Group dynamics and internet relationships: Love and loathing in cyberspce

I have been thinking alot about groups lately, group dynamics, family dynamics even internet dynamics. Its interesting that many of the best and the worst aspects of typical group behaviour can be magnified in cyberworld. Many on-line groups and services offer 24 hour information and on-line support and communication. With a few key strokes, an internet user can be introduced to a new world, new people with similar interests and concerns across the globe. The potential for creativity is tremendous. Modern medicine for instance, can access the expertise of a surgeon from another country anywhere in the world and this person can perform a delicate operation in his office, while the patient lies on a table hours or days away by flight. On-line therapy means that a client may have his choice of therapists, specializing in any area of expertise allowing a person the choices he wouldn't normally have in a remote community. On-line games keep happy gamers logged-on for hours.Yes, the possibilities great and small are endless.

But group dynamics are another thing. On-line forums and support groups, chat rooms may very well bring people from all over the world to a place to discuss common interests, but the age old problem of unconscious material is not typically handled well in cyberspace, in my opinion. This is new terrain, relatively speaking in the history of human interaction. While the on-line group can be a potential for great communication and healing, it can also be a place where the worst of human dynamics take place. Great damage against others can be inflicted without the same level of conscientious consideration that face to face contact demands. Lets face it, no one thinks that a few words can cause harm or influence others. But as it has been said through antiquity, indeed "the pen is mightier than the sword". Add to on-line writing, hate filled rethoric, malicious intent and zero consequences for unethical actions, and many people can be routinely influenced by the negativity and bullying of internet banter. Hateful rethoric can be disguised as "free speech", "nonsencical or fanatical thought" and honest opinion but that is limited to an online paper, journal or blog.

What if malicious dialogue happens routinely in a group, where psychological connections and associations are made with other group members? What if it is tolerated as the norm within the group and any protestors are seen as outside the group norm?

These are interesting questions for cyber ethics and group study. The on-line forum has great potential for connection, relationships, dialogue and intellectual sharing. It also has great potential for incubating psychopathology both in the internet and in non-internet social settings. The antedote in my opinion, is reflection on problem group dynamics and healthy group dynamics and applying the principals learned to internet settings.

The problem of group influence over its members is an old one-much study of groups has learned how typical family dynamics are often taken into social settings unconsciously and then people take on the unrealized roles in a family: The goodchild; the fixer; the scapegoat; the problemchild; the bully; the ghost; the dependent one;the clown, etc. Here is an intersting link to group dynamics study. There are many out there but little has been written on group dynamics in cyberspace.
http://www.proteuscoven.org/proteus/frypan.htm

Yes, my recent experience with forum participation has made me think of a poem written by Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power and the purging of their chosen targets, group after group.

Poem "First they came ...." (1976 version)

Original

Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Kommunist.
Als sie die Sozialdemokraten einsperrten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Sozialdemokrat.

Als sie die Gewerkschafter holten,
habe ich nicht protestiert;
ich war ja kein Gewerkschafter.

Als sie die Juden holten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Jude.

Als sie mich holten,
gab es keinen mehr, der protestieren konnte.


When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

Then they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
I did not speak out;
I was not a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out for me.

Peace,

CK

Buffy, the Warrior and the Hero's journey: Resurrecting the full manifestation of the Goddess

"I just realized something, something that really never occured to me before. We are going to win." Buffy Summers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer

The warrior archetype is a piece of the larger archetype of "hero" according to Analytical psychology. All heros embark on a journey, which in Jungian terms can be called the process of individuation. The road to discovery of the "Self" according to Carl Jung. Many of our hero's and warriors have been personafied as male characters-we only have to think of Luke Skywalker; Aragorn from Lord of the Rings; or Neo from The Matrix for modern interpretation of the warrior hero. However, there are also relevant female warrior heros. The character of Buffy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a good example. Buffy has been a favorite of mine while working as a therapist with girls and young women, because she is a modern and relatable archetype long buried in our culture.

The Ancient Greeks were the last European civilization to include reasonably healthy feminine archetypes. Of the twelve Gods in Olympus, five of them were women. Until very recently, though, we only embraced three of the feminine archetypes. Women could be sex objects, in which case they connected with the archetype of Aphrodite (or Venus, in the Roman pantheon), the Goddess of Love, Desire and Beauty. Women could be wives, in which case they connected with the archetype of Hera, the wife of Zeus and the Goddess of Marriage—who, despite her tremendous strength and cunning, was repeatedly forced to be subservient to her philandering husband. And women could be mothers, in which case they connected with the archetype of Hestia, the Goddess of the Hearth and protector of the home. These three archetypes embodied the sum total of the feminine for more than 2,000 years. The male ego successfully suppressed the powerful female archetypes of Athena and Artemis, who collectively embody feminine strength, skill and mastery.

Athena was the Goddess of Wisdom, Reason and Purity. Severing our connection to her archetype was no small feat, as Athena was one of the most revered and respected of all of the Olympians. In fact, the city of Athens is named after her. Athena was fair, just, and an incredibly powerful warrior. She was the embodiment of feminine strength. While Ares, the God of War (and the Greek counterpart to Mars, the Roman God of War) was wantonly destructive, childish, violent, aggressive, and ultimately a coward, Athena was proud, strong, and courageous. More importantly, Athena would only fight in order to defend the city—she would never initiate any conflicts, and she always preferred diplomacy to warfare.

Athena is the archetype of the female warrior. Female warriors are in no way inferior to male warriors: Time and again, women have proved that they are in every way equal to men on the battlefield. The difference is that female warriors do not fight in the same way that male warriors do, nor do they fight for the same reasons. Male warriors fight to attack, while female warriors fight to defend. The female warrior archetype has returned, however. We see it when Sarah Michelle Gellar beats up vampires and saves the world (while still maintaining every ounce of her femininity) in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Artemis, the Goddess of the Hunt, is the archetype of the female athlete. In every way, she was the equal of her brother, Apollo. Artemis has returned as a useful archetype for women today, thanks to the popularity of women’s athletics. Women now have role models and opportunities to explore their physical strength, and test and improve their skills through competitive sports.

We have always measured “masculinity” based on strength, power, and skill, but these qualities are as present in women as they are in men. Women were supposed to be delicate flowers who needed men to protect them. The truth, however, is that while men may have the edge over women in terms of brute strength, that women often surpass men in skill and dexterity. Once we take biology and reproduction out of the equation, men and women are very evenly matched. So what then, are the truly “masculine” and “feminine” qualities? The masculine principle is focused, expressive, and direct. The feminine principle is diffuse, intuitive, and receptive.

The feminine principle provides the container to support the masculine energy. Masculine energy expands, and feminine energy contracts. Any action can be “masculine” or “feminine” in nature, depending on how it is applied. Warrior energy on its own is neither masculine nor feminine. It becomes masculine when we attack in order to expand our borders; it becomes feminine when we fight to defend and protect our tribe from invasion.

It’s true that men tend to be more in touch with the more “masculine” or yang aspects, while women tend to be more in touch with the more “feminine” or yin aspects. But not being aware of or familiar with our complimentary nature doesn’t mean that we can’t learn about it and express it. This, in fact, is the reason that men and women form relationships with each other. Our partners are our mirrors, and when men and women relate to each other—whether that relationship is sexual or not—what we see reflected is our complimentary nature. We see the parts of ourselves that we haven’t integrated or owned yet. And through our relationships with the opposite gender, we learn how to connect with and own these parts of ourselves, and experience true balance. We need to learn to acknowledge, accept and embrace these two complimentary natures. We each have both Mars and Venus within us, and we need to learn how to appreciate and express them both.

Many believe that the road to the knowing the "Self" is a solitary undertaking, however our feminine warrior heros, show us this is not completely true. Buffy for instance, has always acknowledged the struggle with her need for her friends and others, even as the Slayer (there can only be one). The resolution of her role as slayer in relationship to her feminine qualities is what allows her to save the world in the final series. Indeed, women who take on the challenges of living in the modern world can recognize their inherent strength and the gifts that empower them to succeed as warrior women.

Peace,

Colleen Kelly

Special thanks to Jen Delyth for her beautiful art work. Jen's art work can be purchased at http://www.kelticdesigns.com (images not to be copied)

http://www.watcherjunior.tv/02/pdf/lowe.pdf
http://www.kelticdesigns.com/
http://www.astrolandia.net/textos/balancingmarsandvenusineachofus.pdf

Dream interpretation: From Freud to Jung

"The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it." Carl Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul

Carl Jung, was a student and protege of Sigmund Freud. For the first part of his career, Jung assisted Freud with his development of dream interpretation and the technique of "free association". Later, Jung broke away from Freud's thinking and developed his own system of beliefs about dreams and their relevence to the dreamer.

Sigmund Freud is known for interpreting dreams on the object level; that is, according to the relationship between the dreamer, and the persons or situations in his environment. Jung introduces the subject level. What is the subjective level? The fact that the dream reveals in a symbolic way expressions of individual psychological life or of his internal transformations. This way, the dream becomes an indicator of those changes that sometimes point out the development of the individuation process.

So, if a man dreams of his mother, the mother is not an evocation of the real mother, but of his anima, that is his emotional feminine side. The mother can also be a suggestion to what is fundamentally biological in the human nature or to the ideas and concepts familiar to the individual that represent his inherited background, his homeland in a cultural way.

For Freud, the dream is retrospective (it refers mainly to past events), situated in the person's childhood ( eg.psychological trauma, sexual fixations). By contrast,Jung's dream is prospective; it represents a kind of map of dreamer's future evolution. For Freud, dreams are the psyches way of talking about infantile complexes (or unresolved problems), Jung states, in accordance to his orientation, that complexes are not of importance, but what the unconscious does with them. This way, the complexes become raw material for dreams, the language through which the dream (unconscious) expresses itself.

For Jung the concept of "compensation" includes another powerful idea: the dream is an attempt to counterbalance a divided psychological tendency. Dream analysis should aim the uncovering of its compensation's nature. For example, in one clinical situation, as a result of a dream analysis, Jung had to explain to his patient that she must resign her too rationalist attitude (as a consequence of her animus or hidden male inflation). This way the dream becomes a message of the unconscious that indicate several disastrous deficiencies in the individual (or society) existential orientation.

Finally, Jung adds to the free association method, the method of "amplification". He affirms that there are elements of the dream to which the dreamer cannot provide personal associations. These are the symbols alive in meaning in a person's life. In this case, the analyst should intervene with his knowledge and complete the dreamer's gaps. The associative material comes from different cultural directions: mythology, religion, alchemy, folklore.

It is noted that these essential completions to the theory of dream interpretation should not be considered without first considering the work of Freud. Jung states repeatedly that dreams ought to be interpreted at first by Freud's method. Only exceptional cases demand the use of his method. Since that time, other theorists and schools of psychology have developed other uses of dreams in treatment.

Peace,

Colleen
http://thezodiac.com/mundus.htm
http://www.carl-jung.net/index.html

Quechua Shamanism and Jung

Weaving The Traditions: the Natural Wisdom of C.G. Jung
and the Kichwa traditions embodied in the wisdom of don Alverto Taxo
by C. Michael Smith

Nature is an incomparable guide if you know how to follow her. She is like the needle of a compass pointing to the north…
-C. G. Jung

We can enter into the secrets of Mother Nature [Pachamama], and we can be sons and daughters, apprentices to the Wisdom of Mother Earth [Ashpamama].


When I reflect on why the teachings of don Alverto so initially attractive to me, I keep coming up with the same answer, that his teachings are so convergent with, and complementary to the wisdom teachings of C.G. Jung, my great psychological mentor. While the path of the Iachak is in many ways deeper and richer than any modern depth psychology, my clinical practice and my life had been strongly influenced by Jung, one of my lineage Elders. So it felt good to find a way I could initially begin integrating the wisdom of don Alverto with that of C.G. Jung and the tradition of analytical psychology. There is a strong shamanic elements in Jung’s life and his work, as I brought out in detail in my book, JUNG AND SHAMANISM IN DIALOGUE [Paulist Press, 1997]. It was a milestone to write that book, but in the past 7 years I have so much deepened my practice and understanding of the shamanic path, that I was inspired through the path of the Iachak to developed a psychology of the heart, which you can find in theory and practices throughout this website. This piece I wrote in my 5th year of apprenticeship, and it reflects some of the common themes between Jung and the tradition of Jungian thought, and don Alverto and the Kichwa tradition, and the Iachak path for the interested reader.
______________

When I met and began studying with don Alverto some years ago, I asked to become his apprentice in the path of the Iachak. Yet there was some reservation about being anyone’s apprentice. He responded that I was welcome to follow my own path and simply walk along side of him—perhaps we could share things with each other. I must admit that I feared that he might want me to give up the wisdom tradition I had done my spiritual spade work in for 25 years, that of the analytical psychology inspired by C.G. Jung. This would not be the case, and what I have come to notice is that the more I have studied with don Alverto, walked the path of the Iachak with him, the more I have become a better individuator, having developed more feminine feeling values, standing more in my own truth, and feeling more whole than ever. I have become a better psychologist as well.

It has amazed me the great similarities between the wisdom tradition of both men, and I believe the reason for this is because both have followed a natural path in life. Since this book has given ample attention to the natural way of the Iachak, to the development of feeling, using the four elements to get in balance and so on, I would like to compliment it by emphasizing a bit of the natural wisdom of C.G. Jung, pointing out the natural resonances as we go along. For me this is very important because I want my life, my daily walk, and my therapeutic talk and action to be integrated, all of a piece, so to speak. Don Alverto gave me the one thing I did not get from Jung, and that was a daily devotional practice that was ongoing and thoroughly natural. Jungian psychology had given me some very powerful techniques of inner work, including skill in working with dreams and doing what Jung called ‘active imagination’. These were ways of working with the wisdom of the Great Mother as She reveals herself in the human psyche. I have employed these tools faithfully, and I and my clients have benefited greatly from them. But these methods, deeply as they reached into the heart of my living never thoroughly took the body and the physical world into my daily consciousness practices. They never helped me sufficiently developed the “feminine feeling values” which Jung so often stressed as important to our health and wholeness, and they rarely affected my eating, and bathing, and breathing. My Jungian practices, while open to the synchronicities of the day, were essentially confined to my period of inner work in the morning, in which I worked my dreams and reflected on what needed more attention each morning. When the period of inner work was over, I turned my attention to other things, including my professional responsibilities. So I had in essence put walls or boundaries around my inner work and benefited greatly from the discipline. But as my personal journals show, my dreams repeatedly spoke to me of a need to develop what Jung called the ‘anima’ the feminine values of feeling, receptivity of consciousness, and instinctual and intuitive living, intimate relatedness. I made many intellectual recognitions of this need, yet over a period of 20 years I felt I hadn’t succeeded in developing or integrating anima. Perhaps this is why I often felt myself longing for a set of practices which were thoroughly grounded and earth-honoring, and completely compatible with the useful wisdom I had learned from C.G. Jung and yet resourceful in helping me develop the feminine more.

Dreams: A Gift of the Great Mother

My longing for an earth-based, earth-honoring path was reflected in my writing and reading over the past couple of decades. This is reflected in my first two books, Psychotherapy and the Sacred,[i] and Jung and Shamanism in Dialogu[ii]e in which I sought to revitalize modern psychotherapy with shamanic and indigneous healing resources. However, I now realize that my approach was too intellectual, non- experiential, and that not much insight or wisdom is gained from an intellectual look at a natural systems of healing. One of my colleagues told me the books lacked ‘anima.’ It is largely because of don Alverto’s influence that I live, write, and practice from a different place today, a deeper place, with an ongoing, rhythmic flow of practice no longer confined to set times of the day.

Today I am less interested in Jung’s theory and technical writings, marvelous as they are in their attempts to bring a natural way into modern psychology. But they are primarily candy for the mind if they are not felt, experienced, and lived. I am more interested in Jung the naturalist of the psyche, and in Jung the nature-mystic, which is reflected in the earthy retreat he built with his own hands, called Bollingen Tower, and which gave real soil and grounding to his life’s work. At Bollingen he felt himself in the midst of his true life. He had no running water or electricity. He chopped his own wood, cooked over open fires, lit oil lamps at night, and attuned himself to the Earth Mother with feminine receptivity and feeling. This passage from his autobiography shows to what degree he had succeeded in attuning to the elements of nature:

At times I feel as if I am spread out over the landscape and inside things, and am living in every tree, in the splashing of the waves, in the clouds and the animals that come and go, in the procession of seasons. There is nothing…with which I am not linked. [MDR 225]

Jung had, in his own way, recovered and considerably developed the capacity to feel, and sympathetically enter into the essence of things, commune with what don Alverto calls the their “ushai”. Jung lived as well as advocated a natural way of living. He was deeply concerned that modern life had neglected nature and that this was the source of many of the ills he saw in his patients. He felt modern science and technology had brought many good things, but that we had failed to establish a balanced relationship to them. He advised us, in a manner reminiscent of don Alverto’s invitation to deal with modernity by living more simply and intentionally:

“to live in small communities, to work a shorter day and week; to have a plot of land to cultivate so the instincts come back to life; and to make the sparest use of radio and television, news papers, and technological gadgetry. [Sabini 19]

Consider, also, these comments Jung put in a letter to one of his clients, in which the good doctor dispenses a practical and earth-honoring wisdom in words that could almost be those of don Alverto:

Dear N:

I was very pleased to hear that you now have house and land of your own. This is important for the chthonic powers. I hope you will find time to commit your plant counterparts to the Earth and tend their growth, for the Earth always wants children—houses, trees, flowers—to grow out of Her and celebrate the marriage of the human psyche with the Great Mother, the best counter-magic against rootless extraversion!

With regards to you and your dear husband,
Always your friend,
C.G. Jung
[LT II, 320]

Jung’s intent, here, is not to motivate us to repair Nature, but to let Nature repair us and bring us back into balance. Like don Alverto, Jung had a natural view of healing and the work of a healer. He knew the ultimate healer was not the doctor, but Nature herself. Sometimes he spoke of the healer as God or the Self, sometimes he preferred to speak of the Tao who is the ultimate Mother of us all. He claimed that the peoples of the modern industrial countries had lost touch with the Great Mother and advocated one sure way to reclaim Her natural being in us through listening to, and working with our dreams. Through dream work we can reclaim the natural being that has been forgotten, for dreams are an activity of Nature. Jung believed that we had 2 different psychologies in us. The one he considered to be the modern ego, the mind of modern man, and this corresponds to the “Eagle” in don Alverto’s view, as this statement should make crystal clear.

In our time, it’s the intellect that is making darkness, because we’ve let it take too big a place. Consciousness discriminates, judges, analyzes, and emphasizes the contradictions. It’s necessary work up to a point. But analysis kills and synthesis brings to life. We must find out how to get everything back into connection with everything else. [Jung, JS 420]



Don Alverto would say that it is through the development and use of feeling that we can reconnect, and that it is we who have disconnected ourselves by forgetting the way of the Condor---for the heart knows that everything is already connected. It is just that the mind, has forgotten this in our modern civilization. Again we cite Jung, in agreement with don Alverto, that many problems in modern living are generated by this loss of connection with wisdom of Nature:
In the final analysis, most of our difficulties come from losing contact with our instincts, the age-old forgotten wisdom stored up in us. [Jung JS 89]

The other person within us is the age-old natural person, who Jung sometimes called the “2 million year old man”. In calling it this, Jung was drawing attention to our natural evolution as a species, one of many on the planet, and that the wisdom of our species is thus the wisdom of the Earth who nurtured us into being. Dreams are natural occurrences that must have value or they wouldn’t be. They have been taking place in other mammals for 140 million years. Dreams serve up the natural instincts and desires we have forgotten. Their striking images and arousing emotions and desires are often shocking or embarrassing to the modern mind because the modern mind has repressed, dissociated, or otherwise cut itself off from feeling and awareness. Dreams relentlessly, remorselessly rub our noses in the “unvarnished truth” and serve to remind us of those poles or sides of ourselves that are part of what we are as natural beings. In reminding us of the side of ourselves that we tend to forget or ignore, they seek our acknowledgement, our consciousness, and want us to give them due place in our lives. Thus we could say that dreams are one of the ways the Earth Mother speaks to us and tries to help us grow, come more into balance, and live fully in tune with Nature. Other ways don Alverto has suggested: through cultivating feeling and using the elements of Nature. Don Alverto, when discussing dreams, speaks of “traveling” to other dimensions, while “leaving” our bodies in sleep, Jung accented a different aspect of the power of dreams. In so far as they are natural expressions of the Great Mother, and the wisdom of the species passed on from generation to generation, and in so far as the Self or the Divine within evokes dreams to help bring us into balance by compensating with our less conscious or undeveloped potentials, Jung advocated working with dreams as a regular practice. This daily practice aims at getting the complimentary message of the dream, the one that adds to or expands our ordinary, everyday thinking or attitude. Yet Jung also acknowledged the other realms, sometimes classifying them as dimensions of the “collective unconscious” a conception similar to Wiracocha,[iii] the “Lake of Wisdom” of the Iachak tradition. In his autobiography, Jung tells us about travels experienced as “out of the body”, meeting with a meditating guru in some stone temple in outer space. Both men invite us to see the power of dreams to expand our perception, knowledge, and way of living by accenting different attributes of the dreaming process.

From the work of C Michael Smith

http://www.jungandshamanism.citymaker.com/page/page/3948171.htm

Dreams of wise women: The wise woman archetype and female relationships

After writing on my blog about the "Mother" archetype, I began to reflect on female relationships and my own relationships with women. For the most part, I have been very blessed in my life to have had wonderful relationships with women. Of course, like everyone else I have made my own share of mistakes. But by in large, for the first 35 years of my life, I made good choices which have allowed me to enjoy long ties with wonderful friends and family members who I value as the goddesses in my life.

However, over the last five years much has changed for me personally. Many of my newer relationships have ended due to the pioneering spirit of many who move here...people who move across Canada, simply like to move and have new experiences. Many friends have returned to home provinces, or moved to the states or other countries. Others have moved on from single life and into marriage and children , changing relationships with single friends. Still other's have been immersed in professional development. The common thread that once united us, has also taken us in separate directions.

Death has away of showing you who your friends are. The Wise Woman archetype first surfaced for me four years ago when my father died. I returned to my place of birth for my father's funeral and I had no idea what to expect. Much to my surprise, my best friend in adolescence Rosemarie, had called all of my old school chums many who I hadn't seen since high school, and all of them showed up from great distances to see me. I was speechless. To this day, I owe Rosemarie a tremendous amount of gratitude. You see, we had drifted apart in our 20's, neither being able to relate to the other. I went away to university and Rosemarie didn't-she took another life-filled path. At the time, it didn't seem that our paths were really destined to be close again, as I eventually moved to the other side of the country. We lost touch.

While I was at home I had a dream:

I walk into a restaurant and sitting at the table were my girlfriends from high school. They are excited to see me and it feels like a surprise birthday party. I sit down and now all of them are really old women handing me gifts and a cake is on the table with many candles.

I wake up.

Its interesting to me that since that time my life has changed dramatically, and for better or worse, there has been a lot of grief and loss.

Another close friend who I met 13 years ago living in Vancouver has been a constant source of friendship, comfort and reassurance to me. Both Vicky and her partner Carl, have been with me through the good times and bad, through the loss of my father and the grieving of my mother and close family. Yesterday, we had a long conversation by telephone about our mothers and losses in life, including our childhood losses. There are very few people in this world that we can share such personal parts of ourselves. For all my loss, the gold remains and this is what recognizing the "old wise woman archetype" is all about. Again, my gratitude goes out to Vicky and her wise presence in my life.

Dream from last night:

I am on Granville street looking up towards the long road to the care facility. There are many people on the street and out of the crowd this ancient, woman walks up to me. I am frightened because I believe her to be a corpse, but she puts her arms right around me and hugs me.

My goal is to remember that when I feel afraid of death, loss, aging, disappointment and female relationships in general, that the crone-the goddess -the wise old woman is always available to me and is a uniting force in my life and all women's lives.

Peace,

Colleen

With gratitude to the artwork of Jen Delyth. Her beautiful Celtic designs can be purchased @
http://www.kelticdesigns.com/

Death and Rebirth, the Mandala

The Mandala has long been a symbol of the Self or the Soul in all spiritual cultures. Through its visual expression we see how transformation can occur well within our own depths of awareness and in our daily experience. So the mandala is a symbol of a point within our consciousness from which we can be become aware. It is our reflection, the expression of our center. The experience of the birth-death-rebirth cycle in our lives is part of our own psychic awareness or our own being, as we live out our daily lives. Through this process we have the possibility for growth, transformation, for movement. Like the flower, our conscious awareness starts as a bud and moves through the process of growth and blossoming until decline and death. Then, there is magic. The cycle begins again. The flower can be seen as a living mandala, a living symbol of our inner world made manifest through its own life cycle of birth-death-rebirth. CK

http://davidbookbinder.com

http://www.charlesgilchrist.com/SGEO/AboutMan.html

http://www.lyleskinner.org/8.html

http://www.abgoodwin.com/mandala/links/native.html

The Mother Archetype: Dreams of "The Mother"

One of Carl Jung's predominant archetypes was that of the "Mother".

He writes in The Collective Works of Carl Jung:

"We have evolved in an environment that included a mother or mother-substitute. We would never have survived without our connection with a nurturing-one during our times as helpless infants. It stands to reason that we are "built" in a way that reflects that evolutionary environment: We come into this world ready to want mother, to seek her, to recognize her, to deal with her."

The mother archetype is our built-in ability to recognize a certain relationship, that of "mothering." Jung says that this is rather abstract, and we are likely to project the archetype out into the world and onto a particular person, usually our own mothers. Even when an archetype doesn't have a particular real person available, we tend to personify the archetype, that is, turn it into a mythological "story-book" character. This character symbolizes the archetype.

The mother archetype is symbolized by the primordial mother or "earth mother" of mythology, by Eve and Mary in western traditions, and by less personal symbols such as the church, the nation, a forest, or the ocean. According to Jung, someone whose own mother failed to satisfy the demands of the archetype may well be one that spends his or her life seeking comfort in the church, or in identification with "the motherland," or in meditating upon the figure of Mary, or in a life at sea.

Ah yes, "Mother".

For me personally this archetype has been so important that I have not been able to think of much else. I suspect the resolution of my feelings about mother and motherhood will take several years, if not longer to process, to sort out and to make peace. I am sure that many of you have similar feelings about the "Mother" archetype, motherhood, mothering and your own mothers. So for now, I will take care of myself and honor the past dreams that I have had of my own mother. This includes the struggles that I have had in mothering myself, and the dream of the "Great Mother" from last summer.

Last year, my mother became very ill. She had been sick on and off for some time but this was different. This was the first signs of the decline. My life which had been busy supporting her needs for a few years, had taken a darker turn, now demanding more of me than I imagined. My work and own health were effected greatly and I eventually left my job.

During this time of great stress, I began to read more about ancient mythology. And, I was once again inspired by the works of Carl Jung, who I had largely not considered in the work I was doing as a clinical therapist working with children. After reading about The Goddess Nut (as seen above in my book) I fell asleep on my sofa in the afternoon and I had the following dream:

"There is a lake nestled in a woods -the water is salt water and I walk into the water with two native( first nations) people- a male and female in dark hooded clothing.This is peaceful and I am delighted that I see this lake in my dream. The man and the woman seem to be supportive and safe but we don't speak-there is an understanding they are "my guides", In the water, I see a whale in the water, it swims by and I am not afraid-the dream pans to an underwater view and I can see my legs through the green water.

Then I see a large, long, thin woman in the water and she reaches up to pull me in. (I am really frightened) and resist going under the water as she grabs at me with large crab like hands. I bite deeply into her little finger."

It was the great Mother herself ! Dark, mysterious from the dark depths of my unconscious, the goddess of the night. I was disturbed by this dream and the power she had over me..."I loved my mother", I thought. Nut indeed, I was resentful and feeling overwhelmed and wrapped around her little finger. She has always had me wrapped around her finger. Then, I began to think about myself and my own resistance to motherhood. I have always felt afraid, deep down, that I would be engulfed or swallowed up by motherhood. My mother was a very powerful woman and I was often engulfed by her darker side.

I then realized that although the great mother was formidable, she also reminded me that I too can be strong and powerful, the goddess I am. I didn't need to be biting towards my mother or myself. I could walk into the depths of my imagination and enjoy the peace of my spirit. I do not need to walk alone in my life there will always be my guides, there will always be my protectors. I am complete.

Its interesting to note that Carl Jung had a great fear of his own "dark mother". He saw two distinct people or archetypes in her, and this fear of the feminine aspects of himself propelled him to become the brilliant psychologist and scholar that he was. Like Jung, we all face the mother archetype within ourselves and in others each day. By looking for the goddess behind the mother, helps us to balance the feminine and masculine aspects of our psyches. We need to embrace both the nurturing and the powerful aspects of our feminine selves in order to reconcile to the masculine aspect of who we are.

Peace,

Colleen

The False Face: Masks, Dreams and the Iroquois People

"A dream is a piece of reality...whose meaning is pregnant but uncertain, and whose fate in the world of the waking-ego lies in our own hands. If we treat it with respect, it serves us. There is never any doubt as to its underlying concern for our ultimate welfare." James Hall

When I came across this website I was so excited to see the information provided on dreams and the Iroquois and its reference to Six nations and the Iroquois. The title of the page was "THE IROQUOIS DREAM EXPERIENCE and SPIRITUALITY " Immediately, I began deliciously devouring the stories, histories and connections to depth psychology and the dreams, practices and rituals of the First Nation's people. I felt that I was in my element, and my sense of purpose was full throttle. The stories and myths grabbed my fascination immediately and I realized how the "Great Spirit", the Creator brought this wonder to me. Thank you!!!

My first impression and connection was to the first mask. At once, my mind began thinking of the look of my new blog and its layout and how that intriguing picture would be "perfect". I didn't see the irony in this reaction until I later read the description of the mask "First Mask: False face"

Yes, there it was and it was undeniable. The persona, or the false face smiling back at me, laughing at me, the mask ridiculing me out of my awareness.

As a person who had to hide a key element of my ancestry while living a family life filled with much denial and shame, the mask or the face I project to the world has taken me along way. The lies I have told myself and others in order to be accepted, to "fit in" and to succeed, have been a heavy burden. The hurts I have caused and endured in order to "save face" have cost me in so many ways. Pretending, denying and blindly accepting non-truths in order to be accepted, liked, to succeed and "keep the peace" have caused me great damage over the years. And what for? The illusion of social acceptance, the illusion of being worthy and "good enough".

The Iroquois mask "The False Face" reminds me of the ridiculousness in believing or taking too seriously the masks I wear, and the importance of remembering that any mask is not secure or permanently fixed to the soul. It can come off at any time.

Mitakuye Oyasin,

Colleen

Here is a link to this wonderful website:
http://www.webwinds.com/yupanqui/iroquoisdreams.htm

The Dream and the Shadow

"Where love rules, there is no will to power, and where power predominates, love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other." Carl Jung, On the Psychology of the Unconscious

The Shadow, is a psychological term introduced by the late Swiss psychiatrist, Dr. Carl G. Jung. It is everything in us that is unconscious, repressed, undeveloped and denied. These are dark rejected aspects of our being as well as light, so there is positive undeveloped potential in the Shadow that we don’t know about because anything that is unconscious, we don’t know about.

The Shadow is an archetype. An archetype means is that it is typical in consciousness for everyone, our racial and instinctual memories of our species. Everyone has a Shadow. We all have a Shadow and a confrontation with the Shadow is essential for self awareness. We cannot learn about ourselves if we do not learn about our Shadow so therefore we are going to attract it through the mirrors of other people.

The shadow is therefore all that is halved in the unconscious and not made whole. It is the source of all our misery and social disease. Whether it is the darkness of unquestioned individuality, selfishness, violence and hostility or the ever obsessive need to be a self sacrificing martyr to others, its danger lies in its unrealized "other half". It is by nature incomplete and therefore, always searching for its other side. In not finding its other, lost in unconscious unawareness, it projects itself outward unto others. When a person can not find his other in himelf first, he looks to others to have that unconscious need met. However, over and over again he finds only his shadow-half looking back at him. He then wonders why the world is such a dark place?

The Shadow Dream

Most often, when Shadows appear to us in dreams, they hold the key to our repressed memories, which enable us to uncover unwanted habits and allow us to heal. For example a shadow will come to us most often as someone of the same sex in dreams. He/She will be our old childhood friend or co-worker who is completely opposite from us; they are incompetent, loud, rude, obnoxious, sexual or docile. The traits they carry which we reject as bad or "other" (not of us) are actually traits which we fear or need within ourselves; they can also be traits which we show outwardly to our family and friends but are not aware of it. Traits which hurt our relationships and ourselves. This is an example of Projection : when we displace onto, or see in others what we deny as part of ourselves. For example, accusing your spouse/partner of not being more supportive when in fact it's you who needs to show more support. Or, wondering why he/she doesn't love you more when in fact you don't love yourself enough or give yourself more worth.

The first thing we have to do in order to begin to see our Shadowsides, is to take 100% responsibility for our lives. This is a very difficult thing to do and no one does this overnight so we have to be patient with ourselves.Being in the human experience, we have all had many painful, difficult experiences where it clearly looks like it is the other persons fault, or bad luck in life or whatever else we want to call it. So taking total responsibility for what appears to come to us is no easy task but it is well worth the effort because when we take responsibility for what happens to us, we can then learn and grow from our experiences and make new choices for ourselves. Changing our attitude from blame to responsibility will change what happens next in our world. Our destiny is of our own making and what goes on inside of us will be reflected outside of us all the time.

Shadow dreams do not imply that we are to become the image that we dream of, but more to look at what the image represents in our daily lives and how our shadow may be unconsciously wreaking havoc. For example, a shadowy corporate executive as murder in a dream may well represent how we abuse our power in daily life, abuse our financial responsibility etc. Each person may look to their own shadow dreams for personal meaning.

I am very fond of this ancient axiom given to us by the alchemists of long ago: “As above, so below, as within, so without, so that the miracle of the one can be established.” What it is saying is that what is within us, will also be oustide of us. Inner states of consciousness will be reflected in outer situations time and time again. If we are willing to look at the significance of these repeating patterns, we will see the syncronicity of events and situations and ultimately once integrated, the miracle of the whole is established as we become one with ourselves.

Peace,

Colleen

The Imagination and the Dream

"Without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of the imagination is incalculable." Carl Jung

The concept of "imagination" was central to Carl Jung's exploration of the human unconscious. Although he didn't dedicate a tremendous amount of his work to theories of imagination, he recognized that through the tool of imagination, one could access the unconscious through dreams. Jung developed a technique called "Active Imagination". This was a focused practice, using meditation techniques allowing the unconscious to come into consciousness. Active imagination is a method for visualizing unconscious issues by letting them act themselves out. Active imagination can be done by visualization , which can be considered similar to shamanic journeying. Active imagination can also be done by automatic writing, or by artistic activities such as dance, music, painting, sculpting, ceramics, jewellery, etc. Doing Active imagination permits the thought forms of the subconscious to act out whatever messages they are trying to communicate to the conscious mind.

So it is through one's own imagination that the dream is possible. Through the dream and its symbols, images, impressions, feelings, and missing pieces the individual discovers who
he/she is and understands the deeper meanings of personal experience.

Jung and Dreams

Jung believed that the human psyche was divided in two parts—the conscious and the unconscious mind. According to Jung, the center of the human psyche should not be considered the person’s ego. Instead, the center is the Self, which contains more than the conscious content. The Self is the completion of the human psyche, after someone has developed all of his or her psychological functions.


The unconscious mind is divided in personal and collective distinctions. The personal part contains someone’s individual experiences, while the collective part has general content existent in all human beings. The collective part is represented in dreams by the archetypes, which are symbols that appear in everyone’s dreams, in all historical times and civilizations.

The main dream symbols that appear in everyone’s dreams according to Jung’s statements are:

1. The Persona—This is the image that the individual presents to the world, like a social mask. The persona would reflect the person’s social position, profession, and status quo.

2. The Shadow—This is the part of the human psyche that is not developed yet. The shadow contains positive and negative characteristics, depending on someone’s personal evolution.

3. The Animus or Anima—This is the image of the ideal type of man for a woman, or the ideal type of woman for a man. The animus, or anima, is an idol, but could represent a real person of the person’s environment.


Carl Jung concluded that each dreamer who decides to discover the content existent in his or her own psyche through the interpretation of dreams would make a trip to the Self. For Jung, The Self was all the individuals potential that was possible, complete.

Jung was convinced that the scope of dream interpretation was larger than Freud's objective understanding of biological processes and unresolved conflicts , instead reflecting the richness and complexity of the "entire", the personal and collective. Jung believed the psyche to be a self-regulating organism in which conscious attitudes were likely to be compensated for unconsciously (within the dream) by their opposites.

Jung believed that archetypes such as the animus, the anima the shadow and others manifested themselves in dreams, as dream symbols or figures. Such figures could take the form of an old man, a young maiden or a giant spider as the case may be. Each represents an unconscious attitude that is largely hidden to the conscious mind. Although an integral part of the dreamer's psyche, these manifestations were largely autonomous and were perceived by the dreamer to be external personages. Acquaintance with the archetypes as manifested by these symbols serve to increase one's awareness of unconscious attitudes, integrating seemingly disparate parts of the psyche and contributing to the process of holistic self understanding he considered paramount.

Jung also believed that material repressed by the conscious mind, postulated by Freud to comprise the unconscious, was similar to his own concept of the shadow, which in itself is only a small part of the unconscious.

He cautioned against blindly ascribing meaning to dream symbols without a clear understanding of the client's personal situation. Although he acknowledged the universality of archetypal symbols, he contrasted this with the concept of a sign — images having a one to one connotation with their meaning. His approach was to recognise the dynamism and fluidity that existed between symbols and their ascribed meaning. Symbols must be explored for their personal significance to the patient, instead of having the dream conform to some predetermined idea. This prevents dream analysis from devolving into a theoretical and dogmatic exercise that is far removed from the patient's own psychological state. In the service of this idea, he stressed the importance of "sticking to the image" — exploring in depth a client's association with a particular image. This may be contrasted with Freud's free associating which he believed was a deviation, from the salience of the image. He describes for example the image "deal table". One would expect the dreamer to have some associations with this image, and the professed lack of any perceived significance or familiarity whatsoever should make one suspicious. Jung would ask a patient to imagine the image as vividly as possible and to explain it to him as if he had no idea as to what a "deal table" was. Jung stressed the importance of context in dream analysis.

Jung stressed that the dream was not merely a devious puzzle invented by the unconscious to be deciphered, so that the 'true' causal factors behind it may be elicited. Dreams were not to serve as lie detectors, with which to reveal the insincerity behind conscious thought processes. Dreams, like the unconscious, had their own language. As representations of the unconscious, dream images have their own primacy and logic.

Jung taught that dreams may contain ineluctable truths, philosophical pronouncements, illusions, wild fantasies, memories, plans, irrational experiences and even telepathic visions. Just as the psyche has a diurnal side which we experience as conscious life, it has an unconscious nocturnal side which we apprehend as dreamlike fantasy. Jung would argue that just as we do not doubt the importance of our conscious experience, then we ought not to second guess the value of our unconscious lives.

Dream:

It was very early here in Vancouver and I woke before 5 am with a powerful dream of the dragonfly..Actually, this very large dragonfly was on my head in my dream woke me up!! In the dream, It was supposed to be both a guide and pet belonging to a young guest staying at my house. I was very happy that this young person was staying with me ( the son of my ex husband. I haven’t seen my ex husband for many years). However, the dragon fly was frightening me because it wanted to be on my head and it was making a buzzing sound. However, it was telepathic and it knew that although I was very frightened I meant it no harm. Before it landed on my head I looked at it and the dragonfly was “otherworldly” and beautiful and I knew it would not hurt me. This was a very spiritual transaction or communication, and I can’t describe the experience fully in words. The dragonfly was a beautiful azure blue. A male colleague I knew from work a few years ago, was also there in my living room as a supportive friend-he is a psychologist from China. The room was filled with large books and different shelving arrangements. The situation, circumstances were all pieces from my past and all from different aspects of my life over the last 25 years. When I woke I was crying and had a flood of emotion and nostalgia for my past.....

I had this dream a couple of months ago but it's imagery is still fresh in my mind. The effect has been for me to reflect on the nature of life, birth, children , learning and growing, fears, the realm of spirit, the realm of nature, the mystery of the dragonfly and simply staying still, mindfully. Trust.

Perhaps today, I will spend time in my garden and prepare it for the coming summer. I will wear a favorite blue top and listen to sounds that speak of the sound of water. Perhaps, I will enjoy the awareness of letting go of fear and being still within myself, free from my anxieties and worries about the future. The Dragonfly is a mysterious insect to me-there it sits so quietly on the water and yet it is a fierce protector of its environment. Feeding from the dangerous mosquitos that breed off the water it visits and protects. Here is a link to an interesting interpretation of the symbolism of the dragonfly.

A link to an inspiring website

http://symbolic-meanings.com/

Peace,

Colleen

Beginnings and Dreams

Since this is my first post, I wanted to start from the beginning. Every one begins a journey each morning with a plan in mind of some sort, but ends each day in spite of that plan. Many days look exactly the same from an outsiders perspective, but in fact, small changes and beginnings happen each moment of our lives. Recognizing "beginnings" are important because in every beginning there lies the potential for new truths, paths, experiences and understanding. Every day, every hour and every moment is a potential for another direction that this gift called "life" can take us.



It is in a beginning that we start new.



The question then becomes "Where do I begin today?" For myself, I will begin today talking about the impetus for beginning, the dreams from the night before.



Dream from last night:

I was on a tropical island and there was a large beach house with many people inside. The water was clear and beautiful-that wonderful blue green. It was a sunny day and I was happy to be attending a party, although I didn't know the people inside the beach house. I was in the kitchen and an old friend walked in the room. She looked great I thought, and I was embarrassed because she and I had a falling out and hadn't spoken for 5 years. She looked so young and her teeth were bright white, as if they had been bleached. She spoke to me and I apologised to her for our falling out and she apologised to me, as we hadn't spoken for so long. There was a peace between us and my feelings of embarrassment went away. I moved into another room and I saw a small child needing help to go upstairs into the loft where his father was. I lifted him up and his father took him, thanking me for my help. Then I walked down a long corridor with many bedrooms and found my partner who had been looking for me. He holds my hand and we walk down the corridor together...........



Its interesting to me that I chose to post my first entry this morning. The last several months have been very stressful and my life has been filled with many challenges, losses, deaths, betrayals and hardships that have distracted me from my loves and hopes. These cycles in life can drag us into the underworld of our emotions, into dark places where death holds us hostage, away from our dreams and purpose. But death, like winter, eventually ends and there is beginning again. These are the new possibilities, far away places and new people entering our lives. In allowing for beginning there can also be rest and peace from the pain that death has brought. Our dreams can remind each of us who we are, where we've been, where we would like to go, who we would like to see and what we would like to do. In this way a dream can provide better awareness of our beginnings and shine the light to see the road ahead.

And so today, I begin my blog "The Lamplighter". My hope is to use this space to provide a deeper awareness of the spiritual, psychological and social conditions that define the human experience and share my personal reflections with others. Please feel free to leave a comment or submit a post.

Peace.

Colleen

Thank you to David Bookbinder for his beautiful artwork. Artwork may be purchsed@

http://davidbookbinder.com/home.html