Hi everybody and Happy Holidays. The synchronicity of this lecture is interesting.
A quote from Janet
“Very Easter! Logos made flesh. Body higher than Logos.
"The amount of creation that it takes to be a human body in the flesh is one of the pinnacles of creative energy...The essence of the creative is embodiment....Otherwise Christ would not have come as a man but as a concept."
Anybody see any Passover synchronicities?
Also the fact that we are back in the desert with the Anchorite may explain why the postings have ‘dried up’. :) (Not referring to Ric and Linda of course, thank you for your thoughtful discussions)
Of course Janet, Bonnie, Machiel, Robbie and I are busy trying to make ‘meaning’ of it and how we can encourage more activity.
Any ideas?
One thing we are concerned about is if everyone is getting the posting notifications in your emails? It seems in order for that to happen you need to choose to ‘Follow’ for each new discussion underneath the reply box under the first posting of the discussion. (Should be this one for Lecture 6)
OK, enough of my worries let’s start talking about this Lectures very full content as Jung and we reenter the desert in a fuller way, a more embodied way, where we notice more detail, more feeling and are allowing a sense of wonder and surprise.
OK, so as I’m now writing this and trying to allow that to happen for me I remember a new, surprising feeling I had today in a writing as healing workshop. As Jung re- enters the desert by way of grief, I revisited the experience of trauma I shared with you about my first love Doug last session. Today as I wrote about it I got in touch with Doug’s possible experience of the break up and realized it must have been very hard for him as well. As I did that my heart broke open with a new pain, not the pain I have been re-living as my story of how much he had hurt me for the last 40 years, but his pain! It must have been very painful for him as well, and my love for him deepened as I felt so bad for the boy I loved so deeply being in pain. I was definitely astonished at this new level of grief. Wow, I actually feel for someone else!! (Not my strong suit usually) Perhaps an “unlearning” on my part as well as an example of me coming out of my “desert” a bit by engaging with Doug’s feelings.
Well there is another personal revelation of Chris’s and I wonder/worry that that may be putting some of you off from posting, perhaps thinking that is what we expect from you. You are more than welcome to of course, and , most certainly not a requirement!
So much more in this segment, love to hear your thoughts and feelings.
Also please don’t let the idea you have to create some masterpiece to post hold you back,
one sentence or even fragments work!!
Replies
Welcome to friend and classmate Lauren Schneider to The Red Book Forum. As time in dream/the imaginal is not linear so it is fine to bring your profound experience in the water to our time in the desert. The Red Book Forum exists to give each member an opportunity to share how you came to The Red Book and what impact Robbie’s lectures are having on each of you. Whether that impact is tsunami like or more like a babbling brook-- how is this material moving you? Much appreciation also, Lauren, for your clear and self-revealing description of Embodied Imagination in dreamwork and the depth you bring from tarot and I Ching.
You write: “This sense of the beauty and rhythm of the light and the dark is new.” In the chapter, The Anchorite (p. 270 facsimile, p.251 Reader’s Edition) ”And thus the word should become what the darkness can comprehend, since what use is the light if the darkness does not comprehend it?....Honor the darkness as the light, and you will illumine your darkness.” We might look at those last three paragraphs of the chapter and open a fuller discussion.
Again, welcome aboard!
Janet
Good morning Janet - multilinear indeed - water / desert / ice. Page 270 (251) stirred primitive fight [anger] in me - the part you did not disclose concerning mother. I am novel in Jung's [analytical] psychology, mythology, and it has been a long time since I studied man, myth and magic.
I do know referencing internal complexes is big in this doctrine, however and for me, the extreme end of the light/dark polarized posture noted in his imaginings leaves out, midway stations - the fulcrum balancing point (ground zero measure) I based my life upon and I will try to find the words to explain my strong reaction to the generalization that mother is darkness and dangerous.
I am an adoptive mother to children who's biological mother/father figures were dark and dangerous for the children they reproduced, in episodes of frank mental illness, therefore, I am struggling with this page for mother is so much more to me and the children I have had the privilege to nurture. Regards Linda
Good evening Ric - full, rich, logos/eros, word/flesh, all livings things created, TRB, attitude of extreme wonder, in astonishment and awe - magnificence, mentioning Jung with the Anchorite in the desert by chance. other sources of chance potential including this chance [one year in this TRB Lecture Series] - to be with each other!
Thanks for sharing your amazing find [photo of plant anchorite in the desert] with us all in this phenomenal space. Regards Linda
Hi Charlene et all,
Here is my delayed response to your post from Lecture 5 (copied below).
I’m quoting Robbie so he may have more to say about what he means by measure.
I feel in the Red Book that Jung is invited to the dance, to joy, to live life to the limits, to step over the edge to experience full identification with the image/other and then (it seems inevitably) he pulls back –into symbolizing, interpreting, defining, speaking about rather than embodying. Very much the opposites like a see-saw.
Measure, for me, refers to a multivalent perspective (e.g. how long? how far? how heavy? and also pacing) not the either/or of the opposites. Perhaps ironically, I need to have a strong “I” and live life fully in order to set myself apart (loosen my identification with my habitual ego stance) and allow an authentic meeting of other. Otherwise, I’m in danger of being captivated by other and losing myself. What measure affords is the ability to be enlivened by the gradation of expansion of my sense of my inner world that comes from genuine interaction with otherness. Well, that’s my thinking at the moment.
What do you think?
Janet
Reply by Charlene Jones on Wednesday
I am deeply curious by your comment, Janet, "If you find measure in your confrontations and limitations by others-in the setting yourself apart- if you do that in measure, then you find the other in the inner world as well." Would you speak to this more fully please?
Here in Lecture 5, Robbie speaks of measure. “If you don’t live life to the full you will be captivated by the expectations of others. (Jungs says) You must live life to the hilt—this is achieved by balance, by nurturing the opposites. I’d like to insert the notion of measure is more important than the opposites. If you find measure in your confrontations and limitations by other—in the setting yourself apart—if you do that within measure, then you find the other in your inner world as well. Jung calls this opposites. I call it other, not necessarily opposite but another.”
Well first, I’m quoting Robbie here and perhaps he’ll add to the understanding of what he means by measure. I take “measure” to refer to a multivalent perspective, not the either/or of the opposites. If I set myself apart (loosen my identification with my habitual ego stance) and allow an authentic experience of/confrontation with other, then I am informed by other from within/ in my inner world. But first I must know my limits otherwise I am captivated (colonized?) by the expectations of other .
Good evening fellow sojourners - glad to see Janet speak to Charlene's request to 'speak more fully' on outer influence, expectations of others followed by her prompt asking us for our thoughts, so here goes....I will admit that part of me is way back, and still waiting, for what is to come to me concerning the frozen morsels in TRB, which speaks to me deeply...to be caught or stuck together on the surface (face) the deep is frozen (Job 38, 30), and the other aspect - the pressed, healing juice (fruit) that comes out...way back, so much so, I find myself on an off ramp into 'The Way of the Fruit' since the 3rd Lecture. I have been gifted with a guide (a friendly other) with whom I can converse with following these side trips from the lecture at hand.
Concerning Lecture 5 and Jung's comment about 'living to the hilt' [completely to the very limit] by balancing, nurturing the opposites...I am so grateful Robbie inserted the notion of measure, shared his setting himself apart from the Congo confrontation as another. I also like the way Janet speaks of authentic experiences of/with confrontation with other, gains insight and a 'must' need to know her limits.
I am still way back at Jung's choice of words - hilt (a 12 century word: handle of a sword/dagger); without the hilt, one would bleed without the limit placed upon the sword/dagger by the insertion of a hilt. I have now reached my depth limit today and return to my way of moment-to-moment living. Regards Linda
Good morning Fellow Soujourner's - I can recall my sand-storm experience within phenomenal grievous moments, trying to be/dance with the themes of grief at that time and holding onto my 20 year old ideal captured within NDE that grievers who do their grief work, make great lovers of life. Here I am 45 years later and that thought/ideal remains a mainstay for me: as long as I can walk, talk, breathe and poop - everything else in life is gravy.
Ric + I also discussed the silence of the other members of our group and we made the decision to hold ourselves back from commenting - to be in the silence with our group other's. However, we did utilize private conversations to dance with the emerging themes: numbers 10, 12; went back to the frozen state of the healing grapes and got into trees, life and the fruits. I hope Ric shares the picture he found concerning the re-emergence into desert experience. Regards Linda
Hi Linda! I love that statement...."walk, talk, breathe and poop : ) perhaps with a few other things added. The point is clear, but why is the grief work sooooo distasteful?
I feel the need to comment on the silence from my end, so her goes. I work full time...two jobs etc. etc. I love the lectures and the book, but find that it takes my available free time just to think about the content and what it means to me on a personal level. I just simply run out of time to sit down to write anything I think would add to the discussion. Also, we who were born before 1946 are considered part of the 'silent' generation...could that have something to do with my reluctance to dive in.
Best wishes to all. Britt
Good morning Britt - grief work is the hardest healing work I have competed to date and during my Masters I found the research work: thermatic analysis of grievers by Susan Carter that gleamed nine themes within the phenomena of grief. I found working myself through these themes [+ sub-component parts] helpful during my rude awakenings, resultant burden inherent in the multitude of living/finite losses/grief experiences that seemed to collide and accumulating together at a particular point along my journey, way of life.
The 9 themes are: Being Stopped, Hurting, Missing, Holding, Seeking, Change, Expectations, Inexpressibility and Context.
The other jewel that provided me with soul food was the writing of Barbara Johnson on 'No Regrets.' She shares the formation story of the Opal as a stone with a broken heart. Made of dust, sand and silicia, it is full of minute fissures that allow air to be trapped inside. The trapped air refracts the light, resulting in the lovely hues that inspire the Opal's nickname - the Lamp of Fire. When kept in a cold, dark place, the opal looses its luster. But when held in a warm hand or when the light shines on it, the luster is restored. So it is with us. A broken heart becomes a lamp of fire when we allow God to breathe on it and warm us with life.
I was so moved by this piece that I inserted Barbara's wisdom into my Mom's' Eulogy, named 'Between My Mother & Me. Interesting getting through phenomena, into flow, moment-to-moment living is the literal becoming manifest, and for me, this speaks deeply of being 'held in a warm hand' and then, becoming the warm hand.
As your time is limited, I also went into the Social Librarian (William J. Schroer) site to look up you (we) being part of your information that were considered a silent generation. I looked up my husband + myself who were born in the 40's. When I shared that I was a child of the 60's, I need to clarify that, that was our 'coming of age' time, so my husband was born in the Post-War Cohort generation (1928-1945) who came of age 1946-1963 and known as the generation who had significant opportunity in jobs/education as post-war economic boom struck; however, growth in cold war tensions/potential for nuclear war (never before seen threats) led to levels of discomfort and uncertainty throughout the generation who value security, comfort, and familiar, known activities and environments.
Boomers 1 (The Baby Boomers) born between 1946-1972 came to age in 1963-1972 who were bound by the Kennedy + Martin Luther King assassinations, the Civil Rights movements and the Vietnam War. Boomers 1 were in or protesting the war. Boomers 2 (Generation Jones) born between 1955-1965) came to age in 1973-1983 missed the whole thing. Boomers 1 had good economic opportunity, were largely optimistic about potential of America and their own lives, exception - the Vietnam War. Boomers 2 were the first post-Watergate generation who lost much trust in government and optimistic views Boomers 1 had. They endured oil embargo of 1979, got the sense of "I'm out for me,' narcissism, focus on self-help, skepticism over media/institutions representative of attitudes of this cohort. Boomers 1 had Vietnam and Boomers 2 had AIDS as part of their rights of passage.
Just as Jung had visions of the 'blood of his time;' we have our own items to content with. I found looking back into Schroer take in his site aimed to 'brings the power of social marketing to library professionals' - great gems to also ponder.
Anyways, Britt - that is enough depth for today. I am not sure if you are a Boomer 1 or 2, but silence did not manifest in sources I scanned. 'Reluctance to dive in' is known, familiar and cool with me too. Got to be one of those universal spots along the road of life and may I be so bold as to ask - dive in where? - the water, the ice, the fire, the fold and that you can trust as your own measure at this point in time. After all, I was an 'underground' trauma counsellor for over 20 years as the people I served were silent survivors of abuse(s). I am so grateful for this space, breaking silence ( which is a cornerstone of abuse); all the encouragement, respect and sense of community within the depths. I remain within the ice that has met the fire, but interesting enough have a deep respect, underlying fear of water. We all have our element!
Peace + love Linda
PS. I was not a hippie, however, I did follow a band (one summer as a 'groupie') and our USA neighbors were draft doggers.
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