Stories of Longing: Beaver, Bear, WolfThe Space Between Breaths - An Exploration of Grief and Final Threshold RitualsThe Art of Facing Darkness: A Metal Musician’s Quest for WholenessThe Numinosity of Pluralism: Interfaith as Spiritual Path and PracticeHow Jungian Psychology, Brain Research, Quantum Physics, and Systems Science Lead to Pansystemology and Depth PsychologyA Child’s Edenic Dream: “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” in The Nutcracker Ballet

More Depth Psychology Articles, Essays, and Poetry

“Boat of the Dream” by Terry McMaster

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

Summer 2017

D E P T H I N S I G H T SS e e i n g t h e W o r l d W i t h S o u l

Poetry by Maree Brogden (38), Don Carlson (9), Alinda Lord (27), RoyRosenblatt (44), Richard Russell (20), Bonnie Scot (9), Edward Tick (8, 34)

Art by Terry McMaster (14-15), Peter Cameron (21), Sydney Solis (32-33), LauraSmith (37), Maree Brogden (38)

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Stories of Longing: Beaver, Bear,WolfBy Monica Dragosz

The Space Between Breaths:An Exploration of Grief and FinalThreshold RitualsBy Lisa Schouw

The Numinosity of Pluralism:Interfaith as Spiritual Path andPracticeBy Jonathan Erickson

How Jungian Psychology, BrainResearch, Quantum Physics, andSystems Science Lead toPansystemology and DepthPsychologyBy Nicole de Bavelaere

On Romanticism in Jung’sPsychology: A Reflection on ThePassion of the Western Mind byRichard TarnasBy Ronald L. Boyer

The Art of Facing Darkness:A Metal Musician’s Quest forWholenessBy Colin E. Davis

A Child’s Edenic Dream:“Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” inThe Nutcracker BalletBy Mary Ann Bencivengo

About this Issue

D E P T H I N S I G H T SS e e i n g t h e W o r l d W i t h S o u li n

P S e e i n g t h e WD E P T H I N S I G H T S

o r l d WS e e i n g t h e WD E P T H I N S I G H T S

i t h S o uo r l d WD E P T H I N S I G H T S

li t h S o uD E P T H I N S I G H T S

Table of Contents

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10

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On the cover: “Boat of the Dream”by Terry McMaster, acrylic on paper.

See more art and read commentsfrom the artist on pages 14-15.

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Depth Insights, Issue 10

PublisherDepth Insights, a Media & ContentPartner for Depth Psychology Alliance™

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When the world seems to be fallingapart all around us, depth psychologyprovides perspectives and tools that canhelp us make some sense of things, even insome small way. Through the study of theunconscious, we can often get a glimpse ofpatterns at work, or underlying aspects thathelp us gain a new understanding of howwe are truly supported by somethinglarger—how the boundaries and attach-ments of our ego selves can soften and giveway to soul, which sustains us.

In many ways, depth psychology canbe seen as the great unifier. When applyinga depth lens to virtually any topic, we beginto peel aside the layers to understand whatlies beneath, and the voices at the marginsbegin to be heard.

In this issue of Depth Insights, weencounter a variety of topics which, whenwe apply a depth psychological lens, webegin to understand at a deeper layer.Several of these seven compelling essaysbuild on the authors’ personal experiencesin order to truly explore the many ways soulreveals itself in our lives and in the collec-tive. Others offer a broad academic viewthat integrate philosophy or systems sciencewith depth psychology to further enrich thelens by which we might perceive soul atwork in the world.

In the first essay, Monica Dragoszexplores our relationship with naturethrough her own riveting accounts of asense of participation mystique in a series ofclose encounters with animals in “Stories ofLonging: Beaver, Bear, Wolf.”

Lisa Schouw takes on the topic of griefin the face of the impending death of her

Cont’d on page 44

From the Editor

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 2016

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Note: Opinions expressed by the authors contained in this issue do not necessarily reflect those ofDepth Insights or its editors, publisher, or representatives. Copyright of content remains with theauthors & artists. Copyright of the Depth Insights contents & design belongs to Depth Insights™. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without written permission from the publisher.

From the pen of Bonnie Bright

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Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 2017 3<Back to TOC

Because people become fascinated with pictures and words,and wind up forgetting the Language of the World.-Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

My childhood was enriched by the raw wilderness I wassurrounded by. The mountains, valleys, creeks, rivers,

lakes, rocks, trees, and even the howling winds of southernAlberta all seemed alive and magical to me. Wild animals inparticular invoked my curiosity and captured my imagination.Those I did see in the flesh were cherished moments, and whenconfined to the indoors, I would read about wild animals in ourscience encyclopedias. It is only in retrospect that it has struckme as ironic that I pursued a career pathworking with people, the many years ofsocialization having impressed upon me thenotion that animals and people are entirelyseparate entities in this sprawling world.Amongst therapist friends, I have felt like anoutlier in my rapture with nature, andparticularly in my affinity with animals. Butthe enchantment persisted, and after someyears of becoming more established in mycareer working with people, my general interest in animalsreturned full force and included a new fascination with thenotion that we could possibly communicate with them on somelevel.

Since stumbling upon the book Living in the Borderland:The Evolution of Consciousness and The Challenge of HealingTrauma (2005), by Jungian Analyst Jerome S. Bernstein, I nowacknowledge that perhaps I am speaking to all of this from theplace that Bernstein has dubbed borderland consciousness.According to Bernstein, borderland consciousness is a state ofbeing for those who regularly experience the transrationalaspects of life, often within the context of a compellingly strongrelationship to the natural world. Bernstein defines transra-tional reality as “objective nonpersonal, nonrational phenomenaoccurring in the natural universe, information and experiencethat does not readily fit into standard cause and effect logicalstructure” (p. 11).

Furthermore, these experiences—historically unques-tioned and commonplace within indigenous cultures—are notonly more real to the borderland individual than those of themundane, human-created world, they are regarded as sacred, inspite of the sense of isolation created by this orientation in thecontext of modern Western life. Bernstein feels that those whofit the profile of the borderland personality have been called tocarry an imperative for cultural transformation. With this inmind, I can discern my own journey in the stories that follow asthat of one who is attempting to reconcile what connectionsalready exist, let alone what are possible, between the humanand more-than-human world.1

BeaverSeveral years ago, I had read an online article about a

woman who performs Reiki, a Japanese method of healing workthat focuses on channeling energy through touch, on injuredwildlife. With this in my mind, I went for a walk in the rivervalley behind my home.

I spot a beaver in the river and stop to watch it. I think ofthe article I just read and, feeling playful and ready to experi-ment, I crouch down and put my hands up, with the intent ofoffering the beaver some “good vibes”. Astonishingly, it lifts outof the water and begins walking up the bank toward me. It is

coming closer and closer. I inch myselfquietly toward a full sitting position behindtall grasses. The beaver is now a mere fewmetres away from me. At one point, itactually sees me, and startles, its bodylurching back a bit. But after a moment itcontinues toward me, creeping quietly, asthough it is certain I have not seen it. It isnow stalking me. Eventually, it comes to sitright beside me, no more than three feet

from my left side. We look at each other for what seems like animpossibly long time – probably a full 30 seconds. There is afleeting moment of anxiety for me. We are on the same level,and I can see the formidable teeth that earn them their title asengineers of the landscape, and I recall a recent story about thedeath of a man in Belarus whose artery was severed by a beaverhe harassed into having his picture taken with. But ultimately,any fear on my part is overshadowed by utter curiosity andwonder. Eventually, the beaver continues on its path up the hill,

Stories of Longing: Beaver, Bear, Wolf

By Monica Dragosz

“I have felt like anoutl ier in my rapture

with nature, and particularly in my

affinity with animals”

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 20174 <Back to TOC

padding along gently, stopping once tolook back at me with same wondermentin its eyes.

In the years since, I have told ahandful of people about this encounter,and found myself feeling it was importantto somehow convey the depth of what Isaw beaming back at me from beaver’seyes. But I struggled with this, and wasonly able to reduce that essence down towhat I perceived as a mixture of awe andsadness. When I recall those momentswith beaver, I am often still deeplymoved—swept up in an experience ofloss that I cannot even fully name orcomprehend.

BearAround the same time in my life, I

had been visiting the community I grewup in for the first time in many years. Itwas an early summer evening and Iplanned to visit a friend who was stayingin a cabin just off the main highwaythrough town.

I park my car in the area designatedfor visitors and start on foot up thenarrow gravel road toward the cabin. Ablack bear appears out of the brushseveral yards in front of me, strolling outinto the middle of the gravel road andplopping down, its head facing away fromme. It is smallish, probably a juvenile. Myshock seems ironic, as it is more a resultof the relaxed appearance of the bear.After all, preparing for bear encountersmeans assessing the level of tension thatfollows after you have surprised and/orstumbled upon one another, andpreparing for the sudden aggression thatcould follow.

There is none of this here – this bearis simply getting right busy with thebusiness of lounging. I go to my textbookknowledge of what to do when faced witha bear, and begin talking in a low, calmvoice, thinking it is still a good idea toalert it to my presence and thereby avoidsurprising it. Its head twists around tolook in my direction. Then it stands up,wheels around, and begins a casual, yetalmost eager saunter toward me. Almoststubbornly, I am thinking of all I have everlearned about bear safety and theimportance of “keeping them wild,” andcombined with the obvious flash ofinstinctive fear, I make a quick decisionthat it will not be a good idea to allow itto come too close to me. I begin waving

my arms slowly in the air, start backingup, and continue speaking, this timesaying, “no, no, no”….

The bear stops, and I slowly back upall the way around a bend in the road, tothe point where we are no longer in eachother’s view. I then turn around and begina forward motion back to my car. Metersfrom my car door, I turn around to see ifit resumed its advance. At that exactmoment, its head pops out from aroundthe bend, and our eyes meet for one lastlook.

WolfI have had an imaginal relationship

to this animal for many years now. At atime in my life when my psychic worldwas intensifying, my dreams becamemore frequent and more vivid. Thepinnacle was a dream in which I wasbeing both followed and led by wolves.The dream was more or less forgottenuntil I was bombarded with the felt sensethat wolf was to be a guiding entity in mylife while in a sitting meditation a coupleof weeks later. Shamanic practitioners Iwould later meet picked up on myconnection to “wolf medicine” prior tome saying anything of what I had alreadyexperienced.

Regardless of whether one favors orsees as compatible shamanic notions ofotherworldly communication versusJungian concepts of the archetypes of thecollective unconscious, wolves, with theirneeds for both independence and strongrelationship connections, were highlyrelatable for me. Their presence in mypsychic landscape was further solidifiedwhen, on a solitary outing on my 40thbirthday, I saw my first ever, wild, free-roaming wolf, just meters away from theplace I stopped my car to observe. Iwatched it stroll nonchalantly past mewith wide-eyed wonder. But even moreintimate encounters were yet to come,and it started several months ago, with

another wolf dream.I find myself in a large open

meadow, ringed by an evergreen forest. Itis dusk and the whole scene is darkened.As I stand alone in the middle of themeadow, a wolf appears some distanceaway. It is watching me, head hangingsomewhat low. It maintains a slow,deliberate walk, watching me as it goes,circling around me, slow and steady. It isgradually closing the distance betweenus, coming closer with each round itmakes. Soon, it is right in front of me. Iask myself if this is really ok, or if I am indanger. I realize I have a choice to makebetween fleeing and surrendering. Idecide to remain still for now. The wolfthen inches its head forward whilemaintaining eye contact with me, andgently takes my hand in its mouth. I canfeel its teeth gently grazing against myskin. I succumb to my fear, and wake upwith a faint sound coming from the backof my throat. I am trying to scream, butcan’t.

Once fully awakened, I felt bothregretful and a little ashamed. At aroundthe same time, I was introduced toStephen Aizenstat’s notion of “dreamtending.” Aizenstat (2009) advocates“psychic reciprocity” between “thedreamer and the beings that reach out tocommunicate through dreams,” in whichwe abandon analysis in favor of anexploration based upon sensoryawareness and patient listening (p. 262).Aizenstat’s diversion away from a focuson dreams as primarily a reflection of thehuman psyche, and toward a closerexamination of “nature’s point of view”was monumentally resonant for me (p.263), so it suddenly seemed as thoughthe kinship I felt with this animal hadbeen completely self-serving andtherefore pathetically inauthentic. It wasa troubling confirmation that, in mymoment of succumbing to fear instead ofchoosing wonder, I had somehow let wolfdown.

Paul Shepherd (1993) has statedthat kinship “is the transcendent issue ofmaturity because of the necessaryequilibrium between likeness and differ-ence” (p. 297). I was able to grow andheal in various ways in having wolf’squalities (similarities) mirrored to me, butfearfully withdrew as soon as I wasconfronted with the differences (safe to

“As I stand alone in themiddle of the meadow,a wolf appears somedistance away. It iswatching me, head

hanging somewhat low”

Stories of Longing: Beaver, Bear, Wolf

<Back to TOC

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 2017 5<Back to TOC

say that my human acquaintances don’t“shake hands” with their teeth). Mydreamtime reaction seemed all the moreironic given that in recent times I havejoined others in advocating for bettertreatment of wolves on the locallandscape, where myths perpetuatedjustify their treatment as nothing morethan vermin outside of provincial andnational park boundaries. This endeavorhas entailed educating myself evenfurther about what wolves are and whatthey are not, so that I can disabuseothers of notions they still may holdabout the existence of the Big Bad Wolf.

If Aizenstat’s theory is worthheeding, then perhaps this dream (nevermind all the others) was not just aboutme, and I had declined to fully hear wolf,and to participate in wolf’s story. Whatwas wolf asking of me? I attempted toexercise “patient listening” but surpris-ingly came up with little that resonatedwith my sensory recall. So I vowed tomyself that should a similar opportunitypresent itself again, in a dream orotherwise, that I would do it differently.

A few months later, I was on anextended exploration of northwesternBritish Columbia, and visiting the Nisga’aMemorial Lava Bed Provincial Park, at aspot about 150 km from coastal waters ofthe Pacific Ocean. At least 250 years ago,there was a volcanic eruption that wipedout a couple of Nisga’a villages, killingabout 2000 people. My friend and I werewalking through the wide open valley ofthe Nass River, filled in by the lava bedsand ringed by lush coastal mountains,and found ourselves separating, to eachbe with our own private experience of aplace where the sacredness of the life-death cycle lingers in both the earth andthe air. I had tobacco with me and let thewind take it out of my open hand as anoffering to the many souls who lived anddied here. This accomplished, I sat downcross-legged on the hardened andblackened lava to contemplate a giantcottonwood tree directly across from methat suggested the presence of themighty Nass River, just out of view.

To my left, about 20 feet northwestof where I sit, a wolf appears. Just simplyappears, far from the cover of the forest.She walks with her head hanging low,keeping a slow but deliberate pace, and

studying me as she goes. Looks awaybriefly, but keeps looking back. She issteadily arcing around me, now anglingtoward my southeast. For my part, thereis momentary shock and that fleeting andnow familiar moment of uncertainty,followed by a sliver of fear. It occurs tome to stand up, thinking I should at leasttry to make myself a little less vulnerablewhile I gage her intent. As I gently get tomy feet, it so quickly becomes apparentthat she has no predatory intent – justsimple curiosity.

Fear instantaneously dissolves and Iresolve to say yes this time. I am speakingto her, soft and friendly. I turn my body tostay in alignment with her as she movesaround me. When she reaches my eastside, we are face to face, and she stops.We gaze at each other for severalseconds. I find myself wondering if shemight decide to stay a while. But sheturns and continues a relaxed trot to thesoutheast. With the least amount ofvolume as possible, I call for my friend’sattention, not wanting either to startlethe other. Once I have successfully alertedmy friend to the presence of the wolf, wemeet in our shared awe and turn towatch the wolf as she moves furtheraway. Losing sight of her momentarily,we re-locate her sitting perched on ahigh, jagged piece of lava, watching usfor another few seconds. She then stands,turns, and disappears.2

OthernessThe ongoing persecution of gray

wolves in many parts of the world is asearing illustration of the kind of shadowprojection we are capable of heapingonto wild animals in general and largecarnivores in particular. But the

“othering” of animals more commonlyoccurs in much more passive forms (suchas in my own small example). Whereanimals are concerned, both depthpsychology and new age shamanic viewsare at risk of perpetuating a symbolicrelational style with animals that, to usethe words of Paul Shepherd (1993), is“too easily characterized as archetypaland too casually dismissed as imagina-tion” (p. 280). Symbolism can slide intoobjectification and therefore hasconsequences for how animals and their“rights” are regarded.

I have witnessed animals beingregarded as the benign “other” repeat-edly in the mountains near my home,when people step out of their cars a fewshort paces to stand next to a bull elk, allthe while failing to notice the animalmuch at all, as they are busy lining up aselfie that they will presumably later poston social media. Paul Shepherd may haveviewed this as a transhistorical expressionof love for animals that has beenperverted by modern society (Fisher,2013). I have been around many shaman-ically inclined people who, in spite oftheir great zeal for speaking about andidentifying with their power animal ortotem animal, appear thoroughly discon-nected and unaware of the realities facedby the animals that live alongside us. Theconversations rarely ever include therecognition that flesh-and-blood wolf issuffering needlessly and senselessly atthe hands of humans, flesh-and-bloodeagle keeps getting caught in barbed wirefences, and flesh-and-blood bear hasnowhere left to go.

As ecopsychologist Andy Fisher(2013) states, when non-human life isexcluded and somehow made alien, it isinevitably destroyed. Being congruentwith our oft expressed values of therights of animals to co-exist with uswould mean not only shedding our strongshadow projections of animals such aswolf, but enhancing our appreciation ofthem in general beyond that of a self-serving form of symbolism. In discussinghistorical use of animal masks, Shepherd(1993) indicates that contained within thepractice was both the recognition that weare at once both animal and human, andfrom this we can derive that “flesh andappearance mean more to our identitythan ideology, that incarnation, not ideas

“My friend and I...foundourselves separating, to

each be with our own private experienceof a place where the

sacredness of the life-death cycle

lingers in both the earth and the air”

Monica Dragosz

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 20176

or heaven, is what life and death are allabout” (p. 297). This would entail that wehold space for the full expression ofotherness of animals in the world, whileallowing ourselves to be nourished by theawareness of our proximity, our kinship.

It’s the CowsSusan Rowland (2009) frames the

borderland experience as a reminder ofthe relationship between Westernalienation from nature and colonialism,and the modern manifestation of it as a“marginalization of those whose psycheresists the hegemonic styles of rationalconsciousness” (p. 78).

It was the resistance of one ofBernstein’s own patients that was pivotalin the eventual formation of his border-land theory. A female patient he calledHannah, with a lengthy history of sexualabuse and subsequent psychotherapy,was relating her distress over havingfound herself driving behind a truckcarrying two cows that she felt must havebeen on their way to slaughter. Bernstein(2005) relates how one of their sessionsunfolded:

I pursued the standard approach ofsuggesting that she was projectingonto the cows, i.e., how she saw herlife circumstances in the plight ofthese cows. She went along with mefor a time. But then she protested infrustration: “But it’s the cows!” Ipointed out to her that her responsewas an identification with animalsshe experienced as abused. Sheacknowledged the truth of myinterpretations. She began to talkabout all the animals in the worldthat only existed as domesticatedbeings, and their sadness. And againshe burst out: “But it’s the cows!”After that last protest – by now atthe end of the session – I becameaware in myself of Hannah’s distressand her identification with the plightof these cows. And I also becameaware of a different feeling in theroom. The feeling was attached toHannah, yet it was separate fromher. It seemed of a differentdimension. It was a new experiencefor me. (p. 7)Hannah’s visceral experience

allowed her to be able to ground into herown truth, and that of the cows, in theface of psychotherapeutic authority. AndBernstein was also able to tap into his

own felt sense that alerted him to thevery real presence of something unableto be explained or dismissed by thesubject-object split prevalent in modernpsychology. In his book, Bernsteinacknowledges that his own discovery ofborderland consciousness arose from thetandem influences of his clinical practiceand his exposure to Navajo medicine andreligion.

Joanna Macy, author, Buddhistscholar, and environmental activist, haslong been critical of mainstream analyticpsychology’s tendency to view expres-sions of despair about the state of theworld as an indicator of intrapsychicconflict and a “private neurosis” (Macy &Brown, 1998, p. 31); she has repeatedlyasserted that feeling pain for the world isa healthy, realistic, and legitimateresponse that requires both attentionand expression.3 So within depthpsychology, it is significant that Bernstein(2005) came to understand that, forthose he calls Borderlanders, they arepersonally experiencing and living out“the split from nature on which thewestern ego, as we know it, has beenbuilt”, and as such, “they feel (not feelabout) the extinction of species, they feel(not feel about) the plight of animals…”(p. 9). For the borderland individual, aswas/is the case for indigenous cultures,there is no separation between what isreal (material) and what is sacred.

LongingIn all of the encounters I have

related, there was a fleeting moment oftrepidation, but it was overshadowed bywonder and awe. I imagine that the basicingredients of awe, wonder, and fear arenearly always present for people encoun-tering a wild animal rarely seen,particularly large carnivores, but that the

ratio of awe to fear might differ for eachperson depending on their socialization,conditioning, and experiences. Yet ourcapacity for awe seems as inbred andinstinctual as fear is, a notion I recognizeas similar to E.O. Wilson’s (1993) biophiliahypothesis, which proposes that humanbeings possess an innate emotional affili-ation toward other living beings.

Another way of expressing thebiophilia hypothesis would be to say thatlonging to know the Other is a part of ourown inbred, though sometimes dormantinstincts. And if, as Aizenstat and manyother depth/eco psychologists say,psyche and world are commingled, then Iwonder if longing to know an Other isactually an experience shared acrossspecies. I owe this recognition of longingto Craig Childs (2007), an author andnaturalist. In reading his story of anencounter with a sea lion in his book TheAnimal Dialogues: Uncommon Encountersin the Wild, the following passage leaptout at me:

I remained cramped at the fire,looking over at a sea lion that wasquick and capable in the water,washing back and forth, closer andfarther away. I could see its ears, twosmall rolls of leather laid to the sidesof its head. I saw no zoologicalnecessity for it to remain so long infront of our fire. It had to be curious.I thought it must be like us in someway, driven by longing. (p. 257)“Longing” is the word that I

searched for every time I rememberedthe encounter with the beaver, andattempted to describe in words the lookin its eyes as it looked at me. My ownvague sense of what I was seeing and myself-doubt was fed somewhat by ourscientific and technological epoch, inwhich many are quick to condemn anyanthropomorphization of animals asludicrous, unscientific, and childish. Childsis clearly a naturalist, and interweaves agreat deal of scientific and factual

“Longing is the wordthat I searched for

every time I rememberedthe encounter with thebeaver, and attempted

to describe in words thelook in its eyes as it

looked at me”

Stories of Longing: Beaver, Bear, Wolf

<Back to TOC

knowledge into the narratives of his ownencounters, yet seems to leave room foranother type of story to emerge—onefrom the animals themselves. Canadianauthor Barbara Gowdy (2008) providesthe basis for her 1998 novel, The WhiteBone, by arguing that the ethologicalresearch that confirms that animalspossess emotions and consciousnessmeans that animals likely also havestories (“An Elephant’s Story”).

For me, all this is support for myown perception that, in their encounterswith me, beaver, bear, and wolf, mayhave been experiencing their ownlonging. And for those who still think thatI may be caught in my own projection, itmay be worthwhile to consider that MarcBekoff, a professor of ecology andevolutionary biology at the University ofColorado, has been doing research andpublishing his findings on animal behaviorand emotions for many years now. Bekoff(2007) proposes that anthropomorphismis actually a complex phenomenon, andthat our urge to impart emotions toanimals may often reflect an accurateway of knowing that is in fact necessaryin making ethical decisions where animalsare concerned.

In spite of his conviction in biophilia,Wilson (1993) opts out of the endeavorof arguing for the “rights” of animals perse, contending that the notion of rightscan be a philosophical rabbit hole.

While I can appreciate hisviewpoint, I am nonetheless encouragedwhen I see Aizenstat (2009) noting thathuman “dreamers” who open themselvesup to an exchange with the “living image”of their dreams may be moved to takeaction on their behalf, which he calls“archetypal activism” (p. 262). I amhopeful about the possibility thateco/depth psychology can possiblyengage in a productive anthropomor-phism that would serve as an antidote toself-serving and complacent relationshipsto animals. Perhaps these intertwinedfields can even follow indigenousworldviews into muddled debates about“animal rights” and environmental ethics.

Epilogue: True LoveWhen I hear that my local provincial

government, in spite of all evidence tothe contrary, supports inhumane wolfbounties as an “effective managementtool,” I have a visceral, embodied

reaction. Like Hannah, I do not want myempathy somehow reduced to a purelyintrapsychic phenomenon. In the midst ofmy endeavors in wolf advocacy, I resistgiving any voice to my totemic relation-ship with wolf. Giving in to the symbolicviewpoint can seduce us away from thereality of their suffering.

Instead, I recognize my experiencesas a call to something beyond my Self, myown lifeworld. I know that I have beenexceedingly enriched by every one ofthese encounters; as Barbara Gowdy(n.d.) has said, “You look into the eye of amammal or bird and you see that alienintelligence sizing you up. It’s thrilling.”(para. 3). It has indeed been thrilling inthe humility that it has offered. Soperhaps I was called by the animals inthose moments – for acknowledgement,to carry the message of their request forco-existence, for kinship. Maybe—likeus—they are able to know more ofthemselves by knowing more of us.

Depth psychology offers many waysto interpret my experiences of participa-tion mystique, however, what I choose tocarry forth is a call for reciprocity in ourrelating to animals that is nourished bythe awareness that their fleshy existencein the world is indeed sacred. They offerus yet another opportunity to engagewith a world psyche that holds up amirror and points the way toward greaterpsychospiritual maturity, containedwithin which is the awareness that weare just one part of the web of life.

The poet David Whyte has said thathis poem, “The True Love,” is a testamentto that which calls us out of our prover-bial boat, and that this can be a person, anew life, or some deep part of ourselves(in Kaeton, n.d.). I apply his words to thestory between wolf and me:

…and I think of the story of thestorm, and everyone waking andseeingthe distant yet familiar figure faracross the water calling to them,and how we are all preparing for thatabrupt waking, and that calling,and that moment we have to say yes,except it will not come so grandly, soBiblically,but more subtly and intimately in theface of the one you know you haveto love….4

I am profoundly grateful for the giftof that moment on the lava beds of the

Nass Valley, in which I received anotheropportunity to stretch my human limits,and to say a more resounding yes to themore-than-human world. Pivotal as thatmoment was, I cannot afford to lose sightof the fact that saying yes means that Iwill keep trying to see, hear, and feel theOther, in a wordless language—as muchas is humanly possible.

Endnotes1 I have ongoing gratitude to cultural ecologistDavid Abram for coining the phrase “more-than-human world” in his book, The Spell ofthe Sensuous: Perception and Language in aMore-Than-Human World (1996).2 Though I understand the convenience,simplicity, and even necessity of referring toanimals as ‘it’ in ordinary discourse, I haveoften wondered about the extent to which itcontributes to their objectification. As my ownrelating to wolf became increasingly intimate,I decided to assign a gender to the wolf Iencountered on the lava beds. I chose ‘she’because I believe that the historical persecu-tion of wolves, when viewed through thesymbolic aspect, mirrors an attack on thearchetypal feminine.3 I heard these sentiments expressed directlyfrom Joanna Macy more than once during aworkshop in Banff, Alberta, in 2009, and amaware it has been an integral part of hermessage.4 David Whyte’s poem “The True Love” wasoriginally published within his 1997 book, TheHouse of Belonging.

ReferencesAizenstat, S. (2009). Dream tending andtending the world. In L. Buzzell & C. Chalquist(Eds.), Ecotherapy: healing with nature in mind(pp. 262-269). San Francisco, CA: Sierra ClubBooks.An Elephant’s Story: Gowdy Reflects on TheWhite Bone. (2008). Retrieved fromhttps://animalvoices.ca/2008/01/29/an-elephants-story-gowdy-reflects-on-the-white-bone/Bekoff, M. (2007). The Emotional Lives ofAnimals: A leading scientist explores animaljoy, sorrow, and empathy – and why theymatter. Novato, CA: New World Library.Bernstein, J. S. (2005). Living in theBorderland: The evolution of consciousness andthe challenge of healing trauma. New York,NY: Routledge.Childs, C. (2007). The Animal Dialogues:Uncommon encounters in the wild. New York,NY: Back Bay Books.Fisher, Andy. (2013). Radical Ecopsychology:Psychology in the service of life. (2nd ed.).Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Gowdy, B. (n.d.). A transcript of a conversation

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Monica Dragosz

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Poe t ry

Poe t rywith Barbara and a British journalist about The White Bone.Retrieved from http://www.barbaragowdy.com/interviews/the-white-bone-interview/Kaeton, E. David Whyte’s “The True Love”. Retrieved fromhttp://telling-secrets.blogspot.ca/2009/04/david-whytes-true-love.htmlMacy, J. & Brown, M. (1998). Coming Back to Life: Practices toreconnect our lives, our world. Gabriola Island, BC, Canada: NewSociety Publishers.Rowland, S. (Winter 2009). Review: Redemption through theBorderland. [Review of the book Living in the Borderland: TheEvolution of Consciousness and the Challenge of Healing Trauma, byJerome S. Bernstein]. Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche, 3 (1), 78-80.Shepherd, P. (1993). On animal friends. In S.R. Kellert & E.O. Wilson(Eds.), The Biophilia Hypothesis (pp. 275-300). Washington D.C.:Island Press.Wilson, E.O. (1993). Biophilia and the conservation ethic. In S.R.Kellert & E.O. Wilson (Eds.), The Biophilia Hypothesis (pp. 275-300).Washington D.C.: Island Press.

Monica Dragosz is a psychotherapist living in the foothills ofsouthern Alberta, Canada, and practicing in Calgary. Herinterests lie in trauma-informed therapy, bringing asomatic/embodied focus to work with clients, andintegrating cross-cultural shamanic principles intopsychotherapy. Her lifelong love of wild places and wildlifehas also evolved into an interest in ecopsychology as aculture-making project.

Childhood in the NorthBy Edward Tick

Soon after I learned my first words –“mother,” “father,” “when” and “where” –I strung them together like colored ribbonsmaking the tail of a fluttering kite.

Where is my father? I asked.He is a soldier, she said.When, Mother will he come home?Go out with the other children, she said,and watch for a man with a backpackdusty and tired from his long walk home.

We played beneath the old banyan treewhere all roads I knew joined as one.I hid from my friends, scratched faces in the dirt,waddled with ducks and looked down lanes.

Finally one day beneath a burning sunthe man with the backpack came.I ran to him, grabbed his leg, held tight.Where is your home? his gentle voice asked.He was gone so long he must have forgotten.

We hobbled together, me with a father,he like a man with a wooden leg.He pried and pleaded but I would not let go.Mother had to peel me offlike the skin of an unripe fruit.

I watched his backpack bouncingas he disappeared down the long road.Mother cried and begged forgiveness.She said she had teased me, said she had lied,she said many soldiers died.It was then that I learned and have never forgottenthe pain with no answer in the little word “why?”

Stories of Longing: Beaver, Bear, Wolf

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 2017 9<Back to TOC

Poet ryStructure

By Donald Carlson

The inverted cathedral of lightspreads its tracery over usin an elation of downward-pointed spires

Enclosing us in tall radianceof afternoon just as our shadowshave grown attenuated

When this crashing down of lightcorners me why does entrapmentfeel like release?

Too Costlyby Bonnie Scot

(Adapted from Journal of a Solitude: June 15thby May Sarton)

But I am surely at the thin edgeOf exhaustion these days

In a stateWhere even joy becomes

Too costlyWhere only dark and sleep

Are welcome

How does one rest?

Do it by not hurryingBy not allowing pressure to build

Do it one step at a timeAs if climbing out

Of the deepestWell

Poe t ry

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 201710 <Back to TOC

It is winter. The clouds are dark andthick in the late afternoon sky. I amstanding in the doorway between my

mother’s bedroom and her lounge room.My mother is lying asleep in a hospitalbed with her back towards me; my nine-year-old son is playing on the loungeroom floor with his knights and castles.We three are caught in a shared moment,though profoundly different in its aspect.My mother, dying of pancreatic cancer,will be gone within two months; my son,lost in the world of childhood enchant-ment, is acting out a timeless battle ofchivalry and courage, while I am caughtfor a moment between the world of theliving and the world of the dying.

Most of us have experienced amoment when an event or seeminglychance occurrence happens and our livesare changed irrevocably—be it simplystanding in a doorway, a sudden accident,the chance meeting of a lover to be, thebirth of a child, or the death of a lovedone. In her thoughtful poem, Silence,Australian poet Judith Wright (1955)evoked the power that is containedwithin that moment between breaths:

The silence between this and thenext breath,That might be – is not yet – death.

Barely six months after the suddendeath of my father, my mother wasdiagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Thecontrast between my father’s passing,which happened over only a few days,and my mother’s, which unfolded overseveral months, profoundly affected mysubsequent grieving process. Withhindsight, I sense that my father’s deathprepared me for what followed with mymother as I could honor his passing eachday as I tended to her.

Stanley Keleman (1985) wrote that“we are always dying a bit, always givingthings up, always having things takenaway,” (p. 25). During those tender daysin which I accompanied first my fatherand then my mother on their journeytoward death, I experienced many “little

dyings.” In the final weeks of her life, mymother asked, “Will you dance with me?”And so, as mother and daughter wedanced to a song from my childhood andfrom our homeland of Africa. “This will bethe last time I ever dance,” she said. “Iam glad it is with you.”

Archetypal psychologist JamesHillman (1989) argued that soul refers to“the deepening of events into experi-ences” (p. 21). He believed thesignificance soul makes possible in ourcapacity to love and in our religiousconcerns is derived from its uniquerelationship with death. In his play, NeverSang for My Father, Robert Andersonobserved that, “Death ends a life, but nota relationship, which struggles on in thesurvivor’s mind, seeking some resolutionwhich it may never find,” (as cited inMcGoldrick, 1995, p. 127).

Watershed events such as the deathof a family member are what pioneer andfounder of Family and Systemic Therapy,Murray Bowen, called nodal events,which “can have an effect for manygenerations to come” (as cited in Gilbert,2004, p. 80). My mother was four yearsold when her father died, and yet she stillspoke of her formative loss in the finalmonths of her life; how it affected hermother, brother, and herself in differentways, and how her own dying might markmy son and me into the future.

For the last nine years, I havemigrated through the cycles of griefpassing through what J. William Worden(2009) calls the “tasks of mourning” (p.39). Each of these formative loops hasbeen accompanied by rituals of leave-taking as I have moved into the

matriarchal position in my family, experi-enced my own unexpected courage in theface of the unavoidable deaths of lovedones, and finally reengaged with thetransformational process of tending tothe meaning and focus of my own lifethrough my creative practices.

Writer and Buddhist philosopherMatthieu Ricard suggested that “thespiritual journey is like travelling fromvalley to valley: crossing each mountainpass reveals a more magnificentlandscape than the one before” (as citedin Follmi, 2003, p. 56). Here there is apattern of highs and lows, with a progres-sion from one landscape to another aslife unfolds in ever-richer forms. Thisnotion of movement suggests that thatthere is no going back. We must let goand leave much behind.

Grieving is simultaneously a deeplypersonal and a universal human experi-ence that reveals itself over time. Acrosscultures, humans have created myths andtheir accompanying rituals to guide usthrough the difficult thresholds oftransformation. In his groundbreakingbook, The Hero with a Thousand Faces,Joseph Campbell (2008) offered that “Ithas always been the prime function ofmythology and rite to supply the symbolsthat carry the human spirit forward” (p.2). Rites of passage such as birth,puberty, marriage, and death are differ-entiated by formal ceremonies thatfunction to make the whole community“visible to itself as an imperishable livingunit” (p. 331). Rituals give form andshape outside of logic, within the realmof imaginings. They provide a means bywhich we can manifest our humanity—and some would say—our soul. If soul isrevealed in attachment, love, andcommunity as Thomas Moore (1992)writes in The Care of the Soul, thenarguably it may also represent theessence of what it is to be human.

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung(1989) observed that rituals provide “ananswer and reaction to the action of Godupon man” (p. 253). Here the perform-

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The Space Between Breaths:An Exploration of Grief and Final Threshold Rituals

By Lisa Schouw

“Grieving is simultaneously a deeplypersonal and a universalhuman experience thatreveals itself over time”

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 2017 11<Back to TOC

ance of rituals is an action performed inthe service of meaning. The word ritualcomes from the Sanskrit rita, meaning“truth or order.” It relates to the physicalorder of the universe and is manifest inthe way “the sun and moon pursue theirdaily journeys across the sky” (Britannica,2016, n.p.). Another aspect of thisconcept is encapsulated in the moral lawof the world and the concept of sacrifice.In the Vedic tradition, it is essential thatthe performance of sacrifices to the godsbe conducted in the proper way, toensure the continuance of the naturalorder of things.

Rites offer a means through whichcommunities and individuals can embodytheir cultural myths. These myths serveto awaken and support a sense of awebefore the mystery of being (Young,2005). They add a cosmologicaldimension to human life, which matchesthe lived experience, knowledge, andmentality of a given culture, while stillallowing attention to be given to mysteryor the unknown. This dimension shines alight on the order of the cosmos andultimately our place in it. The Christiancelebrations of Christmas and Easter, andthe Hopi Sun Dance all “employ the ritualart of remembrance” (Houston, 1987, p.102).

Each society has a specific moralorder, including ethical laws and socialroles. A sociological function in responseto social group, place, climate, andculture forms a third function ofmythology (Young, 2005). An example ofthis would be the Navaho, whose spirituallife is guided by directions and prescrip-tions received from Spider Woman forwalking what they call “the pollen path”(Houston, 1987, p. 102).

Ultimately, myths offer a way ofteaching us how to live through all thestages of life with integrity as theyprovide a framework for psychologicalgrowth. In the final stage of life thismovement impels us forward and ourability to embody its expression in ourlives is where the psychological element,encapsulated in Campbell’s fourthfunction of mythology (Young, 2005), is atits most potent. It is within the soul’s lastjourney that the adventure of the heroreaches its most elaborate and significantdevelopment. Campbell (2008) describedthis final crossing as a return to the“pristine knowledge of the world-creative

divinity” (p. 317).

A Doorway to Another TimeI have a heady mix of Nordic blood

running through my veins as myancestors came from the barren andoften frozen lands of Northern Europe, soin acknowledgement of this ancestrallink, I turn now to an ancient ritual ofdeath that has the threshold symbol ofthe doorway at its centre. In the period780-1070 C.E., the Danes, Norwegians,and Swedes were collectively known asthe Vikings (Holland, 1980, p. xiv). Afterthe death of a chieftain, they would actout this need for healing time byconducting a richly complicatedceremony that served to ease the loss ofthe man, while also connecting the tribeto the world of their Gods and all thatawaited the chieftain in the afterlife.Possibly one of the functions of theceremony was to wipe out the humansufferer as an individual and to illuminatethe “cosmological circumstance” at play(Campbell, 1972, p. 59).

From his eyewitness account in 926C.E., Arab diplomat Ibn Fadlan (as cited inSmyser, 1965, n.p.) described the ritualsthat marked the ceremony. The body wasinterred for 10 days, while new clothesfor the chieftain’s journey to theafterworld were sewn. A female shaman,known as the angel of death and whoacted as a representative of the Nordicgod Freyr, oversaw the ceremony asmistress of war and death, love, lust, andfertility.

A thrall girl (or bond-maid)volunteered to accompany the chieftain,and during her final days, had intercoursewith all the men of the tribe as a gift forthe chieftain and a guarantee of tribalfertility. There was an implicit acknowl-edgement in this act of an ongoingexchange between the world of the living

and that of the dead: a belief that theactions of the tribe would have a directimpact on their chieftain’s journey.

The orientation process to the newstage of life is reflected in the ritualsenacted before the death of a loved one,immediately following and also insubsequent remembrance rituals. Tounderstand the grieving process fully,Worden (2009) suggested that themeaning of attachment must be included,and that an individual’s way of mourningis connected to the behaviouralresponses that make up part of “re-establishing a relationship with the ‘lostobject’ ” (p. 15). Perhaps it was throughthe completion of detailed and allottedtasks that the Vikings began to adapt tothe loss of their chieftain, through aprocess that required “confrontation withand restructuring of thoughts about thedeceased” (p. 39) and with a world thathad changed.

On the tenth day, the disinterredchieftain was placed in his longship,which was a symbol of the cycle of birth,life, and death (Holland, 1980, p. 197).The body was surrounded with intoxi-cating drinks, food, a stringed instrument,and all his weaponry. These everydayobjects and possessions form part ofidentity and in the context of death theycan be seen as “transitional objects”performing the function of holding on,and later letting go (Gibson, 2008, p. 16).Interestingly, in the Viking rite, theobjects were sent with the chieftainrather than being kept with the living aswe might do today.

It can be argued that the display ofthe body, along with animals andartifacts, may have been a constructionof a temporary and idealized image of thedead to be remembered by themourners, “not through its enduranceand permanence, but through its briefvisibility and subsequent destruction”(Kuchler, as cited in Williams, 2004, p.11).

A decapitated horse was cut topieces, the parts arranged around thebody, along with a dog, a hen, and arooster. Each of these gifts is “endowedwith living, healing, magic power” (Jung1958/1978, p. 104, para. 76) and symbol-ized aspects of a bountiful life and thedifficulties that awaited the chieftain onhis journey to Valhalla, the great Hallpresided over by the Norse god Odin. It

Lisa Schouw

“Ultimately, myths offer away of teaching us howto live through all the

stages of life withintegrity as they provide

a framework for psychological growth”

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 201712 <Back to TOC

was in this Hall that dead warriors spenttheir days fighting and their nightsfeasting while they waited for Ragnarok,the battle at the end of time.

It is said that there are 540 doors inValhalla, and in the late afternoon of thetenth day, the thrall girl was tied tosomething that looked like a doorframe.Heavily intoxicated, she would be liftedthree times by men from the tribe andwould tell of what she saw through thedoorway into the afterworld. In this laststage of the ceremony, the relatives ofthe dead chieftain arrived and the shipwould be set aflame.

This final threshold crossing ispresent in the mythological image of anopen door; the space between breaths,where we catch a glimpse of our currentplace in time and that which lies beyond.The movement through the doorwayenacted within the Viking ceremonysymbolizes an enduring connectionbetween the chieftain, the tribe, theirGods, and those yet to pass over thethreshold.

As I stood in the doorway betweenmy mother and my son, I had to let go ofher corporal life and turn to face a worldforever changed by her absence. If, asKeleman (1985) suggests, “living withdying is learning about the transforma-tion arising from your turning points,” (p.26), then my grieving has indeed been aseries of turning points in life; points thathave confirmed the strength of therelationships in my family, increased myacceptance of loss, reaffirmed my joy andhope, and above all, made me live the lifethat I have left more fully, for as DanielLevinson (1996) argues, ”a life is, aboveall, about the engagement of a person inthe world” (p. 3).

A Creative Response – Don’t LookBack

As an artist and clinical psychothera-pist, I do not separate the stimuli of theouter world from my inner creative life,for they are intertwined in ways that aremysterious and unknowable. So, as a finalparting ritual between myself and you,the reader, I offer you an original song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfQD9E4D5RY

I was just beginning my immersionin the world of Campbell’s myths when Iattended a wake held in the lateafternoon of a hot Australian summer.

We gathered under the tall gum trees ata place where the river meets the ocean.From these encounters came “Don’t LookBack” (Schouw, 2014):

At the close of the dayWe will wait at the water’s edgeAnd the arrow will flyTo light your way

These first lines echo an eternalrhythm as we stood in a circle beneathgently-falling summer rain, marking thepassing of a human life. We wereenacting an ancient ritual deep in theheart of suburban Australia that mirroreda similar circle variously drawn by thePawnee priest in Northern Kansas andSouthern Nebraska to represent a nest,the dwelling place of the people, and thekinship group, clan, and tribe (Campbell,2008, p. 34). As each person spoke it wasas if we were laying down beacons tomark out the trajectory of a life.

An arrow’s journey is sure and true,and the energy of its flight dies away as itreaches its target. By beginning the songthis way, both the metaphysical and thecosmological functions of myth areevoked (Young, 2005, p. 4). We areconnected to mystery and our naturalplace in the rhythm of life. This ismirrored in the last ceremony of theViking rite, conducted as the sun wasending a cycle.

“The true symbol does not merelypoint to something else. It contains initself a structure, which awakens ourconsciousness to a new awareness of theinner meaning of life and of reality itself,”(Merton, as cited in Campbell, 1972, p.265). The mythological symbol of water isubiquitous. It can be a means of travelingfrom this world to the next as in the Styx,one of the rivers of the ancient Greek’sunderworld. It is represented in aqua

permanens, the “water of life of thealchemists and of the ancient pre-Christian world” (Campbell, 2002, p. 182),or the Rio Abajo Rio, “the river beneaththe river which flows and flows into ourlives” (Estes, 1992, p. 298). The water’sedge is an “emblematic mythic place,where life and history flow by, theeternal streaming of the Tao” (Houston,1996, p. 2). It is the place I go towhenever my soul needs replenishmentor reconnection to the cosmos.

In her poem, Silence, Judith Wright(1955) makes the connection betweenthe creative-divinity and the eternalwaters:

Silence is the rock where I shallstand.Oh, when I strike it with my handMay the artesian waters springFrom that dark source I long to find.

The word Hallelujah appears in theHebrew bible and Christian hymns as acall to praise God or in praise of God.Throughout Canadian poet andsongwriter Leonard Cohen’s composition“Hallelujah” (1984), we experience thatmany different hallelujahs exist; anecstatic cry of sexual release, a yearningfor a forgotten God, a bitter accusation,or an entreaty for salvation. In the lastverse of my song, I have used it as a callto the angels, asking for them to performthe task of carrying the loved one awaysafely:

At the close of the dayWe will sing hallelujahAs the angels comeTo carry you awayAs the trumpets soundAnd the night birds singWe will gather togetherTo guide you home

The trumpets sounding resonatewith the music of the heavens, while thenight birds’ song evokes the lore of themessengers of the night. For the AncientGreeks, the owl was associated with theirgoddess Athena, a symbol of higherwisdom, while the Pawnee hold the birdsas a symbol of protection.

The construct of a hymn, “Don’tLook Back,” completes the circle byreturning to the water symbol in the finalchorus. There is a suggestion that the veilbetween the two worlds is opening, andthat to look back would be to break the

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“This final thresholdcrossing is present in the mythological image of an open door; thespace between breaths,

where we catch a glimpse of our current place in time and that

which lies beyond”

The Space Between Breaths

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 2017 13<Back to TOC

spell or destroy that which is unfath-omable. Here, also the image of theViking longship is recalled, and perhapseven the arrival of something bountiful:

Don’t look backAs the veil grows thinFor all is wellAs your ship comes inFor the last goodbye

In a thought provoking essaypublished in Psychosomatic Medicine,George Engel (1961) observes that “theloss of a loved one is psychologicallytraumatic to the same extent that beingseverely wounded or burned is physiolog-ically traumatic” (as cited in Worden,2009, p. 16). Engel argues that, “just ashealing is necessary in the physiologicalrealm, a period of time is likewise neededto return the mourner to a similar stateof psychological equilibrium” p. 16).

Through the restorative rituals ofgrieving and creativity, I continue toexperience a deeply personal anduniversal unfolding which connects me tothe enduring living unit of all humanity.As Sogyal Rinpoche (2002) offers, “Don’tlet us half die with our loved ones, then;let us try to live after they have gone,with greater fervor” (p. 314), for all iswell.

ReferencesBritannica Encyclopedia. (2016). Rita Sanskrit.Retrieved fromhttp://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/511741/ritaCameron, J. (1992). The artist’s way – Aspiritual path to higher creativity. New York,NY: Tarcher/Putman.Campbell, J. (2002). Flight of the wild gander:Explorations in the Mythological Dimension.Selected essays 1944-1968. Novato, CA: NewWorld Library. Campbell, J. (1972). Myths to live by. NewYork, NY: Bantam. Campbell, J. (2008). The hero with a thousandface: Collected works. Novato, CA: New WorldLibrary. Estes, C. P. (1992). Woman who run withwolves: Myths and stories of the wild womanarchetype. London, UK: Rider.Follmi, D. & O. (Ed.) (2003). Buddhist offerings365 days. London, UK: Thames & Hudson.Gibson, M. (2008). “Objects of the dead.” InPsychotherapy in Australia. 15 (2), 14-18.Sydney, Australia: CAPA.Gilbert, R. M. (2004). The eight concepts of

Bowen theory. Lake Frederick, VA: LeadingSystems Press.Hillman, J. (1989). A blue fire: selectedwritings. New York, NY: Harper PerennialHolland, K. C. (1980). The Norse myths. NewYork, NY: Pantheon Books.Houston, J. (1987). The search for the beloved:Journeys in sacred psychology.Northhamptonshire, England: Crucible. Houston, J. (1996). Joseph Campbell andchanging times. In J. Young (Ed.), Saga–Bestnew writing on mythology. Ashland, OR:White Cloud.Jung, C. G. (1978). Psychology and the east. (R.F.C. Hull, Trans.). In The collected works of C.G. Jung (Vol. 13). Princeton, NJ: PrincetonPress. (Original work published 1967).Jung, C. G. (1989). Memories, dreams, reflec-tions. In R. &. C. Winston (Trans.). Princeton,NJ: Vintage.Keleman, T. (1985). Living your dying.Berkeley, CA: Center Press.Levinson, D.J. (1996) The seasons of awoman’s life. New York, NY: Ballantine.McGoldrick, M. (1995) You can go homeagain, reconnecting with your family. NewYork, NY: Norton.Monte, F. & Sollod, R.N. (2003) Beneath themask—An introduction to theories of person-ality (7th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.Moore, T. (1992). The care of the soul: A guidefor cultivating depth and sacredness ineveryday life. New York, NY: Harper Perennial.Rinpoche, S. (2002). The Tibetan book of living& dying. London, England: Rider.

Smyser, H.M. (1965). Ibn Fadlan’s account ofthe Rus with some commentary and someallusions to Beowulf, 92-119. Retrieved fromhttp://www.geocities.com/sessrumnirkin-dred/risala.htmlWilliams, H. (2004). “Death warmed up: Theagency of bodies and bones in early Anglo-Saxon cremation rites.” In Journal of materialculture, 9, 263-291. Retrieved fromhttp://mcu.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/9/3/263Worden, J. W. (2009). Grief counselling andgrief therapy. New York, NY: Springer.Wright, J. (1994). Collected poems: 1942 –1985. Pymble, Australia: Angus andRobertson. Young, J. (2005). Joseph Campbell, a scholar’slife. In Dictionary of modern American philos-ophy. Retrieved fromhttp://www.folkstory.com/campbell/scholarslife.html

Lisa Schouw (BCHC, MA, CMPACFA) is aDoctoral Candidate at the University ofSydney (Theater and Performance StudiesDepartment). She completed her M.A. inEngaged Humanities and the CreativeLife, with an emphasis in DepthPsychology, at Pacifica GraduateInstitute, USA. She works in Australia as aclinical psychotherapist,singer/songwriter,theater maker, and singing/performancecoach. Her passion is the part creativity plays in the individuationprocess of her clients and fellow artists.

Lisa Schouw

“

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 201714 <Back to TOC

by Terry McMasterArt

"Fragment of Shamanic Birth”Acrylic on Paper

“Boat of the Dream” also appears on the cover of this issue of Depth Insights, Summer 2017Acrylic on Paper

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Leslie Nolan

"Thank you for Sending Me an Angel”Acrylic on Paper

"New Angel”Acrylic on Paper

Terry McMaster is a painter, photographer, psychotherapist, teacher and researcher. He explores dreams, stories,histories, images and people's inner process. He's an addiction therapist, assisting people into recovery from chemicaldependence. He's kept 40 years of his own dream journals, and assists others with their dreams. He researches 18thcentury New England gravestone designs.

Terry’s work, "Boat of the Dream,” also appears on the cover of this issue of Depth Insights.

About the Artist

My paintings are acrylic on paper, varying from 5"x7" to 3'x5'. They are created from the unconscious process within me. Ijust paint and intend no specific outcome. Shamanic and animal images often emerge.

Terry writes:

It might not be particularlysurprising to hear a person

claim they experienced a spiritualawakening at a religious conference.A newcomer attending a Buddhistconference might experience a tasteof Buddha-mind. A Christian mightattend a Christian conference andhave an experience of Christawakening in their heart; the pagan amystical union with nature; a Muslimthe overwhelming glory of Allah; abhakti yogi the awakening ofkundalini in the spine, and so on.Newcomers to a religious traditionoccasionally have initiatory spiritualexperiences, and long-time believersfrom time-to-time experience arevelatory deepening of practice. Thisis one of the things that keepsreligions going—the experience of thenuminous. Traditionally, we expectsuch experiences to occur within thecontainer of a particular tradition, aparticular belief system, or a partic-ular practice.

The spiritual awakening I had in2009 was not confined to any partic-ular containing tradition, and yet, itwas decidedly religious in character.It instilled in me a deep love andappreciation for religion, in cleardistinction to the sometimes vague“spirituality” that seems to be invogue these days. This paradoxicalawakening happened at a religiousconference that boasted not onefaith, but dozens—all of them, in fact.

In 2009, I attended theParliament of World Religions inMelbourne, Australia, a gathering ofthe faith traditions of planet Earth.The stated aims of this gatheringincluded listening, dialogue, andcollaboration in meeting the greatchallenges facing our planet: war,

poverty, and environmental devasta-tion. Perhaps a surprise for those whohold the myth that religions aresomehow at odds with each other,the Parliament is not only peaceful,but a model for constructive dialogacross divergent worldviews. No oneis there to proselytize, to convert, orto prove their tradition’s superiority;rather, they come to share, to listen,to become enriched by difference andcelebrate diversity, and above all, tofind common ground in the greatwork of healing our suffering world.

Across a span of five days Iattended diverse spiritual practices,educational religious and culturaltalks, academic paper presentations,panel discussions, music and danceperformances, art exhibits, and ethnicmeals. I learned about traditions I didnot know even existed. I also learnedjust how much I did not know aboutsome of the most prominenttraditions—Islam in particular. I wasguided through a nature meditationby an Australian Aborigine, listened toa Catholic priest and Buddhist monkdiscuss the points of intersections intheir faith, and sat riveted as anevangelic biologist and traditionalrabbi debated the nature of creation.

I was overwhelmed by images,sounds, art and music, ideas, conver-sations with strangers, and for lack ofa better word – worldviews. Everyday, I passed through a dozendifferent worldviews. My imaginationon fire, reconfiguring the human andthe divine—first one way, and thenanother. It was thrilling and dizzyingand exhausting, but it was also deeplynourishing food for the soul.

When one is assaulted by suchabundance, such diversity, it can behard to make sense of it in themoment. It may be tempting to closedown and insist on experiencing all ofit through the old, entrenchedworldview with which one enteredthe field. To some degree, of course,this is inevitable. And on the otherhand, to open fully—to let each andevery one of those worlds live andbreathe— threatens to overwhelm,like an immersion in the infinite. Iremember a few momenta whenfrom the chaotic abundance, aunifying moment emerged. Theimmense and multi-dimensionalthreads underlying it all cametogether in a startling moment ofclarity: Ah this! This is the all of it!—All real, all true, even in itscontradictions, so incredibly beautiful!

There were several momentswhen I caught a glimpse of thisnuminous thing I allude to but cannever fully describe with words.Towards the end of the conference, Ipaused in the middle of the conven-tion center, and looked out at thethousands of diverse souls aroundme. And I saw something: pervadingthe crowd, hovering in the air above,a living aura of luminescence, likedivine light: the ecstasy of theshamans and the merciful grace of

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 201716 <Back to TOC<Back to TOC

The Numinosity of Pluralism:Interfaith as Spiritual Path and Practice

By Jonathan Erickson

“My imagination on fire,reconfiguring the humanand the divine—first oneway, and then another.

I t was thril l ing and dizzying and

exhausting, but it wasalso deeply nourishing

food for the soul”

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 2017 17<Back to TOC

the holy spirit, the love-making ofShiva and Shakti creating the universeanew. It was the love of Christ, andthe joy of bhakti, unceasing creativityand ancient wisdom. It was the pureand empty void of Buddhism. It wasextremely simple, palpable—just onething—and it was incredibly,endlessly, and unfathomably complexin its manifestations.

And I saw that each of us at thatconference and each traditionthroughout history had seen thisthing—each in unique manifestation,each with unique consequence—thesource from which the stories spring;the heart of the world; the kernel oftruth in all religions, no matter howcontradictory their earthly trappings.

In the end I feel helpless but todescribe it with the words that myearly Christian upbringing gave me. Isaw in that moment the glory ofcreation; the love and the light ofGod. And in the next breath, I recallthe words of the Russian composerand mystic, Alexander Scriabin:

The ardor of the instant givesbirth to eternity,Lights the depths of space,Infinity Breathes with Worlds.

Religious Pluralism as an Image ofGod

As I reflect on this experience, sixyears older and wiser, I am far moreagnostic about such matters, but alsoardently and perhaps strangely pro-religious. I am hesitant to guess aboutwhat it all means, what ineffablereality might lie beyond the play ofphenomena in human experience andpsychology. But there are things that Icannot deny: that vision of beauty, ofgoodness, of integration was amongthe most important moments of mylife. For all its sins and failings, I haveseen what religion can be: thecontainer for humans to experiencethe divine. And even if we conceive ofthat divine as something wholly insideof us, it is nevertheless a path to the

best within us. Religion is as much apart of our humanity as art or music,science or math, economics or family.It is part and parcel of what we are.

And yet I remain steadfastlyresistant—perhaps even obstinate—to the notion that I am supposed topick just one. Many would criticizethis as a form of spiritual immaturity,and I admit that is a fair criticism. Irecall the story of the man who dug ahundred holes for water and neverfound it, whereas if he had justcommitted to one hole and keptdigging, the water would haveemerged. There’s definitelysomething to this story: that the fruitsof spiritual commitment are bornafter a long and committed walkdown a particular path. But for theremainder of this paper, I am going toexplore a different interpretation:that engagement with religiouspluralism can be seen as a spiritualpath and practice in itself.

To be clear, I offer this premiseas something distinct from the“spiritual but not religious” outlookthat is gaining popularity in contem-porary American culture. I amresistant to this notion because tome, a spirituality that rejects religionoutright seems to be rejectingspecificity. “Spiritual but notreligious” seems to me almost a lossof the ground, a retreat to abstrac-tion, like saying one likes stories butnot sentences; music but notmelodies. No doubt such a retreat isoften engendered by a spiritualwounding from overbearing andabusive religious institutions—and inthat regard I am deeply sympathetic.

But religion itself, on the whole, isbeyond any institution, or even thesum of institutions. It is culture, artand story, practice and fantasy.Religion is among the great collectivecreations of humanity. So when Ispeak of engaged pluralism asspiritual path and practice, I mean itas a decidedly religious form ofspirituality.

Carl Gustav Jung was thepsychologist of his generation mostprone to engage in matters spiritualand religious. Jung was fascinated bythe powerful effect of religiousexperience, and the way religiousimages and symbols appeared andworked in the psyche. But, as a loyalfollower of Immanuel Kant, theluminary philosopher who questionedthe human ability to directly perceiveultimate reality, Jung remainedcautious in in his explorations ofreligious metaphysics. Rather thanemphasize the nature of God per se,he explored the workings of the “god-image”—that is, the particular imageand story that contained the notionof the divine within the humanpsyche. Such images were diverse,showing up in different ways indifferent cultures, and, Jung posited,they were capable of evolution ashumanity became more conscious.

As Jungian Analyst Murray Stein(2014) explains it, “None of these[images], however, are full expres-sions of the Ground of Being, ofDivinity itself. They are humanlygenerated images based uponemotionally convincing numinousexperiences, and the mythopoeticand theological imagination” (p. 18).By focusing on the psychological god-image, Jung was not denying theexistence of a genuine divinity. Infact, he was quite fascinated bydivinity. Nevertheless, he believed therole of psychology was to look at theimages that expressed or containedthe divine, rather than speculate ontheological matters beyond thepsyche. These psychologically

Jonathan Erickson

“Religion is as much apart of our humanity asart or music, science or

math, economics orfamily. It is part and

parcel of what we are”

meaningful images contain andexpress a divinity that humanity’spresent state of consciousness maybe ill-equipped to apprehend fully. IfGod is beyond us, the god-images tellus where we are.

Stein’s description of “humanlygenerated images based on emotion-ally convincing numinousexperiences,” suggests how myexperience of the Parliament asrecounted above might constitute a“god-image” in the Jungian sense.Rudolf Otto (1958) coined the term“numinosity” to describe theirreducible experience of the sacredor holy. Certainly, my experience wasboth profoundly numinous andemotionally convincing. And thoughthe experience was complex andladen with meanings, I can still call ita manifest psychic image, because itappeared to my consciousness as anintegrated totality, a unity of meaningwith manifold aspects. To pressforward with an additional gloss ofinterpretation of that particular visionof unity, I would say that it fits withtwo potential “god-images” that I findmeaningful: God as Artist, and God asEmergence. I will proceed to take up each of these images in turn.

Pluralism as Creation ImageOn par with my early Christian

upbringing, my adolescent image ofGod was powerfully influenced by thewriting of creativity guru JuliaCameron. She introduced me to thenotion that engagement with humancreativity is essentially a spiritualexperience. I was sixteen when I firstread The Artists Way (1992) in whichCameron posits: “We routinely referto God as the creator but seldom seecreator as the literal term for artist”(p. 18). Cameron bases much of herapproach to cultivating creativity onthe premise that every creative act isessentially a participation in theongoing work of the Great Creator.“We are ourselves creations. And we,in turn, are meant to continue

creativity by being creativeourselves.… Creativity is God’s gift tous. Using our Creativity is our giftback to God” (p. 19). This is in manyways a radical departure from themore orthodox image of creator-god Ireceived in my childhood. Sitting inthe church pews as a boy, “creator”seemed to mean “owner” or “ruler.”But Cameron offered me a differentimage of God: a creative artist,creating the universe itself as aninfinite act of love and joy. So when Ispeak of the image of God the“creator” now, it is this moreexpansive conception to which I refer.

When I imagine this God, whorevels in creativity, I see quite clearlythat one worldview, one religion,would never be enough. Such a Godwould surely delight in manifoldreligions, infinite worlds, with divinityinhabiting each but confined to none.Male or female, immanent ortranscendent, mono or poly, rationalor ecstatic, formed or formless—allpolarities derived from a commonsource of infinite complexity, beyondthe comprehension of the humanmind, but offering us a thousandglimpses to the numinous beyond.

This god-image is the progenitorof religious diversity, both the sourceof our religions, and the outcome ofthem. And so to engage actively withthe religious totality, to experiencemultiple traditions and images andworlds, in itself becomes an act of

worship. I walk the path of thecreator God by delighting in countlesscontainers that have been made tohold the divine. Each one expands myawareness of the source; I do nothave to choose, only to engage eachunique manifestation with an honestheart.

Pluralism as EmergenceThe second god image—a

related if perhaps more secularaccount—involves seeing religiouspluralism in an evolutionary perspec-tive. Mythologist Patrick Mahaffey(2014) offers a philosophical defini-tion of pluralism as “a theoreticalperspective that accepts the validityof differing worldviews and thatproposes how they can coexistwithout threatening one another” (p.21). He ties the project of pluralism tothe larger problem of post-modernity:“the recognition that no singlenarrative or theory, either religious orsecular, can adequately understandthe complexity of human lives andcultures” (p. 22). This marks a movetoward epistemic humility on the onehand, with a good faith attempt atintegration and harmony throughdiscourse on the other. The negativeaspects of religion— fundamentalism,intolerance, undifferentiated anduncritical thinking—are supplanted atthe outset by an integrative projectthat honors the particular, celebratesthe diverse, and seeks greaterharmony for the greater good.

So how does interreligious civicdiscourse become a numinous imageof God? I cannot say that it mustbecome so, only that I experienced itin that way—that in seeing thesepeople come together from allaround the world, sharing andlistening; honoring the specificity oftradition and also celebrating thediversity of forms; overcoming differ-ences in the name of the commongood—this was humanity at its best.And in seeing humanity at its best, Icaught a glimpse of the numinous,

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 201718 <Back to TOC

The Numinosity of Pluralism

<Back to TOC

“We do not need toknow the ult imate answersor demand metaphysical

certainties: the injunction is only to

listen with an open heart.In this image, we arewitnessing the birth

of God in the soul of humanity”

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 2017 19<Back to TOC

the divine at work amidst the chaosand confusion of our world. Thisdivinity is not given, like the image ofthe creator-god. Rather it emerges inthe course of history, humanprogress, and the evolution ofconsciousness. It is similar to whatHegel imagined in his Phenomenologyof Spirit (1807/1977), but not soconceptually constrained or culturallydefined. Where Hegel saw a linearline of progress, here emerges asphere—and perhaps even that is toosimple a model.

I find it helpful to view thisprocess in the light of complexitytheory, whereby scientists havebegun to measure the phenomenonof order emerging from chaos.According to computer scientist

Melanie Mitchell (2009), a complexsystem can be defined as “a system inwhich larger networks of componentswith no central control and simplerules of operation give rise tocomplex collective behavior, sophisti-cated information processing, andadaptation via learning or evolution”(p. 13). In short we see somethingemerge from its constituent partsthat is very much more than the sumof those parts, and in such a way thatlooking at the parts themselves couldnever predict the behavior of thewhole. Common examples of complexsystems include insect colonies,weather patterns, economies, and thehuman brain. Throughout the worldof academia there is growing interestin connections between complexity

science and human socioculturalsystems in general, making it a topicof interest to anthropologists, andthus to the study of religion.

This emergent order from chaosevokes the image of creation exnihilo, something emerges wherebefore there was nothing. When Isaw in my mind’s eye that holyluminescence over the Parliament, itwas an image of divinity emergingfrom the chaos of the mundane.Whether or not this divinity exists“objectively” as a timeless statebeyond our human world is almostbeside the point. We do not yet knowwhat the divine is; rather, we watch itemerge as the best within us andbetween us. The images and storiescontained in the religious traditions of

Jonathan Erickson

Continued on page 20

the world are now no longer inconflict. They come together; theydifferentiate and integrate.Something beautiful emerges fromnothing. A world of peace, compas-sion, and prosperity is born from anethos of fundamental respect foreach other’s stories and experiences.We do not need to know the ultimateanswers or demand metaphysicalcertainties: the injunction is only tolisten with an open heart. In thisimage, we are witnessing the birth ofGod in the soul of humanity.

An Agnostic’s LamentI understand my identifcation as

an agnostic not as a failure to chooseso much as an acknowledgment ofhuman limitation in a vast andcomplex universe. It can, in fact, be aprincipled position—even a spiritualone. The divine is manifold andmysterious, and ultimately beyondhuman langauge and cognition. In theface of uncertainty, the stories andphilosophies we create, like our art,music, and literature, are a celebra-tion of our humanity. To honor manystories is an aknowledgement of thegreat, often confusing cosmic contextwithin which humanity makes its way.

I often feel alone in this perspec-tive. There is a natural pressure fromsocial groups to conform, and to holdout can mean experiencing loneliness.Religious folks gently pressure me tocommit to a single tradition, while the“spiritual but not religious” crowdoften use “religion” as if it were aslur. Even worse, the millitant atheistsand scientific materialists seem to seeonly religion’s shadow, and want tostrike it from the Earth altogether. Iam sympathetic to all these perspec-tives; I appreciate them. But eachseems to my eyes a singular facet of agreater truth, and to go over entirelyinto one of these worldviews feelslike a collapse of the totality into amere aspect of itself. Ironically, myinclusive agnostic stance often leavesme on the outside, gazing into the

cosmos alone.This is all the more reason that

interfaith gatherings such as theParliament awaken such inspiration inme: the greater context of divergentbeliefs becomes manifest. The myriadforms fall into harmony, and yet thatharmony could not exist without themyriad forms. In those moments apalpable common humanity emerges,and I remember what it means to bealive on this planet, and what itmeans to be human. In this place,agnosticism is not a stance of doubt,but a deep declaration of reverencefor that from which all names arise.

ReferencesBowers, F. (1996). Scriabin: A Biography, Vol.2. New York, NY: Dover.Cameron, J. (1992). The Complete Artist’sWay. New York, NY: Jeremy P.Tarcher/Penguin.Hegel, G.W.F. (1977). The Phenomenology ofSpirit, Revised ed. Edition. Findlay, J.N. (ed).Miller, A.V. (trans). New York, NY: OxfordUniversity Press. (Original published in 1807)Mahaffey, P. (2014). Evolving God-Images.Bloomington, IN: iUniverse LLCMitchell, M. (2009). Complexity: A GuidedTour. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Otto, R. (1958). The Idea of the Holy. NewYork, NY: Oxford University Press.Stein, M. (2014). Minding the Self: Jungianmeditations on contemporary spirituality.London, England and New York, NY:Routledge.

Jonathan Erickson is a writer and lifecoach based in the Portland, OR, area.He holds a master’s degree in somaticdepth psychology from PacificaGraduate Institute, where he is nowwriting a doctoral dissertation on theneuroscience of imagination.Jonathan is a lifelong animal loverwho completed his Ph.D. fieldwork atPacifica Graduate Institute byresearching human-elephantrelationships in Cambodia.

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 201720 <Back to TOC<Back to TOC

Black Bellied Moonby Richard Russell

thereisa rose, growinginsidethemoon's own belly,witheyesofsilver,andwingsofmaple leaf and gold,shewill give birth before Winter's Ending,let usgoout into the courtyard,torejoice,andpick plums,let us,build stars withthechildren,andcreate heavens,withsoft handfuls,ofrainbow colored snow.

Poet ryby Peter Cameron

The Numinosity of Pluralism

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 2017 21<Back to TOC

by Peter CameronArt

The painting results from substantial relationship withthis ancient lake in the old Willandra system. TheLachlan river ceased flowing out here some 18,500years ago. Incredible climatic fluctuations over themillennia have affected the very existence of allspecies of fauna and flora including the megafauna.The Muthi Muthi people work profoundly with thisknowledge.

Though elements of this living land move relentlessly,sentient memories of all forms live on. Much remains

hidden in layers of consciousness, like the countlessancient human cremations and burials. I've beenshown human sites which are 120,000 years old. Herethe past has dominion over the present. Often, timecollapses altogether. This is a tender, personal andcollective living museum. Temenos like in its focus andlocus, it is itself a massive creation story.

We come as guests into the integrity of this crucible ofa place. If we listen carefully, the stories unfold.Painting 'en plein air' enables direct contact.

"Everywhen at Lake Mungo”, 2017Oil on Linen, 122x122 cm.

"We see and hear what we are open to noticing"—Jerome S. Bernstein

Peter Cameron writes:

Land is an inescapablecondition of life, the primematerial of our origins anddestiny. It's often in therelationships between earthlyelements that we can find thepossibilities of body, soul andspirit. The connections are thefabric of life itself.

It's through painting that Peterlearns about listening andperception. For him, it's anexploration and a questioningof all things interior andexterior, including processes ofimagination.

Peter is largely self taught andhas been painting, drawing andsculpting most of his life. Withmany group shows and about20 solo shows, his works arecollected privately and byvarious public institutions. Helives in Sydney, Australia.

About the Artist

How Jungian Psychology, Brain Research, Quantum Physics,

and Systems Science Lead to Pansystemology and Depth Psychology

The attempt to live according to thenotion that the fragments are reallyseparate is, in essence, what has led tothe growing series of extremely urgentcrises that is confronting us today.—David Bohm (Quantum Physicist)

Like other German-speakingscientists of his time, psychiatrist

and psychoanalyst C. G. Jung (1875-1961)wished to establish psychology as ascientific field. He had in mind to find “adescription of nature integrating bothphysis and psyche” (Meier, 2001, p. 176).To reach his goal, he had to solve theduality of unobservable mind versusmeasurable matter. This problem stillhalts both science and psychology on thethreshold of a new paradigm shift andlimits our interpretation of the psyche toan exclusive by-product of biologicalprocesses. As we will see, a newapproach, pansystemology, offers asolution.

American physicist and philosopherof science T. S. Kuhn qualified psychologyof pre-science because its paradigm, orgeneral theory, is not final nor strictlydefined (cited in Eysenck, 2009, p. 10).Psyche cannot be directly measured thusthe field which studies it has no fixedboundaries. However, pre-science doesnot exclude science and does not implypseudo-science. Quite the contrary.Psychology, firmly based on science,remains open to new insights whichmight emerge from the outskirts of thepresent scientific model. Psychology hasthus the power to exchange with manysciences such as biology, neurology,sociology and notably system science.This explains why the founder of GeneralSystems Theory, Ludwig von Bertalanffy(1965), argued that system science canaddress problems highlighted bypsychology. Modelled on a “mechanisticuniverse,” sciences have the tendency tosideline “regulation, organization, goal-directedness, hierarchical order andwholeness” (p. 3).

This openness of psychology is one

reason why from 1909 to 1913, Jungregularly invited Albert Einstein to dine athis home. Einstein urged him to find ascientific way, a formula, which wouldintegrate the reality of the psyche intothe scientific model. With Wolfgang Pauli,the well-known quantum physicist andfather of the neutrinos theory, Jung triedto do this as they met and assiduouslycorresponded between 1932 and 1958(Meier, 2001). Pauli also turned to hisfellow quantum physicist WilliamHeisenberg. In Pauli’s words, they tried to“find a new language that could make thehidden dimension in nature accessible tothe intellect…neutral with respect to thedistinction between psyche and matter”(p. xli). They did not succeed.

The primary cause of this failure isthe impossibility for a solely analyticmodel to accept that the physical worldmight only be a part and expression of awider psyche instead of the other wayaround. However, this changed thanks toa hypothesis created by Einstein’sprotégé, David Bohm (1980), that quantafollow an invisible implicate order whichorganizes them. This hypothesis not onlyled Bohm to rewrite quantum physics; in2015, researchers discovered physicalevidence to support it (Yen & Gao, 2015).

Now, many other macroscopicquantum phenomena bring Bohm’shypothesis into full scientific acceptance.After all, the ancestors of chemists—alchemists—incorporated theirmanipulations into a universal gnosis.They viewed matter as a product of apsyche submitted to time and space

rather than the other way around. Asimilar paradigm allowed Jung to declarethat everything is psyche; Einstein, thateverything is energy; and Bohm, that animplicate order, a type of field, organizesmatter. This trajectory is worth pursuing.

The implicate order is thus theblueprint, a supportive, invisible anduniversal language of nature. Its hiddenframe is etched by the organisation ofphysical structures, such as the humanbrain, to allow the expression of precisefunctions. Because individuals share thesame brain organization, their creationscan reflect this hidden frame, thisinvisible order, and its laws. This can beverified in three stages. First, we need tofind a model which fits the description ofthe implicate order: the Taoist model.Then, we need to see if it fits with humanbrain structures and functions and if itsphases agree with their development,maturation and specific uses by genders.Pansystemology develops this as the LIFEmodel, in perfect harmony with the brain.Finally, we need to find the frame of thismodel in sacred texts and art across theglobe. In agreement with this, the modelis present in the Pentateuch and itsconnected religions, in Taoism, in theconcept of Maat of ancient Egypt, inalchemy, in legends, and in art.

Pansystemology (pan as in universalmodel and systemology as in systemscience) is the study and application ofthis model on which the fabric of nature,as well as the different worlds of humanexpression (physical, emotional, concep-tual and social), are built. Pansystemologywas presented at Trento University in2015 at the UNESCO-endorsed FirstConference on Anticipation (systemscience).

In harmony with the Tao and othertraditions, and with brain researchresults, pansystemology offers to studyand apply the LIFE model, which is thephysical and psychological expression ofBohm’s blueprint. Nature and humans,including their physical attributes arefractal mirrors of Bohm’s implicate order,

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 201722 <Back to TOC

By Nicole de Bavelaere

“Because individualsshare the same brainorganization, their

creations can reflect this hidden frame,

this invisible order, and its laws”

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 2017 23<Back to TOC

this master blueprint. Fractals include theidea of detailed patterns, but also ofinternal function repeating itself. Hence,Nature is an image of this order withattributes that can either be inhibited ormanifested. This also goes for humanbeings, in line with Jung’s (1954) idea ofthe “Imago Dei,” the “God-image” inman. The human brain unconsciouslyexpresses this model.

The mainstream positivist-typescientists frown upon the idea of an UnusMundus as put forward by Jung, of realityin which the physical is a result of aprimordial invisible reality (Roth, 2011) orordering structure (Bohm, 1980). Theysee this as an attempt to resuscitatevitalism, though it is not actually the case.Vitalism was chiefly interested in thedifference between living and non-living,and it failed in its definitions. Analyticscience is best adapted to understandwhat is measurable.

However, as theoretical biologistRobert Rosen (1991) argues, theprocesses of life are not wholly explicableby the current laws of physics andchemistry. Darwinism and the identifica-tion of DNA gave an almost fatal blow toa more holistic approach to life (William,2003). New developments in epigenetics(Lipton, 2015), as well as research intoquantum physics and human brainneurobiology, tend to suggest thepossibility of an entelechy principle(Driesch, 1912); of an unaccounted-forelement, a field, and laws other thanmechanical or chemical ones, that directgrowth and life. The ideas of Frenchbiologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, who,fifty years before Darwin, viewedevolution in its cooperative and dynamicelements, are now starting to make moresense. Indeed, the notion that we are atthe sole mercy of our genetic inheritanceis erroneous. Only 2% of illnesses have asingle gene cause (Lipton, 2015).Epigenetics, with its environmental andpsychological features, is now the newfrontier (Roth, 2014).

With Bohm’s implicate order,evolution is a movement in nature whichtends toward a perfect mirroring andexpression of this primordial order underthe constraints of time and space. Itshould be considered a guiding principleof epigenetics even if only hypothetically.Bohm (1980) himself boldly defined themanifested world as an explicate order.

He went so far as to work with neurosur-geon Karl H. Pribram on the descriptionof quantum minds. This hypothesis alsoopens the door to a different comprehen-sion of what the psyche might be.

Recent neurobiological studies onthe brain have focused on the capacity ofbrain oscillations to switch differentgenes on or off (Gu & Spitzer, 1995).Research on the practice of meditation

shows that we can modify the type ofoscillations our brain manifests. Similarly,research has demonstrated that cocaineusers can inhibit cocaine cues (Volkow etal., 2010). With the prevailing scientificdogma, it is impossible for brains afflictedby Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, or severehydrocephaly to function normally.However, the literature is teeming withcases attesting to the contrary. For

example, Mortimer (1997, cited inBialystok et al. 2007) says that between10% and 40% of the brain autopsies heperformed exposed damages exceedingcriteria for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) withpatients showing no sign of cognitiveimpairment before their death. In thesame vein, 636 senior participantsfollowed cognitive tests regularly beforetheir deaths. In post-mortem brainanalysis, 12% of those presentingAlzheimer’s disease or infarcts hallmarksbelonged to cognitively healthy partici-pants (Tyas, Snowdon, Desrosiers, Riley,& Markesbery, 2007). If we consider thepsyche as a sole product of brainstructure processes, this is impossible.

A recent brain study found thatthoughts exist even in the case ofclinically deceased patients (Parnia et al.,2014). We also know that in some caseswhen a lesion occurs, functions can usestructures not meant for them (Goldberg,2009). That “structure determinesfunction” and not the other way around,however, is a fundamental tenet ofbiology. These cases and others illustratethat affected brain structures do notalways prevent the expression offunctions (Lorber, 1970s; Tyas et al.,2007). Jung’s (1952) definition of thebrain allows these observations. He saw itas a “decoder, which would have thefunction to transform the tension or therelative infinite intensity of the psyche[archetypal world] in us unto perceptiblefrequencies” (p. 97).

“With the prevail ingscientif ic dogma, it isimpossible for brains

affl icted by Alzheimer’sdisease, stroke, or

severe hydrocephaly tofunction normally.

However, the li terature is teeming

with cases attesting tothe contrary”

Nicole de Bavelaere

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 201724 <Back to TOC

Pansystemology and Depth Psychology

Einstein (1920) suggested that his model―whichdislodged vitalism―did not dismiss ether, the bearer of thevitalist fifth element (named the “Ka” by ancient Egyptians,“Chi” by the Chinese, or the ‘soul” by Christians). His model, infact, implied that the apparently void space between atoms hasphysical properties. He argued, “The special theory of relativitydoes not compel us to deny ether” (p. 9). He also noted that“Newton’s mechanics was shaken by the experiments with b-rays and rapid cathode rays” (p. 7).

Logician, mathematician, and philosopher Kurt Gödel(1931), who received the Albert Einstein Award in 1951,demonstrated that any strict axiomatic system of arithmeticwould inevitably leave some arithmeticaltruths unprovable, thus incomplete. Formalaxiomatic reasoning cannot render thewhole reality or the essence of a completeknowledge (what we incorrectly liken toscience). This observation figuresprominently in the theoretical argumentfrom biologist Robert Rosen. A computingmodel cannot completely describe complexliving systems (Rosen, 1991). Hence weneed a broader model to better understandlife and psyche without the need to dismissthe model used for measurable matter.

We must admit that althoughincomplete, the analytical point of view allowed prodigiousadvancements in technology and improved the living conditionsfor many. After rapid material expansion, alas, ignoring theprofound psychological reality of humans generates anexplosion of problems, from the degradation of the environ-ment to the proliferation of mental illnesses. In any given year,close to 18.8 million Americans aged 18 and older will sufferfrom a depressive disorder (roughly 10%). Of this number, halfsuffer from a major depressive disorder. Twice as many womenthan men will suffer from it (National Institute of Mental Health[NIMH], 1998). Depressive disorders are also appearing earlierin life. The average age of onsetof this illness was 29 years oldin 1996. Recent statistics ratesit at just 14.5 years (Klerman,Weissman, 1998; NIMH, 2011).One on five adult suffers froman affective disorder (Regier,D.A.; Narrow, W.E.; Rae D.S.; etal., 1993). Worldwide, majordepressive disorders rose by37% between 1990 and 2010(Murray et al., 2012).

The analytic tool can onlygrasp and accept as reality whathas space and time coordinates.Within this limit, the individuallives in a sealed box of matter;he is a mere object at themercy of other objects. AsHeisenberg (1974) observed,“Where no guiding ideals areleft to point the way, the scale

of values disappears and with it the meaning of our deeds andsufferings, and at the end can lie only negation and despair.Religion is, therefore, the foundation of ethics, and ethics thepresupposition of life” (p. 219). Together, psychology andpansystemology have the power to shine a light on religion.

Science dismisses psyche as it seems vaguely connectedand limited to emotions and thus contrary to the logical andanalytical, hence scientific, method. New brain researchconfirms, however, that cognition is bathed and unconsciouslyinfluenced by emotionality (Damasio, 1995). Pure objectivity isimpossible. Jung (1963) says that we perceive “the intellect as afaculty which can think and stand outside of oneself. Thanks to

this, we pretend to create a kind ofobjective Archimedes point outside of theearth, from which the intellect hassomehow the capability to be by itself” (p.31).[My translation from French]

Students and the general public oftenignore that the scientific point of view ofreality is in part theoretical and always awork-in-progress. We are led to believe thatonly what is accepted by mainstreamscience is real.

Von Bertalanffy, as well as Jung,rejected the trend of behaviorists to see inhuman actions the single expression of

drives and motivation of an animal nature. Of course, we maylimit people through abuse, education, and consumerism insuch a way that they fall victim to their instincts and arehindered in their normal psychological evolution or fromrealizing their full potential. It is a two-way street.

For Von Bertalanffy, as for Jung and many others, humannature has traits which we cannot find in laboratory rats. Hereferred to the behaviorists’ tendency as “zoomorphism.” Hesaw Freudian psychoanalysis under the same light. Humans aredriven by symbols he advanced. The world of publicity seems toattest to this. Developmental psychologist Charlotte Bühler,

who knew von Bertalanffy, aswell as the works of C. G.Jung, had similar views on theimportance of the symbolicworld for humans. Both sheand Jung, among others,developed stage theory:physical and psychologicalgrowth in humans follow apredictable sequence ofphases. Pansystemologydevelops neuroscientist PaulD. MacLean’s (1998)evolutionary triune brain intoa pentane brain (fiveevolutionary phases) with theaid of LIFE inspired by theTaoist model.

One of the differencesbetween Jung and Freud lieshere. Their beliefs in how bestto free people of their

“With Jung, a windowopens, and there is anopportunity to discern

the reality and universali ty of the Selfwhich can then bring

coherence to the whole personality”

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 2017 25<Back to TOC

psychological shackles were irreconcil-able. Jung saw that symbolism wasessential to individuation, while Freudwanted nothing to do with that concept.To Freud, everything human sproutsuniquely from the libido. Jung (1931)strongly disagreed. Freud thought therewas a need to concentrate on, to bringawareness to, and express this aspect,while Jung thought the patient ought tobe in touch with symbolism and identity.

Through regulation and inhibition,the LIFE model indicates that with Freud’stheories people are forever imprisoned inthe world of the analytical and the R-complex (reptilian brain) aspects withlittle possibility of breaking their chains.With Jung, a window opens, and there isan opportunity to discern the reality anduniversality of the Self which can thenbring coherence to the whole personality.The frog can become a prince. Brainresearch confirms this through the factthat of the two regulators of the humanbrain, one acts without our awarenessand is associated with the medialprefrontal cortex and the symbolic world,while the other is conscious and relatedto the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Theunconscious regulator is the first primor-dial censor (Bechara et al., 1997, 2000a)and allows decision-making (Bechara etal., 2000), choice of action, and independ-ence of associations owed to reinforcedanterior stimulus (Rolls et al., 1994; Rolls,1996, 2004).

It is similar to a computer instantlyapplying patterns echoed from theunconscious. It is hypothesized tomediate a phenomenological “feeling ofrightness,” dubbed FOR, which allows animmediate appreciation of the appropri-ateness and accuracy of information, of aresponse, or of an action (Gilboa &Moscovitch, 2002; Moscovitch &Winocur, 2002). It precedes theconscious, elaborate cognitive verificationof the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, thesecond regulator. In a first step, it isimpermeable to influences from ittriggered by familiarity (Page, 2013,2014). Through the first regulator, wehave the ability to help or hinder naturein its quest for expressing the perfectprimeval model. Humans have the uniqueability to access this world of informationthrough symbols and dreams. Jung wouldsay that in it lies the collective

unconscious and archetypal world. If we follow our hypothesis and

experience, dreams might express adiagnosis of the state of the general orparticular LIFE. When I experience a“songe”— a word in French which alludesto a dream with a message able to guideme in the present or to hint at the futureshould I continue along the same pathI’m pursuing—I receive informationregarding the condition on how well Irealize the blueprint. As a confirmation ofthis hypothesis, structures of the brainactive during sleep predominantly includethe medial prefrontal cortex (Kryger,2011) associated with the more holisticunconscious first regulator. The dorsolat-eral prefrontal cortex, associated with thesecond regulator, is silenced during sleep(Muzur, Pace-Schott, & Hobson, 2002).

By touching the world ofarchetypes, symbols, and identity, Jungalso opened the door to psychosynthesis.Its founder, Roberto Assagioli was part ofthe Zurich Freud Society, the group ofearly psychoanalytical pioneers. Thecentral emphasis of his approach was onthe organism’s striving for wholeness, onthe human potential for growth andexpansion of consciousness. By claimingthat psychosynthesis is the result of ahealthy integration, Freud indirectlyinferred that psychosynthesis should bethe goal of psychoanalysis (Freud, 1919).

The skeleton of this implicate modellays in all the great traditions, the mostaccessible to us being the Chinese modelof five elements and the similar IndianAyurveda model. Medical experience andobservation confirmed both over a spanof at least 2,000 years. Regarding theTao, Jung had this to say:

You are aware, of course, thatTaoism formulates psychologicalprinciples which are of a veryuniversal nature. As a matter of fact,they are so all-embracing that they

are, as far as they go, applicable toany part of humanity. (inEllenberger, 1975, pp. 559-560)

I witnessed the application inmedicine (in biomedical cybernetics) ofthis model drawn from Taoism from 1989to 2014 via approximatively 10,000patients. I saw how it could help individ-uals regain balance physically. I believe itwould do the same psychologically. Mylast three books discuss these hypothesis,findings, and the first developments ofthis approach into psychology: pansyste-mology. This model is the language Pauliand Jung were seeking. Science, which isinterested chiefly in the world of thesecond brain regulator and which is a toolto comprehend the “what” and the“how,” cannot encompass psyche, whichis a subject: a “who” interested in “why.”This function belongs to psychology andto the first brain regulator.

If depth psychology were to studythis model and develop it further, Ibelieve that Jung’s dream of bridging theworld of symbolism and psyche with thephysical world into a holistic-thus-coherent reality would be fully realized.Then the path toward freedom from anincoherent and dualistic vision ofmind/matter would be cleared. Fromhygiene, which drove us away fromconstant physical scourges, we couldembrace emotional hygiene. We wouldbe much closer to “know thyself” and, inmy opinion, of becoming what Jungnamed Homo Totus: A Complete Human.

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America—All About Depression:Overview. Retrieved fromhttp://www.allaboutdepression.com/gen_25.html

Assagioli, R. (2007). Dynamic Psychology andPsychosynthesis. Retrieved fromhttp://synthesiscenter.org/articles/0101.pdf

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Bertalanffy, L. von. (1964). The mind-bodyproblem: a new view. PsychosomaticMedicine, 24, 29-45.

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Bohm, D.(1980). Wholeness and the ImplicateOrder, Routledge, Great Britain.

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Driesch, H. (1912). The justification of vitalism.The Cambridge Magazine 1(15): 397.

Driesch, H. (1908). The science and philosophyof the organism. Volume 2. London:Adam and Charles Black. Retrieved fromhttps://archive.org/stream/thescience-andphi02drieuoft#page/n5/mode/2up

Einstein, A. (1920). Ether and the Theory ofRelativity, republished in Sidelights onRelativity (Methuen, London, 1922)Retrieved fromhttp://www.ibiblio.org/ebooks/Einstein/Sidelights/Einstein_Sidelights.pdf

Einstein, A. and Bergmann, P., (1938). On ageneralization of Kaluza’s theory ofelectricity. Annals of Mathematics. 39:683. doi:10.2307/1968642

Ellenberger, H. F. (1975), C. G. Jung, Letters.Vol. I. 1906–1950. Gerhard Adler (Ed.) incollaboration with Aniela Jaffé.Translated by R. F. C. Hull. BolingenSeries XCV. Princeton, N.J.: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1973, pp. 596. J. Hist.Behav. Sci., 11: 96–97. Doi: 10.1002/15206696(197501)11:1<96:AIDJHBS2300110120>3.0.CO; 2-F Retrievedalso fromhttp://ofmyownknowledge.com/2016/08/

Eysenck, M. (2009). Fundamentals ofpsychology. London, UK: PsychologyPress.

Fields, R.D., Eshete, F., Stevens, B., and Itoh, K.,(1997). Action Potential-DependentRegulation of Gene Expression: TemporalSpecificity in Ca2+, cAMP ResponsiveElement Binding Proteins, and Mitogen-activated Protein Kinase Signaling,Journal of Neuroscience vol. 17, pp.7252–7266.

Freud, S.,(1919). Lines of Advance in Psycho-Analytic Therapy, vol.17, The StandardEdition, p. 161.

Gilboa, A., Alain, C., He, Y., Stuss, D.T., andMoscovitch, M. (2009). Ventromedialprefrontal cortex lesions produce earlyfunctional alterations during remotememory retrieval. Journal ofNeuroscience 29, no. 15: 4871–4881; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5210-08.2009.

Goldberg, E. (2009). The new executive brain.Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Graff, J. Kim, D., Dobbin, M.M., and Tsai, L.-H.,(2011) Epigenetic regulation of geneexpression in physiological and patholog-ical brain processes, Physiol Rev 91: 603–649, 2011;doi:10.1152/physrev.00012.2010Retrieved from:https://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/190074/files/603.full.pdf

Gu, X., and Spitzer, N.C., (1995) Distinct aspectsof neuronal differentiation encoded byfrequency of spontaneous Ca2+Transients, Nature, pp. 784–787.

Halpern, P., (2014). How many dimensionsdoes the universe really have? PublicBroadcasting Service. Retrieved fromhttp://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/blogs/physics/2014/04/how-many-dimensions-does-the-universe-really-have/

Heisenberg, W. (1973). Naturwissenschaftlicheund religioese Wahrheit. FrankfurterAllgemeine Zeitung, 24 Maerz, pp. 7-8.(Speech before the Catholic Academy ofBavaria, on acceptance of the GuardiniPrize, 23 March 1974).

Jung, C. G. (1963). L’Âme et la Vie, extractscompiled by Jolande Jacobi, translated toFrench from German by Dr. RolandCahen and Yves Le Lay. Paris, France:Buchet/Chastel.

Jung, C.G. (1931). The practical use of dreamanalysis, the Sixth Medical Congress ofPsychotherapy. Dresden, Germany.

Jung, C. G. (1950). Correspondance 1950–1954,ed. Albin Michel, Paris.

Jung, C. G. (1954). Archetypes of the collectiveunconscious, Collected Works 9, vol. 1.

Jung, C.G. (2012). Dreams (From Volumes 4, 8,12, and 16 of the Collected Works of C.G. Jung), Princeton, NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press.

Klerman G. L. and Weissman M. M. (1989)Increasing rates of depression. Journal ofthe American Medical Association, 1989;261(15): 2229-35

Kuhn, T. (1970). The structure of scientificrevolutions. Chicago: University ofChicago Press.

Kryger, M., Roth, T., & Dement, W. (2011).Principles and practice of sleep medicine.Philadelphia, PA: Saunders/Elsevier.

Lipton, B. H. (2015). The biology of belief. NewYork, NY: Hay House.

MacLean, P. (1998). The Triune Brain. Retrievedfromhttp://www.sfn.org/~/media/SfN/Documents/TheHistoryofNeuroscience/Volume2/c9.ashx

Meier, C.A. (2001). Atom and Archetype: ThePauli/Jung letters 1932–1958, Princeton:Princeton University Press.

Murray CJL, Lopez AD, eds. (1996) Summary:

The global burden of disease: a compre-hensive assessment of mortality anddisability from diseases, injuries, and riskfactors in 1990 and projected to 2020.Cambridge, MA: Published by theHarvard School of Public Health on behalfof the World Health Organization and theWorld Bank, Harvard University Press.

Murray, C., Vos, T., Lozano, R., Naghavi, M.,Flaxman, A., & Michaud, C. et al. (2012).Disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) for291 diseases and injuries in 21 regions,1990–2010: a systematic analysis for theGlobal Burden of Disease Study 2010. TheLancet, 380(9859), 2197-2223.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(12)61689-4

Muzur, A., Pace-Schott, E., & Hobson, J. (2002).The prefrontal cortex in sleep. Trends inCognitive Sciences, 6(11), 475-481.Retrieved fromhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s1364-6613(02)01992-7

Nagel, E., Newman, J., & Hofstadter, D. (2001).God̈el’s proof. New York: NY, UniversityPress.

Page, Ariane, (2014). Love them back to LIFE: Abrain theory of everything. iUniverse USA.

Page, Ariane, (2013). Isis Code: Revelationsfrom brain research and systems scienceon the search for human perfection andhappiness. iUniverse, USA.

Parnia, S., et al. (2014). AWARE –Awarenessduring Resuscitation – A ProspectiveStudy. Journal of Resuscitation (October6, 2014). Retrieved fromhttp://www.resuscitationjournal.com/article/S0300-9572%2814%2900739-4/fulltext

Parnia, S., Young, J., (2014). Erasing death: Thescience that is rewriting the boundariesbetween life and death. New York:Harper One. Retrieved fromhttp://abxnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=98447&page=1 and retrieved fromhttp://www.resuscitationjournal.com/article/S0300-9572%2814%2900739-4/pdf

Pauli, W., Meier, C., Enz, C., Fierz, M., & Jung,C. (2001). Atom and archetype. London,England: Routledge.

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Rosen, R. (1991). Life itself. New York, NY:Columbia University Press.

Roth, T. (2014). How traumatic experiencesleave their signature on the genome: anoverview of epigenetic pathways in PTSD.Frontiers in Psychiatry, 5.http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2014.000

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Pansystemology and Depth Psychology

93Roth, R.F. (2011). Return of the world soul: Wolfgang Pauli, C.G. Jung

and the challenge of psychophysical reality Part. 1. Italy: PariPublishing.

Tyas, S., Snowdon, D., Desrosiers, M., Riley, K., & Markesbery, W.(2007). Healthy aging in the Nun Study: definition andneuropathologic correlates. Age And Ageing, 36(6), 650-655.Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ageing/afm120

Volkow, N., Fowler, J., Wang, G., Telang, F., Logan, J., & Jayne, M. et al.(2010). Cognitive control of drug craving inhibits brain rewardregions in cocaine abusers. Neuroimage, 49(3), 2536-2543.Retrieved fromhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.10.088

Von Bertalanffy, L. (1965). General theory of systems: Application topsychology. International study on the main trends of research inthe sciences of man. Unesco: Paris. Unesco/SS/41/3.244.1/h/2Retrieved fromhttp://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0015/001560/156058eb.pdf

Weckowicz, T.E. (1988). Ludwig Von Bertalanffy’s contributions totheoretical psychology. Recent Trends in Theoretical Psychology,265-272 Retrieved from:https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4612-3902-4_25

Williams, E. A. (2003) A Cultural History of Medical Vitalism inEnlightenment Montpellier, Ashgate, Retrieved fromhttps://books.google.ca/books?id=AvqYl4sdwaYC&source=gbs_navlinks_s

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Nicole de Bavelaere (author Ariane Page) is a member of theISSS (international society for systems science) and of BPS(British Psychological Society). As she pursues her Master inPsychology, she seeks to develop a new field, pansystemology,which integrates results from brain studies into a systemicapproach of Jungian psychology.

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 2017 27<Back to TOC

Nicole de Bavelaere

Blueby Alinda Lord

blue.deep. deep.midnight.as i reach to touch,the velvet sky percolatesbetween my fingersand slides over skin like the stain of ink.

oh, slowly.it is too muchto behold all at once.i breath it,this midnightthis deepblue.

and feel it permeatepenetratevital

making its home inside me.

explicit incomparable blueness.as it pulses its existencei absorb its vibrancy with sensesstraining with wonder.i am part of this sky.it has touched my centerand stopped time.i am midnight velvetinked blue.deep sky.

and all the whilein this expanse of deep-hued rhythms,overhead, andjust about there,hangs simplya brilliantblue-tingedmoon.i know. i knowit isthe thumbprint of an unknown god.

This essay began as a paper for adoctoral course taught by

systematic theologian and philosopher,Fr. Edward Krasevac, a priest andprofessor at the Dominican School ofPhilosophy and Theology in Berkeley,California. The method consisted of closereading and textual analysis, classdialogue, and reflexivity on the history ofWestern thought described in ThePassion of the Western Mind, by RichardTarnas. In this brief reflective paper, Iaddress the following questions posed byKrasevac (2015): “Has the book helpedyou understand the lineage of your ownmindset? In what ways?”

As a Jungian scholar, with agraduate degree in depth psychology, myprimary perspective and interpretiveapproach is informed by the theories andmethodologies of Carl Gustav Jung andthe emerging analytical-scholarly litera-ture created by Jungian and neo-Jungiananalysts, as well as scholars in otherdisciplines significantly influenced byJung’s writings. These latter scholarsinclude, for example, Joseph Campbell(comparative mythology/literarymythology), Mircea Eliade (history ofreligion), and Northrop Frye (myth-criticism or archetypal literary theory),among others.

The question of understanding the“lineage of my mindset” as a Jungianstruck a deep chord, addressing as it doesa broader criticism aimed at Jungianscholarship as a whole: a perceived lackof intellectual rigor on the part ofJungians, at least from the perspective ofthe mainstream Academy in NorthAmerica. As students of Jung, presumablyhoping to be taken seriously by theAcademy (where Jung’s theories are stillviewed on the margins of respectability),we might begin by better understandingthe role of Jung’s depth psychologywithin the philosophical lineage ofWestern thought.

Findings and DiscussionIn The Passion of the Western Mind,

Richard Tarnas addressed this perceiveddeficiency in Jungian scholarship bysituating the contributions of depthpsychology within the intellectual andphilosophical heritage of the Westernworld-view. Despite Jung’s status as ahighly original thinker, his ideas hardlyoccur in a vacuum, embedded as they arewithin a historical context and influencedas he was by previous thinkers from Platoto Kant and Nietzche.

Within the broader Jungiancommunity, as I’ve observed, this inatten-tion to Jung’s intellectual heritage andinfluences results in the perceived lack ofa solid philosophical basis and context forJung’s analytical theories and methods.On a very specific level—not possible inTarnas’ sweeping overview of more thantwo millennia of Western thought—aphilosophical basis for Jung’s archetypaltheories might be found, one examplebeing in the “philosophy of symbolicforms” authored by neo-Kantian GermanIdealist, Ernst Cassirer. Cassirer’simportant theories first appeared inEnglish in his now classic work, Languageand Myth (1946/1953), which exploredphilosophically the human capacity formetaphor and symbolic thought and theevolution of myth and language as twostems sprouting from the same historicalroot. As philosopher and translatorSusanne K. Langer said of Cassirer, histheory of knowledge “became a theory ofmental activity, which gave as minute and

scholarly attention to the forms of feelingand imagination as to the categories ofsense perception and logic” (Langer, vii,in Cassirer, 1946/1953).

While Tarnas (1991) only brieflyreferred to Cassirer’s work in his“chronology” of key Western philosoph-ical milestones, Cassirer’s emphasis onfeeling and imagination, as we shall see,makes him, along with Jung, an heir toRomanticism in Western thought. Tarnas’summary of the most influential philoso-phers and ideas of Western thought thusprovides an insightful historical andconceptual frame for understanding theevolving legacy of depth psychologyplaced within the history of Westernideas and long-standing debates aboutthe nature of reality and truth.

Romanticism and the Enlightenment:Two Streams of Thought and Culture

Tarnas (1991) placed depthpsychology—especially Jungianpsychology—in the historical tradition ofRomanticism, and, ironically, the reactionof Romanticism against the “positivistside of Kant” (p. 371), a thinker deeplyadmired by Jung. As Tarnas indicated,two streams of culture emerged from theRenaissance, “two temperaments orgeneral approaches to human existencecharacteristic of the Western mind” (p.366). One stream of thought emerged inthe Scientific Revolution andEnlightenment, and “stressed rationality,empirical science, and a skepticalsecularism.” The other stream, its polarcomplement, expressed those aspects ofhuman experience suppressed by theEnlightenment’s spirit of rationalism. ThisRomantic temperament found expressionin the works of Rousseau, Goethe,Schiller, and German Romanticism, andfully emerged during the late 18th and19th centuries. Today, the influence ofRomanticism remains a potent force inWestern ideation and culture, a vitaltradition that includes Blake andWordsworth, Shelley and Byron, Keatsand Holderlin, and Emerson and Whitman

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 201728 <Back to TOC

“As students of Jung,presumably hoping to betaken seriously by the

Academy, we might beginby better understandingthe role of Jung’s depthpsychology within the

philosophical lineage ofWestern thought”

On Romanticism in Jung’s Psychology:A Reflection on The Passion of

the Western Mind by Richard Tarnas

By Ronald L. Boyer

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 2017 29<Back to TOC

among others, including their successorsamong our contemporaries.

Competing forms of humanism. Inspite of notable similarities in the ideas ofboth traditions, including the privilegingof humanism, several major distinctionsare worth noting. The Romantics,according to Tarnas (1991), “perceivedthe world as a unitary organism ratherthan an atomistic machine, exalted theineffability of inspiration rather than theenlightenment of reason, and affirmedthe inexhaustible drama of human liferather than the calm predictability ofstatic abstractions” (p. 367). As Tarnasasserted, the character and aims of theautonomous human self are distinctlydifferent in the two temperaments, anidea discussed at length by TheodoreRoszak (1973) in Where the WastelandEnds. The Enlightenment’s intellectualheroes are Newton, Franklin, andEinstein; the Romantic heroes areGoethe, Beethoven, and Nietzsche.Briefly stated, “Bacon’s utopia,” saidTarnas, “was not Blake’s.”

This distinction is evident, forexample, in their differing conceptions ofnature. “Rather than the distanced objectof sober analysis,” Tarnas (1991)observed, “nature for the Romantics wasthat which the human soul strove toenter and unite with in an overcoming ofthe existential dichotomy, and the revela-tion they sought was not of mechanicallaw but of spiritual essence” (p. 367).Nature, for Wordsworth and theRomantics, was not the machine-modelfavored by the emerging scientificparadigm. Wordsworth “saw nature asensouled with spiritual meaning andbeauty.” Schiller, for another example,“considered the impersonal mechanismof science a poor substitute for the Greekdeities who had animated nature for theancients.”

Romanticism and the turn to interi-ority. Another important distinctionbetween the Enlightenment andRomantic sensibilities is evident in theircontrasting views of human awarenessand the phenomena of consciousness.For Romantics like Blake and Novalis,Melville and Kierkegaard, or Nietzscheand Baudelaire, the interest in conscious-ness was fueled by a newly intensifiedsense of self-awareness and a “focus onthe complex nature of the human self” in

which “emotion and the imagination,rather than reason and perception, wereof prime importance.”

The modern eye was turned inwardto discern the shadows of existence. Toexplore the mysteries of interiority, ofmoods and motives, love and desire, fearand angst, inner conflicts and contradic-tions, memories and dreams, to“experience … incommunicable states ofconsciousness … [to] plumb the depths ofthe human soul, to bring the unconsciousinto consciousness … such were theimperatives of Romantic introspection”(Tarnas, 1991, p. 368).

Here Romanticism laid the poetic,theoretical groundwork for depthpsychology: “Imagination and feeling nowjoined sense and reason to render adeeper understanding of the world” (p.369).

Nietzche’s radical interpretivistperspective. Additionally, Nietzsche, whoexerted a profound influence on bothFreud and Jung, introduced a radicalskepticism and relativism to the truth-claims of both science and religion.Nietzsche wrote, “Against positivism,which halts at phenomena—‘There areonly facts’—I would say: Facts areprecisely what there are not, onlyinterpretations [emphasis added]”(Nietzche, as cited in Tarnas, 1991, p.370). In contrast to the truth-claims ofpositivism in Locke and Hume, Nietzscheadvocated a radical interpretivistperspective, or rather a plurality ofinterpretive perspectives, more or lessequal in their truth-claims, in which nocertain fixed point of authority—neitherphilosophical (as in Plato), religious (theChristian doctrines throughout theMiddle Ages), nor scientific (fromCopernicus forward)—provided anincontestable authority from which thetruth might be validated. In doing so,Nietzche became arguably the mostinfluential deconstructionist philosopherof modernity (since Kant), and the firsttruly post-modern philosopher.

In Nietzsche, Tarnas (1991)observed, the philosopher became apoet. Nietzche raised philosophy to thelevel of art, a heritage carried forward bythe existentialist thinker and novelistAlbert Camus (1951/1991) in hisimportant philosophical work, The Rebel,including his essays on Nietzche. ForNietzsche, there was no basis forassertion of absolute “Truth.” “Truth,”Tarnas (1991) observed, speaking ofNietzsche, “was not something oneproved or disproved; it was somethingone created” (p. 371). This conception ofthe world, for Nietzsche and Romanticismin general, was not discoverable inabstract reason or validation of facts, butas an “expression of … beauty andimaginative power.” In short,Romanticism advanced a new episte-mology, beyond the limits established byHume, Locke, and the positivist side ofKant, defining new “standards and valuesfor human knowledge.”

The Double-Truth Epistemology ofScience and the Humanities

Out of this distinction betweenEnlightenment rationalism and thecompensatory Romantic poetics of the

Ronald L. Boyer

“Another importantdistinction between the

Enlightenment andRomantic sensibilities is evident in theircontrasting views ofhuman awareness

and the phenomena of consciousness”

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 201730 <Back to TOC

imagination arose a double-truth episte-mological approach, Tarnas (1991)observed, expressed in the divisionbetween science and the humanities. Inthis approach, there is scientific truth onthe one hand, based on empiricism andmeasurement, and artistic truth on theother, not provable using the scientificquantified methods of research, butaccessible through qualitative methods oflearning. Scientific truth emerged asdistinct from that of the arts and humani-ties, including religion. In this view, anovel conception of God emerged, notthe God of Christian literalism and dogmanor that of Deism, but a God ofmysticism, a “numinous creative forcewithin nature” (p. 373). And art (e.g.,music, literature, painting) took on analmost religious quality for theRomantics, the pursuit of beauty for itsown sake in a soulless, mechanical world.With this emerged a new importance ofthe novel, of creative quest and imagina-tive discipline, in the works of authorsfrom Stendhal to Hermann Hesse.Through such literature, the broadphenomenology of human experienceentered the philosophies of Bergson,Husserl, and Heidegger. “Reality,”asserted Tarnas, again alluding toNietzsche, “was not to be copied, but tobe invented” (p. 374).

Because of the incompatibility ofthe rationalistic and Romantic tempera-ments, a complex bifurcation emerged.Allied against the sterility of scientism,“romantic poets, religious mystics,idealist philosophers, and counter-cultural psychedelicists” claimed theexistence of realities beyond the materialand argued for “an ontology of humanconsciousness” (Tarnas, 1991, p. 375).Romanticism, said Tarnas, continued toinform the inner culture in the arts andliterature, as well as religious andmetaphysical vision, while sciencedictated the outer reality of cosmology:

The faith-reason division of themedieval era and the religion-science division of the early modernera had become one of subject-object, inner-outer, man-world,humanities-science. A new form ofdouble truth universe was nowestablished. (p. 376)

Depth Psychology’s Promise of aNew Synthesis

According to Tarnas (1991), thinkerslike Goethe and Hegel attempted a newsynthesis; so did Carl G. Jung. As themodern era moved into later stages,“Romanticism would reengage themodern mind from another fieldaltogether … a new focus on the psyche”as a source of meaning and identity in aworld devoid of stable values. TheRomantically-influenced science discov-ered its most enduring, seminal influencein the “depth psychology of Freud and

Jung, both deeply influenced by thestream of German Romanticism thatflowed from Goethe through Nietzsche”(p. 384). Freud continued the Copernicanrevolution that removed humanity fromthe center of the cosmos, as well as therevolutionary thought of Darwin, whorelegated human nature to the level ofnature (i.e., as a biological animal),observations first posited by philosopherJacob Needleman (1965/1976) in A Senseof the Cosmos. With Freud, humans wereno longer masters even in their ownhouse, particularly given the influence ofunconscious, irrational factors in humanthought and behavior.

Freud and Jung were both medicalpsychologists, social scientists laboring toestablish psychoanalysis as a legitimatescience, but returning to mythology—notunderstood as an objective scientificpicture of the external cosmos or world,but rather as phenomena representativeof the otherwise inaccessible unconsciousstructures of the human psyche. If Freudwas more the Enlightenment scientist,the inheritance of Romanticism becamemore explicit in Jung’s psychology, partic-

ularly Jung’s discovery of the collectiveunconscious and his theory of psycholog-ical archetypes that goes back to Plato,dressed now in new human-centricforms. Jung’s archetypes, that is, widelyrecurring symbolic forms, returned in asense to the formalism of Plato’sarchetypes, but on another level entirely,as expressions of the shadowy side of thehuman psyche. Jung’s discoveries:

radically extended psychology’srange of interest and insight.Religious experience, artisticcreativity, esoteric systems, and themythological imagination were nowanalyzed in nonreductive termsstrongly reminiscent of theNeoplatonic Renaissance andRomanticism.…Freud and Jung’sdepth psychology thus offered afruitful middle ground betweenscience and the humanities …sensitive to the many dimensions ofhuman experience … yet striving forempirical rigor. (p. 384)

This, in broad strokes, summarizesthe Jungian mindset—a primary theoret-ical and practical lens for mywork—rooted in the emergence ofRomanticism as a necessary counter tothe sterility of scientific rationalism andthe increasingly meaningless worldemerging out of the Enlightenment. Inshort, as Tarnas (1991) concluded, “Themodern psyche appeared to require theservices of depth psychology withincreasing urgency” to address thewidespread alienation and related socialand cultural phenomena characteristic ofan increasingly secular and scientific age.In the form of Jung’s depth psychology,“a new faith for modern man, a path forthe healing of the soul bringing regenera-tion and rebirth” (p. 387) arose.Furthermore, according to Jung, this pathleads potentially to a condition of psychicwholeness or individuation by way of atransformative psychological processmirrored in the recurrent mythopoeticimagery of dreams, religion, and art.However suspect Jung’s psychology maybe within the mainstream scientificAcademy, given the dominance ofbehaviorism, pockets of receptivity areclearly emerging, as Susan Rowland(2010) indicated, for a Jungianhermeneutic within the arts and humani-ties.

“As the modern eramoved into later stages,

“Romanticism wouldreengage the modern

mind from another fieldaltogether…a new focuson the psyche” as a

source of meaning andidentity in a world

devoid of stable values”

On Romanticism in Jung’s Psychology

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 2017 31<Back to TOC

ConclusionIn Jung’s humanism—his

conceptions of an ensouled natureand of God as an image of Self, hisfocus on interiority and theunconscious, his valuing of feeling,creativity, and imagination, etc.—Jungproved himself a modern heir toRomanticism. In his independencefrom and deconstruction of theinherited truth-claims and dogmaticauthorities of formal philosophy,organized religion, and scientificrationalism, Jung positioned histheories and methods as animportant perspective in the ongoingpost-modern dialogue, the salientcharacteristics of which will bediscussed in Part II of this reflectionon The Passion of the Western Mind.

ReferencesCamus, A. (1991). The rebel: An essay onman in revolt. New York, NY: Vintage.(Original work published 1951)Cassirer, E. (1953). Language and myth(Suzanne K. Langer, Trans.). New York, NY:Dover. (Original work published 1946)Krasevac, E. (2015). [Class handout].Unpublished raw data, GraduateTheological Union, Berkeley, California.Needleman, J. (1976). A sense of thecosmos: The encounter of modern scienceand ancient truth. New York, NY: E. P.Dutton. (Original work published 1965)Roszak, T. (1973). Where the wastelandends: Politics and transcendence in postin-dustrial society. Garden City, NY: AnchorBooks. Rowland, S. (2010). C. G. Jung in thehumanities: Taking the soul’s path. NewOrleans, LA: Spring Books. Tarnas, R. (1991). The passion of theWestern mind: Understanding the ideasthat have shaped our world view. NewYork, NY: Ballantine Books.

Ron Boyer is a doctoral student in Artand Religion at the GraduateTheological Union and UC Berkeley.He is a graduate of the M.A. in DepthPsychology Program at Sonoma StateUniversity. Ron is also an award-winning poet, fiction author, andscreenwriter. He lives in NorthernCalifornia.

Ronald L. Boyer

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 201732 <Back to TOC

For the past 13 years Sydney Solis hasbeen enchanting, educating andentertaining children and adultsthrough story and yoga withStorytime Yoga® and Mythic Yoga.She has apeared on PBS andpublished dozens of books, ebooksand audios on storytelling and yoga,including the best selling award-nominated book Storytime Yoga:Teaching Yoga to Children ThroughStory, (2006 The Mythic Yoga Studio).Visit her websites atwww.StorytimeYoga.com,MythicYoga.com and SydneySolis.com

Goddess in Chicago

Wisdom

by Sydney SolisArt

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 2017 33<Back to TOC

The Goddess and the Moonflowers

Heidi in Ruins

by Sydney SolisArt

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 201734 <Back to TOC

Samos

When I ask you, Wind,what you are trying to tell me,a single bird twitters in the cypressblacker than the mountain’s silhouette,stones rolling in the nearby surfclash like knucklebones of long-dead sailors,dogs barking from inside the shadowsgrate the skin of night,and the Dipper widens and tiltsto pour more darkness over the sleeping earth.

Poet ryWhat the Wind Said

By Edward Tick

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 2017 35<Back to TOC

“We do not become enlightened by imagining figures of light,but by making the darkness conscious.” —C. G. Jung

I’ve always been a bit squeamish and never attracted togrotesqueness, but at the same time, I’ve had a certain

propensity for looking at the dark side of human nature. Thisbegan in my early teenage years when I was naturally attractedto the darker music in my mother’s record collection. I foundsomething eerily mysterious about the lyrics and minor tonali-ties of songs like “The End” by The Doors, or “Paint it Black”from The Rolling Stones. At first this attraction was unques-tioned, but over time I began to ask myself why Iwas interested in this particular type of artisticexpression. This question persisted and was thepartial impetus behind a journey into psychicdarkness that would unfold slowly over the next30 years.

My attraction to dark music continued as Itook up a musical career, following in thefootsteps of my mother’s father who was a NewOrleans jazz clarinetist. Like him, I assembledbands and toured the world out of a love formusical performance—the main difference beingthe style of music I chose, which was extremedeath metal. This form of artistic expression wasconspicuously unquestioned by my parents, butprobably questioned by others around me. I nowunderstand this aspect of my life to be thebeginning of a life long journey into the shadowside of human nature, including my own darkness.This investigation would ultimately result in thehealing of psychological wounds that this art form was firsthelping me to express.

I was initiated into metal music as a young adolescent byneighborhood friends. It began with classic British heavy metalbands such as Black Sabbath and Judas Priest. Over time, as Ibecame more involved in music as a guitarplayer, I acquired tastes for even darkerand heavier bands like Metallica and Slayer,and from there, even more extreme bands.By the time I was 25, I was listening tobands called Morbid Angel, Pestilence, andDeath. My own band at the time was calledEntropy, which spawned the band Vile thatreceived much of my attention over thenext decade. During this time, I worked asan audio engineer producing andengineering records for other bands thatplayed the same style.

The lyrics and art that were a part of extreme metal were

often intolerable to me. They graphically poeticized the mosthorrific aspects of human nature: war and psychopathicviolence, sexual abuse, and even cannibalism are commonsubject matters in the genre. The first time I heard the bandDeath, I had a dream where I witnessed an ethereal landscapeof bloody human innards! I had no rational attraction to thesubject matter that this form of music dealt with, but I was veryattracted to the tonality and rhythm of the genre. I wascreatively challenged by the technical requirements, and as Icame to learn, I was emotionally resonating with the sounds ofthis music.

About 15 years ago, my focus on musicianship began towane, and a new focus towards inner development picked up.As I became more comfortable with psychological principles, Ibegan to understand more about what this music had beendoing for me. As I now understand it, extreme metal music

effectively channels masculine psychicenergies, especially those with a shadowtint. We might see participation in this formof music as psychic displacement, or eventransmutation. Through this music, themusicians and listeners are penetrating andreleasing destructive shadow energies beforethey can reach a level of psychic toxicity.

Equally interesting is the nature andbehavior of the fans of metal music ingeneral. In the genre of extreme metal,which encompasses death metal, black

metal, and other sub-genres, the great majority of fans areyoung men. They are often tattooed and frequently wear allblack clothing that displays the dark and gory images of their

The Art of Facing Darkness:A Metal Musician’s Quest for Wholeness

By Colin E. Davis

“I now understand this aspect of my lifeto be the beginning ofa life long journey into

the shadow side ofhuman nature, including

my own darkness”

Author/Musician Colin Davis. Image credit: Ingrid Janssen

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 201736 <Back to TOC

favorite bands’ album artwork. Womendo participate, but in small number.

A regular feature of the concerts is aspontaneous audience-generated ritualcalled the mosh pit. The mosh pit is anevolution of a prior form known as slamdancing in punk rock circles. It isessentially a tribal dance where theaudience members aggressively butrespectfully push each other around in acircular formation, synchronized in tempoto the live music. Fans who are bruised inthe pit usually see their injuries as abadge of honor.

In the Mircea Eliade’s (1958) book,Rites and Symbols of Initiation, hedescribes the characteristics of indige-nous initiation rituals. I have noticed thatthe extreme metal concert is closelyaligned. Participants put themselves intosymbolic contact with the archetypalmaterial of death, engage in a ritualdance, tattoo and pierce themselves,wear sacred clothing within a dark sacredspace, and honor the gods or dark forcesof nature through the on-stage musicalshamans.

Interestingly, metal music fans areusually quite kind and often artisticallyinclined. A great percentage of them aremusicians themselves. Underneath thegrotesque T-shirts, tattoos, and bodypiercings are quite normal human beings.They are known to be respectful toothers and physical fighting at most typesof metal concerts is rare. Each sub-genreof metal has its own artistic andemotional appeal, channeling differentenergies. Death metal tends to focus onextremely base subjects and is essentiallya gory horror movie in musical form.Black metal is very often anti-religiousand can feature satanic lyrics. Punk rock,another form of discordant rock and rollserves its audience similarly, but usuallyfocuses on social rebellion.

Bernhard Guenther, a German-bornmusician who, like myself, focuses part ofhis studies on understanding humandarkness expressed in an interview: “Iwas very much into heavy music becauseit helped me to release all the anger,teenage angst and the stuff I was dealingwith. Heavy music was never anythingnegative or bad, it was a healing practicefor me to hit the drums as hard as Icould. I didn’t realize until later on thatthis was not so much about making it as amusician, but was about exploring myself

and healing myself though music anddrumming,” (Guenther, 2015).

Another musician, a very famousone named James Hetfield of the bandMetallica, recently stated in an interview:

The thing that bugs me a lot is whenpeople say ‘Now that you’re soberor matured and now that you’veworked out all your demons, yourmusic is gonna be all soft andflowery.’ I’ll tell you though, if Icould have exorcized all thosedemons I would have. But it’ssomething you embrace. It’s a partof me and I get to celebrate it in mymusic. I get to communicate it. I getto use it as a therapy to help myown insanity, and other people dotoo. So, when you get those like-minded people together in a placeand play live, music does somethingto people. I get to watch people infront of me transform. (Hetfield,2017)

Like these musicians, I also came tofigure out how music and live concertsare therapy for displacing psychic energy.Metal and extreme metal music fansappear to serve the greater cultureuniquely. Within the greater musicalcommunity, they are a micro-culture thathas organically developed a method fordealing with the effects of trauma andculturally repressed shadow material.Metal fans in general, and especiallyextreme metal fans, are highly put off bytraditional religious and cultural valuesand are often suffering from the abusesof punitive upbringings or generallydifficult childhoods. My own conversa-tions with metal fans over the course of25 years has proven this out for me.

Surely, there are many rebelliousoutlets for young men suffering from thetrauma of their early childhoods, but themetal music community is one that dealswith the situation through artistic expres-

sion, and does so in a way that channelsexceedingly dark shadow contents. Metalmusic fans see themselves as culturaloutsiders and they take refuge in theirmicro culture that accepts everyoneequally. Metal music forms a passivelyrebellious lifestyle that bonds the fansand musicians together in honor ofpersonal and archetypal darkness.

The fact that metal and extrememetal are cultural refuges for outsidershas always been clear to me, but whathas been much more intriguing is theconnection between the particular motifsof this music and that of the shadow ofthe human psyche—especially the malepsyche. The work of the late Jungianpsychologist, Robert L. Moore, and hispolar modeling of the four major malearchetypes of King, Warrior, Magician andLover helped me understand this connec-tion more clearly (Moore & Gillette,1990).

In Moore’s model, the Warrior,when imbalanced in the psyche, maydevelop an active shadow Sadist, or apassive shadow Masochist. The Kingarchetype manifests imbalance similarly,as an active Tyrant or a passive Weakling.These particular shadow patterns happento inspire a great percentage of the lyricsand artwork associated with extrememetal music. Other shadow manifesta-tions are also represented in this form ofart, but appear to be combined with Kingor Warrior shadow representations. Ingeneral, metal music across the board is aform of art that specifically addresses thepsychic sources of personal andarchetypal evil.

For me, playing and listening to thismusic mitigated my own destructiveenergies, but it did not integrate themenough. Extreme metal music culture isindeed a ritual method for shadow work,as it brings the most denied aspects ofour nature into the light through art, but Ifound that it’s not a substitute forshadow work in the context of what C. G.Jung called “individuation.” Jung’s individ-uation process, which mirrors westernesoteric alchemy, puts emphasis onshadow work and the need to integratethe most repulsive human thoughts,feelings and impulses.

After 25 years of metal cultureparticipation, I eventually had to take thenext step and traverse human darknessthrough deep inner work. My own

The Art of Facing Darkness

“Metal music forms apassively rebell ious

lifestyle that bonds thefans and musicianstogether in honor of personal and

archetypal darkness”

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 2017 37<Back to TOC

psychic fracturing needed to beaddressed much more personally andmore surgically. My technical skills oncedirected at musicianship and audioengineering shifted into the realm ofpsycho-spiritual studies. There I foundthe archetypal formula for inner transfor-mation known as alchemy, the work ofJung and other thinkers who address theshadow in its archetypal and personalforms.

I have since become deeplycommitted to my own shadow integra-tion work, and to the mapping of theshadow though an alchemical andsystems-based approach. Throughpersonal shadow work, especially theprocessing of old emotional wounds, Ihave transmuted a great amount of thepsychic darkness that the metal musicwas once only displacing for me. I have

no illusions of this work being complete,but the process so far has beendocumented in a book I authored withmy partner, Melissa Mari, titled ShadowTech (2015).

I believe that alchemy is founded inthe archetypal formula for evolution in alllife and is present in the development ofevery living system. All life emerges fromdarkness, the so-called prima materia,whether that be seen as the cosmos, thesea, the womb, the soil, or our ownpsychological shadows that must bereordered into new life. Fear of the darkis instinctual, but as Jung pointed out somany times, our genius or highestpurpose is always at least partially hiddenwithin our deepest inner darkness,waiting to be excavated and brought intothe light for the benefit of ourselves andthe entire world.

ReferencesDavis, C. & Mari, M. (2015). Shadow Tech –Cracking the Codes of Personal and CollectiveDarkness. Amazon Publishers.Eliade, Mircea. (1958). Rites and symbols ofinitiation. New York, NY: Harper and RowPublishers.Guenther, Bernard. (2015). Time ofTransition—A talk with Bernard Guenther.Video retrieved at http://youtube.com, 3:20. Moore, R. and Gillette, D. (1990). King,Warrior, Magician, Lover. New York, NY:Harper Collins Publishers.

Colin E. Davis is a musician, artist andconsiders himself a spiritual alchemist. Heis the author of Shadow Tech– Crackingthe Codes of Personal and CollectiveDarkness. Along with his partner MelissaMari, he shares his insights about innerdevelopment through music, articles,books and lectures. He resides inCalifornia in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Colin E. Davis

Laura Smith is a dream seeker, offering one-on-one dreamconsultation to individuals in the US and abroad. She lives in theNortheast Kingdom of Vermont with her partner of 19 yearsraising heritage breed livestock on their 78 acre farm. Whenshe's not wrangling sheep, you can find her painting or writingin her studio, connecting to the healing energy of the earth, orengaged in laughter and general mayhem with her friends andfamily on various parts of the globe. She regularly blogs about

her journey through dreams on the dream blog In Search ofPuella and her art work has been has been featured in severalpublications and ezines including DeLuge Magazine (2011, 2012,2015 re-launch), Collective Magazine (2014), Still Point ArtsQuarterly (2014), ARAS, The Poetry Portal (2014), The LightEkphrastic (2015) and The Global Question (2016). Find outmore about Archetypal Dreamwork with Laura Smith on herwebsite www.archetypaldreamworks.com.

Alchemy Series: Armless Maiden, Return of the Divine Feminine, Alchemy IMixed Media: Wood, Oil, Gold Leaf, Oyster Shell, Excavated Frozen German Bisque Doll, Brass Wire

by Laura SmithArt

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 201738 <Back to TOC

Maree Brogden is a registered Arts Psychotherapist(AThR) and Artist, who has various practice interests,which integrate the depth psychologies,(http://www.depthpsychologyalliance.com/profile/MareeBrogden).

The imagery of the poem, “Fragments & Reflection”,is inspired by an oil pastel drawing (23.4 x 33.1 in,594 x 841 mm) that was originally rendered byMaree as a part of the work completed for a disser-tation of primary research, submitted for her Masterof Arts degree in 2006.

In this work, a photograph of the image istransformed into a digital graphic, which is manipu-lated in response to the subject of a paper writtenby Maree for presentation at a mental healthconference in 2016. The central meaning of theimage, of Psyche, is the dual-mind, symbolic of therelationships of self and other, a private and anexternal life.

Fragments & Reflection

by Maree Brogden

human body dualist the archetypal form is two symbolic authenticity of archaic origins nucleic life is the central story the imagery primitive it draws light of modernity lives the shadowed spirit is the heartthe source I rely uponto stand my ground

it is sometimes only when I dance in two minds

Bi-Ocular, Movement 3

Poet ryArt&

This essay offers a mythopoetic,Jungian analysis of the “Danceof the Sugar Plum Fairy” from

The Nutcracker, a popular ballet by PyotrIylich Tchaikovsky. First performed inDecember 1892 in St. Petersburg inRussia, it has since become a belovedChristmas tradition around the world. Inthe ballet’s Act Two of “Land of theSweets,” the “Dance of the Sugar PlumFairy” is the embodiment of this ballet’senchantment.

The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy isone in a series of dances in a dreamsequence of Clara, a young girl who is theprotagonist in the narrative where eachdance represents a holiday treat (coffee,tea, candies, flowers, gifts). The dreamtakes place within the larger frame ofClara’s waking world experience, makingthis an envelope story, enveloping thedream as something to hold dear as ateddy bear (or the Nutcracker), or one’shopes and wishes for the sweet things inlife.

While in the ballet the “NutcrackerSuite” dance sequence seems torepresent Clara’s tender coming of ageand awakening to romance, and while thesetting is a lovely Christmas Eve party atthe house of her family with plenty ofhappy guests enjoying laughter, gifts, andsweets, there are also darker themeswithin this fairy tale ballet: Even for achild in a family with plenty to celebratethat seems to want for nothing, life is notalways so sweet. What we see in theballet is the lighter version of the tale,but what perhaps few in the audience areaware of is that this tale was not alwaysas sugar-coated as the sugar plums.

In its original form, beforeTchaikovsky composed ballet music for it,it was a story by E.T.A. Hoffman (1918)entitled The Nutcracker and The MouseKing, a more nightmarish tale. In theoriginal telling Clara experiences anunhappy loss of innocence and sense ofsad disconnection from her family, andlongs for her place under the sun. She

feels her brother who is recklesslyviolent—who also breaks her toys—isfavored by her parents; she feels herparents keep her waiting on a shelf likeone of her dolls she is forced to keep upon the shelves. She is growing up, andwould like to break free of her home lifewith her monstrous brother (who in hernightmare seems the Evil Mouse King)and her parents who seem to care littlefor her feelings. She longs for an Eden, amore paradisiac place on earth to live herlife in tune with her desires.

Details to the themes of the storysummarized here will unfold in thesections of this paper, described asfollows: 1) a young girl’s Edenic longing inthe The Nutcracker as highlighted in its“Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” 2)analysis of archetypal mythic symbols inthe dance; and 3) tales of my daughter’s,granddaughter’s, and my own personalmyths (mythopoetic lived experience), asattuned to “Dance of the Sugar PlumFairy.”

Edenic LongingDepth psychologist and mytholo-

gist/folklorist Dr. Jonathon Young (2016)described the term “Edenic longing” as anelusive “yearning” for something “justbeyond our reach, always to be yearnedfor, but never quite arrived at,” what“drives our wandering,” and our “mythol-ogizing of life” (Personal Communication,

2016). In German, the word sehnsuchtexpresses a type of “ardent loving,” “acompelling feeling,” (J. Young, PersonalCommunication, 2016) not easilytranslated. This indistinguishable“nostalgia for something” may be of anorigin we may not be able to trace orunderstand, but may be “sometimesimagined as a far-off country—notexactly an earthly landscape we mayfind—but feels like home” (J. Young,Personal Communication, 2016). MirceaEliade (1991/1952) called this longing forhome “the nostalgia for Paradise” whenhe wrote:

By this we mean the desire to findoneself always and without effort inthe Centre of the World, at theheart of reality; and by a short cutand in a natural manner totranscend the human condition, andto recover the divine condition—asa Christian would say, the conditionbefore the Fall. (p. 55)

Eliade mentioned reality; it is usefulto keep in mind that we are viewing adream and while some do not regarddream material as reality, in a depthpsychological frame, we can and doregard dreams as a reality in the psyche’sunconscious or inner reality. When adream enters our consciousness (such asremembering one), it is perhaps nearwhat C.S. Lewis described of his ownexperience of longing as “a memory of amemory” (J. Young, PersonalCommunication, 2016). When Clarajourneys in her dream to the Land of theSweets, she is called to her hero’sadventure to an otherworldly place,where her imagination posits her in whatYoung has described in regards to Edeniclonging as a “life just beyond this one”(Personal Communication 2016).

Sometimes the life just beyond ourreach is one of old world charm; perhapsmany of us miss our belief in magic. AsMarie-Louise von Franz (1995) wrote,

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 2017 39<Back to TOC

A Child’s Edenic Dream:“Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” in

The Nutcracker Ballet

By Mary Ann Bencivengo

“What we see in theballet is the lighterversion of the tale,

but what perhaps few in the audience areaware of is that thistale was not always

as sugar-coated as the sugar plums”

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 201740 <Back to TOC

“Magic is full of antique tradition and practices….of the…paganpast” (p. 66). We have our fantasy genre for that—many adultsnever outgrow their love of Disney. The acclaimed “greatestvoice” of the twentieth century, W. B. Yeats (Yeats, 2002, n. p.),saddened by times of change,wrote many a poem to re-invoke Ireland’s pagan fairiesand Druids. To quote a booktitle by Jung, Yeats was aModern Man in Search of aSoul for the people of histime. Tchaikovsky, in his day,thought he had found it (soul)when he discovered an instru-ment called the celesta whichhe felt compelled to use toobtain an ethereal music boxtone, which is “a keyboardinstrument with a bell likesound,” which at the time wasnewly invented and mostlyunheard (Resnikova, 2016, n.p.).

This paper involvessome intertwined theories inthe arts and humanitiesregarding embodied states ofinnocence and experience inthe life of a child who readilyplumbs the depths of theunconscious as expressed byWilliam Blake, later discussedby poet and Jungian-based writer Robert Bly (1972) in Bly’sbook entitled Leaping Poetry (pp. 1-6). Blake believed that inorder to be creative we “must become like little children” (Bly,1972, p. 2), meaning that for adults the world becomes stalewhereas children see it anew, with wonder. This correlates to amain premise of Hoffman, who “wasrebelling against…The Enlightenment and itsemphasis on Rational Philosophy” (NPRStaff, 2012, n. p.) and “believed inreclaiming nature, reclaiming innocence”(NPR Staff, 2012, n. p.). Hoffman, like Blake,expressed the importance of keeping “intouch with the child within us” (NPR Staff,2012, n. p.) Bly’s notion of what he calls“leaping poetry” is applicable in the arts ingeneral—here I could call it “leaping dance.”Bly stated that good literature/poetry (art)takes leaps into the unconscious and backagain (1972, pp. 1-6), the way a child’simagination does. Bly’s theory is based upon Jung’s Shadowtheory. In this tale a child has little freedom to play, to takeleaps into her imagination when she would like. What needs tohappen manifests in her dreams.

For What the Young Girl Clara LongsThe scene leading to Clara’s dream is this: Her parents

throw a party for friends and family at their house, her uncle

brings fantastic toys as always which this year for the childrenincludes a nutcracker, the children “go nuts” over it, her brotherbreaks it, Clara is miserable over her loss, and no one seems toquite commiserate with her, even while though they say it can

be fixed. This disrupts herChristmas bliss. In the ballet’s sweetversion, this may seem a simple,common enough scenario in the lifeof a child in which conflicts andaccidents happen with siblings;however, in Hoffman’s version,something with darker roots isgoing on from which the SugarPlum Fairy’s magical plums willspring.

A broken toy can bedevastating to a child. In thissituation, her brother has struck anerve—a complex in Clara’s psychicshadow—wide open, along with theNutcracker’s mouth. She is sad forthe Nutcracker and enraged at hersibling. Regarding anger and theshadow in fairy tales, von Franzwrote “one endures such a conflictuntil a solution is found. Thecreative solution would besomething unexpected whichdecides the conflict on anotherlevel” (von Franz, 1995, p. 70). TheSugar Plum Fairy is Clara’s innerneed, inner reality, inner solution.

Her transcendent dance balances the poles of opposites of thisproblematic world with the other world of harmonious accord;it is a problem of how to maintain the impossible Edenic perfec-tion obtained in that unworldly level once she awakes back toher daily consciousness on this level.

Meanwhile, Clara’s devastation issymbolized hideously in Hoffman’s versionwhen he describes the “dreadful crackingsound” and the dislocated, hanging jaw ofthe Nutcracker (Hoffman, n. d./1918,chapter 3, para. 12). Her uncle says he caneasily fix it, but Clara cannot so easily fixher anger or angry face. (As children weoften are told not to make a mean, angryfacial expression or it will freeze like that.)Her parents do seem to favor herbrother’s more violent army-war play. Shemay also be struggling with her ownanger, probably like most little girls being

told to “be sweet.” The Sugar Plum Fairy, however, can champion her, can

triumph, can fix anything…even restore her Eden before thisFall, much like the elves repair everything on The Isle of MisfitToys in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. (Seehttp://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=Gr6GbKciNCY)

This magic of repair is being done in both these tales bymythical beings of diminutive size to which small children can

“Her transcendent dancebalances the poles of opposites of this

problematic world withthe other world of

harmonious accord; it isa problem of how tomaintain the impossible

A Child’s Edenic Dream

relate and feel they have some power orcontrol over their fate1, and they stronglyidentify with their toys.

In the original version, Clara cannotoften hold her toys because her parentsrequire (order) her to organize (order)them in a precise manner in a glassencased shelf, better suited for expensivekeepsakes. After the party, she does notwant to put the Nutcracker away—shewants to hold and comfort him in hispainful state “as if he were a small child”(Hoffman, n. d./1918, chapter 3, para.20). Tired of confinement, she wishes fora life of her own liking, making, choosing.In the original tale, Clara dreams her dollscome to life; one asks if they will diethere. (See Appendix I, “The Little Elf”poem, which describes the way a childrelates to this.)

in the house, remarking they havebeen too preserved (Hoffman, n. d./1918,chapter 5, para. 9). Clara’s dolls thatcome to life are, like the doll in the storyof “Vasilisa the Beautiful” (von Franz,1995, pp. 192-96), symbolic of a younggirl’s inner self, inner knowing, innerstrength. Clara’s dolls assembled uponthe shelf resemble her own life upon ashelf. The dancing Sugar Plum Fairyexpresses the self-actualized individua-tion of these dolls, liberated from theirrestrictive existence; since Clara identifieswith the dolls and their liberation thefairy is also Clara—Jung wrote, “No partof the hero-myth is single inmeaning…and all the figures areinterchangeable” (Jung, C. G., 1965 p.390). Clara thus achieves important stepson her path of individuation once shedances her dream. In passages prior tothe aforementioned quote by Eliade, hediscusses how home and hearth can bethat “Center of the World” (Eliade, 1991,p. 54), but Clara, unable to locate thatcenter at home, in her psychic distress,summons The Sugar Plum Fairy from thedeep vault of her very being.

Archetypal Mythic Symbols in“Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy”

The Sugar Plum Fairy is like a fairygodmother, dancing a numinous spell ofcontentment on Clara’s behalf. Shedances Clara’s mandala in the dream,balances Clara’s mandala in the dream,and restores the child’s Eden. To viewand listen to “Dance of the Sugar PlumFairy,” visit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= Wz_f9B4pPtg (Bolshoi Ballet, 2010). I willrefer to minute frames within the videowhile discussing the dance and themusical composition by Tchaikovsky.

The sugar plum comfits are ascomforts of Eden. It may seem simplethat Clara’s bitterness turns to sweetnessonce free to satisfy her sweet tooth inthe Land of the Sweets, for comfits withmusic comfort the savage beast;however, for Clara, the desire forfreedom branches beyond a child’stypical complaint of not being allowed toeat all the candy she desires at theparty—that is “just” symbolic ofeverything else. Consciously recognizingwhat “everything else” is perhaps is noteasy for a child; when the Nutcracker

breaks and the children cannot crack nutsanymore, the nuts become “tough nutsto crack.” A tough nut for Clara to crack ishow to handle her anger and comfortherself, since no one else will. Dreamsaddress states of being in ourunconscious, having their “rhyme andreason.” What Jung called “the dream’stelos [is] the dream’s finalistic orpurposive aspect, the direction in which itpoints, that for the sake of which thedream exists” (Berry, 1982, p. 81).

Fairies are the spirits (sprites) offlora and fauna. The Sugar Plum Fairy isnot a plum; rather, she is the natural,spiritual intelligence or force behind theplum. She therefore is something inner,within.) To get in touch with the energyof the Sugar Plum Fairy subjectively(inward sensing), I bought a dozen plumsand a bottle of exquisite plum wine. I alsobought candy.

At the original tale’s time of 1816,

during the Romantic movement of thenineteenth century, “sugar plum” meant“comfit” (Kawash, 2010, n. p.) whichbefittingly sounds like “comfort.” Thesewere, like a nut containing a seed withinits shell, made by coating a nut kernelsuch as an almond or seed such ascaraway with layers of flavored sugar-syrup then leaving it to dry and harden.The tough nuts to crack and the sugarplum comfits each contain a center, ahidden kernel of truth. Whether hiddenby nature or by human hands enacting,natural (archetypal) patterns, there ishidden treasure if we plumb the depths,or go plum-meting them.

In the ballet music (minutes 1:27-1:40), we hear measures of sound I “see”as sugar (fairy dust) being sprinkledgraciously over the kingdom like manafrom heaven, and “see” as sweet,sparkling, psychic energy imbuing thevery air.

The fairy’s tutu in the 2010 BolshoiNutcracker ballet is not purple or red likea plum, but is white, like vanilla sugarcoating, stiffened like hardened coating,and round, extended outward like thesea’s treasure: a perfect circular pearl.The kernel of truth inside a smooth pearlis a grain of sand, layered with the glossof the oyster’s irritation over the grain. Agrain of truth is hidden well when insidethe pearl inside the shell within the lakeor sea. Here we have a sacrament ofgrace: Clara’s lesson, Clara’s sacrifice tomake: She must with maturity learn togloss her rage with a kinder, gentler face,not to be untrue to herself or false toothers, but her terrible dream of warringfactions was so powerful it permeatedthe walls between the worlds and shecarried her battle-wound back into herwaking world; this caused her aninfection only the confection (or layeredsweetness, truth therein) could remedy.The intent is not repression, for angerneeds to be worked out somehow, suchas dancing through psychic spheres ofmandala, or creating visual art, such asstage designs.

The stage setting for this fancifuldance is a winter wonderland. The fairy’stutu may symbolize a snowflake or watercrystal, accentuated by the crystallinesound of the celesta—sugar granules arecrystalline and do glitter too; and, as acomfit is blanketed with sugar the way achild is blanketed for comfort, so does

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 2017 41<Back to TOC

“The kernel of truthinside a smooth pearl isa grain of sand, layered

with the gloss of theoyster’s irri tation overthe grain. A grain oftruth is hidden well

when inside the pearlinside the shell within

the lake or sea”

Mary Ann Bencivengo

the tutu spread out like a blanket ofsnow. There is a huge Yule tree in thebackground suggesting a sugar plum treeupon which all sorts of candy might grow.As a crystal of snow she could be the“Diamond Body” (Jung, 1990/1959, p.358).

In the Land of the Sweets, when theSugar Plum Fairy enters the dream stage,we are beholding a wondrous, numinoussecret of the inner workings of the earth.The music fades in as if from a hiddenplace (minutes 0:09-0:18) announcing thesteps of the arrival of the fairy. Thesesame opening steps (minutes 0:09-0:18)also suggest time-keeping movements (aclock) to tell the special time this is,further accentuated by the staccatotechnique of both the music and thedance steps.

As she then stands as axis mundi,extending one leg to point with the tip ofher toes her rhythmed semi-circular stepsaround herself, she shows she ispositioned at the center of the earth. Thecircle she makes around herself cansignify the circumference of the earthand four directions of the compass,claiming her rulership encompasses thevast kingdom of the land’s (earth’s)elements. She has just demonstrated thatshe “is surrounded by a peripherycontaining everything that belongs to theself” (Jung, 1990/1959, p. 357). Jung wasfascinated by the three and the four, thecircle and the square, and studiedmandalas, a Sanskrit word meaning“circle[s]” (Jung, p. 355), which expressthe “squaring of a circle” (p. 357). Whenshe twirls in a spiral dance (minutes 2:25-2:45) within the four pillars (directions) ofthe universe, she expresses “everlastingbalance and immutable duration” (p. 358)of time and space—she is the spiraldance of life. We are enraptured with amoment of the infinite. All eyes are fixedon her spinning—the audience istransfixed.

While the Morality plays of theGreeks which induce catharsis, and whilesomething that is released must comefrom inside, from within; here, we havepenetrated the veil, to a mysteriousrealm revealed seemingly outsideourselves. Jung stated,

The work of the artist meets thepsychic needs of the society inwhich he lives….To grasp its

meaning, we must allow it to shapeus the way it has shaped him. Thenwe also understand the nature ofhis primordial experience. He hasplunged into the healing andredeeming depths of the collectivepsyche where man is not lost in theisolation of consciousness and itserrors and suffering, but where allmen are caught in a commonrhythm which allows the individualto communicate his feelings andstrivings to mankind as a whole.(Jung, 1972, pp. 104-05.)

Jung (1972) continued, “This re-immersion in the state of participationmystique is the secret of artistic creation”(p. 105).

My Personal Myth/Lived Experiencewith the “Dance of the Sugar PlumFairy”

As a child, I took ballet lessons andloved The Nutcracker Suite, particularlythe “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy”, asdid my mother, who played classicalmusic records, who had speakers wiredthrough the ceiling to another room/levelso music would imbue the whole house.

My bedtime in early childhood wasone half hour before “lights out.” I kept astack of books on my nightstand andloved the poems and pondered thebeauteous illustrations in The Big GoldenBook of Poetry which I felt was thedreamiest book on earth. I adoredEugene Field’s (1949) “The Sugar PlumTree”(See Appendix II), a bedtime storypoem, illustrated by Gertrude Elliot, quitea peppermint twist on the tree offorbidden fruit in the Biblical Garden ofEden tale. I may never know what theforbidden fruit was, but “The Sugar PlumTree” grows all kinds of candy “in thegarden of Shut-Eye Town” (p. 44).

When my daughter was born, a

family friend gifted her a musical snowglobe in which The Sugar Plum Fairydanced to the song. I would wind it up towind up the day to play it for mydaughter at bedtime. One evening, lyricsto this music occurred to me as if from amuse, which I sang to her for ages. Shenow sings these lyrics to her daughter,and I do too. This makes me “plumhappy”—the word plum once upon atime was used in place of very. The wordplum contains a lump of something veryspecial—not just a lump of coal. Beloware the silly yet serious—and seriouslyspecial—lyrics a muse whispered in myear (a muse never ceases to amuse):

When the sugar plum fairies comeand prance and dance into yourdreams at night,They’ll being gumdrops, cottoncandy, they’ll bring lollipops, littletreats.When the sugar plum fairies comeand whirl and twirl all through yourdreams at night,They’ll bring chocolates, they’ll bringcaramels, they’ll bring peppermints,little sweets.When the sugar plum fairies comeand Dance and prance all through yourdreams tonight,When the sugar plum fairies comeandDance and prance and bring gooddreams tonight.(See Appendix II, the poem andillustration of “The Sugar PlumTree.” These lyrics are basic and dooften change—alternate rhymingwords include enhance andenchant.)

Like Clara was upset when herbrother broke the Nutcracker, mydaughter was upset when a little boybroke her sugar plum fairy snow globe ata party we were having. In awe of it, hehad picked it up, carrying it over to meand exclaiming “Mary Ann, look!” When Ilooked, I reacted with fear since it wasglass (this same sweet, cute little boyoften innocently yet recklessly broke mydaughter’s toys) and when I reached toretrieve it before he would break it andpossible get cut by glass, he dropped it,and the glass globe broke, and he criedand ran to his mom who was also my

“Though the glass globeis gone, The Sugar Plum

Fairy dancing to themusic yet remains. She was released from her glassed-in

existence”

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 201742 <Back to TOC

A Child’s Edenic Dream

friend. Though the glass globe is gone, The Sugar Plum Fairydancing to the music yet remains. She was released from herglassed-in existence. Unlike Clara, however, my daughter didnot get angry—she just felt a little glum for the fairy of thesugar plums. We three generations still dance to the song too—myself, my daughter Cassie, and her daughter Gracie.

I dedicate this essay to them; they both came into thisworld singing and dancing.

ReferencesBangs, J. K. (1949). “The little elf.” (Werner, J., Ed.). The big goldenbook of poetry. New York NY: Golden Press. Berry, P. (1982). Echo’s subtle body: Contributions to an archetypalpsychology. Dallas,TX: Spring Publications. Bly, R. (1972). Leaping Poetry: An idea with poems and translations.Boston: Beacon Press.Bolshoi Ballet. (2010). “Dance of the sugar plum fairy.” The Nutcracker.Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz_f9B4pPtg Eliade, M. (1991). Images and symbols: Studies in religious symbolism.(P. Mairet, Trans.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Originalwork published in 1952.)Fields, E. (1949). “The sugar plum tree.” (Werner, J., Ed.). The biggolden book of poetry. New York, NY: Golden Press.Hoffman, E. T. A. (n. d./1918). The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. (L.R. C., Trans.). Retrieved fromspringhole.net/writing/the_nutcracker_and_the_mouse_king/index.htmlJung, C. G. (1990/1959). The Archetypes and the CollectiveUnconscious. (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) New York, NY.: Princeton UniversityPress. Jung, C. G. (1965). Symbols of transformation. (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.)New York, NY: Princeton University Press. (Original work published in1952.)Kawash, S. (2010). “Sugar plums: They’re not what you think they are.”The Atlantic. Retrieved fromhttp://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2010/12/sugar-plums-theyre-not-what-you-think-they-are/68385/ NPR Staff. (2012). “No sugar plums here: The dark, romantic roots ofThe Nutcracker.” NPR News. Retrieved fromhttp://www.npr.org/2012/12/25/167732828/no-sugar-plums-here-the-dark-romantic-roots-of-the-nutcracker Resnikova, E. (2016). Tchaikovsky’s ballets: A review of Tchaikovsky’ballets by Roland John. The New Criterion, 34 (7) n. p. Retrieved from http://www.newcrite-rion.com/articles.cfm.Tchaikovsky-a-ballets-6648von Franz, M. L. (1995). Shadow and evil in fairy tales. Boston, MA:Shambhala Publications.

APPENDIX IThe Little Elf*By John Kendrick Bangs

I met a little Elfman once,Down where the lilies blow.

I asked him why he was so small,And why he didn’t grow.

He slightly frowned, and with his eyeHe looked me through and through—

“I’m just as big for me,” said he,“As you are big for you.”

APPENDIX IIThe Sugar Plum Tree*By Eugene Field

Have you ever heard of the Sugar-Plum Tree?‘Tis a marvel of great renown!It blooms on the shore of the Lollypop seaIn the garden of Shut-Eye Town;The fruit that it bears is so wondrously sweet(As those who have tasted it say)That good little children have only to eatOf that fruit to be happy next day.

When you’ve got to the tree, you would have a hard timeTo capture the fruit which I sing;The tree is so tall that no person could climbTo the boughs where the sugar-plums swing!But up in that tree sits a chocolate cat,And a gingerbread dog prowls below -And this is the way you contrive to get atThose sugar-plums tempting you so:

You say but the word to that gingerbread dogAnd he barks with such terrible zestThat the chocolate cat is at once all agog,As her swelling proportions attest.And the chocolate cat goes cavorting aroundFrom this leafy limb unto that,And the sugar-plums tumble, of course, to the ground -Hurrah for that chocolate cat!

There are marshmallows, gumdrops, and peppermint canes,

With stripings of scarlet or gold,And you carry away of the treasure that rains,As much as your apron can hold!So come, little child, cuddle closer to meIn your dainty white nightcap and gown,And I’ll rock you away to that Sugar-Plum TreeIn the garden of Shut-Eye Town.

*This poem is in the public domain

Mary Ann Bencivengo studies Depth Psychology at PacificaGraduate Institute in the Jungian and Archetypal Studiesprogram. She has studied arts and humanities—music, dance,literature/poetry, and visual arts. She received her MFA inPoetry and her BFA in Creative Writing from Bowling GreenState University, where she first encountered Jungian studies.

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 2017 43<Back to TOC

Mary Ann Bencivengo

Depth Insights, Issue 10, Summer 201744

Editor’s Note (Continued from page 2)Poet ry

Shadow PlayBy Roy Rosenblatt

Maya and I wander a trail her leash taut or slackmeasured by the will of her curiosity.Pulled from soil beneath us,my eyes sprint ahead

where the trail bends unseen,thoughts grasping to know, what is from here, unknowable. A flushing exhale surrenders to silence.

Nose to soil, Maya vacuums path scents, fixates on the wild fluttering of a butterflyin shadow.Seeing seamlessly joined with pounce --once twice three times.

Beneath the canopy of an unformed question, I wonder about the things that draw us, the shadows they cast, and whether my gaze was replyto the inviting gesture in a wave

by something unseen, felt in the playfulness of breezes.Encouraged by the wind, browns and greensof native plants, a patchwork of swaying rise into the fullness of their forms,

tier by tier along the contours of hills.The roofless blue sky appears more spacious now.

mother in a beautifully-written piece, “The Space BetweenBreaths: An Exploration of Grief and Final Threshold Rituals.”

In “The Numinosity of Pluralism: Interfaith as SpiritualPath and Practice,” Jonathan Erickson presents a unifyingexpose’ on religious experience and deep questions aroundspirituality and religion, based on an examination of his ownexperience of spiritual awakening

Nicole de Bavelaere offers a new model to investigatehow systems science can address problems highlighted bypsychology in this article that explores her revolutionarynotion of pansystemology. “How Jungian Psychology, BrainResearch, Quantum Physics, and Systems Science Lead toPansystemology and Depth Psychology” builds on the work ofEinstein’s protégé, David Bohm.

In “On Romanticism in Jung’s Psychology: A Reflectionon The Passion of the Western Mind,” Ron Boyer seeks tounderstand the role of Jung’s depth psychology within thephilosophical lineage of Western thought in a reflective essaybased on the iconic book by Richard Tarnas.

In “The Art of Facing Darkness: A Metal Musician’sQuest for Wholeness,” Colin E. Davis engages his own passionfor heavy metal music and probes its symbolism as a refugefor cultural outsiders. He employs the late Jungian analystRobert Moore’s model for male archetypes in order toobserve the shadow patterns that show up in the genre andoften in the lives of those who love it.

Finally, Mary Ann Bencivengo “A Child’s Edenic Dream:‘Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy’ in The Nutcracker Ballet”offers a mythopoetic, Jungian analysis of the popular ballet.

Several numinous pieces of poetry and art round outthis depth psychological offering, including the stunning coverart and accompanying works by Terry McMaster. It is myhope that reading this issue might reconnect each of you,dear readers, with a sense of soul in the world and everydaylife—a respite and touchstone of strength and comfort sogreatly needed in chaotic times.

—Bonnie Bright, Ph.D.Executive Editor