Silvia Behrend's Posts

Life Before Repentance

Posted by Silvia Behrend on September 6, 2013 at 3:24pm

Life before repentanceI have been re-visiting Judaism this past year, reflecting on what is deeply meaningful in the rituals, stories and traditions of my ancestors. Jung’s comments that rituals and dogma exist to contain both elements of awe and fear in face of the unknown stir me powerfully. (Jung ) We need a container that will allow us to experience the numinosum and be related to it without being destroyed. Yet those very rituals and dogma can lose their power over time and become rigid and lifeless.So while I do not attend a synagogue or say the prayers, I am aware of the passages of celebrations of my tradition and seek to make sense of them as an archetypal pattern analyst. What is it that I see and feel happening, what stirs within that is of value to me and maybe to others about what it means to be human in relationship to the great mystery - Psyche, God or the numinosum?This past Wednesday night at sundown marked the celebration of Jewish New Year, known as Rosh Hashanah, or the head of the year. Liturgically, this marks the beginning of reading the entire five books of the Hebrew Scriptures which continues to the end of the year. This cyclical reading embeds the people in the stories, rituals and celebrations that contain the meaning of what it means to be God’s people in relationship to one another and to their highest spiritual value, God.New Year is celebrated by eating sweet things, apples in honey, cakes, pomegranates in a ritual of ‘participation mystique’, as though by ingesting sweetness and potential, it will come true in our lives for the succeeding year.Ten days later, New Years is followed by the most Awesome day of the Year, the Day of Judgment, or Yom Kippur. This day is spent in communal fasting, reading, worshipping, confessing one’s transgressions against one’s neighbors, self, family and God. The days leading up to Yom Kippur are filled with introspection, who and how did I harm? What do I need to do to atone for that hurt? Will I be inscribed in the Book of Life one more year?It’s always been curious to me that we celebrate the sweetness of life, the beginning of the New Year before we know whether we will be allowed to live! It always seemed backwards, we should do the hard work and then rejoice. I initially thought that the way it made sense was to look at New Year as the archetypal beginning of life, that life renews itself because that is Nature. It is not personal, whether or not I am inscribed in the Book of Life is not important to Life, although it may be important to me.But then, it occurred to me that the sequence is correct. What comes first is the paradise of oneness. Life is sweet and full of potential. But after Paradise, comes consciousness, and with it, the pain and suffering of separation and alienation from the One. (Edinger)Yom Kippur offers us the way back, a re-union which is not a returning to the infantile state of utter dissolution into the One, but a mature and aware recognition of our human fallibilities. We must be willing to do the hard work of reparation and restoration in the human realm in order to be reconciled with the Source of our Being. Whatever name we give it, God, Psyche, Atman, numinosum, the only way to it is through our humanity and our humility. Thank God for Rosh Hashanah that gives us the strength to face the difficult task of repentance and at-one-ment. That is sweet indeed.Edinger, Edward F., (1992). Ego and Archetype: Individuation and theReligious Function of the Psyche. Boston: Shambala.Jung, C. G. (1938). Psychology and Religion. London: Yale University Press

T S Eliot in a Kayak

Posted by Silvia Behrend on July 31, 2013 at 5:22pm

In Burnt Norton, part one of T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, there are a couple of lines which I have loved both as a dancer and a writer. These are the lines:at the still point, there the dance is, But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity, Where past and future are gathered.Neither movement from nor towards, Neither ascent nor decline.Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.I have had the experience of being suspended in that moment a few times in my life but I never thought to connect this moment to Jung’s transcendent function, that dynamic dance between the conscious and the unconscious which results in the emergence of the ‘third thing”, i.e. the process of individuation (Jacoby, p. 135). As we know, this process is itself a complex, we are driven to it from the depths, we may fight it, embrace it, ignore it, resent it, but it is inexorable and painful.I have known that theoretically. But when I went kayaking, I had a new glimmer of somatic understanding which gave me some much needed comfort. For it is one thing to know a thing and another to live into it with awareness and energy.Since I am not a frequent kayaker, I needed to be reminded of the simple rules:• Hold the oar evenly, a little wider than shoulder length apart for balance• Pull the oar with the paddle side closest to the water• Push the oar with the paddle side farthest from the water• Don’t dig too deep with the paddle into the water, you will destabilizeOnce in the kayak, I followed the instructions and off I went into the Puget Sound on an overcast and chilly day. The tide was slack, which meant that it had already come in and wouldn’t go out for a little while. The sea was calm and so was I.I practiced, pull with the lower, push with the upper. It worked: I moved swiftly across the glassy water, stopping every once in a while to stretch my fingers and observe the gulls, the seals and the occasional power boat. One hour out to sea and it was time to return.But this time, the tide had turned, the current was against me and I had to pull and push harder. My unaccustomed to kayaking muscles strained, my hands felt like frozen claws, and the kayak did not move as fast as before. I was tired and sore and still had an hour to go.That last hour was difficult but also invigorating. I physically understood that the push and the pull are necessary for any movement to occur. The same is true psychologically, i.e., the dance between the polarities is crucial for our own individuation process and it doesn’t just happen to us from the depths of the unconscious. We have to take the oars and push and learn to push and to pull. The movement is the result of the resistance to the water, to the unconscious. It also has to be right amount of depth and the right amount of resistance.That still point? That occurred when I arrived at the dock and couldn’t get out of the kayak. I was filled with the laughter of pure joy and elation! I knew that the next time the complexes came to get me, I would be pushed and pulled and that I would be able to once again be able to reach the shore.Jacobi, Jolande (1973). The Psychology of C G Jung. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Leaving Las Vegas

Posted by Silvia Behrend on May 22, 2013 at 5:51pm

Leaving Las VegasI had the opportunity to accompany my husband to a work conference in Las Vegas, Nevada in May. His conference was held at the beautifully appointed Bellagio Hotel, complete with singing fountains, Chihuly glass ceilings, flower gardens, flowing chocolate fountains and what seemed like acres of pools. And, of course, there was heat and sun which is a rare commodity in Western Washington.Initially, I struggled to enjoy the beautiful hotel and the pool because, even though everything looked beautiful in the light, I knew that there was a dark and dangerous hidden and unknown world. I had work to do before I could order a margarita at the pool. How could I relax in the sun when surrounded by what some might call evil?So, I followed my training as an archetypal pattern analyst and perceived that I was sitting at the liminal space between the conscious and the unconscious worlds. The ego believes that reality is what it sees and nothing more. People are having a good time, this is what fun looks like. I can have another drink, another shot at the dice. This is it.But behind the bright lights, conference rooms, restaurants, gift shops, there exists an entire other city, unseen, unheard and unknown which drives the Las Vegas machine, much like the unconscious drives our ego when we are unaware. In addition to the many thousands of people that it takes to run the hotels behind the scenes: engineers, electricians, food preparers, cleaners, reservation personnel, bell hops, concierge, servers and myriad other service personnel, there are other unseen actors and forces; drug lords, pimps, prostitutes, and owners who create the illusions that feed thrills.It made me think of how those of us who look at the world through an archetypal lens cannot just live in the illuminated world. We live with an eye on both the conscious and the archetypal. We know that the sun and show lights are just one aspect of existence. The unconscious which is just outside our vision is the real driver. This is not to say that all is dark and pernicious, evil and death dealing. Going to Las Vegas can be a rejuvenating dip into the unconscious, it can be a healthy enjoyment or it can be a nightmare from which one wants to wake up. We have to know both realities so we are not surprised by what we are drawn to do and can choose.Going through that thinking process allowed me to bask in the sun, order a margarita, and have a wonderful dinner with my husband. We could just sit back and enjoy what we were seeing and not seeing!As we were returning to our room, a visibly agitated man stepped into the elevator and incredulously exclaimed: “I just lost three thousand dollars in thirty minutes! Can you believe that?”I could believe it, because I knew where we were.

How to Become a Human

Posted by Silvia Behrend on May 9, 2013 at 10:48am

How to become a HumanChoose between twoOr among manySay yes or noThis cements the self:Here is where I standThe Archimedian pointFrom which I will neither move nor be movedWithout my consentThe essence of our humanityThe truth of our becomingIs to say Yes or NoKnowing that by necessity, the one includes the otherThis ability to discern right actionTo cut through the pain of rejecting a beloved projectionIs hard fought and hardly wonWhen it must be chosen again.The No of today will have a priceThe yes will have one tooRedemption depends on whether we are willing to payOur own wayOr try to make others pay for usThat is the way of the evil inclinationBetter to pay in good conscienceAnd stand on one’s own two feetAt the point of choiceYes. No. Yes.May 8, 2013Many years ago, I started an academic paper by asking “So What?” What does this theory to mean to my lived life? While in Divinity School, I wanted to know what theological premises about the nature of God had to do with my lived reality as a human being in relationship to others and the world. It was my way of trying to put thought through the fire of life. What remains is what is meaningful, what allows me to live my life with integrity, consciousness, awareness.So it has been with my studies as an Archetypal Pattern Analyst through the Assisi Institute. What do Jung, von Franz, Conforti, et al, have to teach me about how to live my life? How do I understand meaning and suffering, in a way that is not simply academic but filled with energy/Eros as well as Logos. It can be framed archetypally as the union of Logos/Sophia, as the process of individuation, as the ego’s journey through the life cycle, or as coming into conscious relationship to the Self. It can be seen as the development of moral courage, the assimilation of the shadow, in short, as the way we become human.But, the truth of the matter is that we have to DO it. That is the most difficult part of this journey of becoming human, we can’t just talk about it, we have to suffer the real pain of saying No to a complex or of saying Yes to some part of ourselves that we would rather reject or place on another to carry for us.The more I engage in this work, the more I know the answer to the “So what?” It is to save my very life from being lived for me instead of being lived by me. Not theoretically, not quotably, but each and every time I choose which wolf to feed. In the Hebrew Scriptures, it is said that humans are born with two inclinations, one to good and the other to evil. The evil inclinations are the instincts which must be tamed by the study of the law and the law must be given life by the instincts.We can’t escape it, but we can choose to live it out in awareness. As God says in Deuteronomy 30:19 “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, thatyou and your descendants may live.” Nowhere does God say it will be an easy choice.References:The New Oxford Annotated Bible (1977). Revised Standard Edition. New York: Oxford University Press.

At the Table

Posted by Silvia Behrend on April 29, 2013 at 9:13am

At the tableWhen I sit at the able and the cutlery and glasses gleamWhen the napkins are folded whiteWhen the chair scrapes the floor just rightAnd my skirt rustles on the seatNeither brocade nor velvet, neither cotton nor silkBut a soft and pliant fabricLike the wished for comfort of the soulIn love with GodThat is when I know I will have found youTo earn a seat at that tableRequires the silence of the selfQuiet as a proverbial mouseAll potentia, possible movement, thought, desireAll probable outcomesHeld as softly as a breath before beautySuspended in time until the hand reaches outAnd issues the invitationCome, sit at my tableOn the right side of the hand of GodAnd you, my friends, will have already gatheredEach sitting at the place of honorFor there are no contradictionsAt the table God setsFor those who seekThe narrow pathIn Projection and Re-collection in Jungian Psychology, Marie Louise von Franz writes about the Self’s social function. She states that it is in the very structure of the Self to provide a place where each person “gathers around him his own ‘soul family,’ a group of people not created by accident or by mere egoistic motivation but rather through a deeper, more essential spiritual interest or concern: reciprocal individuation.” (1978, p. 177).I was struck by the notion that in the very essence of the Self, there is provender for those who travel the narrow path of individuation, the very act of engaging in that process brings us into the deep community of one’s fellow travelers. The Self provides the structure around which we can find sustenance, companionship, respite and inspiration. This is the motif of the King Arthur’s Round Table, the table at which Christ sat at the Last Supper. Not only does this table image symbolize the re-membering of our psychic projections, it also reflects that we need to be in the company of others on the same quest.Jung states: “In this world created by the Self we meet all those many to whom we belong, whose hearts we touch; here “there is no distance, but immediate presence.” (Jung in von Franz, ibid). That is what emerges as we participate in the Assisi Community and in the von Franz study group, in the Depth Psychology Alliance and other worthy groups. Whether physically present around a ‘real’ table at conferences, or gathered around our telephone lines, the Self is the organizing principle that brings us together. Our meal is rich, our time precious. Thank God for that!Von Franz, Marie Louise (1978). Projection and Re-collection in Jungian Psychology. Chicago: Open Court.

A moment ago

Posted by Silvia Behrend on April 16, 2013 at 4:00pm

A moment agoThe sun was shiningWhile we watchedThe pounding rhythm of feetRunningSweat and waterTears and laughterSharp pains in the sideA moment agoThey stepped over the finish lineRaised fist highSaw loved onesFlashed a smile of victoryA moment agoThe Beast unleashedMemories of planes and buildings,Drones and wedding parties,Newton,Columbine, Batman,Kent StateA litany of horrorsA wail of painInnocence shatteredAll it takes is one momentTo change life into deathDeath into despairAnd in the midst of tragedyThe unimaginable kindness of strangers.

Surprised by God at my table

Posted by Silvia Behrend on April 12, 2013 at 3:51pm

Surprised by God at my table04 Apr 2013 8:49 AM | Silvia BehrendSurprised by God at my TableFor the past twenty five years, my ex-Catholic husband and I have celebrated the Passover with a Seder, the ritual telling of the story of Exodus which is accompanied by special food, wine and story. I have presided at Seders with five people and with over 150 people. I have sat next to the very old and the very young, but I have never sat next to God. Or rather, God never revealed Godself to me.It wasn’t an apotheosis, there were no rays of light or angels singing, no drama or bells or whistles. What happened was simple, profound and mysterious. I looked around our table of eight adults and realized that this was the first time in all these years that there were no children present. At that moment, the tears flowed from a deep well of sadness and I was aware of the presence of a deep and powerful mystery. As Marie Louise von Franz says in the Way of the Dream: “God is that which sweeps us off our feet, overwhelms, inspires reverence, awe, fear and a sense of something greater than ourselves”.What I understood is that the story of Exodus is a living reality in our souls. It is an archetypal movement from the ego’s slavery to complexes and collective values that kill the soul to liberation through pain, suffering and exile. This is when the God sat at my table, when I realized that this mysterious journey of the soul has to be told to us over and over again, starting when we are children. We need to know from the beginning of our growing awareness that life is cruel, unjust and difficult. We need to know that there is oppression and evil in the world that is out to destroy us. And, we need to know that there is a way out of oppression into a new land of milk and honey, the way is hard, yes, but it is known and we are in good company.While the children may not understand the profundity of the story during the first part of life, the repetition and the rituals prepare the way for the task of the second part. What we understand later in life, is that the oppression is internal, the complexes are our Egypt, the slave masters that bind us to impossible tasks in their possession. To leave Egypt is to leave the world behind and enter into the desert exile, and endure suffering in our encounter with the God.James Hollis, in his lecture at the Assisi Institutes’ In Search of Soul and Spirit seminars, reminded us that the task of the second part of life is to find our personal authority in relationship to that which is greater than ourselves (April 1, 2013). His description of the process of coming to a more mature spirituality mirrors the Exodus story. We get stuck by the archaic fears of our childhood, the complexes that keep us frozen and sabotage the ego’s forward movement. To become a mature adult, to find our souls, we must go through the desert to get to other side. There we reclaim our selves, finding greater courage, resilience and strength, we learn that by facing our fears we can be guided by the dust storm during the day and the pillar of fire at night. We are not alone, there is a greater force that can guide us if only we take the first step out of bondage.

Dreamer at the Garden

Posted by Silvia Behrend on April 12, 2013 at 3:30pm

I am a member of a collective garden, where about 20 of us work together to grow food, educate ourselves on sustainability, practice organic farming methods and generally have a good time. We have weekly work parties and also opportunities for solitary work. I have spent many hours observing nature and what she has to teach me about archetypal patterns. I have learned to look through the eyes of a pattern analyst.

At an early spring work party I saw one of our members broadcasting seeds over a bed and thought that this was the expression of the archetypal field of cultivation. This was the expression of the development of consciousness, no longer reliant on mere opportunism for gathering food, cultivating requires conscious engagement and knowledge of the processes of growth, maturation and harvest to ensure survival.

Except I was wrong. This person had used all the seeds for the entire season on one half bed. What would grow in this spot would be a cacophony of differing greens, salads, chard, basil, arugula, all competing for space, nutrients and attention. Instead of careful planning, timely planting and harvesting, this would be a short lived harvest.

Of course nothing terrible happened. We bought more seed to plant as planned and we will watch and see what happens in this bed, harvest and eat the tender young shoots and wonder what they might be. It will be an experiment and a reminder that if you don’t know what you are doing, just ask someone.

I realized, however, that what I thought I saw being revealed was not what was being told. Following my training, I looked at this as though it were a dream. I so, what would this dream image be telling me about the dreamer? I really understood what I have been studying for some time about fields and dreams. That is, a field can only be expressed through form and form shows us what the field is. As Dr. Conforti has said many times, “every story has a picture and every picture has a story”.

I will leave it to the reader to formulate thoughts about what is being revealed by this image. But for me, the most pertinent learning was about the nature of the reality of the psyche and its relationship to matter, that is, us. What I witnessed in the outer world, when seen as a dream revealed the field in which this person was embedded. This is the discipline that looks at all behavior as the explication of a field or archetypal pattern. We are all unconsciously expressing our inner life, complexes, blind spots and it is our great task to bring them to consciousness.

The theory is proven by the lived experience. I can look at how I move through the world, how I show up at the garden, in my office, in the kitchen as though it were a dream. What would that reveal to me about my life now? If I am driving down the street and realize that I am not paying attention, where am I going unconscious about how I navigate the world? If I dream I am driving and not paying attention, is it not revealing the same issue. I was reminded of what
Jung wrote in Memories, Dreams and Reflections, “our unconscious existence is the real one and our conscious world a kind of illusion, an apparent reality constructed for a specific purpose, like a dream which seems a reality as long as we are in it. (Jung, p. 324).

Jorge Luis Borges poignantly expresses the human relationship to Psyche the short story: The Circular Ruins. In the story, the old man is tasked with creating a man through his dreams. Over time, he dreams a man who becomes a wise man in another village. The only element which knows the true nature of the man is Fire. One night, a great fire consumes the village and the man is bereft that his creation will know that he is an ephemera because the fire will not consume him. This is the ending of the story:

“First (after a long drought) a remote cloud, as light as a bird, appeared on a hill; then, toward the South, the sky took on the rose color of leopard's gums; then came clouds of smoke which rusted the metal of the nights; afterwards came the panic-stricken flight of wild animals. For what had happened many centuries before was repeating itself. The ruins of the sanctuary of the god of Fire was destroyed by fire. In a dawn without birds, the wizard saw the concentric fire licking the walls. For a moment, he thought of taking refuge in the water, but then he understood that death was coming to crown his old age and absolve him from his labors. He walked toward the sheets of flame. They did not bite his flesh, they caressed him and flooded him without heat or combustion. With relief, with humiliation, with terror, he understood that he also was an illusion, that someone else was dreaming him.” (http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jatill/175/CircularRuins.htm)

What I understood from my work in the garden and as a pattern analyst is that whether we are the dreamers or the dreamt ones, we still have work to do. The earth awaits our seed, the time for harvest will come.

Jung, C. G (1961). Memories, Dream, Reflections. New York: Random House.

My Mother and the Pope

Posted by Silvia Behrend on March 14, 2013 at 12:45pm

I was surprised yesterday to receive a phone call from my very excited mother. She was thrilled to tears that ‘we’ had a new pope from Argentina. I could almost see her 82 year old self jumping up and down for joy. I, however, was a bit taken aback. We are Jewish.But we were both born in Argentina – and it seemed that regardless of religious affiliation or belief, regardless of the fact that Argentina protected Nazi perpetrators of genocide, my mother was caught up in the field of nationalistic pride. I would have thought that the millennial experience of diasporic Judaism would trump one generation of being Argentine, when I saw the images of people all over the world celebrating this Argentine cardinal turned Pope, I began to have other inklings.Jung, in Modern Man in Search of a Soul, speaks to the powerful force of the unconscious to compensate for the one-sidedness of the time or epoch. He writes: "An epoch is like an individual, it has its own limitations of conscious outlook, and therefore requires a compensatory adjustment. This is effected by the collective unconscious in that a poet, a seer or a leader allows himself to be guided by the unexpressed desire of his times and shows the way, by work or deed, to the attainment of what which everyone blindly craves and expects –whether this attainment results in good or evil, the healing of an epoch or its destruction (166)."So perhaps my mother was actually expressing something a bit deeper than nationalistic pride, she may have been possessed by the emergent possibility of a change in the collective itself. Dr. Conforti, in his blog radio program, spoke about Jung’s excitement when the Virgin Mary was taken into heaven. Jung saw that as the elevating of the previously repressed feminine into the Church.We may be entering a new phase of psychic balance in the world, or at the very least, it is clear that Psyche is doing her damnest to bring us into equilibrium. While the Church will continue to espouse dogma that keeps it in line with patriarchal rules and regulations, it is clear that here is a man who is very closely aligned to the feminine values of relationality, care and nurture of the oppressed, who admonishes priests for not baptizing babies born out of wedlock.His life, as we know it for the moment, is a testament to living close to the earth, to matter, to the Mother, whose ego stance seems to be aligned to service to the highest values expressed in the gospel and not to ostentation and external expressions of power.It remains to be seen whether he will be able to resist the forces of the Church which will seek to constrain him to ‘live’ into the proper role for the Pope, a role shaped by two millennia. Will his humility be deep enough and his ego strong enough to carry the function of God/dess without being annihilated by the projections of the curia and of others in the institution? I don’t know, but I will be praying for him and for all of us. After all, he is an Argentine.Jung, Carl G. (1993). Modern Man in Search of a Soul. San Diego: Harvest.

Hummingbirds - A bird in the Hand

Posted by Silvia Behrend on March 12, 2013 at 1:30pm

In the Assisi Institute's Dream Pattern Analysis class with Dr. Conforti, students are trained to look at images objectively and to discern their most dominant message. We are taught that there are two crucial elements to translating an image objectively and not to get hooked by our associations which can be the expressions of our complexes. The first element is to understand that Psyche provides the image with a high degree of specificity. When we dream of a snake, it is important to note whether it's a garter snake or a boa constrictor because they are very different from one another.

The second element is to look at the way the image functions in Nature. What is the innate, normal, and natural development in each image? Does the image conform with Nature or does it go against Nature? I was really taken by these two elements when a friend provided me with an image from a dream and gave me permission to use it publicly. The fragment that remained from the dream was the image of a hummingbird held in the hand. The dreamer could clearly see the hummingbird's breast in the palm of the hand and it seemed to still be alive.

Now, it could be easy to say things like how wonderful it was that the bird allowed itself to be held so intimately, that there is such a natural connection between the dreamer and this beautiful bird. And that may be so.

However, my training is to look at the image from the point of view of what would happen in the natural world. It is a great temptation to pick up a wounded or sick bird and bring it inside and care for it. The danger to the bird is that human contact makes it likely that it will not be accepted back into the flock. Some birds actually nest on the ground and picking them up takes them from their habitat. Either way, it also points to the human inability to accept that some things don't make it, some birds die, some birds are protecting their young, and human interference is about human needs and not the needs of the bird.

The next thing to look at is what are the main characteristics of a hummingbird. It is a solitary bird that is designed to pollinate nectar-producing flowers, it has the fastest heartbeat of all birds (and maybe all animals?) and its wings beat so fast, it seems as though they are staying still. They are a highly specialized bird, its beak perfect for inserting into the flower for the nectar. In mating, the male only fertilizes the egg and leaves the female and the young because to stay would put them in competition with one another for the nectar. Hummingbirds can navigate in all directions, including backwards. This is some kind of fantastic avian!

But this one is lying breast up in a human hand. It is completely exposed and seems to be dying. Something had to happen to make it still long enough to be picked up, after all! On further research, I found the most amazing fact: when the nectar supply is too low or the temperature is too low, the hummingbird goes into torpor! It just stops. And when I read this, I understood that the most basic of needs for life support were not being met. This bird was telling the dreamer something important.

We know some things about birds in dreams; they are the messengers of the Spirit, they can traverse heaven and earth, they are the mediators of two realms. We also know that animals in dreams represent the instinctual life. What I got from this amplification is that the dreamer has to pay attention to feeding instinctual basic needs. To ignore them puts the dreamer into a torpor that could mean death of something vital, necessary and unique for both the self and the world. If the bird can no longer fly or feed, flowers do not get pollinated, the dreamer's destiny cannot be fulfilled.