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A Sense of Doubt blog post #1834 - Symbols, threshold, and rebirth - JUNG
Just a share today...
An archetypal experience of being human is the need and
possibility at certain times throughout our lives to be reborn. To reinvent
ourselves, to make a fresh start, to reimagine our role and place in the world,
to embrace new values and discard what no longer serves us. This need and
possibility of creatively crafting our identity and journey is an integral part
of what in Jungian terms we refer to as individuation. The process of becoming
an ever more honest and refined version of yourself.
I have been reflecting on this of late. How fortunate we
are to be given these frequent and regular opportunities for renewal. I have
always celebrated the threshold offered by a new year and put great stock in
this. I count among my blessings that I have maintained a certain naiveite and
resisted cynicism in this regard. The new year has never failed to renew my
spirit and commitment to be a better version of my previous self. More recently
though what has dawned on me is the gift offered of every new day. Just how
profound the blessing is of being reborn every day. This gift of rebirth and
renewal that we receive daily is a good example of what is meant by the term,
archetypal.
A cinematic metaphor that portrays this idea so well is the eternally repetition in Groundhog Day, the 1993 comedy drama, starring Bill Murray in the lead, as a weatherman who gets caught in a time loop. He must repeat the same day, seemingly endlessly, until some epiphany is achieved that allows him to move on along his linear timeline. In philosophy and theology, the idea of the eternal return of time or eternal recurrence of time and events, is found in many diverse traditions. Possibly one of most well know expressions of this idea comes from Nietzsche,
“Whoever thou mayest be, beloved stranger, whom I meet
here for the first time, avail thyself of this happy hour and of the stillness
around us, and above us, and let me tell thee something of the thought which
has suddenly risen before me like a star which would fain shed down its rays
upon thee and every one, as befits the nature of light. – Fellow man! Your
whole life, like a sandglass, will always be reversed and will ever run out
again, – a long minute of time will elapse until all those conditions out of
which you were evolved return in the wheel of the cosmic process. And then you
will find every pain and every pleasure, every friend and every enemy, every
hope and every error, every blade of grass and every ray of sunshine once more,
and the whole fabric of things which make up your life. This ring in which you
are but a grain will glitter afresh forever. And in every one of these cycles
of human life there will be one hour where, for the first time one man, and
then many, will perceive the mighty thought of the eternal recurrence of all
things:– and for mankind this is always the hour of Noon". (Notes
on the Eternal Recurrence – Vol. 16 of Oscar Levy Edition of Nietzsche's
Complete Works)
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| https://carljungdepthpsychologysite.blog/2019/08/11/carl-jung-on-the-symbol-of-baptism-and-symbols-of-rebirth/ |
In other words, there is a way of thinking about everyday
as the same day repeated endlessly – or until there are no more days, for you
at least. You have a thousand opportunities to truly make the day, so that one
reaches that perfect day, where as Master Lü Dongbin says in the Secret of the
Golden Flower…
"the golden light crystallises
and silently in the morning thou fliest upwards."
Creative inspiration and available libido (psychological energy) are both necessary for this process of renewal. In fact, this capacity for change and renewal is one of the hallmarks of a healthy psychology. By contrast, one of the easiest ways to identify a neurosis is by the individual’s inability to change, renew, reimagine or in psychoanalytic terms, to re-symbolise, a way of being in the world that is no longer functioning optimally.
It is not only normal, but necessary to encounter adversity. It is part of the human condition and that which facilitates growth and increased capacity. Naturally we would not grow if we were never challenged to do so. Growth beyond a certain way of being, always involves overcoming a certain stuck-ness and previous level of adaptation, skill set, resilience, habits, thoughts and so on.
A neurosis as Freud pointed out is a form of “repetition compulsion”. Enacting a behaviour or set of behaviours repeatedly, in response to a consistent stimulus (challenge) that is dysfunctional. In other words, I keep doing the same thing but hoping for a different result. The subject in this instance is continually coming up against the same or a very similar threshold but is unable to successfully cross it. They are unable to successfully renew themselves and repeatedly serve up an existing version of their identity and adaptive self, despite it producing a less than ideal result. To return to our metaphor of Groundhog Day, this is the experience of being endlessly on repeat, and simply unable to enact something new. Forced toe endlessly repeat the mistakes of the past.
The reasons for neurosis are complex and go beyond the focus of this letter. I want to point out only two consistent characteristics of what this failure looks like: a manifest lack of creativity and an inability to assimilate a past event.
One way to break this deadlock is provided by psychoanalysis broadly speaking, and in the focused context here, by Jungian psychoanalysis, more specifically. This is through the engagement with symbols and symbolisation. Symbols are the gateways to rebirth. Symbols allows us to move beyond a state that has become sterile and no longer serves us. The engagement with a living symbol allows for continual renewal, increasing insight (consciousness), refinement, meaning and individuation.
Jung had a particular affinity for the power and meaning
of symbols and their capacity to facilitate a dialogue with the unconscious.
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“Psychic development cannot be accomplished by intention and will alone; it needs the attraction of the symbol; whose value quantum exceeds that of the cause.” ( C. G. Jung, Collected Works, vol. 8, par. 47)
The symbol is that which has the capacity to take the
subject beyond the inevitable sterility of consciousness. I don’t, in other
words, merely reinvent the day through force of will alone, but by the
collaboration with the psyche as a whole, i.e. the unity of conscious and
unconscious, that is only realisable through consciously engaging with symbols.
If this is something that interests you and which you would like to know more about, join us on a 5-week intensive study of the practical application of symbols and symbolisation.
PO Box 1102, Sunninghill
Johannesburg Gauteng 2157
SOUTH AFRICA
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2002.25 - 10:10
- Days ago = 1697 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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