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THE SOUL IS A CRYPTID “The soul is like a wild animal.” Parker J. Palmer It is not Kafka’s roach beached on a man’s bed and it isn’t the creature from whom the regent nicked his nickname, the kenning Lionheart. It is not the gamete sloshing inside its plaster bassinet, not the egg muscled from isthmus to nest; nor is it the monster roughed in, ruffed in waves, whom mapmakers once drew to keep the weak from the sea. It is not the ape, fingers vitiligo-pink; not the rat wise to the maze. It is not the mouse, syringe-transfixed, nor a vole, nor a vulture. It is not the lapdog, not the wolf pup, not a hyena shrived of mirth. No: It is the sum of these and something more. The soul is a cryptid.