Archive for July 4th, 2011
Riding the Rails to Sunrise
Riding the rails into the rising sun
As I focus on taking photos of shadow, I must remember that there can be no shadow if there is no light. There is a differentiation between light and dark just as there is a differentiation between consciousness and the unconscious.
As I look again and again at this photo taken yesterday, I am reminded of scene told to me by my father-in-law thirty years ago, a scene that has now become well known as it has been experienced by many who have died and returned – the tunnel of light. The journey to consciousness is a spiritual journey as much as it is an objective journey of learning, experiencing and being in life. Perhaps, with the arrival of midlife, it is more spiritual; needs to be more spiritual.
Strangely, this journey of individuation is not a journey of only one person. For myself there is something happening that was unexpected: the more I learn about myself, the more I learn about others. I hope that in the process I am more tolerant of others as they stumble through their lives as I forgive myself while stumbling through my own life. It is at times like this that I see a promise in Jungian psychology that isn’t being followed by many psychotherapists and psychoanalysts. In working with the self, there must be a significant consideration of others.
I don’t really know what needs to change in psychology in order to make it less about pathology and more about nurturing the journey everyone must make through life. For, this journey is all we have as we ride the rails to a new way of being beyond this life.
On a final note for today’s post – Happy Independence Day for my American readers.
