Through a Jungian Lens

Feeding the body and the soul

This is a photo I took yesterday while wandering through Fish Creek Provincial Park which is located within the city of Calgary. Even though the weather was quite wintry, it was an enjoyable walk with my wife and camera. After two days of analytical sessions, I was ready for a change of mind and scene, so nature was what I needed. I am fortunate that this provincial part is only a short two kilometre walk from the place I am renting.

I use images as my way of honouring the unspoken and unseen aspects of my inner self as well as searching for ways to connect to Gaia, Mother Earth and to other humans at a level of collective depth. This little fellow, a squirrel in the park, knew I was there and was accepting of that up to a certain point. As long as I remained as a nonthreatening presence (as perceived by him), I was able to remain in a presence even if that presence also held a certain level of tension. The image of this squirrel evokes more than the fact of the squirrel; it is a dynamic image, pregnant with a vitality that connects me with a larger reality.

“Images can manifest in words, movement, plastic arts, science, architecture, or any other form of cultural or personal expression. In other words, anything that can carry the imprint of divine energies can be a temporary vessel of the mysteries, or the gods.” (Hollis, Tracking the Gods, p. 12)

“Temporary vessels” – it is vital that I remember this. The image itself isn’t numinous; what is numinous is the temporary presence within my consciousness, even sub-conscious state, of an attitude that is willing to see yet another sign and face of the divine. Once that moment has passed, the image returns to be a photography. It could easily said that for a moment, the Divine manifested in the image as a way of talking with me. Then with that dialogue finished, the Divine leaves the image which then becomes perhaps a piece of art or simply a snapshot. It is the Divine that chooses the time, place, space for dialogue with the soul.

As Hollis tells us, we can sometimes find the presence of the Divine in a song, in dancing, in an act of painting or building. The Divine can become manifest in any thing, any doing, and especially in our moments of openness to the Divine such as when we are asleep through dreams. But one must not expect the presence of the Divine every time we sing, dance, create, make. The Divine is present, but at those moments when we cannot evoke the Divine, it is because we attempt to contain the Divine in all of these things and these acts. The Divine can’t be contained for that reduces the Divine to being a servant of ego.

It isn’t often that I am able to take a photo out of the window of a plane that is actually worth keeping.  this is far from a quality photo, but it has a certain value for me.  I took it as we were flying over Calgary, circling for our approach for a landing as we returned to Canada.  Sunset talks about an ending to a day.  For me, this spoke about an ending to the time in Mayan Mexico, the end of yet another part of my journey.   As always, endings are about losses with the apprehension that the future, the unknown might hold a harder journey ahead.

The feelings within since landing in Canada have been magnified by a return to conditions that require medications for allergies.  I resisted taking them until this morning and watched as my head began to close down, disappear into a dense fog that reduced vision to a narrow focus as if wearing blinders.  Queasiness and apprehension and foreboding.  I have returned but don’t know if I can really return or just visit with a fractured persona which persuades others that I have returned and life will go on as it has always gone on, go on with no indications that the world has changed.

I returned to learn that I will be grandfather again in the fall, this time my son will became a father.  His world is also changing.  The time spent with my son was like time spent in sunshine, a time of promise and shared stories.  I listened to his dreams of a different place, connection with history, a journey of discovery.  The father-son bond is vital and real.  Of all the family and extended family, it is only with him that I can tell my story fully with a sense of full acceptance.  With the rest, it is more about limiting exposure to the fullness of who is this person they have come to know over the years and decades.

How well can we get to know each other when we struggle to know our “self”?  That isn’t always important.  It is not the depth of knowledge of other, but more about a curiousity of the “other” without the need to attach projections in order to “fit” the “other” into relationship.  It is more about being open to discovery, bit by bit of who this “other” is.  Unconditional acceptance of other.