Through a Jungian Lens

When one lives on the prairies, the sound of running water is not a frequent occurrence.  Springtime offers us more of these opportunities.  Later in the year, small streams such as this one dry up and all that remains are very small ponds of standing water.  When I took this photo on the week-end, the sound was like a doorway into a different level of consciousness.  Standing still with my camera quiet, it became a moment of meditation, a soothing balm for the tiny wounds that accumulate unnoticed.  With enough of these moments, the wounds are healed.

Water is not only symbol for the unconscious, it is also symbol for life.  Running water serves as symbol for continuity.   Life is constantly refreshed.  Though it always appears to be the same, its flow lets us know that it is never the same.   First Nations people new this intuitively.

The cycles of nature, the cycles of water have a lot to teach us if we would only listen and observe without the need to measure and quantify in order to prove to ourselves what we experience.   Sometimes we don’t need to intellectually understand.   Sometimes we need to allow the instinctual human to experience and let that experience speak quietly to the soul.  We lose too much when we try to analyze these meditative moments.

There will be time enough for analysis, for questions.  The greatest gift we can give ourselves is the opportunity to allow for the questioning mind to rest in the moments of meditation as they allow a communion between consciousness and the unconscious – transcendent moments.