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IRRESISTIBLE INVITATIONS: the powerful seduction of possibilities
16 februari 2023 · 1 uur 5 min
Invitations are a subtle siren song, tapping into our primal human need to be chosen combined with our thirst for novelty, making them an irresistible force. Lees meer
When you receive an invitation, it is a moment of recognition, an invitation to be a part of something greater, to feel wanted, valued, and accepted. In the hierarchy of human needs, the sense of belonging takes a top priority, surpassed only by our basic requirements for survival.
There is power in inviting and being invited. The myth of Baucis and Philemon, who innocently invited Zeus and Hermes to dine in their humble cottage, and were blessed for their generosity, reminds us that the right invitations can bring abundance and joy into our lives. But, like the cautionary tale of Sleeping Beauty and the curse of the uninvited fairy, withheld invitations can also be dangerous, hiding the potential for envy and retribution.
An invitation can be a fateful call to action, tapping into our innate desire to be heroic and admired. It’s difficult to resist such a call. But, just as the hero must leave the safety of their home and venture into the unknown, so must we when we accept. Invitations promise a world of possibilities, whether we’re being asked to join a cause célèbre, fight for change or seek personal meaning.
However, not all invitations are created equal. Some are manipulative, depending on our naivety, susceptibility to feeling special, or sense of obligation. Some may only lead to an evening of mind-numbing boredom. Therefore, it is essential that we take a step back and evaluate each invitation objectively, wisely, and carefully considering the implications and outcomes before accepting. We must understand that invitations are not simple requests but symbols of growth and possibility.
So, join us as we explore the unpredictable consequences that come with each invitation and embrace the opportunities that await us. The irrefusable invitation awaits, and the choice is yours. Will you accept?
Here’s…
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APHRODITE’S SHADOW: Drowning in Beauty
9 februari 2023 · 1 uur 18 min
When the goddess Aphrodite claims us too fully, over time, our bodies become abandoned temples of physical perfection, sexual allure, and romantic passion. Lees meer
Her seductive archetypal power has captivated us for eons, but in today’s world, the enhancements of fashion, beauty, and physical appearance have intensified veneration of this goddess. However, her enchantments can have profound consequences, particularly when it comes to aging and the pressures of perfection.
In this episode, we delve into the mysterious realm of the archetype with guest Arlene Landau, Ph.D. - a Jungian analyst, mythologist, lecturer, and author of Tragic Beauty: The Dark Side of Venus Aphrodite and the Loss and Regeneration of Soul.
An intricate and complicated relationship exists between women and the goddess of love. Arlene fills a gap in Jungian literature from the female gaze, providing a reflective 21st-century examination of the Aphrodite archetype’s dark shadow. When pressured to concretize Aphrodite symbols -- pursuing beauty can be a treacherous path, especially for women in the entertainment industry who must always be young, beautiful, sexy, and attractive. In addition, body dysmorphic disorder and anorexia are common challenges among the daughters of Aphrodite.
Arlene shares her Hollywood experiences, including a declined opportunity to date Elvis Presley. In addition, she sheds light on the tragic fate of “dead blondes” like Marilyn Monroe and Anna Nicole Smith, who over-identified with Aphrodite goddess of love.
Fairytales warn us the aging Aphrodite type may feel bitter and dangerous as her beauty fades. She prompts us to engage in extreme beautification measures leaving us vulnerable to disfigurement or grotesque approximations of her qualities. She can poison our hearts against seeming rivals, leaving us hollow and alienated from love. Men are not immune to her demands for perfection either.
To balance the psyche, we explore embracing the goddesses sisters Athena, Hest…
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Sacred Marriage: A Fusion of Instinct, Spirit, and Grit
2 februari 2023 · 1 uur 24 min
Marriage is a mystery woven into the fabric of time. A 4,000-year-old contract etched in stone bears witness to its timeless significance. But what is the meaning behind this union of two souls? Lees meer
Jung saw the definition of marriage as an alchemy of instinct and divinity, a blending of the physical and the spiritual. It is a bond that extends beyond legal and familial ties into the realm of the sacred.
The purpose of marriage is a journey of individuation, a chance for each partner to grow and flourish within the embrace of a supportive union - it is a crucible of transformation. Tempered by our shadow, it can forge us into our best selves.
In marriage, we embark on a dance with our beloved, discovering new parts of ourselves with each step. But as time passes and our projections fade, we must pass through disappointment and conflict.
But as Jung saw it, these difficulties are opportunities for internal work, leading to the transformation of emotional connection into conscious relationships. The purpose of marriage is not just to provide comfort and security but to nurture personal growth.
We can see marriage as a symphony, where each partner's individual growth is intertwined with the growth of the relationship, and view it as a sacred bond, where each partner maintains their unique identity while being strengthened by the union.
What is marriage? It's a journey through the wilds of the human soul, a union that brings us closer to our true selves. This podcast episode explores the complicated and layered world of marriage through a Jungian lens.
Join us on a journey to the heart of this mystery, where the definition, purpose, and meaning of marriage are waiting to be uncovered. Let us answer the question, what is marriage together?
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The Schizophrenia Complex: How Do We Love Those in Chaos?
26 januari 2023 · 1 uur 18 min
Guest Eve Maram, PsyD, is a clinical psychologist and Jungian analyst in Orange, CA. Her book, The Schizophrenia Complex, presents a clear-eyed and compassionate understanding of our encounters with severe mental illness. Lees meer
The submergence in unconscious chaos that defines schizophrenia triggers negative emotions in others—yet Jung on psychosis showed that we are different from those patients only in degree.
Significantly his Word Association Test proved that the unconscious influences everyone’s daily life in multiple ways.
Moreover, Jung’s psychiatric work with psychotic convalescents led to his ground-breaking discovery of the collective unconscious, humanity’s mythopoetic substrate.
Understandably we shy away from people in psychosis because they are living out our own radical and universal mad parts. But, instead of turning from the schizophrenia complex, we can acknowledge our shared darkness and stretch into connection.
Then, as Eve Maram’s story depicts, we may find eros has the power to constellate hope, courage, and tenacity in the face of chaos, helping us discover that we are more than before.
Here's the dream we analyze:
“I am about to play tennis on a public outdoor court with 4 or 5 other guys and a coach. As we are walking onto the courts, I ask "are there any tennis prodigies from the neighborhood who play here?" Coach says no and I am a little disappointed. We spread out on the courts to get ready for a drill, and I step into a big pile of dog poo. I am disgusted, and I yell out to the other guys. They don’t hear me but they do notice that I am walking off the court. Just outside of the court, I stomp and scrape my shoe in a small grassy area, but I can’t get the dog poo off. It is clinging to my shoe with claws-it is actually a furry brown creature. At first, I think it is dead but as i stomp it comes alive and starts to fight back.”
REFERENCES:
Eve Maram. The Schizophrenia Complex. https://a.co/d/9NORqZJ
John Weir Perry. The Far Side of …
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Bipolar Disorder: A Jungian Perspective
19 januari 2023 · 1 uur 18 min
Imprisoned by the sea with his son Icarus, mythological craftsman Daedalus constructed wings to escape. Beeswax held feathers in place, so Daedalus told Icarus not to fly too high or too low: the sun’s heat would melt the wax and sea spray would weigh the wings down. Elated, Icarus flew too high--and fell. Like Icarus, the moods of people with bipolar disorder swing from soaring into mania to sinking into depression. This disorder affects at least 2% of the population worldwide, with genetics by far the major contributor. BP is a major cause of disability and can also be a factor in creativity; it often brings with it anxiety, substance abuse, migraines, and more. Treatment includes medication, attention to lifestyle, and psychotherapy that includes relating to archetypal polarities. Jung says, “It is not a matter of indifference whether one calls something a ‘mania’ or a ‘god.’ To serve a mania is detestable and undignified, but to serve a god is full of meaning and promise.” Bipolar individuals soar between opposing archetypes leaving them exhausted and confused. Myths help ground the ego in a larger perspective. Lees meer
Here's the dream we analyze:
“I am in a restaurant busy with people standing and moving around. I too am standing and have been given a seafood dish in an opaque glass (at first like a fancy stemmed glass for cocktail shrimp) and I slurp some of it down. Looking into the vessel I realize I've been eating raw seahorses. I continue to eat, one and then another, not wanting to be rude. They are slimy, room-temp, and gray. I look again into the vessel, which now is narrow at the top and wide at the bottom as if the seahorses, barely submerged in a grey liquid, are in a dark pit that I have to peer into, and I do realize that some of them are still moving, puckering their lips trying to breathe. I decide I cannot keep eating them. I go to where murky puddles have formed in the cement by the melting ice and crab parts of the kitchen's seafood prep. I assume …
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Inside the Mind of the Scam Artist
12 januari 2023 · 1 uur 8 min
Conned, swindled, or bilked, about 50 million Americans were ripped off by scammers in 2020. What deadens a person to preying on another? Tricksters commit crudely constructed fraud. Jung said they are “not really evil [but do] the most atrocious things from sheer unconsciousness and unrelatedness.” Cheaters may have behaved decently until tempted by need and opportunity and then become caught in a web of deception. Narcissists exploit others due to an inflated need for admiration and status that forecloses empathy and relatedness--and crooks turn predation, power, and risk-taking into a career. They lack authentic affiliation with others and an abiding sense of self; egotism and performative grandiosity substitute for feeling and being. The scammer unwittingly scams himself by seeking false gold in the external world. Real gold lies within. Lees meer
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“I’m with my family in a grand dining room, around a large table with lots of food on it. It’s going to be dad’s funeral. I hear that mum is really upset because she wants to see dad’s body before they bury him. Some men bring dad’s body directly past the table where we are sitting, and as they bring the body past, I recite the lyrics to the Kenny Rogers song “The Gambler” to my brother. I look at him sincerely, and I clearly say: “On a warm summer’s evening, on a train bound for nowhere, I met up with a gambler, we were both too tired to sleep. We took turns in staring out the window at the darkness Until the boredom overtook us, and he began to speak. He said, “Son, I’ve made a life out of reading people’s faces Knowing what the cards were by the way they held their eyes. And if you don’t mind me saying, I can see you’re out of aces, and for a taste of your whiskey, I’ll give you some advice. You’ve got to know When to hold ’em, Know when to fold ’em, Know when to walk away, Know when to run, You never count your money When you’re sittin’ at the table, There’ll be time enough for countin,’ When …
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Best of This Jungian Life 2022
5 januari 2023 · 1 uur 23 min
New Year is a global time of celebration and self-reflection. We let go of what’s worn out and cheer on what’s new and emergent. Here at TJL, we raised our glasses in gratitude. We crested 8 million downloads, implemented major enhancements to your Dream School experience, started crafting our first book, The Key Dreams, and expanded our creative team. It’s been a year of dynamic growth, and we couldn’t have done it without you! Our mission to share Jung’s life-enhancing wisdom is advancing through your patronage, soulful participation, and kind-hearted enthusiasm. Lees meer
Your experiences are important to us, and we noticed the 2022 episodes you liked best. So to honor that, we’re sharing some gems from those conversations.
In Reality as Medicine, we explore the task of adapting to the truths of our inner and outer worlds. Finally, in Vocation: Answering the Call, we deepen Jung’s comment, “In the final analysis, we count for something only because of the essential we embody, and if we do not embody that, life is wasted.”
In Amor Fati: Love of One’s Fate, we discuss the transformational shift that occurs when we embrace our fate and say the great “YES!” to our lives.
In Forgiveness or Fury: Finding a Way Forward, we offer a psychological definition of forgiveness and suggest that we can accept apology and remorse—if it’s accompanied by introspection and greater self-understanding. We clarify that forgiveness is less about the other than self-liberation from the victim paradigm.
When Jungian analyst Donald Kalsched joined us, we discussed Trauma and the Informed Heart. Don’s wisdom, depth of understanding, and kindness move all of us.
Connie Zweig led us through a profound exploration of The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul. She lifted up the archetypal transition from Hero to Elder or role to soul. We learned this begins by releasing the ego’s over-identification with doing and reorienting toward the transpersonal center Jung called the Self.
REFERENCE…
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SEX and its Undeniable Power to Fascinate
29 december 2022 · 1 uur 28 min
Sex fascinates us. Whether we turn toward it, flushed and excited or away from it, tense and disquieted. Archetypal images of sex adorn the thresholds of ancient temples and inform most mythological systems. Shiva and Shakti, in their union, create the universe – she’s providing all forms for his undifferentiated light. The gods beget gods as they mate, giving rise to infinite imagistic permutations of cosmic and personal qualities. These religious images of creation and pleasure inform our individual psyche granting sexuality a numinous intensity. Lees meer
Human culture shapes our initial attitudes toward sex. When infused with monotheistic religious feeling, sex is held as a sacrament subject to the rites and rituals believed to protect the couple from its overwhelming power and god’s jealous monitoring of the behavior. Polytheistic religions generated a multiplicity of god-forms and related myths to reflect a wide variety of possible relationships to sex and its outcomes. Pan, the lusty fertility god of the rut, Aphrodite the mistress of beauty and refined passion, Anteros the god of love returned, and Pothos, the god of sexual yearning – the infinite diversities of sexual expression, were held by related images and protectively tended by their devotees.
With the age of enlightenment that inevitably led to the current juggernaut of science and empirical attitude, we disposed of the archetypal images of sex, driving them into our personal and collective shadow. Defenses like shame and resentment keep the gods of sex at bay. At war within our bodies, they cause genital tissue to ossify and choke off requisite blood flow.
Freud was foremost in the battle to understand and liberate trapped sexual forces. As a neurologist, odd cases of functional disorders came to his attention – a patient who mysteriously could not feel a limb or a loss of sight without organic cause. His rigorous exploration of symptoms and personal narrative led him to a theory of psychosexual developme…
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HOLIDAY HAUNTINGS, or Who are these people?!?!
22 december 2022 · 56 min
Holiday homecomings kindle hopes of achieving a domestic ideal, though family gatherings are also likely to evoke old roles and emotions. Families open a portal into the patterns of the past, and unfinished business can cause repetition of disappointing dynamics as if one more replay will yield a different outcome. John Gottman, renowned interactive researcher, states that authentic relationships have more positive than negative interactions, creating an emotional bank account to draw on when difficulties arise. If relational deposits are low, it may be time to face the disappointing reality of what should have been and may never be. It’s time to start something new. We can engage the task of making a home within instead of seeking it from others. When we are at home with ourselves, we are free to enjoy relationships for what they have to offer. Lees meer
Complicated family dynamics are not modern affectations but part of the original fabric of human psyche. Fairy tales offer a wellspring of archetypal images that capture elements of collective experience curated over thousands of years. These stories help define universal problems and offer attitudinal solutions. For example, Nordic tales frequently include trolls that embody unrestrained primal instincts that disrupt the peace, make uncivilized demands, and, once sated, return to the wilderness, often with a promise to return. The Norwegian tale, The Cat on the Dovrefell, helps us understand how we collude with disruptive holiday dynamics and what might be required to keep them at bay.
From the ancient wellspring of fairytales to the insightful observations of current researchers, one thing remains constant – challenging dynamics constellate when families gather for the holidays, requiring accurate recognition and skillful intervention. With this in hand, we might artfully disrupt old family patterns and bring forward the warm experiences of love and connection we hope for.
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THERAPISTS on the SILVER SCREEN: fantasy or fact?
15 december 2022 · 1 uur 9 min
In psychoanalysis, a screen memory covers up a deeper, more emotionally charged issue. Similarly, movie and television screens both shield and open us to human complexity through fiction. The opportunity to peer into shadow and secrets from a safe distance is irresistible. Depictions of psychotherapists and therapy can range from the malevolent Nurse Ratched (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) to psychic empath Deanna Troi (Star Trek). Most on-screen therapists, however, like their real-world counterparts, are wounded healers doing their best to help despite sometimes substantial fallibilities. Bruce Willis (Sixth Sense) doesn’t realize he’s dead; Jennifer Melfi (The Sopranos) denies her mobster client’s sociopathy, and Kelsey Grammer (Frasier) embodies the mercurial power of humor that grants perspective. Jung understood the value of the analyst’s capacity to suffer as they led the way; he writes, “…it is his own hurt that gives a measure of his power to heal.” During the painful tumult of the COVID pandemic, growing demand for therapeutic support piqued public curiosity in the mechanisms of psychotherapy, opening the way for Jonah Hill’s vulnerable documentary STUTZ, filmed with his ailing therapist Phil Stutz. It invites the public to witness the wisdom, mutual vulnerabilities, and authentic affection that fuels the healing process. As Freud wrote in a letter to Jung, “…psychoanalysis in essence, is a cure through love.” Lees meer
HERE’S THE DREAM WE ANALYZE:
“I was attending a drag show, but I put on a costume and began to perform on stage. I was a background performer for someone else, and I was just walking around the stage. I felt like I wasn’t wearing the costume that I wanted to wear. I didn’t feel comfortable or confident. I also felt like I wasn’t getting cheered on by the crowd. I got off the stage and felt unseen. I remember seeing a pill bottle, and not knowing what it was, I took a pill. It was someone’s else’s medication that I stole. I spent the rest of the …
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REVOLUTION: the way of radical renewal
8 december 2022 · 1 uur 12 min
We tend to think of revolution as a people’s push-back against perceived oppression—a reaction to rulership that has rejected fairness, change, and accessibility. When a rigid power structure reigns supreme—often presenting as idealism, spirituality, or cultural integrity—it can generate opposing force as an effort to restore rightness and realize renewal. For Jung, revolution “is not conversion into the opposite but conservation of previous values together with recognition of their opposites.” He adds that to quite a “terrifying degree, we are threatened by wars and revolutions which are nothing other than psychic epidemics…modern man is battered by the elemental forces of his own psyche.” For revolution to be more than warring between opposites requires the capacity to mediate conflicts within ourselves and establish a new internal order. Lees meer
You say you’ll change the constitution
Well, you know
We’d all love to change your head
You tell me it’s the institution
Well, you know
You better free your mind insteadThe Beatles: Revolution
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“I am in some sort of tech office. Someone is here who is trying to steal data. My goal is to discover their identity, get the disc they are trying to smuggle and get out. At one point, a female friend from church is standing across the room from me. She has a sniper rifle with a scope on it, trained on me. I think maybe I can try to duck or run quickly behind something, but I know that I won’t get there in time, and she will shoot me. I am not sure what is going to happen. I also sense that she is friendly toward me, she may even be smiling, but she still has the sniper rifle trained on me. Then she is right in front of me. I take the barrel of the rifle and hold it up to my forehead and tell her it is okay, she can shoot me if she needs to. I close my eyes and am genuinely unsure of what is going to happen. Time passes. She decides not to shoot me after all. I am vaguely aware that there is a studio au…
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MELANCHOLY: the exquisite ache of life
1 december 2022 · 1 uur 11 min
Melancholy evokes images of poets and artists for whom suffering and giftedness go hand in hand. Creative ability as compensation for affliction is depicted in Greek myth by the god Hephaestus. Rejected by his goddess mother and cast out of Olympus, alienated Hephaestus forged magnificent, magical objects for the gods. Such archetypal imagery can inform our understanding of the kind of depression that seems intrinsic but may have roots in early, adverse childhood experiences of emotional deprivation or rejection. Early loss, separation from a primary caregiver, or relational abandonment can have lifelong repercussions. Such disruptive events, though not available to consciousness, nonetheless infuse adult attitudes and attachments. To name the void creates space for mourning and healing, and like Hephaestus, finding the inner fire to forge something new. Lees meer
Here's the dream we analyze:
“In my dream I am walking, I think toward a house. I'm walking through a wilderness area that has many, like at least 2 dozen, dead rabbits. They are dismembered. And I look at them, but when I do, I feel that I have violated their death. I'm not sure. I know a wolf got them but I never see the wolf. I see one of the rabbit's faces, and even though it is missing it's lower half (and is quite bloody), I know its soul is still alive, though its body is dead. I don't ponder this for very long in the dream. After that, I pass the rabbits, and I'm in the yard of what I think might be my home. But it is flooded - the aftermath of a flood. There is a large (80 foot) oak tree in the middle of the flood waters. Next to it is a tower of toadstools, each growing on top of one another. They are beautiful. They are lime green and white, almost glowing. I never go into the house because I'm amazed by the mushrooms. I take picture after picture of them from various angles.”
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GAMES: a metaphor for life
24 november 2022 · 1 uur 14 min
Humans have played games since prehistoric times. Games bring us together and pit us against each other. We agree to rules, take turns, develop tolerance for frustration, and learn to win and lose. We develop skills and submit to chance. Games range from luck to skill, from a throw of the dice to acing it at tennis. Games regulate aggression: only one can win, whether on a gameboard or the court. Shadow is sanctioned within the rules, creating monikers like The Black Death of chess and Boss of the Moss of golf—and in the heat of a game, shadier traits may also be revealed. But “playing games” in relationships is universally condemned as cheating. Games introduce us to conditions of life, for we must play the hand we’ve been dealt. Confronted with the limitations of ego and understanding, we may discover that games are metaphors for the movement of a mysterious cosmos. Lees meer
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“I dream of this place that is dark and largely empty. The doors to the place are open. Inside there is a void, and in the void, particles. They are ominous. Dark. They exert impact on things inside this place. There is nothing inside this place except cut-outs of what look like humans. They float eerily and move through the air quickly, like ghosts. As one approaches the window through which I am looking in, the cut-out impresses as very human-like, even though it is not. It is eerily human-like. I am startled. All of a sudden, there are humans inside this place. I become aware of a lady with a shaven head. Her head reminds me of the Borg [Star Trek reference]. These particles have been affecting her and have caused her to be gone. She is alive but no longer a human--cannot be reached. Her condition cannot be undone. I am now in a room with a male human. He is not gone to the particles yet. He presents me 4 books quickly. He says they will soon be stolen. That everything in this place is stolen quickly. He says to remember the headings of books as this is the only way t…
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STAY-AT-HOME DADS: Emerging Potentials in the Father Archetype
17 november 2022 · 1 uur 9 min
As our bonds to historic roles loosen, fathers are finding new ways to express themselves within the family dynamic. In 2014 Pew Research Center identified two million stay-at-home-dads in the United States. Those men tell us that tending their children is more rewarding than chasing a paycheck. Being liberated from the hunter-gatherer role has allowed more men to incarnate aspects of the Father archetype infrequently seen since the industrial revolution. Being caregiver and homecreator does not diminish their experience of masculinity but rallies inner resources that had been set aside. Despite the national call for a redistribution of family duties and liberation from traditional paradigms, at-home dads face isolation, suspicion, and stigma. Lees meer
Historically, as father’s left the home to work at factories and offices, their presence in the family psyche dimmed. Children often lost touch with the significance of their fathers, and family courts consistently relegated them to providers of income. Poet Robert Hayden captures this ambivalence and regret in his poem Those Winter Sundays.
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If you’ve been struggling in the dark trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
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SEWING: Stitching a Life Together
10 november 2022 · 1 uur 7 min
Humans moved from stitching animal hides to sewing cloth, from necessity to fashion, and from handwork to factory. To sew is to repair, alter, and create. If a rip or tear is sewn unthinkingly, the garment will be too tight or unsightly. Alterations have limitations, and uncut cloth is the prima materia for the alchemy of construction. Sewing requires dexterity, knowledge, and judgment. Sewing transforms parts into wholes— meticulous stitches render possibility into product, and scraps store memories in the pattern of a quilt. We hold the opposites of design and detail with attention and patience, and can’t resist embroidering our garments, stories, and lives. What we sew has a limited lifespan, as do we. Stitching our inner and outer lives together day by day, we can create raiment for the soul. Lees meer
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“I am walking up a stairwell together with what feels like a close friend, and we enter an apartment which I assume is mine, even though I have never seen it before. The hallway is quite spacious and sterile; there is no furniture or curtains. As we enter, my white pet ferret rushes toward me and wants to be cuddled. I pick her up and hold her in my arms. I am so happy to see her, but at the same time, I feel bad because I know I have neglected her and left her alone in the apartment for far too long. Suddenly I’m horrified as I notice that she has a large lump on her right eyelid! My friend takes the ferret from me and carefully examines her eye. After a while, she says, “Look, the lump is covering her eye, and she will go blind if it continues to grow. Actually, you used to have a lump like this on your eye a while ago, but you removed it. She must have caught it from you--it’s a virus, you know.” I can’t recall any of this, but I trust my friend is right, so I’m instantly relieved. I feel so grateful that we discovered it in time to save her, and I promise myself to take better care of her in the future.”
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Matthew Quick on Jung, heartbreak, and healing in his new novel We Are the Light.
3 november 2022 · 1 uur 44 min
Matthew Quick, author of The Silver Linings Playbook, shares himself and his new book, We Are the Light. Writer’s block led Quick to ThisJungian Life podcast, analysis, and letter writing as a literary device. Letters free us even as the privacy of the page dares us to reveal ourselves, risk intimacy, and express our longing to be received. Lucas, the main character, rediscovers himself through faithful letters to his former Jungian analyst after a movie theater shooting takes 18 lives, including his wife’s. Fragile, valiant, and humorously naive, Lucas Goodgame plays the game of life that Jung termed individuation. Lucas plays with all his heart, and his alliance with an alienated teen ignites the magic of healing in surprising ways. Did Quick create Lucas—or was Lucas waiting for Quick to unblock and let him in? Our conversation sheds light on the relationship between author and character, creativity and healing, Jungian analysis and soul. This book is about the angels and grace that lead us from grieving to living—and love. Lees meer
REFERENCES:
Learn more about Matthew Quick: https://matthewquickwriter.com/
Sign-Up for Matthew’s monthly personal letter: https://matthewquickwriter.com/contact/#personal-letter
Purchase a copy of We Are the Light https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1668005425?tag=simonsayscom
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WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
Lisa’s leading a retreat in ITALY!
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
If you’ve been struggling in the dark trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
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Zombies: a call to consciousness
27 oktober 2022 · 1 uur 6 min
Zombies have recently risen from mythological depths to menace modern-day culture. Zombies image the horror of vulnerability to dehumanized existence. They exist in a meaningless void marked only by insatiable appetite; they are our collective’s pathological shadow. The undead alarm us--and can also awaken us. We are summoned to contend with dark and deadening powers through vigilance, consciousness, and action. Jung says, “If you will contemplate your lack of…inspiration and inner aliveness, which you feel as sheer stagnation and a barren wilderness, and impregnate it with the interest born of alarm at your inner death, then something can take shape in you, for your inner emptiness conceals just as great a fullness if only you will allow it to penetrate into you. If you prove receptive to this ‘call of the wild,’ the longing for fulfillment will quicken the sterile wilderness of your soul as rain quickens the dry earth.” Lees meer
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“I was in a dark house with animals in large enclosures next to each other with glass screens. We opened them all to let them move around as we’d been somewhere all day. The person with me was a shadowy stranger I didn’t identify; it felt like their house. There was a beautiful little hawk that was very tame and had a feeling of wisdom and kindness. Then there was a giant pinky-purple “Spanish” snake, bulging, heavily pregnant, on the floor, asleep. I wasn’t scared of the snake but found it repulsive and knew it was dangerous. A blue jay flew in and started chasing the little hawk, and I got a bad feeling that continued to build. The jay was squawking loudly and was much bigger than the hawk. Then the snake suddenly stretched up and bit down hard on the hawk. The hawk fell to the floor, the noise of the birds stopped, and the jay flew off. The stranger took the hawk, and we saw it was dying; they then proceeded to pull off its legs and wings and then wring its neck.”
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The Problem with Problems: solve or avoid?
20 oktober 2022 · 1 uur 13 min
Problems can pester, persist and plague. They range from short-lived to chronic, bothersome to heart-wrenching, resolvable to unalterable. Problems cause what Jungian analyst and author James Hollis refers to as the three As: ambiguity, ambivalence, and anxiety. Ambiguity arises when a problem is complex and confusing, demanding action without certainty. Ambivalence is a state of conflicted feelings, often related to immediate versus long-term gratification. Anxiety is worry and doubt about whether we can meet a challenge or achieve a desired outcome. Problems confront us with a basic choice: action or avoidance—but action without analysis can also be a form of avoidance. We must accept the situation, tolerate the tension, and observe external and internal factors before identifying options. Jung says, “The most intense conflicts if overcome, leave behind a sense of security and calm that is not easily disturbed. It is just these intense conflicts and their conflagration which are needed to produce valuable and lasting results.” Lees meer
Here’s the dream we analyzed:
“I was pregnant, and I went to a cafe with my husband. I went away and had my baby. I went to a party where some family and friends were welcoming the baby. I cradled a small plastic box with a transparent plastic lid. There were about six spaces pressed into the foam of the box and my baby, which was a tiny bee, was in the right bottom corner of the case. As the party was ending, family members encouraged me to let the bee out of the case. My husband said to do what I thought was right. I opened the case, and we left the party hall, the bee flying above us. When we got outside, it flew away. I ran to keep up with it, and it flew to a huge wooden and plexiglass hive on the lawn. My baby bee flew to a bigger bee, circled it, and was imitating it, even getting onto the big bee’s back while it flew. I wanted to catch my bee but was intimidated by the bigger bee. They flew off in a swarm with others. My husband t…
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OCD: The Distress of Repression
13 oktober 2022 · 1 uur 15 min
Obsessions are unwanted, intrusive thoughts; compulsions are unwarranted, involuntary behaviors. Though different, they often go together, for compulsions pose as protection from the imagined bad consequences of obsessions. They tend to escalate, demanding more time and attention: spontaneity is sacrificed to schedule, desire surrenders to compliance, and aliveness is stifled by stiffness. OCD’s insistence on “rightness” attempts to deny feelings, especially anger, neediness, and desire, displacing them onto rigid exercise routines, midnight phone scrolling, finicky dietary convictions, and other attempts to serve performance and perfection. Marie-Louise von Franz, Jung’s close collaborator, says, “Every content of the unconscious with which one is not properly related tends to obsess one, for it gets at us from behind…You can either be possessed by a content constellated in the unconscious, or you can have a relationship to it. The more one represses it; the more one is affected by it.” When the unconscious is denied, it turns to unwanted forms of expression. Lees meer
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“I am standing in a field in winter. The earth is cold and hard. I have a simple, woven cloth wrapped around my head and am carrying a basket in the crook of my arm. I am in the field harvesting potatoes. I work slowly and methodically, moving up and down the rows, but at some point, I realize that the crops I am harvesting are upside down. The potatoes sit neatly atop the earth, and it is only when I pull them up that I can see all the green parts of the plant. This realization doesn’t phase me, and I continue to harvest. As I work, I am aware of a sense of great peace. I bend to pick up yet another potato and realize there is no resistance, for the potato has no stem, leaves, or roots. It is a solitary object. I stand and hold the potato in the palm of my hand. It is fairly small and somewhat paler than the rest. All of a sudden, the potato sprouts small white wings, which beg…
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The Inferior Function: Opening to the Interior
29 september 2022 · 1 uur 18 min
There is a crack in everything / That’s how the light gets in. LEONARD COHEN Lees meer
Jung’s system of typology—our characteristic way of orienting to the world—led to the creation of the widely used Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Jung observed four essential ego functions. Thinking and feeling are rational functions of assigning value and making decisions, and intuition and sensation are non-rational modes of perception and attention. Ordered hierarchically from most to least developed, our inferior function lies closest to the unconscious. It tends to manifest through tasks, people, and situations that throw us off balance: we feel confused, overloaded, and unable to get a grip. The inferior function pushes in through the cracks in ego’s efforts at supremacy and opens us to what is unknown and unlived. For Jung, however, this seeming weak spot in the personality was also “the treasure hard to attain,” for it is also the source of our aliveness, freedom, and fun.
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“I was swimming in the ocean at nighttime. I was surrounded by a school of gigantic, hot-pink jellyfish the size of hot air balloons. They were almost bioluminescent. I looked down and saw a massive sea creature rising from the depths. At first, I thought it was a blue whale. As it got closer, however, I realized it was the size of several blue whales and shaped almost like a man. I was filled with terror and awe and swam away to the shore. On the shore, I was talking urgently with Doctor Who. Suddenly, we were attacked by Daleks (a fictional alien species). As they flew toward us, we ran away toward the ocean. We didn’t go underwater; however, we ran on top of it. As we ran across the sea pursued by the Daleks, the jellyfish and whale man from before rose out of the water, running and flying around us to protect us.”
REFERENCES:
Lenore Thomson. Personality Type: An Owner’s Manual. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0877739870/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_1EXKNRD8Y9YNCHJH7AND
Marie-Louise von Franz…
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Theory of Enchantment: Chloe Valdary
22 september 2022 · 1 uur 4 min
Could the antidote to racism be enchantment? Chloe Valdary thinks so. Theory of Enchantment is a radical approach to anti-racism rooted in understanding that celebrates the complexity of the human spirit. Since racism derives from deep insecurities projected onto others, the work of enchantment includes shadow, acknowledges personal complexity, and affirms right relationship with self. Diversity need not be division, and inclusion does not discount differences. Empathy does not ‘fix’ but accompanies another’s suffering, and criticism can be used to uplift and empower. Valdary’s fulsome framework—from workshops to a self-paced online course--includes myth, literature, religion, and Jungian concepts. Theory of Enchantment reaches beyond conflict resolution for connection with universal principles of humanity, healing, and wholeness. It is a life practice and personal discipline that teaches that we can--actually—root everything we do in love and compassion. Lees meer
REFERENCES:
Theory of Enchantment: a diversity training and inclusion program that teaches love: https://theoryofenchantment.com/
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THE QUEEN: Archetype & Individual
15 september 2022 · 1 uur 5 min
Queen Elizabeth II is mourned around the world. The world saw stages of life live in and through her: from maiden to mate, mother to matriarch, elder to aged. She inherited her title but grew into her role, becoming a unifying image of virtue, service, stateliness, and constancy--wrapped in dedication and devotion. Above the skirmishes of ego-driven politics, the Queen balanced the mystique of majesty with human presence. She bore difficulties and disappointment with dignity, and in the 70 years of her reign modeled a standard of nobility that enabled her to preside over tumult and change. Elizabeth II first governed herself, enabling authentic representation of the archetype of queen in its beneficent aspect: steadfast, valiant, and faithful to enduring ideals of sovereignty. Queen Elizabeth II fulfilled the promise of the crown, ancient symbol of exalted life, conferring its possibility and promise upon subjects and admirers worldwide. Lees meer
In Memoriam:
Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of
Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“I am in the passenger's seat in a car with my partner. He is driving and seems anxious about something--talking and gesturing, but I can't remember what he said. We are going uphill on a tarred road--it is an unfamiliar setting. Suddenly a bird flies into his side window. He quickly opens the window and shuts it close again, tearing one wing off the bird. I am shouting at him "You have broken its wing," as we watch the bird fly away with only one wing. My partner is startled, and I am very sad and shocked. I am awakened by this shocked feeling. “
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ROAD TRIP: outer journey, inner mission
8 september 2022 · 1 uur 5 min
The open road beckons: bigger, better, boundless. To see and to seek is a mythological theme with an American stamp, from wagon trains to memoirs and movies. Progress and mobility have long been associated with forging ahead and hitting the trail. Cars are personal capsules of autonomy and freedom: load, stop, and go according to wish or whim. Passing through and possibility are part of the road trip’s drift and direction. The traveler may hope for treasure, pleasure, or revelation—or be in flight from stasis, failure, and alienation. A road trip can be planned or spontaneous, solo or partnered, an initiation into the next stage of life, or an effort to evade it. Many are about relinquishing ego’s desire for a well-mapped destination and opening a path to psyche and Self. A road trip is an inner journey in the outer world. What will we encounter that reveals us to ourselves? Lees meer
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“I was sleeping in my apartment in Brooklyn when I heard someone trying to break the door into the hallway from outside. I stood in front of the entrance door, waiting for whatever would come, thinking it was better to face it. The door opens, and two figures walk in: one is my father (dead by then), another a shape of a man covered feet to head by a black overall.”
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If you’ve been struggling in the dark trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
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HATRED: a way to hide our secrets
1 september 2022 · 1 uur 5 min
Hatred is a universal human emotion related to distancing and destroying. Hatred is anger, disgust, judgment, and contempt cemented into implacable permanence. Obsessive and inflating, hatred dupes us into feeling righteous and wrathful instead of small and wounded. Hating tricks us into projecting our disowned qualities onto an outer other, making the object of our hatred into an avatar for our own split-off instincts and desires. Our fixation fuses us in a darkly intimate way with “other,” the holder of a secret we are compelled to uncover, a truth we demand to rule. Hate hides the dread of discovering the depth of our own shadow—for it is self-hatred that we seek to encapsulate and eradicate. We can face our hatreds, let them inform us, and transform them into what is brighter and more alive. Lees meer
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“I am walking and find a door that leads to a stairway. I am entranced by the stairs as they look like winding, ancient stone castle steps like in the movies. I enter and see that lining the walls up and down the stairs are cages - each cage contains a snake. As I walk down the dimly lit stairs, the snakes come alive and begin slithering, dancing, and reaching their heads up and out until a good third of each snake is out and getting closer to me. I am surprised to realize that the holes in the cages are big enough for the snakes to escape, but I am not afraid. I know the snakes will not escape completely or harm me, and I wonder why the snakes have cages at all. As I get to the bottom of the stairs, I am in a large room with books, jars, shelves, and tables. It is wonderous room, like Merlin’s workshop mixed with Dumbledore’s office. There is an older, tall man standing next to a younger woman, and they are looking at a book. I have interrupted them, they were not expecting me, but neither is startled. They both look at me with curiosity. I know I have nothing to fear but also don’t understand why I am there or where, exactly, I am. I am then…
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Donald Kalsched: Trauma & the Informed Heart
25 augustus 2022 · 1 uur 33 min
Dr. Donald Kalsched, Jungian analyst, teacher, and author, discusses his acclaimed work on childhood trauma; (see www.donaldkalsched.com for upcoming programs). When there is unbearable emotional pain in childhood, archetypal defenses dismember such experience and banish parts of it to the unconscious, where it remains as unconscious suffering. Such suffering is manifested as pathological symptoms, i.e., dysfunctional relationships, addictions, narcissism, and more. The defensive system that takes over--a ‘self-care system’--is both protective and persecutory of the innocence and vulnerability hiding in the inner fortress, and thus the trauma survivor leads a false, generic life instead of a true, personal one. He/she is unable to feel and be fully alive in the world—especially in intimate relationships. The potential for such aliveness lies dormant, like a seed in the prima materia of unconsciousness, waiting to be awakened and restored to the ego—but against great resistances thrown up by the defensive system. Often dreams lead the way in this process of self-recovery, reconnecting the dismembered parts so that exiled aspects of ourselves can come home and wounded hearts can heal. Lees meer
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“I enter my parents’ kitchen, where a group of people are ready to cook lion meat for me to eat. I’m not sure who the cooks are. They show me the different ways they can cook the lion’s meat (minced, in a stew, steak, or raw, sashimi style). Afterward, they show me a mask made of the lion’s face, which I have to wear after I eat the lion’s meat. I never get to actually eat the meat or wear the lion’s mask in the dream.”
REFERENCES:
Donald Kalsched. The Inner World of Trauma: Archetypal Defenses of the Personal Spirit. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0415123291/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_TTDKA7RX9NAHYNRGAFDJ
Donald Kalsched. Trauma and the Soul: A Psycho-Spiritual Approach to Human Development and Its Interpretation. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0415681464/ref=cm_sw_em…
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COMPARTMENTALIZATION: Coping with Contradiction
18 augustus 2022 · 55 min
Compartmentalization is like a home electrical panel that separates power into different zones. It allows us to separate the charge carried by ideas, feelings, and actions without risking system overload. Compartmentalization lets us express concern about climate change yet fly overseas for a family vacation or care about animal rights and ignore factory farming. Such incompatible values and incongruent reasoning usually bypass the zone wired for emotional activation, allowing many daily activities and attitudes to operate smoothly. At the other end of the spectrum, compartmentalization can become denial, hypocrisy, or pathology, as when someone professing religious dedication engages in immoral or illegal practices. Our psychic wiring operates automatically much of the time in the interest of waking life governance, protecting us from the circuitry overload of indecision, doubt, and disorder. We also have the capacity to reflect on our values and activities, bringing them to consciousness and choice. Lees meer
Here’s the dream we analyzed:
“I am seeing this scene from the sky. There is a city in a desert. This city looks like a Mihrab or a prayer rug. It is like a niche, and it has a circle in its center. In my dream, at the top of this niche, there is a hidden or a secret door. Only some can go through this door, which opens to an exclusive world/chambers. I see a Monk in black robes going through the city and through this door. Then I hear, “the name of this city is Minoo.”
[In all of the ancient world, including South Asia, when they spoke of “City,” they meant Minoo. Cities in dreams are also Minoo, an old Farsi word that means the heavens or realm of spirit. Mihrabs in ancient Persia were the birthplace of the Sun. They were caves where the goddess Anahita, the great water deity, gave birth to her son Mithra. Anahita was the original virgin mother, some scholars believe. These Mihrabs were often caves with water running through them and were temples of worship of Mi…
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HERMES: Divine Trickster
11 augustus 2022 · 1 uur 6 min
Karl Kerenyi collaborated with Jung in demonstrating the psychological meaning of Greek mythology. Kerenyi found in Hermes a representation of “a third way of living life, besides the Apollonian rational and the Dionysian irrational. God of jokes and journeys, thieves and magicians, the tricky Guide of Souls” arrives as a surprise. Like the quicksilver that is his Roman name, Mercury/Hermes appears on winged sandals, heralding the new. Hermes disdains regulation and law to deliver new ideas, dissolve opposites, and provide decisive experiences. Just as he alone traversed the realms--from the heights of Mt. Olympus to the underworld of Hades--Hermes now swifts his way from the unconscious to ego awareness. Hermes is the symbol of a living reality seeking conscious acknowledgment, the agent of creativity and transformation. How we perceive his message is not his interest. He is already gone. Lees meer
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“I’m on a piece of inhabited land, by the shore, with many others in a beach town. Some of the people I know, some I do not. Across the water is an island. It looks like Devil’s Tower in Wyoming (the one in Close Encounters of the Third Kind), but this island is lush, tropical, and Jurassic. It’s a beautiful day, close to sunset, and the view is gorgeous. All of the sudden, we all realize there are three enormous boats that look like cruise ships balancing on the edge of the top of the island. They’re huge, a third of the height of the island. One looks old, two look new. No one knows how they got there. There is a theory they went ashore when the water level was higher, but we all know that doesn’t make much sense... we would have seen them there long ago, but in this case, they just appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. We all realize they’re about to fall as they’re balanced precariously. As we anticipate an enormous crash, we take shelter. I can see them fall slowly off the top of the island to the base. There is a lot of destruction - so much dus…
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Archetype of the Wave: image of energy and motion
4 augustus 2022 · 51 min
Images of earth’s perpetual restlessness waves gently rock us, lift us up for an exhilarating ride – or inundate us in the terrifying phenomenon of a tsunami. Surfers surrender to the rhythm of waves, an embodied metaphor of attuning to the rising and falling of unconscious forces. Poseidon, Greek god of the ocean, was also the deity of destructive tidal waves, which can sweep us away and show up often in dreams. In physics, a wave is a disturbance that travels through space and matter, transferring energy from one place to another and, therefore, part of the fabric of the subatomic universe. From playful white caps on a summer’s day to waves that pound the shore as they break, waves are a potent image of energy and reflect inner psychic processes. Lees meer
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“I am paddleboarding with my ex-boyfriend and several other people, mostly older adults. We are in a mountain lake, with an evergreen, tree-covered mountain rising from the lake behind us. The sun is out, and the water is calm. It feels pleasant. After some time passes, I notice several people quickly swimming to shore. The sky has suddenly drastically darkened, and I think it’s either about to rain or the sun is setting, so it’s time to leave. The water gets rougher now, too. My ex and I swim to shore, and I am surprised by how quickly and easily I am able to swim. When I get to shore, I notice that the older adults are struggling in the water. I want to help them, but my ex stops me. It is now that I notice that the dark sky is actually due to the fact that the mountain is completely on fire, and the fire is rushing down toward the water. I have to stand and watch, hoping all the older adults make it. The fire reaches the water, and the last of the older adults are thrust to shore. It is very dark now, and there is something beautiful about the fire. I want to get a closer look but am wary of getting near the water, which I know will be scalding. I get closer and try to take a picture, bu…
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The Way of Kabbalah: ancient map of the psyche
28 juli 2022 · 1 uur 12 min
Kabbalah is an ancient Jewish mystical tradition that has captured the imaginations of people from widely diverse backgrounds, including Jung himself. Three weeks after his heart attack in 1944, Jung had an ecstatic vision, “…Everything around me also seemed enchanted…I myself was in Pardes-Rimonim, in the pomegranate garden where Tiferet and Malchut married. I also imagined myself as Rabi Shimon ben Yochai, whose mystical marriage was celebrated now. It looked exactly as the Kabbalists portrayed it. I cannot tell you how amazing it was…” Though Jung did not live long enough to explore the Kabbalah fully, his psyche was deeply affected by the images and philosophies which played an important role in his life during this crisis. Lees meer
Like analysis, Kabbalistic methods cultivate an extraordinary receptivity to Self that illuminates the inner dimensions of the human soul, its unexplored potential, and our relationship to the divine. Its first written fragments surfaced in the 13th century, but the oral tradition reaches back millennia. Its primary symbol, the Tree of Life, reflects a rich cosmology that maps the progression of archetypal forces in the outer and inner world. It helps us track the flow of psychic energy as it descends from its animating source to archetypal image, thought, and finally to action. Like all images of the Self, it invokes the transcendental ordering principle that heals and facilitates individuation.
REFERENCES:
Dion Fortune. The Mystical Qabalah. https://www.amazon.com/dp/157863752X/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_CNHVRG5XVEK52RWZMASB?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
Erich Neumann. The Essays of Erich Neumann, Volume 3: The Place of Creation. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691603871/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_TMA84417K13TPNWG4DGV?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan. Meditation and Kabbalah. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0877286167/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_0HVCPYAXXW8DKHKYXMJJ
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Imp of the Perverse: struggling with our fiendish shadow
21 juli 2022 · 54 min
A fiendish inner spirit can prompt behavior that defies self-interest and even common sense. In Edgar Allan Poe’s story, the protagonist acts on his diabolical urge to commit murder, followed by a self-destructive urge to confess it. Jung says, “If he has done it secretly, without moral consciousness of it, and remains undiscovered, the punishment can nevertheless be visited upon him…” The impulse to take irrational and even immoral risks can cause inner torment and lead to damaging actions. The trickster within tempts us to yield to impulse, succumb to negligence, or be recklessly perverse—simply for the sake of indulging the foolish or forbidden. Posing as merely mischievous, the imp of the perverse proffers a sense of power and grandiosity. He challenges us to meet him with the power of self-reflection, ego strength, and restraint, the components of conscious choice. Lees meer
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“I am with my wife and child on the North pole. We are in a small cabin. I don’t know why we are here or how we got here. It is not a familiar place, but I’m not surprised to be here. There is a blizzard raging outside. Inside it is dark; a fire is burning in a traditional cast iron stove. We huddle together by the fire. I am responsible for the fire. The door blows open, and I can see the white blizzard outside. I fear that my daughter will somehow be sucked into the blizzard. I manage to close the door. I search for firewood, but the cabin is dark and unfamiliar. I venture out into the storm and find some firewood. I return inside to tend to the fire. I find my wife and daughter asleep by the stove.”
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Hansel and Gretel: Overcoming Trauma
14 juli 2022 · 1 uur 5 min
Fairy tales are fierce narratives of human shadow and its transformation. Hansel and Gretel depicts raw childhood trauma: parents abandon their children in the forest in order to feed themselves. Then the children discover a magical, edible cottage, only to be entrapped by a cannibalistic witch. Everyone is starving, a metaphor for psychic insufficiency. The children’s loyalty to one another gives rise to strategy and bravery, yielding riches and redemption—the reward for engaging danger with valor. Marie-Louise von Franz, one of Jung’s closest collaborators, recognized that fairy tales are maps of everyone’s unconscious. This tale invites us to consider how we handle our internal hungers. What might we be starving for? Have we abandoned inner children to the wilderness of the unconscious? Does a witch within threaten to devour tender potential? Or can we, like Hansel and Gretel, rise above our primal forest with consciousness and courage and find the treasure of wholeness? Lees meer
Here's the dream we analyze:
“I’m on an ocean beach looking out to my one-room house that juts out on a dock above where the waves break. The house could use some work and a coat of paint, but there’s a feeling of pride as I gaze over it. I look down and notice I’m wearing a peasant dress, which is not at all my style and better suited for a little girl. A craggy cliff looms to the left side of the beach. From around the cliff, two sea monsters appear swimming, nearing my house on the water. I wasn’t afraid of them, but watched them calmly. As they approach, they begin to rock the walls of the house, and I continue to watch powerlessly as they wrest it from its dock and tear it out to sea. The sea monsters retreat over the horizon and the house begins to sink. I am then inland but not far from the beach, at a pub in a seaside town. I see my parents in a booth, engaged in a fiddle contest. They are my parents, I know this to be sure, but they are monstrous apparitions, soft as puppets and with …
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DAIMON: Demon or Destiny?
7 juli 2022 · 1 uur 7 min
The daimon, a guiding spirit of individual destiny, was discussed by ancient Greek philosophers and still surfaces in books and movies like The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman. Daimons were particularly linked to creativity and life force and described as lesser deities, divine messengers, and determinative fates. For Jung, “daimon” was a synonym for that part of the unconscious concerned with life purpose, and it spoke through intuition and dreams. Ego’s task is transforming the autonomous power of the daimon into authentic expression in life. Jungian analyst and author James Hillman says, “The soul of each of us is given a unique daimon before we are born, and it has selected an image or pattern that we live on earth. This soul-companion, the daimon, guides us here; in the process of arrival, however, we forget all that took place and believe we come empty into this world. The daimon remembers what is in your image and belongs to your pattern, and therefore your daimon is the carrier of your destiny.” Lees meer
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“I am sitting in the front row of an academic lecture in a large auditorium. I can see my father sitting way back in the last row. A speaker is introduced. He begins to perform miraculous feats. For example, although he is an older man in his 60s, he successfully bench-presses over 500 pounds on stage. Next, he begins to levitate. While flying through the air, he proclaims that he is Jesus. He demands that everyone in the audience pray to him in worship. I do not pray to him. He goes around to each audience member and requests a prayer - all obey. When he appears in front of me, he demands a prayer. I hold up two sticks in the shape of a cross and denounce him. I state angrily that “Christ protects me” and that “this old man is not God.” At this point, I notice that my father (in the back row) is the only other person in the building not praying to the fraud.”
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Can We Consider Abortion?
30 juni 2022 · 1 uur 11 min
The word consider derives from Latin considerare, “to look at closely, observe.” Con means “with, together,” and sidus refers to “heavenly body, star constellation.” Observing the marvel of the stars with another is very different from engaging in conflict, “to contend, fight, or struggle.” Conflict summons rigid polarities: for or against,right or wrong, and winning or losing. Significant issues like abortion test our ability to tolerate ambiguity and anxiety without activating the polarizing defenses of judging, moralizing, or demonizing the other. Pregnancy, the archetype of potential life, carries profound emotions--and the shadow of what could be is limitation. Lack of internal or external resources limits our ability to birth many of life’s potentials. Bowing to life’s limitations also holds potential for conceiving new life. Lees meer
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“I am in a dressing room/anteroom getting ready for my wedding. My mother steps in and makes some critical remark to me…something along the lines of “you’re never ready on time” or “you always leave things for the last minute.” Then she exits, leaving me alone with my father. We are getting ready together for the wedding. I ask him what all the guests are going to do while they’re waiting for us, and he reassures me that the rabbi of my synagogue will keep everyone entertained while we get ready. I then hear the rabbi leading all the guests in Jewish songs from outside. Back in the dressing room, my father and I are putting on tuxedos. I take out a box of studs for the tuxedo shirt and lay them out across some kind of table with a soft surface (like a little bed or mattress). The golden studs are spread out across this surface, and I begin to sift through them, but I’m unable to distinguish which studs belong to me and which ones belong to my father -- they look identical. I examine them in the palm of my hand and grow frustrated, being unable to pick out which one is which. Then I realize that I am not cle…
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Archetypal Aspects of School
23 juni 2022 · 1 uur 7 min
Schools have existed across cultures and throughout time; the knowledge they transmit leads us out of childhood, shapes our values and world view, and grooms us for citizenship. Schools help us build ego strength and adapt to cultural norms, the goal of the first half of life and the first stage of individuation. School experiences also wound us, as Jung recalled in his memoir. Collective schooling instills the uniformity needed for a cohesive culture, but individual uniqueness may be lost. Individualized education—including home life--can enhance personal uniqueness or compensate for special needs, but lacks universal principles and methods. Education by example allows the influence of the unconscious to be most openly included—whereas in other methods its power may be unacknowledged or denied. Jung says, “I would say, in the light of my own experience, that an understanding heart is everything in a teacher, and cannot be esteemed highly enough.” Lees meer
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Dream Incubation with Machiel Klerk
16 juni 2022 · 1 uur 24 min
Guest Machiel Klerk has worked with dreams and healing traditions worldwide; his new book is Dream Guidance: Connection to the Soul through Dream Incubation. Religions, shamanic practices, and depth psychology have recognized the significance of dreams and sought their aid. Dreams open into a deeply intelligent source Jung called the two-million-year-old man. This inner companion is interested in our development and life purpose, and he transports us nightly to worlds of vivid images, fulsome feeling, and embodied experience. Dream incubation invites these encounters into consciousness through a well-defined process: identify a problem, develop a question, and create a ritual of receptivity. Questions related to life direction are especially likely to elicit response. Record the dream immediately upon waking, reflect, and relate its wisdom to waking life. Everyone dreams, everyone is connected to this mysterious source, and everyone has something meaningful to live and give. Our dreams are willing to help us. Lees meer
Lisa’s Dream Incubation Question: What is the most important thing I should bring forward for this podcast?
Lisa’s Dream
“There is a guy who is maybe on a skateboard; I am maybe on a bike and with Deb. We are following him. He is enjoying the speed bumps and the twists and turns in the road. I have a somewhat superior attitude. I am going very straight. I think that we are exactly the wrong people to be following him because we have such different approaches. He seems to really be enjoying himself. When we stop, he comes over and is speaking to me. It is clear he is attracted to me, flirting and telling me I’m beautiful. It is hard for me to hear, but I make myself stay with it. I make myself continue to meet his eye. I make myself say “thank you” and accept the compliment. I know he is totally sincere. He says he knows that one day I will be tucking him into bed. I respond that I don’t think that is going to happen, and he says he knows it will happen. I k…
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DEATH: A Jungian Perspective
9 juni 2022 · 57 min
Awareness of death can help us create an intentional life—one that serves the movement of soul toward wholeness. Jung realized that although we experience death as “a fearful piece of brutality,” the unconscious images death as celebration. On a night train, after his mother died, Jung reported that “during the entire journey I continually heard dance music, laughter, and jollity, as though a wedding were being celebrated.” Our limited capacities and the conditions of earthly life preclude certainty about life after death, but Jung’s recognition of universal mythic patterns led to his theory of archetypes and a psychic reality beyond our grasp. We glimpse it in dreams, visions, precognitions, and synchronicities, and it can inspire connection with the infinite, which Jung considered life’s decisive question. For Jung, death was “an archetype rich in secret life, which seeks to add itself to our own individual life in order to make it whole.” Lees meer
REFERENCES:
C.G. Jung. Memories, Dreams, Reflections. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004X19L3E/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_BZYJF184D3ZSXT9WR3ZF
C.G. Jung. Collected Works, Vol. 8: The Soul & Death. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691097747/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_38HYESF2JQ13FB49H0E9
Von Franz, Marie Louise. On Dreams and Death. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0812693671/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_ND8DQF0VKRXW8GQ9P9R7
Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers. The Power of Myth. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0385418868/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_SB4EJWY02WJ8XGWCRF42
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Hans Christian Andersen: Persona & Personhood
2 juni 2022 · 1 uur 26 min
While many of Hans Christian Andersen’s 19th-century stories have moralizing motifs, their universality and depth places them among ageless fairy tales. Although The Princess and the Pea and The Emperor’s New Clothes are social satire, they also depict psychic dynamics. A young prince searches but cannot find a mate—until a princess arrives one stormy night, soaking wet and mind-blowingly over-sensitive. Do opposites attract, or are they only contrasting representations of superficiality and entitlement? Andersen’s pen next delivers the famous emperor an even more pointed jab: a child, innocent of the contrivances of social status, blurts truth: he has no clothes! Perhaps each of us has an inner emperor whose shadow is on unwitting public display—and a wise child. If Andersen has little regard for self-aggrandizing conceits, The Ugly Duckling depicts compassion for suffering and the downtrodden. Despite abuse and exile, the ugly duckling responds to springtime’s jubilant beauty. He takes wing, answering the call to transcendence—which reveals his transformation. Swans are the divine bird—a royalty we may rightly aspire to. Lees meer
Here’s The Dream We Analyze:
“I am walking and see a headlight lying on the road (on a bridge) and a baby crawling beside it--the baby narrowly escapes from being hit by cars. I see a black and red Bugatti parked (owner of the headlight) and denounce the driver to my football coach, who is also a policeman. I remember the car’s number plate. I get a lot of attention due to this, and I greatly enjoy this. I start murdering people to get more attention. The first murder is with a pistol, the second with a revolver. I try to steal a gun from the football cafeteria for the third one, but I fear being found out by my trainer/policeman, so I end up throwing the gun into the changing room. I confess to him that I am the murderer. My trainer accompanies me to a field nearby where some of my classmates from school are celebrating my birthday. There is a…
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POISON: Toxic or Transformative?
26 mei 2022 · 1 uur 3 min
Pharmakon, the ancient Greek word for drug, can mean both “remedy” and “poison.” There is a close connection between poison and cure. Poison is stealthy, and takes us by surprise, whether through an unseen snake’s venomous bite or a ripe apple’s alluring disguise. Psychological poison glides past our defenses, pervades our being, and wounds us where we are most vulnerable. We participate in our poisoning through our own unknowing, from toxic cognitions and rigid fixations to self-doubt and self-sabotage. Poison can transform us by stinging us into building the immunity of increased consciousness and insight. Reason and objectivity can act as antidotes, allowing old attitudes to dissolve and new awareness to arise. Whether a poison is injected or ingested, we can use it for cure. Lees meer
Here’s The Dream We Analyze:
“I am "cooking up" a batch of Xenomorphs (from the movie Alien) for a "client" in an underground lab. I'm mixing chemicals in a vat, and realize I missed a step...I call the client and am reassured it will still work, it will just take some extra time. The chemicals coagulate into a pink goo. The next day, I return to the lab and see swimming in a pool of water four adolescent xenomorphs. A male lab assistant tells me "This shouldn't have worked. They mutated and can only breath flesh." I see the adolescent aliens all have a caul of pink ectoplasm over their faces. The next day, I return to the lab and there is only one xenomorph, an adult, chained as if crucified to the back wall of a cell, wreathed in shadow. I peer at it from across the cell, and a white dove appears and flies across it. The alien's claw shoots out and snatches the dove from the air and crams it into its mouth. There is a great sucking sound, and I realize the alien is breathing the dove's flesh. My vision zooms in to the alien’s face. It regurgitates the dove's carcass, which inverts into a black cage of bone, and the alien screams. I am shocked awake.”
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HOMESICKNESS: Longing & Belonging
19 mei 2022 · 1 uur 4 min
From Homer’s Odyssey to the Wizard of Oz our native soil draws us home, whether home is a small Greek island or a simple Kansas farm. The soul has a natural longing to return to the place of its beginning and belonging. Home is a state of safety and changelessness; it is our foundational experience of original completeness, containment and care. As we mourn the loss of the familiar and face the unknown, homesickness generates neural activity similar to physical pain. Its underlying intent is to spur us into detaching from the familiar and investing in the foreign. Homesickness asks that we bear leave-taking and loneliness in service to belonging to a wider world, building new relationships, and the eventual realization that the soul’s true home is a transcendent source of personal being. Lees meer
Here’s The Dream We Analyzed:
“I am walking up the street toward my apartment at night. Near my building I see a man with a small dog on a leash. The dog is a tiny Yorkshire terrier and the man is very large. He is wearing a long, dark trench coat and has wild black hair. He looks a bit threatening. The dog is on one side of the sidewalk, the man is on the other, and the leash is between them, blocking my path. I try to step out into the street to go around, but as I do, the man swings around and the dog runs around my legs. I get all bound up in the leash and am pressed up against the man. He puts his face right up to mine, like he might try to kiss me, and I see that he is the Devil from the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. He begins to blow some kind of smoke into my mouth. I think he is trying to get inside of me--to possess me or steal my soul. I blow the smoke back into his mouth and it forms a kind of ring that circles between his mouth and mine. I know that I won't have the strength to keep him out for very long.”
REFERENCES:
John Hill. At Home in the World: Signs and Symmetries of Belonging. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1685030211/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_VBGPAMVEX5X2DA2XB3HQ
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VOCATION: Answering the Call
12 mei 2022 · 1 uur 16 min
Vocation, once associated with serving God through service to others, is now most strongly associated with a career having personal worth. Vocation spans a range of needs and values: commitment to making ends meet, striving for material rewards and social status, or the more internal satisfaction of research, helping others, and artistic expression. Freud considered love and work the cornerstones of our humanness, and Jung said, “In the final analysis, we count for something only because of the essential we embody, and if we do not embody that, life is wasted.” A discernment process is essential to determining the difference between a true calling and ego ambitions, what we want versus what we can have, and distinguishing dream from dedication. Ultimately, however, vocation is a state of being—so perhaps we can invest the work we have with a sense of call. Lees meer
HERE’S THE DREAM WE ANALYZED:
“I was at the beach with my mother and grandmother. My mother was driving a red car. My grandmother in the passenger seat, me in the back. It was stormy; the waves were wild and aggressive. My mother was determined to drive as far as possible to find old family members who we no longer speak to, to enact revenge. I was silent. The waves were angry, the wind swirled and howled and rocked the car. She was on a mission.”
REFERENCES:
James Hillman. A Blue Fire.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0060921013/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_M7PXWF54T0MRBEBPETQM
James Hillman. The Soul’s Code. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0399180141/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_DKSW982XDDP53F2WM610
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THE PRODIGAL SON as Shadow, Ego & the Self
5 mei 2022 · 1 uur 11 min
Jung interpreted religious traditions from the viewpoint of their psychological significance. The allegorical tale of the Prodigal Son illustrates Jung’s basic understanding of the structure and development of the psyche. The young prodigal epitomizes shadow qualities of ignorance, arrogance, and impetuousness. His dissolute indulgences show a lack of ego strength and land him in a pigsty. Repentant, he returns to his father’s estate, hoping for servant work. Instead, his father celebrates his homecoming. At this joyful reception, the older brother is aghast; he has been dutiful yet never so acclaimed. He is the embodiment of a respectable persona and adaptation—yet his ego-oriented sense of self seems to have a less enlivened connection with the father. Symbolizing the transcendent Self, the father provides redemptive eros and safe haven. Each of us has a shadow, an ego that tends to believe it’s our totality, and a transpersonal center that can welcome us home. Lees meer
HERE'S THE DREAM WE ANALYZE:
“I am on the second platform of a four-tiered structure leading from a dock on the river to the top of a cliff.There are ladders and obstacles connecting each of the platforms. I am looking down at the water, which israging and ebbing with monstrous waves. The water is a beautiful color of indigo blue, vastly wide andimmensely deep. Boats are being tossed in the waves with the owners tethered to them by rope,desperately attempting to climb aboard but ultimately becoming swallowed by the crashing waves. I noticea small park ranger dinghy boat come out from a crack in the cliff face and set into the raging water in an apparent attempt to save the other boaters. The driver of the boat appears timid and frightened. I shout to aman next to me, "I used to have that job!" The boat is immediately capsized. I begin climbing up to the third platform and become paralyzed with fear as I climb the wooden pegs juttingout of the side of the cliff. I am aware that a slip would result in cert…
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SHADOWLAND: DETRANSITION – THE STORY OF BETH
28 april 2022 · 1 uur 44 min
Beth underwent gender transition from natal female to trans male and has since de-transitioned. In her early teens, Beth felt she was not like other women and began to question her gender. She saw people who were nonconforming, but although she adopted a non-binary identity in college, people still saw her as a woman. Beth became drawn to a masculine identity and associated transitioning gender with empowerment: she would be free from the perceived social constraints and physical vulnerabilities of womanhood. Beth’s parents, the therapist she saw a few times, and the surgeon all affirmed her desire to transition. Beth underwent testosterone therapy and top surgery to remove her breasts, sacrifices in service of liberation. In time, however, Beth discovered that physical changes did not transform her inner world, and her post-surgical chest remains numb. Beth says, “de-transitioning brought me down to earth” and into adulthood. She feels some of her urges to transition were healthy, and some were self-annihilating—and wishes she had had more help in differentiating her inner world from her gender expression. Beth hopes to be a voice for the complexity of gender transitioning. Lees meer
Music and lyrics by Wells Hanley ©2021
Singers: Laura Ann Singh at www.lauraannsingh.com and Rei Alvarez at www.reialvarez.com
https://www.iwrotethissongforyou.com/
https://www.patreon.com/iwrotethissongforyou
NOTES:
Currently, there is limited research on the factors that correlate with detransition and the percentage of individuals who chose to detransition. Of the available studies, methods and definitions vary, suggesting a need to establish standardized criteria in the future. Five studies are mentioned below. One concludes, of 17,151 who identify as transgender and gender diverse people, 13.1% reported a history of detransition or going back to living as their sex assigned at birth. Another concludes that only 0.2-0.3% of patients expressed post-operative regret and requested revers…
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Causal or Creative: Is History Destiny?
21 april 2022 · 58 min
The Roman god Janus had two faces. They looked in opposite directions, representing dualities, especially beginnings and endings, past and future. Psychotherapy often begins by facing the past and understanding its influence on the present. Belief in the past as unalterably determinative, however, can imply that personal history is a single, all-powerful god—as if Janus fixed on yesterday. Jung took special interest in psyche’s purposive and creative energy—the face Janus turned toward the future. Incarnating our innate potential, which Jung termed the individuation process, is the process of engaging our capacity for growth and wholeness. Life’s road ahead has new possibilities, which is why we launch the new year in honor of Janus, for it is he who presides over all new beginnings. Lees meer
HERE’S THE DREAM WE ANALYZE:
The Magic Gown
“I’m in a dress boutique, watching as teenage girls try on bright prom gowns. They giggle, twirl, and take selfies. I need a dress too because I’ll be attending the prom as a chaperone. I go into a private changing room that doubles as a small bedroom. The dresses hanging for me to try on make me think of Little Bo Peep. Reluctantly, I select the least offensive option, a ribbony mauve number. I’m sure it’s going to look ridiculous, but when I step into it, it becomes bespoke black lace, elegant and perfect. I want to send a selfie to my husband. I try to frame my image in the full-length mirror, but a bed is in the way, and I can’t move it or figure out the angles. Meanwhile, my husband texts sweet portraits of our dog who recently passed away.”
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THE GETHSEMANE ENCOUNTER
14 april 2022 · 1 uur 6 min
The Garden of Gethsemane is the place of life crisis; it permits no escape or compromise. There, we suffer the agony of choosing between personal will or willing submission to something greater. Jesus’ companions could not stay awake, and God did not answer his prayers to be spared. We suffer dark and harrowing Gethsemanes alone. We may have to give up familiarity and safety for the unprecedented and unpredictable. We may ache from anguish and abandonment. Yet, to surrender voluntarily and consciously is to bow to a greater truth and yield to a higher power. In doing so, we transcend despair, resentment, and victimhood--and may find ourselves transformed. Gethsemane is a universal human story. If we can keep vigil and stay awake, we can hear the voice within. And say yes. Lees meer
Here’s the Dream We Analyzed:
“I am on the youtube show, Good Mythical Morning. The two hosts are dumping buckets of spiders on me. They start with daddy long legs. I hunch over and can feel them tickling my back. Then a bigger black type of spider. Then the last bucket is scorpions. I stay hunched over, covering my head. With each bucket, I can feel the insects tickling me, but that’s it.”
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MORAL INJURY: Violation of Meaning
7 april 2022 · 1 uur 13 min
Moral injury violates our sense of justice, loyalty, and meaning—and creates a storm in the soul. Those who directly affect others’ lives are most at risk of suffering irreconcilable conflicts between behavior and belief: military, police, medical, educational, and other human service providers. The purported “cost of doing business” also calls us to confront institutional shadow--moral injury does not belong to the individual alone. The integrity of organizational and community values plays an important part in condoning morally distressing situations—and should play a role in healing the injured. Conflicts between actions and values are inevitable in life, and the core of being human is our unique capacity for choice. There is no way to escape shadow, and we are more than our mistakes. They are neither our totality nor our destiny. Lees meer
Here’s The Dream We Analyze:
“I am standing near a well. I have to go down into it. When I am in the well, I am me, but I am also a slightly younger, stronger man. The cylindrical walls of the well are grim, dark. There is a cylindrical metal structure, and on the outside of this are two dead babies/toddlers and a slightly older one who is not quite dead but needs resuscitating. The water has been polluted as a result of the bodies. I shout, “Rocket up.” This is so the babies can be pulled up. I wake up and feel dark. As I think about the dream, it occurs to me that “Rocket up” could have been “Rock it up.” However, in the dream, although I didn’t see the structure move up, I imagined it going up at great speed.”
REFERENCES:
Jonathan Shay. Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0684813211/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_FVEHY95SXRA73DWABH7M
Film: Quo Vadis, Aida? https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B08YP6238S/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r
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Jung & Freud: From “Bro” to Broken
1 april 2022 · 42 min
We welcome Jungian colleague, psychiatrist, and historian Dr. Bert Price, whose research in Vienna during a 2019 international conference led to the discovery of new facts regarding the famous friendship—and break-up—of Jung and Freud. Following lively correspondence, the two men met in Vienna and talked for 13 hours. They continued over the next three days, and after attending the Wednesday night meeting of Freud’s Vienna circle, took a “spirited” walk to a tattoo parlor, stirred by the mythic significance of “marking" their newfound bond. Lees meer
The tattoo artist, Stefan Otto, was an Austrian sailor who had learned Chinese ink techniques while recovering from wounds in Tientsin (Tianjin), port city of Peking (Beijing), after the Boxer Rebellion. When Otto returned to Vienna, he was one of several tattoo artists in the Brigittenau District, home to an Austro-Hungarian naval river flotilla. Dr. Price discovered Otto’s tattoo catalogue while visiting the Heeresgeschichtiliches Museum, and saw it contained images of dragons remarkably like those in Jung’s later Red Book. Further examination of Otto’s log book (then a legal requirement) recorded a visit on March 6, 1907 by Herr Professor-Artz S. Freud and Dr. C.G. Jung. Both received "Kleine Drachenn Tatowwierung" (Small Dragon Tattoo). Dr. Price shares details of his important finding, providing new depth and understanding of the historic relationship between Jung and Freud.
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Hunting: An Archetypal Perspective
31 maart 2022 · 1 uur 10 min
To hunt is to engage the opposites: the hunter must attune and align with nature in order to kill part of it. According to mythographer Joseph Campbell, “the basic hunting myth is of a kind of covenant between the animal world and the human world.” Myth and rituals of sympathy, sacrifice, and gratitude honor the age-old bond between man and animal: one dies so the other may live. If the hunter imposes will alone, hunting becomes ego dominance--sport or slaughter. In traversing the realms from human culture to nature’s archaic terrain, the huntsman echoes and honors the relationship between ego-consciousness and the unconscious. Lees meer
For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear...they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth. -Henry Beston
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FAILURE as TEACHER
24 maart 2022 · 1 uur 3 min
We first encounter failure in learning to walk—we fall down, the root definition of failure. Coming up short is a lifelong experience that stretches from mishaps and lapses to shock waves that shake our lives. Failure can make us doubt our worth, shatter certainties, and fill us with shame. Failure punctures ego’s false sense of sovereignty. When we are out of alignment with inner or outer life, a gap opens, and we fall victim to ambition, misjudgment, or impulsivity. Failure is a call to self-confrontation, humility, and resilience. We can recognize the limits of our conscious attitude and our dependence on the unconscious. Failure can imbue us with a higher sense of purpose that is in service to a greater good, including our own. Lees meer
Here’s The Dream We Analyze:
“A woman (like my wife, but more mysterious and mischievous) and I were given a mission. The Sun was setting, and we were told that if we traveled toward the sunset, or rather—since we were to leave in the morning—with the rising Sun to our backs, we would reach Norway. We came to a narrow, concealed canyon with train tracks, and the woman caused a cave-in that forced the train to stop. It was carrying some sort of ore. We met the crew without raising their suspicions, and they took us through the canyon’s closed, concealed entrance into their country. One of the crew pointed out in the distance a harbor full of the end product of the ore: beautifully and skillfully crafted boats. You had to be a citizen of their country to own one, but people from around the world came to rent them. He then took us into a wood-paneled room (like from a club in Edwardian England) and showed us a rapier and broadsword, also made from the ore. As he demonstrated how to use and care for them, I felt intimidated or unsure about being able to use them myself.”
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CAUGHT IN THE CONFLICT: The Tension of Opposites
17 maart 2022 · 58 min
Holding the tension between opposites was one of Jung’s foundational precepts. Although contradictory views are often a better witness to truth than one-sided conviction, beliefs and decisions often serve to relieve ambiguity, anxiety, and threat. Jung says, “The ego keeps its integrity only if it does not identify with one of the opposites, and if it understands how to hold the balance between them. This is possible only if it remains conscious of both at once. However, the necessary insight is made exceedingly difficult not by one’s social and political leaders alone but also by one’s religious mentors. They all want decisions in favor of one thing, and therefore the utter identification of the individual with the necessarily one-sided ‘truth.’” We need to suffer the tension a plurality of voices and views produces. Holding the tension of opposites grows consciousness, wholeness, and soul. Lees meer
HERE’S THE DREAM WE ANALYZE:
“I dreamed I had a little bird like a cockatoo who was my friend. He would press his head into my face to warn me of floods and bad storms. I hadn’t seen him for a while. I was at the cousins’ house in America and was reunited with my bird. We were affectionately putting our faces on each other when he stopped and pressed his head into my cheek for a really long time. I took this as a warning of a huge flood/storm. The house had a big safe room, and everyone went there. I realized that the furniture in my bedroom (in my own house, that I share with my boyfriend - except a very pastel version) wasn’t secured and threatened the integrity of the safe room. I ran to fix this. There was a time limit; a curtain would close, and a door would shut, leaving me locked in the bedroom if I didn’t get out quickly enough. The room was tilting up, and to tidy bits away, I had to climb the bed, which was hard to get a purchase on, and up the chest of drawers, which had all the drawers pulled out like stairs. Time was running out. On my way down the bed, I decided…
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Amor Fati: Love of One's Fate
10 maart 2022 · 1 uur 2 min
In Greek mythology, three Fates represented life forces beyond our control. One spun the thread of life, another determined its length, and the third cut it. Jung, however, understood that fate was also the external expression of an internal situation that had not been made conscious. In other words, we may unconsciously participate in creating our own misfortune and call it bad luck, injustice—or fate. How we orient ourselves to what happens to us is crucial, and working toward self-awareness helps us find a path between feeling powerless and seeking control. Ultimately, however, we are called to embrace life as it is, not as we wish it to be. This means moving beyond ego-consciousness to discover the inner center Jung called the Self. If we know we are part of something larger, we can accept our authentic nature, say Lees meer
yes
to life in the face of uncompromising reality, and love our fate.
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“I am standing looking in the bathroom mirror over the sink. A man, who is now deceased, a former boyfriend from when I was 19 with whom I had a romantic relationship, comes up behind me and puts his arms around me. I lean back and relax into his chest. He is tall and strong, and it feels like we are a safe harbor for one another, even a part of one another. We share a feeling of complete trust and peace. I seem to know in the dream that he is no longer physically alive. Then the scene changes, and I am with another man in an apartment with clothes and musical instruments lying about. We are looking into the whites of one another’s eyes, trying to see one another’s souls. Our faces are so close our foreheads are almost touching. It feels like we are connecting soul to soul. It feels sublime to connect in this way. He is also tall and strong, but not someone I ever had an intimate relationship with. He was a member of my extended friend group, a musician who writes scores for movies, and who other musicians in our group referred to as a musical geniu…