death - Blogs - Depth Psychology Alliance2024-03-28T12:27:46Zhttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/deathAnalysis of a Dream Serieshttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/profiles/blogs/a-dream-series2015-09-24T02:36:55.000Z2015-09-24T02:36:55.000ZRandy Westfallhttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/members/RandyWestfall<div><p><span><b><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9142451458,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img width="750" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9142451458,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-full" height="511" alt="9142451458?profile=original" /></a></b></span></p><p></p><p><span><b>‘The Impossible Mountain Climb’ Dream</b></span>: <i>My wife and I were to climb or walk up this very steep mountain, using ropes which were provided. We had trouble, so we left and were to try another time.</i></p><p></p><p><i>We arrived back at the hotel/resort type place and parked, walking to the building that was on the edge of a deep ravine. There was a little gully, with a yellow rope that might help us get up onto the deck. I tried the rope and could not lift myself up to get up onto the deck, so I tried to climb the fence, to no success. I gave up and walked up the three steps. I thought to myself, “how will I climb the big hill with the rope if I can’t do this?”</i></p><p></p><p><i>We went in, and I walked to the room, opening the door. There was a hair dryer on the floor, and other mess such as clothes or towels. I quickly walked out and met my wife in the common area, thinking that I had the right room, #751. That was the number on the room card.</i></p><p></p><p><i>I approached a little sitting area, containing a little bay window that looked over the ravine and the mountain we were to climb later. I looked closely, to see if anyone was gathering for the climb yet. I almost fell through, having a sense of vertigo, and had to pull myself back, forcefully. I felt a sudden fear of falling, and had to get away from this area.</i></p><p></p><p><i>I said that I would try to find the room again, and I went looking. I found a door that led to the hotel area and used my card to enter this big room that housed all the hotel room units. I wandered, looking at doors as I went but couldn’t find #751. Somehow, I had cut myself and had found a tissue to stop the bleeding on my upper right leg. There had been someone in these halls whom I had asked for help, but he was no help.</i></p><p></p><p><i>I was desperate, and I wanted to ask someone, anyone, even the dead for help. I thought that I shouldn’t ask the dead, unless it was really important. I could picture the dead wandering around the hotel bothering people, which would not do, especially if I didn’t absolutely need their help. The image I had was of my good friend Betty, an older lady who had passed years ago, wandering around the hotel, looking for me, or the right room number, to help me.</i></p><p></p><p><i>I was crying, because I felt totally frustrated, my leg was cut, and I didn’t want to take this desperate action that might involve consequences that I felt were too extreme. Sitting on this deck, I notice a man who is crying along with me, saying, “oh no. This is terrible! What are you going to do? Oh, boo hoo!” and saying other things. It made me think that he was mocking me, having a joke at my expense.</i></p><p></p><p><i>All of a sudden, I didn’t feel the same way. I started to feel angry at this man and my tears dried up. As I looked up at him, waited to catch his eye, to make eye contact so he would know that my attitude had changed. He had some contraption on his head, like a helmet. It resembled a stove of some kind, with brass fittings. He swung his head up and around toward me, and noticed my stare. I had begun to look hard at him, meeting his gaze with purpose. Then I said, “you were just leaving, weren’t you?” and he said, “yes, I was just leaving,” and he started to get up. I said, “yes, you were just leaving” and I watched him leave.</i></p><p></p><p><i>I woke up.</i></p><p></p><p></p><p><span><b>Analysis:</b></span></p><p></p><p>The “impossible mountain climb” is a metaphor for my current situation. My closest friend, hiking buddy and colleague at work was to die from cancer within a few months. Upon waking, I immediately felt that the dream referred to this. </p><p></p><p>To be stuck in a ravine with no way out described my problem perfectly, because he would not be healed and I did not know when he would eventually pass. As his friend, I had no choice but to face death in a way I never had before. There was no way back and no way forward, even with a rope. There was powerful emotion associated with this situation as it stands.</p><p></p><p>Within the dream, I was so perplexed that I was mad at the yellow rope which I couldn’t even use to cross the smallest gully. I used the color chart from my book by Robert Hoss, <i>Dream Language: self understanding through imagery and color</i>. The statements for the color yellow that I responded to while visualizing the image were “I am seeking a solution that will open up new and better possibilities and allow my hopes to be fulfilled” and “I need to find a way out of this circumstance”.</p><p></p><p>Later, I listened to a shrinkrapradio show in which Dr. Dave Van Nuys interviewed Kim Hermanson, PhD [1] who teaches the transformative power of metaphor. Kim conducted an active imagination exercise with Dr. Dave who used the image of a tree and invited the listener to pick one of their images. I used the yellow rope and as I tried to blend or merge with it, I pictured it as a ray of sunlight. These techniques are really wonderful.</p><p></p><p>Astonished, I immediately felt hope in this impossible situation. Sunlight, representing consciousness and the archetype of the Self [2], told me that I had an ally and that the Self would see me through this, though I must consciously go through it without knowing the outcome. Though the top of the mountain was far away, beams of light had already reached me and I finally had confidence that I could get through the ordeal and support my friend.</p><p></p><p>The anima figure represented by my wife supported me as she does in so many dreams. Not being able to find our place in the hotel fits because I have no safe place, no sanctuary in this situation. The bay window vertigo incident left me feeling I was too high up, contrasting the opposite of the ravine bottom. I don’t know the significance of the room number #751. The digital root (7 + 5 + 1 = 13. 1 + 3 = 4) of western numerology [3] assigns it a value of 4, symbolizing the totality of the psyche and wholeness.</p><p></p><p>I was so desperate that I wanted to invoke the dead to help me with this problem of death. I thought this was an extreme measure to take and declined to take the step. Not sure of how it could be done, I conjured the absurd image of my deceased friend Betty, a motherly figure to me, wasting time helping me with my earthly problems. Thinking literally, I didn’t make the connection that this is a metaphor for communication with the unconscious. Without taking this step, there would be no solution. </p><p></p><p>Hence, I broke down crying in frustration and to add further injury, my leg was cut and in need of treatment. the personal association is that in the waking world I experienced an upper right leg muscle injury two and a half years ago on a mountain. A survival situation ensued and I lucked out by dragging myself to my bivy tent, spending the night and walking out the next morning after having rested. My leg performed well enough to hike out but it took a year and a half to fully heal it. I learned to find more balance in my life after this scare so I would not endanger myself anymore. I had pushed my physical limits too far. It tells me that I must be calm, wise, and thoughtful or pay the price for it. The blood image with this injury symbolizes libido or life energy being drained with this problem.</p><p></p><p>The trickster or shadow figure who mimicked my emotional breakdown would have been a perfect dream character with whom to consult but I didn’t interview him. The helmet that “resembled a stove of some kind, with brass fittings” seems to identify the figure with the Senex, or wise old man archetype. Mark Sipowicz’s blog post on Depth Alliance from August 17th, “Walking the Talk: Airing Our Complexes and Our Complexity” inspired me to commit consciously to interviewing these figures in the future, because I might have figured out the solution right there. </p><p></p><p>I am embarrassed that I felt such anger toward this dream character, because it reflects that I might feel that sort of emotion toward people in the waking world. I suppressed the expression of it but I told him to leave and would not want to do something like that in the waking world. However, a technique of lucid dreaming that I use (<i>I was not lucid</i>) is to suggest anything I choose to dream characters and they usually agree and comply. It may have been habit.</p><p></p><p>I’ve learned many things which have helped me in the dreamworld, utilizing techniques such as consciously declaring intent right before sleeping. A simple message to oneself as one is drifting off to sleep often influences behavior and understanding in dreams. Regular practice of these techniques embeds them in consciousness and I have now been telling myself before sleep each night to talk to all interesting dream characters, especially provocative ones. </p><p></p><p>A month before my friend’s death, I had the following dream:</p><p></p><p><span><b>The Tornado Man Dream</b></span>: My wife and I were walking through a valley. There were clouds and maybe a hole through them, where a light, maybe the sun was shining through. As we passed a house, there was a brighter light that was bursting through the hole in the cloud. My wife said, “see, I said that was remarkable.” I said, “not like that,” and we watched the light grow, as a ring of lights, spinning, and a wind came down from it as a tornado funnel formed. A man flew out of the funnel and flew to the house, alighting on a deck above.</p><p></p><p>We went in the house. There was a vacuum on the carpet in the middle of the room. The man said I could put it in a kiosk that it fit into, which was somewhere in the kitchen but I couldn’t find it. Out on the deck, with rocks lining its edge overlooking a valley, I said that many people have camped here over the years, before the house was built. The man was saying that his mother was involved with the problem of individuation. I exclaimed, “I am on the path of individuation!” and felt a strong urge to leave, heading in a clockwise direction around the yard, pulling my car keys out of my pocket, then put them back as I scooted down a slope to go around the house and head back the way we had come.</p><p></p><p>I woke up.</p><p></p><p><span><b>Analysis</b></span>:</p><p></p><p>What is not archetypal about a man flying out of a descending tornado through a brightly lit hole in the clouds, landing at a house in an area that has been inhabited continuously since before it was settled? [4] The conscious communication specifically refers to individuation. My first vision as a young child was of a ring of lights. In the first dream I arrive in a car and in this, the second dream I intend to leave in a car, the keys in my hand. The clockwise spiral I describe as I leave may indicate a move toward conscious action.</p><p></p><p>The dream reassured me that I was on the “right path”, the path of individuation. I could handle the challenge ahead of me. I continued to assist and visit my dying friend. Brian Moore died September 18th, 2015.</p><p></p><p><span><b>Synchronicity</b></span>: In the hours before Brian died, I was in a frenzy to sort things, to finally “straighten up and organize my life”. I was also looking for some pictures he gave me, that I had stored but could not find.</p><p></p><p>Eventually, I gave up. I lit the candle of the camping brass candle lantern that Brian gave me. On the computer was the Egypt series [5] with Tutankhamun, on which the archaeologist Carter, had just uncovered the body of Tut within the third coffin, made of gold. A few minutes later, I received the news of Brian’s passing. My wife and I went to see him one last time and to console his brother and girlfriend.</p><p></p><p>King Tutankhamun was a young king of 18 years who was cut down (most likely by the leg infection- relating him to my leg injury in the first dream) before his prime, who as a monarch symbolized the Puer Aeternus (eternal child) archetype in many ways. My friend Brian was a Puer type if there ever was one, and if you picture Peter Pan, you’ve got a clear picture of him. Symbolically representative figures of the Self, kings reflect the archetypal journey through life and in this context, the journey through death. The Osiris/Horus myth was represented specifically in Tut’s tomb. [6] Tutankhamun ended the worship of the one god Aten, under his father’s reign, restoring Amun and the other gods to their former stature. Contrast the Puer Aeternus with its opposite, the Senex, from the first dream.</p><p></p><p>“<i>Spirit and soul rejoice once again in the body which they now inhabit, and the soul, full of joy, hastens as quickly as possible to embrace the body and the soul embraces it. And the darkness no longer rules over it, for it has subordinated itself to the light and no longer permits itself to be separated from it in eternity, and it (the soul) rejoices in its house, because, after the body had been hidden in the darkness, (the spirit) found it full of light.</i>” - Komarios text [7]</p><p></p><p>Dedicated to my friend.</p><p></p><p><span><b>Sphere of Light- Brian’s Dream [8]</b></span>: The dream started, at first, with an awareness of the morning sunlight taking on a strange appearance as it shined through the slats of the blinds near his bed. A glass ball appeared within his chest or stomach, exiting his body as it showed him scenes from his life. He commented about the lights within the glass sphere. He was overcome with feelings of positive emotion as it showed him these scenes, which he could not remember later, but the feeling stayed.</p><p></p><p>Then, the glass sphere moved about the house, going from room to room, showing him things of which he also did not remember. The sphere said, “look at this, now look at this!” in excitement, as it darted from room to room. An eerie feeling started to grow, as of haunting or that otherworldly spirits were present.</p><p></p><p>When he woke, he was standing by the bed, looking at the blinds, through which sunlight was streaming.</p><p></p><p></p><p>[1] Source: shrinkrapradio.com</p><p>[2] Jung, Collected Works Vol. 9 part 1, The Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, with emphasis on Self, Anima, the Psychology of the Trickster Figure, the Psychology of Rebirth, the Psychology of the Child Archetype, the Meaning of Individuation</p><p>[3] <a href="http://wikipedia.org">Wikipedia.org</a> Keyword: digital root</p><p>[4] Jung, CW Vol. 12, Psychology and Alchemy, <i>Individual Dream Symbolism in Relation to Alchemy</i></p><p>[5] Netflix</p><p>[6] The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, Translator, R.O. Faulkner</p><p>[7] Marie-Louise von Franz, On Dreams and Death, <i>Final Resurrection as a Reunion of the Psyche with the Body</i></p><p>[8] Reproduced with permission.</p></div>Analysis: Three Dreams and a Songhttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/profiles/blogs/analysis-three-dreams-and-a-song2016-02-16T19:04:22.000Z2016-02-16T19:04:22.000ZRandy Westfallhttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/members/RandyWestfall<div><p>In the world of dreams, one’s friends live forever, for they can be present at any time. In this way, I have expected the eventual visits of my close friend, who passed away this fall, in my dreams and in the recollections of him that occur to me.</p><p></p><p>With the alchemical signature of wholeness [1] of three and one, I present three dreams and a song from my content, culminating in a rejuvenation dream at the beginning of the year. In hopes of processing grief in a healthy way, I wanted to look at these experiences.</p><p></p><p><span><b>Song/Fragment:</b></span> <i>(the morning after Brian’s death) I woke up with the song, “I Can’t Fight This Feeling Anymore” by REO Speedwagon, in my head. Particularly significant was the line, “it’s time for me to fly …”</i></p><p></p><p>I remember now that Gary Richrath, the guitarist for REO, died five days before Brian did in September. The song fragment is relevant and connects the two people, in death. The body disconnection in death is symbolized by the line, “<i>it’s time for me to fly …</i>”</p><p></p><p>In the weeks that followed, </p><p></p><p><span><b>Dream</b></span>: <i>I see a scene from one of my pictures, of myself and Brian on the Avalanche Trail (descending Mt. Yale) with Mt. Princeton in the background. I am in the scene, and Brian is saying something. Startled, I wake up.</i></p><p></p><p>I had expected him to appear in a dream, so he did. A picture that’s on my wall came alive in the dream. Startled, I couldn’t deal with it. The Avalanche Trail (actually called a route), treacherous in the winter months, is safe enough in summer when we were there, but the reference seemed somewhat ominous. We had done that trip as a loop, which makes the reference symbolize wholeness.</p><p></p><p>In my experience of dreams, if one can’t make out words of dream characters, taking in the context of the whole scene may convey deep meaning.</p><p></p><p>Another month went by.</p><p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9142451498,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img width="750" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9142451498,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-left" alt="9142451498?profile=original" /></a></p><p><span><b>Semi-Lucid Dream</b></span>: <i>I was with Brian at the high lake at McCullough Gulch. He went over the berm to the lake, and I called him back. I said, “Brian! Come here”, and as he turned and came toward me, I said, “you’re alive! You’re in the Dreamworld!” Shaking his hand, then hugging him, I couldn’t believe he was here. He wore a tan shirt, looked healthy and had piercing blue eyes. He didn’t say anything.</i></p><p></p><p>Satisfied, remembering the feeling of happiness, I felt that I had made contact with my friend, rejoicing in the moment. The fairly short and lucid dream allowed me a high level of awareness, which translated to waking right after. I had seen my friend in the dreamworld and that was all that mattered to me (no participation mystique here; I understand that this content is made of projections, not to be mistaken for my friend in the literal sense). The lake is the one featured in my profile picture on the forums.</p><p></p><p>With the coming of the new year, I had the following dream.</p><p></p><p><span><b>Brian’s Rejuvenation</b></span> - <i>I look in on Brian, who is lying on his death bed. From the same position he was in when he died, his left eye is open. The eye is all black. I notice it moves. His bald head is elongated, like the Egyptian royalty who had their heads bound to be shaped like that. I go back into another room, pondering this. </i></p><p></p><p><i>Some other people are with me in the other room, when Brian walks in the door, wearing jeans and a new blue checkered shirt. I greet him, grasping both his hands. He says hello, and he walks to a couch and sits down.</i></p><p></p><p><i>He is talking with a woman who is standing in a doorway (on the west wall) which leads outside, where it is sunny. This woman is very interested in him, and I think, “he already has a girlfriend.”</i></p><p></p><p><i>There is a general air of a party atmosphere, and I am happy. I am thinking that perhaps, during this time he has been deceased, that his cancer may have receded and he has a new chance at life. Maybe he can start to do the things he stopped doing, like hiking.</i></p><p></p><p>There is a lot of imagery in this dream. This is January and I was to receive a portion of Brian’s ashes, for the postmodern duty of dispersing that portion on a mountain.This didn’t happen and I was resigned to forget about the possibility of the endeavor. </p><p></p><p>The Egyptian myth of Osiris [2] and a show I watched depicting the uncovering of the body of Tutankhamun by Howard Carter were relevant to events surrounding the passing of my friend Brian, related in my previous blog, Analysis of a Dream Series [3]. In the myth, the recovery of Osiris’ body parts is vital to events in the myth; not so in my outer life but it did in the dream, as an integral part of the myth. To quote Thom Cavalli:</p><p></p><p>“<i>If the body were not returned home, there would be no possibility for a proper funeral or any chance of resurrection.</i>” [4]</p><p></p><p>During this time that I had been reading Joseph Campbell [5], dealing with motifs of death, resurrection (or rejuvenation) and rebirth, including the Dying God Motif [6], I had been thinking of the idea of carrying the memory of my friend into the next season as I continue to hike and climb our local mountains here in Colorado.</p><p></p><p>The Eye Motif of the completely black left eye will refer specifically to an awakening in the unconscious. The elongated head reminds me that Tutankhamun’s mother had this “mod” (result of head wrapping as a child; identity, “The Younger Lady” from tomb KV35), connecting Brian with Tutankhamun again, to continue the theme of rebirth. An elongated head, though not consciously intended by Egyptians, seems to symbolize an enlarged brain and expanded consciousness to me, from our 21st century perspective.</p><p></p><p>As I have left Brian to whatever is happening here, the scene shifts but to the same room as it was before it was a sick person’s living room. There are people here and Brian walks in, renewed. Hair, new clothes, a new man. We welcome him and he enters. Reproduced in my blog [3], Brian’s dream begins, </p><p></p><p>“<i>… at first, with an awareness of the morning sunlight taking on a strange appearance as it shined through the slats of the blinds near his bed.</i>”</p><p></p><p>Brian’s dream had begun with morning sunlight shining into his sleeping area. On the opposite side, where there is a window but no door in reality, a new doorway appears in my dream, containing afternoon sunlight and an anima figure, who is associated with him. I don’t know why he wouldn’t rejoin his girlfriend, which reinforces the idea that the figure exists in an image with the sun, as archetypal content. She speaks to him from the left, from the unconscious, as he is on the right, within consciousness again. Her words, not heard, are not as important as the context of her appearance.</p><p></p><p>Looking at the image, I can’t help but think the afternoon sunlight relates to the second half of my life, that his anima figure is perhaps mine, or that the anima appears as she relates to him, as she would relate to me, because after all, it is my dream. He is integrated into my reality and as our situations were similar before his illness, I move into the second half of life as I have planned, carrying Brian, or his memory, with me as I would have, had he lived. Perhaps he stands as a proxy figure for me, as a role model.</p><p></p><p>A new, numinous doorway filled with afternoon light represents a new possibility for life, a life filled with consciousness, for Brian in one perspective, for myself in another. In his acceptance, he would look forward to a new journey, a new dawn [7]. In mine, to continue the journey which I haven’t completed [8]. </p><p></p><p>In Brian’s dream, he faces east, toward the rising sun. In mine, he faces west, toward the setting sun, perhaps my sun. In his dream, the sun “takes on a strange appearance”. In mine, there is an unknown woman within the doorway of its light.</p><p></p><p>There are lots of bits that relate in smaller ways to myth which I have not looked at or not expressed in this post in the interest of brevity, yet I have included enough relevant material for the continuity of the series. The idea of the sense that death itself may be healing [9] might be looked at closer, for example.</p><p></p><p>[1] C.G. Jung, CW Vol. 13, Alchemical Studies- Pg. 224, Axiom of Maria Prophetissa </p><p>[2] The Egyptian Book of the Dead, Translator, R.O. Faulkner - 1990</p><p>[3] <a href="http://www.depthpsychologyalliance.com/profiles/blogs/a-dream-series?xg_source=activity" target="_blank">Analysis of a Dream Series</a></p><p>[4] Thom Cavalli, Ph.D., Embodying Osiris- 2010</p><p>[5] Joseph Campbell, Creative Mythology- 1968</p><p>[6] James Frazer, The Golden Bough- 2nd abridged 1994</p><p>[7] Marie-Louise von Franz, On Dreams and Death</p><p>[8] C.G. Jung, CW Vol. 5, Symbols of Transformation- Pg. 92, Fig 3, <i>The Voyage of the Sun: The Western Goddess on the Barge of Evening Gives the Sun disc to the Eastern Goddess in the Barge of Morning</i>.</p><p>“<i>This image contains the psychological root of the “heavenly wanderings of the soul”, an idea that is very old. It is an image of the wandering sun (fig. 3), which from its rising and setting travels over the world</i>.”</p><p>[9] Michael Meade, The World Behind the World- <i>The Return of Healing:</i></p><p><i>“Mythically, the center of one thing leads to the center of everything. Seen that way, the illness of one person becomes the ailment through which all that ails a community can be addressed. The wound in one person can become the door through which everyone can find the center of life again</i>.”</p></div>Easter and the Sorrowful Motherhttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/profiles/blogs/easter-and-the-sorrowful2011-04-23T03:40:05.000Z2011-04-23T03:40:05.000ZFisher King Presshttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/members/FisherKingPress<div><table style="float:left;margin-right:1em;text-align:left;" class="tr-caption-container" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align:center;"><a style="clear:left;margin-bottom:1em;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jQb4p30YWvA/TbIV6m68EFI/AAAAAAAAAlA/VUnlWsIaZYk/s1600/Pietro_lorenzetti%252C_compianto_%2528dettaglio%2529_basilica_inferiore_di_assisi_%25281310-1329%2529.jpg"><img width="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jQb4p30YWvA/TbIV6m68EFI/AAAAAAAAAlA/VUnlWsIaZYk/s320/Pietro_lorenzetti%252C_compianto_%2528dettaglio%2529_basilica_inferiore_di_assisi_%25281310-1329%2529.jpg" height="320" border="0" alt="Pietro_lorenzetti%252C_compianto_%2528dettaglio%2529_basilica_inferiore_di_assisi_%25281310-1329%2529.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td style="text-align:center;" class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size:xx-small;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pietro_lorenzetti,_compianto_(dettaglio)_basilica_inferiore_di_assisi_(1310-1329).jpg">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pietro_lorenzetti</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><img width="1" style="border:none;margin:0px;padding:0px;" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wwwmalcolmclc-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0981034411" height="1" border="0" alt="ir?t=wwwmalcolmclc-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0981034411" />from <a href="http://fisherkingpress.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=5"><i>Re-Imagining Mary</i></a> by Mariann Burke<br /><br />I had never felt much attraction to the Sorrowing Mary until I visited Sicily. Here the Holy Week festivities have as much to do with Mary, it seems, as with Jesus. This is probably true since in Sicily the Earth Goddess Demeter is very much present <i>in</i> Mary.<br /><br />One senses that Demeter’s journey to the depths of the earth in search of her child strongly parallels Mary’s search and Mary’s sorrow. Demeter was a fertility goddess, whose daughter Persephone had been abducted by Hades into the underworld. Psychologically speaking, her search for Persephone (daughter, meaning “sprout” or new form of the mother) can be viewed as a search for herself. Persephone is the “seed” dying into the earth and returning in the spring as the new shoot. The story and its vegetation imagery is about personal rebirth. And it echoes the stories of earlier goddesses like Inanna and Isis searching for their sons and/or lovers who have gone into the land of death. There is no question here that in Sicily Mary plays a unique role in the Easter Mysteries similar to Demeter in earlier times.<br /><br />Mary is not often pictured going down into the netherworld, though some apocrypha stories (texts not included in the official canon) describe her descending into Hell to plead for the release of sinners. These are faint traces of the real similarities between Mary and the Greek Mother Demeter searching out the lost child. After Persephone’s abduction, Demeter roams the earth in grief and rage and during this time famine covers the earth. In her suffering and grief, she pleads with Zeus to return her daughter and he agrees. When Persephone returns, famine and blight disappear, the earth blooms. Mary’s suffering plumbed the depths as she watched Jesus’ way of the cross and his death. “Christ’s passion is narrated through the perspective of the Virgin and becomes the Virgin’s passion.”(1) Many believe that Mary’s suffering equaled that of Jesus. Mary is the Adolarata, the Suffering One. Today in the town of Trapani where Christian, Greek and Arab worlds meet, an eighteen hour Easter procession celebrating these mysteries begins on Good Friday.<br /><br />My niece Barbara and I had been staying in Erice, a village perched high above Trapani, the location of an ancient temple to Venus, Goddess of Love. We planned to leave before the festivities, but luckily were able to view the preparations housed in the local church. Inside we viewed magnificent Stations of the Cross which would be carried throughout the town. These are life sized figures with wood base and what looks like cloth maché covering. The figures are placed on platforms decked with multi-colored flower arrangements. In medieval times these stations or scenes, representing events leading up to the death of Jesus, were carried by local guild members: bankers and farmers, butchers and tanners. Today one can read on each platform something of the history and the particular guild members who participated. The tradition continues.<br /><br />Slowly I walked around the church until I stopped short. There on the left side of the altar stood a statue of Mary unlike any I had seen. She was robed in black, a silver sword piercing her heart, an image of her anguish at the loss of her child to the dark underworld. Carried high on its platform of considerable weight, the statue follows the long procession as the crowds cry out Mary’s lament, “Where is he?” (This cry echoes the earlier Babylonian Mother Goddess Ishtar mourning the loss of Tammuz, her suffering son lover whose rising would bring fertility to the land.) One can hear Demeter as well crying, “Where is she?” It is the cry of a mother who has lost her child. Here pagan and Christian ritual meet at a depth of human emotion that blurs their differences.<br /><br /><a target="_blank" style="clear:left;float:left;margin-bottom:1em;margin-right:1em;" href="http://www.amazon.com/Re-Imagining-Mary-Mariann-Burke/dp/0981034411?ie=UTF8&tag=wwwmalcolmclc-20&link_code=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969"><img width="130" src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=0981034411&tag=wwwmalcolmclc-20" height="200" alt="Re-Imagining Mary" /></a>Mary as Sorrowful Mother has touched my heart. She has entered into that place of my personal suffering, that place that generates mourning, healing and love. Mary Dolorata becomes a model for every woman’s suffering and loss. She is comforter because we identify with her sorrow. Her suffering, like Demeter’s, is redeeming, for, as the Gospel affirms, she became the mother of John and of the entire human race. (John19:26-27) In a talk on the Feast of Mary’s Nativity in September, 2004, Pope Paul II quoting St. Irenaeus said that the Sorrowful Virgin is in a sense “The cause of salvation for herself and for the entire human race.”(2) This early Christian writer echoes a belief held through the centuries that Mary like the great Earth Mothers of antiquity creates, “dies” and recreates the world. In so doing she images the value of our personal journey to self fulfillment through our suffering.<br /><br />For the image of the Sorrowing Mother evokes a universal longing for rebirth, a cry of hope. How can we today resonate to this cry for the lost child? Daily we mourn the many children and adults “lost” through violence or illness. Psychologically viewed, consider adults who as children have been emotionally abandoned. Such a child has caring parents who provide for its material needs. But it has not received sufficient response to its emerging self expression. The “fit” between child and mother has not been good enough thus the child experiences estrangement, often well into adulthood. The “inner child” represents hope…a new vision, a new possibility. Its healing or “resurrection” happens through re-connection to God and its real self. Loss then is transformed by joy.<br /><br />From the <i>Virgin of Tenderness</i> to the Black Madonnas of Rocamadour and Einsiedeln my journey through images of Mary has opened me to soul depths where I sense the imageless God. We are image making creatures and throughout our life our God images change. “Unless we are completely defended and isolated from our Source,” writes, Ana-Maria Rizzuto, “the representation of God like any other, is reshaped, refined and retouched throughout life. With aging the question of the existence of God becomes a personal matter to be faced or avoided. For most people the occasion for deciding on the final representation of their God comes in contemplating their own impending death.”(3) For most of my life my God images were personal: Friend, Lover, Father, and Jesus. Mary as Mother came later. Then followed Wisdom-Sophia. It was as if the Feminine Divine urged me to “descend” into my feminine nature, my true feeling and emotion, to the realm of the Mothers. In contemplating my death, perhaps I am sensing a rebirth.<br /><br />In its many forms the myth of rebirth provides a model for self discovery and creation, for changing patterns destructive to self and to others. One story has it that in order to get in touch with herself Wisdom Sophia had to separate from the rational spirit world to descend into the dark earth. “The sufferings that befell her took the form of various emotions—sadness, fear, bewilderment, confusion, longing: now she laughed and now she wept. From these affects…arose the entire created world.”(4) It may be easier for us to imagine Mary ascending to the courts of heaven than to see her descending into the depths of grief. As Sorrowful One, she has done this. Her darkness and suffering is a vital part of her full humanity as it is of our own.<br /><br />The 17th century mystic Angelus Silesius speaking of Wisdom Sophia, wrote:<br /><blockquote>As once a Virgin fashioned the whole earth, </blockquote><blockquote>So by a Virgin it shall have rebirth.(5)</blockquote>These are a remarkable two lines. Our ancestors imaged the birth of the world through Wisdom Sophia, she who exists before all things. Are we experiencing the world’s rebirth out of chaos and violence? That too will happen, but only through the Virgin, that is, through the recovery of our connection to soul, the feminine Self at the heart of our being.<br /><br /><br />Mariann Burke is a Jungian analyst in private practice in Newton, MA. She holds graduate degrees from the University of Pittsburgh, Andover-Newton Theological School, and the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich, Switzerland. She has done graduate work in Scripture at Union Theological Seminary and La Salle University. Her interests include the body-psyche connection, feminine spirituality, and the psychic roots of Christian symbolism. She is a member of the Religious of the Sacred Heart (RSCJ).<br /><br /><a href="http://fisherkingpress.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=5">Re-Imagining Mary: A Journey through Art to the Feminine Self</a> ISBN 13: 978-0-9810344-1-6 is on sale now at the Fisher King Press <a target="_blank" href="http://www.fisherkingpress.com">online bookstore</a>.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:x-small;">(1) Margaret Miles quoted in Cunneen, In Search of Mary, p. 192.</span><br /><span style="font-size:x-small;">(2) Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, III, 22, 4. See also Rev. Judith Gentle, Jesus Redeeming in Mary based on the theology of Louis De Montfort.</span><br /><span style="font-size:x-small;">(3) Ana-Maria Rizzuto, The Birth of the Living God: A Psychoanalytic Study, p. 8.</span><br /><span style="font-size:x-small;">(4) Alchemical Studies, CW, Vol. 13, p. 335.</span><br /><span style="font-size:x-small;">(5) Mysterium Coniunctionis, CW, Vol. 14, n. p. 318.</span><br /><br /><a style="clear:right;display:inline;float:right;margin-bottom:1em;margin-left:1em;" href="http://www.fisherkingreview.com/"><img style="display:block;height:100px;margin:0px auto 10px;width:110px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_66tG-ibjAoU/StmAZLTraMI/AAAAAAAAASs/kmBy84VNLJ8/s200/fkplogo110x100.jpg" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5393483198773291202" border="0" name="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5393483198773291202" alt="fkplogo110x100.jpg" /></a>Fisher King Press publishes an eclectic mix of worthy books including Jungian Psychological Perspectives, Cutting Edge Fiction, and a growing list of alternative titles. <a href="http://www.fisherkingpress.com/">www.fisherkingpress.com</a> <a href="http://www.fisherkingreview.com/">www.fisherkingreview.com</a><br /><ul><li>International Shipping.</li><li>Credit Cards Accepted.</li><li>Phone Orders Welcomed. 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