Tosia H Zraikat

Mind, Brain, and Consciousness

Where do intelligence and creativity come from? Science tells us that they are qualities of the brain.

Brain size

Bigger brains have long been considered the impetus behind the evolution of our species, homo sapiens sapiensis.  The smaller brains of other hominids, the Australopithecenes, the Denisovians, Homo Floresiensis, Neanderthals etc. have been seen as indicating their intellectual inferiority compared to ours ... despite strong evidence that these hominids were, in fact, very creative.

Where that concept fails of brain size fails, as with Einstein whose brain was actually significantly smaller than the average human brain, we are told that his superior brain functioned much more efficiently than the average brain, developing many more neural networks and requiring less grey matter.

Researchers have attributed Einstein's genius to the "extraordinary prefrontal cortices" of his brain (Scientific American blog, 16 Nov, 2012). Yet in light of what we know about neuroplasticity (the brain's ability to change it structure and functions) the question must be asked, Was Einstein's "extraordinary" brain a cause of his genius, or did a lifetime of extraordinary thinking processes reform his brain? Did Mind affect brain, or vice versa?

There is strong evidence that brain size, even brain structure may be much less important than we think.

Brain abnormalities

One woman's brain was found to be missing a cerebellum. "The cerebellum’s main job is to control voluntary movements and balance, and it is also thought to be involved in our ability to learn specific motor actions and speak. .... Yet in this woman, the missing cerebellum resulted in only mild to moderate motor deficiency, and mild speech problems such as slightly slurred pronunciation." Otherwise, she functioned normally. 

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329861-900-woman-of-24-found-to-have-no-cerebellum-in-her-brain/

There are, of course, many instances where brain abnormalities do affect consciousness or our ability to function, sometime seriously, but there are also many cases where even though physical performance was impaired, intelligence was not. 

"John Lorber, a British neurologist [who] has studied many cases of hydrocephalus (water on the brain)..... cites the case of a student at Sheffield University, who has an IQ of 126 and won first-class honors in mathematics. Yet, this boy has virtually no brain; his cortex measures only a millimeter or so thick compared to the normal 4.5 centimeters." 

Source: http://www.drjudithorloff.com/Free-Articles/Is-Your-Brain-Necessary.htm

Brain and Intelligence

Many biologists and naturalists are convinced, moreover, that all of nature, all life forms, including those without even the rudimentary elements of a brain, seem to possess innate intelligence that allows them to receive and process information from their environment, including from each other, and respond appropriately, adapting to or even coming up with new solutions when faced with environmental changes.

Working with slimy molds of single-celled amoebae, which have not even a rudimentary brain, researchers discovered that they can "find their way through a maze, can remember, make decisions and anticipate change," that is, they demonstrate intelligence.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/brainless-slime-molds/

 What these findings, and many others, suggest is that what we define as brain is just one of many possible kinds of information-receiving and organizing systems in nature, some of which are distributed throughout the body of the life form, or even across wide networks of life forms that cooperatively share information.

It is increasingly accepted that the human body has several 'brains', centres where information is gathered and processed. The heart has its own intelligence, as does the stomach, as do, according to some, every organ and cell within us. It is probably the same with other creatures, or even more diffused.

Nature could indeed be one great living, conscious organism whose Mind / Consciousness interacts with the intelligence of life form  in a multitude of ways, one of them being the mammalian nervous system with its brain. Every part of nature possesses intelligence, and the attributes of intelligence that we humans possess, though it comes in a great variety of forms.

 

Every part of nature, this leaf, that ladybug, possesses consciousness. Consciousness is, it seems, a fundamental attribute of life.

 

 

Telepathy and psi abilities

Perhaps the most persuasive evidence that mind is more than brain is the unexpected and truly awesome capacity of autistic children with little or no speech to read others' thoughts, experience non-physical beings, and gather and transmit information through psychic means, recorded by documentarian Ky Dickens in a series of tapes and films called the Telepathy Tapes. With the assistance of scientific researchers, parents and teachers of these children, Ms Dickens has been investigating this phenomenon for years, finally giving these non-speaking children a voice, despite resistance from critics and nay-sayers.

You can listen to the Telepathy Tapes on Spotify, and see some of the film recordings at https://thetelepathytapes.com

 So what does this all mean? It means that ...

Mind is not brain.

Some of our most esteemed neuroscientists, brain scientists and biologists believe that Mind is not an attribute of the brain at all, but something beyond brain, perhaps in the Self or, others argue, existing in morphic fields or everywhere. It is not the brain that conceives or created. It is the Mind, which draws upon this constantly evolving reservoir of universally accessible knowledge and experience. Brain does not give rise to Mind, or control it. Rather, the brain serve as a receiver and transmitter of information from the great Mind, and organizes the body's physiological and biochemical responses to that information.

In How the Self Controls Its Brain, Nobel laureate Sir John Eccles described the brain as a detector and amplifier of the Mind's impulses, which manages the release of appropriate neurotransmitters, sort of like an interactive computer.

Karl Popper, generally regarded as one of the greatest 20th century philosophers of science, also theorized the brain as receiver not only of environmental influences and heredity, but, significantly, of messages from Mind. The Self controls and regulates the brain, and can do so consciously (as has been shown through the research of Dr. Bruce Lipton), the brain in turn affecting the Self through its biochemical and neurological reactions.

(These two great thinkers met in Dunedin, New Zealand, become close friends, and co-wrote The Self and Its Brain). 

 

 

 

 

 

In the great spiritual traditions of the world, Mind is Consciousness.

Mind is the living light of the All, the Cosmic One .... "Let there be light!"

Who do you Serve?

 

"Men have been found to resist the most powerful monarchs and to refuse to bow down before them, but few indeed have been found to resist the crowd, to stand up alone before misguided masses, to face their implacable frenzy without weapons and with folded arms to dare a no when a yes is demanded."

(Hannah Arendt in 'The Origins of Totalitarianism').

 

 

“It is indeed a frightening thought that man also has a shadow-side to him, consisting not just of little weaknesses and foible, but of a positively demonic dynamism” - the will to power.

 

Yet how necessary it is that we know who and what we serve, consciously or unconsciously....what we truly stand for in our own hearts.

 

People like to imagine themselves as fairly decent, reasonable beings, and individually, they often are.

 

“But let these harmless creatures form a mass, and there emerges a raging monster; and each individual is only a tiny cell in the monster’s body, so that for better or worse he must accompany it on its bloody rampages (Carl Jung in 'Will to power').

 

 

Life, our own life and life on this planet, requires that we think more deeply about who we are, what we believe, and who or what we serve. That we find and strengthen our centre, our resistance to mass-thinking. We don't have to be certain. Doubt is Ok, and so is changing our minds. 

 

But now, more than any other time since the last Great War, we need to clarify a few clear core values to hold us steady when we are besieged by the raucous, insistent demands of the crowd....We need to know what we serve. Whom we serve.

 

And who we are. Not at as a group, but individually. We need to feel, to think, to reflect, and to choose whom we serve, for only then can we  stand as authentic beings in our own sovereignty.

Secrets of Ancient Greek Myth

New course starting 28 April 2025 at the Northcoast U3A.

 Secrets of Ancient Greek Myth

Myth is an essential part of Carl Jung's Deep Psychology. One of the cornerstones of Western civilization, Ancient Greek mythology has had an immense influence on our thinking, education, art, literature, movies … and on our psychology.

What hides in these myths is their power to awaken us to deep realm of the unconscious, the source of the selves with which we are familiar, and known in the world. 

The heroes, wise old women, knights, gods and goddesses of myth are personifications of what Jung calls Archetypes, primeval patterns of the human psyche that have taken many different forms across the millennia. As we go deep into ancient Greek mythology, you might find a particular story or character especially meaningful ... or disturbing...as one or another archetypal pattern is awoken deep within. Such is the secret power of myth, that when we enter into it, our reality is expanded, and we start to experience the world as more magical, more enchanted than it ever was before.

For details of U3A courses, go to https://u3anorthgoldcoast.au/classes

 

 

Jung and Myth at the U3A

Monday (1st April 2025) was the last day of my most recent course on Jung, titled Myth and the Quest for Meaning at the Northcoast U3A (University of the Third Age in Labrador). We have been examining certain mythic archetypes, fundamental patterns of the human psyche that can only be known through their influence on our attitudes, behaviours, dreams and creative imaginings.

Archetypes such as the Great Mother, King, Queen, Warrior, Magician, and Dionysus, Greek god of wine, madness and ecstasy  live in and through us, sometimes in ways that can be personally challenging but move us forward on the path of self-realisation, that is, individuation.

For example, the esteemed Jungian scholar and writer, Edward Edinger, writes:

The Wise Old Man or Chthonic/Great Mother Archetype is a potentiality that can serve an important role in our development. Ideally, this potentiality should be honored and integrated over the course of our lives. It can be a significant piece to our call to wholeness, helping to carry us into our future that is waiting.  (Edinger, 2002, Science of the Soul: A Jungian Perspective).

By reflecting on myth and connecting its images with living experience, we learn to use Archetypes in ways that support our psychological development and the creation of a meaningful, fulfilling life. So that's what we were doing this semester.

I would have loved to record this last session (of course, I didn't) in which each person spoke as a mythic archetype and responded to questions about their chosen 'character.'

We had a very serious Satan, Knights with their knightly codes, wise Yoda from a modern retelling of myth (Star Wars), the wise Crone with warnings for humankind, Mother Earth who admonished us gently, the  wild god, Pan, and the archetype of Peace, who all together created fertile ground for deep discussion. It was a great end to a class of truly wonderful people. 

 

Psychology of Loving High Cold Places

I have been thinking a lot about Switzerland lately, a country I usually have little interest in. This really began about two years ago, when I developed an intense craving for snow ….. lots of it, like in Antarctica. Movies and documentaries on Antarctica excited me terribly, and I would often think of being in that huge expand of snow and ice, as one would think of being with a secret love, with immense tenderness and longing.

More recently, that longing transferred to the Alps of Switzerland. If I had the means, I could live there without the dangers of Antarctica. Mountains hold enormous significance to me, they always have. I imagine myself hiking up a mountain, alone, something I certainly could not do in real life. I once visited some of my husband's family in Switzerland, now long gone, and have very warm memories of them. It would mean so much to return to their little hamlet and think of them.

Also (very importantly), I would visit Jung's tower in Bollingen, Switzerland, to breath it in, walk land that he walked sometimes with Marie-Louise, touch things they have touched….(and I am not ashamed to say it), worshipfully, with love. They have both contributed so much to my life, guided me in times of confusion or despair, helped me find meaning and purpose. I don't have living ancestors and know hardly anything about my dead, so for me, the yearning to visit Jung's tower, his home, and if possible, von Franz's feels like going to my ancestors, honouring those who helped make me.

What does this say about me? That I have an immense longing to find my roots, to belong, to reach the ancestors? My Slavic ancestors knew long months of deep snow and intense cold, wolves howling with hunger at the edges of villages. Maybe some were mountain people, or maybe it is that I associate high mountains and their deep caves with ancients. The older I am, the more I dream of caves. I seem to be becoming more and more introverted, more sensitive to the noise and bustle of people and want to get away.

Why snow? Why Antarctica? Because it is for me the image of cleanness, of purity. In active imaginations, I am always taken to low, dirty places, muddy places full of vegetation where I meet wild animals or become one, and feel the erotic energy of Eros. I learn a lot from those experiences, and have understood how necessary they are. Another part of me, however, wants cleanness, purity, a balance for all those earthy, sensual, sexual, chthonic aspects of my psyche.

Does part of me want to rise above them, to feel superior in some way? That is possible, but I don't think so. After much inner work, I have come to cherish my animal nature, my instinctual self, and appreciate the necessity of allowing it to express itself. I have been humbled, many times. Maybe now, my psyche is simply calling for balance, wanting me to hold both the mud and the snow, the low and the high. Maybe what I project outward in this longing for high mountains, snow, Jung and Switzerland is compensating for these past three years of digging in the psychic dirt and rotting vegetation.

Spiritual Core Strength

Much attention is paid to the development of core strength, but having a strong centre, a strong trunk is about much more than fitness or abs. Core spiritual strength concerns our whole being. It is, indeed, the key to living a fruitful, balanced and deeply fulfilling life.

 

 

Just as a strong tree trunk is essential for the wellbeing and functionality of the tree's roots, branches, and leaves, psychological strength is fundamental to every aspect of our being - body, mind, and soul. 

 

 

Without that strong inner centre, our energies cannot help but scatter and dissipate. We cannot help but waste them on inessential, unproductive, and too often, on harmful thoughts, feelings and actions.

 

 

Most of us know what physical core strength is and why it is important. It stabilizes your body, and allows for optimal transfer of energy between different parts of the body so that it can function well. A strong core also is protective, allowing you to move and be active without damaging muscles, bones and organs. Most of us are also aware of different ways to develop core strength: yoga, tai chi, qi gong, dancing and gymnastics, for example.

 

But can you see the parallel between developing and maintaining core strength of your body, and creating a strong psychological and spiritual core?

 

Psychological and Spiritual core strength are just as vital for our overall wellbeing, our fuctionality and wholeness as body core strength is for physiological wellbeing.  A strong spiritual centre provides the same benefits - strength, optimal flow of energy and information, protection - on an even deeper level of being. 

 

Elements of psychological strength include resilience and adaptability; the ability to see things realistically, and to respond appropriately; ability to cope with and eventually resolve strong emotions like hate, anger, passion; taking responsibility for feelings and actions; seeing things from a wider perspective instead of thinking that it's all about us; being able to empathise with others and consider their needs and wants; learning how to listen, communicate and express ours feelings and expectations instead of feeling victimized. 

 

It is, however, a strong spiritual centre that gives us the extraordinary strength, endurance and guidance that enable us to face life's toughest challenges, and to be radically transformed into a higher level of human being. This is where the key to transformation of the world is to be found.

 

A strong spiritual core does not eliminate pain, loss, or despair, for these are part of la condition humaine, the human condition. But it does impart to us the strength to endure and eventually to emerge from even the darkest abyssal experience, not only intact but wiser than before.

 

A strong spiritual centre, religious or not, gives us moral backbone, the courage to stand up for what we think is good and true, to keep our resolve in the face of inner or outer threats, and not to buckle in fear, even when we are afraid.

 

Woman in peaceful confrontation with police in Louisianna.  Image: indianews.com

 

Throughout history, individuals with strong minds and hearts have drawn on their inner divinity, the True Self, to endure the unendurable, to become beacons of hope and peace for others in the very worst of situations. These individuals illustrate for us the enormous sustaining and supportive power of deep psyche, and the capacity in each of us to draw on its spiritual power.

 

 

Image: Courage, Jody Hewgill

 

If you are serious about becoming a Whole, a fully functioning human being, do not treat your spirituality like an addendum, something additional to your life, a cloak you take on and off. It is You, or it is nothing.

 

 Attend to your soul. Look  deep within your shadows and bring them to light. Cultivate a relationship with your True Self which is Life itself, its Light, the is God within, your inner Sun. 

 

Instead of settling into comfortable, feel-good spirituality that asks nothing much of you, do what is required to establish a strong, firm foundation to support your personal growth and transformation. Choose a path that you can commit to and walk it every day.

 

 

Seeing Differently

Judging from how many of us go to books, classes and teachers to learn spiritual truths, we should expect to be well acquainted with Truth and Wisdom, and know how to recognise them. We should find enlightened souls all around us. But we do not. Nor are most of us - no matter how deep our spiritual practice - intimate with the spiritual dimensions of being. Heaven knows, it's not for want of trying.

It's not that we cannot find Truth, but that our usual ways of looking and experiencing do not allow us to see it.

"It is high time we realized that it is pointless to praise the light and preach it if nobody can see it. It is much more needful to teach people the art of seeing." – Carl Jung"   (The Basic Writings of C.G. Jung).

“Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand" (Matthew 13:11)

 

Wanting and intending to know, and accepting the ideas of the Divine and Oneness might point us to the path of transformation, but they are not enough. We must experience for ourselves, viscerally and intimately, the profound and inner shift to a new level of awareness that transforms our consciousness, and if we are to continue to grow, we must experience it over and over as consciousness becomes more and more refined, more expansive and awake.

"He who has eyes to see, let him see, and he who has ears to hear, let him hear."   Matthew 13:13

What are these “eyes to see” and “ears to hear”?

They are metaphors for awareness, that is, consciousness: the willingness and ability to recognise the reality in which we live ...not our conditioned reality, or the reality that we have agreed upon, not only the small insights that are honestly received and spoken, but the fundamental Reality of our nature, which is both biological and spiritual - human and Divine. 

We like to think we know this Reality, but the majority of us do not. We try to see it, and some of us may even catch a brief glimpse of it, but too often, we fall back into old ways of seeing and thinking ... because we are not transformed. The Truth is right here before us, within us, we are told, but for all our efforts, most of us do not really see or experience it....nor will we until we are change our ways of seeing.

Most of us are like the boy in the Grimm brothers' story of the Goose Girl. In this story, a mis-used princess disguised as a goose girl speaks daily with the head of her dead horse, who laments her suffering. Every
day she combs out her hair which shines as brightly as the sun (symbol of higher or awakened consciousness), and every day when the boy tries to pluck a hair, she summons the wind to blow off his hat and carry it over the fields.

He knows this is strange, yet all he sees is an irritating goose girl. Like all of us who do not know the language of soul, he remains blind to the mystery being revealed to him, and to its invitation to step into greater awareness. 

Fortunately for the princess, the king (symbol of the Self) recognises the truth and marries her. 

“You cannot see Me with your present eyes," Krishna tells Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita,"Therefore I give you divine eyes.”

Just as those who do science must learn to see and experience the world in new ways –that is, scientifically - those who would be awakened must learn to see with more conscious eyes.

Ordinary mind, the mind of the material self, is perfectly attuned to outer reality. Used properly, it enables us to function according to the laws of this reality at a much higher level than we presently do. To experience spiritual reality, however, we must engage spiritual dimensions of mind, with their unique attributes and processes.

We do it unconsciously in dreams, intuition, inspiration, sudden insights, and those numinous moments when we feel totally connected to nature, others and the world - but we can learn to do it consciously. And that requires opening our inner gates of perception, and accepting what enters.

Most of us, though, are easily frightened or angered by anything that doesn't fit our beliefs about what is possible or real, that doesn't come through ordinary channels. Instead of opening itself to the unfamiliar and allowing itself to experience the mystery of the unknown, the conscious mind blocks it out, shunts it into our unconscious to remain hidden.

But eventually, even the most rational, materialistic seeker of Truth might come to a door where sensory perception and reason fail. Often, this occurs in times of crisis, or in those dark nights of the soul when we feel terribly lost.

 

 

(We come to a door that can only be entered by those willing to leave familiar ways of knowing behind).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When this happens, we might try to climb back onto familiar ground where things used to make sense, and refuse the opportunity to see things more truly. But some brave or desperate souls will accept this sacred invitation to accept not-knowing, walk through the wide open gate newly humbled, and surrender mind to the deep mystery of Self, of Being ... asking, Who am I? What is this?

Eventually, if we keep asking, answers will come. And what do we do meanwhile?

Amidst the Troubled World

Part of me has always wanted to become a monk, to live away from the world, a reclusive life that would allow my mind to soar to great heights. But I know, I just know that we are here to learn to uncover our inner light and share it with the world, not as a saint but as just another human being.

"Make of yourself a light." (said Gautama Buddha just before his death)

“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” (said Jesus. Matthew 5:16)

Awakening is not about tuning away from the world, shutting it out; it’s about tuning into the world, recognising that you are part of it, biologically, psychologically, and spiritually, and that your actions or non-actions in the world count.  Cutting yourself off from the world is shutting off part of your own being.

Yet that is exactly what most people do, trying to ignore problems right under our nose, to numb ourselves from our own pain and pain of others.

We don't allow ourselves to see or feel the pain of the world because it terrifies us, and we feel helpless before it.

But as long as we close our eyes and our hearts, we will never heal. The world cannot heal, and it will not change. The forms of misery might change over time, but the sickness, the suffering will remain.

How, then, do we live and grow in a world whose societies perpetuate human suffering, societies run by handfuls of powerful and wealthy who benefit from the misery of the millions and human despair?

First. Do what aeons of sages, prophets and masters have told us: Look within. Know Thyself.  Recognise the pain, trauma and denial on which you have built your own psychological patterns and perception of the world. Give yourself the acceptance and love that your heart needs to open up and feel.

Then bit by bit, consciously (and as slowly as it requires), acknowledge the suffering of others, and allow your heart to respond with compassion and love.

 Your heart aches when you hear of refugees drowning in wild seas. Don’t pretend it doesn’t.

You are horrified by pictures of starving or bombed children on your television. Don’t be ashamed of your pain. Express it. Ask others, how can we allow this?

You suppress the wave of compassion that arises when you pass by a homeless person. Don't. Allow yourself to feel that compassion, and to act on it.

We are not asked to bear the pain of the world, to suffer with it, or feel guilty. No one is asked to be a martyr. But we are asked to witness what is, both within and without. For only then can we feel the heart's urge to comfort, to be kind, to give what comfort we can, to help heal this world. 

Acknowledge our common humanity. Not one of us is perfect or blameless. Learn and practice daily to treat others respectfully, truthfully but without moral judgement, regardless of your emotional reaction to their words or action. 

Don’t give up on yourself. Don't give up on the world.

Transformation begins in you. In me. In your neighbour. In millions of people refusing to be numb and blind to the unacceptable costs of their social order, in those millions and millions of kindnesses that people show to each other and to other living things.

(Image from The Little Prince Movie — http://www.TheLittlePrinceMovie.com )

reblogged

 

 

Working with a Dream image

I've been watching heavy rainfall all morning, reading Jung and listening - again-  to Dr Edinger speak on 'the New Myth of Meaning', a talk that I find deeply moving and inspiring, so although outer-world tasks require my attention, I want to write about a dream, and what I have drawn out of it. It gives an idea of  how, as a devoted Jungian, I work with dreams. 

The dream July 26 2024

 A woman in dark clothes with black hair is very antagonistic towards me. She resembles me very much (I have black hair and dark clothes in the dream), and wants to get into me and replace me because she thinks I am not living my life as I should, sort of just inhabiting my life and not being fully myself in it. She is shooting at me with a thing that fires laser beams that don't hurt, but weaken me. I shoot back with the same kind of weapon. Then another woman is there, with long wild blonde hair and wearing a long white dress. She more or less takes over the dream.

 

This woman in white also fires laser beams at me, but with more hostile intent, a kind of viciousness that the other woman does not have, and I fire back. This one also wants to take over my life, but she wants to kill me. She wants my destruction; there is something savage, cruel about her. Though I fire on her and strike her, the strikes only slow her down. Then she puts a small bright red ball in her mouth, which if she bites down on it, will release poison that she wants to spurt out in my direction without harming her. She keeps coming closer, though I shoot, and I know that she wants to get close enough to release the poison into my mouth...sort of with a kiss. The other woman who resembles me is now  standing by, hardly visible, watching. I am the one being targeted. Somehow, I feel through all this that we are all related.

 

Active imagination 

(This is a method Jung taught for exploring dream or other images from the psyche. Robert Johnson tells that one will “go into [one's] fantasy or vision, participate consciously in it, and make it into an active exchange between the conscious and unconscious energy systems," (Inner Work). 

Very brief conversation with the woman in white:

 

"What do you want from me?

You are not worthy of your life. I want it.

"What do you want me to do?"

Get out. I want you out.

"What do you want to do with my life?"

 

I feel a powerful surge of her desire, a kind of primal desire that feels selfish, cruel, insatiable. However she has a sweet face. She frightens me so I do not continue. Later, it occurs to me that she probably represents boundless or unmodified instinct without the ameliorating influence of love, relationship, or containment, which Jung said can be dangerous. She is, I think, the compensatory and exaggerated opposite of my own fear and distrust of feeling and desire. After this, I did some reading on instinct in books mostly by Marie-Louise Von Franz.

 

Amplification

(Amplification of a dream symbol means "doing research on the meaning of the symbol," exploring associations with "myths, fairytales, or folklore" to "gain a deeper understanding of their meaning." (nathanbrandon.com).

I found it difficult to associate the character of the woman in white with stories or myths other than stories associated with death: the spirit of the dead, or that appears to warn of death or to be death, which doesn't feel right to me. I don't get that impression from her. On the contrary, she seems to me to represent repressed instincts and drives demanding expression: sexuality, desire, stifled creativity, anger, the power drive, primal energy etc. But during this exercise, I realised that she comes with such vehemence, such venom because the repression was to her like death, and she burst into my dream demanding life - my life - that I had denied her. In that dream, where I was all in black with black hair, I was her shadow as I thought she might was mine. 

Visualising the red ball in her mouth through which she wanted to spit poison at me, I was reminded of a serpent, and also, paradoxically, of something beautiful, a glowing ruby that had appeared in another dream some time ago associated with my wolf guide, a jewel associated with fire, energy and the warrior, which to me signifies the energy of life, libido, passion. So her poison might have been intended to kill but like a homeopathic medicine, it can restore balance and heal. Here I see the play of opposites - life and death, killing and healing, destruction and revivification. 

Unexpectedly, this took me into remembered recent dreams. A lion carries me, unconscious, on its back from darkness into light. A tiger comes at me and instead of harming, takes my whole face into its mouth gently, so that I breathe its breath, taste its saliva, become almost one with it. And a pack of wild wolves runs around me, pushing me forward. Now here, the woman seeks to spit poison into my mouth that I now feel is like medicine.

I am being brought to life. I am being helped to see that in repressing/denying parts of me through shame, guilt, fear, I lost, maybe killed, parts of my soul that I can now to some degree recover....wounded but alive. I had thought I was only being told to reclaim my instincts but it is much more than that. My psyche is also showing me that I am cared for, that I have an inner tribe of friends that care for me and love me. I cannot say how much that means to me.

Later- I found further confirmation of my interpretation just this morning. I came across Marie-Louise von Franz's comment on white - that though it can be "either positive or negative depending upon the situation," it can indicate the instinctual impulse's "natural direction towards consciousness', a force which "tends to bring things up into consciousness." (in Shadow and Evil in Fairytales, p. 303). Now I understand why the white dress felt so important to me. I feel that there is still more to this dream, and that it will continue to enlighten me, but already, I feel enriched, expanded. 

What I take from this so far is a newly certain awareness of the Self, an intelligence within me that is not mine, a force much greater than my small personality, something wiser that extends beyond me, and that I am seen, valued and driven by that greater being into the process of individuation. My task then is to accept and interpret what it is given through instinct, feeling and reason, and use my ego's decision-making capacity to apply it appropriately in my everyday life, for in so doing, Jung says, I become more conscious and contribute to the consciousness of the world.

Surrounded by Wolves

I am surrounded by wolves. I feel them running around me, pushing me forward, their bodies hard and breath hot on my skin. I am not frightened, because one of my animal guides, Lobo, runs with them, close by.

Lobo is a wolf who entered my dream a couple years ago and has helped me to recognise unpleasant and difficult aspects of myself. Though he is now dear to me, a companion, Lobo is not the sweet-faced, metaphysical symbol of femininity, or peace and love that one finds all over the internet. He is like the  “growling wolf within, the iron grim” described so well by C.G. Jung's colleague, Marie-Louise Von Franz. I wrote about that in my chapter of the book, Psychological and Philosophical Studies of Jung's Teleology: The Future-Orientation of Mind, edited by Garth Admunson, from which the following passages are taken.

" “The wolf … often represents a capacity which is very closely connected with people who have a wolf problem, namely, a general, all-devouring greed ….. the wolf is always the victim of his hungry stomach. When that gets the better of him, he loses all intelligence ….. In his paper on the transference  …[Jung] says the very often such a terrific greed awakes in people that they want to eat everybody and everything - for example, to eat their analyst completely. It is not even on the level of a sexual transference, but on an even more primitive level, for it is to “have” the other: to have everything…… This great desire to eat everything is very often the result of great frustration in childhood, which had built up a kind of bitter resentment on one side, combined with the greedy desire to have and eat everything. The “grim” then is a kind of sulky resentment because one can’t have the thing. …. They get caught in a kind of vicious circle of cold resentment and greed, which is often fittingly symbolised by the wolf” (von Franz, 1990, pp. 202-203)."

She was describing an aspect of me, that part of the inner child who still felt that  resentment and insatiable longing. Continuing:

".....Wolf is also an "initiating animal; he has this significance in Canto I of Dante's Inferno" (1970b, P.39, p. 141). In his mid-life and a 'dark night of the soul,' Dante finds himself in a dark forest looking for "the straightforward pathway," and thinks to take a mountain path that seemed to lead up to the light. But "almost where the ascent began," he finds his way blocked by a panther, then a lion, then "a she-wolf, that with all her hungerings Seemed to be laden in her meagreness… brought upon me so much heaviness…Which, coming on me by degrees Thrust me thither where the sun is silent.""

                   (art: Antonello Vinditti)

 

"The shade of the poet Virgil appears, full of harsh words about the wolf that blocks the way upward and offers to guide Dante along another road down through hell (Dante, The Inferno, Canto 1). Only by going into the dark place of the unconscious where he will encounter the shadow side of humanity and himself can Dante climb to the light.

"At first we cannot see beyond the path that leads downward to dark and hateful things," writes Jung ".. but no light or beauty will ever come from the man who cannot bear this sight" (Jung, 1955, p. 215). So must we all who want to redeem our lost souls go into the dark shadow, not voluntarily but pushed onto that road by fear or heaviness of spirit or desperation.

"Virgil reviled the she-wolf that blocked the mountain path, but she was a helper, forcing Dante onto the path he had to go, as Lobo pushed me to where I would rather not go." 

and here I am, being pushed again in this inner life, towards I know not what.