Through a Jungian Lens

Emerald Tree Skink - Ouroboros

I found these two emerald green tree skinks on the tree just a few metres from the balcony of the villa in the Philippines.  The chased each other and nipped at each other’s tail.  It immediately brought the image of Ouroboros to mind so I raced for my camera.  Of course, ouroboros (or uroboros) really is about a single lizard or snake biting/eating its own tail.  That said, this image of two circling lizards just begged to be taken and become part of the on-going story of images here.

But rather than see this as a classical ouroboros dynamic, I want to look at it in terms of dualities circling each other, in constant tension of attraction and repulsion, the dance of the masculine and the feminine, the balancing act of the conscious and the unconscious self.  One other duality that must be mentioned is that of Eros and Kronos – the dance between life and death – the urge to create and the urge to break down and destroy.

Like all other humans, I have a strong desire to live, to love, to create, to be in intimate relationship.  Yet like all people, there is an underlying pull to the grave and to annihilation.  It shows up in some of the smallest things, in the risks we take, the choices we make, and the fact that we are aging.  We rarely realise that we are contributing, unconsciously, to the process of self annihilation; and that is as it should be.

However, we sometimes consciously choose things that hasted our own destruction.  It really doesn’t matter why this happens, it only matters that it happens.  I know that in my battle with depression I defiantly attempt to erase markers of my passage through life.  During these periods of time I destroy photos of myself believing that when I am gone, I should really be gone and not hanging around in some photo album or on some computer.  During these times I am certain that the world would be much better off with out my darkness.  Little do I realise that in responding to depression in this manner, I am tilting the duality dance between Eros and Kronos in the favor of Kronos.

But as I grow more conscious of my self and my shadow, I hesitate long enough and avoid erasing more bits and pieces.  The parts of the past I have already erased in earlier decades are gone forever.  I erased without any thought of what others might need as evidence of my existence in their own lives.  I knew less then and only knew that the darkness was too powerful.  Today, the pull to Eros is stronger than the pull to Kronos.  Kronos will wait knowing that I will eventually get there.  But until then, I want to continue living, loving and creating.