Through a Jungian Lens

Banded Sea Snake in the Philippines

I met this little guy while walking in the waters just of Cebu Island in the Philippines. I didn’t realise it then, but apparently this snake is very, very poisonous. Of course, poisonous or not, I don’t usually mess with snakes and give them their space. That said, it doesn’t mean that I run from them either. Rather, I do hang around hoping for a decent photo opportunity.  In this instance, it took a few extra minutes of waiting for him to appear from hiding so that I could get a good number of images, hoping that one would eventually make its way here.

The Empress - Jungian Tarot

As I wandered through a number of published items about sea snakes, I came across a particular card in the Jungian Tarot series, that of the Empress. This is what PasteBoard Masquerade had to say about the card:

“The Empress represents the archetype of The Mother (shown above, third from left). The lake behind her alludes to her previous stage of virginity, while the cup she holds symbolizes the female generative organ. The sea-snake behind her represents the potentially destructive aspects of the Mother archetype. This shadow side is balanced by the dove of Venus at her feet. Other Major Arcana cards show additional aspects of the Mother, such as Justice, the Mother as Discipline, and Death, the Mother as Gateway.:

Interestingly, the Mother has found its way into this blog site quite a lot in recent posts. Remember, I chose this photo before knowing what I was going to say about it, or before I did any information search to guide me with the writing with prompts and hints. Next, I notice the cup in her hands – in this context, cup is also symbolic of the sign, Cancer:

“ The suits are then assigned a corresponding Cardinal sign, matching Wands with Aries, Cups with Cancer, Swords with Libra, and Pentacles with Capricorn.”

In this image, there is one cup and that is symbolic of Pluto in Cancer – honestly, I have no idea what this means, even after doing a lot of reading on the topic over the past few hours since I began writing this blog post (Yes, sometimes I spend hours on a post.). I do get a sense of unrest, of tension.  But, that said, I will wait for a reader to let me know more about this.

But back to the post, the appearance of Cancer, the great Mother in one card and the snake in water in the photo, and all of this pointing to archetype and the unconscious suggests that I have struck a gold mine. Now, all I have to do is to find a way to uncover the treasures in this gold mine.

Lunar eclipse - China 2011

Moments before full lunar eclipse - China 2011

Yesterday, as I returned home from a dinner with education and government people regarding the opening of a new International school in the city scheduled for the next school year, I was amazed by the beginning of a full lunar eclipse. I spent more than an hour outside in freezing temperatures capturing the event on my camera. I am bringing two of the images here, an early image and one taken near the point of full eclipse. As I was taking these photos I knew that they would find a place here.

I found the following quotation at the Wisdom of Astrology site:

“Lunar eclipses emphasize awareness of personal matters and relationships, now doubly so since this Solstice eclipse deals with releasing old emotional patterns of a Cancerian nature. “. . .total lunar eclipse . . . amplifies our opportunities for transformation. New pathways and options appear as old networks dissolve. During an eclipse, the continual streams of electromagnetic energy from the Sun and Moon are interrupted, weakening the Earth’s force fields as well as our own and thus making it easier to shift grids, dimensions and the configuration of our consciousness.” Stephanie Austin, The Mountain Astrologer, Dec/Jan 2011

I was particularly struck by the reference to the “Cancerian nature.” If I am to take anything from these words, it is that the moment is at hand for me to shift onto newer pathways. This notion of shifting is one that has been in place for me for the past month, a psychological shifting. The way of being in the world has been through work and through entrenched patterns of relationship behaviours. The decision to end the work patterns has been made and with the finalisation of this last contract, I will find myself actively creating new patterns. The work has already begun, partly through more engagement here and more engagement within my relationships. The shifting is one that has effected more than myself, it has also included shifting in terms of family.

But more than anything else, for me, the full lunar eclipse symbolizes a time for serious shadow work. After all, the break between the sun and the moon by the earth, where the unconscious is fully in shadow tells me that access to this nether region of the psyche is ripe. What we do with this opportunity for even greater self discovery is up to ourselves. There is freedom of choice, all is not controlled by fate.

It’s strange sometimes how information comes to us, information that we don’t even realise that we might need to know.  I wrote to a friend of mine about a niggling sense of disquietude only to find that my friend had been noticing the same.  We both wrote it off as synchronistic.  Then, not even hours after this communication, I received information from a third friend, astrological information.  In truth, I have to admit that I don’t follow the world of astrology with any interest.  I know that astrology has a real place, but it doesn’t “catch” with me.  That said, I don’t dismiss it as just some New Age blather as well.  I just don’t understand or relate to it very well.  The astrological information I received spoke directly to the sense of disquietude that had been nagging.  Here is a part of the information I received, information about the recent lunar eclipse:

A lunar eclipse is powerful in the psyche as well as in the inner workings of our environment.  We are often zapped with energy diffusing and need to rest and relax these few days in order to find out how we think and what is contained in our points of Aquarius and Leo in our natal charts.  The eclipse is in the sign of Aquarius and is directly opposite Leo so it is a Full Moon.  It is often a time where we feel pulled apart depending on where Leo and Aquarius fall in our chart.  It is also significant how these two signs shadow each other and become significant of future events depending upon our awareness of shadow.

Hmmm, that explains the feelings I’ve been having, feelings that include a tension such as one feels waiting for “the other shoe to drop.”  For some reason, likely resistance, I didn’t follow up on the note which included the above quote.  I rationalised to myself that this really wasn’t going to be helpful.  If anything, I wanted to push it away as I didn’t want to know just in case it meant I would have to do something about the feelings, in case I had to make some changes.  Sometimes, especially at moments like these, I wish I was a simple “dummling” who bumbled about happily unconscious of anything to do with the world of psyche and soul.