DIALOGUE

Calling up a god for the New Year

Posted by Thom F. Cavalli, Ph.D. on December 31, 2011 at 4:12pm in Depth Psychology General

"Osiris is the name we use to signify this archetypal god of becoming
as it is experienced in time in this world. This is the god we so
desperately need in contemporary life where regenerative sciences are
physically altering the human landscape. While there are many meditative
practices that put us in touch with “becoming,” we have focused
on Osiris as an archetypal symbol that illuminates an ancient way of
understanding the unconscious, its contractions and expansions, its
suffering, and its immortality. We can now embrace Osiris as an alchemical
figure representing eternity in time, the ceaseless process of
becoming and individuating in which birth and death are only markers
along the way." 209-210 Embodying Osiris.

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Tags: Happy, New, Osiris, Year, alchemical, god
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  • Ed Koffenberger January 6, 2012 at 7:46am

    Amen and thanks for these words.

  • Ed Koffenberger January 5, 2012 at 11:00am

    Wouldn't it be interesting that while celebrating the new year, instead of asking a new acquaintance "What do you do?" we might ask "Who are you becoming?"

    • Thom F. Cavalli, Ph.D. > Ed Koffenberger January 5, 2012 at 2:19pm

      Yes, We are so over identified with work, it leaves little or no room for the process of becoming. We are a manic culture where spirit is left to run amok. Recall that oft repeated alchemical caution, All haste is of the devil! I like to think that the individuation process is one way that we balance the spirit of doing with the being of soul.

      • Ed Koffenberger > Thom F. Cavalli, Ph.D. January 5, 2012 at 3:10pm

        The manic environment delegates against any time for reflection at the level needed for the releasing of transformational energies. Expression and reflection must strike a balance for truly transformative work. I especially like the "breathing" of the unconscious as a microcosmic reflection of the macrocosmic universal expansion and contraction.

        By the way, I have the book and have made a promise to myself to dig in. I don't remember if you are on the book club list for the year.

        • Thom F. Cavalli, Ph.D. > Ed Koffenberger January 6, 2012 at 8:18am

          Thanks Ed for getting my book. I hope you enjoy it. And, yes, I am slated to tend the Book Club in May. It will be focused on alchemical psychology and the Osiris myth.

        • Thom F. Cavalli, Ph.D. > Ed Koffenberger January 6, 2012 at 7:43am 
          THE world is too much with us; late and soon,           
          Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:        
          Little we see in Nature that is ours;     
          We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!      
          The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;       
          The winds that will be howling at all hours,       
          And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;       
          For this, for everything, we are out of tune;        
          It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be          
          A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;                         
          So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,          
          Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;        
          Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;           
          Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

          Wordsworth 1806
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