as negotiating the uncertain teenage growing up process, but we’ll get there!
Thank you for sharing those Mฤori words Juliet, I really enjoyed that. Ale and I were actually planning a trip to New Zealand this year before a few lockdowns ended that, we feel a powerful pull toward the culture and land. There’s something special about being deep into the ocean, with no land or anything in sight and just the vast horizons. I’m glad to hear things are shaping themselves in your life to live out your vision :)
I have come across several soul places in my life. When I went to Notre Dam cathedral in Paris, there were hundreds of people waiting for the doors to open. Yet, when we finally entered the catherdral, as I looked up to the Rose window, they all disappeared. I was alone with the Universe and felt such love flooding over me. It only lasted a moment, but I can still call up that feeling.
Since I was 15 (I am now 48), I have been called to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. I finallygot therecwhen I was 35, and could feel the energy of the trees filling me and calling me. I was at total peace and in awe at the strength and knowledge of these “Grandfathers” I could feel their awareness of me as a very young life and the respect I felt for them led me to think of them as elders, as Grandfather, someone with so much knowledge to share. I am working to move closer to that soul place in the next year.
Thank you for the knowledge and teaching you share so freely. It is so beneficial to be reminded of our inner self in this very busy outside world.
This is the only site that resonates with me. It feels authentic and I trust the authorโs insights. I find their suggestions to be uplifting, positive, and they speak to my higher self.
Thank you Terri, we feel so happy to hear that! :)