Knocking on the door

Work. Keep digging your well.
Don’t think about getting off from work.
Water is there somewhere.
Submit to a daily practice.
Your loyalty to thatis a ring on the door.
Keep knocking, and the joy inside
will eventually open a window
and look out to see who’s there.

~ Rumi


Had a great time with G yesterday. Put the question to him again... with a negative answer. But I can tell things have moved on. First off, I know what this is all about; it's about the desire for love, trust, a home. And second, I'm not infatuated anymore, and I haven't been for a while now.

Last night, and recently as well, I've noticed my reactions towards him, and the things I've notice about him: his immaturity mainly. And, although I've known it for a while, his weakness, the general weakness and cowardice that's a basic part of his personality. Although at one point I did think that we were on different levels (i.e. that I was more psychologically developed) later I wasn't so sure - different maybe, with different strengths and weaknesses but maybe not different levels. But his shit isn't cute anymore and, although it could be something for us to work through if we actually had a relationship, I really think it's not going to be.

The biggest thing I had to deal with in the aftermath of our day was feelings of loss, of longing for love, for someone who would be protective of me, to whom I was special, unique and beloved. To be beloved of someone, and to protect and have them be my beloved. And I still feel grief over the loss of what we could have had - I still think that we mesh well together - but I think I have my answer about who the pairings in the readings I've been getting are. I kept wondering; are the "two beings" who unite and work together as one me and G, or two different sides of me? And I think I have the answer.

One of the things I was thinking about is our role in each others lives. I know I'm in his life to help draw him out into living, to spread his wings and fly. But for the longest time I thought his role in my life was for me to suffer all the things I've avoided all my life. Last night I got a deeper look into that. The suffering isn't just suffering for its own sake - the suffering is part of connecting to the world. I fell in love with him because, as Jung said, love makes us risk everything for it's sake. It connects us to the world. And that connection often hurts.

All my life I've avoided anything that hurt. That meant that all my life I never connected to anyone or anything. It was always easy for me to ditch anyone who was difficult or caused me pain, and that meant I never lived, I only drifted through my life, so that I reached my middle years without ever really having lived at all. That's what I needed G for, to be willing to stay with a relationship with a person who caused me pain, stay with it even when it caused me pain. I've never done that before. I did a tarot and i-ching reading after G left and they indicated something big, something big and beautiful and amazing, was coming down the pike. I think it's related to this staying connected with life, even through what feels like unbearable suffering. This is the work that Rumi wrote about, the knocking at the door of Joy until It looks out to see who's there.

"The Union of Irreconcilables"

Recently, I got hexagram 38 ("Estrangement") when asking about what the heck is going on with me and G. It was the same old story, but what I ended up getting was a puzzle to say the least: the image of fire over a lake, each one pulling in opposite directions. I had no idea how it applied to my situation: Did it mean us? Or was it something I was supposed to do?

As usual I did the best I could with understanding the meaning and then went on with my life... and as usual, when I don't really understand something, something else comes up and sheds light on the issue.


Boxing the sheep

To begin with, I want to go back to von Franz and her exploration of the puer/puella; specifically, with their difficulty in standing tension. The following refers to Antoine de Saint Exupéry's The Little Prince - the scene von Franz is referring to is the one where Saint Exupéry first meets the little prince and tries to draw a sheep at the prince's request. Three different drawings are rejected for one reason or the other, and finally Saint Exupéry just draws a box and tells him the sheep is in the box.

Placing the sheep in the box is not a gesture of escape; rather, it springs from what one might call a certain vital strength in order to be able to stand a conflict. Saint Exupéry wants to get back to work on his engine. Instead of letting him quickly draw a sheep, the star prince bothers him, saying this drawing is not right, not this, nor this, so that Saint Exupéry is torn between the engine and the child, whose importance he completely realizes, and who, in a typically childlike way, bothers him. He feels sure that even if he draws another sheep it won't be right, or there will be a lot of questions, and in reality there is the urgent situation of getting his engine in order. If you take that symbolically, it means a conflict between the demands of the outer and the inner life, which establishes a tremendous tension. How can you comply with the demands of outer reality, which reason tells you is right, and those of the inner life at the same time? The difficulty is that the demands of the inner life need time. You cannot do active imagination for five minutes and then go off and do other things! If, for instance, one is in analysis, dreams have to be written down. This may mean two hours' work to just write them down, which is only the beginning, for one has not yet done any work. One should also meditate on them. It is a full-time job, but very often there are also the urgent necessities of outer life. This is one of the worst and most difficult tensions to stand - to be capable as far as possible of giving each claim what it needs.

(von Franz, Marie-Louise, Puer Aeternus, pages 45-46)

This is yet another feature of the puer/puella, but I didn't make the connection between the reading and this section until I read the following from Jung. Here too was a description of the difficulty in standing the tension between the worlds of the conscious and the unconscious, the demands of our inner and outer lives. Jung goes into more detail about what the conflict between the two consists of, not just the time demands but the radically different worldviews of the two worlds; the rational, ordered world of the conscious and the irrational world of the unconscious. The situation comes up specifically during the circumambulatio, the psychological circling around a central area of focus:

[I]f the life-mass is to be transformed a circumambulatio is necessary, i.e., exclusive concentration on the centre, the place of creative change. During this process one is "bitten" by animals; in other words, we have to expose ourselves to the animal impulses of the unconscious without identifying with them and without "running away"; for flight from the unconscious would defeat the purpose of the whole proceeding. We must hold our ground, which means here that the process initiated by the dreamer's self-observation must be experienced in all its ramifications and then articulated with consciousness to the best of his understanding. This often entails an almost unbearable tension because of the utter incommensurability between conscious life and the unconscious process, which can be experienced only in the innermost soul and cannot touch the visible surface of life at any point. The principle of conscious life is: "Nihil est in intellectu, quod non prius fuerit in sensu." ("Nothing is in the understanding that was not earlier in the senses.") But the principle of the unconscious is the autonomy of the psyche itself, reflecting in the play of its images not in the world but itself, even though it utilizes the illustrative possibilities offered by the sensible world in order to make its images clear. The sensory datum, however, is not the causa efficiens of this; rather, it is autonomously selected and exploited by the psyche, with the result that the rationality of the cosmos is constantly being violated in the most distressing manner. But the sensible world has an equally devastating effect on the deeper psychic processes when it breaks into them as a causa efficiens. If reason is not to be outraged on the one hand and the creative play of images not violently suppresed on the other, a circumspect and farsighted synthetic procedure is required in order to accomplish the paradoxical union of irreconcilables. Hence the alchemical parallels in our dreams.

(Jung, C.G., Dreams, pages 219-222)


The moral dimensions of staying

Standing the tension has elements of both in-born strength or weakness, as well as the moral choice we all have to make. In the section below, von Franz emphasizes the "nature" side of the "nature vs. nurture" equation, while Jung, on the other hand, points to the importance of making a choice and actively coming to terms with the challenge. In fact, it is on becoming aware of one's personal responsibility that it becomes a moral choice.

The weak personality - and I don't mean "weak" as a moral criticism - would imply not being born physically strong. The weak personality reacts with a short-cut response, making a definite decision to do the one and put the other aside. Here, there is an incapacity for standing the tension beyond a certain point. A weak personality has an impatient reaction, whereas a strong personality can continue in the tension for longer. In this case, one sees that Saint Exupéry, after the third attempt to draw the sheep, gives up and makes a short-cut solution in order to get back to his engine. This is an indication of a weakness that shows in certain other features; for instance, the star prince's planet is very tiny, he himself is very delicate, or, to take the first dream, the hero does not come out of the devouring snake; i.e., the mother. Also, if you look at photographs of Saint Exupéry, you will see that he has a very strange "split" face: the lower part of it is like that of a boy of seven, the expression of the mouth is completely immature; it is a naive, little child's mouth, and there is a thin little chin, whereas the upper part of the face gives the impression of a very intelligent and mature man. Something is weak and just like a child; therefore, there are certain tensions which he cannot stand.

(von Franz, Marie-Louise, Puer Aeternus, pages 45-46)

The focusing of attention on the centre demanded in this dream and the warning about "running away" have clear parallels in the opus alchymicum: the need to concentrate on the work and to meditate upon it is stressed again and again. The tendency to run away, however, is attributed not to the operator but to the transforming substance... It did not occur to these philosophers that they were chasing a projection, and that the more they attributed to the substance the further away they were getting from the psychological source of their expectations. From the difference between the material in this dream and its medieval predecessors we can measure the psychological advance: the running away is now clearly apparent as a charcteristic of the dreamer, i.e., it is no longer projected into an unknown substance. Running away thus becomes a moral question [emphasis mine].

(Jung, C.G., Dreams, pages 219-222)

The question here is: Do we really believe we are given exactly what we need? Inherent "weakness" itself is part of our challenge. In those further from the unconscious - i.e., those who are more comfortable in the outer world than the inner - the challenge is to find the strength to withstand the terrifying incursions of the unconscious into one's safe, rational life. On the other hand for the puer or the puella, who lives close to the unconscious, the challenge is to work, to stick it out in in the deadly boring, everyday dreary reality which is so unbearably painful. But the conflict is ultimately the same; the clash between the outer and inner worlds, the conscious and the unconscious.

The two are shadow sides of each other. The extrovert or sensation type is focused on this world. They are willing to work hard to achieve perfection; and yet, because of their pathological aversion to doing anything which is less than perfect, they often find themselves impotent and incapable of achieving anything at all. Anything they do would be imperfect so they do nothing at all. This is G's problem. The introvert or the intuitive, on the other hand, because they can't stand the tension of staying with a thing until it's done well will eventually throw something haphazard together but this is usually after an extended period of doing a whole lot of nothing. So in the end both fail to overcome the tension.

Both G and I have to stand this tension. Also, as a puella, I have to stand the specific tension of staying with unpleasant work. It can be argued that, whether we are aware of the choice or not, we have a moral obligation to make the choice - that the refusal to see the choice is itself a choice. And that, regardless of our personal strength or weakness, in every situation we are confronted with, the choice is always present.


Fire over the lake

"The 'union of irreconcilables:' marriage of water and fire. The two figures each have four hands to symbolize their many different capabilities."

This was the image that Jung chose to illustrate the section I quoted; and it was this picture that got my attention. As soon as I saw it I knew it exactly described hexagram 38. This is what happens when we can stand the tension of opposition. It's after reading all of Jung and von Franz's exploration of what it means to withstand the tension, what it is, what it's for, how to do it, and the necessity to do so that the I-ching reading's mysterious pronouncements begin to make sense:

Hardly have conscious and unconscious touched when they fly asunder on account of their mutual antagonism. Hence, right at the beginning of the dream, the snakes that are making off in opposite directions have to be removed; i.e., the conflict between conscious and unconscious is at once resolutely stopped and the conscious mind is forced to stand the tension by means of the circumambulatio. The magic circle thus traced will also prevent the unconscious from breaking out again, for such an eruption would be equivalent to psychosis. "Nonnuli perierunt in opere nostro": "Not a few have perished in our work," we can say with the author of the Rosarium. The dream shows that the difficult operation of thinking in pradoxes - a feat possible only by the superior intellect - has succeeded. The snakes no longer run away but settle themselves in the four corners, and in the process of transformation or integration sets to work. The "transfiguration" and illumination, the conscious recognition of the centre, has been attained, or at least anticipated, in the dream. This potential achievement - if it can be maintained, i.e., if the conscious mind does not lose touch with the centre again - means a renewal of personality.

(Jung, C.G., Dreams, pages 219-222)

Fire above, lake below.
Amid fellowship, the superior person retains their individuality.

Fire moves upward, water seeps down: When they are quiescent, their movements can unite; when they are in motion, they draw farther and farther apart. But since this movement is a natural one, it comes itself to a turning point when it has reached an extreme.

Usually opposition is an obstruction, but it can also be a polarity: Heaven and earth, spirit and nature, man and woman. When reconciled these bring about the creation of new life. Heaven and earth are opposites, but their action is concerted. Man and woman are opposites, but they strive for union. All beings stand in opposition to one another: what they do takes on order thereby. Great indeed is the effect of the time of opposition.

Opposition is the natural prerequisite of union. As a result of opposition, a need to bridge arises. In the same way, it is the differences between things that enables us to differentiate them clearly, and therefore classify them. This is the effect of opposition, a phase that must be transcended.

Regardless of co-mingling, they will always preserve their individuality. Fire and the lake tend to combat each other, creating opposition, while their attributes lead to it's being overcome. The joyousness of the lake is fellowship, and the clarity of fire is clearly recognizable individuality. The reason the two tend to opposition is that the eldest, whose authority would maintain order, is absent.

(Hexagram 38: Estrangement)

Circling and stillness are the same thing, and they both are what Jung and von Franz mean when they talk about standing the tension. The focus must be keps on the center, where the change is taking place. "We must hold our ground, which means here that the process initiated by the dreamer's self-observation must be experienced in all its ramifications and then articulated with consciousness to the best of his understanding."

"Co-mingling" is the tension of bringing the inner and outer worlds together. Even when they are together they will always be different; it is their difference that creates the tension. However, they carry within them the very attributes needed to transcending the tension: the joy and fellowship of the heart, along with the clarity and ability to discriminate differences of the mind. The reason heart and mind, body and soul, have problems is because Spirit is missing.

Right now, I feel like Hexagram 38 is mostly about me, but some of it is about me and G: G is the outer world. I'm the inner. His movement to me is characterized by coming close then backing off; this is the referred movement of opposites to one another (and followed by repulsion, with attraction once again.) The thing is, G isn't standing the tension. He just let's himself by controlled by his fear and desire. The question is: Am I? Am I doing the same? Or am I doing the difficult work that needs to be done... not moving and standing the opposite pulls?

Is this why I got this when I asked about me and G? Because it's what we need to do in regards to each other; and that shows what we are (or aren't) doing? Do I need to be doing this? I feel like I've moved on from this relationship... Maybe it's because, despite having "stood the tension" and stayed with all the painful feelings, he's still failing to do the same. But, even if it's time for me to move on, this question will still be a part of my challenge. I don't think any of us ever grow past it. Also, it talks about opposition bringing about the need to bridge the differences, to transcend the diferences; this is necessary to bring about the creation of new life. So maybe it is about is... God, I still do not know! I feel like the more I understand about this the more I don't understand it!


I'm having a hard time finishing this post. Everything except for the conclusion came so easily, and this last part is like pulling teeth, so I just banged it out, trying to get out all the thoughts that have been circling in my head. The conclusions are many, but one that stands out is that I'm to stay in the tension. Whether that means in this relationship or simply in life I don't know. What I do know is that this isn't finished yet. I'm sure there will be more to come on this topic in the future!

Too little earth

The trouble is not that the elephants are too big, but that the earth is not strong enough to carry them. The elephants are okay, but there is not enough space for them.

(von Franz, Marie-Louise, Puer Aeternus, pages 50-52.)


Another thing came up as I was reading Puer Aeternus was the need for psychological "earth" or the substance and strength to do the difficult work of psychology.

Some people have a lot [of earth] but are not in touch with it, while others have no earth, or not enough, even if they are in touch with it - which would mean that there is not enough vitality. It is naturally an irrational concept, an intuitive concept. You could call earth psychological substance. You see that again and again. One of the great problems in psychotherapy is: how much substance does that person have? How much can he or she carry?...

While the person with too little earth may be able to assimilate everything psychologically, he will have great difficulty realizing things in reality. Such people take everything in analysis with honesty and strength, but when you press them to do something about it in their outer reality, a terrific panic comes up. At the moment when the inner realization has to be put into life, strength collapses, and you are confronted with a trembling child, who exclaims, "Oh, no! That I cannot do!" This is an exaggerated illustration of the introvert's attitude in which there is great strength in accepting the inner turths but very little when it comes to real life. Then the trembling child appears.

The reason it stood out was because of a recent I-ching hexagram I threw which spoke of the earth, hexagram 7, "The Army". This is just a very preliminary musing but I wonder if the two have something to do with each other...

Water under earth; the ground water stored up in the earth. In the same way military strength is stored up in the mass of the people - invisible in times of peace but always ready for use as a source of power - water is stored in the earth.

The army needs perseverance And a strong man. Good fortune without blame.

An army is a mass that needs organization in order to become a fighting force. Without strict discipline nothing can be accomplished, but this discipline must not be achieved by force. It requires a strong man who captures the hearts of the people and awakens their enthusiasm. In order that he may develop his abilities he needs the complete confidence of his ruler, who must entrust him with full responsibility as long as the war lasts. But war is always a dangerous thing and brings with it destruction and devastation. Therefore it should not be resorted to rashly but, like a poisonous drug, should be used as a last recourse.

In the middle of the earth is water: the image of The Army. The superior person increases her masses by generosity toward the people.

Ground water is invisibly present within the earth; in the same way the military power of a people is invisibly present in the masses. When danger threatens, every peasant becomes a soldier; when the war ends, they goes back to their plow. She who is generous toward the people wins their love, and a people living under a mild rule becomes strong and powerful. Only a people economically strong can be important in military power. Such power must therefore be cultivated by improving the economic condition of the people and by humane government. Only when there is this invisible bond between government and people, so that the people are sheltered by their government as ground water is sheltered by the earth, is it possible to wage a victorious war.

A few thoughts - I think that, although this topic isn't as strong in it's impact as the other recent work, it's still important, particularly in that it supports that work:

First off, here in "The Army" the earth is what contains and shelters power - the more earth you have, the more power you can hold. If you only have a tiny little asteroid, it is impossible to contain a lot of power, or groundwater.

The hexagram also speaks of how one makes use of power - through discipline tempered with generosity and the bonds of trust and love. But both discipline and generosity take strength, so here again, those with a small amount of earth have difficulty. But we must do our best.

One part of this section that I didn't include spoke about how many people are mixed types - some parts of them are strong, vibrant and full of power, and others are weak, and must be nurtured slowly and patiently. The trick is to figure out what kind of person you are and, if you have weak spots, be careful of them and patiently nurture them until they are strengthened. Even if you have a weak spot, or are overall a weak person, there is always something you can do - push on through where you're strong, and gently nurture where you're not.

Sometimes it's good to be a sheep

More stuff coming up about the puella and... drumroll please... my "romance" with G is a part of it. As are my work issues... it's the whole trifecta enchilada of my current concerns! It's not surprising but it is pretty cool when things come together this way. For a while I've been working mostly on these areas and, although there was a sense of them being connected, that connection has been just made clear.

I was re-reading von Franz's Puer Aeternus (expect more stuff on this book) and came across the following:

It is the sheep mentality, the crowd-man, which drives them into military service, but this collective adaptation can be - and is sometimes temporarily - a help to pull away... it is the moment to pull away from the mother.

You can say that all kinds of very humble, unindividualistic, collective adaptations help against the mother complex; namely, as I mentioned before, doing one's work, going to military service, trying to behave like everybody else, not having that kind of fancied invdividuality which is typical for the mother-complex man - and giving up the idea of being somebody special, someone who does not need to make all such low kinds of adaptations - for that is a poison of the mother complex. Therefore, to give that up and to accept being just somebody or nobody, in the crowd, is to a certain extent a cure, although only a temporary one and not the whole cure. Still, it is the first step in pulling away from the mother.

I read this just today, after asking the I-ching if I would ever have a love relationship last night and getting the following in the reading reading:

One light line is in the place of the Queen, the other her minister. These two gather all of the dark principle together. "Crowd" and "joyousness" indicate the basis of the gathering together, and the two nuclear trigrams "standing still" and "exerting influence" also indicate gathering together.

Only collective moral force can unite the world - such times will leave great achievements behind. This is the significance of the great offerings that are made: there is a need for great deeds in the time of gathering together.

The mass is devoted and at the same time joyous. In order to gather people together, the ruler needs joyousness, and the people devotion.

When I first threw the reading I had no idea what the significance of "crowd" was. Then I read the part in von Franz about the importance of being like a sheep, or a "crowd person" was to pull away from the mother complex, the feeling of being special which is actually so common and actually not special at all, just a part of the puella neurosis. And of course what's going on here at work immediately came up - I've always felt separate from all the other "peons" who took this job as a career or something silly like that. But not me, I'm too special! I have a special destiny! Not like all the rest of my co-workers... except for the cool ones, like the musicians and writers who were just doing this to pay the rent. Those people I could identify with, but not the regular 9-5ers.

Well, apparently I need to be a peon!

It's just this kind of "I'm too special to effing live" attitude that has to go. Von Franz goes on to say that you can't stay in the sheep mentality, but by giving up the false, neurotic idea of "specialness," and being carried away by the current of the group, the puella grows beyond that neurosis.

Looking back at hexagram 45, I'd have to say that being a 100% enthusiastic member of the crowd - taking my grubby, earthbound work seriously and being conscientious about it - along with working joyfully, is what I have to do now. That and devotion; devotion to my job, to my position in society, my family and my job. Devotion to doing my job, all my jobs, well; to not be sullen and resentful at having to crawl around in the dirt but to have an attitude of comradeship with my fellow dirt crawlers, to enthusiastically crawl around in the dirt to the very best of my ability. It's only by crawling around in the dirt that we puellas can fulfil the command of Heaven... that is, to fully come down into the Earth and to finally fully live our lives.

The provisional life

... Here again... he has come to the edge, to the end. He cannot go farther in the way he is now going... He felt he had come to an end and could not go on in the same way. He has one split in his psyche, a very deep one.

(von Franz, Marie-Louise, Puer Aeternus,  page 136.)



I've been going through another amazing period of synchronicities - I don't know if they're happening more since I got back into this Jungian stuff or I just wasn't aware of it before. Recently I felt compelled to get Marie-Louise von Franz's Puer Aeternus. I actually wasn't too interested in the issue for the longest time, despite the fact that this is a huge, huge problem of mine (as it is for any Persephone, or any predominantly intuition type). What I'd really wanted to study was myths and fairy tales and symbolism, but just recently, suddenly I knew it was time to deal with the problem of the eternal child in me... the one that runs (and sometimes ruins) my life. And as soon as I made up my mind to study the problem all sorts of dreams, Tarot and I-ching readings have been pointing to the issue.

What had been coming up, and for some time now (all my life, really), was the need to grow up and grow down; to grow down into the earth, into all the petty, routine, everyday necessities of life which we intuitives/Persephones are notoriously bad at. Things are suddenly coming to a head and, of course, the urge to study about the puer aeternus intensified.

Although the puer aeternus is a male archetype I can say from personal experience that there's a female version. Von Franz suggests that in women it's our animus that gets possessed by the puer. That may be, or perhaps there's a female type, a puella aeterna, probably Persephone. It's something I'm going to have to think about but, whichever the case, the description definitely applies to me, and I know there are other many other women out there just like me (you'll find us all over the internet.)

The main difference between the puer and the puella, as far as I can see, is in love relationships: the puer both seeks and runs away from the Great Earth Mother, while Persephone gets sucked into the Underworld by the Demon Lover. Being devoured by the Earth is the common theme of both, but one runs away from the Devouring Earth, into the heavens, and the other runs away from life, into a perfect world in the Underworld. As an aside, I find it interesting that the two archetypes that I get along the best with, Dionysus and Hermes, are both puer aeterni. They are, in fact, the two sides of the puer archetype: the ecstatic son of the Mother Goddess who dies and rises again; and the airy, winged bird man, who feels he will die if he has to stay on the earth but, like his brother, usually dies young, too "pure" to stick it out and stay in this mortal coil. Following is an excellent description of the puer/puella by the ever insightful Marie-Louise von Franz.


The Eternal Youth

[T]he man who is identified with the archetype of the puer aeternus remains too long in adolescent psychology; that is, all those characteristics that are normal in a youth of seventeen or eighteen...

[G]reat difficulty is experienced in adaptation to the social situation. In some cases, there is a kind of asocial individualism: being something special, one has no need to adapt, for that would be impossible for such a hidden genius, and so on. In addition, an arrogant attitude arises towards other people, due to both an inferiority complex and false feelings of superiority. Such people usually have great difficulty in finding the right kind of job, for whatever they find is never quite right or quite what they wanted. There is always a "hair in the soup..." There is always a "but" which prevents marriage or any kind of commitment.

This all leads to a form of neurosis which H.G. Baynes has described as the "provisional life"; that is, the strange attitude and feeling that the woman is not yet what is really wanted, and there is always the fantasy that sometime in the future the real thing will come about. If this attitude is prolonged, it means a constant inner refusal to commit oneself to the moment. Accompanying this neurosis is often, to a smaller or greater extent, a savior or Messiah complex, with the secret thought that one day one will be able to save the world; that the last word in philosophy, or religion, or politics, or art, or something else, will be found. This can progress to a typical pathological megalomania, or there may be minor traces of it in the idea that one's time "has not yet come." The one situation dreaded throughout by such a type of man is to be bound to anything whatsoever. There is a terrific fear of being pinned down, of entering space and time completely, and of being the specific human being that one is. There is always the fear of being caught in a situation from which it may be impossible to slip out again. Every just-so situation is hell.

(von Franz, Marie-Louise, Puer Aeternus,  pages 1-2.)

I'm one of those people who can never seem to get their lives straight, who go through life staggering from one near disaster to the next. Loved ones watch us nearly ruin our lives over and over again (and sometimes succeed), shaking their heads in amazement that such an intelligent person can fail to _________ (fill in the blank: keep our apartment clean, sew up that missing button or hole-y sock, get or keep a decent job, save money if we somehow manage to keep a decent job, etcetera.) It's not that we don't have good intentions, we do! We generally have, or at least start off, with the very best of intentions; but somewhere along the line we lose it, we lose everything. It's as if it's physically impossible to get up off the couch and away from streaming Netflix movies, or get away from the Internet or whatever it is that has us glued in place with the gravitational force of a giant black hole.

The problem with us puer/puellas is that we live so close to the unconscious that our ego never fully develops. This gives us a zest for life and a depth of feeling that most of us would rather die before giving up, but it can and does also lead to some serious problems coping with this world. Jung and von Franz seem to believe that when we say that we just can't do whatever boring-ass thing we're "supposed" to do, that we really can't. Our egos just never developed the strength to force all the parts of us to pull in one direction if we really didn't want to. Or on the other hand, it could be that we really could but it's just hard, and the one thing we don't like is hard, so we drift through life like brainless amoebas, moving towards what is pleasant and where possible avoiding the unpleasant. But then life smacks us upside the head with the two by four, calling us to expand and grow. And that means the dreaded "W" word (or "WORK"!)


Plowing the fields before you

... What cure is there? you might ask... In Symbols of Transformation, Dr. Jung spoke of one cure - work - and having said that, he hesitated and thought, "Is it really as simple as all that? Is that the only cure? Can I put it that way?" But work is the one disagreeable word which no puer aeternus likes to hear, and Dr. Jung came to the conclusion that it was the right answer. My experience also has been that it is through work that a man can pull out of this kind of youthful neurosis. There are, however, some misunderstandings in this connection, for the puer aeternus can work, as can all primitives or people with weak ego complexes, when fascinated or in a state of great enthusiasm. Then he can work twenty-four hours at a stretch or even longer, until he breaks down. But what he cannot do is work on a dreary, rainy morning when work is boring and one has to kick oneself into it; that is the one thing the puer aeternus usually cannot manage and will use any kind of excuse to avoid. Analysis of a puer aeternus sooner or later always comes up against this problem. It is only when the ego has become sufficiently strengthened that the problem can be overcome, and the possibility of sticking to the work is given. Naturally, though one knows the goal, every individual case is different. Personally, I have not found that it is much good just preaching to people that they should work, for they simply get angry and walk off.

As far as I have seen, the unconscious generally tries to produce a compromise - namely, to indicate the direction in which there might be some enthusiasm or where the psychological energy would flow naturally, for it is, of course, easier to train oneself to work in a direction supported by one's instinct. That is not quite so hard as working completely uphill in opposition to your own flow of energy. Therefore, it is usually advisable to wait a while, find out where the natural flow of interest and energy lies and then try to get the man to work there. But in every field of work there always comes the time when routine must be faced. All work, even creative work, contains a certain amount of boring routine, which is where the puer aeternus escapes and comes to the conclusion again that "this is not it!" In such moments, if one is supported by the unconscious, dreams generally occur which show that one should push on thorugh the obstacle. If that succeeds, then the battle is won.

(von Franz, Marie-Louise, Puer Aeternus,  pages 5-6.)

The cure for the puer/puella is coming down to the earth. By voluntarily choosing to come down one avoids crashing, because that's what will happen. One way or the other, the earth will claim us. Our only choice, as is always the case, is whether we follow our destiny, wholeheartedly and with grace; or fighting against it every step of the way. In the latter case, the earth becomes a moldy tomb; a yawning, gaping maw that waits our whole lives to devour us (as it eventually will.) In the former, the earth is shelter and friend, the source of life and nourishment as well as delight. The puella spends her life looking for the thing that will make her whole, not realizing that it's the very thing that she runs away from, always runs away from; that is, the other half of her. By turning to face and embrace what we fear, we finally find our true Selves.

... Here again... he has come to the edge, to the end. He cannot go farther in the way he is now going... He felt he had come to an end and could not go on in the same way. He has one split in his psyche, a very deep one.

... When he has to go over the border into another country, he projects the idea that now he is going to fall into the hole in his psyche. The prison phobia is very obvious, too. He is like a bird; he never gets pinned down to earth... So the prison is the negative symbol of the mother complex (in which he sits in fact all the time), or it would be prospectively just exactly what he needs, for he needs to be put into prison - the prison of reality. But he runs away from the prison anyway, wherever he turns. He has only the choice of two prisons: either that of his neurosis or that of his reality; thus, he is caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. That is his fate, and that is the fate of the puer aeternus altogether. It is up to him which he prefers: that of his mother complex and his neurosis, or that of being caught in the just-so story of earthly reality.

When the dreamer gets further down, suddenly the heavens below solidify and look like the earth as seen from an airplane, with a quadrangular pattern of fields. It is a very positive image, for now the split is beginning to close. A difference of levels still exists, however, for between the earth above and the earth below is a very sudden change of level, such as that which often appears in the psychological geography of a dream where there are two levels and no connecting steps. Such a dreamer might switch between intellect and instinct in his way of living without any bridge between. But that would not show a very dangerous situation, since it is one that occurs frequently in the case of young people who have not yet harmonized the relationship between the two. The wound in this dreamer's psyche is healing; the earth level is rising through the fact that, by accepting, for once, an unknown situation and venturing into it, he is touching human reality for the first time - he is touching the earth upon which we live.

... It is the civilized earth and suggests work, so that one is reminded of Dr. Jung's words that work is part of the cure of the split and the difficulties of the puer - just ploughing some plot of earth, no matter which, is helpful. I remember him saying to a puer-aeternus type, "It does not matter what job you take. The point is that for once you do something thoroughly and conscientiously, whatever it is." This man insisted that if only he could find the right occupation, then he would work, but that he could not find it. Dr. Jung's answer was, "Never mind, just take the next bit of earth you can find. Plough it and plant something in it. No matter whether it is business, or teaching, or anything else, give yourself for once to that field which is ahead of you." Everybody has in front of him a field of reality where he can work if he wants to, and the childish trick of saying, "I would work if it were the right thing," is one of the many self-delusions of the puer aeternus, by which he keeps within the mother and his megalomanic identification with the god - because the gods, as you know, do not work.

... Fields would also imply limitation. That is the drawback of getting in touch with reality, because in that way one becomes limited: there are restrictions. One comes to the miserable human situation where one's hands are tied and it is not possible to do as one would like, something which is particularly disagreeable to the puer aeternus. What one produces is always miserable compared with the fantasies one had lying in bed dreaming about what one would do if one could!

(von Franz, Marie-Louise, Puer Aeternus,  pages 136, 157-158.)



Bringing it all together

Reading the last paragraph above was one of those "laugh out loud" moments, and one of the synchronicities I was talking about earlier, because just the day before I had thrown the following I-ching hexagrams.

Hexagram 60: Limitations

In a limited, human life, one achieves significance through discrimination and the setting of limits: unlimited possibilities are not suited to humans. To become strong, one needs the limitations ordained by duty and voluntarily accepted. We attain significance as a free spirit only by setting our own limits and determining for ourselves what out duty is.

If you seek to impose galling limits, it would be injurious - there must be a limit on limits as well.

9 in the 5th place: The ruling line of the hexagram. Limits must be carried out in the right way, i.e. by applying limits to oneself. That way leads to success, and with success one leads by example. Galling limitation would lead to failure, but owing to the enlightened and moderate behavior of the ruler of the hexagram this danger is overcome.

Hexagram 7: The Army

Water under earth; the ground water stored up in the earth. In the same way military strength is stored up in the mass of the people - invisible in times of peace but always ready for use as a source of power - water is stored in the earth.

An army is a mass that needs organization in order to become a fighting force. Without strict discipline nothing can be accomplished, but this discipline must not be achieved by force. It requires a strong man who captures the hearts of the people and awakens their enthusiasm. In order that he may develop his abilities he needs the complete confidence of his ruler, who must entrust him with full responsibility as long as the war lasts. But war is always a dangerous thing and brings with it destruction and devastation. Therefore it should not be resorted to rashly but, like a poisonous drug, should be used as a last recourse.

Ground water is invisibly present within the earth; in the same way the military power of a people is invisibly present in the masses. When danger threatens, every peasant becomes a soldier; when the war ends, they goes back to their plow. She who is generous toward the people wins their love, and a people living under a mild rule becomes strong and powerful. Only a people economically strong can be important in military power. Such power must therefore be cultivated by improving the economic condition of the people and by humane government. Only when there is this invisible bond between government and people, so that the people are sheltered by their government as ground water is sheltered by the earth, is it possible to wage a victorious war.

This is the answer, of course; the answer to the question I hadn't even known I was asking.

Well, I kind of knew; things were coming to a head at work. As is typical for a puella I was having problems and was worried about whether or not I was even going to be able to keep my job, a never ending concern of mine for all the reasons that it's so hard for us puellas to buckle down and get to work, especially if it's boring and completely uninspiring. I had the feeling that now was the time to face the problem of living in the world. In fact, perhaps it's time to flip over the functions from intuition, my second function, and start working on my third function, sensation.

You have to do this kind of work in the right way, tho, and at the right time. All of us puellas have had the experience of telling ourselves that "this time we'll do it." Maybe there is an aspect of grace to this whole going down to the earth thing; that the unconscious itself has to support you, you can't just "decide" to do it. That would be the ego deciding for reasons of power, control or status; or not wanting to feel like a loser and a jerk again. But it can't come from the ego; it has to come from the Self. But when the Self comes knocking with a plow in one hand and a pair of overalls in the other, we can't try to shut the door in it's face. We have to answer the call when it comes.

That being said, it's important to have subtlety and act with moderation. I like how the hexagrams describe the relationship between the "general" and the "peasants;" or the ego and the vast powers of the unconscious. In the past, General Ego tried to bully and beat the peasants into working for him, but that's obviously the wrong way to go about things; the relationship between the two should be full of affection and support. A good general protects his people, cares for them, first and foremost. But caring for them doesn't mean letting them laze about, letting the crops die because they're choked by weeds, or rotting out in the fields. In that case, getting the peasants to work is actually a way of showing caring and protection, because who suffers first when there's a famine? Yes, there is a need for limits and discipline, but not galling limits or galling discipline. Discipline must be softened with generosity and strong ties of devotion and protection between leader and lead, between the ego and the energies within.

Limitation also means setting limits on the puella in other ways; it means that she's going to finally have to choose what she wants to be when she grows up and stick with it. The world is so full of fascinating, wonderful things that I tend to flit from one thing to the next, getting really involved with my current fascination and then dropping it when I find the next. Life vastly entertaining this way, but you never actually accomplish anything. The good thing is that, with Jungian psychology, I really do feel like I've figured out what I want to be when I "grow up." And, with all those years of sampling one aspect of life after the other, I can pick the few things I love best. Yes, it hurts to think of all the wonderful things I won't be doing, but if you want to actually accomplish anything by the time you die, you have to give up the good in order to achieve the best. So for me, that means - besides the things everyone has to do (unless they're independently wealthy) like keeping my home clean and beautiful, and cooking nutritious and delicious food - I will focus on sewing beautiful, unique clothing and my instant photography. And maybe I'll keep dabbling a bit in natural perfumery since I will also continue to make my own soap, shampoo, lotion, etc.

One thing that's been percolating in my mind for months, ever since I wrote about integrating the four functions, is the idea that I need to move to the third function which for me would be sensation. Von Franz writes about how cleaning is the way a woman expresses love for the physical world. My experience with G was the first step in staying in the "fiery bath" of love; I think expressing love for the physical world - and all the painfully boring, kick-oneself-out-of-bed-on-a-rainy-morning feelings that will bring up - is the next step.


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