Greetings, all, and welcome to the online discussion forum for "Salt, Black, and Blue" by Robert Bosnak and Pat Berry. Special thanks to Jung Platform and cyberdreamworks.com for making the 10-webinar series possible.
If you have any questions about registration, payment, or recordings for the course, please direct them to info@jungplatform.com, and reserve the space here for discussion, questions, and reflections about the webinars and related material.
When I first founded the Alliance in 2010, I had the vision that it could be a "global gathering place," a hub where people from around the world with an interest in depth psychology topics could come together and connect and learn from each other. That means EACH ONE OF YOU has a voice and a role to play here.
Whether you are new to the course or even if you took the previous one, please take a moment to share a sentence or two about what brings you here, your interest in alchemy, or your interest in salt, black OR blue. Or, let us know what you've been doing during the several months since the last course ended. Have you seen synchronistic manifestations of alchemy in your own life? Have you studied more or elsewhere? Are there questions that have arisen in the meantime that you can post here for others to ponder?
Please get involved and share with your peers; it makes the learning so much easier and more fun when we have many voices!
You can post in two ways: 1) REPLY to a post (like this one) by hitting the Reply button below, or 2) Create a NEW POST by hitting "Add a discussion" at the bottom left of the "Discussion Forum" section.
Off we go!
Replies
The schedule says the 3rd Alchemy discussion is tomorrow, Jan 29. I haven't received any emails. Has the schedule been changed?
Let me see what I can find out about tomorrow. I don't have any updated info.
OK, folks. Just heard back from Robbie. We are definitely "on" for tomorrow. It's apparently been hard getting all the info together to get out to us due to hectic schedules on multiple fronts. It should be out shortly (today!). Thanks for your questions.
Thanks for following up with Robbie. The next section is 'The How and When of Salting'. I assumed we were following the same pattern of one section per discussion and read this section.
Hi All,
Jung Platform has not answered any of my emails, or sent anything about tomorrow. I would also love to get the recording from last week's webinar that should get emailed within a few days after the discussion...
I am in exactly the same situation, but I don't have a solution. I have also sent two emails to info@jungplatform.com
In speaking of Hillman’s way with words, his gift to bring “sparkling insight” it seems to relate to a dream I had January 17, 2015
I woke up with only words, no images, no substantive presences, but the presence of this phrase, this concept was very substantive for me
A weaving of a poultice of words
a healing poultice of words
that made me think of my chapbook of poems I wrote from dreams I had worked with through Embodied Imagination, that I entitled "take this medicine twice a day”.
Words as literal medicine.
Hillman’s words, his poetics.
I would liken this to Jung’s experience of his vision of Elijah in the Red Book when he says,
Elijah: "We are real and not symbols." ~Carl Jung; Red Book; Page 246.
Elijah: "You may call us symbols for the same reason that you can also call your fellow men symbols, if you wish to. But we are just as real as your fellow men. You invalidate nothing and solve nothing by calling us symbols."
I: "You plunge me into a terrible confusion. Do you wish to be real?"
E: "We are certainly what you call real. Here we are, and you have to accept us. The choice is yours." ~Carl Jung; Red Book; Page 249.
That words, poetry, are themselves beyond metaphor, they are ‘real’.
If I were a salt, and if salt, per Hillman, is always contaminated, then I'm foodie salt. I'm organic Italian sea salt infused with locally grown fresh rosemary and lemon grass: common but pretentious.
And I look EXACTLY like my profile pic.
My name is Becky Christman. I'm currently an unemployed software engineer with no formal background in psychotherapy or any related psychological or social work field. My interest in taking the class comes from an interest in James Hillman's writing. My therapist of a decade ago introduced me to Hillman's writing because I was reading Jung and Joseph Campbell at the time. Over the years I've continued to read Hillman's work. I took this Alchemy class last year and was eager for the discussions to continue again this year.
For another class, I just finished a book about mummies in the Taklamakan Desert. The dates on the burials range from 2000 BC onward. Some of the mummies and their clothing are perfectly preserved due to the dry desert climate and also because they were burried in salt. Similar woven fabrics (plaid tweed) have also been found on Celtic mummies burried in the salt mines (Hallstatt) outside of Salzburg, Austria from about 400 BC.
Reading the Alchemy section on salt alongside the discussions of salt-preserved mummies has been an interesting synchronicity. Adding to the synchronicity, I live near the Great Salt Lake, which like the Taklamakan, is a salt-filled desert basin with no drainage to the sea. Over the next couple of weeks, I intend to drive out to the Salt Flats to the experience of the saltiness. If anyone here in Salt Lake wants to go on this excursion, let me know!
Hi Becky: Your comments and lovely invitation to visit the Salt Flats reminds me of something I had forgotten: years ago while traveling through Israel we stopped at the Dead Sea, walked across the sand and got into the Sea. It is not accurate to say "we swam in the Dead Sea." It is closer to say "we were swum by the Dead Sea" since a body bobs and sways, can sit upright, all buoyed by the remarkable consistency. Not wet, not dry. The water is not water, really, but a sticky substance that must be washed off right away. Of course nothing lives in the Sea and nothing exists of a plant life around the edge of the substance. It was unforgettable to feel that odd buoyancy.
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