Remembering Dr. Jung's birthday smacks of sentimentality. Still I must shamelessly confess that all things Jung mean something special to me. Recently, Marvin Spiegelman wrote a wonderful review of my new book, Embodying Osiris, for the Jung Journal. Aside from the complementary things he wrote, I treasure it for the fact that he attended Jung's lectures and personally knew Marie Louise von Franz. Then there is Robert Johnson, my first analyst, who had a session with Jung to discuss a big dream. I could go on with these examples but this is sounding like bragging - which it is not. Admittedly, I've become a groupie in my older age treasuring signed books, collecting old photographs, reading intimate biographical details and yes, remembering Jung's birthday.

 

If any defense is needed, I plead "Egyptian." In my research of ancient Egypt, I've learned that these people believed that large reserves of a special magical power, heka, are contained in the gods, the pharaoh and the ancestors. This is the reason why we find the graves of masons, builders and even commoners buried need the pyramids. In one case, a man sneaked his dead child into the tomb of a pharaoh, hoping his child would thereby become immortal. (A ruined ritual described in the Osiris myth suggests a similar experiment.) As a kid growing up in a staunch Catholic tradition, I was impressed with the sacredness of relics - the bones of saints, popes, even some say, splinters from Christ's cross. If we translate heka into its modern equivalent, libido, an explanation for my sentimentality offers itself: I am attracted to the energetic power of life. Call me primitive, magical, Egyptian, whatever, but I believe in the flow of psychic energy and its powerful effects. Venerating Jung's birthday does not, in my view, elevate him to god status, but he does fall into that last category - ancestor.

 

Just as Jung thought himself a distant relative of Goethe, I like to imagine that I am Jung's kin. And just like his biological relatives who long protected his Red Book from being published, I feel a similar duty in carrying on his tradition through my writing, speaking and therapy work. I feel as though I was born into this family and in it I find a natural kinship with others who feel as I do. So let us cousins celebrate the birthday of this great man and carry on the work he started. There is a lot to do!!

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  • I really enjoyed how you put this as I feel a strong kinship to all things Jungian as well.  My kinship also extends to Dora Kalff who was my Sandplay teacher.  She was directly involved with Jung as well.  Sandplay has really been a blessing for me and my "career" and I continue to teach it as I was taught by Frau Kalff.  In fact, I just returned from Ireland where I taught a Master Class in Introduction to Sandplay as well as a workshop on Three Methods of Sandplay.  I have been invited back next summer (God willing as I am turning 84 in less than two weeks) where I will again do a Master Class on Sexual Abuse and Sandplay as well as one on Supervision of Sandplay Therapy.  This site is such a good one that I do check into from time to time, but haven't felt compelled to respond until I read your thoughts today.  Thanks for sharing.
    • It is wonderful and encouraging to hear from someone like you, who like Jung in his elder years, remains vital and contributing your wisdom. Thanks!
      • I have written a "sort of" memoir - A Salty Lake of Tears - that has been published by Fisher King Press.  It is mostly my story with some fantasy and mythology included. (In case you might be interested.)
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