This Jungian Life Podcast &#8211; Joseph Lee, Deborah Stewart, Lisa Marchiano

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If you’ve been struggling in the dark trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of ⁠⁠⁠⁠Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams⁠⁠⁠⁠ from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.

Libido: Tracking Inner Energy Dec 16, 2021

Show notes

Jung understood libido as psychic energy: desire, will, interest, and passion. Libido includes instincts for fulfilling bodily appetites and engaging developmental tasks. Although energy infuses all human activity, it is not a function of ego alone; for many, a worthy goal has lacked the libido to achieve it. Feelings and actions can veer into symptoms, such as neurosis or addiction. Low libido is often a form of depression, and libido that is too high can be mania. Most often, a problem with libido is experienced as “stuckness,” the stasis produced from conflict between our natural, instinctual selves and familial and cultural expectations--internalized “shoulds.” We can face fear and engage desire, for acknowledging the truth of where attraction lies creates pathways along which life energy can flow. Psychotherapy could be considered a quest for each person’s authentic psychic energy. The innate direction of libido, the enlivening wellspring of the soul, is in service to individuation.

Here’s the dream we analyzed:

“I am walking around a garden, praying. I’m not sure whether I’m praying to God or to the earth or the trees, but I’m expressing gratitude for the beauty around me. There are two huge beech trees next to each other at the end of the garden. The knotted and gnarled trunks make each look like a laughing face - two friendly giants. I look up at the canopy high above - they almost seem to fill the sky with leaves. Then I notice that one tree is rocking in the wind, and there is a crack at the base of the trunk that opens and closes as it does so. I am concerned that the tree will fall. Behind the trees in the neighboring garden is a large, modern house which looks rather austere and forbidding. I wonder if I should warn the people in the house about the tree. Now two men in dark blue boiler suits arrive to examine the trees. Each reaches out a hand toward a tree, but before they can touch them, both trees fall over with a crash. I am sure the house will be smashed, but instead, the trees fall neatly onto two flatbed trucks which happen to be waiting. The men examine the trees and shake their heads. The trunks were hollow, and it’s clear they were not attached to the roots at all. The trucks drive off. The garden is left looking empty and forlorn.”

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The Archetype of the Crocodile Dec 09, 2021

Show notes

The crocodile and its alligator cousin appear regularly in the dreams of people far from warm, wet habitats. In ancient Egyptian mythology, the divine crocodile Sobek was honored, especially at riverbanks, the threshold of land and water. The Egyptian earth god Geb was depicted as a crocodile guarding the gateway to the underworld. Thresholds mark the entry to the unknown, a realm where usual rules do not apply—an apt parallel to the boundary between the ego and the unconscious. Primordial force, seemingly submerged in psyche’s ancient riverbeds, can erupt to drown, dismember and devour the ego’s claim to autonomy. Moments of dissolution in trauma or periods of psychosis have power as crushing as the crocodile’s terrible teeth and gaping maw. The unconscious source of consciousness also has the power to consume it. Crocodile is danger, death, and life’s relentless urge to realize itself.

We Analyze Several Crocodile Dreams To Explore A Variety Of Ways The Archetype Presents.

REFERENCES:

Erich Neumann. The Great Mother, translated by Ralph Manheim https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691166072/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_DBFKM4HWBS5VAK5N8W4P

The Book of Symbols. Reflections on Archetypal Symbols. Taschen. https://www.amazon.com/dp/3836514486/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_FSZEWSEQ8A2KAFSJSC1H

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Archetypes and the Creative Process: A Discussion with Third Coast Percussion Dec 02, 2021

Show notes

The creator, the hero, the explorer: these are just some of the archetypes made famous by Carl Jung that inspired the latest album from Chicago’s Grammy award-winning Third Coast Percussion. Created in collaboration with classical guitarist Sérgio Assad and composer-performer Clarice Assad, Archetypes is a sonic exploration of the human experience. Taped live at the 2021 Chicago Humanities Festival, our conversation with musicians Clarice Assad and David Skidmore features an exploration of the creative process and an interactive discussion on David’s dream. Clarice Assad is a Grammy-nominated composer, celebrated pianist, inventive vocalist, and educator. David Skidmore is a performer and Executive Director with Third Coast Percussion, a GRAMMY Award-winning percussion quartet based in Chicago.

REFERENCES:

Third Coast Percussion: https://thirdcoastpercussion.com/

Archetypes: https://thirdcoastpercussion.com/music/albums/archetypes/

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https://www.amazon.com/dp/1626549737/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_Y5THBGJ83K0VX5EF1Z3E

Falling in Love: Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered Nov 25, 2021

Show notes

Jung says, “Love is a power of destiny, whose force reaches from heaven to hell.” Falling in love is an initiation into the divine—light, and dark—as personal and archetypal forces combine and combust. In thrall to the magical other through whom we experience newfound parts of ourselves, we fall into a reality that transcends and possesses us.

Ardor takes us by surprise and opens us fiercely and intimately to our inner world, exposing us to ourselves. Passion must pass, whether it leads to commitment and partnership or casts us into disillusion and heartbreak. We need to know and grow a capacity for loving that makes us more whole and more able to love the other in another. We shall become kinder and wiser…and bow to the excitement and aliveness of falling in love.

Here’s the dream we analyze:

“I am looking at myself in a mirror in my waking-life bathroom. I lean close and notice that my two upper front teeth appear to be loose and crooked. I touch one, and it skews out of alignment. I panic! I try to realign the tooth, and it falls out with a gush of blood. I touch my other tooth, and it too falls out. I hold the teeth in shaking hands as I try to fit them back in place. They won’t stay in. I am horrified and unable to do anything. The teeth seem to grow larger in my hands, looking more like an animal tooth--like a sealion canine tooth I have in my waking life. I wake suddenly with the intense urge to check my teeth to make sure they are still there and okay.”

REFERENCES:

Aldo Carotenuto. Eros & Pathos: Shades of Love & Suffering. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0919123392/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_PEWYNA6PB0E8W9BB1KXP

Jan Bauer. Impossible Love: Why the Heart Must Go Wrong.

James Hollis. The Eden Project: In Search of the Magical Other.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0919123805/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_06AWPRX8XXFMZG097EXR

John Haule. Divine Madness: Archetypes of Romantic Love.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0877734836/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_7645741FXE5PM5J721AJ

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A Well-Aligned Mind: How to Be Alive Nov 18, 2021

Show notes

Guest Iain McGilchrist is a renowned psychiatrist, researcher, and author. His 2009 book, The Master and His Emissary gained worldwide fame for showing how differences between brain hemispheres affect our perceptions - and guide our lives. Each hemisphere has a radically different ‘take’ on the world: the left sees what is in the theater spotlight, whereas the right hemisphere understands the whole play.

Both are part of the theater of our lives, but the narrowly focused left hemisphere has increasingly taken over in the modern world. The right hemisphere offers a more spacious perspective: connectedness, complexity, and creativity - and has a direct and demonstrable effect on physical and mental well-being. Jung says, “One must never look to the things that ought to change. The main question is how we change ourselves.” McGilchrist shows us how: paying attention to what we are paying attention to reintroduces us to who we are - and aliveness.

REFERENCES:

A 10,000 essay and summary of McGilchrist’s ideas is available free on Kindle. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008JE7I2M/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_8QPW3VT6QMZQ08C7VK9T

Iain McGilchrist: The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World. Kindle Edition only. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09KY5B3QL/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_RP260867DNVHG84JYANK

Iain McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World https://www.amazon.com/dp/0300245920/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_7JP0MQCZ71W0PJ5HGVM4?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

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Humanizing the Hero Nov 11, 2021

Show notes

Mythological heroes defend, protect and quest. They range from warriors, adventurers, and saviors to magicians, loners, and rebels, but one way or another, they battle bad for the sake of good. They have courage, skill, and strength, but never a troubling moment. Although we still delight in heroes with might and shine, modern times have given rise to a new ideal: the everyday hero.

From Harriet Tubman to Anne Frank and Frodo Baggins to Huckleberry Finn, these are heroes of happenstance. Circumstances demanded more of them, and they accepted the challenge to surmount loss, accept uncertainty, and take principled action even in a crisis. Unlike mythical heroes, everyday heroes struggle—and living fully into a larger purpose serves their personal development. Recent history has humanized the archetype of the hero and brought it down to earth. The new myth is about every man’s heroic energy for individuation and meaning.

Here’s the dream we analyze:

“It’s a bright clear day, and I’m in a forest. I’m walking around when I spot these hybrid creatures, both boar and human, or humans wearing boar heads as helmets. They are absolutely terrifying, and I try to hide from them in the brush. I watch them. Suddenly, one veers off from the rest and leans over and defecates or vomits from its chest. It’s violent and disgusting. The creature seems weakened, sick. Then I’m walking again, trying to get away from the creatures, but they spot me-- at least one of them does. I am not afraid now and assume we will fight. There’s a group of swords on the ground--more like big serrated knives--, and I pick one up. The creature and I duel, and I cut it several times. I’m confident in my victory, but then I’m nicked on the face. I’m worried about this; maybe it’s worse than I know. Then the dream jumps, and I’m in a dark bathroom examining the cut in the mirror. It’s a scratch. The boar creature is here with me, but she’s a beautiful brunette woman, and it’s clear we’re lovers. The feeling now is very light and romantic and easy.”

REFERENCES:

Robert Hayden poem: Those Winter Sundays

Leonard Cohen song: Joan of Arc

James Hollis. Mythologems: Incarnations of the Invisible World. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1894574109/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_94JC2C9MJ644DRC9X76Q

C.G. Jung. The Red Book. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393065677/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_HRQR02F9ATSSCXRAM8PA

Ernest Becker. The Denial of Death. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0684832402/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_ZDVC08FKDFDW7SS6QE5X

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The Fiery Furnace of Ambition Nov 04, 2021

Show notes

Ambition is a fire whose flames first rise in the first half of life when hopes and dreams are fueled by possibilities in the external world. It takes creative audacity to seize a dream, develop a talent, or commit to a calling. Ambition can also be fueled by narcissism, power-seeking, or striving to overcome inadequacy.

Too much fire can consume and corrupt us; insufficient heat forsakes potential for flickering fantasies. Jungian scholar and author James Hillman writes that each of us has an innate blueprint for becoming in The Soul’s Code. Ambition can best be the discovery of our authentic purpose in the world, a combination of character and call that provides the heat needed to find and pursue our destiny. Integrity is the true source of energy for pursuing a goal, persevering in its attainment, and allowing desire for distinction in the external world to serve development in the inner world.

Here’s the dream we analyze:

“I am in a contest to kill a baby by throwing a ball at it. I have to stand on a lawn chair while I throw the ball. I am moving the chair here and there, trying to get the right angle. The baby is very far away, hard to see. Many people are watching me, some rooting for me, some against me. Then someone brings the baby much closer because of some new rule. But now I can see its features. “It's harder to kill a baby when you can see its features!" I cry. I consider quitting the contest. But finally, I do throw the ball - and miss. Everyone is disappointed. I was neither noble (by quitting) nor powerful (by winning).”

REFERENCE:

James Hillman. The Soul’s Code: In Search of Character & Calling. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0399180141/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_5YHDGK5T26N1FH5T4RD1

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The Archetype of the Witch: Dangerous, Denied & Dishonored Oct 28, 2021

Show notes

It’s witching season, the time when women of all ages embrace a mythical image of unfettered feminine power. The witch may cast spells, seek vengeance, or wreak creative havoc—as she pleases. Flying the night skies of psyche, the witch brings primordial realities into culture’s brittle convictions.

Like all aspects of the collective unconscious, the witch lays low when times are fine but rises when times are tense. Her archetypal power then infects humankind, inciting mass hysteria and the horrors of persecutory epidemics. The witch symbolizes our fear and vulnerability to the Great Mother in her dark, heartless aspect--and her power remains. Jung says, “On a primitive level, people are afraid of witches; on the modern level, we are apprehensively afraid of microbes.” If we can face the witch and acknowledge her power to depose ego and order, we can also face our choices and the freedom to make them.

Here’s the dream we analyze:

“My family has rented a house in an affluent area of my city for a celebration. I borrow my dad’s keys afterward to get something out of the car before planning to return quickly to the house. I’m wearing a yarmulke for the occasion. On my way back, I step onto a concrete block overlooking an SUV with an alarm going off. Despite there being a man in the car, a plainclothes policeman approaches me to say I’m being taken in for questioning because the car was stolen. The police officer refuses to let me call my father to tell him what happened. I am questioned by two officers, now in their uniforms, at the back of a luxurious synagogue. I am outraged and trying to profess my innocence with confidence, but my body and voice are shaking. The other officer lets me call my dad, who speaks in a gentle voice with sadness and almost disappointment. Then I am brought to a university-type study room to be questioned by a group of teen police officers, some of whom I recognize as people I went to high school with. On the way to this room, I see a friend and explain what is happening, but she seems apathetic and keeps walking. In the room, the teen police group is being irreverent and making jokes and creating distractions, looking at their phones, playing games, not listening to my expressions of anger and fear. At the end of the dream, Amy Winehouse appears in the room, and we all sing her song “Love is Blind.” I strain my voice to sing loudly and distinctly.”

REFERENCES:

Erich Neumann, Fear of the Feminine, https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691034737/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_S0QDMDBFG7FN0ECGSZD1

Geoff Shullenberger, “Karen” and the Maenads, Outsider Theory, https://outsidertheory.com/karen-and-the-maenads

Madeline Miller, Circe. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0316556327/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_KVNV5H79CCQ8HDHFVSR0

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Assessing Our Psychic Inheritance Oct 21, 2021

Show notes

Jung said of the parent-child relationship: “Nothing exerts a stronger psychic effect upon the human environment, and especially upon children, than the life which the parents have not lived.” Jung understood that parents could unconsciously compel children to fulfill parental dreams or compensate for disappointments. Parental shadow creates an urgency to purge, perfect, or prolong a psychic legacy. It may manifest by taking on a parental aspiration, making up for a parental deficit, rebelling against parental constraints, or being subsumed by parental dictates. When personal libido is tied to parental needs, energy for life is hijacked by anxiety, ambivalence, and ambiguity - and it is up to us to reckon with it. If we do the work of differentiating from our parents, we discover ourselves. By doing so, we may truly redeem them and free ourselves. We serve life best by claiming it.

Here’s the dream we analyze:

“I am in what seems to be a decrepit apartment building, and I get the sense that the rooms of the building are interconnected and continuous. There are emaciated animals roaming the rooms, and there are two figures aside from myself: a large grotesque man sitting at a dining table and a tired-looking baker. The grotesque man seems to demand food and the baker brings him cake and other food. The large man begins eating like an animal, with his bare hands, throwing scraps behind, resulting in the animals fighting over them. In a climax, from the door leading to the other rooms, I can hear the sounds of hundreds of footsteps and the screams of children running toward the door into the room. The dream ends just as hundreds of hands begin to pass the threshold of the door.”

REFERENCES:

Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143133586/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_Y8GCS800QBTD9A8Z3DRE

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