The work you do works you. So, how can we transform our experience at work so that work shapes us for the better? To counteract the potentially soul-crushing nature of a highly digitized, achievement-oriented society, we need ways to nourish, replenish, and grow in maturity and wisdom by changing the way we approach work itself. Whether one is a scientist, trash collector, CEO, teacher, or stay-at-home parent, there are scientifically-backed tools to help us flourish.
Historical perspective
Craftwork as soulwork can be described as connecting your work with your life’s purpose and spiritual path. It blends cultural, spiritual, and philosophical traditions deeply rooted in human history. Examples include ancient Egyptians crafting protective amulets, Navajo weavers, European medieval craft guilds, and the Japanese practitioners of “wabi-sabi” that see their work as an expression of the beauty that emerges from imperfection and the passage of time.
In the 19th century, the Arts and Crafts Movement, led by John Ruskin and others, responded to the dehumanizing effects of industrialization, reviving traditional craftsmanship and emphasizing the joy of handmade work that nourishes the soul, connects individuals to the earth and establishes a sense of identity. There’s a dialogue between maker and material, fostering unity and meaning beyond the finished product.
Making things with our hands is a way of reclaiming our humanity. Indeed, amid the mid-2020s digital and AI revolution, the “maker movement” popularity of platforms like Etsy underscores the yearning for handmade, artisanal goods.
“The highest reward for a man's toil is not what he gets for it but what he becomes by it.” —John Ruskin
Spotlight on geneticists, bioengineers, and other scientists
A creative project at Arizona State University (ASU) posits that work in scientific labs is a contemporary form of craftwork, and it explores how soulwork can transform culture within a laboratory.
Project leader Gaymon Bennett, ASU’s professor of religion, science, and technology, remarked, “Biotechnology and high-tech invites us to reimagine ourselves, reimagine our bodies, reimagine our cultures, reimagine our civilizations as spaces that are amenable to certain kinds of technological innovation.” Smartphones and the internet fundamentally alter how we relate to each other, cultivate hope, imagine the future, and reimagine the past. That relationship to technology ties into big questions about life that spiritual communities have spent centuries, and sometimes millennia, reflecting on, responding to, and integrating.
Drawing from that rich history of grappling with these issues, ASU’s project aspires to “collectively identify and recast a set of established techniques from a range of spiritual traditions to help researchers bring the technical dimensions of their work into a deeper and more integral relation to their own quest for spiritual purpose and collective responsibility.”
A Soulwork Toolkit
How does one achieve greater integration between the authentic versions of ourselves we want to become—ethically, spiritually, humanely—and the versions of ourselves that too often are shaped by life’s demands and professional ambitions?
“I became really interested in the ethics of research maybe 10 or 15 years ago for a variety of reasons, partly because I was using animals, and I wanted to talk about that. And the field was beginning to use human subjects, and I wanted to talk about that,” says Stephen Helms, ASU professor of neural engineering research, who participated in multiple Craftwork as Soulwork retreats.
A cohort of scientists across three labs, in collaboration with several soulwork practitioners, created a toolkit to develop a more intentional relationship between work, integrity, and purpose. The tools include Writing, Meditation, Compassion & Gratitude, Chant, Presence, and Pilgrimage, each with a distinct set of practices.
After trying out these tools, Helms reflected, “Writing and the thinking and the formulating of ideas was very helpful. And I think most people, if they sit down and write things out, things start to crystallize for them. That’s certainly my experience. Even writing scientific papers, a lot of times I’m not sure what central ideas I want to convey until I’m putting all the pieces together down on the page.”
While writing is a practice that most researchers are already familiar with, what about something like pilgrimage?
The tool of pilgrimage
“[Gaymon] invited me into his project from the very beginning. My technical term was Spiritual Advisor,” says Gil Stafford, author of Wisdom Walking: Pilgrimage as a Way of Life.
“The phrase ‘our work works us’—that’s an alchemical term. So, whatever you’re working on, it’s not an object. It is a living entity. And it will do its work back onto you,” says Stafford. “You may not necessarily consider what’s going to happen ten years from now, although you probably should be considering what it’s doing to you right this minute and how it’s shaping your soul.”
Of the tools, “Pilgrimage was the last piece,” says Stafford, who has walked the Camino de Santiago and many other long pilgrimages. “I’ve also walked across Ireland, 353 miles, 23 days.” These pilgrimages can be arduous. “You lose weight, your body breaks down, you get lost.”
However, in working with the tool of pilgrimage, Stafford emphasizes that it doesn’t necessarily need to be a multi-day journey. The toolkit prompts you to think of pilgrimage as an intentional pursuit. Whether it’s a 100-mile trek, 1 hour hike, or 10-minute labyrinth, the three phases of a pilgrimage are:
Preparation (for example, choosing walking shoes, where will you walk, and your intention)
Process (walking outdoors while processing your intentional question)
Return (reflection, perhaps via writing, on the pilgrimage)
Pilgrimage is a key part of many spiritual and religious practices, but Stafford says that, as is the case with many scientists, “There was a huge amount of resistance to anything that looked like, smelled like, tastes like, or even had a whiff of any kind of religious connotation.” However, pilgrimages also encompass the pragmatic life experiences we all share.
“If you're walking with your best friend who has cancer, or your mom's dying, or you're going through a divorce, or you lost your job—all those things are pilgrimages and they're not isolated events in your life,”
says Stafford adding that afterward, pilgrimages may take many years to process.
“On a long walking pilgrimage, you’re tired, your feet hurt, your back hurts, and you’re not anywhere near being done…All I have to do is make it to the next village,” says Stafford, adding there aren’t any good one-mile markers in Ireland. And if you ask directions, people say, ‘Just keep going that way. Okay, there’s no path there. Just make your own path.’”
He reminds us that you’re following people who have gone before you, and you’re also walking for people who haven’t even thought that they’re going to do what you’re doing. It’s a sense that whatever you do affects whoever and whatever – including trees and all the stones you step on. All of that has an effect and moves energy.
“And there is that sense of finding the place within yourself that says, as trivial or as trite as this sounds, I’m truly just taking one step at a time,” says Stafford. “It’s that allowing yourself to say, I can stop if I want, but what does that do for me if I do stop? And what does it do for me if I take the next step?”
“Part of the beauty of craftwork as soulwork is that those are the things that you do. That’s your love. You make that commitment to do that. Being a researcher is a privilege. Not everybody gets to spend their life doing whatever the heck they want, asking whatever questions they want. And so, we earn that with a day-to-day grind,” says Helms.
Reappraising life
Considering life as a pilgrimage helps people reframe, grow in persistence and endurance, and move toward their hopes and dreams–be it writing a book, losing weight, or moving through trials of life. Also, it reminds us to revel in the beauty of the journey.
“You’re walking by yourself, even though you’re walking with a group of people. You spend a lot of time thinking. And after about three days, you stop thinking and just start walking,” says Stafford. “And then all of a sudden, you become aware, you wake up to what is there, to nature itself, and that it’s alive and having an effect on you. And then the conversations and generative pieces come about.”
There is excitement, anticipation, and hopefulness – that you’re doing it not just for yourself but for a purpose beyond yourself. In a pilgrimage, something right around the corner could be amazing. “Walking the same path in the opposite direction is a new path. But even walking that same path repetitively, there’s always something new,” says Stafford.
“And with the freedom, I can stop. I am not morally obligated to keep doing this. It’s not like I’ve failed. Because the truth of the matter is we always begin again. Every day, we begin again,” says Stafford.
“The beauty of walking a pilgrimage, whether it’s just walking a labyrinth, which is a huge experience of the mind and only takes 10 minutes, or 20 if you go slow. It’s what might happen in there?”
He says pilgrimage can transmute you as a human being. You become a different person. The alchemy process. “It is the process of becoming who you are intended to be as a human being,” says Stafford. “We all have to bring who we are into the world fully and have our effect on the world.”
