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Purpose as Service to a Self-Led Future · This Jungian Life Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: It's purpose that infuses things with a kind of life
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: energy that is related to individuation. There's no acorn that
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: wants to just stay an acorn and, you know, kind
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: of lull about in the sun. Every acorn wants to
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: become an oak tree.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: It's better than being eaten by a squirrel. Yeah.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Is through challenge and meaning and purpose and, dare I add, suffering.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst in Cape Cod. Today,
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  Speaker 1: we are going to talk about purpose. the dictionary says
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: that purpose is something set up as an object or
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  Speaker 1: end to be attained, an intention. And how do we
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: figure out what that might be? What is the object?
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: What is our intention? There are so many things on
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: all the self-help shelves and our cultural inclination to set
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: up to-do lists of healthy habits and how to build
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: skills and all the rest of it. Very extroverted. We
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: are very much a doing practical kind of culture. But
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Jung and others have a deeper and more soulful idea
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: about finding one's real purpose. And that's what we're going
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: to circumambulate.
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  Speaker 2: Well, you know, that's an interesting place to start. And
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  Speaker 2: I think I'm going to sort of complexify it right
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: away because arguably, arguably we all kind of yearn for
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: a sense of purpose. And that can be, that can
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: be even like a really small thing. Like I remember
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: when my kids were little, obviously you feel a sense
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: of purpose, like parenting, right? That's a kind of a
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: grand purpose in a way. However, I will tell you
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: that on, on the sort of level of the day
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  Speaker 2: to day, Very little that you do feels purposeful because
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: you put the Legos all away, knowing that they're all
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: going to be strewn across the floor the next day.
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  Speaker 2: You make a meal that someone's not going to eat,
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: that you're just going to have to clean up all
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: the dishes for, and then you make another meal. It
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  Speaker 2: doesn't feel like you're getting anywhere, you know? It doesn't
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  Speaker 2: feel like your activities in some sense don't feel purposeful.
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  Speaker 2: They're just sort of like endlessly repetitive. So I think
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  Speaker 2: that even on the scale of sort of the day-to-day,
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  Speaker 2: the week-to-week, you know, we want to feel like we're
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  Speaker 2: working towards something, you know, that our activity is purposeful.
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  Speaker 2: So it is possible to feel that sense of purpose,
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  Speaker 2: like when your boss says, hey, we just got a
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  Speaker 2: big new contract, we need you to go do this thing,
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  Speaker 2: you know, then you have this sense of purpose, which
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  Speaker 2: is maybe a little bit different than this sort of,
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  Speaker 2: purpose that might percolate up from the deep unconscious, which
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: might feel more like a vocation or a calling. I
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  Speaker 2: just think there's probably different levels on which this operates.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: On Sunday, January 18th, we are hosting a special free
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: seminar called Dreams for Change, a Dream School Taster. Jung
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: tells us that our dreams are an expression of our
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: inner life, and they can show us which false attitudes
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: have led us into a blind alley. Perhaps you're feeling
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: stuck navigating a big life change like finding a new career,
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: facing an empty nest, or trying to figure out who
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: you are after having children. If you're navigating something like that,
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: your dreams can help. Dreams offer a medicine that is precise, personal,
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: and attuned to your deepest truth. Understanding their symbolic language
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: will help you home in on the information that truly
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: matters in your moment of change. At this session, we'll
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: discuss doing dream work in times of major life transition
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: and You'll be able to ask us questions, and we'll
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: also invite you to send in a dream for analysis
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: during the seminar. These free seminars have proved really popular,
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: so please do book your place soon so you don't
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: miss out. Find the link to sign up in the
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: show notes for this episode.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: I agree, and there are all kinds of levels, but
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  Speaker 1: I'm thinking about your example of parenting and how much
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  Speaker 1: of it is repetitive and very mundane. But it has
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  Speaker 1: the kernel in it that is very important, which is
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  Speaker 1: the commitment that most people will do anything for their children.
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  Speaker 1: You get up at 2.30 in the morning when the
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  Speaker 1: baby is crying. We do pick up all the Legos.
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  Speaker 1: We do want our kids to... be stimulated and to
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  Speaker 1: have a positive relationship with friends and family and all
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  Speaker 1: the rest of it. And I kind of like that
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  Speaker 1: idea that embedded in purpose is that part that feels
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  Speaker 1: ordinary and boring and hard. And there are a lot
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  Speaker 1: of things in life that can feel that way going
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  Speaker 1: to a job. which is repetitive and same old, same old,
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  Speaker 1: but you're doing it because your larger purpose is your family,
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  Speaker 1: if you're supporting a family, or you're doing it to
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  Speaker 1: earn money to go on a special trip or further
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  Speaker 1: your education. In other words, it has meaning and it
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  Speaker 1: has commitment in it.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I'm thinking actually that, you know, for example, you
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  Speaker 2: might have a real sense of purpose at your job
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  Speaker 2: because let's say that you're, I don't know, a partner
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  Speaker 2: in a firm or something and you're going after these
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  Speaker 2: big contracts or whatever and you have this sense of
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  Speaker 2: purpose because you're trying to meet these goals, but you
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  Speaker 2: may have a kind of existential crisis at some point
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  Speaker 2: because you're thinking, yeah, but to what end? And so
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  Speaker 2: I think there's something here about this question, to what
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  Speaker 2: am I in service? And if you ask yourself that question,
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  Speaker 2: to what am I in service, a deep sense, a
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  Speaker 2: dividing sense of purpose arises from feeling like we are
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  Speaker 2: in service to something larger than ourselves. So if it's,
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  Speaker 2: you know, if you're doing load after load of laundry
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  Speaker 2: and cooking innumerable meals and doing all of that kind
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  Speaker 2: of parenting stuff, it's like, well, to what am I
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: in service? And it is, I want to say it's
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  Speaker 2: like something like the next generation, really.
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  Speaker 1: So this is, to take your word, complexify, adds another
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  Speaker 1: whole dimension of I might be in service to the future.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Of my child's future and growing another human being. I
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: may be in service to family. I'm thinking about Thanksgiving
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: and all the cooking and followed by laundry over this
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: past weekend, that there is, I think, Eros embedded in service,
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  Speaker 1: that there is something worthwhile here, something that is greater
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  Speaker 1: than just you and your ego that has meaning and
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  Speaker 1: is bigger. And that which is bigger can get deeper, broader,
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  Speaker 1: more meaningful, and much more complex until perhaps toward later
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  Speaker 1: years in life. There is service to the infinite, a
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  Speaker 1: relationship with something that has religious philosophical tones. And it
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: may start with raising that two-year-old and four-year-old.
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  Speaker 2: You know, you just broke something loose, I think, in
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  Speaker 2: my thinking, because you said sort of in service to
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  Speaker 2: the future. And I wonder if that if that's always
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: a part of it, a sense of purpose. You know,
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  Speaker 2: the etymology of purpose comes from the Latin pro, toward, ponere,
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  Speaker 2: to put. So it has a sense of kind of
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  Speaker 2: like I'm putting something forward. It has a sense of
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  Speaker 2: futurity in it, even just with that prefix pro. So
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  Speaker 2: there is whether or not you're sort of in service
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  Speaker 2: to the future of your child or in service to
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  Speaker 2: the future of humanity or in service to the future of,
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  Speaker 2: a beautiful building that you're building. There's some sense of that,
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  Speaker 2: isn't there, of sort of the future? It's such an
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  Speaker 2: interesting thing to think about because I think that when
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  Speaker 2: we are working toward some sense of the future, however
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  Speaker 2: we think about that, right? We're achieving something for the future.
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  Speaker 2: We're growing something for the future. We're contributing to something
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  Speaker 2: that's going to have a payoff in the future. Sort
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  Speaker 2: of the opposite of that is nihilism. Yeah. in which
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  Speaker 2: we don't have any hope for the future. So I
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  Speaker 2: don't know, maybe I'm getting a little far afield, but
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  Speaker 2: I feel like I'm orbiting something, that purpose is somehow
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  Speaker 2: related to a sense of future and the sense that
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  Speaker 2: something we might do might work to grow, sustain, preserve,
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  Speaker 2: change for the better, something in the future.
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  Speaker 1: You know, I like that. I like that a lot,
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  Speaker 1: that it has meaning and it's worthwhile and something will
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  Speaker 1: grow from it.
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  Speaker 2: You know, I had an.
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  Speaker 1: Uncle who did do work, working in buildings to build buildings.
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  Speaker 1: And he lived in New York and he would mention
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  Speaker 1: one time after college, I was in New York and
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  Speaker 1: he'd say, you know, I worked on that building. I
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  Speaker 1: helped to build that building. You know, these are skyscrapers. Wow.
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  Speaker 1: You know, the part that any one person, it's not
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  Speaker 1: like building a house where you can say, there it is.
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  Speaker 1: But it had meaning to him that he did carpentry
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  Speaker 1: and finish work.
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  Speaker 2: That's a beautiful example, I think, of what I'm talking about.
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  Speaker 1: I hadn't thought about this in so long.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And... When I was too young and unaware to really get,
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  Speaker 1: I'd be like, oh, that's interesting. But he was part
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  Speaker 1: of something greater, and there was a result. It moved
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  Speaker 1: the future orientation. It starts with this, and then it
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  Speaker 1: becomes a skyscraper.
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  Speaker 2: Deb, tell your Karen story. This is the perfect place
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  Speaker 2: for it.
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  Speaker 1: Well, this leads into, you know, part two for me
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  Speaker 1: of what purpose is about. When I was, I think
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  Speaker 1: I must have been, I don't know, maybe 11, possibly 12.
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  Speaker 1: An adult friend of the family took a bunch of
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  Speaker 1: us kids to climb Mount Monadnock, which is in New Hampshire.
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  Speaker 1: And basically, it's one big, long, giant, giant hill. It's
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  Speaker 1: not mountaineering.
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  Speaker 2: And I.
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  Speaker 1: I didn't realize what it was I was letting myself
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  Speaker 1: in for. I thought, oh, this will be so great.
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  Speaker 1: And it was just hard and I was not enjoying it.
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  Speaker 1: And it's sort of a scramble over tree roots and
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  Speaker 1: scramble over some sort of big rocks. And eventually, though,
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  Speaker 1: we got above the tree line. So it was all
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  Speaker 1: rock face with some bushes and other things growing in
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  Speaker 1: the cracks between the rocks. But, of course, you couldn't
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  Speaker 1: see the trail, which we had been following, that was
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  Speaker 1: tamped down by hundreds and thousands of feet. So what
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  Speaker 1: they had on the rock face, which was not steep,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: were these piles of stones, like, you know, little pyramids
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  Speaker 1: of stones. And our adult leader said, these are cairns,
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  Speaker 1: and the custom is that because wind and rain... or
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: knock the stones loose, that every time you go by
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  Speaker 1: a cairn to mark the trail, you pick up a
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  Speaker 1: rock and you put it on the pile. That seems
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  Speaker 1: like a pretty ordinary thing, but we all did it,
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  Speaker 1: and I was really moved by that, that all you
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  Speaker 1: have to do is put a rock on the pile.
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  Speaker 1: And I think it was... an experience that really got
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: my attention of being in service to something greater. Nobody
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: would ever know.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: Right. No one's ever going to know. Right.
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  Speaker 1: No one would ever know. You know, I would never
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  Speaker 1: get any credit for putting this rock in an especially
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: good place. But it has that theme that you were
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  Speaker 1: mentioning of to build it, to build something. And something
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  Speaker 1: that was beyond just me. Other people that I would
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: never know. Yes, and you were marking the trail for others.
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  Speaker 1: And symbolically, of course, we can see it in a
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  Speaker 1: much bigger context. Yeah. But we do, I think, want
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  Speaker 1: to see a result. We wanted to go towards something
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  Speaker 1: and have an effect. Be in service.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: So I'm just, I love that story. And I love
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  Speaker 2: the idea of 11 or 12-year-old you, like getting something
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: in your bones at that moment that you understood completely intuitively.
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  Speaker 2: You understood the whole depth of it. Otherwise, it wouldn't
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  Speaker 2: have stayed with you. But you didn't have the words
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  Speaker 2: for it at the time. You didn't know. But you
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: knew something, but you couldn't articulate it.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: This takes me into... What I didn't know then, which
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: is finding a myth, a mythological substrate that undergirds, you know,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: this action that touched me so at the time, I've
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: always remembered it, of making the contribution, being in service.
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  Speaker 1: It was a real experience of participating in the great dance.
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  Speaker 1: The great round.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: Well, what I was going to say is that there
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  Speaker 2: you were marking the trail and feeling that that was
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  Speaker 2: meaningful and purposeful.
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  Speaker 1: Yes.
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  Speaker 2: And I would like to propose that each podcast episode
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: is like a stone on the cairn.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Oh, my goodness.
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  Speaker 2: Maybe marking the trail for someone else. Oh, yeah.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: That's fabulously wonderful. And it really takes it down to
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  Speaker 1: something very doable, that this is something that we do.
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  Speaker 1: We're not wreaking miracles. But here we are. Just show
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: up and do what you can. To do something worthwhile
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: and something that is of service.
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  Speaker 2: So here's a quote from Jungian analyst Edward Ettinger. He says,
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  Speaker 2: I always try to be on the lookout for evidence
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  Speaker 2: of a transpersonal purpose in an individual's life story. Once
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: you are on the lookout for such a thing, it
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  Speaker 2: becomes visible in everyone's life account. Wow. And, you know,
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  Speaker 2: I could say that in some sense, that is one
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: of the things we deal with in analysis. Because even
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: if the question is never asked in those terms, I
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: think many times people are coming because they are looking
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: for what is that transpersonal purpose? Where can I find
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  Speaker 2: that in my life account? And I want to say that,
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  Speaker 2: you know, to pick up on the Karen story a
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: little bit, you know, there was a moment in, recent
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: my recent life when I sort of had an aha
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  Speaker 2: and I sort of thought oh yeah the purpose of
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: this whole thing meaning life is to is to do
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: what I can to add to the general human endeavor
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  Speaker 2: you know and it is like that that rock on
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: a cairn is a good metaphor because it's tiny you
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: know I'm not gonna cure cancer or I don't know
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: write the next be the next Shakespeare or whatever it
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  Speaker 2: is But whatever little bit I can do, that's what
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: I'm here to do. You know, it seemed so simple
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: when I realized it. But I like your image of
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: the cairn. When I walk by, I'm going to put
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: a rock on the cairn. Yeah. So, you know, we've
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: talked about initiation before on the podcast. And it seems
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: to me that one of the purposes of initiation is
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: is to help someone discover their purpose. And in fact,
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: the mythologist Michael Mead agrees with me. I have another quote.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: He said, two of the functions of initiation are to
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: expose a man to the extremities of his emotions and
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: to help him find true purpose in his life. Without purpose,
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: a part of the soul turns bitter. Without passion, the
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: spirit can wither. So I think that's interesting, that if
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: we don't find a purpose, we feel bitter. We feel, well,
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: we may feel nihilistic.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: It's purpose that infuses things with a kind of life
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: energy that is related to individuation. So if it doesn't
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: have purpose, either it's just nihilistic, or we might say
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: in more ordinary English, it's just life is a slog.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: Things are just a drag. Or at the other end
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: of that, things could be just a life of hedonistic pleasures.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: if you're part of that wealthy crowd that doesn't have
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: to do anything. So one way or another, what we
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: need is purpose. It has to be something meaningful. And
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: it can be imposed. I mean, I think about the
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: countless people who do just all kinds of jobs everywhere
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: in the world. There's an accomplishment. There is a meaning
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: to it. It's in service to family. And it grows us.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: And we want to grow. You know, to use the
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: old chestnut of the acorn. Oh, I couldn't help it.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: You know, there's no acorn that wants to just stay
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: an acorn and, you know, kind of. lull about in
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: the sun. Every acorn wants to become an oak tree.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: It's better than being eaten by a squirrel.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: It is through challenge and meaning and purpose and, dare
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: I add, suffering, that we have meaning that is attached
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: to having a purpose. Life is going somewhere. Psyche is
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: going somewhere. We are going somewhere that is not tied
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: to income or status or fame or any of that stuff.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: And we have to be able to find it.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think what you're saying is, in essence, that
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: in some sense it's harder to feel that sense of
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: purpose if we're required by life circumstances to roll up
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: our sleeves and get to work. You know, there's something about, hey,
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: you just got to get out the door and go
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: to work because you've got people depending on you, for example. Right.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: That is pretty galvanizing and, you know, sort of requires
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: you to get out the door and start grappling with
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: life in a way that may be challenging. But on
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: the other hand, you never doubt your purpose. Right. So
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: in some sense, this sort of purposelessness is something that
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: may happen when life gets a little too easy.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: The old trope about trust fund kids who don't really
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: have to earn a living because that has been provided.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: And on the other hand, there are real world factors
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: that do influence our ability to find a sense of purpose.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: We do need some of the givens that are the
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: foundation of having a good, productive life. We need, hopefully,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: to have good health and relationships, family, friends, a community,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: the meaningful, purpose-driven community of some sort. the ability to
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: appreciate beauty. This is all right out of Jung. You know,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: reasonable standard of living, of abject poverty is really soul-sucking.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: And then enough of a philosophical, non-ego-driven outlook of being
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: in a larger context that will help us cope with
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: difficulties and challenges and be resilient in the face of
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: some of life's inevitable losses and defeats.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: We're talking about a kind of personal sense of purpose,
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: but interestingly, there is some relationship between the individual and
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: the culture and the society. And And I think that
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: more traditional societies, maybe often the whole culture had a
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: sense of purpose. So Peter Kingsley has said, which I
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: think is really beautiful, Peter Kingsley says, every civilization has
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: a sacred purpose, but we have forgotten ours. And that
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: reminds me of what you brought up during our gratitude
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: episode recently, Deb, that the Native American people that that
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: Jung met with, and they said, we have to help
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: the sun move across the sky. So their lives had
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: a cosmological significance. And if you believe that, boy, that
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: gives you a sense of purpose. You know, different cultures
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: have posited different meanings for that. I mean, I think
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: until fairly recently, the American culture felt like we had
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: a purpose to spread democracy. Now, I'm not saying that
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: that always went so well. I'm not necessarily an apologist
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: for that. I'm not trying to get into politics. But
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: there is something unifying about feeling that we as a
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: collective have a purpose too. And then we can, if
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: we care to, kind of hitch our own sense of
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: purpose to the collective purpose, which can be a source
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: of meaning and guidance for an individual.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking about what's in the Declaration of Independence with
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: liberty and freedom for all or what is, however those
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: words go, that it was a wonderful idea And Benjamin
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: Franklin said something about that, that it was a wonderful
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: idea to have a democracy if we can keep it.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: And so there's some political tinge to that. But really,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: whether we're thinking about it on an individual level or
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: a cultural level, what is the larger purpose? What are
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: the goals, the values that we are serving? Are we serving,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: enriching our own bank accounts? And that's our one and
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: only goal. Are we serving a community, a family? Is
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: our culture serving a nobler purpose of a society that
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: is fair and just and provides freedom for everybody? Right.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: And that's an ideal, right? We can be in service
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: to an ideal, which is tricky. You know, I think
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: that we're starting to lean into this notion of the
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: religious function of the psyche. And the tricky thing about
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: that is that we can elevate any number of ideas, ideals, ideologies,
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: and say, okay, well, here's the higher thing that I'm
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: in service to, but it may in essence, kind of
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: be a false god that can lead us astray. So
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: I don't know that there's, I don't know that it's,
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I'm not saying that this is necessarily easy.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: You know, I think we can think we're in service
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: to something. And in fact, we can be very inflamed
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: with a passionate desire to be in service to something.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: And then that can not necessarily be a good thing.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: I've been enjoying learning a little bit about the reign,
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: if you will, of Savonarola in Florence. And I can't
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: remember the year right now, 1300s, 1400s, I can't, maybe
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: it was the 1400s. But, you know, he had the
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: whole town of Florence sort of following him in his
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: religious fervor. And it was kind of a disaster. But boy,
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: he gave, especially the young people, he gave them a
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: sense of purpose. So this can cut both ways, too.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: I think we have to be aware of that.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: Well, talk about complexifying. There's individual purpose, cultural purpose, and
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: also the purposiveness that is driven basically by Eros versus
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: the power drive. And Savonarola was a fanatic. You know,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: his purging and so on back in Florence in whatever
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: century that was.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: It was the 1400s. I just looked it up. Okay.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: You know, it didn't last and it didn't hold because
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: I think we're leaning into that purpose ultimately has to
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: serve something that is worthwhile.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm going to push back a little bit because
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: I still think it can be difficult to know the difference.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: So it's easy to look back and say he was
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: a bad fanatic. It was a power drive. And for him,
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: you know, arguably it was a power drive. But for
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: some of the people that followed him, and perhaps even
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: for him, you know, they really believed that this was
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: the right thing to do. And I just think we're
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: all susceptible, all of us are susceptible to when, especially
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: when we're looking for purpose, and perhaps we're even more
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: susceptible when we're young, to latch onto something that for
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: all intents and purposes seems like it is in service
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: to something larger than ourselves. And it may be, but
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: it may be something that in the end is going
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: to be harmful. And we might think it's always easy
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: to tell the difference, but I would say that it's
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: not always easy to tell the difference. Well, and maybe
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: one thing is that, um, When we're looking for purpose
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: in collective movements, I think Jung would say we have
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: to be very, very careful. Because attaching yourself to a
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: collective movement leaves us vulnerable to getting swept away in
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: kind of mass psychology.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: Of which Jung was very wary, let's say.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: So are we then leaning into values? Of what gods
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: do you serve?
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: What god do you serve? Mm-hmm. And a psyche has
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: a way of correcting. It may take some time, whether
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: it's a cultural or individual purpose that isn't really sustainable. Mm-hmm.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: It doesn't, it may have a flair, but it doesn't
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: really grow and flourish and flower.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: Flair being the right word for Savonarola.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. So I agree with you that that's part
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: of the challenge, isn't it, is what purpose am I serving?
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: And if it's just me, how long can that last
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: and will it be truly sustaining? that we all as
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Jungians really have come to appreciate that we are undergirded
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: by the self. Jung's basically his word for sort of
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: a God image of that which is greater. And that
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: individuation makes us bigger, wiser, deeper, warmer, and somehow more.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: more whole, not perfect, but more whole. So I think
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: there is a guideline, a trajectory that has value and
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: has truth over many, many years of our evolution as
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: a species. And certain things have died out, like Savonarola.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: I don't know. You know, I think that you and
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: I are going to have to agree to disagree on
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: this because I think I have a slightly darker take
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: on this than you do because Savonarola may have died out,
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: but similar mass movements have been reborn and reborn and
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: reborn and are all around us even as we speak.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: And they really appeal to people who are seeking purpose.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: And some of them can do great good. but others
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: of them not so much. And I just, I wish
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: there were a really easy way to say, this one's solid,
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: you know, kick the tires, go for it. But, and
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: we know this, you know, because we work with people
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: in our offices who have been wounded by joining, you know,
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: for example, religious institutions that wound up really betraying them
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: deeply or other kind of mass groups or even just groups.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: where it was like, well, I thought this was going
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: to connect me with community and purpose, but now I've
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: been greatly wounded by it. That's not all groups. That's
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: not all mass movements, but it is some of them,
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: and it isn't always easy to tell. So we have
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: to be aware that our need for purpose, our yearning
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: for purpose, in some sense, leaves us vulnerable to to
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: a kind of seduction by, I'm going to say, collective
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: forces that in the end may not actually have our
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: best interest at heart.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think we're too far apart on this
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: actually at all. And it takes me back to Jung's
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: emphasis on individuation, that we.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: We cannot find it in the collective by, you know,
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: joining up and being a true believer in anything. That
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: we must find it in ourselves. I did not write
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: down who said this, and I have a quote. So
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: I will read the quote without being able to honor
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: the author. You know the answer, but might not know
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: that you know it. People can only be told what
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: they already know and recognize. Overall, our purpose as a
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: species is to evolve, as we have been doing for millennia, individually,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: the path of individuation. Overall, we feel happy when we
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: learn and grow. So it comes down to you and
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: me and all of our other individual people out there
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: to take responsibility for what is the purpose that each
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: of us may choose in part. At least we can
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: choose our attitude toward what we may have been given
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: in that is inalterable, and we can also choose different paths,
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: and it rests on each one of us.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I like that a lot, and I like your
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: bringing it back to individuation. You know, I've said a
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: couple times in this episode and before that Jung was
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: very wary of mass movements, and I think... You know,
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: it's easy to understand why if you look at the
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: historical context in which he lived. But it also does explain,
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: I think, in part, his emphasis on individuation and even
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: like that term, right, which implies sort of becoming an individual.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: And one of his last essays that he wrote, he
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: spoke about this, the undiscovered self, you know, that basically
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: you've got to grapple with this on an individual basis, right?
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: You have to figure out where you are and you
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: have to do it individually. And it's partly why he
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: was not a big fan of there being a sort
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: of Jungian movement. He said, you know, I don't, thank
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: God I'm Jung and not a Jungian. And he was
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: reluctant to set up a Jungian institute. Because he didn't
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: want people sort of following en masse because he didn't
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: believe that was the way. You know, it's like, go
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: write your own red book. Go have your own dreams.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: Go consult your own psyche. That is the way and
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: that's where one will find purpose. You have to grapple
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: with that on an individual basis. I think you're right.
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: I think that would be how Jung would answer that conundrum. And.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: Speaking of dreams and speaking of Jung, he writes about
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: finding his purpose as a young man. And he was
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: very divided whether it was time for him to study
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: and grow and commit and think about a career. And
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: he was divided between philosophical interests. and scientific interests. And
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: he just couldn't decide. And his father, who was just
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: a country parson, basically, couldn't indulge any kind of career
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: that family money could support. Jung says, my father was
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: very worried. He said, the boy is interested in everything imaginable,
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: but he does not know what he wants. And Jung says,
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: I have to admit that he was right. And then
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: matriculation approach, we had to decide what to register for.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: And he decided on science. And then he had two dreams.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: And the second one is, I think, one we talked
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: about before. He says, I was in a wood. It
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: was threaded with watercourses. And in the darkest place I
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: saw a circular pool, surrounded by dense undergrowth. Half immersed
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: in the water lay the strangest and most wonderful creature,
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: a round animal, shimmering in opalescent hues and consisting of insides.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: little cells or of organs shaped like tentacles. It was
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: a giant radiolarian measuring about three feet across. It seemed
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: to me indescribably wonderful that this magnificent creature should be
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: lying there undisturbed in the hidden place. in the clear,
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: deep water. It aroused in me an intense desire for
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: knowledge so that I awoke with a beating heart. And
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: this and another dream decided me overwhelmingly in favor of
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: science and removed all my doubts. And that goes to
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: what I was saying about you already know, and it's
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: important to recognize it. consciously he didn't know, but with
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: the help of this dream and this creature that doesn't
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: exist in nature except as a tiny little organism, then
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: he knew. Then he recognized the truth about his purpose,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: that it would be science. And I think I recognized
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: a truth that I didn't really recognize in putting... a
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: rock on a cairn. But I never forgot it.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: And I was moved by it. And here's where dreams
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: and other experiences, reading something special, being profoundly affected perhaps
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: by a movie, where we recognize something that is in
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: us maybe in a kind of embryonic way, but we
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: are lit up by it. That's it. That has gotten
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: my attention. I am drawn. I am drawn to that.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: We have to be drawn toward purpose. We can't just
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: drive ourselves toward it. This is not an ego endeavor. Right.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: It bubbles up from within.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: And we have to go looking for it.
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: Or be open to finding it.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: Okay, fair enough.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: Be open to finding it. And I think that, as
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: you just read, like, it is true that sometimes we
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: meet our purpose, or at least we're nudged toward it
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: in dreams. And this is one of the reasons why
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: we are so adamant about the importance of listening to dreams,
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: is that dreams, if you're feeling lost and you don't
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: know what your purpose is, ask your dreams, pay attention
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: to your dreams, listen to your dreams, because they may
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: give you a good indication of which way you need
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: to go. And, you know, the other thing about purpose,
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: I think, is that sometimes it sort of happens in
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: a lightning bolt, but a lot of times it's a
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: lot more like there's a Quaker kind of analogy that
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: for for the relationship with god that i think applies
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: to lots of different things and it's just sort of
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: very simple and lovely is that if you're standing in
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: a totally dark room and you don't know which way
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: to go if you let your eyes adjust for a
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: minute you might detect just the faintest faintest blush of
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: light in one direction and then so what you do
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: is you take a step toward that and when you
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: take a step toward it it grows just a little
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: bit brighter And so on. So you keep on walking
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: toward it. And as you walk toward it, it becomes
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: brighter and it becomes clearer. So if you're struggling to
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: know what your purpose is, you know, you ask your dreams,
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: you stay open to it. You don't, I mean, there's
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: always the danger that the conscious mind is going to
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: expect it to be sort of revealed. And then you
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: might grasp onto something that seems right. It can be
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: hard to stay open. But it might be more like, huh, well,
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: I just have a lot of energy for this. I
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: just really, really want to go to this. I saw
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: this thing about a free glass blowing demonstration, and I
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: just really want to go. So, you know, you go
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: and then you see how that feels. And you're like, well,
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: that was interesting. Maybe I'll go back and take a glass.
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: You know, you just do that thing where you stay
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: open and you let yourself be open, but you keep
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: on noticing when you See that faint blush of light,
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: which I would translate as you feel a little flush
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: of energy. You feel enlivened. And then you sort of
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: keep walking in that direction until things get clearer. It
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: doesn't mean your purpose is to become a glassblower, but
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: it might be that while you're taking a glassblowing class,
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: you discover something else.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: But I like all those examples. of attuning to what
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: is calling you, of where is that little faint hint
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: of light. Because automatically in that process, it puts ego
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: in a position of service to something that it might
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: not yet know, rather than in a position of superiority,
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: And our egos have a tendency to think they run
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: the whole show. But a true sense of purpose is
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: our inherent, innate blueprint for who we were really meant
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: to be. You know, maybe if we were to use
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: the analogy of trees, some of us are oaks and
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: some of us are birches and some of us are
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: pine trees. And the question is, What am I meant
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: to be? What am I meant to become? What's my
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: innate nature and calling? And how do I fulfill that
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: blueprint rather than, you know, I'm going to do this. And,
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: you know, whether anybody likes it or not, and just
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: make lots of money. It's an attuning to something deep
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: within ourselves us and something that is also more than us,
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: which is Jung's concept of the self. And we do
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: that through, as you were saying, experiments of, I'm going
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: to go to that glass-blowing workshop or demonstration. I'm going
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: to apply to that program. I think I'll read that book.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: I'll go on that trip. But we're searching for what
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: we are innately meant to be.
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: Well, Deb, I think I just want to sort of
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: amplify that and go back to your earlier point too
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: about individuation, that in some sense, having a purpose is
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: something like becoming whom we were meant to be. And
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: that is exactly the way Jung talks about individuation. So
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: I have a couple of quotes that he has about
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: individuation that I want to share because I think it
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: really relates to what we're talking about. So he says,
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: he's talking about individuation. He says, it is not a therapy.
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: Is it a therapy when a cat becomes a cat?
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: It is a natural process. It is what makes a
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: tree to become a tree. If we intervene, the tree
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: would wither and would not function as a tree. but
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: to let it be as it is meant to let
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: it grow and become a tree, it is an individuation.
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: And then he says somewhere else, individuation is an expression
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: of that biological process, simple or complicated as the case
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: may be, by which every living thing becomes what it
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: was destined to become from the beginning. So this, I think,
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: kind of maybe brings us full circle and we can
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: see that in some sense, fulfilling our purpose means becoming
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: what we were meant to be. And in some ways,
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: it's very, very simple, and in some ways, it's kind
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: of hard to know what that is. But we mentioned
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: dreams before, and we want to remind you that we
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: have Dream School, which is where you can learn to
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: work with your dreams, and they could help in this
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: search for a purpose. If you want to check out
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: Dream School, it's our 12-month online program for working with
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: your dreams. You can go to our website, thisunionlife.com, and
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: you'll see a button there to learn more about Dream School.
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: But for now, why don't we look at a dream together?
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: So our dream today comes from a 67-year-old man who
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: is a business owner and craftsman of a small business
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: dedicated to residential architectural restoration. And if you happen to
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: be watching us on YouTube, I can't figure out how
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: to make this bigger, so I'm going to take my
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: glasses off and lean in to read it. And he
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: gives the title of the dream, Light as a Feather.
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: And here's the dream. I'm on what feels like a
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: loading dock. Across the street or alley is another building
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: that also has a wide loading dock. There is a
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: mature woman with a youthful girl on the dock on
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: the other side of the street. The girl is intending
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: to throw a feather across the road surface to me.
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: I tell them I doubt very much that the feather
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: will reach me because it is so light and will
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: blow away in the wind. But she throws the feather
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: and indeed it reaches across the road service and lands
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: near me. Then there is a man with them and
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: they are supposed to be estimating the cost of restoring
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: some windows. The man pulls a sash away from the
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: window opening and begins inspecting it. He notices rotted wood
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: at the meeting rail. There is a brightly multicolored and
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: complexly figured coat hanging somewhere. The girl encourages me to
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: wear it. She thinks I will look good in it. Apparently,
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: the mature woman has purchased or made the coat, and
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: it is intended for me. It will supposedly make me
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: look more attractive or lively or something to that effect,
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: but I am hesitant, thinking it is too loud and
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: too effeminate. Now, here's the context for the dream. He
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: gives us a lot of context. He says, I am
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: at the tail end of having fallen in love with
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: a woman much too young for me. While I've been
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: infatuated with various women, in fact, a mature woman in
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: the dream reminds me of someone I worked with in
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: a church context I was infatuated with. This is the
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: first time I had fully fallen in love with anyone.
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: It was unrequited and both necessarily and carefully hidden from
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: her because of the age difference. She's 25 and I'm 67.
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: And because she was an employee. I am steeped in
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: Jungian studies and have read every Jungian study I can
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: get my hands on regarding projection, anima, and falling in love.
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: I found John Huell's Divine Madness groundbreaking and unprecedented. That
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: is a great book. I am also steeped in awareness
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: and study of Sophia, goddess of wisdom. The literal translation
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: of Solomon's desire for wisdom is a listening heart and
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: was the inspiration for my doctoral thesis on listening. I
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: recognize my work as involving traditionally feminine qualities, caring, nurturing,
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: and healing, repairing. I am restoring my own historic home
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: and recognize it as feminine. I experience Sophia's presence and
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: welcoming through the home. Ironically then, while I have never
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: had a romantic relationship with a woman, I am acutely
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: desirous of and involved in what is traditionally recognized as
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: feminine aspects of being. Finally, in my business, we do
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: a lot of window restoration. The meeting rail is the
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: place where the top and bottom sashes in a double-hung
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: window meet. and are held together by a sash lock.
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: I am always careful to install this lock so that
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: the meeting rails come together to make a tight seal.
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: I tell clients that their sash lock should enable their
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: top and bottom sashes to embrace in a kiss. He
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: then says the main feelings were fascination and delight, somewhat playful,
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: fascination and excitement regarding the young girl. The coat reminded
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: me of the biblical figure Joseph and the coat of
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: many colors he was given by his father. My father
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: was a dogmatic pastor who contributed, despite my deep spiritual hunger,
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: to turn away from God the Father, and having had
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: an equally troubling relationship with my mother, having gravitated towards
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: Sophia as the divine feminine. So the bewilderment of the numinous,
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: in imagining this mature figure Sophia, the divine feminine, and
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: experience her giving me this coat, I experienced the numinous, fear, awe,
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: and bewilderment. And then finally he says, The mature woman
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: reminds me of a woman I worked with in a
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: church context. We worked creatively together. I was infatuated with her,
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: but she was happily married. She eventually became the pastor
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: of the church where we did our work. I associate
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: the young girl with this young woman I have described
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: as having fallen in love with. But I also associate
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: her with Sophia, who is described in the Hebraic wisdom
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: writings as the darling of God the Father, who is
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: a playful figure actively engaged in creation. I associate the
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: feather with elusive and delicate femininity. I associate the loading
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: dock and the man with the window with my work.
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: Rot at the meeting rail? A clever pun about something
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: degraded in my relationship to the feminine? The man himself?
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: No strong association. other than the fact that I do
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: not enjoy being around most men and considered him a
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: dull part of the dream. I much prefer to spend
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: the time with women. By the way, I am decidedly heterosexual,
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: and despite my lack of relationships, have had a deep
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: desire for a romantic relationship. I still do, in fact.
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: I associate the coat with the biblical figure of Joseph
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: and his coat of many colors. I associate this coat
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: with a piece of artwork I was given by a
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: woman artist and longtime friend in which a woman is
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: disrobing from a coat that is surprisingly masculine. I have
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: only recently come to accept and embrace myself as an
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: artist and am experiencing a flood of creativity in restoring
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: my house in the arts and crafts tradition.
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: It's interesting for me with all of this context, I
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: can't take it all in without sitting with it for
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: quite a while. So I'm going right back to the dream.
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: And I'm starting right at the beginning with an evocative sentence.
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: I am on what feels like a loading dock. So
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking, well, now, what's a loading dock? It's where
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: things get loaded.
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: And unloaded.
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: And unloaded. But that's the place of transition in between.
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: You take things off the truck, put it on the
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: loading dock, move it into the warehouse. Take things out
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: of the warehouse, put it on the loading dock, put
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: it in the truck.
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: Hmm.
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: So there is movement. It's a transitional space.
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Huh.
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, across the street, there's another, also has a wide
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: loading dock. And then there is a mature woman with
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: a youthful girl on the dock on the other side.
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: So two women. And the girl is intending to throw
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: a feather across. Our dream ego says, no, that's not
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: going to work because it's too light and so on
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: and so forth. But it does land there. I'm thinking
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: about the, that instantly took me to a little reverie
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: about the Egyptian test of the feather. But that when
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: the mythology, religion was that when a person dies, that
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: his or her soul would be tested against a feather.
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, it was called the Ceremony of the Weighing
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: of the Heart.
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: Oh, thank you.
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: And the heart was put on one end of the
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: scale and a feather on the other, and the god
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: Anubis would reign over this. And if the heart was
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: heavier than the feather, that was no good.
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: Right. So there's something about having a heart, having a soul. Mm-hmm.
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: That is not contaminated, weighed down with.
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: That's lighter than a feather.
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: Lighter than a feather. And the feather goes all the
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: way across the road and lands near our dream ego.
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: So that's scene one. I think of these as a
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: dream like this. This is scene one.
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: So then scene two.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: is there's a man with them. So now we have
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: Dream Ego over on one loading dock, three people across
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: the street on the other loading dock, two women and
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: a man. And we go into the whole thing about
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: restoring the windows, the sash, rotted wood, and a brightly,
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: maybe that's scene three, after we do the window, which
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: is another kind of transitional scene part of a building.
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: It allows access, visual access, and protection between the two worlds,
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: the inside and the outside, right? Okay, scene three. Brightly multicolored,
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: complexly figured coat hanging somewhere. Now he's together with this girl.
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: She thinks that our dream ego will look good in it.
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: The mature woman seems to have purchased it. It seems
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: to be intended for our dreamer to make him look
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: more attractive, lively, or something. But he's hesitant, thinking it's
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: just too much, too loud, too effeminate.
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: Hmm.
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: Well, he associates the coat twice with Joseph's coat of
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: many colors. And it's certainly an association that fits this
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: kind of a discovery. And somehow I'm still puzzled by it,
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: still wondering by it. And I don't have that little click,
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: that little aha that says, ah, right, that's it. I'm
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: back on the coat.
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, one of the things that I think
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: about that coat, and of course, when I read the stream,
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: I was like, oh, you know, Joseph's coat of many colors,
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: you know, And what I'll say about the coat in
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: the biblical story is that, of course, you know, the
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: dreamer gets that, his dad gives it to him. But
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: I think more importantly, the function of that coat is
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: it singles Joseph out for having an extraordinary destiny. Yeah.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: And it's, you know, he shines very brightly in that coat,
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: and everyone notices him. And that's the reason his brothers
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: become envious, and then they... I think they steal the
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: coat and they throw them in a ditch or they
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: sell them into slavery or something.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: They sell them into Egypt.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: Between the two of us, we can figure these stories out.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: I appreciate your knowledge of the biblical stories.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: But you know what? This is a great illustration of
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: dream interpretation is puzzling. It's not something that just comes easily.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: to anybody. And that's part of the lure and the
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: challenge and the invitation.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: Right. So to go back to the coat, though, I
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: think the coat is, to me, it's always seemed like
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: it's symbolic of Joseph's very big destiny. And it's something that,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: you know, oftentimes if we have a big destiny, other
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: people may see that in us and we may invite envy,
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: but we may not know how to really inhabit it yet,
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: so we can't really protect ourselves from their envy. You know,
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: it's only years later that Joseph has achieved his destiny,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: and then he knows how to handle his brothers at the,
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: you know, sort of at the end of the story. But,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: you know, and I wonder about this guy. I mean,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: he sounds like a real polymath to me, right? We
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: learned in the context that he studies Sufism, and I
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: think he mentioned having a doctorate, and he's restoring this
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: arts and crafts house, and he He's, you know, he's
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: an artist and he's, you know, and he's incredibly aesthetically oriented,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: I think, you know. So this is a person who
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: does obviously have this incredibly lively mind. And it could
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: be that the coat somehow represents something that is part
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: of him or a potential to him that he feels
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: ambivalent about claiming. You know, I mean, Joseph was like, yeah,
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: give me that coat. But it got him into trouble.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: It got him into trouble, but at the same time,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: the trouble is what set him on his path toward
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: his destiny. It's like that wonderful paradox. But this, and
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: it's interesting that it's a man that kind of, is
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: it the man who gives him the coat or he
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: becomes aware of the coat after he sees the man?
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: He doesn't, it's after the two women are joined by
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: the man. They have the episode with the window. But
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: there's rotted wood at the meeting rail. So this window,
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: the construction is not in a good state.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: Then, if that, it just says there is a brightly multicolored,
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: complexly figured coat hanging somewhere.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: The girl encourages me to wear it.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: Yes. Okay. But, you know, but somehow the coat does
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: appear sort of after the... appearance of a masculine figure,
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: I think it's an invitation, I would guess, for him
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: to wear the coat. You know, he says that he's
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: worried it makes him look too feminine, yet he spends
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: a lot of time telling us in the context that
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: he's very identified with the feminine, that he appreciates the feminine,
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: that he sees his work as kind of feminine. So
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: it's interesting that in the dream, he's like, oh, no,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: maybe the coat's too feminine. But the coat sounds really
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: sort of fabulous. And I'm a little curious about that.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: I want to say about the feather, which is the
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: other sort of big archetypal image. And Deb, you brought
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: up that story, that important story from Egyptian mythology. But
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: it made me think of a Grimm's fairy tale called
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: The Three Feathers. And, you know, another thing about feathers
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: is they are associated with spirit for obvious reasons. They're
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: associated with the element of air. They tend to, you know,
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: sort of float through the air, almost as if they
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: defied gravity. And, of course, they help birds fly. But
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: The Three Feathers is really interesting because it's a fairy
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: tale in which these three sons are told to go
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: out and achieve different things. They're supposed to find this
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: and do that, and there are these sort of three
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: tests that And, you know, whoever does the best will
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: inherit the kingdom. And the dumbling, they're each given three
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: feathers and they follow whichever way the feather goes. And
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: the youngest son, his feather always kind of just drops
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: right down to the ground. And, well, as you might imagine,
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: he's the one who actually finds the best of everything
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: and inherits the kingdom. By the way, the feather off
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: also is an image in the movie Forrest Gump, and
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: where I think it plays a very similar role in
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: terms of the symbolism that If you were to follow
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: a feather, if you went out on a slightly breezy
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: day and you took one of those big downy feathers
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: and you just let the wind carry it, it would
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: sort of go wherever the wind blew it. So it's
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: a sense of kind of trusting the promptings of the unconscious,
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: perhaps even trusting the promptings of spirit, since we're talking
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: about the wind and a feather. It is certainly not
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: imposing a kind of ego-driven belief agenda on things if
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: you're going to follow the feather interestingly and somewhat paradoxically
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: this feather is able to sort of be directed by
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: this anima figure so there is something here about spirit
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: i mean i think the the anima is is an
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: image of of soul of sort of soul spirit if
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: you were and and here she is she has this
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: feather and she's able to um somehow direct it so
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: that it reaches him, which is a lovely image of
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: connection and openness.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: But what I'm struck by is that he does not
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: take the feather that basically she has sent to him.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: And he lands near him, but he doesn't pick it up.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: And then that image is repeated. using different imagery with
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: the coat. Now here's something that's much more definitive, a garment,
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: et cetera. You can't miss it. And he doesn't take
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: that either. Well, he says, I am hesitant. So we
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: don't know whether he winds up accepting it or not.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: And, you know, maybe a third place where that's repeated
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: in the dream is in the image of the window.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: The window. What did he call it? There was a
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: term for it. The meeting rail. The meeting rail is rotted.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: So there's these opportunities for meetings, and they don't quite
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: happen in the dream.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: And that's what he says in his context is that
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: the meeting... Can't happen. He fell in love with somebody
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: who was much too young and, you know, behaved ethically,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: but was unrequited. And he has studied. He studied Sophia
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: and he studied John Hall, his book, Divine Madness. So
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: he's done Jungian studies. As you said, he's a polymath.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: And yet the connection hasn't happened and the dream reflects
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: three instances of a missed connection. And he even goes
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: into talking about the meeting reel where the two sashes
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: are held together by a sash lock. And he always says,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: I tell clients their sash lock should enable the top
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: and bottom sashes. To embrace in a kiss. Mm-hmm.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: So, first of all, I just want to say to
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: the streamer, you might want to read Robertson Davies' The
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 2: Deptford Trilogy, which is, Robertson Davies is a very Jungian novelist. Yes.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: And The Deptford Trilogy is this wonderful story, part of
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: which involves a love affair between an older man and
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: a younger woman, and it's explored very psychologically. Yes. that
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: might be something interesting. But to go back to the
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 2: dream and what I think it's saying, Deb, I think
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: you're really on to something that there's a way where,
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 2: and this might be part of the relevance of the feather,
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: there's a way that he may have sort of because
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: of his difficult childhood that he mentions in the context,
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: he may be relating to all this in a sort
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: of intellectualized or even spiritualized fashion by studying and studying
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: Sophia and, you know, getting this doctorate and following Sufism.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: But somehow, in a way, he's really kind of engaging
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: with it with great gusto and appetite, but in a
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: way that maybe leaves the body out. So it's interesting
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: that he doesn't accept the coat, you know, that he
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: could inhabit this. You know, that's the thing about wearing
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: a coat. You could inhabit it.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: But he's also inhabiting, though, he's inhabiting his house. Yeah.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: That he is restoring in. arts and crafts style, which
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: is sort of a Frank Lloyd Wright.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: I love arts and crafts.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: Yes. So something is happening. And I also, he's left
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: just exactly where the dream ends, saying about the coat,
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: I am hesitant. It doesn't say he won't take it.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: It doesn't say, well, he's right at that place where
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: the dream started with the loading dock. Of things that
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: go in and go out and go between. And something
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: is in progress and I hope will work out well
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: for this dreamer.
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 2: So we certainly, we encourage this dreamer to maybe play
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: around with this imagery and maybe there's some act of
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 2: imagination to be done with that coat.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: Try something on and to see how it feels.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 2: Yes. Thanks for listening. To submit a dream, suggest an
• 1:11:15
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• 1:11:20
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• 1:11:23
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• 1:11:37
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