JULY: Patricia Damery and Naomi Ruth Lowinsky: Marked by Fire: Stories of the Jungian Way.

 

“This life is the way, the long sought after way to the unfathomable which we call divine.” C.G. Jung, The Red Book        

                                                                  

Each of us has a story about how we found our way to Jung, or to Depth Psychology. Often it is a story about a life crisis: something or someone has died, the old structure falls apart, life as we knew it doesn’t work anymore.  We are disoriented, confused, depressed.  And then, something surprising happens, something new is born-- in a dream we discover a room in our house we never knew was there. These life altering experiences are our personal versions of Jung’s “confrontation with the unconscious” which he recorded in The Red Book. His courage has encouraged us all.

When Mel Mathews of Fisher King Press asked us to collaborate on an anthology, we knew we wanted a collection stories about the lived experience of the “Jungian Way.” We invited Jungian analysts and teachers to write personally about their own soulful paths, and how the fire marked them. The people we chose were able to do just that, following that trail of mystery Soul presents. Marked by Fire is the result. 

We are pleased to be able to converse with you who are members of the Depth Psychology Alliance’s Book Club about Marked by Fire.  It is our hope that you’ll feel inspired to reflect on your own life journey, and to share some of it with us.

Marked by Fire is divided into five sections.  During our four weeks together in July we plan to focus on each section.  We have four groups of questions for you which we will present at the beginning of each week. They correspond with the structure of the book. 

We’ll likely add more questions as our conversation sparks them.

 

First Week:

Please read the first three stories by Patricia Damery, Jerome Bernstein, and Claire Douglas, all of whose writings come under the Section Heading:  The Might of the Earth.  

 

The land is alive, sacred and essential in these stories. Patricia Damery awakened to soul on the farm where she was raised. Jerome Bernstein, a city boy, had an experience of merger with the land when he began working with the Navajo. Claire Douglas credits a farm she had in Oregon with saving her soul. That terrain nourished and cultivated her, and helped her find her circuitous way to Jung. 

Question: Has the Earth spoken to you on your own soulful path? Are there riddles you have been required to “live”? Have the ancestors of the land upon which you live influenced and/or helped you?  Do you have an early memory or dream that foreshadows your life’s concerns and passions?

 

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    • Yes, the earth has definitely spoken to me, and does so daily, if I listen. Sometimes I notice a rustling when I am thinking something, and it is an awareness in something besides what I think of only as my own psyche, a confirmation, perhaps. When I am in tune with the earth, I feel larger. There is a quiet joy within me, like my heart is humming. It happens in cities as well, but it is harder. There is so much noise, and that distracts me from hearing the earth's voice, which usually is pretty subtle. Heat, though, is not subtle, nor are storms, or winds. Sometimes it takes sledge hammers to get our attention.

    • Second Week: When Fate Becomes Destiny and Winter Roads


      This week we would like you to read the next two sections.  In When Fate Becomes Destiny we are invited into two very different childhood landscapes. Gilda Frantz and Jacqueline Gerson both have access to the highly imaginative and passionate children they were.  But Frantz’ early life was chaotic and unprotected while Gerson’s childhood in Mexico was warm and loving.  In their essays we can see the luminous and challenging paths of their becoming themselves—the fates they had to suffer, the destinies they claimed.


      Question: How would you describe your own childhood? Is there an image that comes to mind that tells a story that shaped you.  E.G. Gilda Frantz’ story of being sent alone on a Greyhound bus to live with her father (p.40)  Or Jaqueline Gerson’s  story of praying as a child that her parents would let her study dance (p.48)


      In Winter Road Jean Kirsch and Chie Lee tell stories of pilgrimages that take us to China, although in very different ways. Kirsch finds guidance and fatherly mentoring in the ancient Chinese book of divination, the I Ching. Lee came from a difficult history in China to find her way to Los Angeles, and to Jung.


      Question:  These women’s absent fathers heavily influenced their own soulful paths. Has an absent parent, or a too intrusive parent, influenced your soul’s path? Does a memory from your own life come to mind?

  • Dear all, I just got the (e)book and hopefully can start reading today.

    Great subject to philosophize about... 

    • Welcome!  We are glad you joined us! 

  • Hi Patricia, Naomi, and all. What a lovely introduction to a remarkable book! Thank you so much for the vivid and powerful imagery to launch us into the reading.

    I have only just begun, but finding myself halfway through Patricia's essay that starts the series, I am profoundly touched by the very personal sharing. In the wake of reading about your own experience, Patricia, of burying the powder tin "treasure box" in the yard--and the correlation with Jung's own play with the mannikin in the face of his family situation--I find myself remembering flashes of my own experience hiding "treasures" and acting out stories in the sandbox and in strawstacks with figurines made from things I found in nature. Some of these are things I haven't thought of in years and I'm finding this experience of remembering back to be very moving.

    I look forward to finishing the essay tomorrow and just can't wait to see what the rest of the book holds. Truly the reading is like a journey--very compelling. Thank you so much for sharing. I hope others of you are experiencing your own re-discovery of childhood and with it, not only our vulnerability and innocence, but also our amazing creativity and capacity to adapt and be. I encourage everyone to take a few moments and share what you can of this feeling here in this space this month....

    • Thank you, Bonnie,

      Reflecting on this childhood activity after reading Jung's Memories, Dreams, Reflections brought riches in a number of ways. First, it reminded me of doing it, and the importance of the activity to my child self in holding  anxieties and tension I could not consciously take on. "Unpacked" later,  the memory brought renewed confidence in the unconscious and in the language of the psyche in seeing Jung also engaged in such an activity as a child.  I think this dual function is a theme throughout many of these stories: the spiral aspect of experience. Each round of reflection serves in various ways, brings new vistas.

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