Some new sprouts on our Forum which is itself a living, breathing entity. I am inviting myself to let go of trying to control anything here, to be with Jung/I “I’m a free spirit just wondering.” This resonates with a dream image which I recently worked. Dream Janet is very concerned that many people are wondering into her space and intruding on her privacy. She follows the man who is the leader of these men outside to complain and ask him to control them. He looks at her and says they are not harmful. In the transit into this dark haired, social services type man his stocky build, relaxed shoulders and open chest reveal themselves. He leads without controlling.
I don’t know how many of you are following the study guide written by Jill Fischer. Her synopses give us all a common way into the material in the lecture under discussion. So I’ll comment on a few passages that particularly move me.
Here in lecture 7, we enter ever more deeply into the death/rebirth mysteries. The death and rebirth of the sun is profoundly expressed in Egyptian mythology—Mother Nut who swallows the sun each night and gives birth to it each day. From “the sea of blood…the new sun arose…Jung/I: “When I comprehended my darkness, a truly magnificent night came over me and my dream plunged me into the depths of the millennia, and from it my phoenix ascended.” p. 274 fac. Let the horror be present. If you don’t confront it, Death will grab you from behind. Experience the fullness of Death—its own light. And then begins the reemergence—Jung’s optimism.
I very much appreciated the discussion of the necessity to develop the eye of cruelty and how to use peripheral vision to engage with the horrible/the traumatic without dissociation. How to be at the side of the countenance of the trauma and still have a clear vision of it. How to focus on an element that is not totally dangerous and then the trauma can freeze the system and slowly move through it and not grab you from behind. Again, from a recent dreamwork: a naked couple is seen. Suddenly the man seizes the woman, drags her outside and shoves her face down in the snow yelling (shaming her for being sexual?) In the dream Janet perspective there is great tension in the shoulders, fists in eyes full of tears not wanting to see this horrible shoving of the woman in the snow. But in the transit into the Primavera like woman, the cold of the snow slows everything down, there is stillness of breath and quiet. In her body the posture is a prostration, a surrender, a lion pose.
This is how the Red Book material is working me.
Best to you all,
Janet
Replies
I would add into this conversation the need to educate sensation/embodiment awareness--being able to feel in my body the effect of feelings and thoughts.
Examples:
fear in belly ache or legs that want to run away or neck that curves and pulls the head down and into my shoulders
excitement in heart racing, arms waving, thighs that want to jump up and down
joy/wonder/ in eyes open wide or an intake of breath or arms raising up and opening wide
anger in gritting teeth, tight fists, held breath
As teacher these embodied responses can be observed and then elicited from the child's own language what her/his embodied experience is.
Learning how to feel in/with my body helps to differentiate the phenomena of feeling, fact and combined states of reality.
And it serves the need to teach grounding and impulse control as well as keep the world of the imagination alive.
Many, many years since I taught grades 1-3. I'll see what else floats to the surface in response to this lively conversation.
Shall we continue in Lecture 8?
Yes, this is core, critical, essential, primary (fundamental) element for me that is not from a radical/Christian - fundamental indoctrination/doctrine - and this element can differentiate for life/death trajectories (5 light/1 dark NDE's) were the instruments/way out of all quagmires.
As you can tell by now, I am sensitive to cross-cultural, may I be so bold as to state - potential for contamination of words (meaning) out-of-context.
I am going back to the blood, death, ice atmosphere without wind, simply suspended/waiting. Looking forward to getting out of death, early temples and into Lecture 8 - incantations.....thanks for being with me in this. Regards Linda
I think you would make a wonderful Pre-school teacher, because you are willing to be 'real' to not pretend to always know the answers.
The easy part of teaching is to help the child understand what fact is. My students are very vested in making sense of the world and to get it right....they do want to know what is real because it is what our culture values, but, at the same time, they are also still connected to the imaginary world. I would like to be able to help them honor that part equally.
In my experience, children are usually really good at knowing the difference. If I ask, if something they just said is real or make believe, they definitely know the difference, though sometimes will say it is real, as in 'wistful thinking'. Like " I have a baby sister" The child does not have a baby sister, but will insist she does. Though if 'pushed' will agree that it is not real. It is an imaginary sister, which our culture denies having equal reality.
Thank you for your suggestions. I will keep you posted. Britt
No disrespect felt. This is a very important matter in the struggle with our innate fundamentalism which can't differentiate between facts and feelings. I think phenomenology is the way out of this quagmire.
Thank you for sharing your perspective, expressions above, and so ends my struggle with prior information and statement that 'from a Jungian perspective, innocence was a problem.' And then, there is the noumenon known by thought or nonsensuous intuition.
For me, phenomenon are so much more than 'equal importance of two elements - fact and feeling, and for me, what you share is profound, does have impact for you are/we are each other's other during this modern times - enterprise we willingly embark upon.
Perhaps, as this is my first experience into Jungian depths (Freudian exposure in late 1970's) with someone of your caliber, utilizing the centennial time, recent release of Jung's way via the TRB; I am out of his/your depths, however, my way in no way has anything to do with 'us' (forum group) 'learning to differentiate' feelings from facts, and I am simply trying to share that another element is present, exists for me in the phenomenology of it all.
I do so hope we are not getting into 'ism' conflicts (war of words/ideas), and perhaps my ass backward way, prior alignment with the existential is now colliding with my fellow Jungian sojourners, I truly mean no disrespect.
Unlike the bombers, my feelings of love tells me that the world is my oyster while I am still here. Maybe I ought to go back into silence and contemplate some more and follow this blog (others) for awhile. Regards Linda
This feels like an important question that would require lots of conversation. So we might as well begin. I have not worked with children that age, though I had children of my own and a grandchild. So I'm no expert. I can give the objectives: learning that feelings are different from facts. When I feel that nobody likes me it is a feeling. (Usually not a fact) A fact is when I am being bullied on the playground. Whatever we experience is valid as an experience though it may not be factual. There are two different realities in which we live simultaneously: the world of our feelings and our imagination; and the world of facts and physical reality. They are both equally important but fundamentally different. Would that be teachable?
I too have experience with children, grandchildren plus patients/clients, however, I am no expert concerning formal (private/public funded) educational pursuits.
I will admit I have/continue to enjoy magical playtime - summon the essence of the magical child within me to join the magical thinking, creative imagination realm of fantasy alongside a naive innocent child (protected/nurtured) or alongside a child with shattered innocence - two different realities of childhood existence.
I continue to struggle, Robert with the Jungian ideal (?) of 2 frameworks [Fines]/realities of existence in which we live simultaneously and the placement/treatment of innocence.
I personally and deeply know of a third realm of existence, early in life and our adopted children taught me more than any school of thought. So for me, there are 3 frameworks: Primary - reality/ world; Secondary - fantasy/imagination and Thirdly - reverence for so being placed in states of natural/unnatural juxtaposition.
Some aspects of the realms of existence are teachable; others are experiential and the school of hard knocks (life in one moment) can be an unbelievable, amazing teacher.
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I think that our first encounter with life is innocent. We don't make any distinction. Reverence for life is the most productive way of encountering the innocent perspective. I don't think what I am making is a Jungian distinction but a phenomenological one: once we have gone through the initial innocent and naïve appreciation of our encounters, we have to learn to realize -- learned and thus not innocent -- that the phenomena (sense perception of events) have an element of external reality (fact) and an element of perception (feeling, imagination, sensing, etc.) Both elements of the phenomenal world are of equal importance. This matters in respect to where things can go terribly wrong, like in the case of the Boston bomber. He took his feeling of alienation as the fact that the world was an enemy. I have nothing profound to express here. I just would like us all to learn differentiating between feeling and fact. Phenomena are comprised of both.
Thank you Robert! I will experiment with this distinction in my class and see what happens. We are usually busy making sure our students are grounded in facts and physical reality, and not spending much time helping them retain their inborn imaginary capacity.
Can you say a bit more about crossing the bridge between the two realities a child might understand? Britt
I think it might be useful to first let children understand what a fact is: Joey has curly hair, Joanne punched me. And then what a feeling is: I don't like the smell of poo. I feel afraid when it is dark. And then maybe for some time just identifying this is what I feel, that is a fact, and that is a bit of both. Then let them play a fairy tale and distinguish between feelings and facts. As you see, I'd make a terrible teacher. Keep me posted what experts like the children themselves think.
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