Through a Jungian Lens

I continue with bringing a photo from Angkor Wat with this post.  Walking out of the back of the main temple area of Angkor Wat there is this smaller temple, or more likely one of the smaller palaces that were part of Angkor Wat.  I was entranced by the solidity and ancientness of this building which has been somewhat rescued from the jungle that is native to the area.   Looking through the doorway and windows, one expects to encounter shadows of an inner space.  Yet, that expectation was denied as the doorway and the windows opened up to show the outer world framed by the door and windows.

Inner and outer landscapes, light and shadow.  It is the contrast between dark spaces and light that indicates the presence of life.  If all is dark, that is all there is.  If all is white, that is all there is.  I need contrast to have feeling, to be able to discriminate.  Without contrast, there is nothing but a state of suspended animation – no awareness – as if one is asleep with no dreaming, no physical sensation to have one shift on the bed, no biological clock to have one wake up.  One needs both darkness and light in order to be alive.

I think of many who are bored with their lives.  Why the boredom?  There is not a lack of material stuff in their lives, not a lack of opportunity, not a lack of time; yet, there is little satisfaction.  To go to the same work, to see the same people, to hear the same stories, to take the same routes, to watch the same television programs; to do any of these things day after day without change is not much different that living in a cocoon, in suspended animation.  It is only when someone or something enters the scene, disrupting the pattern that one becomes animated.  Typically, that animation is a negative response, a complaint about how one’s routines have been turned upside down.  The greatest curse one could give was to wish them and interesting life.  An interesting life, one in which pain and pleasure are present, one in which there is mystery and a anxiety.  We now treat anxiety with pills in an attempt to surround the anxiety with a narcotic numbing agent so that one can avoid pain.

I wonder at my need for an interesting life.  If things go too smoothly, I become agitated and find myself resisting the invisible bonds that would have me sit quietly, not making waves, as I wait for my biological death.  I want to feel alive and that means I need to feel, to think, to dream, to act, to go, to be denied, to be loved and hated.  I need to speak out even if what I say is nonsense.  Would it be better if I could sit still in a small town at the edges of the world, smiling and not making any waves, listening to words repeated endlessly so that the words have no meaning other than as a constant drone that persuades the brain it doesn’t need to listen anymore?

Sitting and waiting while life happens around me but not within me – that is what this photo tells me – when one sits still waiting, one has become an empty shell in spite of the fact that the body is still performing biological functions that says the body is alive.  The owner, the spirit has abandoned the body; the soul has shriveled up.  The gods have gone to find a new home.  The lights are on, but nobody’s home.  Clint Black has his way of telling us the same thing.

The lights are on, but nobody’s home – Clint Black

Move slowly to my dresser drawers
Put my blue jeans on
Find my cowboy boots, my button down
Strap my timepiece on my arm
Grab my billfold, my pocket change
Just a mindless old routine
Then it’s out the door and down the street
But it’s not really me

I still comb my hair the same
Still like the same cologne
And I still drive that pickup truck
That the same old bank still owns
But since you left, everybody says
I’m not the guy they’ve known
The lights are on, but nobody’s home

Cup of coffee in the morning
Just food for the brain
But I’ve been numb since our last goodbye
I haven’t felt a thing
But now there’s pains in my head
And pains in my chest
And I think I’m losing my hair
I’m a half a man with half a mind
To think you didn’t care

I still comb my hair the same
Still like the same cologne
And I still drive that pickup truck
That the same old bank still owns
But since you left, everybody says
I’m not the guy they’ve known
The lights are on, but nobody’s home

While at my brother-in-law’s home at Oyster River on Vancouver Island I got a shot of this little guy, a Dark-Eyed Junco.  He was one of a small crowd of birds that was busy at the bird feeder.  It reminded me how some people like to hang out over coffee simply because they enjoy being around people, liking proximity and the opportunity to add their voices to the mix even though the content of the conversation is often trivial.  This bird was definitely an extrovert.

Unlike the Blue Heron, the Dark-Eyed Junco is focused on the bird feeder.  Life for this Junco is centred on the bird feeder.  I had hoped to get a better photo, but light conditions were poor as our time on Vancouver Island was marked by dark gray skies and lots of rain.  I ended up taking a number of photos through the window.  Adding to the difficulty was the busyness of the scene.  The Junco was one of three different sets of birds vying for dominance around the bird feeder.

when orientation by the object predominates in such a way   that decisions and actions are determined not by subjective views but by objective  conditions, we speak of an extraverted attitude. (Jung, CW vol. 6, par. 563)

It is actually a different way of looking at the world, understanding it and navigating through it.  I am amazed that the two types manage to co-exist.  I wonder if those who operate through objective viewpoints are ever able to understand those who orient themselves to the world via subjective viewpoints?

This photo was taken in Changzhou, the city that was home for two years.  This canal was only a few short blocks off the junction of two main streets in the downtown area.  The coned buds on the tree to the left side are large brilliant mauve flowers in the spring.  It was simply amazing to me how the most modern buildings, upscale shopping area and huge shopping crowds could be bordered in just two blocks by this scene which dates back significantly in time, to reveal a different face for China.

This is pretty much the same story, when I think about it, for me.  I have a certain polish when I get dressed up.  I show my age, but it is not a dated age.  It is more a modern maturity that “fits” with modern society.  My mask and persona work well and all is well in terms of being at one with the collective.

But, if I retreat even just a little bit, just enough to get a bit of perspective, I see something else about myself.  I see that the mask is simply a mask.  Under that mask there is a curious combination of light and dark, of shadows and mystery, of exposed warts and wrinkles.  And running through this self beneath the mask is an unconsciousness that looks like it might be gentle an peaceful, but in truth is a dangerous place.

Below that peaceful reflective surface …  Well, it is all unknown … and often one is right in fearing the unknown … encourage that unknown into the conscious self and all becomes forever changed … and the fear that the ego will be overpowered, possessed …

A simple photo today, one taken yesterday morning from my backyard deck.  Like the previous photo, this one is about the contrast between light and dark.  Here, the shadow world is active.  As I looked at the scene, I was struck how much vitality was given to the object, Trollius x cultorum, or “Golden Queen.”  Those flowers in full sunlight appeared to be faded, almost washed out with the light.  Those in deep shade where also less distinct.  But those at the edges of shadow and light were the most vibrant.  Nature has so much to teach us.

This makes me thing of how we become more ourselves, fuller beings when we work to bring aspects of the shadow into our consciousness.  Being stuck in a sense of self that is fully persona leaves us washed out, energyless and feeling empty.  Being stuck in the underworld of inner spaces where ego is almost non-existent is akin to being the living dead.  It is only when one dares to experience some of the depths of self, to dare heroic journeys of self discovery that one is able to emerge a more vital being.  It is then that one becomes “gold,” not that much different than the Golden Queen flower that thrives best in the partly sunny, partly shady spaces.

It’s another beautiful day with sunshine and warm, not hot, weather.  I am looking forward to the afternoon round of golf followed by couples’ night golf.  I am busy with final touch ups in the basement as my family will be coming home in a week, our first full family reunion in two years.

Today’s photo was taken last week, a photo of a home long-abandoned looking from the inside to the yard now overgrown with trees.  Thirty years ago I remember sitting at the table by this window enjoying coffee and fresh home-made bread, cooked on a wood stove.  The past does hold some good memories.  But, one can’t live in the past.  It is important to live in the present. The window is clouded with the effects of time.  The sharp contrasts have gone allowing colours to blend rather that stand in stark opposition to each other.

Complexes have a way of keeping us in the past.  I think of the father-complex in particular for myself.  Most of the time, my actions have been unconsciously fuelled by doing the opposite of what my father would have done.  Of course, there is some merit in this when the opposite produced better relationship results.  However, sometimes the blindness of my actions which were acted out of the father-complex, resulted in unfavourable results.  I had painted my father into an all black corner not giving him his due as a real man.  There was much that was good as well.  But, an activated complex doesn’t discriminate very well.  It took a long time to accept my father as a carrier for both good and bad, to allow him the honour of being a human, fallible.  In doing this, I opened the door to myself to be human.

As individuals, we are not meant to be well-balanced, sober servants of collective values.  We are not meant to be sane, safe or similar.  We are, each of us, meant to be different.  A proper course of therapy does not make us better adjusted; it makes us more eccentric, a unique individual who serves a larger project than that of the ego or the collective norms. (Hollis, Celebrating a Life, 2001, p. 109)

James Hollis speaks of following one’s inner voice as it calls us to be individuals, calls us to follow our personal path, not the paths of those who came before us.  It isn’t only through therapy by which one can escape the grip of complexes which keep us unconscious to the nature of our “self.”  There are other paths as people have been able to become aware of themselves for thousands of years before Carl Gustav Jung appeared.  That said, therapy does provide a grounded guide for those who would otherwise fear too much to take the journey.