Through a Jungian Lens

Emerging from the depths

This is a spring that emerges from underground on my eldest daughter’s land in Alberta. Sometimes it is hard to understand that what appears on the surface is but a fraction of the full reality of one’s life and the life of our planet. Flowing beneath the surface of the land are streams and rivers as well as lakes. Sometimes the water finds its way to the surface as in this photo, to then carve its way through the external world. Also found on the land are sinkholes which appear as normal bits of ground, an illusion as to inadvertently step on one of these spots is to risk disappearing very rapidly into a vicious soup of mud, being swallowed into the belly of the earth with no chance of escape.

Underground water is of course symbolic for me, symbolizing the unconscious making its entrance into my life. Most times I am not aware of the outbreak of unconscious as I unconsciously project this outbreak onto others. I get angry with government and organisations, or I get frustrated with a person with whom there was no previous frustration even though that person hasn’t changed behaviours or attitudes. Sometimes I become aware because I am learning to look at how I am in relation to the world. When I sense (after the fact) that I have been caught in some field of energy that brought out frustration, anger or fantasy, I begin to dig deeper and try to own the feelings as being more about my own stuff.

Dreams are another way that the unconscious bubbles to the surface of my awareness. And as in working at taking back projections, the work of digging through the dreams becomes important to the process of becoming more conscious. Like everyone else, I only become more conscious when I turn the light onto what was hidden beneath the surface in darkness. And like other people, I want to ignore the existence of that darkness, the shadow side of who I am. As I wrote these words, a song came to my mind – “Mama Told Me Not To Come,” by Three Dog Night, especially these words: “Don’t turn on the lights, ’cause I don’t want to see.“

I found that the title of the song “fit” as the Great Mother is about earth, water and the depths. The Mother doesn’t demand anything from us in terms of becoming conscious, she demands only that we return to her womb. It is the Father, who calls us to the light of the sun, to consciousness. The ideal is to marry the two rather than to be swallowed in the unconscious or to be burnt like some Icarus flying too close to the sun, a holy marriage.  Of course, that means I have a lot of work to do in turning on the lights as I find the various light switches hidden in the darkness of the inner, unconscious world.

HeHai Lu, Xin Bei, Yang Guang Hua Yuan 2010

Looking into a hole left at one of the work sites along the sidewalk near my apartment while it was raining, I saw this photo opportunity.  It’s amazing how one’s eyes get drawn into dark holes hoping to see treasure, or perhaps see proof of hell.

It’s interesting how one can see something and then load the thing with all manner of meaning.  It’s important to realise that it the “self” who holds the meaning and not the object.  Again, it is all about projection.  Images allow us to project safely for the most part.  However, this isn’t the case when we project on others.

When a relationship hits a rocky patch, it pretty much looks like everything is going downhill, down into a dark hole.  One’s field of vision is reduced to a narrow band of possibility, and the possibility is in darkness, a damp darkness that reminds one of a swampland at night where sinkholes are just waiting to suck one down.  In an instinctive reaction we lash out hoping to back off the demons and find a bit of breathing space.  The enemy is out there, and the enemy is wearing the body of one’s partner in relationship.

“You work on a relationship by shutting your mouth when you are ready to explode; by not inflicting your affect on the other person; by quietly leaving the battlefield and tearing your hair out; by asking yourself – not your partner – what complex in you was activated, and to what end.   The proper question is not, “Why is she doing this to me?” or “Who does he think he is?” but rather, “Why am I reacting this way? – Who do I think he or she is?” And more: “What does this say about my psychology?  What can I do about it?”  Instead of accusing the other person about driving you crazy, you say to yourself, “I feel I’m being driven crazy –  where, or who, in me is that coming from?”

That is how you establish a container, a personal temenos.”  (Sharp, Jungian Psychology Unplugged, p. 71)

Sharp’s words make sense, but they aren’t so easy to put into practice.  It seems that “knowing” and “doing” are two different things completely.  I know in my case, it has taken so many stumbles with a lot of personal conferences of one in which I have asked myself these questions after the fact.  Maybe this is part of the learning to build a level of consciousness about relationship, in relationship.