Symbol Watcher

America has a long tradition of being afraid. Sure, we tell ourselves “land of the free and home of the brave” but those are most often aspirations and not the reality of our day-to-day collective mindset.

I suppose it’s understandable when we consider our founders took over the place by spreading disease, making shady land deals and conducting all-out acts of violence.  When you begin a venture by muscling it away from someone else–and then build it up on the backs of slaves–you’rebound to be afraid that somehow, some way, somebody’s going to come along and do the same thing to you. 

If you’ve watched the haves’ reaction to the possibility of the have nots gaining access to health care, you know what I mean. The “discourse” from some groups that oppose the health-care reform bill has been filled with the kind of vitriol and threats that arise only when people become very, very afraid. 

When House Democrats locked in the needed votes to pass health-care reform on Sunday, some bill protesters actually voiced their opposition by calling certain members of Congress ”niggers” and “baby killers” and deriding Barney Frank because he’s gay. When voices devolve into blind anger, when commentary wanders so far from the central issue, we can be certain a great deal of fear is festering at the root. 

It happens every time the country struggles to become better than it is. From the abolition of slavery, to women’s suffrage, to the civil rights movement, to the struggle for gay rights, whenever America makes another effort to include the have nots–in this case the millions of uninsured or underinsured–the haves  become gripped with fear and the animal aggression so characteristic of the emotion.

“If we give to them, that means it’ll be be taken away from me. If they get more, I’ll get less. After all, there can’t be enough for everyone.”  Or, worse, “They’re less than I am, so they don’t deserve to [be free, vote, own property, get married, receive a basic education, have access to affordable medical care].”  You fill in the blank.

We Americans have gotten into an increasingly bad habit since the economic boom days following WW II. The more powerful we’ve become, the more stuff we’ve managed to horde for ourselves, the more afraid we’ve become to stand up for the mistreated and underrepresented. 

Somehow, we can always find money to protect ourselves from outside threats–real or imagined–or to fund wars that we hope will ensure our foothold in countries whose resources we need. But we can’t manage to allocate any of our wealth to help insure all our citizens have an equal opportunity for life-saving health care. 

We need to stop and remember that every time we contribute to someone else’s basic human dignity by giving them the same BASIC RIGHTS some of us already have, we mange to do it equitably. Such is the case with health-care reform: the haves still have, but they no longer have it at the cost of those who don’t. 

–Writeye

P.S. I know this entry didn’t have a thing to do with symbolism but the amount of fear in this country needs to be recognized and discussed. 

March 23rd, 2010 | Category: Current Events |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Comments (2)

If our dreams carry us to a spring landscape filled with blooming flowers and greening foliage, we are being shown the possibility of inner renewal. Spring symbolizes new life within the psyche. Often, it's a transformation born out of the hermetic, introspective darkness of a psychological winter -- or what Jung called the night sea journey.

Hallelujah Spring!

More light than darkness, more growth than decay, more warmth than cold. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I know part of our lot as living beings is to withstand and be humbled by the harshness of nature.

But we can’t let life’s winters leave us without hope for spring – no matter how cold and dark.

Just like plants, we have to use the nutrients we’ve been able to gather from our last growing season, take them underground with us and wait. We can try to force a rebirth all we want, but we’ll just bang our heads on frozen ground.  We can only lie there, in humble hibernation, until the universe graciously pushes out the icy winds and moves us closer to the warmth and light of the sun. 

So world — as I watch the crocuses open and the daffodils bud — thank you for your gift of rebirth, renewal and rejuvination.

–Writeye

March 20th, 2010 | Tags: spring symbolizes | Category: Current Events |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment

If your curiosity has been peaked by my recent entries concerning synchronicity, then I recommend At the Heart of Matter Synchronicity and Jung’s Spiritual Testament. 

The book, by Zurich-trained Jungian analyst J. Gary Sparks, is an illuminating examination of the meaningful relationship that exists between our spiritual and physical realities.

“At the Heart of Matter” has been out for two years, but I just read it and I’m glad I did. For those of you, like me, who’ve found Jung’s writings on synchronicity difficult to understand at certain points (the comparison of astrological signs in married couples for instance!), you’re really going to appreciate Sparks’ clarity.

In plain language, Sparks puts the germination of Jung’s synchronicity theory within the context of Jung’s time. Synchronicity, at its core, involves the unprompted appearance of internal healing images in the outer world. At the same time Jung was developing his theory – synchronistically enough — the physics community was making revolutionary discoveries in its understanding of the way energy moves at the subatomic level. Namely, while atoms move in predictable ways, the motion of a single electron within an atom is unpredictable. These findings helped form the basis of quantum physics.

“The discovery of a new kind of motion in quantum mechanics concerning the nature of physical reality is exactly paralleled by Jung’s research into the spontaneous nature of the healing process which occurs along the psychological journey,” writes Sparks. “Both disciplines identified a new kind of motion undetermined by causality.”

Sparks uses the relationship between Jung and Nobel-prize winning physicist Wolfgang Pauli, along with examples from his own therapeutic practice, to show that spirit and matter intermingle — and the purpose of that intermingling is so we will turn our focus toward living our true selves in this material world.

“It is not true that we are cut off from meaning and purpose in what appears to be a secular age. “There is an intelligence beside our waking and rational capacities which still speaks, but this intelligence has changed its point of entry into our lives,” says Sparks. “For more and more people, the spirit no longer comes down from above. It emerges up from matter and is there for those who are willing to accept the earth’s complications and see the spirit in the storms body and matter throw at us.”

– Writeye

You can learn more about J. Gary Sparks by clicking on ”Symbolism and Psychology Meet” in my Links section at right.

September 30th, 2009 | Tags: at the heart of matter book, J. Gary Sparks, Jung and Pauli, spirit and matter, synchronicity | Category: Books, Jungian Psychology |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Comments (2)

In my last entry, I wrote that “Jung and Tarot” author Sallie Nichols stresses the importance of trying to discover the meaning, not the magic, behind the synchronistic events we experience.  Nichols suggests we ask ourselves a couple basic questions: “What in me needed this happening?” and “What lack (or potential) in me does this represent?”

That seems like sound advice to me. I believe everything in nature occurs for a reason. Our failure to understand the reason is simply because our intellect or wisdom hasn’t yet grown to the challenge.

Jung said a synchronistic event happens because an archetypal power has been activated within a person and that person is trying to become conscious of it.  I’ve been thinking about all of this as I’ve been trying to absorb what my recent little slice of synchronicity is trying to tell me.

Roses are a symbol of the Self in Jungian psychology and of the heart more generally. Red roses convey passion and romantic love. They can also stand for the blood of sacrifice (as in the thorny blood-red rose that symbolizes Christ’s suffering as an expression of God’s love). 

In my dream, I condensed my roses from six to four, a number of wholeness and earthly stability that I have discussed in other entries.  The roses themselves also stand for the Self, so the symbolism of potential wholeness seems to be doubly emphasized in my dream. The fact that the roses are “a deep blood red, like menstrual blood” makes me feel the dream is trying to tell me that passionate life is born out of pain and sacrifice (like childbirth and parenting). Taking the action necessary in my life to achieve wholeness comes at a price. I need to accept this as part of the work and not become resentful or bitter about it. After all, I’m the one who volunteered for the charity at the beginning of my dream. The choice to do the work is my own.

I think the dream might be showing me that if I am willing to embrace this truth, a transformation will take place within me. This is why my roses become trimmed in silver. Silver is the color of the moon, the feminine principle, just as gold is the color of the sun and the masculine. Because of our power to carry developing life within us, the cycle of birth, life and death is the special territory of the feminine. Creating new life requires sacrifice. Nature’s goal is balance. Every birth will be exchanged for a death of some kind, somewhere. If I accept this fact, then at least I will be closer to realizing the feminine half of my wholeness.

So given the messages I feel my dream is trying to send me, I believe the archetype of wholeness was activated by my synchronistic experience. But why did my dream roses present themselves to me on the physical plane as a journal? Why weren’t they trimmed in silver like they were at the end of my dream?

I’m not sure. My journal is where I do my work. It’s where I write down my dreams, and talk about my struggle to make sense of my internal and external life. My passion is the work I do in my journal — and my attempt, through this blog, to have a dialogue with other people who are doing their own work.  

I think the roses on my journal cover weren’t silver because I’m not there yet. I haven’t earned the feminine silver because I haven’t demonstrated my willingness to accept that sacrificing in the name of love and desire is what’s required for a new life, closer to my Self.

– Writeye 

September 2nd, 2009 | Tags: dream symbol that became synchronicity, feminine symbolism, four symbolism, gold symbolism, meaning of synchronistic events, red rose symbolism, rose symbolism, Self symbolism, silver symbolism, synchronicity as archetype activation | Category: Dreams, Jungian Psychology |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment

My red and silver roses journal

On July 3 I had this dream: I have come into an office during off hours to help out. There are six roses. I was supposed to take photos of each or all of them for the not-for-profit I was working at or volunteering for (this part is unclear). The roses are a deep, blood red, like menstrual blood. Two of the six roses were wilted. I had waited too long. I threw them off to my right. I held the remaining four in my hand. One of the four was starting to wilt so I knew I had to take the picture soon. I couldn’t wait any longer. As I again look down at the four roses bunched in my hand, I see that the tips of some of their petals are now silver and none of them are wilted. I don’t understand why this has happened.

So, I had an unconscious image (the blood red roses) come into my consciousness through my dream. About two weeks later that image presented itself in physical reality.

I was shopping and remembered I needed a new dream journal because my last one was full. Usually I buy my journals in a bookstore, but I was in a discount store that has a small stationery section, so I decided to take a look. I was struck to find a journal embossed with roses, in the same blood red color as the roses in my dream. It was the only journal like it on the shelves and I did feel that I was somehow meant to find it and buy it. To pay homage to the transformation my dream roses underwent, I outlined some of the flowers in silver. 

I don’t recall ever before having a dream symbol present itself in my physical world like that. Or maybe it has and I’ve been too unaware to notice. 

Nichols says of Rodin's work, "It seemed to me that the hand, as represented here, made wondrously real the androgynous qualities of the Creator. It expressed the masculine strength and support of the father combined with the womblike shelter and tenderness of the mother."

Author Sallie Nichols, in her book, Jung and Tarot  An Archetypal Journey, writes about searching for a print of Rodin’s sculpture Hand of God that she could purchase. (This was before the days of computer downloads.) She searched high and low for a copy but she wasn’t having any luck. Then one day while she was sitting in a friend’s house she pulled a magazine from the bottom shelf of a table. The magazine fell open to a photograph of the sculpture.  To make matters more incredible, the magazine was 12 years old and out of print.

Nichols said she felt the event, “. . . must hold a special message for me.” Nichols reminds us that we would be wise not to get caught up in the magic of synchronicity and work on figuring out why such a thing would happen to us. “. . . I saw that I, too, had allowed myself to become so enthralled by their magic that I had neglected to use these synchronicities as a bridge to self-understanding. It seemed more practical, then, to . . . turn this energy toward exploring the possible meaning of these events for me.”

I feel the same way about my red roses. I’ll write some more about that tomorrow.

– Writeye

August 27th, 2009 | Tags: dream symbol that became synchronicity, meaning of synchronistic events, Rodin's Hand of God | Category: Art, Books, Dreams, Jungian Psychology |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment