Through a Jungian Lens

Water, ruins and a tree - a perfect setting for a mythological drama

I took a lot of photos when I was at Angkor Wat in Cambodia like any good camera-toting tourist. But I was looking for more that the classical scenes of ruins, I was looking for portals, doorways into another way to being in this world, doorways into other dimensions of time and place. This photo captures something of this sense of otherness for me, capturing the water which hints of depths while mirroring the presence in a manner that says, it really isn’t as it seems to our limited vision. hinting that reality is perhaps a figment of imagination. With the presence of the stones which try to hint of human efforts to tame the world, yet serve as evidence that human efforts are subject to a greater power, that of time and nature and the sun. And then there was this tree, larger than other trees with roots descending deep into the earth as if suckling at the breast of the Mother, roots feeding on the water buried in darkness below the surface – a Tree of Life that reaches up as if in prayer to the sun and the spirit of the Father.

I have to admit that I find old Chinese architecture very interesting.  This is a detail from a traditional roofline found on most older buildings still found in China.  As I wander the city of Changzhou, I see frequent examples of this style still remaining.  Most are in some state of disrepair though functional.  Some, such as this one, have been carefully restored using original materials.  I chose this photo because of the simplicity of colour – just black and white against a “whitish” sky.

Then after choosing the photo and cropping it so that it seemed to be right for inclusion here, I saw more, the layering of the tiles as though I was seeing the layering of shadow.  I also saw in greater detail, the white flower which appeared to be growing out of a tree.  And then I saw the tree and was struck by the image that emerged, a symbol of man, potent man.  Out of the darkness, the light grows upwards.

I find my mind caught is a number of contradictions here, just as I find my mind caught in the contradictions of relationship.  The key to a good relationship is communication.  However, from what I said yesterday, the key to a good relationship is keeping one’s stuff to one’s self.  Sharp sums it up nicely:

“Those who think that talking about a relationship will help it get better put the cart before the horse.  Work on yourself and a good relationship will follow.  You can either accept who you are and find a relationship that fits, or twist yourself out of shape and get what you deserve.

The endless blather that takes place between two complexed people solves nothing.  It is a waste of time and energy and as often as not actually makes the situation worse.”  (Sharp, Jungian Psychology Unplugged, p. 72)

Communication is served by silence, and consciousness is arrived at through darkness, through the unconscious.  How can I sense any truth to these paradoxes?  The image helps me.  I see the swollen member bursting forth with life and I think how that swollen member gives life only in the darkness of the mysterious, dark and moist inner world.  And in giving up the essence of self, there is a unity that allows the self to disappear into a wholeness in which there are no separations between darkness and light, between masculine and feminine, between self and other.