Through a Jungian Lens

Enter into the world of the unconscious

This is a photo I took about an hour ago while enjoying a long walk along the Bow River in Calgary. I had on my backpack with the camera and the laptop for weight as I work hard to both lower my blood pressure and to regain my fitness level with corresponding weight loss. Ideally I would lose about ten pounds (5 kilos) over the next month and a half. It seems that since my return from China I have put on these extra pounds due to being overly focused on analytic work. It helps that the sun has finally decided that it is summer time in Calgary.  The sun motivates me.

Now that I am moving again in the sunshine, I find that meditation has become deeper, especially after pushing the pace for more than an hour. My body temperature goes up and there is a corresponding heating of psychic contents. It is as though my body heat with the rays of the sun have begun to cook unconscious contents which in turn have caused a sense of shifting – alchemy of the psyche in action. Now, I will step aside and not try and control the process. It will unfold as it will.

Summer hail following a flash storm in Calgary, 2012

I was lucky yesterday. I had gone for a long walk of fourteen kilometres along the walking trails in Calgary. On the drive back to the outskirts of the city where I live, I got caught in a hail storm about one kilometre from where I stay. I had to stop and wait out the storm. When I got back, this was the scene from my patio looking out over the golf course. It isn’t really a good photo but it does what I want it to do. As I look again at the scene, I think of how many times I have walked in summer and winter in the countryside, moments of meditative peacefulness after the psychic storms that often plague me. When the storms abate I find the need to walk, to walk the devil out of me.

I am doing a lot of reading lately about the Camino de Santiago as found in various blogs and forums. I have to admit a fascination with the subject, almost an obsession. As I read, I found this quotation taken from a book:

The particular reasons which drive an individual towards an act of pilgrimage are inevitably deeply personal, and in many cases beyond the exercise of logic alone. Even though the physical dangers are not as great as they once were, the psychological and spiritual ferment remains. Those who are close to the pilgrim may well ask why they have undertaken such an action. The act of pilgrimage disturbs the lives of those who surround the pilgrim.

Despite the diversity of motivation, certain themes clearly emerge. The very historicity of the sites seems to exert its own natural attraction. Pilgrims travel in search of forgiveness for sins committed and so search for cleansing. A few travel as a form of punishment inflicting hardship on themselves as they go. Others journey in the hope of physical healing and inner spiritual healing. But above all, pilgrims travel in search of God and so hope to find themselves.

How strange it is that so many are drawn to leave home to find themselves. Yet the familiar sometimes obscures the eternal, not because it is not present but because it simply cannot be recognized without the experience of a broader canvas. Those who travel have understood the essential paradox that we cannot truly find the “I” within until we have found the “Thou” without.

-   From Sacred Places, Pilgrim Paths: An Anthology Of Pilgrimage (1997) by MARTIN ROBINSON

Canada thistle – a noxious but beautiful weed

I took this photo while walking in the fields near Lake Diefenbaker, the same walk that gifted me with beautiful cactus flowers.To my eyes, this is one of the more beautiful flowers that nature provides us in an area that is more often than not, dry and drab in terms of colour. Most of the flowers are tiny and pastel in colour, matching the land which is itself sun bleached. For a brief period of time, the thistle dares to announce its presence, defying the sun and at the same time celebrating that very same sun. It shouts out: ‘I am here!’

I think about the youth in the modern, western world who do much the same as they pierce ears, eye lids, lips, tongues, noses, cheeks, foreheads and numerous other parts of their body; these young people who cover as much of their skin as possible with tattoos, often with symbols of which they have little or no knowledge. There is a lot of work, a lot of thought that goes into the crafting of a “look,” a way for each of these youth to scream out, “I am here!  See me! Acknowledge me!” And those screams are framed with anxiety that even with all of this work, they will remain unseen, lost to their communities and sadly to themselves. I do not say this as a critic of piercing or tattoos or of dress and hair styles, I say this because of the pain, confusion and anger that I see in the undisguised eyes of those “thistles” who dare to be weeds in order to feel alive for a brief moment in time.

At least we see  these individuals even if we are repelled or disgusted with what we see. So many of our youth that appear as clones of what we deem as acceptable, are just as wounded. They disappear into the music of their iPhones or mp3 players; they disappear into all sorts of gaming systems; they disappear  into addictions of drugs, booze and sex; or they disappear within as they mimic the norm in hopes that in this way they will find acceptance and meaning.

What do we hear and see about our youth? What do we want to hear and see? What do they tell us about ourselves as adults and about our communities in which they are raised? If we listen carefully we will hear that we have not given them a sense of self-worth that is below the surface of the outer world. Collectively we have destroyed the inner worlds.

Now, anyone who approaches what is left of those inner worlds is seen as being mentally unwell. We prescribe pills, therapy, camps, programs and even shopping experiences as a panacea in hopes that any or all of these prescriptions will put them out of their depths into the bright sunny outer world. And in our desperate acts to save our children from their depths, we teach them that if it lies below the surface, it is not good.

Shadows, light and texture

Yesterday evening, I got to see my oldest grandson’s photos which he had taken for a digital media class he had taken this past spring. He had taken a photo similar to one I took about a week ago. It w.as an introductory class and he found it to be a class where he felt he had learned a lot as well as finding out that he “had an eye” for seeing. It made for a good way to talk together, shared interests between a 16 year old and a 63 year old.

Just about the first thing that I thought of once choosing this photo for today’s post this morning, especially after the conversation of yesterday evening regarding what one saw as one changed position allowing light to transform what was seen from a variety of angles, was Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. What one sees is not reality, but only a representation of reality. In talking with my grandson and listening as he described his various photos, I realised that each of us sees the world differently. We all carry our cave within us which colours how we know the world. It does make one wonder about what is real.

I know that I get tripped up often when trying to understand the world and others. I understand how my filters that are biological as well as psychological, get in the way of hearing and seeing, and sometimes even in touch. What did that smile mean? What did the lack of a smile mean? I, like almost everyone else, ask myself question, both consciously and unconsciously, about the nature of others, especially in relationship to self. Because of the filters, one doesn’t really ever get to “know” the full reality of another person. It is hard enough trying to “know” the full reality of oneself – if that is even possible.

Cactus blossom on the semi-desert hills of the southern Canadian prairie.

Taken just a few days ago, this is one of the various varieties of cactus plants that burst out into blossom. The flowers are large and delicate in comparison with the cactus plant itself which is tough and painfully thorny should one make the mistake of stepping on one of them, something that I have been known to do on a number of occasions. Of course, if I was truly present when walking in the semi-arid hills, I would see the cacti and avoid unnecessary pain.

One of the things that I am finding difficult is to find presence, as I have been bouncing back and forth between places so much that no place becomes the centre. All the bouncing between leads me to relocate even more into an inner space making outer space even more like a foreign country. All of the routines that I used to mark my days have stopped being routines. Of course, there is something good to be said for having routines fall away:

“Most of us have a set routine that gets us through our day. Somewhere along the line, we solidified that routine into a way of life. The question then becomes, “Is it working?” Day by day, we may find ourselves getting restless with the same classes or job, the same relationship, the same hangouts or hang-ups, and we long for some radical change.

However, it is not our world that is necessarily problematic; it’s our point of view.” (Rinzler, The Buddha Walks Into a Bar,p. 4)

Restless!  Yes, that is a good word to use here. It is a word that helps explain some of what is churning inside. What is missing is the point of view that would help clarify life lived fully present rather than through routines. My routines are dissolving, but there is no clarity emerging. Rather than continue to follow a Buddhist train of thought, I find myself turning to an alchemical way of looking in hopes of understanding what is happening.

The first of the four major stages is called nigredo.  Here is what Wikipedia has to say about nigredo from a Jungian standpoint:

 ’the nigredo of the process of individuation on the other hand is a subjectively experienced process brought about by the subject’s painful, growing awareness of his shadow aspects’. It could be described as a moment of maximum despair, that is a prerequisite to personal development. As individuation unfolds, so ‘confrontation with the shadow produces at first a dead balance, a standstill that hampers moral decisions and makes convictions ineffective or even impossible…nigredo, tenebrositas, chaos, melancholia’. Here is ‘the darkest time, the time of despair, disillusionment, envious attacks; the time when Eros and Superego are at daggers drawn, and there seems no way forward…nigredo, the blackening’.

In this stage one has entered into the Dark Night of the Soul. It is hard to be present when the inner realm is breaking down all the routines, the convictions, the assumed truths and the convenient lies that have allowed us to ignore the dark shadows that lurk within the psyche.

Not built to stand the test f time. Strathmore, Alberta 2012

As I was driving from Calgary to my home in Saskatchewan, I stopped by this building I had passed a number of times. I had thought of photographing this place a number of times but was either in a hurry or it was raining when I passed. In spite of very strong winds which were gusting between 50 and 110 kilometres per hour, it was sunny so I stopped. I decided that it would never be the perfect time and that every time was the perfect time.

In this particular photo, I used the abandoned ruin of an old farm house as a contrast to the scene that unfolded behind it on the Canadian prairie. Water, grasses, fields and an immense sky helps to place the abandoned farm house in context, helping me to have a sense of smallness in the expanse of prairie. I could almost feel how the original settlers must have felt in building this shelter in an empty land where winds blow incessantly, a land of extremes: drought, rain, storm, heat, cold and space.

Today’s post is going to remain short as I have spent most of the day outside in a part of the Canadian prairie where cactus and hills remain much as they have been for thousands of years. The time spent outdoors has left me pleasantly tired and blank when it comes to intellectual activity.  Today it was enough just to be breathing in the sunshine. Of course I took my camera with me.

Sitting in darkness looking out through blinds at a world of light and colourI took a few photos

I took a few photos yesterday evening as the sun finally appeared and painted golden scenes outside my window. I was intrigued by the light and the colour in contrast to what had been a gray and dreary day of cloud and rain.

Now, an attempt at opening the Pandora’s Box exploring what I would consider to be my dreams. What are my dreams, my visions for myself? I have talked a lot about returning to the role of counsellor an idea that has been in my head for the past ten years, since I gave up that role in the world of education. To return means to obtain certification outside the world of education and educational psychology. This is something that I know I am good at, something that gives me a sense of worth and value, especially now that I have retired. Part of that desire is to both fill some of my hours and to fill my head. There are no real obstacles getting in the way of following up on this particular dream. Yet, I wonder if this is more about keeping busy rather than following my bliss.  It seems I have lost the key that would open up the inner voices that would affirm or not, what is a real dream of being and doing versus what is just distracting me from the fact that there is nothing there within me serving as a dream for my dream quest.

I have somewhat vague ideas of things I would like to try, but I don’t know if they could be called dreams. One of the ideas that come to mind are to walk el camino de Santiago and to wander other parts of the world. I don’t know if this is just a distraction or a real dream. This idea first came to me when I read about the pilgrimage in one of Paulo Coehlo’s books. I wonder now what it would be like to make this pilgrimage beginning each walking day with Buddhist meditation, not rushing the pilgrimage and taking time to be present in place and in self along the journey. I begin to think of the process of the pilgrimage as an 800 kilometre long meditation and exploration of my body and my my psyche. I guess this does make the idea a dream of sorts. What I don’t know is if I will do this, risk doing this or whether I would just leave it in my mind as another intellectual idea, or if this is just another distraction that appears in the absence of a real dream.

So many padded walls and doorless doorways that serve as blinders; I had thought that I might  actually reach for something in taking this challenge of exploring my dreams, but I keep coming up empty as though I am dipping into a well using a pail riddled with holes. I have built too many layers of blinds that separate the core of my self from the world I find myself so that when I try to find that core self I find something blurry like the scene outside my window in the photo above.

All of that said, I know that I am going forward, trusting the journey, trusting that The Way is unfolding as it should. And for me, that is a real Hero’s Journey.

Slow down, I move too fast. I’ve got to make this lifetime last.

I took this photo in Thailand where life seemed to move at a different pace for a lot of people such as for this man who definitely had time to relax while the young pig was being roasted.  I know that I get less done in spite of the fact that I haven’t slowed down the pace of my own life. I manage to keep busy without actually accomplishing anything worth talking about.

As I write this I am in a local library in Calgary, a place I often find myself visiting after an analytic session. I came into the library with full intentions of slowing down and focusing on a journal project that would look at authenticity and following one’s feelings and dreams. That was more than a half hour ago. I began this session with opening a MS Word document, writing two sentences and then . . .  Yes, I got busy. I changed my computer settings to start with so as to have my battery last longer regardless of the fact that I will be long gone from the library before my battery gives out. Then the laptop automatically found the wifi in the library which required a click to activate. Since I was taken to the login page as part of the activation process, I decided I might as well check my e-mail. Of course that only led me to check out Facebook as well to see how my children and friends are doing since the last time I checked four hours ago. I did take time to click “like” a number of times and to write one comment.

At that moment I had an inspiration, ‘why not write up today’s blog post since I am already online?’ Naturally, I had to search through my photo archives to find an appropriate photo even though I wasn’t quite sure what I would write about. Next came time to do some cropping and some slight adjustments with exposure and saturation with the photo while thinking about what would the content of the blog speak of. Just to get this far kept me busy for three-quarters of an hour.

Now, this doesn’t invalidate the value of this work of creating this blog post, but it does speak to the photo and coincidentally to what I have been reading in Lodro Rinzler’s book, The Buddha Walks Into a Bar.

“For many of us, life does feel like a battle. Our first instinct in the morning is one of self-protection, wanting to burrow back under the covers instead of facing the day. this is because we often view our daily routine as just a way to get by in life – pay the bills, find a romantic relationship, maintain our friendships, nurture our family life – at the end of the day, we are exhausted by our struggle to keep it all together.” (page 3)

Keep busy, don’t think too much – maybe we will get to sleep with some hope of real rest. It doesn’t matter how we look at it, whether we want to hide under our covers or flee them, we flee into being busy with life.

“We spend so much energy constantly trying to keep up with voice mail, e-mail, junk mail, bill mail, females, or males. Instead of engaging these various aspects of our life with an open mind, we schlep our way through them and cling to our escapes: we chew our nails, drink beer, have sex, shop online, or go to the gym. Some of us might even be able to multitask and do all of the above at once. Although we try our hardest, we know at the end of the day there is always another thing we should do, and yet we have taken so little time to take care of ourselves.”  (page 3)

I don’t have any of the usual excuses for avoiding taking the time. I am retired, I have taken time out from the normal patterns and routines that filled my life at home to focus on wellness . Yet, in spite of this, I find my days, hours and minutes filling themselves to the point that I manage to avoid my self. I am aware of what has happened and how I sabotage my own well-being. Recognizing that, I accept the reality of what has happened and make the conscious decision to again slow down and be with myself long enough to listen and learn.

The way is sometimes wet and muddy

It has been gray and wet here in Calgary quite a bit this spring. Warm and sunny days are not frequent, not as frequent as I am used to at my home in Saskatchewan. The gray skies continue this morning though the light drizzle has stopped for now. Everything is wet and the trails for hiking are a bit sloppy making hiking more of a chore than an exercise in exhilaration. All of this combines to make this analytic journey in Calgary one that is even more of a challenge. In a way, it becomes more of a journey of trial, a pilgrimage of sorts.

Routes for “el camino de Santiago”

Last night I watched a movie, something I rarely do for some strange reason. I have this absurd idea that I “should” be doing “work” while in Calgary as being here costs in terms of money (significant) and lost time in terms of relationship with my wife who waits in Saskatchewan. I push myself until I go blank and in that blankness, there is no energy or ambition to even watch TV. Slowly, I am learning to relax and just be myself, and as part of that initiative to relax led me to watch a movie.  The movie was called, The Way, a movie that talked of el camino de Santiago. I had heard of this pilgrimage a number of times over the years and had entertained, briefly, the idea of one day walking the path of the pilgrims.

Watching the movie and seeing how the journey worked with transformative power, I was reminded of the journey of individuation that I am following consciously and unconsciously. My journey combines Jungian analysis with Buddhist meditation and dharma. As well as working consciously with these tools, I try living the changes that are happening within me each time I make the journey back to my home, another pilgrimage of sorts on its own. There is no question about the fact that each time I re-enter my home I do so having undergone yet another transformation regardless of how small that change might appear to others.

One of the lessons I am learning is that I have become a permanent pilgrim. I have entered into a journey of transformation that will last until my last breath as a human.

It is what it is

I have been struggling lately with energy and as a result have found myself doing very little productive; if anything, I have been wasting my time. Take today as an example. I slept in long past my usual 6:00 AM wake-up. During the night I did have dreams and woke for a moment but refused to record the dream, being obstinate. Yes, I can be a very stubborn person. Once up, I went through some of my usual routine including taking time for meditation. But it didn’t take long for the resistances to be rekindled and I skipped making my morning coffee and checking my e-mail. I did finally, at 11:00 AM decide to eat a bowl of cereal with fruit for breakfast followed by a short chat with my son using GoogleTalk. Then, I slipped back into doing nothing again.

It took until almost 1:30 PM before I got my butt in gear and decided to go out of the suite and engage with the world, a world that is coated with gray skies that leaked without much enthusiasm of their own. I had a chore to take care of and a small desire to check out some books at a Chapters store in a shopping mall. While in the store I found a few books I had been in search of and took them to the Starbucks coffeehouse that is found in most Chapters stores. I bought a plain coffee and a scone and settled in to check out the handful of books so as to decide which ones to buy and which ones to keep.  And somewhere along the way, I woke up.

It was a neat thing, to wake up sitting in a coffeehouse while in front of a cup of coffee and a handful of books with my laptop opened.  What surprised me is my response to this event of waking up. I somehow avoided getting angry with myself for wasting time. I realised that I was just being and that I am now just being. No one moment of being is better than a different moment of being. This is what it means to me to accept the shadow as much as the light. When I get angry with myself, I am berating myself for being myself, thinking that I should be better: more fit, more alive, more productive, more super human, more spiritual. But the truth is, I simply need to be.