Snake symbolism: Birth of the Sun Child

Zeus is the Eagle, raising itself higher and higher; competent, bright, bringing self-esteem upon oneself. The snake is pain and difficulty, feeling helpless, lost in the dark woods. The ego naturally seeks out the Eagle... but the Self seeks wholeness, because what the ego doesn't realize is that it's in our weakness that God can enter our lives. Children are our wholeness, including what is frail, weak, stupid, helpless and frustrating. It's our humiliation, and our uncontrolled passions. It is what is in us that is exactly what it is, regardless of what is socially desirable... or even socially acceptable. The Child, like the Ouroboros, is the symbol of wholeness.

Child, snake and lion

Very often, the snake appears in ancient mythology combined with the motif of the child. For instance, the mythical god of the Athenians was King Erechterus, who was the son of Athena and who was kept as a little child in a basket into which one should not look, for one would see a child surrounded by snakes. One cannot be sure exactly what it means, but coffrets grotesques have been found in Southern France (probably material from the Middle Ages and not earlier), in which naked children are playing with snakes. The child-god and the snake-god were very often combined like that.

The child-god is also the archetype of the poisoner, so to speak. The Cupid of antiquity has a very poisonous arrow with which he can even subdue - as the poets say - the great god Zeus, for if Cupid shoots an arrow at him, Zeus may have to hopelessly pursue an earthly woman, though he may not even like the situation... If you do like it, you will be happy and say that you have fallen in love. If you do not like it,  you will say that you have been poisoned; you are bound to do something you do not like and are forced into a situation which feels like subjection or poison to the ego.

(Marie-Louise von Franz, Puer Aeternus)

Some people have a frustrated infant within them. Usually they are very correct and polite, and make very few demands on the analyst, but being too polite and correct and considerate is always suspect. One knows that they would like to eat up the analyst completely like the lion, making childish demands and scenes, because the analyst has stopped five minutes before the time, or answered the telephone, or put off the hour, or even had the flu!

That is the symbolism of the madness in the lead, but it also contains Osiris, the immortal man, and if only you accept that spot within you, you will come to the creative content where the Self is hidden. The frustrated child could be said to be an aspect covering up an image of the Self, and the devouring lion also an aspect of the Self.

If you take the image of the devouring lion this is quite clear. If I think I ought to be top dog everywhere, have the most beautiful partner, have money, be happy, and so on, that is a paradise fantasy, and what is that? It is a projection of the Self! So actually, the childish thing is the desire to experience everything in the here and now. The fantasy in itself is entirely legitimate, it has the idea of the coniunctio, a perfect state, a state of harmony. It is a religious idea, but naturally if projected onto outside life and wanted there, in the here and now, that is impossible. The way in which the person wants to realize the fantasy is childish, but in itself it is valuable and has nothing wrong or unhealthy in it.

So just in that undominated mad spot of the person, or in the wild or problematic spot, there is the symbol of the Self. That gives it the drive, which is why people never know what to do for they cannot repress it; or if they are reasonable and just give the thing up and realize how childish it is and that one should be resigned and adapt to life, then they feel that they are cured but that they have been robbed of their best possibilities and so are frustrated.

(Marie-Louise von Franz, Alchemy)


Oh snaaaaaaap, more stuff related to the owl dream! I love when this happens :D  In it's positive aspect, the child is the symbol of renewal, but the child archetype also has some negative aspects: being incapable, less than perfect, weak... and being "childish;" irrational and unreasonably demanding. This is definitely a problem of mine. I want everything, but I deny myself anything. I know I have this devouring wolf inside of me that could eat, and eat, and eat whole fucking world, so I make sure to keep it down by not asking for anything, and being scrupulous about what I take from others. In fact, if I get more than I give, I feel uncomfortable.

This is also deeply intertwined with my need for love and connection. I grew up being sent from one family member to the other. I always thought my mother had sent me away; she was sick and almost died but, upon learning when I was twenty-four that even on (what she thought was) her death bed she begged to keep me, I burst into tears. I never even knew this had bothered me, just as I never realized that deep down, I felt like I always had to make people like me so they wouldn't send me away again. These are all realizations that came up years later.

I have the eternally hungry infant inside me, and this makes me both fear and long for love. What I long for is the rest and peace that comes with having a place of my own, without fear; as the Wiccan's say "perfect love and perfect trust." This is why I get so crazy in relationships. And this is precisely why I need to work through relationship issues.

In the owl, the child was beheading owls with a stick. I still don't know what the stick means but the child and the owls are pretty obvious: this neediness and childishness in me is beheading my wisdom - my owl's are "losing their heads." Also, both my interpretations are right: the child is a symbol of renewal, but a frustrating, childish one. And the owl is a symbol of wisdom. I don't think the dream is telling me whether I should do one thing or the other as much as just giving me an objective understanding of my situation.



Traveling in Egypt

This is a long excerpt, but it is positively overflowing with gems of insight and wisdom. And straight up excellent advice, in general and for the different types/functions. Here von Franz talks about the value of the inferior function/the child-like parts of ourselves.

[T]he child has a naive view of life, and if you recall your own childhood, you remember you were intensely alive. The child, if it is not already neurotic, is constantly interested in something. Whatever else from which the child may suffer, it does not suffer from remoteness from life, normally - only if it is thoroughly poisoned by the neuroses of its parents. Otherwise, it is fully alive, and that is why people, thinking back to their own childhood, long to have that naive vitality which they have lost in becoming a grown-up. The child is an inner possibility, the possibility of renewal, but how does that get into the actual life of a child?...

It has to do with he inferior function - through which the renewal comes - which has remained childlike and completely naive. Therefore, it conveys a new sight and a new experience of life when the worn-out superior function comes to its end, and it imparts all those naive pleasures which one has lost in childhood. That is why we have to learn to play again, but on the line of the fourth, or the inferior, function. It does not help if, for instance, an intellectual person starts some kind of intellectual play. If a thinking type were to quote the Bible, saying that unless you become like little children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven, and then would go to a club to play chess - that would not help at all, for it would again be on the main function. There is a great temptation to do that; namely, to accept the idea of play and of turning to something else, something noncommittal, but to do it within the field of the main function. I have often seen feeling types whose feeling functions have run out. I tell them they must do something which has no purpose, something playful. Then they propose working in a kindergarten, or something like that. But that is nonsense, for that would again be on the feeling side; that would be a half-way acceptance and an escape at the same time. The really difficult thing is to turn directly to the inferior function and play there. For this, the ego must give up its directing line, because if you touch your inferior function, it decides on the kind of play; you cannot decide. The inferior function, just like an obstinate child, will insist that it wants to play at something or other, though you may say that it is not suitable and would not work well. For example, in an intuitive, the inferior function may want to play with clay, but the intuitive person lives in a hotel room and would much prefer something clean because clay makes a lot of dirt in a hotel room! But you cannot dictate to the inferior function! If you are an intuitive and your inferior function wants to play with stones or clay, then you have to make the effort to find an ambiance where that would be possible. That is exactly the difficulty. That is why the ego always has thousands of objections to turn to the inferior side. It is always something very difficult to arrange in practical life

The inferior function is a real nuisance, just as children are, whom you cannot put in a box and take out when it suits you. It is a living entity with its own demands, and it is a nuisance to the ego which wants to have its own way... But if you accept the humiliating experience of making the ego submit itself to the demands of the inferior of childish part of the personality, then the divine child becomes a source of life; then life has a new face, you discover new experiences, and everything changes

I often notice that when the feeling type begins to think, he does so exactly like the early Greek pre-Socratic philosophers. He has thoughts like those of Heraclitus or Democritus, and such people, and is as fired by these as were the early Greek philosophers. If you read Empedocles or Heraclitus, you will find an eternal youth in the way they think. That is why I love those philosophers so much. Nowadays, it seems very like mythological thinking - not very scientific. For instance, the atomic theories of Democritus are awfully naive, if looked at according to modern theories, but there is a kind of wholeness and enthusiasm about them, together with the idea that now they see the whole picture. Naturally, the material is full of projections of the symbol of the Self, so one gets quite carried away when reading it. There is a kind of springtime of the spirit; the early Greek philosophy is like the blossoming spring of philosophy. Very often, if a feeling type gets down to his own thinking, he comes to this kind of experience; when that happens, the thinking type must retire to his own estate and not say that one knew that twenty-thousand years ago! The same thing applies to the thinking type if you get him or her to bring up naive real feeling, rather than something organized. Usually, the thinking type is so much a thinker that he even organizes his feelings appropriately, and because he does not get on with his real feelings, because they are unadapted, he generally has a pseudo-adaptation to feeling. I would say that the main method for getting to the playfulness of the inferior function is to scratch away the pseudo-adaptation with which we all cover the inferior function. The feeling type, for instance, is usually full of school and university theories and imagines that those are his thoughts. But they are not: they are pseudo-thinking adaptations to cover up the fact that his real thinking is awfully embryonic and naive. The same holds true for the thinking type who has very naive feelings; for instance, "I love you, I hate you." If he went round the world saying that, or saying, "I can't stand you," you can imagine what a stumbling block it would be! It would not work for two minutes! Even in school, you cannot tell your teacher that you cannot stand him! I am a thinking type myself and I loved certain teachers and hated others. But I would never dissimulate my feelings sufficiently; I always showed her how I felt. I knew it would have been much more diplomatic not to show too clearly how much I despised a certain teacher, but it was always quite obvious. When you become adult, you hide these reactions and acquire a pseudo-feeling adaptation. Thinking types are often very amiable and seem to have very balanced, amiable feeling reactions, but never trust that! That is just a pseudo-adaptation, because the other is so painful and helpless and childish that one cannot show it. But if you have to go to it, then you must again dig up the naiveté of your real feeling and get the crust off the pseudo-adaptation

Intuitives very often have no relationship to the body and are likely to dress badly or be dirty, but since that does not work, they learn to wash and put on nice clothes, and so on; although they may be quite correctly dressed, there is no personal style. If they would dig up their real sensation, their taste would be artistic, but weird and very much out of the ordinary. Intuitives who get down to their sensation cannot buy ready-made clothes; everything has to be made for them. Neither can they eat hotel food; they must either have a cook or they must cook for themselves, and it must be very special. It gives them a lot of trouble to discover this, and, what is worse, it is a nuisance and expensive both in money and time. You can have the tailor and the cook but that is not quite genuine, or you can go down to the inferior function, but that is the greatest time thief in existence, because it is primitively slow

You know that in primitive countries it is impossible to hurry people. If you travel in Egypt, it is no good ordering the cars for 9:00 am and expecting to be beyond the Nile or in the Kings' Tomb at 10 am. Everyone who travels in the Orient knows that he must put up with being two or three hours late; he cannot arrive on time as Europeans do. But once you have made the adaptation, life is much nicer, because you have all kinds of experiences: the car breaks down and causes a lot of fun, and instead of arriving at the Kings' Tomb, you get into the desert and do a lot of swearing, and so forth. But that's life too! You cannot organize the inferior function. It is awfully expensive and needs a lot of time, and that is one reason why it is such a cross in our lives: it makes us so inefficient if we try to act through it. It has to be give whole Sundays and whole afternoons of our lifetimes and nothing may come out - except that the inferior function will come to life. But that is the whole point. A feeling type will only bring up his thinking if he begins to think about something he cannot use in this world, neither for examination nor study; but if he will think about something which interests himself - that is how to get going because it is not possible to yoke inferior playfulness to utilitarian motives. The essence of play is that it has no visible meaning and is not useful. I would tell a feeling type to learn what he needs by heart for his exams, and not try to think, because he won't be able to do so. He should make pseudo-adaptations, and if the thinking type gets into a situation where he has to behave - say he has to attend a funeral - then he must on no account pull out his personal feelings. He must just behave and do the conventional thing with flowers and condolences; that is the right pseudo-adaptation for him. To get at his real feeling, the thinking type must find a situation where he can play with it, and then it will be quite different. So the first thing to do is to take it out of the adaptation field and keep the pseudo-adaptation for those cases where it is necessary. I think nobody can really develop the inferior function before having first created a temenos; namely, a sacred grove, a hidden place where he can play. The first thing is to find a Robinson Crusoe playground, and then when you have gotten rid of all onlookers, you can begin!

(Marie-Louise von Franz, Puer Aeternus)

So basically, the Snake is also the Child, for ill and for good. It's the part of us that causes us humiliation and pain... and also the door through which God comes. It's the poisoner... and the source of new life. Its why its our weakness and imperfection that is the part of ourselves that is the most valuable.

There's not much I can actually add to this. Go and do as von Franz suggests (as will I.)

Animus/anima and their function

Yes, I am still trying to work on some more snake symbolism posts (yes I am) but it is taking for-freaking-ever unfortunately... there is just so much! In the meantime, I've had a bit of a random musing about the animus/anima and Jung's understanding of their chracteristics. Jung describes the anima as a man's feelings and the animus as a woman's thinking, but when I think about my own animus, he's definitely not my thinking. I think pretty damn well, actually. And he's also not my spirituality. I have no problems there all on my own. Where I do have problems is in my feeling and sensation functions, and this is where my animus seems to like to spend his time. Who is my animus? What is he like? Well, he's exactly what I'm not... i.e. not intellectual, but rather with a calm, confident emotional stability... Or when he's acting up, a raging, out of control hurricane of a beast.

This leads me to believe that the animus/anima is actually of our opposite function. Since most women Jung knew seemed to be mostly of the feeling function and most men of the thinking, Jung formulated his theory that a woman's animus is thinking and a man's anima is feeling, but I'm leaning more towards our anima/us just being our opposite. Its still early days, and I don't have a lot of evidence to back this up, but this is the direction I'm leaning towards.

Integrating the four functions

The four functions aren't actually "types," unless people get stuck in a particular function. And then the Self will send neuroses in order to poke and prod at us until we get moving and growing. But in order to do so, we have to take a meandering path that snakes from our dominant function to our auxiliary function, to the tertiary function, and finally to our inferior function. This whole process takes a loooooooooooong time. And apparently it doesn't have to be particularly clear cut or even sequential, if my own life is any indication. This is actually how you move around the circle, integrating the first three functions. When you integrate another function, you live that function, and all it's strengths and weaknesses are yours.

The assimilation of functions is such a serious business that people generally spend a very long time in assimilating their auxiliary functions and sometimes, say for at least eight to ten years, become a type which was not their original type. I once, for example, knew a woman who was an introverted feeling type; that is, in the past she had been a feeling type, but in the stage at which we met, she had already switched the process to developing intuition and at that stage had as much trouble with her sensation as if she had been a genuine intuitive... [S]he went through all the crises of having to switch from intuition to sensation which you see with a primarily intuitive type; for example, she became completely inaccurate about facts and had trouble relating to them, exactly as an intuitive does. She then stated with great emphasis that it had always been an error to call her a feeling type, for she was an intuitive, but she was wrong! She was right and wrong for at the stage at which she was, she was exactly like an intuitive, but that was because she was at the stage of living in her second function and was just in the crisis of getting over to the third.

(von Franz, Psychotherapy, p. 131)

What seems to happen is your dominant function gets worn out from overuse; you get tired of using it and life gets sterile, lifeless. Feels meaningless. In my case, I had a combination of fascination for and out and out messages from dreams and the Tarot that pretty clearly told me it was time to move on, away from thinking and into intuition. Or, more accurately, more completely into intuition - I've always relied on my intuition to some degree. And when we integrate another function we become that function - all of it's strengths and weaknesses become ours. A feeling type that starts integrating sensation will have problems with flashes of sinister, and completely unfounded, suspicion. Or, as in my case, a thinking type moves to integrate intuition and can't balance her checkbook or keep her apartment clean if her very life depended on it. And facts? Forget about facts! I don't need facts, I know the truth :p


I think this is the stage I'm at right now. I may or may not be moving towards integrating my third function, sensation. Integration of the third function is apparently accompanied or precipitated by a crisis, which is definitely happening in my life right now. And for some reason, either because I'm moving into the third stage, or because my Animus is straightening out (or both!) I feel like I'm starting to get a handle on the physical world.

One of the reasons I'm so confused is that I've always had problems with people (the feeling function) and I've always had problems with things (the sensation function). However, and this is based solely on intuition, it seems to me that dealing with people, while not as problematic right now is the most deeply rooted problem; i.e., where I'm the most primitive. On the other hand, I feel like the world of things is a more open field. Like it's waiting for me, just over the next hill, but I have to stay in this valley for a little while longer. It's related to the feeling that Hestia is one of my tertiary archetypes - it's there, and when it's there it's very comfortable for me. It's difficult to stay in but I feel a sense of comfort and ease when I'm in Hestia mode.

One other thing that I really love and find incredibly valuable about learning about the different functions is how much it explains not only about myself but about my family and others around me. As happened with learning about archetypes, I've come to understand and have compassion where I used to just judge. I know now why Judy is manipulative (or so it seems to an introverted thinking type like me.) I now see that her extroverted feeling type is my shadow, so I have this irrational disgust of some of her behavior... and am completely mystified by the rest. And I can see how my behavior and is her shadow. I have a better, and more dispassionate, grasp of why certain things I do trigger her disgust. Probably one of the biggest realizations this past weekend has been that I'm not defective, as I've felt my whole life. I'm just an thinker/intuitive living in a family of feeling/sensation types... an introverted thinker/intuitive. In a family of extroverted feeling/sensation types. Oy vey! At any rate, this has brought up a lot of emotion that I've spent a large part of this weekend feeling and releasing.



I'm not 100% sure of which is my dominant function because I seem to have been both a thinking type and an intuitive for a long time, all the way back to childhood. The only thing I feel like I can do is just go where my subconscious/Self seems to be indicating I go, and stay there for as long as I feel like I should, and just take things from there. This is another reason I feel like intuition is my second function - when this whole thing started, I got message after message telling me I needed to let go of rationality. Whatever the case may be, I will go where the path leads.

I feel almost like I'm on a long journey, just meandering from one country to the next. If that's the case, I want to stop, smell the roses, partake of some tasty local delicacies, and enjoy my stay in each place for as long as I'm there.

Jung's four functions ("personality types")

Now I'm having second thoughts about being an Intuitive. I finally finished the (very long) section on the inferior function in Psychotherapy. Later in the chapter von Franz writes that for many people the dominant function wears out and they move to their auxiliary function. When that happens, you start having problems with that inferior function.

I want to explore the whole process of integrating the first three functions but first I want to think a little about the actual personality types. I have to eventually do a post, or maybe a page, on Jungian psychology, but I want to write a quick sketch of his thinking, both for any visitors but also for my own integration of these concepts.


Introversion and extroversion

First off, there are two basic attitudes that everyone falls into, introversion and extroversion. Jung's concepts of introversion and extroversion are so widespread they don't need much introduction but, for the sake of precision, I'd like to clarify what Jung meant. It's most commonly thought of as the divide between the kind of people who like to go to parties and those who prefer staying at home. Which may be true, but it's more accurate to talk about the flow of libido; one's energy and attention.

The extrovert is the easiest to understand - their energy and attention flow outwards, toward the outer world of things, people and ideas out there. They're the easiest to understand and the easiest to see because where their energy and attention is flowing is clear to anyone observing them. An introvert, on the other hand, spends most of their time and attention focusing on feelings, thoughts, etc. that are inside of them. The difference between the two may become more clear after looking at Jung's four functions and how each function differs when expressed by an introvert and by an extrovert.


Jung's four functions ("personality types")

There are 4 different functions in a personality, although everyone has one that's strongest, which is the one they're the most identified with, so the functions are commonly thought of as distinct personality types. The four functions are:

Thinking  A person identified with the thinking function excels at manipulating ideas. Philosophers and theoretical physicists are your typical introverted thinkers; their main focus is on the ideas within them. Their concern is more about creating systems for understanding. Lawyers and experimental physicists, on the other hand, typify extroverted thinking; they care more for ideas as they apply to the "real world" (where an introverted thinker probably feels like their inner world is more real). Extroverted thinkers use their thinking to organize, codify and understand the world outside of them.

Sensation  Someone primarily identified with the sensation function excels at manipulating objects. Engineers are often extroverted sensation types; they're the hard nosed realists who only believe in what they can see and feel with their five senses. Some may even take it to such an extreme that they even deny the reality of ideas. Introverted sensation types are also primarily concerned with the physical world but where extroverted sensation types focus on the things themselves, introverted sensation types are more concerned with the impact the world makes on themselves, on their inner worlds. I sometimes get flashes of what it's like to be an introverted sensation type when become completely absorbed in all the sensations and impressions while cooking, or biking; everything affects you deeply and the world itself becomes sacred.

Intuition  Intuition is another function that's difficult to describe, and that's because it's main focus is in potential; an intuitive knows things without knowing how they know it. This is because the intuition comes out of the subconscious, from all the information that's constantly being collected there - intuitives have an innate, instinctive ability to access the subconscious. Extroverted intuitives are those entrepreneurs who can somehow sniff out the next big thing, before anyone else has even heard of it. Introverted intuitives are your typical shaman or medium, getting flashes of knowing from within.

Feeling  If thinking types have a subtle and mature grasp of thinking, and sensation types of the physical world, feeling types have a subtle, mature and nuanced grasp of interpersonal relationships. Extroverted feeling types are those people who have an instinctive facility for understanding and working with others. Introverted feeling types are also most focused on their relationships, but they're more concerned with how those relationships are impacting them, as opposed to getting others to behave in a certain way. These are the people who can be at a party and say or do nothing but a calm good cheer spreads out from them like rings in water into which a stone has dropped (or, if they're in a bad mood, they can have the opposite effect on everyone.)

So, in a nutshell, extroverts focus on the outer world while their internal world is "merely" symbolic of what they feel is the real world of things and people. For introverts, however, their internal world is the focus of their energy and attention. The outer world is important mainly in how it provides grist for the inner mill.


Related posts

Integrating the four functions
Archetypes, astrology and Jung's functions (oh my!)

I'm not a Thinking type!

Or not primarily, at least, which is a shocker for me as I always thought I was.

I've been reading another Marie-Louise von Franz book (surprise surprise) and am currently reading about the inferior function. My interest in Jung's personality types was piqued so I went exploring around teh interwebs where I made a startling discovery: I'm not actually a Thinking type, as I always thought I was! I'm an Intuitive!!

Von Franz, among others, talks about how one's inferior function is the one that you have the most difficulty with. One key indicator was the things that took you longer to do than normal.

[T]he inferior function is generally slow in contrast to the superior function... [I]f an intuitive fills out a tax form, he needs a week where other people would take a day. He simply cannot do it, or if he does it accurately, he takes forever.

... Assimilating it, and even letting the inferior function come up, takes a great amount of time. If a feeling type wants to think, he will sit eight hours to write two pages - if as much as that. If a thinking type wants to realize his feeling, he has to meditate for hours until he feels what he feels... If you ask a thinking type what he feels, generally he will shoot a lot of conventional answers at you, but when you ask him what he really feels, he is absolutely stunned and says he does not know! If you leave him stewing for a long time, he will slowly realize what he really feels. The same is true for sensation when it is the inferior function, which is why, when intuitives begin to work on their inferior sensation, they get tremendously stiff and overly pedantic, and they have to be extraordinarily accurate in a terribly slow way. This cannot be helped; it is a stage which cannot be skipped.

(von Franz, Psychotherapy, pp. 41-42)

It reminded me of F and his difficulty writing, how it takes him days and days to write what takes me an hour to do. Based on the assumption that I was a Thinking type I tried to wrap my head around my having difficulty feeling... which I don't too much, actually. Not to that that extent. However, I do have serious difficulty with getting day-to-day things done; things like refinancing my apartment, which I find so overwhelming I usually just become paralyzed and can't even think about it.

And it actually makes more sense for a Persephone to have Intuition as her dominant function. Actually, it has a lot of parallels with my discovery that I'm a Persephone and not a Hecate; it wasn't until I took the Goddess Power quiz that I figured out that I was a Persephone. Then, after thinking about it a while, I realized that yes, I'm a Persephone. I guess I've developed my auxiliary function of Thinking so much that, like my Hecate subarchetype, it became difficult for me to see my actual main function!

This also helps in trying to figure out other people's dominant, auxiliary and inferior functions; even if an auxiliary function is very highly developed (which, if my acquaintances are any indication, appears to be quite common) you can always figure out someone's inferior function by looking at what takes a bloody long time for them to do.



Another interesting point von Franz makes about the inferior function is that it's the area in which you feel most alive.

Another difficulty in defining one's own or other people's type is that if people have already reached the stage of being bored with their main function, they very often assure you with absolute sincerity that they belong to the type opposite what they really are. The extravert swears that he is deeply introverted, and vice versa... [W]hen one is trying to find one's type, one must never ask, "What matters to me most?" but rather "What do I habitually do most?" An extravert can be constantly extraverting but will assure you, and will mean it, that he is deeply introverted and only concerned with the inner world. That is not a deception, it is how he feels, for he knows that although it may be for only a minute a day, in that minute in which he introverts he is close to himself; there he is real.

(von Franz, Psychotherapy, p. 33)

This reminds me of how, sometimes, when I can really get into it, cleaning can become a peaceful Zen activity where time expands, becomes Kairos time. And it also explains how it's when I'm in the stream of life that I feel the most anxious... as well as the most alive. As an introvert it's when I'm extraverting that life is sharp and lively. And why I can squeeze so much emotional juice out of a tiny bit of social interaction.

Now what I want to do is practice being in the Sensation function, although Jung and von Franz suggest going a meandering route through the other two functions before taking on the inferior function. It might also explain why I have a fascination with physical activities, like my cycling, or like sewing and cooking; it could be the subconscious's way of developing my inferior Sensation function.

Link: Benet Hill Monastery's page about the inferior function

Related post: Jung's four functions ("personality types")