April Newletter

My friend Joan, who is 93 and who has written her life story as a Jungian-influenced epic in 300 iambic quintains (please take that in a for moment)  reminds me that when I start talking up dreamwork, I need to “explain about the unconscious.” 
 
Thank you Joan.  It’s easy to forget the basic premise.
 
Several years ago I asked Sam Fulks, an artist with Poverty and the Arts, to make a teaching image for me to share around, and put on the cover of my little “Field Guide to Dreaming.” Although some of you have heard me talk about this before, here’s my take on the Jungian map of the psyche, much simplified and pictured as a waterlily:

Lilypad - waking consciousness: what you know about yourself and the world
 
Pond – your personal unconscious:  what you don’t know about your personal life.  It’s murky but full of discoverable, rememberable material. 
 
Bottom of the pond and indeed, the whole earth of which the pond is part  - the collective unconscious.  This is the vast unconscious, bigger than all of humankind. The pond bottom pictures just the beginning of all we don’t know – shared archetypal energies and images, the human story, the consciousness of plants and animals, the truth of the imagination, the  mysteries of the holy, and we can never know what else. It’s wild, creative, dangerous, and relational but not necessarily agreeable. 

 Root - is the most fascinating thing there is in the whole picture. It's your core identity that is bigger than your own ego, self awareness, or personal existence. People call this astonishing force by names like the God Within, the Soul, Wisdom, -- every culture finds a way to point to this reality. 
Here’s what it does, in Jungian terms:  It interacts with the deep unconscious and the personal unconscious, sensing what you most need to see, feel, and know in the moment.  Then it sends those energies up to consciousness in a form you can use – as dreams, synchronicities, archetypal situations, growth-producing events, significant people, mishaps, and various other forms of meaningful happenings.
 
Waterlily –the dream that rises and blossoms, ephemeral, with gold at its center.
 
Stem: how information travels between consciousness and unconscious.  This could be dreamwork – but also anything that connects you to your Root and sustains growth: prayer, meditation, gardening, running, playing music, yoga – you know it when you feel it. 
    Poetry too.  Since it's National Poetry Month,we'll explore poetry in the Tips and Titles department (see end of post).
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That's plenty, but I do want to mention the point of all this.
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Relationship is the point. You can use your dreams to relate to this powerful, lifegiving “root Self."   Whether your dreamwork uses intuition or analysis, play or work, prayer or art, body or mind, this relationship is profoundly creative, challenging, and enlightening.   
 
In fact, being in the relationship with the "root Self" is one of the most important things you can do for yourself and for others. This connection enhances capacities for insight, compassion, creativity, and courage. Humility.  Wisdom.  Love.
 
How? The poets suggest that we not try too hard.  “I loafe and invite my soul” says Walt Whitman, and he would be thrilled if you'd join him.  Be "a bride married to amazement" says Mary Oliver.  "Bellow forth...the whole rusty brass band of gratitude"  says Ross Gay.  Lie down in the field "out beyond wrongdoing and rightdoing" invites Rumi.  "Leave spaces empty," dares Kay Ryan.  "Taste and see...all that lives to the imagination's tongue" says Denise Levertov. Rilke "wants, simply, to say the names of things."  The work of becoming is not necessarily easy. But Mary Oliver brings us back to the lily pond, assuring us that even if we think we fail at spiritual alignment, grace is as natural as dreaming:

"Each pond with its blazing lilies
Is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,
whether or not you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray."