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May 14, 2021

Theoretically, no limits can be set to the field of consciousness since it is capable of indefinite extension. Empirically, however, it always finds its limit when it comes up against the unknown. This consists of everything we do not know, which, therefore, is not related to the ego as the center of the field of consciousness. The unknown falls into two groups of objects: those which are outside and can be experienced by the senses, and those which are inside and are experienced immediately. The first group comprises the unknown in the out world; the second the unknown in the inner world. We call this latter territory the unconscious. (Jung & Hull, 1959/1968, p. 3 para 2)

The image gives the option of revealing something conscious or unconscious. I can use the waking world as a source of the familiar for recognition or I can use the unfamiliar to trigger my imagination as to what the image is in the outside world. Another option is to have it be something of my inner world, something in my unconscious.

When I reach into the outer world for familiarity, I might soothe my need to know, but I cut off my imagination. So sometimes having an answer brings the process to an end, much like finding the meaning in a dream which is then set down.

Another option is to take the image inside into the unconscious via sensation. By doing so, I acknowledge a deeper response, a physiological reaction to it. Essentially, my brain would be in its most primary response before activating higher levels of acknowledgement. It would inform me with heart and breathing rate, touch, smell, taste, and visual experience of the image. Then […]

May 1, 2021

The meeting between the narrowly delimited, but intensely clear, individual consciousness and the vast expanse of the collective unconscious is dangerous, because the unconscious has a decidedly disintegrating effect on consciousness. (Jung, 1967, p. 9 para 46)

The plant in the image is Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (Brunfelsia). When it first blooms the blossom is purple, then it changes to pale lavender, and finally to white. Each flower not only transitions from bud to blossom, but also reveals its age in color.

The parent plant encourages and supports the individual flower growth. Each blossom is not the plant and yet they contribute to it, much like we are part of the collective but are not it. When I step ten feet away from the bush, I see a variety of color but cannot appreciate each story of Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow,

Each of us might have three views of a time defined collective like the plant’s common name. However, there is a timeless dimension to the collective that is beyond the limits of time and space. My ego struggles to stay conscious when I consider the vastness of where I came from. So, I find it challenging to imagine beyond time and space, yet I am limited to only stay aware of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. At times in meditation, my imagination is drawn to what lies beyond beyond.

Our unconscious is an Alchemic vessel that dissolved our consciousness, adds the relevant bits from the unconscious, seals the vessel in form of an individual life and slow cooks it over time. The gods preside over this process disguised as archetypes that further directs this alchemic process to our individual destiny in the collective space, in the […]

At a Crossroad
In the Eye of the Storm
An individual response to the Global Crisis
ISSN 1939-3407
 
April 6, 2020
Ashok Bedi, M.D., Jungian Psychoanalyst
www.pathtotheosoul.com
www.tulawellnessllc.com
Robert BJ Jakala PH.D., Jungian Psychotherapist
In a storm, the safest place is in the eye of the storm. My colleague BJ and I will share our daily reflections on this centering process from an Analytical perspective, sharing from the repertoire of our personal and professional experience. BJ is a psychologist and a photographer and will pick an image of the day that catches him in this collective crisis. I will amplify it from a Jungian Analytical perspective. We hope that this may offer you a baby step on the path to your own unique response to this chaos.

But, just as our free will clashes with necessity in the outside world, so also it finds its limits outside the field of consciousness in the subjective inner world, where it comes into conflict with fact of the self. And just as circumstances or outside events “happen” to us and limit our freedom, so the Self acts upon the ego like an objective occurrence which free will can do very little to alter. It is, indeed, well known that the ego not only can do nothing against the Self, but is sometimes actually assimilated by unconscious components of the personality that are in the process of development and is greatly altered by them. (Jung & Hull, 1959/1968, pp. 5-6)

The bifurcation calls to make a choice, since I cannot go in both directions at the same time. So rather than choose quickly, I spend time in the moment of choice and photograph it. I listen to visual mind as a photographer that considers the potential of the interplay […]