Through a Jungian Lens

In search of answers

I have been approaching this time of transition as though I am embarking on a voyage of mythic proportions. To be honest, the idea of seeing this process as mythic comes from my readings of both C.G. Jung and James Hollis. Lately I have referred to a book called Mythologems by Hollis, but now, I am going to look at another of Hollis’ books called, Tracking the Gods: The Place of Myth in Modern Man, as that book has allowed me to reframe the way I look at the process I am about to begin. My journey is really not different from the journey you take each day, a journey that seeks to find some answers to a few basic questions – Who am I? Why am I here? How did I get here? In a more basic form, we are searching for some meaning in our lives, a purpose for being alive and doing the best we can do within the limitations of our life’s circumstances.

“Quite possibly, nature has no inherent meaning; it simply is. But humans bring a psychic structuring process, which is part of our nature, to that chaos in order to establish a meaningful relationship to the world. Myth, with its substance of symbol, rhythm and metaphor, bridges from the known to the knower and helps the human stand in some sort of meaningful relationship to mystery. (Hollis, Tracking the Gods, p. 8 )

For me, the way to answers is through looking at the world and myself through a different lens, that of both photography and myth. This is my personal way of constructing a metaphor for what I understand is my relationship to the world, to others and to myself. The metaphors through words and images allows me to create my own answers, the only real answers, about meaning, my meaning. As Hollis points out, perhaps it is essentially about chaos in which there is “no inherent meaning” but for me, it really doesn’t matter.  All that matters is how my own head and heart come to create meaning in the chaos, for with that sense of meaning, I can remain sane and continue to strive to be as moral and ethical as I can be.