Dear Depth Psychology Alliance book club participator,
I want to welcome you to the book club for the month of February. During this month we will discuss my book The Cycle of Life: Themes and Tales of the Journey, and I invite you to share your thoughts, comments and questions on this theme.
I write these lines from my home in Ra'anana, a small town north of Tel Aviv, at the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. This is the narrowest part of this small country, around 9 miles from the sea to Israel’s border with the Palestinian National Authority in the east (the local bus will take you cross-country).
This place in which I live, seems to eternally waver back and forth between profound creation and relentless destruction. Here, history fuses with mythology, and the heart of three monotheistic religions beats from within an area of a third of a square mile; a heartbeat that sends hurricanes of the spirit and floods of blood, across the face of the earth. From this same harsh earth arose, as well, some of humankind’s most powerful beliefs and influential individuals.
Hope and despair are common visitors in the souls of the peoples that dwell here, coloring their passions in dark red and their spirits in deep blue. You will find the terrors of war alternating at your doorstep with the dreams of reconciliation, reminding you how small we humans are, particularly when we have power and guns in our hands (on all sides). We are constantly reminded of the responsibility that rests on the shoulders of Psyche in each and every one. As Jung said, man’s psyche is the origin of all coming evil.
I have shared my thoughts about these issues in other books.* However, one further characteristic brings us to the cycle of life: the seasons. Here, at the eastern Mediterranean (which means “the sea in the middle of the earth”), the seasons don’t flow gently into each other. The seasons that soften the transition between summer and winter are very brief, sometimes barely noticeable. Likewise, the transitions along life’s journey, from the fires of adolescence to the gray ground of adulthood, for instance, may be sharp and painful. In some, this may evoke resistance and the desire to stay forever young, as in the puer aeternus or the puella aeterna, the eternal youth, who refuses to grow up. Others may prematurely, and sometimes unprepared, have to take on the burden of adult responsibilities, experiencing how the fire and the spirit of youth are extinguished.
My book focuses less on actual development through life’s stages, but rather on the archetypal core of the respective stages, or ages of life, from the perspective of their archetypal meaning. Consequently, the emphasis is not on the child’s development through the stages of childhood, but rather on the child as carrying the image of living in “the mysterious world of mythical images and magical relatedness,” as Gerhard Adler says.
I suggest that whoever wants to participate travels the journey of the book in whatever personal way you find suitable. The reading of the book’s 182 pages easily lends itself to be divided in four: first week we’ll concentrate on the journey, second week on the child, third week on adolescence and adulthood, and fourth week on old age. But find your own path! Sometimes, some of us, start reading a book from the end, or are drawn to a chapter of particular interest. I do suggest, however, that we share thoughts and comments according to this weekly schedule, to keep a certain structure in a world that too easily lends itself to chaos.
So this first week, let us focus on the journey. I have chosen the image of the river, from its source, and then the course the river of one’s life may take, until it finally dissolves in the sea. When Jung, in his essay on the stages of life, emphasizes the importance of ‘problem’ on life’s journey, his intention is clearly living the conscious life. What does that mean? How do we live consciously?
Please be free to relate in whatever individual way you choose, with comments and questions. I will respond regularly, and I hope it will be an enjoyable journey together.
If you are interested, you may listen to or watch an interview that Bonnie Bright conducted with me.
Furthermore, there will be two drawings, one on February 14th for The Hero and His Shadow, and one on the 28th for Enemy, Cripple & Beggar. The winner of the book will be announced the following day.
Looking forward to sharing thoughts and perspectives along the journey,
Erel Shalit
*Please see my The Hero and His Shadow (the most recent, revised edition of this book was published this January by Fisher King Press); and Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return (if you sign up for my newsletter, you will receive a free pdf eBook edition of the novella, but those of you who, like me, prefer the ‘real’ thing, can purchase it at Fisher King Press, Amazon or elsewhere).
Replies
Thank you Ruth! This is a wonderful experience for me as well, to receive the many valuable comments and be able to interact in this immediate way with you all. Since the main chapter of the week pertains to the archetypal image of the Child, I would like to add a brief comment on this. A Jungian perspective often reverses causality between the empirical and the theoretical. James Hillman, who Deborah so gracefully brought in, was a master, and his perspective was archetypal and not empirical.
If we look at child and childhood – what comes first? Do we learn about the child from our childhood, or is childhood the stage during which the Child archetype manifests most prominently?
I believe it goes both ways. We do extract much knowledge, certainly personal memories, and the development of individual complexes, during the stage of childhood (which, as Freud and many cultures before him knew, is a universal, archetypal phenomenon). But childhood is also the time during which the crucial aspects of the Child archetype manifest, a layer close to the objective psyche and the powers of the unconscious. In psychotherapy, we look back at childhood not only because of etiological reasons, but because it lends itself as a stage upon which we can sense and let our wounds play out. Childhood is something that we have left behind us, it resides not in front of us but behind us, and therefore serves well as a stage upon which we can more easily detect aspects of our shadow. Childhood makes it easier to look at our shadow, because we can, at least initially, blame our parents, rather than taking immediate responsibility ourselves for our shortcomings.
Hope you enjoy the reading – soon we'll arrive at the complex state of youth!
Erel
Dear Erel and Everyone,
I have noticed that for those who were 'senex at a young age,' learning how to play at mid life is cruicial. Some of us were not allowed to do such things. It brings to mind a client who has passed. She could not get dirty, etc. It was demanded of her that she be and remain a 'barbie doll' perfect in every way. Her only child is a very attractive and talented 'puella' actress who lived out the childhood/child archetype for her. The client lived vicariously through her as 'stage mother.' This is what brought her to me as she could not let go as her daughter moved into her 20s and left home for NYU Theater School. Unfortunately, she died without being able to fully integrate her own child/childhood.
You ask 'what comes first - childhood or child and then that it goes both ways. With those who were forced to grow up too soon or be too perfect in order to please a narcissistically deprived parent, what do you think is a good way to access the energies of the child archetypal pole? I encourage artistic expression. I urge them to paint, dance, sing, anything to tap into the creative potential of the child archetype. When they say that they are not creative, I get them to bring in film, poetry or song that touches them deeply.
Thanks so much for the opportunity to express myself and learn from everyone here. nance
Dear Nance and all participants,
Your point illustrates well how the developmental stage and the constellation of its archetypal nucleus do not always occur simultaneously, which often creates a problem, as in your example of a 'senex-child'.
Midlife is crucial – it often entails a confrontation with the death of the sense of meaning in one's life up till that point – which is a danger and an opportunity, and of course does not refer to the tragedy of premature physical death, as so sadly was the case in the woman you are referring to.
Midlife – whenever that is, and in many instances I would say late midlife; but let us here consider 'midlife' to be the turning point, whenever that actually occurs in the chronology of one's life - can open the door for the very opposite of one's conscious identity up to that point. Often it means being more authentically the individual that I am, to bring into awareness repressed parts of my being, for instance the Child in me. A too analytic approach may then, sometimes, be contra-indicated, and an openness to play and expressive means more rewarding. I recall how greatly I enjoyed being in sand tray therapy (in my early forties), taking great liberty in constructing wild scenes, bringing in material –wood, stones, paper, etc. – from the outside, to suit my experiments in playing.
So I completely agree with you – the child in us is not fully accessed by a merely analytic approach!
Erel
Dear Nance,
I can only feel grateful for comments like this! And what a wonderful example! The idea that there is no old age, or for the puer/puella, not even adulthood, but a fiction of eternal youth, is tragic. Often the puer encounters the senex drastically and unexpectedly, because there is no adequate bridge or link between the ages. The art is, rather, to be able to carry into old age some of the water of the child and the fire of youth, but within the container of old age.
Erel
In one of his last lectures, on "Puer and Senex'" James Hillman declared himself an unrepentant puer still integrating his senex energies. He stressed how little either energy had to do with physical age. Of course, James was using a bit of hyperbole--his discipline, wisdom, and sobriety regarding psyche always in evidence during his talks. But also into his 80's Hillman bristled, combusted, and sparked with creative passions--he was the very embodiment of what Nance and Erel write of--in Erel's words above, someone who "carried into old age the water of the child and the fire of youth, but within the container of old age," (although, I admit, it was hard to view Hillman as "old."). I miss him!
Dear participants,
A week has past since we began this journey, and I really appreciate your participation – in reading my book (which is particularly dear to me), sharing your thoughts and replies, and actively commenting.
The journey through life is really the conscious journey, living one’s life and relating to what one lives. That’s why I also chose Hermes as an image of the traveler, being the essence of the traveler along the horizontal road of reality (e.g. businessmen and thieves), and the vertical road, down to the netherworld of souls and the upper echelons of the spirit. By means of Hermes in our psyche, we try to read hermeneutically – to interpret the ‘texts’ of life, its essences and meanings. Paradoxically, the Hermetic path of transformation takes place, to a great extent, in the hermetically sealed vessel.
On our journey through life, we meet the child. Or, rather, the Child, meaning the archetypal motif of the child, not only one’s personal childhood. As Jung says, “The child motif represents the preconscious, childhood aspect of the collective psyche.”
Thus, the child carries the image of living in “the mysterious world of mythical images and magical relatedness,” as Gerhard Adler says, “indeed it is immersed in the world of the images of the collective unconscious, of the mythological past of mankind which is as yet undimmed by the concrete realities of the present.”
I have chosen The Abyss, The Divine Child and The Orphan to represent three major aspects of the Child archetype. They are all necessary in the actual development of the child, but features of them remain all through life. Depending on the child’s actual experience, one or another of these may predominate. Often, the necessary experience of abandonment, as part of growing up, develops into feelings of having been neglected. In the book, I discuss the relationship between trauma and complex, particularly in regards to abandonment and the Orphan aspect of the Child archetype.
I wish you continued pleasurable reading, and am looking forward to your further thoughts.
Thank you all for participating – in a week’s time we’ll have a drawing of my book The Hero and His Shadow.
Erel
Erel,
I specialize in the midlife and beyond experience in my private practice. This is my second career having taken up the study of Jung around 45 and entered training analysis in my 50s, but it was interupted by Hurricane Katrina. I am interested in what you have to say about compensatory activities like career. As you know in America we like to work and make money and many define themselves in this way.
Most of my clients are very successful corporate executives, but can't access the divine child so as to bring in creative ideas about how to move beyond the outward success to prepare for Elderhood much less aging and death. In your book (if I remember correctly) you state that 65 is considered the end of midlife.
I define 50+ as Third Stage of adult life and the time to begin to think in terms of Elderhood in the truest sense of the word. It is my experience that everyone becomes an adult, but few embrace becoming an Elder which by definition would mean that they have lived consciously. Can you speak to this?
Thank you for sharing your time, knowledge and experience. nance
Dear Nance,
Thank you for your very interesting comment. You bring the Divine Child into the realm of the Elder. I believe that we are witnessing the possibility of a "new old age." With the possibility, for many, to live longer, and remain healthy longer into their old age, we might witness not only a renewal of the classical, but often neglected conditions of the older person (and by and large I agree, 50/60+), who has gathered experience that can be turned into meaningful wisdom. We might see the creative stage of the older person, who is able to integrate essential features from all past and present stages (or ages) of his or her life – the child, the puer and the adult, integrated into a meaningful and creative whole, able to both live and look at life, to create and creatively observe, learn and express.
So thank you for your valuable comment!
Erel
Dear Erel, thank you so much.
My mentor is an 82 years old physician who just completed a book of poems entitled 'An Old Man and His Garden.' This is his third book in ten years. We speak often of how challenging it is to integrate the puer/puella experience in order to balance it with the senex (or vise versa) especially if there is a trauma like illness during midlife. I feel blessed to have someone like this is my life at almost 60.
From my point of view we Americans are a nation of puers/puellas. We speak of 40 being the new 30; of 50 being the new 40, etc. Personally I think this is very dangerous as it doesn't allow us to embrace the wisdom years in ways that have already been mentioned.
Again, thank you for your time, knowledge and experience.
nance
Dear Cathy,
Thank you for your comment! The fear of death is, I believe, a healthy fear. The avoidance of the fear and the efforts at denial of death are detrimental. Death, and the fear of it, puts a boundary to hubris. We are mortals. We are rather small in a universe that remains largely unknown – and perhaps the more we know about it, the greater the questions. With an awareness of death, which perhaps should not be too easily accepted (if ever it would be easy to truly accept death), we are called to induce our lives with a constant sense of meaning. Erel
-
2
-
3
-
4
-
5
-
6
of 6 Next