At my request, someone emailed me a section from their in process autobiography. Curious and interested, I wanted to sniff the flavor of its essence and writing style. After reading a small, poignant selection of the author’s work, I responded hastily to what I’d read. In my response, I’d used the terms soul print, and soul imprint interchangeably. This term foreign to Ed its author, was frankly upon further reflection, also rather foreign to me. So, when he wrote back asking, “What is a soul print or imprint?” I, prompted and moved by his question, my own curiosity and the concurrent background sounds of a howling coyote enjoying a much coveted kill outside my tiny canyon home, proceeded to offer up an answer!

As so often happens, in unintentional Talmudic style, Ed’s question led to other questions, as my own need to craft a less cavalier, more thoughtful, response and definition of greater depth encompassed me. As I worked to further mine the meaning of the term soul imprint, it became clear that my request to read Ed’s work and his curious question, were unintended gifts.

With the term soul, currently red hot and growing hotter with each day, commercially, collectively and in psycho-spiritual circles, it is no surprise that my use of the phrase, soul print, thrown out so cavalierly by me across the internet miles, clearly warranted, if not further thought, then at the very least, an exploration of greater clarification and depth.

I was interested in following through on this exploration, but my immediate answer to Ed’s request for a clearer definition of the term soul print would have to wait. Or, if not wait, then be further defined by my efforts to seek a clear definition of the term. Not exactly comfortable I’m sure, for the quick response often sought by an Aries! However, I do thank Ed for the provocation, elicited by his question! And so I riffed on it and riffed on it until I felt inklings of the satisfaction that comes with having riffed just long enough so that at the very least, as in the Talmudic tradition, further questions while not completely answered have at least been provoked.

There’s no holding back or denying the impact that being such an integral and intimate part of the terminal ending of a beloved’s only partially lived life, must’ve had upon Ed in his role as caretaker of his terminally ill partner.

I imagine that for Ed, the witnessing of, caring for, and final loss of a piece of himself and of his life, at the very least, qualified as having left a significant soul print in its own right. One might conjecture, that a terminal experience such as that, had penetrated to the very matrix of Ed’s own life and very soul. Yet, a soul print made and left by the hand of a child in wet cement, also conjures the as yet unlived possibility of the kind that only a tiny hand print left by a small child in wet cement might evoke. In fact, both the loss of Ed’s friend and lover, and that of the as yet undeveloped   hand print of a small child may both be considered to be mysterious images of as yet unlived possibilities. One, never to be lived, the other, a tiny, presumably living hand, so very much alive and waiting in life’s wings, for actualization.

Other questions arose within me as I reflected upon and contemplated this notion of soul prints. For example, is the capacity to create and/or to experience the living out and unfolding of soul imprints as given at or with birth carried within the physiological DNA until fleshed out by the experiences of our lives, and of which my friend Ed’s experience is but one example

There is no doubt that it fits as a part of his nature, his autobiography, as well as that of his departed friend. What is one to do with this kind of experience? Ed has certainly personally carried it forward into his life’s work with the dying. Are their different soul imprint questions and issues at different stages of life? How does one live from here on out after a life-changing event? What impact, i,e, soul print/imprint, has, does, or will trauma make upon one’s biography? Poetic? Literal? Psychological? Physiological? Is the impact, if there is one, ever complete in and by its effect(s)? After a powerful experience, is one called upon to take from and give back to life differently? And/or to be in this life more fully, perhaps even more courageously, while allowing and awaiting the unlived, untried, sleeping dimensions of oneself to awaken?

What are psyche’s (soul’s) messages (imprints) in the here and now?  Do they translate only into rich, unique, though often difficult, life experiences? If so, what kind? Will something of value continue to emerge from Ed’s deceased friend, even now while Ed is still alive? Does the living on of their experience continue? If so, how, and where? What is the special facet of the autobiographical imagination that makes this experience, this soul imprint, their soul imprint unique?

Seems to me, for an experience to be and/or to leave a soul print or imprint on and in one’s life, it must fall into at least one or more of the categories listed below:

1. Must be an integral and necessary part of one’s calling
2. This calling may be further indentified/articulated in and by the patterns in one’s astrological horoscope such as has been postulated by Hadley Fitzgerald and myself in our recently released publication, Images of Soul: Reimagining Astrology.
3. The archetypal, astrological horoscope itself, in its entirety, with its various themes, that when taken together become one large soul imprint and/or container out of which smaller soul imprints may be created, lived and when appropriate released into the world?
4. Possess certain unique qualities, gifts, and/or talents, that like a finger print, belong to, identify and represent only you.
5. Are any pro, or con, life-altering, life-changing experience or set of experiences that throughout the course of one’s lifetime, could be said to be responsible in-part for the transformation and/or the course of one’s life.

And, then there’s that one final question that occurs to me now, here at the end of this blog:

1. Is there an aspect of your psyche’s DNA that you would, if given the chance, designate as your eternal soul print or imprint? And if, given the vote, how would you like this imprint to be remembered, and/or identified at the soul level?

JANUARY 16, 2015

Judith Harte, Ph.D., LMFT

Psychotherapist/Marriage/Family Therapist /Archetypal Astrologer/Emerging Sculptress/Author

I have recently begun a blog through WordPress for friends, ,patients and others who are not on DPA. However, I intend to feature it on DPA as well. Looking forward to your responses and interfacing with you about this and other things in the near future.

Our book Images of Soul: Reimagining Astrology will be released in Kindle form very soon through Amazon Books. 

I'm loving this crisp, fast, well directed Aries energy looming ahead. At least so far! How about you?

Judie

THE ASTROLOGICAL  HOROSCOPE:

                                                    & HESTIA’S INNER DIVINITY

About a year ago, I noticed some activity within my own horoscope involving Hestia, that mythic, spiritual, virginal, asteroid goddess of the hearth.  Curious, about what this might mean, I researched Hestia’s mythical story, while observing her astrological movement and activity within my own horoscope.  By way of explanation, asteroids, are those astronomical, allegedly less significant points or mythical figures within a horoscope. Don’t be fooled! Their symbolic existence and activity pulls some heavy weight and mighty punches! What I conjectured after careful research, thought and reflection, about Hestia’s place in the hidden spotlight of my own life, was that some emergent, spiritual, inner and/or outer deeply psychological activity, perhaps referencing religious, and/or mythic figures was about to assume center stage.  

Hestia did not disappoint. Before too long, a book, entitled Images of Soul-Reimaging Astrology, coauthored by myself and Evolutionary astrologer and Marriage, Family Therapist, Hadley Fitzgerald, began taking shape, and is now available for online purchase through Amazon books.  

In our book, Hadley and I, both astrological/psychotherapists, set forth the notion, that each horoscope is driven by a mysterious inner time piece, curiously cloistered within the image of an acorn. The significance of at least half of this metaphorical configuration, that of the acorn’s symbolic value and purpose, is closely akin to central ideas postulated by the late James Hillman, in his groundbreaking best-seller, The Soul’s Code. 1

Our book conjectures, that within each horoscope, there lives the metaphorical image of an acorn, inside which, is a mysterious time piece mechanism that contains and drives our soul’s code – our particular path -- and acts as guide, to each person’s life calling.  We hypothesized, that if one were to embrace this notion, one might be afforded a real life, depth understanding of psyche, and the opportunity to consciously embrace their fate and life direction.  We further speculated, that exploring one’s “Soul’s Code,” while guided by a metaphorical acorn, that contains and is driven by the rhythmic pulse of a mysterious, inner time keeper, who is at the ultimate direction of an, angel, or daimon, carried implications for the understanding of both psyche and horoscope. We postulated that horoscope, acorn, timekeeper, and daimon, were reliable, poetic, viable pathways to calling, inspiration and soul.

Although Hadley and I each brought our own divergent biases and methods, to our co-authoring experience, we discovered that rather than clashing, our positions were in fact quite complimentary.   Despite our contrasting methods, we were, each in our own way,  inclined to draw upon image as metaphor when working with clients.

Now, in this, blog for Depth Psychology Alliance, as I eagerly explore and bring my own biases to the discussion,  I find I am also captured by another factor in this quaternity  consisting of horoscope, acorn, timekeeper and daimon.  And she is, the oh so numinous Hestia, designated by the late James Hillman , as “guardian of our images.”2 I see Hestia’s inner divinity, expertise, and imaginal guardianship, as the prime mover behind the ways in which I imagine the astrological interview and consultation.  I find as I’ve engaged in that  imaginal process that for me, it is, Hestia, who actually is the mythic impetus behind both the acorn and that mysterious, inner astrological timepiece, portrayed on our book’s cover. Hestia’s rhythms, impact, and drive our psycho-mytho-astrological, explorations, and … if one is so inclined, perhaps even our past and present life explorations and unfolding.

In short, Hestia navigates, oversees, drives and is the goddess behind the patterns and processes inherent within that map and container of our soul’s codes: the astrological horoscope. This mystical, spiritual, eternally maiden goddess, is the driver of our daimon’s trajectory.  Her signals inform our exquisite inner time pieces, as to when it is just the right time for the next twist, turn and/or resting place in or on, our life’s circuitous journey. I join with my daimon here when I ask: How could I/we not, take our cues from Hestia, this exquisitely silent, wonderfully wise, spiritual goddess of our hearths? 

The late James Hillman looked to Hestia as the silent, mythic, archetypal presence, behind psychotherapy and Jungian Analysis.3

Given the premise within my original doctoral thesis that image=psyche=horoscope, it made perfect sense to me, that if Hestia governs “the inner psychic structure,”4 and if, as I’ve just premised that image = psyche = horoscope, then isn’t it reasonable to assume that Hestia is also the mythic, presence behind and within the astrological horoscope? Who better than this silent goddess, who Hillman has referred to as “governing the inner” depths, to act as both prompter and guide, in our own discovery of psyche’s mysterious calling and trajectory? And who, besides Hestia, could sit watch ever so silently over one’s horoscope, acorn and that curious timepiece, whose locus is the exploratory land of a depth archetypal astrology?

As it turns out my suspicions that certain types of Hestian activity, might occur with the activation of this asteroid goddesses’ enlivened activity in my own horoscope’s forward movement or progression, were correct. 

During this Hestian, surge, I completed two sculptures with archetypal, spiritual and/or visual religious meanings! One piece, entitled Padre di mi Alma, or Father of My Soul, is of a priest and personal friend, and is my first bronze portrait. The other, entitled, Offering, is of an androgynous looking figure, and was already featured in a prior DPA publication.  My personal blog with Word Press, now in the works, will soon feature these and other sculptures in their entirety under the Sculpture heading. 

In keeping with this theme of offering, I invite readers to leave any and all of your written offerings and reflections, at what I now  think of as Hestia’s door, imaginal hearth and/or altar. These are my way of gathering others to honor Hestia’s eternal, spiritual flame, in this, and following blogs.  I will make every effort to respond to each and every of your posts. 

9/3/14

1 The Soul’s Code

James Hillman Random House, Inc.

New York, NY 10022

2,3,4 In: Hestia’s Preposition

Mythic. Figures/ James Hillman

Spring Publications , Inc.

Putnam, Connecticut

The meeting between lover and beloved is heart to heart, like that between sculptor and model, between hand and stone. When we fall in love we begin to imagine romantically, fiercely, wildly, madly, jealously, with possessive, paranoid intensity. And when we imagine strongly, we begin to fall in love with the images conjured before the heart's eye — as when starting a project, preparing a vacation trip, planning a new house in a different city, swelling with pregnancy. . . . Our imaginations draw us ever more fully into the venture. You can't leave the lab, can't stop buying equipment, reading brochures, imagining names. You are in love because of imagination."
 JAMES HILLMAN — The Soul's Code

It’s been a week since I’ve seen the film Her. I don’t feel remotely capable of discussing it, of writing about it, or, dialoguing about it let alone putting fingers to computer keyboard. Yet, it’s captured me. Captured? That is the term isn’t it?

Uh oh! What just happened to my hands and fingers as I write this? It seems they’ve begun to play my computer keys as if they are keys on a piano.  Perhaps it is the song, a romantic Bossa Nova, playing in the background? This favorite version is quite Brazilian and beautifully executed with slowed way down jazz harmonica and band swaying together in an erotic, romantic Bossa Nova. Sorry, but I digress. 

Or, maybe, it isn’t a digression at all, merely a remembering. The song, referring to the romantic warmth of summer, refers me again to Her.  Like the film, it evokes within me, many imagined, seasonal permutations, as it seems to metaphorically embrace the tone, and atmosphere of all four seasons at once.   

 So what about Her? Just who, is she? Must one be conversant with the Jungian vocabulary in order to understand exactly what is meant by the use of the term Anima?  The writer of the script may not have intended Her storyline to have been patterned upon Jung’s notion of an inner and/or contrasexual partner so often referred to in the Jungian world, when speaking of the mysterious process of navigating the worlds of inter and intrapersonal relationship.  It was my understanding, and certainly my experience, after seeing this film, that the storyline in Her demonstrates what might occur, if Jung’s notion of an inner, contrasexual, female, partner, known as Anima were to take up imaginary space and residence on the big screen.

The theme of an imaginary lover, or inner lover, as soul figure, is not new, either in literature, film or Jungian typology. But the extent to which it has been worked through and worked over in this film which stars Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansen as the voice of the invisible lover, and Amy Adams, as the real-live girl friend, takes the idea of a fantasy or inner lover to new depths.  You’ll notice I did not say to new heights! This film is not about soaring or getting above it all. I don’t want to give too much away, only to say (and this may already be too much) that when Joaquin Phoenix discovers the female voice of the operating system in his computer, a life-altering relationship between them ensues. 

From there I was left with what I can only describe as a profound sense of necessity related to how our images and our imagination act to color and to bridge the psychological aspects of falling in love.  In my view the necessity of everything noted by Hillman, related to the finding, experiencing and living out of love, with and within all the vicissitudes of imagination, were exquisitely captured in this film.

I feel a need and obligation at this point to intervene and say that while this film has an inner figure of the opposite sex in a starring role, one need not have an inner dialogue only, with a contrasexual partner for the experience to be just as relevant.  Same sex love works just fine!

Hillman  speaks of the act of imagining, falling and being in love as a function of  imagination.  In this film, Hillman’s thesis was very clearly articulated.  When one is in imagination, one is moved toward, and more desirous of, love.  And conversely, as this story progresses, His and Her worlds of love and imagination truly become mutually reinforcing systems, that functions ultimately to aid in clearing  a psychological and literal path to the real thing. 

Jung’s magnificent life’s-work made even more sense to me after seeing this powerful film. The process of analysis became that much more relevant and clear. I felt a sense of extreme gratitude to Jung, for my own in-depth ability to access a deeper process of inner dialogue, after only a few hours spent with Her.  With greater clarification I experienced the ways in which relationship to and with figures encountered in the experience of inner dialogue have acted to clarify and illuminate, in depth, my own life and world.  

  Seeing Her, has deepened and clarified my work with images  as clinician and archetypal astrologer in new ways. I‘ve found easier access, and felt experience to that intermediate zone and place where couples so often struggle in their need to achieve greater intimacy.

Conversely, I was also better able to envision and experience that unimaginative, barren, territory that exists when a couple’s time together has run its course.

I’m comforted, when visiting that mysterious, invisible, land of images, to know of the psychological transformation, that transpires, when one imagines, encounters, engages with, and is illuminated by, an exchange with such a captivating soul-figure, as was portrayed simply via dialogue in this curiously interesting film.  

 And, if I haven’t convinced you about the intriguing real life value of such an encounter, then just ask Her!

Judith Harte

January 3, 2014

 Hillman, James.  The Soul’s Code:

In Search of Character and Calling

(New York: Random House,147) 1996

Hi Cathy, very sweet description of the upcoming Aries Libra full moon. And I loved that exquisite photo. 

Thanks to you I now have, Buber's I-Thou classic in one hand. And  I've begun a journal of all the qualities that I've always loved/hated in "the other," and one by one am starting to try them on and integrate them as my own! 

Of course I took another peek at the sign on my seventh house cusp in order to be reminded of what I love/hate in others and am now preparing to go through this inventory once and for all........as courageously as (Aries) on the 7th can . And maybe, just maybe, since I have Libra rising and a reversed natural zodiac, I can at least attempt to do so with at least a bit of diplomacy (Libra).  By the way if one knows their horoscope and the sign on the 7th (Libra) house cusp of partners/others, that reclaiming and owning of qualities, archetypes, style and characteristics usually described by the sign  on the cusp of the 7th, carried by and that one loves/hates in the other, is a terrific exercise...Hah..if only!