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                                                         

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  • Hi Britt,

    How interesting to read that you are teaching little children in the age of 3-6.
    What a “fruitful occupation !

    You asked me for the picture of the Roller Cloud, but for some reason I have missed this, I am sorry – I know that you asked for the picture of the Desert and I posted that picture on your Inbox – and now I shall post the Roller Cloud to your Inbox, OK ?

    Your question to ask for suggestions to teach imagination as 'real' to your young students puzzled me in a way, because you also wrote that some of the youngsters are very interested in pictures of mandalas, totems, and native mystical stories.

    I am not a teacher, but when my grandchildren ask me to tell them a story before they go to sleep, I use my fantasy / imagination to create stories for them, larded with tension and feelings - and when I see that their eyes light up, I know that I am on the right track and that my fantasies and imagination find response IN them.

    As example, as your students are drawn to the Roller Cloud, you can tell them all the imaginary stories that reach you – they could be endless, because when your engine is on temperature, you even might be able to receive images from the Collective Unconscious.

    That’s the only meager advise I can supply to you, and I hope that Robbie or fellow students will supply you with more adequate information.

    I wish you a fine Sunday – Ric.

  • Hi Linda,

    You mention hearing the recording of  the April 20  Q & A  Death and Taxes with Robert Bosnak.

    Where is that link?

    I haven't seen it on the Forum.

    Can it please be posted here?

    I'm sure it will stimulate much discussion and it's very pertinent to upcoming Lecture 8.

    Good listening to the Q & A and Lecture 8.

    Janet!

  • Good morning Ric - what an amazing photo and I so appreciate your efforts to find visualizations from natural nature for us to focus our attention on as we contemplate the depths within the concept/context we are travelling through.

    I notice no one has commented on this image - missed opportunity.  These rolling clouds appear commanding in their white, puffy compressed state, and I wonder about the force of the wind in between these sacred spaces.  Compacted, compression.  With the sun rising in the background of the horizon, this formation passes over the designs on earth, and I am struck by the formations, both circular and venous looking. 

    I get a sense connecting with this photo that I am gazing upon the regions of the ethereal, and the rolling clouds emerge like a  rolling pin - pressing while moving the atmosphere (winds/spirit), above and below.  And in this moment, I recall my moment, that first sensation of reconnecting - my light body to my heavy vessel and at long last, no longer walking between the worlds.

    Thank you Ric for this gift!  Regards Linda

    • I teach young children, ages 3 - 6 in a Montessori school, and would love to teach imagination as 'real'. Does anyone have suggestions about how to incorporate this into my curriculum, without seeming too obviously 'strange' to parents and staff : ) Robert mentions elementary classes, and I wonder if my age group is considered too young. I have noticed some of my young students seem very interested in pictures of mandalas, totems, and native mystical stories. Britt

      Ric....once again, I wonder if you would forward the photo of rolling clouds to me. I will share it with my class if you don't mind. Britt

  • Dear Forum Members,

    Yesterday in the  live Q & A  Robert Bosnak went beyond the title  Death and Taxes: The Journey into the Deep to include the Tax day/Patriot's day bombings at the Boston Marathon. I'll paraphrase a few points here until Machiel posts a link to the recording. Robbie spoke of how the underworld erupts into the upper/outside world. He made an impassioned statement that schooling (even elementary age and up) should include the education of the imagination as  a world with its own reality as real as the physical world.  When we pay our dues to the depth, the gigantic forces can come to meet us in the middle.  If we don't go there, these forces erupt. In Embodied Imagination we take the world of the imagination and the world of physicality each as real and keep both in a state of simultaneous, dual consciousness. If the terrorist takes the feeling state -- my life is empty and devoid of spirit as literal, he is caught in the web of words, cannot meet the "sludge of the nigredo" as a real place/state and ends up enacting the murderous eruption in the physical world. He succumbs to the belief that matter is devoid of spirit.

    I hope you all will listen to the recording, hear the questions asked and pose your own.

    The painful confrontation with death that happened in Boston surely brought about a greening there as well and an homage to the preciousness of life.

    Best to you all,

    Janet

    • Good morning Janet and fellow sojourners - thank you for sharing the recording and how wonderful to hear your voices.  I need to listen once more before I pose a question, however, what I do notice is the powerful words above - erupts, impassioned, bringing imagination into real world (out of fantasy realm - secondary framework and into physical realm in the world.  Paying dues (cost) to the depths - gigantic forces - meet in the middle.

      Find the middle ground and hold that fulcrum point of our unconscious into conscious reality and bring it to the attention of the collective.  Regards Linda

  • Nice to see new people postings, love the dream references.

    Again was thinking and talking about posting and realized how much it really takes to create a thoughtful post.  If it wasn’t for my commitment to moderating I honestly don’t know how much I would post, so I began to realize the breadth of all the 70+ of your experiences and differences in how we are all approaching and experiencing the lectures, the Red Book, each others posts, and posting. 

    I think this shift for me may have to do with “if you change, the countenance of the world [of the forum] changes.”

    Then of course (I can’t seem to help myself :)!) I would love to hear the different ways people are listening and experiencing.

    I really think that how it is going (the forum) is great, perfect, totally connected to the Red Book and a living entity, and continue to be thrilled, frustrated, excited and full with it all!

    Have a great time Saturday with Robbie and each other, I will be in school and Janet will record it for me.

  • Hi Everyone,

    Here is the phone connection info for the Q&A session this Saturday.

    Chris

    Topic: Death  and Taxes: The Certainty of the Journey to the Deep

    Day: April 20, 2013

    Time: 10 - 11 AM PST / 1 - 2 PM EST

    Location: phone 

    For teleconference participants:
    Dial (US) - 
    +1 559 546 1301
    Participant Access Code - 349069#

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    The Red Book Course Team

    Janet Fortess, Chris Doggett , Robert Bosnak, Jill Fischer,  CyberDreamwork.com, Bonnie Bright, Dr. Dave, and Machiel Klerk

     

  • Hi Janet,

    Well today is April 15, tax day in the United States. As they say: two things in life are certain, death and taxes. To celebrate April 15 as one of the two certainties we have in life I will be doing a Q and A about the Journey into the Deep on this Saturday, April 20, 10am Pacific Time, 1 pm Eastern, 19.00 in Europe.

    I will address the fact that we all will go to the underworld for sure, some day or other. That Jung's Red Book gives us the opportunity to join him in a more or less voluntary exploration. He lets himself drop in to this scary realm and finds many gems and a few monsters. I will respond to questions about this, maybe  even come up with some useful answers. It will be great to meet many of you who I only know through posts and others I don't know at all. I hope you can join me:

    In honor of April 15 celebrate with me the two great certainties in life.

    Machiel will send out information how to join us in this voice forum.

    Cheers

    Robert

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