Through a Jungian Lens

You can tell that winter is coming.  Geese, tens of thousands of them flying in huge flocks, take time out for feeding as they being the migration southward.  Most of these are Snow Geese with only a handful for Canada Geese thrown in for good measure.  The temperatures have dropped significantly.  Two weeks ago we enjoyed +30C weather.  Now, we have strong northerly winds make our daytime high of -5C feel so much colder.  Over the next several posts, I will post more photos that symbolize seasonal change in Canada.

Seasonal change, from summer to winter suggests a shift from working outdoors to working indoors.  Similarly, from a Jungian psychology perspective, we can see that midlife itself becomes the time where one shifts from an exclusive outer world focus to soul work, or inner work.  That said, it doesn’t mean that one abandons the outer world and active presence in the outer world.  Rather, it means that one needs to honour the inner world which has been kept at bay by the needs of establishing a solid foundation in the outer world, something that is necessary in order to have the luxury of time needed for self-reflection and trying to find a few answers about self and meaning for one’s life, especially now that one begins to realise that death approaches.

With the realisation that one is mortal, does one flee into the clutches of some theology and thus turn over responsibility to others; or, does one confront one’s self to weigh the worth of one’s life and actions with the hope of making changes to validate one’s existence?