Archive for the ‘Heide Kolb’ tag
Bored? Try a Voyage of Self-Discovery
The hills to the south provide quite a few opportunities for photographs. It doesn’t seem to matter that I have probably taken similar photos in the past. Since I continue to change over the years as I get older, these scenes take on different affect. Because I change, the world around me retains a sense of vital energy, a numinous quality.
As I wrote these words above, my mind raced with thoughts of those who miss out on this renewal, those who live with the creed “seen that, done that and bought the tee-shirt!” The search for renewal is limited to the outer world and outer experience. The constant changing of even the home with new furniture, new furniture arrangements, new colours, new toys . . . The need for renewal has to be met or we feel suffocated, bored, a loss of soul.
Carl Jung had to deal with this as well. In his Red Book, a very personal story of Jung’s search for soul and soul-renewal written between 1914 to 1930, CGJ said:
“My soul leads me into the desert, into the desert of my own self. I did not think that my soul is a desert, a barren hot desert, dusty and without drink” (Jung, The Red Book: Liber Novus, 2009)
I want to give credit to Heide Kolb, one of my Twitter friends, for this quote which appears in this blog post. Unfortunately, I don’t yet have a copy of this book. Now, back to the post.
In the desert … the desert of one’s self … there among the thorns, thistles and burnt grasses … in the desert one passes through suffering, a necessary passage, in order to go deeper and discover that which was hidden.
However, in taking this journey of self-discovery, unlike Jung who somehow managed to emerge sane doing the journey without a guide, I would advise that anyone trying to renew their spirit, the soul and the will to life, that the journey be taken with a guide at hand. Like Urspo commented in the last post, guides are necessary for almost all of us. Even then, the journey is painful and difficult. But, the cost is worth it. As the old expression goes: ”no pain, no gain.”
If we look all around us at all the renewal projects happening in the outer world, we see that change is a difficult process to experience whether it be changing the face of a community, changing the structure of a family, changing location, changing relationship. Even the creation of new materials only comes through destruction of old materials (petroleum into plastic is a good example). The change process is an alchemical process – baptism by fire, so to speak.
So, if you are bored with life, bored with yourself and others, then perhaps this is a signal for you to embark on the voyage of self-discovery . . . with a guide, of course.
