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456 afleveringen, van nieuw naar oud
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Trust: The Bedrock of Relationship
3 maart 2022 · 1 uur
Intimate attachments, workplace effectiveness, and stable social systems depend on our ability to rely on one another. Trust is the foundation of social exchanges and benefits, from affection to achievements. Erik Erikson mapped stages of human psychosocial development and found that establishing basic trust in the first 18 months of life was formative for later life. Lees meer
Caring we can count on prepares us to go into the world with optimism and confidence, able to accept life’s uncertainties, manage anxiety, and tolerate ambiguity. Throughout life, relationships rest on being able to trust that the other is dependable, plays fair, and can safeguard our secrets and shortcomings. Trust does not make us naïve--it enables us to make commitments, attend to the world--and ourselves.
Here's the dream we analyze:
“My cousin and I were in a fast-food restaurant. There was a “bar” at the front where the workers worked behind the tills. We sat and ate the most disgusting food at the bar and watched the workers rush around. I thought to myself that this was a very unpleasant experience, watching people in a minimum wage job make disgusting food. Who would think to put stools at the checkout point? A man and his wife appeared on the stools beside us. He gave us a creepy smile then sneakily grabbed my cousin’s butt. She looked at me and whispered what just happened. I screamed at the man, saying something like, “Did you just sexually assault my cousin?!” Everyone in the restaurant looked at us. It felt threatening. He didn’t expect me to speak up. I threw my burger down, grabbed my cousin, and left. Something may have happened in between these scenes that I don’t remember, but my cousin and I ended up in a police car with two policemen. We told them what had happened in the fast-food restaurant and they asked for a description of the guy. We realized that the guy had followed us to the police car. The officers knew him and told us to stay in the car for safety. They drove us to a…
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Special Re-release: The Archetype of War
24 februari 2022 · 1 uur 19 min
Recent events in Ukraine have again put war at the forefront of collective consciousness. War’s destruction belongs to the mythic realm. Mars, the Roman god of war, was a primordial force whose altars were placed outside city gates. Although acknowledged, he was not accepted. His paramour, Venus, is warfare’s seductress, offering spectacle, pageantry, and glory. Lees meer
Like all the gods of Mt. Olympus, Mars and Venus live in us as opposing forces of aggression and eros. We are charged with holding the tension of these impassioned opposites and making them conscious, lest we project shadow onto designated enemies or wage war internally as neurosis. We can stand in the complexity of conflict, suspend action, and allow the gods a place inside our psychic city gates.
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“I had a dream me and my boyfriend adopted a child and were living in a rundown apartment full of darkness that resembled a studio we rehearsed in. Then we went to the balcony to watch missiles falling and exploding in the sky; my boyfriend was aloof to the situation. My first thought was, “this must be very exciting for the child because it’s like fireworks,” Then I realized that it’s actually really dangerous and life-threatening, so I grabbed the child and ran inside, leaving my boyfriend outside gazing at the sky. The room was pitch dark, and I could hear the voices of my mother and my brother talking about me; they were saying, “how is the baby going to survive without a shell”? Then I realized the kid has turned into a round egg in the palm of my hand, and the shell was dissolving like wet paper, leaving a bubble of fragile liquid with a fetus inside. I knew that any sudden movement could burst the bubble and kill the baby, so I tried to be as gentle and careful as I could.”
REFERENCES:
A Terrible Love of War by James Hillman. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143034928/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_46A683TF2489P8WNSC8Y
Depth Psychology and a New Ethic by Erich Neumann. https://www.amazon…
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Forgiveness or Fury: Finding a Way Forward
17 februari 2022 · 1 uur 26 min
Forgiveness has long been the province of morality, virtue, and religious values. Psychologically, forgiveness requires the capacity to hold both the magnitude of the injury and the humanity of the injurer. There are doable steps toward this goal, beginning with acknowledging and mourning the wrong yet forgoing retaliation. Righteousness and anger provide only illusory power and can be chronic and corrosive. Lees meer
Blame can thwart our ability to understand unconscious personal dynamics and prevent acceptance of universal human flaws and vulnerability. We can accept apology and remorse—especially if it has been accompanied by introspection and greater self-understanding. Forgiveness is less about the other than it is about liberation from victimization. Even when we can’t solve a problem with another, we can increase our inner resources and enlarge our hearts.
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“I was a shepherd carrying a sheep that had been born, but it was obvious it was not going to live. I was taking it to a pond to drown it, to put it out of its misery—but I knew this was actually an act of love. The pond was in a Botticelli ‘Elysian field’-like environment, and most of the water of the pond was frozen over—so much, so a horse was slipping around on the surface. There were other birds and animals all around me, like a Botticelli painting.”
REFERENCES:
Robert Karen. The Forgiving Self: The Road from Resentment to Connection. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0385488742/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_51MKHP5J0RNCC401GZDN
Edward Tick: Warrior’s Return:Restoring the Soul After War. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1622032004/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_CXPVMY2VVQBS66JD3T52
Hannah Arendt. The Human Condition. https://www.amazon.com/dp/022658660X/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_JNEGRBZWC01ND6MCKY5X
The Forgiveness Project. https://www.theforgivenessproject.com/
Robert Enright. The International Forgiveness Institute. https://internationalforgiveness.com/
Desmond Tutu. Truth and Reconciliation Commission. https…
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DUPED: What Makes Us Gullible?
10 februari 2022 · 1 uur 9 min
Jung says, “The more one turns to the light, the greater the shadow behind one’s back.” Unacknowledged shadow can increase vulnerability to coercive dealings and regrettable decisions. We may find ourselves scammed, ripped off, and left holding the bag. Why didn’t we see it coming? Mostly because our denied fears and desires create blind spots others manipulate. Advertisers, hucksters, and con men prey on our fear of danger and disapproval and our quest for security and status. Gullibility is marked by misplaced trust and willful witlessness. We may not pause to reflect, research a decision, or seek neutral counsel. It is often relieving to trust an external authority rather than bear the anxiety and responsibility of choosing. When we fail to see our own shadow, we may be unable to recognize it in others. Lees meer
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Reality as Medicine
3 februari 2022 · 1 uur 4 min
The nature of reality may be a complex philosophical question, but from a psychological viewpoint, reality is largely a question of adaptation to the truths of our inner and outer worlds. How well do we manage psychic life and the electric bill? Science fiction writer Philip Dick pithily states: “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” Multiple realities challenge us. We live in shared social realities, from embracing niceties to being steeped in beliefs and a need to belong. We also may access the objective realities of verifiable facts and scientific data. And we experience subjective realities of emotion, intuition, and unconscious influences. We can feel our feelings, differentiate between levels of reality, and choose which to apply to a particular situation or decision. Unclouded acceptance of reality is medicinal. Lees meer
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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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Contagion: Pollution, Protection & Purity
27 januari 2022 · 1 uur 17 min
When the archetype of purity is activated, science and psychology intersect. Fear of contamination has deep instinctual roots, evidenced in universal facial expressions of distress and disgust. Religious rules and rituals of riddance have long been practical and symbolic protections against pollution, whether the threat is pathogenic, environmental, or moral. For Jung, this psychological dynamic “is the dissolution of the ego in the unconscious, a state resembling death. It results from the more or less complete identification of the ego with unconscious factors, or, as we would say, from contamination...we then feel in danger of being swamped or poisoned by the unconscious.” The antidote to contamination is often a form of cleansing. Today’s sanitizers kill germs and also restore a mental state of purity long associated with sacred inviolability. An ego strong enough to straddle the opposites of the physical and archetypal worlds can help us chart a balanced course between external threat and internal anxiety. Lees meer
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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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PORN: Technology, Consumerism & Soul
20 januari 2022 · 1 uur 26 min
Nearly every civilization since ancient times has portrayed explicit sexual acts. Sexuality’s numinous aspect has long brought it into close association with spirituality and religion. The powerful potential of sexual arousal is central to being human and has seized today’s collective via the Internet. Porn is symbolic of the widespread merchandising of desire, from toys to trucks. The unprecedented power of image in today’s world can now drive what Lost Goddesses author Giorgio Tricarico terms our “desiring multiplicities” and quest for limitlessness. Pornography can be addicting, and Jung maintained that “There is no illness that is not at the same time an unsuccessful attempt at a cure.” Pornography could also be an attempt to achieve a sense of integration and wholeness through reconnection with the archetype of the goddess. Lees meer
HERE’S THE DREAM WE ANALYZE:
“The Dragon Queen, a young blonde woman, was not the rightful queen and needed to be tamed. Everyone said to throw her in the furnace, but I couldn’t do that to her. She had become a sort of friend and had come to trust me. I came to her through a room where archery practice was taking place, a cave to the kingdom. An old friend was a centaur, and he was teaching me to shoot the bow and arrow. He had many tiny arrows, which he shot into the queen’s cave and missed. She came out and said, “Let me show you how it’s done.” I then captured her by tackling her with a black sheet. Then I sat on her and started massaging her legs vigorously. She started to relax. I then went to her arms and belly. She completely relaxed. Then I uncovered her, and she was ready to learn how to live in our society. One of the guys in the archery group took on the job of teaching her how to eat. He showed her a vision of all kinds of foods and nutrition but started with feeding her only sweets—all kinds of candy. I was worried and said so. He said that because she was a dragon, we needed to start out with feeding her that way.”
REFEREN…
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he Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul
13 januari 2022 · 1 uur 28 min
Dr. Connie Zweig, Ph.D., retired Jungian-psychotherapist and author, joins us to discuss her new book, The Inner Work of Age. She extends her well-known work on shadow into midlife and beyond and provides a map for uncovering obstacles to aging consciously. The transition from Hero to Elder, or role to soul, begins with releasing the ego’s identification with doing and reorienting toward the transpersonal center that Jung called the Self. Lees meer
As we let go of outworn personas and roles, harvest the wisdom of our long lives, and break free of unconscious shadows, the Elder’s gift of authenticity naturally emerges. In this way, individuation, the deeper dimension of age, can be expanded along with our expanding longevity. This renewed purpose is the hidden promise of late-life.
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“I was sitting at the front of a moving bus that was full of a friend’s family after a ceremony, maybe a wedding or a funeral. I was sitting facing backward so I could be part of the congregation. They announced they would shortly bring out my friend’s grandmother’s exhumed body for the dancing ritual. I wasn’t sure I’d have the guts to take part but wanted to wait until I saw her grandmother to make my decision. She was brought out in a sheer black veil, through which I could see her body had shriveled to a tiny frame, almost a skeleton but preserved as if she had been embalmed. Her family took turns joyously and carefully waltzing down the aisle of the bus with her, and everyone gazed upon the ritual with loving delight. I decided I would just watch this time. My friend was gently handed her grandmother’s corpse whilst sitting in her seat behind me. She held her in her lap and we had a conversation, during which my friend’s face and her grandmother’s became indistinguishable. My friend appeared both living and dead at the same time, her face hollowed and decomposed but animated and lively.”
REFERENCES:
Connie Zweig. The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to So…
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LEGACY: Living Toward the Long Future
6 januari 2022 · 1 uur
Is the future relevant? Can we suspend immediate satisfaction in favor of our descendants’ quality of life? Legacy comes from the Latin root legatia: one who is sent on a mission [into the future]. It is an act of benevolent imagination to accompany our choices forward in time and take responsibility for their fruits – by facing the long future we have set in motion, we can choose wisely. Lees meer
We are like King Midas, who nursed the satyr Selenius and was rewarded by the god Dionysus with one wish. Seduced by the fantasy of limitlessness, he wished that all he touched turned to gold. His elation gave way to horror as his touch turned fruit, meat, and wine into gold. Lacking foresight, he could not feel the reciprocity between the present and the future.
Late in life, Jung struggled with a vision of the future – humanity would ultimately destroy itself. Bearing this, he hoped analytical psychology could intervene. If only people would turn within and embrace the autonomous forces of the unconscious, the ego could be set in right relationship to the Self and the earth.
"Rather seek for yourself and your fellows the healing vessel, the servitor mundi, which you urgently need. For your state is perilous; you are all in imminent danger of destroying all that centuries have built up.”
CG. Jung,Memories, Dreams, Reflections
Once we accept the temporality of the ego and embrace our fragile mortality, we can find meaning in what we will leave behind for future generations. We come to understand that we can, in essence, become immortal through our legacies.
Here’s the dream we analyzed:
“On the way to our new house, big rocks are scattered across the way. When we approach the building site, we come to a man in his 50s who looks like a fisherman. He holds a snake and shows it to us. Then I see lots of snakes around him on the ground. I am really scared and try to move out of the situation as soon as possible. The man looks amused as if he challenged us. There is also an old …
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Jonah & the Whale: a dream for our time
30 december 2021 · 1 uur 10 min
The Bible as sacred text serves as a source of revelation and wisdom about the divine. As mythology, the Bible establishes norms for daily life and organizes psychic life forces. For Jung, mythologies and religions are symbolic expressions of archetypal patterns that foster the development of consciousness. Mythology reveals the dreams of a culture just as dreams bring personal mythology to light. Jung said, “We must read the Bible or we shall not understand psychology.” The Bible is not psychological only, but unless it is also psychological, we may not be able to relate its contents to our personal lives. We, therefore, engage the mythos of Jonah and his whale of a tale a dream. Orienting to Jonah as dream in the world, a dream for the world, and a dream of each of us can help us better understand ourselves in the context of a greater whole. Lees meer
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“I’m at my girlfriend’s apartment, standing in a hallway with several doors. All of them save one are closed. Behind them, I sense a tremendous power. I stop in front of one of the closed doors and open it, but I don’t cross the threshold. It’s either my girlfriend’s childhood room, or it is mine. I guess that I first believe it to be hers but then understand that it’s mine. The room looks quite innocent, but I sense a trap inside. I somehow understand that I may ask one question to the presence that lingers in the room and that the question will be answered. I also understand that if I enter the room and the force is benign, I may exit and come back as I please, but if the presence is not benign, I will never be able to leave once I enter. So I need to construct a question that operates on two levels at the same time: it must seem to be an innocent question, but with a hidden purpose to determine the nature of the force. I start to think but draw a blank. Then a question very clearly “drops down” into my mind, and I examine it. It’s not only a good question, it’s the perfect question, and I put…
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Mr. Grinch on the Couch
23 december 2021 · 1 uur 3 min
Dr. Seuss’ case history of the Grinch presents him as “uncheerful, unhealthy, unclean.” We hope that adding an analytic perspective will be helpful in understanding this clinical condition. Alfred Adler would note the inferiority complex underlying the Grinch’s defensive attempt at superiority and power, and Melanie Klein would detect infantile rage and envy. Freud might diagnose the Grinch with Thanatos, the death drive, evidenced in his sadistic attack on Who-ville. Additional obsessive-compulsive traits impelled him to steal every toy, treat, and tree. Dr. Jung’s archetypal perspective notes the absence of eros, affirming Dr. Seuss’ summation of the Grinch’s disorder: “his heart was two sizes too small.” Fortunately, the community of Who-ville provided treatment: demonstrating that “Christmas came just the same” grew the Grinch’s pinched heart three sizes that day. No matter how you celebrate this holiday season, we—and the Grinch--wish you irresistible moments of joy. Lees meer
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“My male housemate and I were on a train, being taunted by two teenage boys. The train stopped in the middle of a grassy clearing in the forest, near a cliff-face. As we were leaving the train, the two boys rudely brushed past us, and then I lost my temper and, in a heavily-worded outburst, told them to get lost. They then ran away toward a corner in the cliff-face. At that moment, an old man appeared from behind the train, with a hunting rifle, who I felt was on my side. The old man was dressed as a hunter with a European hunting hat and had a dog following him. He chased after the boys and disappeared around the corner. When I caught up with them, the boys had run up to the top of a hill and were standing there with an old woman and a dog of their own while we watched with the old man from the bottom of the hill. I somehow knew that the woman was the old hunter’s wife of many years and that the two loved each other deeply. There was a brief standoff. Then suddenly,…
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Libido: Tracking Inner Energy
16 december 2021 · 1 uur 5 min
Jung understood libido as psychic energy: desire, will, interest, and passion. Libido includes instincts for fulfilling bodily appetites and engaging developmental tasks. Although energy infuses all human activity, it is not a function of ego alone; for many, a worthy goal has lacked the libido to achieve it. Feelings and actions can veer into symptoms, such as neurosis or addiction. Low libido is often a form of depression, and libido that is too high can be mania. Most often, a problem with libido is experienced as “stuckness,” the stasis produced from conflict between our natural, instinctual selves and familial and cultural expectations--internalized “shoulds.” We can face fear and engage desire, for acknowledging the truth of where attraction lies creates pathways along which life energy can flow. Psychotherapy could be considered a quest for each person’s authentic psychic energy. The innate direction of libido, the enlivening wellspring of the soul, is in service to individuation. Lees meer
Here’s the dream we analyzed:
“I am walking around a garden, praying. I’m not sure whether I’m praying to God or to the earth or the trees, but I’m expressing gratitude for the beauty around me. There are two huge beech trees next to each other at the end of the garden. The knotted and gnarled trunks make each look like a laughing face - two friendly giants. I look up at the canopy high above - they almost seem to fill the sky with leaves. Then I notice that one tree is rocking in the wind, and there is a crack at the base of the trunk that opens and closes as it does so. I am concerned that the tree will fall. Behind the trees in the neighboring garden is a large, modern house which looks rather austere and forbidding. I wonder if I should warn the people in the house about the tree. Now two men in dark blue boiler suits arrive to examine the trees. Each reaches out a hand toward a tree, but before they can touch them, both trees fall over with a crash. I am sure the house will …
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The Archetype of the Crocodile
9 december 2021 · 57 min
The crocodile and its alligator cousin appear regularly in the dreams of people far from warm, wet habitats. In ancient Egyptian mythology, the divine crocodile Sobek was honored, especially at riverbanks, the threshold of land and water. The Egyptian earth god Geb was depicted as a crocodile guarding the gateway to the underworld. Thresholds mark the entry to the unknown, a realm where usual rules do not apply—an apt parallel to the boundary between the ego and the unconscious. Primordial force, seemingly submerged in psyche’s ancient riverbeds, can erupt to drown, dismember and devour the ego’s claim to autonomy. Moments of dissolution in trauma or periods of psychosis have power as crushing as the crocodile’s terrible teeth and gaping maw. The unconscious source of consciousness also has the power to consume it. Crocodile is danger, death, and life’s relentless urge to realize itself. Lees meer
We Analyze Several Crocodile Dreams To Explore A Variety Of Ways The Archetype Presents.
REFERENCES:
Erich Neumann. The Great Mother, translated by Ralph Manheim https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691166072/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_DBFKM4HWBS5VAK5N8W4P
The Book of Symbols. Reflections on Archetypal Symbols. Taschen. https://www.amazon.com/dp/3836514486/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_FSZEWSEQ8A2KAFSJSC1H
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
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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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Archetypes and the Creative Process: A Discussion with Third Coast Percussion
2 december 2021 · 1 uur
The creator, the hero, the explorer: these are just some of the archetypes made famous by Carl Jung that inspired the latest album from Chicago’s Grammy award-winning Third Coast Percussion. Created in collaboration with classical guitarist Sérgio Assad and composer-performer Clarice Assad, Archetypes is a sonic exploration of the human experience. Taped live at the 2021 Chicago Humanities Festival, our conversation with musicians Clarice Assad and David Skidmore features an exploration of the creative process and an interactive discussion on David’s dream. Clarice Assad is a Grammy-nominated composer, celebrated pianist, inventive vocalist, and educator. David Skidmore is a performer and Executive Director with Third Coast Percussion, a GRAMMY Award-winning percussion quartet based in Chicago. Lees meer
REFERENCES:
Third Coast Percussion: https://thirdcoastpercussion.com/
Archetypes: https://thirdcoastpercussion.com/music/albums/archetypes/
LOOK & GROW
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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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Falling in Love: Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered
25 november 2021 · 58 min
Jung says, “Love is a power of destiny, whose force reaches from heaven to hell.” Falling in love is an initiation into the divine—light, and dark—as personal and archetypal forces combine and combust. In thrall to the magical other through whom we experience newfound parts of ourselves, we fall into a reality that transcends and possesses us. Lees meer
Ardor takes us by surprise and opens us fiercely and intimately to our inner world, exposing us to ourselves. Passion must pass, whether it leads to commitment and partnership or casts us into disillusion and heartbreak. We need to know and grow a capacity for loving that makes us more whole and more able to love the other in another. We shall become kinder and wiser…and bow to the excitement and aliveness of falling in love.
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“I am looking at myself in a mirror in my waking-life bathroom. I lean close and notice that my two upper front teeth appear to be loose and crooked. I touch one, and it skews out of alignment. I panic! I try to realign the tooth, and it falls out with a gush of blood. I touch my other tooth, and it too falls out. I hold the teeth in shaking hands as I try to fit them back in place. They won’t stay in. I am horrified and unable to do anything. The teeth seem to grow larger in my hands, looking more like an animal tooth--like a sealion canine tooth I have in my waking life. I wake suddenly with the intense urge to check my teeth to make sure they are still there and okay.”
REFERENCES:
Aldo Carotenuto. Eros & Pathos: Shades of Love & Suffering. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0919123392/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_PEWYNA6PB0E8W9BB1KXP
Jan Bauer. Impossible Love: Why the Heart Must Go Wrong.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1626549737/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_Y5THBGJ83K0VX5EF1Z3E
James Hollis. The Eden Project: In Search of the Magical Other.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0919123805/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_06AWPRX8XXFMZG097EXR
John Haule. Divine Madness: Archetypes of Romantic Love.
https://www.ama…
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A Well-Aligned Mind: How to Be Alive
18 november 2021 · 56 min
Guest Iain McGilchrist is a renowned psychiatrist, researcher, and author. His 2009 book, The Master and His Emissary gained worldwide fame for showing how differences between brain hemispheres affect our perceptions - and guide our lives. Each hemisphere has a radically different ‘take’ on the world: the left sees what is in the theater spotlight, whereas the right hemisphere understands the whole play. Lees meer
Both are part of the theater of our lives, but the narrowly focused left hemisphere has increasingly taken over in the modern world. The right hemisphere offers a more spacious perspective: connectedness, complexity, and creativity - and has a direct and demonstrable effect on physical and mental well-being. Jung says, “One must never look to the things that ought to change. The main question is how we change ourselves.” McGilchrist shows us how: paying attention to what we are paying attention to reintroduces us to who we are - and aliveness.
REFERENCES:
A 10,000 essay and summary of McGilchrist’s ideas is available free on Kindle. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008JE7I2M/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_8QPW3VT6QMZQ08C7VK9T
Iain McGilchrist: The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World. Kindle Edition only. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09KY5B3QL/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_RP260867DNVHG84JYANK
Iain McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World https://www.amazon.com/dp/0300245920/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_7JP0MQCZ71W0PJ5HGVM4?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
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Lisa’s leading a retreat in ITALY!
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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…
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Humanizing the Hero
11 november 2021 · 1 uur 12 min
Mythological heroes defend, protect and quest. They range from warriors, adventurers, and saviors to magicians, loners, and rebels, but one way or another, they battle bad for the sake of good. They have courage, skill, and strength, but never a troubling moment. Although we still delight in heroes with might and shine, modern times have given rise to a new ideal: the everyday hero. Lees meer
From Harriet Tubman to Anne Frank and Frodo Baggins to Huckleberry Finn, these are heroes of happenstance. Circumstances demanded more of them, and they accepted the challenge to surmount loss, accept uncertainty, and take principled action even in a crisis. Unlike mythical heroes, everyday heroes struggle—and living fully into a larger purpose serves their personal development. Recent history has humanized the archetype of the hero and brought it down to earth. The new myth is about every man’s heroic energy for individuation and meaning.
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“It’s a bright clear day, and I’m in a forest. I’m walking around when I spot these hybrid creatures, both boar and human, or humans wearing boar heads as helmets. They are absolutely terrifying, and I try to hide from them in the brush. I watch them. Suddenly, one veers off from the rest and leans over and defecates or vomits from its chest. It’s violent and disgusting. The creature seems weakened, sick. Then I’m walking again, trying to get away from the creatures, but they spot me-- at least one of them does. I am not afraid now and assume we will fight. There’s a group of swords on the ground--more like big serrated knives--, and I pick one up. The creature and I duel, and I cut it several times. I’m confident in my victory, but then I’m nicked on the face. I’m worried about this; maybe it’s worse than I know. Then the dream jumps, and I’m in a dark bathroom examining the cut in the mirror. It’s a scratch. The boar creature is here with me, but she’s a beautiful brunette woman, and it’s clear we’re lovers. The feeli…
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The Fiery Furnace of Ambition
4 november 2021 · 1 uur 9 min
Ambition is a fire whose flames first rise in the first half of life when hopes and dreams are fueled by possibilities in the external world. It takes creative audacity to seize a dream, develop a talent, or commit to a calling. Ambition can also be fueled by narcissism, power-seeking, or striving to overcome inadequacy. Lees meer
Too much fire can consume and corrupt us; insufficient heat forsakes potential for flickering fantasies. Jungian scholar and author James Hillman writes that each of us has an innate blueprint for becoming in The Soul’s Code. Ambition can best be the discovery of our authentic purpose in the world, a combination of character and call that provides the heat needed to find and pursue our destiny. Integrity is the true source of energy for pursuing a goal, persevering in its attainment, and allowing desire for distinction in the external world to serve development in the inner world.
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“I am in a contest to kill a baby by throwing a ball at it. I have to stand on a lawn chair while I throw the ball. I am moving the chair here and there, trying to get the right angle. The baby is very far away, hard to see. Many people are watching me, some rooting for me, some against me. Then someone brings the baby much closer because of some new rule. But now I can see its features. “It's harder to kill a baby when you can see its features!" I cry. I consider quitting the contest. But finally, I do throw the ball - and miss. Everyone is disappointed. I was neither noble (by quitting) nor powerful (by winning).”
REFERENCE:
James Hillman. The Soul’s Code: In Search of Character & Calling. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0399180141/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_5YHDGK5T26N1FH5T4RD1
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The Archetype of the Witch: Dangerous, Denied & Dishonored
28 oktober 2021 · 1 uur 26 min
It’s witching season, the time when women of all ages embrace a mythical image of unfettered feminine power. The witch may cast spells, seek vengeance, or wreak creative havoc—as she pleases. Flying the night skies of psyche, the witch brings primordial realities into culture’s brittle convictions. Lees meer
Like all aspects of the collective unconscious, the witch lays low when times are fine but rises when times are tense. Her archetypal power then infects humankind, inciting mass hysteria and the horrors of persecutory epidemics. The witch symbolizes our fear and vulnerability to the Great Mother in her dark, heartless aspect--and her power remains. Jung says, “On a primitive level, people are afraid of witches; on the modern level, we are apprehensively afraid of microbes.” If we can face the witch and acknowledge her power to depose ego and order, we can also face our choices and the freedom to make them.
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“My family has rented a house in an affluent area of my city for a celebration. I borrow my dad’s keys afterward to get something out of the car before planning to return quickly to the house. I’m wearing a yarmulke for the occasion. On my way back, I step onto a concrete block overlooking an SUV with an alarm going off. Despite there being a man in the car, a plainclothes policeman approaches me to say I’m being taken in for questioning because the car was stolen. The police officer refuses to let me call my father to tell him what happened. I am questioned by two officers, now in their uniforms, at the back of a luxurious synagogue. I am outraged and trying to profess my innocence with confidence, but my body and voice are shaking. The other officer lets me call my dad, who speaks in a gentle voice with sadness and almost disappointment. Then I am brought to a university-type study room to be questioned by a group of teen police officers, some of whom I recognize as people I went to high school with. On the way to this room, I see a fr…
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Assessing Our Psychic Inheritance
21 oktober 2021 · 1 uur 4 min
Jung said of the parent-child relationship: “Nothing exerts a stronger psychic effect upon the human environment, and especially upon children, than the life which the parents have not lived.” Jung understood that parents could unconsciously compel children to fulfill parental dreams or compensate for disappointments. Parental shadow creates an urgency to purge, perfect, or prolong a psychic legacy. It may manifest by taking on a parental aspiration, making up for a parental deficit, rebelling against parental constraints, or being subsumed by parental dictates. When personal libido is tied to parental needs, energy for life is hijacked by anxiety, ambivalence, and ambiguity - and it is up to us to reckon with it. If we do the work of differentiating from our parents, we discover ourselves. By doing so, we may truly redeem them and free ourselves. We serve life best by claiming it. Lees meer
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“I am in what seems to be a decrepit apartment building, and I get the sense that the rooms of the building are interconnected and continuous. There are emaciated animals roaming the rooms, and there are two figures aside from myself: a large grotesque man sitting at a dining table and a tired-looking baker. The grotesque man seems to demand food and the baker brings him cake and other food. The large man begins eating like an animal, with his bare hands, throwing scraps behind, resulting in the animals fighting over them. In a climax, from the door leading to the other rooms, I can hear the sounds of hundreds of footsteps and the screams of children running toward the door into the room. The dream ends just as hundreds of hands begin to pass the threshold of the door.”
REFERENCES:
Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143133586/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_Y8GCS800QBTD9A8Z3DRE
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Does Analysis Work? A Conversation with Jonathan Shedler, PhD
14 oktober 2021 · 1 uur 42 min
“Talk is powerful medicine.” Renowned researcher and clinician Jonathan Shedler, Ph.D., joins us to discuss the effectiveness of psychodynamic psychotherapy. While so-called evidence-based therapies—brief treatments conducted by instruction manuals—offer benefits for some, their status as the “gold standard” of treatment for mental distress is undeserved. Lees meer
Dr. Shedler’s 2010 paper, “The Efficacy of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy,” is the most widely read psychoanalytic paper of our time. It’s been downloaded more than a quarter of a million times and has been cited by thousands. He discusses this influential work with us, including the finding that those who engage in psychodynamic psychotherapy not only improve by the end of treatment but continue to make gains even years after therapy is finished. According to Shedler, “psychodynamic therapy sets in motion psychological processes that lead to ongoing change, even after therapy has ended.” Jung tells us that we don’t solve our problems so much as grow larger than them. There is good empirical evidence that psychodynamic psychotherapy does indeed help us to grow.
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“I am in a snowy place with my mom. We are leaving one chalet to go to a different one to meet up with other family members. While packing up to leave, I am preoccupied with a lost sweater. My mom is angry at me for wasting time. I love the sweater; it’s beautiful, and I wanted it for a long time before I got it. I gradually accept that the sweater is now gone, but I’m really sad about it. Then we get into the car. We are both in the back seat of the car talking to each other, and it takes a few minutes before we realize that the car is driving itself. I am not bothered by this; I seem to intuit that the car will take us to the right place, or at least that it knows where it’s going. But my mom is once again angry at me for not driving it. I cannot drive it because my leg is injured. It is this anger--as she realizes that I’m no…
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JUSTICE: The Struggle for Balance
7 oktober 2021 · 1 uur 9 min
Principles of fairness and justice have deep roots in the human psyche: we want to receive our fair share and a fair shake. When man injures man, we may protest, strive for redress, and measure wrong with morality—but what about godly misfortunes? Life, myth, and religion are rich with issues of injustice. Whether personal injury, social inequality, or divine mystery, over-insistence on fairness can lead to depression, resentment, and fixation. Lees meer
Instead, we must distinguish injustice from loss, recognize what can and cannot be changed, and orient to the future. Imprisoned in a concentration camp, Viktor Frankl later wrote, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s way.”
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“I stood opposite my husband as he told me he’d found somewhere else to live, and with a mystery woman. I paced around; we were in a busy place. I reached for my phone, unsure whom to phone or text. I felt panic as I realized I wasn’t sure who I could rely on, aware of a sense of burden. I didn’t have a job yet; how would I support myself and our children? In the dream, I was aware there was a separation that felt as if I had instigated it in order for him to realize our marriage was worth saving. However, him moving on so swiftly made me feel as if I’d made a huge mistake. As I returned home, my neighbor invited me to a cafe to talk. I felt hungry, and junk food was placed in front of me. She wanted the gossip. I felt the urge to share but knew everyone would soon know about my husband leaving.”
REFERENCE:
Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0006IU470/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_8Q0BT8KHK0WD6CCPAHWJ
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Confronting Shadow: The Work of Self-Discovery
30 september 2021 · 1 uur 19 min
Psychotherapy is essentially the work of making shadow conscious—all that we have not discerned then disowned, or projected onto others. We seldom welcome shadow, for it is marked by emotions and motivations that deflate, disturb, and dethrone ego. From family scuffles to political hostilities and outright war, we most often meet our shadow in others. Its presence is signaled by a strong urge to take action, with feelings ranging from judgment to antagonism, from pity to self-sacrifice, and from obsession to disgust. If we have the courage to face and relate to the inner world of another, we experience and expand our own inner world. Shadow is the dark doorway to renewal and development, creativity and compassion. Jung said, “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” Lees meer
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“I am in the backyard of my grandparents’ house. It’s night and very dark out, and I can see the lights on in the house. I have a bird feather in my hand that is luminescent with green and purple. I stick it in the ground, and a bird appears—a dove, I think. It flies away, and I stick the feather in the ground a second time. Another bird appears and flies away. I do it a third time, but this time I take a feather from the bird that appears and replant it in the same spot. When I do this, the ground trembles. Something big is happening, and I’ve started something I can’t stop. The third bird flies back to me and tells me to find a swan to make something called svala. Then I’m at some sort of school party, like a reunion or homecoming. I see an Indian woman I knew and used to be friends with. We haven’t seen each other in a long time and are no longer close, but I think she might know the meaning of svala and how I am supposed to make it, and what it will do. I keep trying to talk to her, but things keep getting in the way. Finally, she invites me to her room. There is beautiful music playing in the background, and…
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Self-Reflection: What Was I Thinking?
23 september 2021 · 58 min
Jung says, “There is another instinct, different from the drive to activity and so far as we know specifically human, which might be called the reflective instinct.” Self-reflection is correlated with consciousness and is arguably humankind’s unique and essential competency: a meta-cognitive capacity that is aware of its own awareness. Lees meer
If this is lacking, we may share the fate of Narcissus, who fell in love with his image, mirrored in silvery water--but every time he sought an embrace, his loved one retreated. Because he was unable to reflect on his reflection, Narcissus wasted away from psychic starvation. Many of today’s cultural forces make image supreme and tempt us to identify with reflections and appearances. Instead, we can choose to turn inward and observe ourselves, using consciousness to unite outer and inner worlds, feeling, and thinking. Only seeing into ourselves can clarify motivation, make meaning conscious, and bring our scattered parts into harmony and wholeness.
HERE’S THE DREAM WE ANALYZE:
“I had a dream that I was in a half-abandoned house; it looked old and needed to be renovated. It was spacious with many rooms and corridors. My younger son, four years old, was by my side. He was occupied with something, and I was getting frustrated as I needed to go to the toilet to relieve myself (to do #2). I was getting frustrated as he wasn’t listening, and my urge was becoming greater. I left him behind and started looking for a toilet. I was entering some rooms, and they looked like abandoned, old, destroyed, non-functioning toilets. I realized that I can’t take it any longer, so I decided that the next door I open, I will relieve myself. I opened the door and the room looked disgusting: some feces were just on the floor. I don’t remember seeing an actual toilet; everything looked as if it was abandoned many years ago (e.g., paint peeled off the walls, dust). I stepped into some shit, and somehow it landed on my cheek (I didn’t feel too disgusted but…
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INFLUENCE: Connection or Contagion?
16 september 2021 · 1 uur 2 min
We have always been subject to the influence of others—it’s how we learn language, become socialized, cooperate and collaborate. It’s also how we exclude, denigrate, and assault others. Today, we are subject to unprecedented social influences. Multiplicities of media shape our ideas, identities, beliefs, and values--and foster connections and communities around the world. If tulip mania took hold in 17th century Holland—perhaps the original speculative bubble--today we have non-fungible tokens and cryptocurrencies. “Heretics” are now exiled via “cancel culture.” Cultural contagions and psychic epidemics are not new—they just come dressed in the flashy new garb of social media and telecommunication. Amid so many influences, it is newly necessary to engage in the discernment and differentiation crucial to individuation, the fulfillment of our innate potential. Consciousness cannot be held hostage to intellectual simplifications or emotional reactivity. Each of us can uphold social norms that rest on foundations of fact, reflection, and spaciousness. Lees meer
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“It’s nighttime, and I’ve traveled to France with my immediate family and also a woman I’ve known who has a lot of money involved in the fashion industry. We arrive at where we are supposed to stay for the night-- a very run-down part of town. We come to a pink house with bars on the windows. My company, used to five-star accommodations, hesitatingly agrees to stay at these dodgy houses. The next scene: I’m in a twin bed, with my brother asleep in the twin bed next to mine. I know my parents are asleep in the room next to ours. All the lights are out, and it’s dark. A darkly figured shadow man enters the room, an intruder. I’m at once frightened and also intrigued. I gasp, and he notices I’m there and turns to leave. As he leaves, I ask, “who are you?” He turns for a moment from the door, and I feel his gaze. I’m overcome by a sense of longing for him and he leaves. My father enters the room…
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SHADOWLAND: Prostitution - the story of Kay
9 september 2021 · 1 uur 36 min
This is Shadowland, a new podcast experience from This Jungian Life that explores the lives of people who work and take refuge in the hidden places of our culture. Lisa, Deb, and Joseph collaborate with songwriter Wells Hanley, creator of I Wrote This Song For You podcast, to bring insight, compassion, and understanding to the darker side of human experience. Lees meer
Nietzsche wrote, “I am a forest, and a night of dark trees: but he who is not afraid of my darkness, will find banks full of roses under my cypresses.”
In that spirit, we meet Kay, a 21-year-old single mother who works throughout the American southwest as a self-described prostitute. We explore how she found her way to that life, what she aspires to, and how she holds the complicated tensions between herself, her clients, and the current culture.
Here’s Kay’s dream that we analyze:
“I am in a pet store with my best friend and my daughter, who is in a stroller. The woman proprietor went in the back. I saw an alligator in a cage eating a piglet and looked at my daughter’s stroller -- she wasn’t in there. Then I am somewhere running through halls trying to find her. I see a lot of kids about her age running around [but she isn’t among them]. I think she is in the ventilation system because she likes to crawl around. I tell someone to hide the weed that’s in my car so we can call the police.”
We shared this interview with Wells Hanley, who was moved to create a song for Kay. We hope you’ll be as touched by her story as we were.
You can support Wells Hanley’s creative work by becoming his patron here: https://www.patreon.com/iwrotethissongforyou
His website is here www.iwrotethissongforyou.com/
SONG: PART OF THE PLAY
music and lyrics by Wells Hanley © 2020.
I will listen
receive you
affirm you in every way
And I will hold you
but as I’ve told you
it’s just part of the play
I will undress you
and then impress you
we’ll make a game of predator and prey
I’ll be unrestrained
but as I’ve explained
i…
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SHADOWLAND: a new podcast experience – September 9 on TJL
2 september 2021 · 1 min
On September 9th, This Jungian Life will launch a new podcast experience - SHADOWLAND. In this series, we meet soulfully with people who live and work in the hidden places of our culture. Lees meer
Walk with us and discover the voice of psyche on unexpected paths.
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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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The Archetype of WAR
2 september 2021 · 1 uur 19 min
Recent events in Afghanistan have again put war at the forefront of collective consciousness. War’s destruction belongs to the mythic realm. Mars, the Roman god of war, was a primordial force whose altars were placed outside city gates. Although acknowledged, he was not accepted. His paramour, Venus, is warfare’s seductress, offering spectacle, pageantry, and glory. Lees meer
Like all the gods of Mt. Olympus, Mars and Venus live in us as opposing forces of aggression and eros. We are charged with holding the tension of these impassioned opposites and making them conscious, lest we project shadow onto designated enemies or wage war internally as neurosis. We can stand in the complexity of conflict, suspend action, and allow the gods a place inside our psychic city gates.
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“I had a dream me and my boyfriend adopted a child and were living in a rundown apartment full of darkness that resembled a studio we rehearsed in. Then we went to the balcony to watch missiles falling and exploding in the sky; my boyfriend was aloof to the situation. My first thought was, “this must be very exciting for the child because it’s like fireworks,” Then I realized that it’s actually really dangerous and life-threatening, so I grabbed the child and ran inside, leaving my boyfriend outside gazing at the sky. The room was pitch dark, and I could hear the voices of my mother and my brother talking about me; they were saying, “how is the baby going to survive without a shell”? Then I realized the kid has turned into a round egg in the palm of my hand, and the shell was dissolving like wet paper, leaving a bubble of fragile liquid with a fetus inside. I knew that any sudden movement could burst the bubble and kill the baby, so I tried to be as gentle and careful as I could.”
REFERENCES:
A Terrible Love of War by James Hillman. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143034928/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_46A683TF2489P8WNSC8Y
Depth Psychology and a New Ethic by Erich Neumann. https://www.am…
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The Music of Metaphor: Healing in Therapy & Life
26 augustus 2021 · 1 uur 27 min
Guest Mark Winborn is a clinical psychologist and Jungian analyst who teaches in the U.S. and internationally. Author of three books and numerous articles, Mark is an active member of the IRSJA and the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich/Kusnacht. Psychotherapy is talk therapy—but what kind of talk are we talking about? The most fundamental medium of our knowing is language, and metaphor imbues language with music. Lees meer
To understand and engage another’s internal world requires language which speaks in harmony with the unconscious. Metaphor speaks beyond ego and traverses the realms between past and present, bodily sensation and feeling, conscious and unconscious. It infuses lived experience with connection and creates shared space for healing. Jung says, “Whoever speaks in primordial images speaks with a thousand voices; he enthralls and overpowers, while at the same time he lifts the idea he is seeking to express out of the occasional and the transitory into the realm of the ever-enduring.”
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“I am in the bathroom of a hotel room where I am staying. I may have just gotten out of the shower. I see a fat, red, slimy worm-like creature several inches in length crawling along the floor. I am horrified and think that it is a snake. As I inspect it more closely, I notice a tiny pair of limbs along the upper portion of the body. At this point, I wonder if it is a baby alligator. I find this idea less repugnant than a snake. My wife comes into the room and tells me that it is actually a bird. As I study the tiny limbs, I begin to think that these must be embryonic wings. At this point, I begin to ponder how I should nurture this creature, wondering if it would be best for it if I took it outside.”
REFERENCES
Website: www.drmarkwinborn.com
Edinger, E. (1991). Anatomy of the psyche: Alchemical symbolism in psychotherapy. Chicago: Open Court
Meltzer, D., & Williams, M. H. (1988/2008). The apprehension of beauty: The role of aesthetic conflict in devel…
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Splitting: Understanding What Divides Us
19 augustus 2021 · 1 uur 3 min
We seem hard-wired to split the world into polarities: right/wrong, either/or, victory/defeat, Democrat/Republican. Infants and toddlers have not yet achieved the developmental capacity for complexity; they are believed to split their feelings toward caretakers into “good” and “bad,” depending on whether their needs are being met in the moment. Lees meer
Although it distorts reality, splitting reduces anxiety by locating the problem “out there,” allowing us to reject what we find aversive and affirm our own virtue, self-worth, and blamelessness. The capacity for ambivalence—the ability to hold opposite feelings—requires more differentiated cognitive skills and emotional range. Can we bear anxiety in the face of what seems intolerable without retreating to the fortress of one-sided (usually righteous) certainty? Doing so can increase capacity for objectivity, self-reflection, and ability to bridge the split.
HERE’S THE DREAM WE ANALYZE:
“I was in a room full of people, not sure where or with who, but I suppose they were all friends of mine. I was walking past the couches of people, and I stumbled upon this table. Underneath the table was a head of a person who looked a lot like Sigmund Freud. I approached the sort of “floating head” and said, “you look a lot like Sigmund Freud.” He was smiling at me greatly, and he said, “that’s because I am.” Then his head disappeared like a ghost disappearing into a wall. I jumped back, gasped, and looked around the room to see if anyone saw what I just witnessed. No one had, they all were busy talking, and so I just stared at the spot where his head was trying to make sense of what I saw.”
REFERENCES:
Kaplan and Sadock’s Synopsis of Psychiatry: Behavioral Sciences/Clinical Psychiatry Eleventh Edition by Benjamin J. Sadock https://www.amazon.com/dp/1609139712/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_FXHRS2XVKGW5Q17ZR2K7
Love, Guilt and Reparation. By Melanie Klein https://www.amazon.com/dp/074323765X/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_ZK5F7D7B07XRKH5XJBJ4
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The Wounded Healer
12 augustus 2021 · 54 min
There are three major models of healing: medical, shamanic, and psychoanalytic. In the first, the doctor does it to you; in the second, the intermediary does it for you; and in the third, Jung’s dialectical process, we work together to discover “the curative powers in the patient’s own nature.” Just as every wounded patient has inner health, every healer has an inner wound. If consciously known and borne, the analyst’s wound serves the healing process. Lees meer
In Greek myth, Chiron symbolizes the wounded healer, a term Jung originated. A wise and noble centaur, Chiron suffered a painful, incurable wound—and inspired many a Greek hero to reach full potential. Psychotherapy and psychoanalysis attract wounded healers. A recent survey shows that 82% of applied psychology graduate students and faculty in the U.S. and Canada experience mental health conditions. We must be willing, like Chiron, to embrace the darkness of our painful places if we hope to help others embrace theirs.
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“I had just moved into a house with new roommates. One of the roommates was an African American social media personality, and the other roommate was a Latinx man. As a white woman with a privileged background, I felt like an intruder, but was excited to be living with them. In the first week, I get back to the house, and no one is home. In one of the shared spaces, the ‘social media personality roommate has left out materials for one of her projects where she has two mason jars that have been fermenting and infusing for weeks. Both jars are filled with a clear liquid, where the top half of the liquid is red, and the bottom half is blue. One jar is labeled “separated,” and the other doesn’t have a label. Since I’ve seen her video about this on social media, I know that if the labeled jar is shaken, the colors will stay separated, and with the unlabeled jar, they will mix into a purple. Without thinking, impulsively, I grab the unlabeled mason jar and tip it over, watching …
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Tarot, Divination & the Symbolic Life
5 augustus 2021 · 1 uur 27 min
Guest T. Susan Chang is a writer, podcaster, and teacher of tarot, the most commonly recognized modern form of divination. The archetypal symbols in the tarot’s 78 card deck offer gateways to meaning and mystery. Jung says symbols act as transformers—life energy is converted from a lower to higher form by the amplification that consciousness provides. Tarot divination is intended to break from the mundane and court the numinous. It asks that we set logic aside, surrender doubt, and step unafraid into the space between realms. As with dreams, whatever arises will tell us something we don’t know and can use. Jung said that the “redeeming symbol is a highway, a way upon which life can move forward without torment and compulsion.” By opening ourselves to the inexplicable, we set forth on that highway with the intent of discovering our unique pattern for personhood and purpose in the world. Lees meer
A Two-Card Tarot Reading
This week, in lieu of a dream interpretation, Susie agreed to do a two-card Tarot draw for all of us. The question we chose was dealing with uncertainty. The cards, visible on camera, were spread out face down, and she gently moved them around, picked up a few, and selected two. Turning them over revealed the Queen and Page of Wands, two court cards. As the Queen of Wands has an outgoing nature, she creates networks. This card indicated that we can seek support from others in a time of uncertainty. The youthful Page of Wands, at whom the Queen seemed to be gazing, has a quality of innocence and optimism as he looks outward. Altogether this draw indicates that we can choose our attitude toward uncertainty. The Queen of Wands suggests the possibility of connection with others, and the Page conveys a spirit of adventure.
References
www.tsusanchang.com
Books:
Tarot Deciphered
https://www.amazon.com/Tarot-Deciphered-Decoding-Esoteric-Symbolism/dp/0738764477/
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Time & Truth About Its Use
29 juli 2021 · 1 uur 30 min
Guest Oliver Burkeman states in his new book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, that “outrageous brevity is life’s defining problem.” At age 80, you’ll have had a paltry 4,000 weeks. Such brevity is breathtaking, so we create defenses against the reality of finitude. We distract ourselves with the belief that fulfillment lies in the future, that plans and goals prove purpose, and that we can achieve almost any number of things by being more efficient/motivated/healthy—or just overall exceptional. Paradoxically, embracing life’s limitations can open us to what Jung called “a new attitude”—an inner pivot from the daily grind to seeing and seizing life’s possibilities. Time is not our adversary, the present is not hostage to the future, and we can choose to be alive while we’re alive. Lees meer
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“Had a dream about a close friend. She had committed a murder, and there was a police detective asking her questions. She had some sort of tracker device that she was holding in her hand most of the dream. She lied to the detective and said she only had it because of her work, and she hadn’t even turned it on yet. The policeman wanted to check her tracker to confirm she wasn’t at the scene of murder. She kept making up excuses as to why she couldn’t give it to him. She kept coming and going in her car from this house that we were in sometimes with the policeman; other times it was just busy with different unknown people. My friend was terrified and turned to me for help. At one point, she was wailing and pleading with me to help her, saying, “please don’t let them take me away.” I was holding her and comforting her and saying I wouldn’t let them do that.”
REFERENCES:
www.oliverburkeman.com
Burkeman, Oliver. Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. https://www.oliverburkeman.com/books
Burkeman, Oliver. The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking
Burkeman, Oliver. Help! How to Become Slightly Happier and …
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The Cosmic Meaning of Consciousness
22 juli 2021 · 1 uur 12 min
In Answer to Job, Jung states, “Whoever knows God has an effect on him.” If, as Jung claims, individual human consciousness affects God, what we are matters monumentally. When we serve our neuroses, the gulf between ego and Self widens. Pursuing individuation not only sets our personality in right order, it permits our personal experiences to enrich the collective unconscious – who we are is added to God. When Jung visited the Navajo, they told him they helped the sun, their father, cross the sky each day, a spiritual observance that sustained the world. Jung said, “I had envied the fullness of meaning in that belief and had been looking about without hope for a myth of our own. Now I knew what it was, and knew even more: that man is indispensable for the completion of creation, that in fact, he himself is the second creator of the world….” Human consciousness weaves meaning into the dance of life. Our psyches companion God crossing the sky each day and so participate in creation. As we confront the mystery of our lives and uncover the unique meaning unfolding in us – we become conscious co-creators. Lees meer
HERE’S THE DREAM WE ANALYZED:
“I stand up from the couch and move toward the hallway. Three older women have entered the house. They look to be in their 50s or 60s, with long, draping clothes. They look like ordinary women and do not appear threatening, but I immediately feel menacing energy. I ask them who they are and what they are doing in the house. The women brush off my questions and mock me for my concern, suggesting that I am frightening the little boy. They have pushed past the hallway and are now in the kitchen. Their forcefulness tells me that they are here with ill intent, and I fear that they are here to rob the family. I grab the little boy and take him upstairs to hide him in his room while I deal with the old women, but when I am closing the boy’s bedroom door to go back downstairs, the women are already on the second floor of the house, entering all …
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Archetypes
15 juli 2021 · 1 uur 10 min
Although the concept of archetypes has philosophical ancestors, Jung’s theory was developed over time and rested on a foundation that was scientific and empirical. Research and experiment enabled Jung to establish the autonomous activity of the unconscious. Lees meer
He was then able to posit archetypes as a predisposition to form representations of universal human experiences and mythological motifs, such as marriage, the hero’s journey, and death/rebirth. For Jung, archetypes are innate psychic organs that “have a positive, favourable (sic), bright side that points upwards [and] one that points downwards…” Archetypes manifest spontaneously. In the collective, they are the driving force behind mass movements; in individuals, archetypes manifest most frequently as dream images that feel numinous and ‘other.’ Jung says, “The impact of an archetype, whether it takes the form of immediate experience or is expressed through the spoken word stirs us because it summons up a voice that is stronger than our own.” The power of an archetype can either possess us or inspire us.
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“Early morning dream, just before waking, and eerily similar but not the same as one I had several years ago about being shot in the heart and stomach area and killed by a stranger. This time, I was at home in my home office and heard someone entering through my back door. I may have wondered if it was my boyfriend, but he does not live with me, and I wasn’t expecting anyone. I went into the hallway to see who it was, and a man I’ve never seen before walked in. He had the energy of an intruder, and I felt scared. He looked right at me. His hair was white; his clothing was gray, his skin nearly colorless or ashen. His eyes and face were emotionless, without expression. He was oriented above me in my dream as if suddenly I had shrunk to the height of a small child looking up at him. I either asked or was about to ask who he was and what he was doing here. Without changing his blank …
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Paying Attention: What Are You Spending It On?
8 juli 2021 · 1 uur 1 min
We plainly pay attention, using the finite currency of time and energy issued in the 24-hour increments that add up to a life - well spent? We have choices and constraints about how we allocate our attention, and today’s world competes fiercely for it in unprecedented ways. No wonder, for power is the ability to command or hijack attention, even if it warps reality with untruths. Lees meer
Jung particularly valued the attentional dimension of “dreaming, or fantasy-thinking” experienced in reverie, dreams, and creativity. And like mothers, lovers, and psychotherapists, we can give others the unconditional attention that brings soul into being. All we have to do is practice paying attention to what we pay attention to.
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“A large lesbian woman, Sally, has four adopted boys. Their home is the top floor of a brick industrial building (like a power station) in the shape of a square, with a quad in the middle. They are visited by Kirsty and Phil (hosts of British TV shows about property/home improvement), and the first room they visit floods with seawater as the tide rises and falls, leaving tide marks on the furniture. One of the boys (aged 9) insists that the room is not fit for purpose and tugs on the sleeves of the adults, but Sally says it is OK. The other boy runs around like he has ADHD. As they move around the building, Kirsty and Phil discover all kinds of problems. There is an industrial kitchen covered in grease and grime. The roof leaks and the home isn’t warm or protected. In the one habitable room, two boys (one black, one white) are stored in a Walls ice cream freezer. Kirsty and Phil worry that the freezer is on, but they touch it and think it is off. The boys both have their eyes open. Kirsty and Phil realize that their cheerful, anything-is-possible attitude won’t work this time. They don’t sugarcoat things for Sally, telling her that the building is condemned and they need to move. They suggest that she sell at a loss. Sally nearly …
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Letting Go: When Is It Time?
1 juli 2021 · 1 uur 16 min
In the first half of life, we strive to develop ego strength and achieve our dreams. To want, will, and work is worthwhile and adaptive--until a life dream, relationship, or identity fades or fails. Should we hang in and hang on - or let go? When does perseverance become pointless, or hope turn rancid in refusal to accept disappointment, defeat, or depression? Lees meer
In letting go, we relinquish our hard-won, heroic “I” and yield to an encounter with the unconscious. Jung says that although “I was afraid of losing command of myself…I let myself drop.” He came to realize that “This identity and my heroic idealism had to be abandoned, for there are higher things than the ego’s will, and to these one must bow.” Jung discovered, as may we, that in letting go something greater can meet and sustain us.
HERE’S THE DREAM WE ANALYZE:
“I’m in a dining room. It’s in an older house with rooms like boxes for different purposes. There is the requisite brown wood dining room table. I’m not sure I should be in there. It feels old and used, and the air feels stale. I look up at there is a plain dark four-blade fan. It’s motionless. But I’m awe-struck by the ancient golden raven perched on the fan blade closest to me. I immediately knew it was the ancient raven. It was looking at me. It was large and had multiple layers of ancient golden feathers. Some big. Some small. Its many golden feathered tail hung down from the fan like a peacock. We just stared at each other. I knew deep inside this ancient raven was connected to me.”
REFERENCES
C.G. Jung. Memories, Dreams, Reflections
Randolphe M. Nesse, M.D. Good Reasons for Bad Feelings
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Threshold: Moving Between the Realms
24 juni 2021 · 1 uur 2 min
In medieval times, the threshold was a plank that kept barnyard “threshings” outside the house. In the sciences a threshold is the limit of magnitude or intensity that must be exceeded for a definitive change to occur. In human development life stage thresholds are marked and recognized through ritual. In psychoanalytic work the symbol is the threshold—a visible but not literal representation that calls consciousness to apprehend a larger, unseen reality. Lees meer
Science fiction, mythology’s modern descendant, has richly storied this process as transition into a new world. The ambiguity and disorientation of this liminal situation requires the sacrifice of old attitudes and willingness to surrender to a new reality—a space of potential enlightenment. The ultimate goal is to recross the threshold and bring the symbolic experience home to consciousness.
Here's the dream we analyze:
“It is late at night and I find myself lying in a dark alleyway at the foot of a tall building. It seems I have just got married as I am dressed as a bride, in a bejeweled white dress. A fat woman with a very round face is looking over me with mean eyes. She is pulling my bridal jewelry off me, one by one. She tears my earrings away making my ears bleed, then the big nose pin, then my neck piece and so on. The woman looks into my eyes and says that my husband is dead. As she’s tearing the jewelry off of me, my bridal dress begins to wear out. I am unable to stop her. Suddenly, I find myself in the entrance hallway of what seems like a palatial old house. It is dimly lit. I am feeling drained. My bridal dress is all rags now, I can’t feel my feet. I look down and notice that both my feet are missing, it seems that they have been wrenched off of my legs. I am floating. I can sense that I’m in a watery world. My breath is draining out through my legs. I manage to float to the edge of the grand staircase and hold onto the post at the bottom. I look up and try to call out to my sister, who I know is…
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The Unspoken Wounding of Men
17 juni 2021 · 1 uur 21 min
Jung’s earliest dream, at age three or four, preoccupied him all his life, “in an underground chamber, a giant phallus stood erect on a golden throne.” Majestic and luminous, it struck him with terror that intensified as his mother’s voice cried out in warning. Phallos, the central archetype of a man's psyche, was once worshipped as sacred. Its urgent, dynamic, and fertilizing power was split off with the rise of ascetic monotheism and banished to the unconscious. Misplaced and maligned, it surfaces as resentful passivity, fear of passion, confusion of values, and reluctance to take action. Phallos is neither reducible to physicality nor synonymous with the patriarchal structures that have alienated men from their vulnerabilities and locked entire cultures into rigid hierarchies. When properly understood, Phallos can revitalize a man’s spirit and set him in vigorous relationship to himself and others. When wounded, it palls his potential. Lees meer
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“I’m in a taxi, on my way to an old friend’s wedding on the high street where I live. I had on a great suit which everybody loved, but I had forgotten my tie. I realized I didn’t have time to go back home, so I went into the back room of a thrift shop which only had a selection of boring ties. As I came out, the shop was filling up with wedding guests. Then I found myself in a different, very gloomy, very cluttered thrift shop with no windows or seemingly a door. In it was a blonde woman, who I asked about ties. She pointed to a corner, and I found a couple more boring ties. I picked them up and laid them on a circular, cluttered table to get a better look in the gloom. I then realized on the table was a larger pile of ties, and to my astonishment, they were ones I had once owned but must have given away to the shop years earlier, still lying there. I told the woman, but she just shrugged. I went through them and found my favorite, which was a dark background with white circles on it. It wasn’t perfe…
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Extroversion
10 juni 2021 · 1 uur 10 min
Although Jung’s theory of typology is the foundation of various personality assessments, it is important to appreciate its profundity as Jung’s theory of consciousness. The four functions of consciousness - sensation, intuition, thinking, and feeling--are governed by two attitudes, extraversion, and introversion. Jung defines extraversion as “an attitude type characterized by concentration of interest on the external object.” Lees meer
Since the movement of psychic energy is outward, extroverts find gratification in social and collegial interactions. Extraverts, therefore, need to distinguish individual goals from relational expectations and cultural norms lest they sacrifice inner reality to outer influences. A vital sense of life direction and the unconstrained pursuit of goals requires differentiating outer from inner and is central to Jungian theory. Knowledge of one’s typology can enlist consciousness in psyche’s quest for balance and wholeness.
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“I am perhaps 4 or 5 months pregnant, and I am at my grandad’s house. I am miscarrying. There is blood and tissue everywhere, and I can feel it happening very viscerally. My grandad and a woman I don’t know are helping to clean it up. There is going to be a party, and I don’t want anyone to know what has happened. Family has arrived now, and I am distracted and worried about people finding out. My grandad can see this and says to me, “why don’t you go up to my room?” This is so I can hide the bucket full of blood. When I get upstairs, the bucket is almost completely clean, just some remnants, but anyone finding it wouldn’t know what had happened. Suddenly my aunt enters the room, and I kick the bucket under the bed to hide it. She talks to me urgently and intensely, I’m not sure what about, but I am distracted. Later, a miscarriage happens again, but even more intensely. This time I see a noticeable baby, small, long, pale blueish. I think I should call the hospital, but I don’t want to. I worry t…
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The Power of NO
3 juni 2021 · 1 uur 7 min
Toddlers have ready access to no as they discover the power of me—the start of a lifelong process of differentiating self from all that is other. When are personal needs, desires, and selfhood the priority? When does caring about others, the need to belong, and toeing the line take precedence? Lees meer
Fear of social rejection, workplace retaliation, or family conflict can erode our healthy no, leading to resentment, an uncertain sense of self, and inability to answer the call to life. We also need to be able to say no to our own bad habits, rigidities, and avoidance of challenges. No is robust, and can open space for self-determination and authenticity. When we find our no we also discover that yes has been waiting for us, and it is alive and inviting.
Here's the dream we analyze:
"I am enrolled in a graduate program in a beautiful tropical tourist destination. The first part of the dream I remember is getting the syllabus on the first day of one of my classes. The professor is male, in his 30s, slender and unassuming. The class is relatively small (8-12) and comprised of people the same age or slightly younger than myself. I don't read the syllabus. On another day of class, we are given a break, and I take the chance to go on a walk through a beautiful nature area. I meet with my wife and son who are staying with me in this idyllic, vacation-like locale. We spot a cafe that I have memory of trying to eat at before, but they were closed. This time they are open, and I estimate I have time to get a quick bite before class resumes. We do, and after a pleasant but short meal, I leave them and return to class. I check the time and see that I have actually missed almost twenty minutes (I think the time was 7:17). I slide back into the classroom, and the class is watching videos that they apparently made in the time I was gone - a group project that seems like it was fun and interesting to put together. After class, I go to the professor's office to apologize. He avoids eye c…
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Risk & Reality: When Fear Traps Us
27 mei 2021 · 1 uur 14 min
We can’t help knowing that something bad could happen if we do X…or Y…or maybe Z. Like Odysseus steering his ship between sea monsters Scylla and Charybdis, we must navigate between risk avoidance and recklessness. One keeps us out of life; the other jeopardizes wellbeing. In pre-modern times life in the external world was fraught with danger and risk; in the modern world, the consequences of risk are more often internal. Lees meer
Possible disappointment, shame or failure may feel intolerable, but not constitute actual disaster. Assessing risk requires willingness to engage inner conflict--and discern, then answer, the call to enlarged life. When Odysseus’ ship later sank, he clung to the roots of a fig tree. He, and we, have access to psychic roots that can support us. And the day came when the risk to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. Anais Nin
Here's the dream we analyze:
"In the countryside I find a baby crawling on the side of a road with some cars driving by. I saw the mother earlier and I judge her for being so irresponsible. It enrages me but I fear expressing my rage. I do not want to provoke drama from her. I pick up the baby and bring it to where she stays with her family in a holiday home. The family doesn't take her so seriously, but when I place the baby with them they are not even surprised or shocked about that. She seems unimpressed as well. I still worry for drama coming from them but it doesn't seem to come. The baby appears unbothered, too."
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Assessing Your Values: Meaning & Motivation
20 mei 2021 · 1 uur 3 min
There is value in examining your values, the powerful emotional and cognitive attitudes that underlie large and small life choices. Although values are initially acquired through family and institutions, an essential task of adulthood is consciously embracing traditional or individual values. Lees meer
Values are the wellspring of libido: they motivate action toward goals. Unless preferred values are in alignment with the underlying flow of energy, unconscious agendas may prevail. Our actions reveal our values, and dreams depict conflicts between conscious and unconsciously held values. The work of Shalom Schwartz, available in an online values assessment (see below), can help identify core values. When values are authentically aligned with goals, they allow libido to flow naturally toward action, and we feel at home with ourselves and right with the world.
Here’s the Dream We Analyze:
“I am on my school oval, playing volleyball with my peers, though I am not a teenager anymore. I’m not very good at playing; I often miss the ball because the sun is in my eyes, or I unknowingly break a rule. Each time I fail, I expect everyone to criticize me (like they would have in the real world), but instead, they are quite friendly and understanding. Eventually, I get the hang of it and have fun. Suddenly I notice a huge cherry blossom tree that’s caught fire just behind the volleyball court. Despite the bark turning black like charcoal, the flowers remain vivid and beautiful and untarnished. I am struck with this beautiful sight against the cloudy white sky, and I reach for my phone to take a photo, but I cannot find it, so I simply sit and watch it with awe.”
REFERENCES:
Values assessment based on the work of Shalom Schwartz: www.discoveryourvalues.com.
Schwartz, S.H. An Overview of the Schwartz Theory of Basic Values. Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, 2(1)1. https://doi.org/10.9707/2307-0919.1116
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INTROVERSION
13 mei 2021 · 1 uur 27 min
The terms introversion and extraversion, now cultural staples, originated with Jung and describe the overall direction of life energy. The widely used Myers-Briggs Typology Indicator (MBTI), now available online, is drawn directly from Jung’s theory of personality types. Although extraverts direct their energy outward, introverts direct their energy inward. External-world relationships and events tend to pale in comparison to ideas, internal images and reflective processes. Lees meer
The German poet Rainer Maria Rilke expressed this idea pithily: “I am in love with you and it’s none of your business.” Introverts are not shy, reclusive, fearful, detached or avoidant—they simply find their inner world enlivening. Introversion places a high value on receptivity, quietude in a busy world, and relationship with oneself. Jung, himself an introvert, valued the ability to claim inner life, freedom and independence.
Here's the dream we analyze:
"I'm in the central square of my native city with my grandmother and my cousin (he and I are in our teenage years). We hear a deep rumbling as though a huge mass of water is approaching. We look around trying to figure out which way it is coming from. I see a gigantic wave crashing over the clock tower which looks more ancient than the one in my real city. The three of us stand facing the wave. My grandmother grabs both of our hands and says, "We hardly have a chance." I think that it might be the end but still hope to survive. The wave hits us (I often dream of huge waves but never been hit by one before). I'm holding my breath under water. It is dark. Then the water subsides. Now it's completely gone. People walk around as though nothing much happened. I meet a couple of my classmates who are not at all surprised that they survived."
References:
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. Susan Cain. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0307352153/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_Q0RT7W8KQSFTGYZYG0GF
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Tending the Ego-Self Axis: Reconnecting with Source
6 mei 2021 · 1 uur 5 min
Erich Neumann publicly proposed the concept of the ego-Self (or Self-ego) axis and began to sketch its implications in his 1952 Eranos lecture, "The Psyche and the Transformation of the Reality Planes. Edward Edinger popularized the concept writing, "It portrays the developmental relationship between the ego and the Self, Jung’s term for “the totality of the conscious and unconscious psyche [that] transcends our visions…” Lees meer
As infants, we embody an original wholeness, or Self-hood, out of which ego (a sense of “I”) gradually emerges. The connection to the Self may be damaged if the ego believes itself the sole source of identity and life or if the ego has been depleted through trauma. In either case, reconnection to the Self is essential to life vitality. A living relationship with the Self can be sought through work with the unconscious: we can attend to our dreams, develop self-reflective capacity, and learn to see meaning and magic in everyday occurrences.
Here’s the dream we analyze:
“I was taking part in a marathon. At first, I was doubtful I could complete the race. As I started running, I realized I was not losing my energy too quickly, and my hope I would reach the destination was growing within me. Toward the end of the race, I still had plenty of energy, so I decided to accelerate a bit, even though I could see so many people were ahead of me, and I, therefore, had no chance of winning. As I reached the end, I checked the results and noticed I was around the 14th person to arrive. I was, however, the first among female participants. I was very excited and wanted my partner to see the results. Then I somehow started running back along the same route, still full of energy. While I was running back, someone was announcing the prizes, and I knew I would be offered a pram and could choose out of three types. One of the prams offered as a prize was a “German” pram that had a seat for the baby that could be turned around so that the baby is either looking forwa…
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When Words Lose Their Meaning
29 april 2021 · 1 uur 37 min
In 1543, Andreas Vesalius dissected a corpse, thereby inaugurating a scientific attitude toward the human body. This new attitude taught us to stand aside from our identification and connection with the body and see it as a lifeless subject of inquiry. Such an approach brought obvious vital advances in science and medicine, but it also came at a cost. In the 20th century, philosophers such as Foucault and Derrida did for language what Vesalius had done for the human body. Their careful dissection of language laid bare formerly hidden assumptions and revealed the ways that language shapes our thinking. Lees meer
We are joined on the podcast by Dr. Bret Alderman, author of Symptom, Symbol, and the Other of Language: A Jungian Interpretation of the Linguistic Turn. We discuss alienation and dissociation that results from the Promethean project to deconstruct language and its meaning.
Foucault, Derrida, and the other postmodernists contributed valuable insights to our understanding of the role of language in determining our assumptions. Still, their desire to sever the meaning of words from those things that words represent is symptomatic of a profound dissociation from our embodied, instinctual selves. Jung was aware of the perils inherent in such a project. "This rupture of the link with the unconscious and our submission to the tyranny of words has one great disadvantage: the conscious mind becomes more and more the victim of its discriminating activity, the picture of the world gets broken down into countless particulars, and the original feelings of unity, which we integrally connected with the unity of the unconscious psyche, is lost. This feeling of unity, in the form of correspondence theory and the sympathy of all things, dominated philosophy until well into the seventeenth century."
The ideas of the postmodernists have permeated culture in ways that are not always obvious. Current movements to redefine certain phenomena as social constructs are evidence of the inroa…
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The Dark Side of Mothering
22 april 2021 · 1 uur 13 min
Our colleague Puddi Kullberg, author of The Bad Mother, joins us to acknowledge motherhood’s shadow. A link to her paper is below. Our culture idealizes motherhood, but mothers everywhere have experienced themselves as bad in varying ways and to various degrees. Lees meer
Jung suggests that even truly harmful mothers can expiate their actions by becoming conscious of what they have done. If we can face even grievous mistakes, we can deepen into our ordinary, sometimes dark humanity. Confrontation with our negative mothering leads to experiencing emotions that were previously unrecognized or denied. We can mitigate isolation by getting help. We can be known, our experience is understandable, and we can choose the life that lies before us now. We may also discover new capacity for compassion and presence—and moments of genuine joy.
Here's the dream we analyze:
“I climb a gigantic rock. In the carrier on my belly, I carry my son. I am trying to reach the tree that stands solely on top of the rock, which feels like the ceiling of the world. The tree is bigger than any tree I have ever seen. It is, in fact, so big I feel it to be the world tree. I am desperate to reach it, for I feel I need to be there; it is essential. The tree is wildly moving its gigantic trunk from left to right all around its circumference. There is no wind, so I feel it must be moving from itself. Its crown is damaged by what seems to have been lightning. It feels overwhelming how big the tree is. I know that I have to reach the base of the tree when it is moving its trunk into the other direction. Although there is a risk of its branches hitting me and my baby, I know there is a certain time span for me to quickly reach its base before the trunk will change direction again. Suddenly there is a figure that attacks me as I climb upwards. He hits and tries to throw me off the mountain. It feels like he is from space, for he has a strange appearance, metallic-like. I know I will have to fight him; it is too…
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The Alchemy of Writing
15 april 2021 · 1 uur 13 min
The wellspring of consciousness has long been located in word. Once words were etched on clay or inked on papyrus, a new way of knowing was born. Writing ordered and expanded language, captured ideas, bloomed imagination, and preserved human experience. Lees meer
Writing is an encounter like no other with oneself and inner others, light and dark. Whether we meet the page in a personal journal or as professional necessity, we discover that ego alone does not do this job. Some days words leap like dolphins; other days find us becalmed on a flat sea. To create through writing is to encounter self and depths, and Lisa shares experiences of writing her forthcoming book, Motherhood: Facing and Finding Yourself. Her words for the creative and challenging process of mothering map a path to soul and greater wholeness.
Dream
I was attending a house party, and I was in the kitchen. I was wearing a skirt and all of a sudden I realized I had pooped without realizing it and the poop was on the floor of the kitchen. It was like a long light beige dinner roll in size and shape, and there were large batteries in the poop. I quickly picked it up, hoping no one saw me and turned to put it in the toilet, but there was someone in the bathroom, so I wrapped the poop in a yellow garbage bag and dropped it in the garbage can.
At some other point in the dream, I had to collect many things I had strewn about in the home because I had to leave to make a train journey. I often have elements of my dream where I'm hustling to get somewhere to be on time for a leaving train or bus, but I can't find my belongings. At another point I was in a van with many people driving along a bumpy dirt road. For the majority of the dream, I was surrounded by people but feeling alone.
References
Lisa Marchiano. https://www.amazon.com/Motherhood-Finding-Yourself-Lisa-Marchiano/dp/1683646665/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Lisa+Marchiano&qid=1617802506&s=books&sr=1-1
Barbara Hannah. Encounters with Soul. https://www.ama… -
The Phoenix: Life’s Transformative Fires
8 april 2021 · 1 uur 7 min
The splendid-feathered phoenix lives for hundreds of years builds its own funeral pyre, sets it on fire, and rises from the ashes after three days. The phoenix represents long life, conscious acquiescence to death, and assured regeneration. The fiery alchemical process of calcinatio leaves behind a white ash equivalent to salt, that which cannot be burned: life, soul, and Eros. Lees meer
The phoenix is usually depicted ascending in its joyful solar plumage of red, orange, and gold, indicating that when one is purged of instinctual drives, affective intensity, and egotistical desires, fire is experienced as divine illumination. The resurrected phoenix constructs an egg from the ashes of its former self and deposits it on the altar of the sun god—an acknowledgment of the regenerative connection between the ego and the Self.
Here's The Dream We Analyze:
“In this dream, my father, who passed away fifteen years ago, had come back to visit. He seems well but somewhat less warm than he used to be, and not as demonstrative; taller and paler than I remember. We all go to some sort of train station in Amman, which does not actually exist, and hop on a light-rail train suspended high above the city. My father, eldest sister, and brother go ahead of us; and myself, my disabled brother, and his driver are in the compartment behind them. No sooner had the train started to move than I look down and see ancient ruins that apparently were recently excavated. The view is breathtaking; an entire ancient city so well preserved; so beautiful as to rival any ancient ruin on the planet. I notice one or two temples fashioned in the image of gigantic feline heads. I also notice the tasteful lighting that adds a lot to the experience as the evening darkness descends. I wonder how this is here, in the middle of the city, and worry a bit about this lovely ancient ruin being overrun and perhaps damaged by people and tourists. For the moment, there were only one or two people down there that I could s…
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Archetype of the Fool
1 april 2021 · 1 uur
The fool in various guises has appeared since ancient times. The court jester seduces through comedy, song, and story. The dummling son of fairy tales wins the treasure with well-meaning ineptitude. Shakespeare featured fools in many of his plays, the Tarot deck begins (or ends) with the fool, and comedians have built careers on playing the fool. The fool punctures the posturings of others’ personas and egos, bests his “betters,” and transgresses social boundaries and conventional morality. The fool flaunts and taunts us with shadow, making truths about cultural norms and human complexity both pointed and palatable. We might well claim that dreams come from the inner fool, and they can shock an ego made lowly by bawdy images of shadow in bathroom dreams and sexual acts. The fool is the unconscious itself, and we recognize if dimly, his close and paradoxical relationship with the Self, light, and dark. Lees meer
Here's the dream we analyze:
“I'm not even sure what I was studying. I was wandering around a large parking structure looking for my car and I couldn't find it. I kept using my key to lock it and then listened for the chirp, but it seemed very distant. Then I went into an elevator that seemed to move sideways before it finally started going up. I got out of the elevator and wandered into an empty classroom and sat at a table and wrote in a notebook, but it was just odd musings, like random lines of poetry. A young woman sat next to me. She put her hand on my hand and asked me what I was studying. I told her I did not know. I told her I did not know where my car was or what dorm I lived in. She said she would help me and we started to wander through the structure together. It was like an Escher painting. The woman was flirtatious and I told her she was barking up the wrong tree (I am gay) but she did not seem deterred. We went to the lobby of the building, where there were tables with computers on them and packages in a corner. There were several packages for me, wra…