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UNREQUITED LOVE: Can Eros be revived? · This Jungian Life Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• 0:27
  Speaker 4: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst in Cape Cod.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Well, in honor of Valentine's Day, we thought we would
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: focus on the topic of unrequited love, which was actually
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: also a listener request. And why unrequited love on Valentine's Day?
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Because we're a little bit morose like that. We're also
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: going to be talking about a dream today at the
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: end of the episode from a 46-year-old woman. And the
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: dream features... Transparent Swan Hatchlings. So if that image intrigues you,
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: stay around for the dream. So unrequited love. What can
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: we say about this topic from a Jungian perspective? I
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: know I have a lot, but.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I thought I might just jump in and toss
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: a little bit of mythology in there because so much
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: about Valentine's Day and Cupid and bows and arrows.
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: I mean, that'll... comes from Greco-Roman mythology. Cupid is the
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  Speaker 3: Roman version of Eros, and Eros is a little bit
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: more of a rich figure. So, Venus and Aries have
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: a long-standing, very passionate love affair. They produce a number
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: of children. One of the children is called Eros, who
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: we associate with romantic love, and we're all familiar with
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: that archetypal image of Eros being a little child He
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: draws this bow. He lets it fly and it strikes
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: the person in the heart. And then they fall in love,
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: often with the next thing that they lay their eyes on,
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: much like a little baby duck. So there's something about imprinting,
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: I think, that's going on there. And then all kinds
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: of hijinks ensue. So this happens. theme also shows up
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: in A Midsummer Night's Dream where the fairies can make
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: people fall in love with everybody inappropriate. But this idea
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: that there is an archetype that activates, that makes people
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: fall in love, that it is something that is not
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: a purely human thing, that helps us lean a bit
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: into the Jungian idea of the unconscious and and the
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: activation of really deep ancient patterns.
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  Speaker 2: So Joseph, do you want to talk a little bit
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  Speaker 2: about the Roman version of Eros and the mythology around that?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I don't know that it deviates too differently in
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: terms of Cupid, but where I think we can lean
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: into the idea of unrequited love is that Eros had siblings.
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: which many people don't learn, you know, in high school mythology,
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  Speaker 3: but there was a whole family of little godlets that
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: Venus popped out, you know? And so there was Eros,
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: there was Hedilogos, who was the god of sweet talk
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: and flattery, and there was Hymeros, the god of sexual desire,
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: and Pothos, the god of passionate longing, and Hymenaeus, who
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: is the god of the wedding ceremony, etc., etc. But
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: there's a story that's interesting to our discussion of unrequited love.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: Aphrodite gives birth to Eros. And as a baby, Eros
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  Speaker 3: starts to fail. And of course, like all mothers, Aphrodite
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  Speaker 3: is panicky about this. So she goes to the ancient
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: earth goddess Themis, and she basically says, I don't know
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: what to do. This is terrible. And Themis says, you
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: need to go back to Ares, and you need to
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: have another child. You need to have another son. And
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: so Aphrodite does, gets back with Ares. She produces another child,
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  Speaker 3: and she calls this child Enteros. The name Eros means love.
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: Enteros means love returned. And as soon as Enteros is born,
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: Eros and Enteros begin to play and wrestle. And as
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: they play and wrestle, Eros thrives and comes back to life.
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  Speaker 3: In classical art, Eros is often depicted with the wings
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  Speaker 3: of a dove, white and feathered. Anteros is often depicted
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  Speaker 3: with black butterfly wings to suggest this kind of polarity.
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  Speaker 3: The other darker side of Anteros, or love returned, based
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  Speaker 3: on just the few fragments classicists have shared with us,
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  Speaker 3: is that Anteros was also the god who punished those
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: who did not respect or return love. So in some
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  Speaker 3: of the fragments, while Eros was armed with a bow
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  Speaker 3: and arrow that could stimulate love, Enteros had a lead
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  Speaker 3: club and would hunt down those who had rejected love
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: and club them. And in one of the stories, he
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: clubs somebody and drives them to their death over the
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: side of a cliff. Wow.
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  Speaker 4: Only because they really deserved it.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I think that Enteros would agree with you greatly.
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  Speaker 3: I know. But it goes to that archetype that love
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  Speaker 3: cannot thrive unless it is responded to. And the need
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  Speaker 3: for the response can bring forward great wrath.
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  Speaker 4: Absolutely.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, right? When the response is not fulsome.
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, of that response of, I'm going to chase you
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: over a cliff with a lead club, of the fury
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: that can come up if love is not requited. I'm
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: also aware that the parentage is of Aphrodite, or Venus
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  Speaker 4: in her Roman name, the goddess of beauty, and Ares,
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: the god of war. Mm-hmm. How those two things form
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: a mixture in these two offspring that Eros can make
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: you love him and Anteros can wreak vengeance.
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: That makes perfect sense. Yeah.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: Vengeance is in the picture when we have unrequited love
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: because it can stir feelings of real rage. and desire
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: for revenge. I'm thinking about how the moment that Eros
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: sends his arrow is kind of a lovely picture of
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: what happens during limerence. And limerence is this state that
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: psychologists have identified, named, and studied. And it really is,
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: you know, there's, it's a kind of biochemically mediated state
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  Speaker 2: that we can get into. And it is like we're
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: a little crazy when we're in limerence. It is delicious,
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  Speaker 2: but very much like you were saying, Joseph, in Midsummer
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: Night's Dream, when Titania falls in love with Bottom, I
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: think is, if I recall correctly, And, you know, when
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: it's over, when the veil is lifted, she's sort of like,
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: what was I thinking? And I think a lot of
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: us can relate to that.
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  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 2: What happened? One of the interesting things about limerence that
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: is actually pointed out really well by Andrew G. Marshall
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: in one of his books is that in that state,
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: and I'll link that in our book list. in that
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  Speaker 2: state of limerence, the other person doesn't have to do
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: anything to inspire our love or keep it going. When
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: we're in limerence, we're just delighted even with the image
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  Speaker 2: of the person. Maybe we don't even know the person,
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: but we sort of fall in love from afar. It
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  Speaker 2: doesn't matter if the person is good to us, treats
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  Speaker 2: us well, is polite, none of that matters. Limerence is
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: is just its own thing, where we just feel swelled
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  Speaker 2: up with these really divine feelings without there needing to
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: be any reciprocity.
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: I really like that use of the word divine, that
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  Speaker 4: something does come over us like Cupid's arrow. And I'm
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: thinking about, you know, is limerence like The first experience
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: of love that we often call a crush. Even a
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  Speaker 4: crush on somebody very far afield, like a movie star
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  Speaker 4: or a sports star. that you're not going to have
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: any hope or prayer of meeting. But it gives a
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: young person the experience in a very safe way of adoration,
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  Speaker 4: of this is what it feels like. and to have
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: posters of that person on my dormitory wall or something
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  Speaker 4: like that, that I can safely experience these feelings. But
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  Speaker 4: I'm also wondering, are we talking about love as romantic love,
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: or could it be love among friends or other kinds
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  Speaker 4: of relationships? Yes.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think there can be unrequited feelings between,
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  Speaker 2: that are not romantic.
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Sure. Yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: And you can have a crush that's not romantic too,
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  Speaker 2: can't you?
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  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. Well, I think that the Greek philosophers and the
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: Nicomachean ethics and Plato, I mean, that they were talking
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  Speaker 3: about the virtue of love and some of the greatest
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  Speaker 3: goodnesses and virtues.
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  Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
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  Speaker 3: And this idea of filial love, this love of one's fellow,
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  Speaker 3: the love of friendship, and often defining it as being
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  Speaker 3: aligned with the greatest good for the greatest number of
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  Speaker 3: people or at least the greatest good for the friend.
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  Speaker 3: And to have that with a full heart, to want
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  Speaker 3: what is the greatest good, for the friend, is very
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  Speaker 3: much a kind of love. And you're right that one
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  Speaker 3: can hold that for a friend and discover that goodwill
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  Speaker 3: is not being returned. The other does not wish us
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  Speaker 3: the greatest good. And what do we do, as you
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  Speaker 3: were saying, Deb, in that current of energy?
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  Speaker 2: But, you know, the greatest good is an interesting idea,
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  Speaker 2: but I also think that something that I would call
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  Speaker 2: a crush, it would have this kind of quality of
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  Speaker 2: energy to it where there's a little bit of an
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  Speaker 2: idealization where it has a little bit of magic or
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  Speaker 2: pixie dust about it. So whether it's a kind of
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  Speaker 2: more of an erotic crush or even a friendship crush, Okay,
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  Speaker 2: so what is the pixie dust, which is maybe where
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  Speaker 2: we need to go next? Jung would say it's projection, right?
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  Speaker 2: So when we fall in love with somebody, when the
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  Speaker 2: arrow of Eris lands for us, part of what's undoubtedly
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  Speaker 2: happening is we are projecting part of our own soul
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  Speaker 2: onto that other person. It's some potential that's unlived in us.
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  Speaker 2: It's a little piece of the self so that it
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: has that divine flavor. There's a kind of spiritual yearning
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  Speaker 2: that happens, I think, in an intense crush or an
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: intense unrequited love. It is an invitation to the depths.
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  Speaker 2: It is a real significant experience, even though it's often
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: not what we first think it is. We first think
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  Speaker 2: it's about the other person, but really we're being introduced
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  Speaker 2: to ourselves.
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  Speaker 3: Von Franz talks about this, and she makes that differentiation
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  Speaker 3: between the friend and the lover that the friend attracts
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  Speaker 3: often the golden shadow. So, for instance, we have a
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  Speaker 3: friend who's a really wonderful dancer, but we're not. or
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: a friend who's an extraordinary writer, but we're not. And
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  Speaker 3: it's that admiration around the gold that perhaps might activate
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  Speaker 3: inside of us, but our friend just has it in spades,
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  Speaker 3: which makes them so appealing. And as you were saying, Lisa,
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  Speaker 3: it is connected to our own, what I would say,
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  Speaker 3: undeveloped good qualities, which also means that we can both
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  Speaker 3: deeply admire but also be somewhat jealous of a friend
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  Speaker 3: and that can create a passion I mean a very
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  Speaker 3: real passion between us and I would say that the
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  Speaker 3: romantic part is the projection of the anima animus which
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: is yet another projection but it promises a depth of
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  Speaker 3: completion that is more fulsome more spiritual, and in some
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: ways more exotic than the completion that's offered by golden shadow.
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  Speaker 3: And any of that thwarted can be so painful.
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah. And I'm thinking about how it comes up in us.
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  Speaker 4: You know, it's not something we've decided. It isn't something
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: we control. That the friend is No, there's a different attraction.
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  Speaker 4: It doesn't go as deep in the psyche because it's shadow,
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: which is related to personal experience. It's contents that can
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: be made conscious. If the friend is somebody who's a
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: great dancer, that friend might say, hey, let's go out.
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: I'll kind of teach you to dance and we'll go
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: out and this is something that's attainable. But I think
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: this kind of love that may be unrequited comes over us.
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: It's not something we have desired or control. It is
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: all of a sudden that potential just arises in us
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  Speaker 4: for an adoration of whoever the love object is, even
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: if the love object is a a sports star or
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: a film star or something like that, that we don't
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: control it. It's the yearning for, you know, my question
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: is always, what are the qualities? Why that person? What
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: is it about him or her rather than somebody else,
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: especially if it's somebody like a film star? You know, why...
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: John Wayne? Why Sean Connery? Why Brad Pitt? Why Bruce Willis?
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: What are all those types?
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: I noticed your cheeks flushed when you said Brad Pitt.
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: I want to hear more about you and Brad Pitt, Deb.
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: Because I can feel there's something going on with you
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: and Brad.
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: No, I have a secret place in me for James Stewart.
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: And all those roles that he played, the guy that's
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: really sweet but is a manly man but doesn't have
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: to strut his stuff.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: So we're not going to draw any conclusions about your
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: choice of husband and last name from the movie.
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: No, exactly.
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: That's right. Some pillow talk with you and Jimmy Stewart, man.
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: I know. I've always wondered a little bit. And then
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: there's a bad boy or two. But it's interesting. It's
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: interesting to read. sit back and say, what is it really?
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: Because as you're saying, Lisa, it's projection. It's not usually
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: a real relationship because it is unrequited. So if it's
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: somebody who maybe is far afield or the big man
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: on campus or the captain of the football team or
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: the cheerleading squad, Or.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Just the quirky guy in, you know, organic chemistry that,
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: you know, you just like the way his hair falls
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: in front of his eyes. I mean, it doesn't have
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: to be a person of big status. It can just
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: be someone who catches you for some reason.
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: But it's somebody who's maybe a little unattainable. How do
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: I make a connection with the nerdy guy in my
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: organic chemistry class?
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think... You know, maybe there are two
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: different types of unrequited love or maybe not. Let me
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: put this out there and see what you guys think.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: There's the crush or the limerence or you maybe know
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: someone a little bit or you just met them and
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: you have these big feelings and you can't stop thinking
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: about them and you can't fall asleep because your mind is,
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: you know, ranging over that person. And nothing ever gets
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: going because it's unrequited. It's unanswered. And then there's, you know,
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: you have a relationship and maybe you feel really strong
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: feelings for the person. But after six or 12 months, like,
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm not so into this. And then there's,
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: that's more heartbreak, you know. So I think we're really
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: focusing more on that initial experience of having enormous feelings
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: for someone on the basis of an initial acquaintance, perhaps,
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: that then never, never gets answered. And, you know, I
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: feel like most of us have had that experience at
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: some time in our life. And we're talking about it,
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: you know, when it happens with young people. And certainly
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: many young people have that experience and it can be
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: a kind of initiation. But it can happen when we're
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: older too. It can happen throughout our life that we
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: develop strong love feelings for someone. And although we're saying, well,
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: it's projection and you should ask yourself, what about the
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: person which I completely agree with? The truth is. that
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: when you're in the throes of that experience, it doesn't,
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: it doesn't really help to have an intellectual understanding about
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: what might be going on. It has to be suffered. And,
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: and it is very big feelings.
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: Yes.
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  Speaker 3: Just because something is a projection doesn't mean that isn't valid. Right. That, that,
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: The device of the psyche that leads us forward through
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: the entire lifespan through projection is intelligent. The psyche, which
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: is the deep soulful part of you is scanning the
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: environment and it's going, we need you to move over here,
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: you know, stage left. And so we're going to spray
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: a little glitter over in stage left to get your
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: attention and To move over there because something deeper inside
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: of us is saying, come on, come on, you know?
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: And you're right. Just making it an intellectual thing, just
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: getting a telegram saying, please move stage left towards so-and-so,
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: that's not going to motivate us. But if you throw
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: some fairy dust on me, throw some glitter on it,
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: then all of a sudden we're moving in that direction.
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: And we could say that that is a path. It's
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: a path. towards recognizing something. So the Freudian thought of
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: projection as something that actually interferes with relationship and it
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: interferes with the achievement of work and love. But Jung
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: and other Jungians came to feel later on in the
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: development of the theory that it is a method that
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: the psyche uses to forward us towards individuation. And following
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: what we love, even if it leads to a disenchantment
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: at a certain point, still changed us in a way
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: that something deeper and bigger than the ego decided that
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: we needed. Yeah, that's beautiful. Which brings us back to
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: the idea of the archetypal activation.
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: And it's maybe an early way, since unrequited love is
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: more prevalent among young people than among older people, of
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: getting us in touch with the inner other, the inner
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: anima or animus, that we feel these feelings because they're
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: activated by that other person out there later on we
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: can start to integrate them. That those are all parts
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: of us, of what is undeveloped in me that I
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: see or think I see in another person. And that
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: hopefully in time can process, make conscious, integrate and say, ah,
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: you know, to use your earlier example of I too
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: can learn to dance. I can get out on a
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: dance floor, learn the steps, feel uninhibited, feel, you know,
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: really alive and all those other feelings that my friend,
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: the great dancer, exhibits. So there's a way that all
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: these things are a call to develop those qualities in ourselves.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: I love what you said, Joseph, that this is intelligent,
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: that there is a telos behind it. And even if
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: you fall in love with someone tremendously inappropriate, someone who's
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: never going to give you the time of day, there's
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: something there. And you don't know what it is and
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: you can't think your way through it. You know, there's
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: a really wonderful book, and I will put it in
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: the book list, written by a Jungian analyst and one
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: of our teachers, Jan Bauer, called Impossible Love, Why the
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: Heart Must Go Wrong. And it's so lovely because what
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: Jan does is she takes the letters of Abelard and Eloise.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: Abelard and Eloise were lovers. She was his young student.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: He was a kind of famous intellectual of the age,
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: in the Middle Ages. And they are, you know, it's
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: so illicit that they're together that when they're discovered, I
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: believe that Abelard was castrated, if I have that right.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: And Eloise was sent to a nunnery where she eventually
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: became a very kind of prominent leader of the convent.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: But she continued to write letters to Abelard. And they
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: wrote letters back and forth, but her letters are really
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: full of heart. You know, so this yearning, this longing
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: for what can't be. And the soul that is wrapped
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: up in that. And, you know, it's a very... romantic thing, obviously,
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: to focus on this. But when we can hold it psychologically,
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: we understand the great value. The danger, on the other hand,
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: is that an unrequited love keeps us out of life.
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: That when you really can't let go, you know, when
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: does it become kind of a fixation or even an obsession?
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: You know, at some point, we want to have love returned.
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: If you stay in that place of forever longing after
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: the impossible other, you are out of life, and you're
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: not available for requited love. And I think sometimes that
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: can happen to people, that glitter you were talking about, Joseph,
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: gets sprinkled on the stage. And that's what turns me on.
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: And that's what I find so exciting. And that it's
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: my fantasy and my imagination about the impossible other. Whereas
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: to settle for an ordinary other, where we have to study,
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: I have to go to the laundromat, you have to
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: go to class, We have to change the flat tire
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: on somebody's car. It doesn't have much glitter. And somewhere
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: we have to sacrifice our projections and fantasies and a
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: certain kind of safety for real-world love with an ordinary other,
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: someone who's actually available.
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: There's a difference archetypally between love and relationships. And that's
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: why in the ancient world there were different gods. That Hera,
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: for instance, is the god of marriage, who is the
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: goddess of these very intricate relationships between spouses and parents
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: and children and parents and the larger communities and the
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: hierarchy of an entire society. Hera was the mistress, the goddess,
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: who understood balancing these incredible social contracts, which has enormous value.
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: And as you've said, Deb, in other podcasts, Hera's temples
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: were often the largest, most dynamically active and funded temples
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: in some of the ancient cities, which is not necessarily
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: associated with Eros. And in mythology... when, for instance, Zeus
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: was struck by love or sexuality and he's running after somebody,
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: I mean, Hera would murder the people that he was
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: love-struck by or kill the illegitimate offspring. So there's a
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: very different but incredibly important paradigm of relationship which is
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: different than, I think, this idea of simply the magnetic
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: attraction of love, which may not lead to relationship, which
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: goes very much to what we've been saying in terms
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: of unrequited love. You know, Eros or Cupid plunks you
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: in the heart, sprinkles stardust on that person in the
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: office who is, you know, over there 10 desks away.
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: And all of a sudden, you know, it's that moment
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: in Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, you know, where the prince
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: is standing there on the floor of the ballroom and
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: he looks up and he sees Cinderella and then he
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: bursts into songs and it's, 10 minutes ago I saw you.
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: I looked up when you came through the door. My
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: head started reeling. You gave me the feeling. The room
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: had no ceiling or floor. And it's not like I've
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: ever had that experience myself. That was purely just acting.
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: Never have I felt like that. So I'm not sure
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: where that terrible singing effort came from. But it was
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: zesty and I was feeling it in the moment. So
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: there's that. And of course, in the fairy tale, it's always,
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: And they lived happily. ever after. But of course, like
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: all the fabulous satirical things that have been written about
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: what happily after after really looks like, which is relationship,
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: which is the hard work of relationship.
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: And that, I wonder about how do we get over
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: or past or through unrequited love of whatever that's about
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: and move into relationship. Because if we stay in that place,
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: you know, the long-suffering person who works for somebody who
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: secretly harbors a love you know, stays there, never declares
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: the love, it's going to keep that person out of
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: the possibility of a real relationship. And love should be requited.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: First of all, I want to read something about the
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: ghostly lover from Linda Leonard's book, On the Way to
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: the Wedding, which if you've been a long time listener
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: to the podcast, you know how important this book is
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: to me. And I'll put it in our book list.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: But I want to address this issue that you're emphasizing here, Deb.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: Let me start with this. She says, The ghostly lover
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: can be a powerful obstacle on the way to the wedding.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: This idealized image of an imaginary lover with its haunting
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: hints of the divine has a fascination which can make
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: mere mortal lovers seem dull and ordinary. The ghostly lover
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: is a figure in the psyche. a part of the
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: psychic reality of all men and women, the one who
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: promises us divinity and experience of infinity, of magical union
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: with the sublime. As such, the ghostly lover can lead
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: us toward our inner creativity and spirituality and bless our
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: outer wedding relationships. But until this figure can be understood
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: and experienced as part of ourselves, It can keep us
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: in the realm of impossible possibility. So it is a
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: both and because there is a value to this experience.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: And I will say, I will say that I have
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: had some very profound unrequited love experiences throughout my life.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: And they've, they've deepened me. And there was no way
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: that I could say, come on, Lisa, you know, get
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: over it. I had to just live that experience to
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: the fullest. And like I said before, to suffer it,
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: and there was suffering. It was quite painful. And, and
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: yet it was also transformative. You don't want to take
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: the pixie dust off too soon. However, on the other side,
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: I have also worked with people who were stuck in
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: longing for that which could not be. who found it
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: difficult to move forward in life in a number of ways.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: So it is once again, as so many things in
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: the psyche, a question of the both end, of holding
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: the tension, of letting psyche lead, I think, rather than intellect.
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: And perhaps being able to do the grieving of letting
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: go of that which cannot be. that what do we
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: do when we can't have the thing we really, truly,
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: truly desire? How do we move through this? And I
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: agree with you, Lisa, that it's a both and, that
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: the love experience puts us in touch with parts of
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: ourselves that we can't experience any other way. And it's
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: glorious and it's beautiful and It's painful, and it's a
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: whole host of things. I think the hope is that
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: we will move through it, move towards something that we
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: can have. I had a mentor, a very wise woman,
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: a real minimalist, and she would say, want what you
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: can have. So, okay, you know... Maybe I want.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: But longing is divine.
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: It is divine, and then we have to come back
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: down to earth.
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: I remember in high school, my senior year of high school,
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: we had to read King Lear. And our teacher was Mrs. Marshall,
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: and she was great. And so she said, well, what
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: did you think? And I raised my hand and I said...
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: You know, it just didn't hold water for me. I mean,
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: this was so ridiculous that he was going to divide
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: up his kingdom, you know, according to whichever daughter was
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: flattering him the most at the time. Like, it just
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: didn't seem real to me. I just couldn't believe that
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: anyone would be that foolish. And a couple other people
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: kind of echoed the sentiment. And then Mrs. Marshall looked
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: over her glasses at us and she said, you've never
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: been in love, have you? And the story made no
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: sense to me. And it was such an interesting response
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: that she had because, you know, King Lear, it's not
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: a love story, King Lear. It's not actually about love.
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: But it is about something. It is about being shaken
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: to your core and doing something that doesn't make sense. Well,
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: wouldn't you know it, some months later, I had my
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: first unrequited love experience. I fell in love for the
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: first time. And you know what I did in the
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: throes of my suffering? I reread King Lear. Oh, my gosh.
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: And it made more sense.
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: So thank you, Mrs.
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: Marshall. That is such a great illustration that we have
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: to live these things. We have to feel those feelings
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: because it goes way below whatever our frontal cortex can
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: think its way through. And it's like you had that
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: experience of, oh, no, now I get it. Now I
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: understand what it's like to be gripped by something that
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: completely bypasses sensibility and reason and common sense. Now I
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: get it.
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: So when we have this energy is released in us,
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: which is archetypal, it's transpersonal, it can then activate so
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: many different things. As we were saying, it can trap
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: us and in which goes to the myth of Tantalus
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: was punished by the gods to be trapped without food
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: or water with like this group of grapes right above
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: the head and constantly up yearning and yearning and yearning
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: tantalized by the thing that can never be given. So
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: sometimes we can be trapped like Tantalus in the wanting
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: of something and Sometimes the longing can then be sublimated,
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: and then it becomes a way of life. I'm going
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: to quickly read a poem that I love and I've
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: read before. It's called Love Dogs by Rumi, and it's
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: translated by Coleman Barks, which is a sublimation, right? Yep.
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: So here's the poem. One night a man was crying, Allah, Allah.
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: His lips grew sweet with the praising until a cynic said, So,
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: I've heard you calling out, but have you ever gotten
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: any response? The man had no answer for that. He
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: quit praying and fell into a confused sleep. He dreamed
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: he saw Kedir, the guide of souls, in a thick
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: green foliage. Why did you stop praising? Because I never
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: heard anything back. This longing you express is the return message.
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: The grief you cry out from draws you toward union.
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: Your pure sadness that wants help is the secret cup.
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: Listen to the moan of a dog for its master.
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: That whining is the connection. There are love dogs no
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: one knows the names of. Give your life to be
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: one of them. So there are times when learning how
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: to long, yes, can be directed in any number of
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: different ways. And in this transcendental fashion, in this sublimation
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: to a higher place, it can harness a life of
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: a creative yearning.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: But I take the meaning that if it stays horizontal
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: and it doesn't become vertical, that it's then it can
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: trap us in the tantalus horror. And then sometimes our longing,
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: our love, our adoration does spark a response in the
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: object of our love. And there can be a kindling
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: in the other person who may not have noticed us
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: or perhaps knew us for 25 years. Mm-hmm. in some
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: other friendly context. And all of a sudden, this kind
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: of flint and steel pops over across those, the office,
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: those 10 desks, and the other person suddenly feels heat
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: that is unprecedented. And perhaps with a little bit of
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: tinder and a little bit of fanning the flames a
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: response an enteros awakening which is an archetype might occur
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: in the other person and then the wrestling of the
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: love might create a strength in both parties maybe.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: So are you saying there's hope for me and ryan
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: gosling yet.
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: Yes yes I'm going to look in my crystal ball
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: right now and I see it.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: Oh, and I'm sure you have one.
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: I see it.
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: I do. I actually have a turban as well, which
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: I'll wear in one of the episodes.
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: Like Johnny Carson. What I'm thinking about, though, is the
• 40:39
  Speaker 4: blessing of being able to experience our own loving, whether
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: it's an impossible thing. love, not that yours is, Lisa,
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: but whether it's an impossible love or not, that we
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: get in touch with allowing ourselves to long, to yearn,
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: and to give ourselves over to unrestrained love. And then,
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: you know, what use do we make of it? You know,
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: are we like Eloise, where we can make a life
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: in a convent, love our fellow community members, write beautiful
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: letters to Abelard and grow from it? Or does it
• 41:33
  Speaker 4: become kind of self-sabotaging or a martyrdom or just obsessive
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: and fixated of how are we going to use this?
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: And that hopefully it teaches us how to love and
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: to put that out there in ways that can be
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: fulfilling and in the spirit of our own individuation.
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I was going to say, I mean,
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: even to love ourselves, right? Because it is an introduction
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: to our own depths. And Joseph, thank you for bringing
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: that poem in because in some sense that says everything.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: I think that captures it, that captures unrequited love and
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: the importance of it. And Deb, I love what you
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: said about just letting ourselves sort of experience it fully.
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: But Joseph, I also want to go back to your
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: imagery of letting it become vertical. And I think that's
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: where a symbolic understanding, a Jungian understanding is so helpful
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: because Because we get out of a concrete, we can
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: let it reverberate, we can let it sing, we can
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: let it be symbolic. We can, you know, read, you know,
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: Pushkin's Eugene on Yegan and cry our eyes out. We
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: can think of myths and fairy tales in which there's
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: unrequited love and we can feel ourselves part of this
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: grand story and we can let it echo in the
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: cathedral of our psyche. this feeling of longing and really
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: feel it fully and know that it is putting us
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: in touch both with something that is transpersonal and in
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: our own depths, our own kind of instinctual depths and
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: that it's moving something in us even though we don't
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: exactly know what it is. And in that way, an
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: unrequited love becomes... an encounter with something that results in
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: a defeat for the ego. So we have to say,
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: I want something so badly and I have to accept
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: that I'm not going to get it. But just like
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: Rumi's poem, that doesn't negate the importance of my wanting it.
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: It can become part of our individuation process and specifically
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: the relaxing of the ego agenda. It's very painful to
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: be denied something that you so badly want. But you
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: have to say, ego, it's just not to be. What
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: else is behind this? Can I open to it?
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: I like that a lot of how can it be
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: an opening? And that takes me back to what you
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: were saying, Joseph, about the vertical versus the horizontal thing.
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: that if it remains on the horizontal axis, which is interpersonal,
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: human to human, then it's easy to get stuck there,
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: whereas the vertical axis is what's between me and me?
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: What's the part that I can open to in myself
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: through this, through the relational fantasy, even if that's what
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: it is, the rejection, the longing, the yearning, how does
• 45:01
  Speaker 4: this open me to me versus I'm still stuck on
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: being able to have my love for this person reciprocated
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: by that person. That's way too small for the soul.
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: I do.
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: Take your meaning, Deb, that when we find ourselves in
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: an unreciprocated love for a great amount of time, not
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: that we shouldn't still welcome all of the great colorful
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: moments that the psyche gives us. And we should. But
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: when we become unwell with longing, and this can happen.
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: We see this with celebrities when they have somebody who's
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: stalking them. Somebody's adoration for a star or a starlet.
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: And there is limerence and all kinds of fantasy and
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: idealization happening and so much wanting and perhaps letters and
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: gifts and focus. And of course, the danger is that
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: all of this need goes towards the object. And the star,
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: for instance, may have no idea that person X is
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: focusing all this on them. But the frustration of the
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: unmet need can create a kind of boomerang effect, where
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: all of that libido then swings back into the individual.
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: It merges with a kind of infantile aggression, and then
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: it whiplashes back up and it becomes vengeance. And then
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: we see the dark side of enteros, where people feel
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: a desire to hurt someone for arousing them and not
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: satisfying them. This is a very tricky area. It happens
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: in these terrible ways with stalking of celebrities, but it
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: can also happen in a very subtle way in the
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: office and even in the culture where you can hear
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: this resentful bell ringing with people who are profoundly frustrated
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: and unable to get their needs met. So whether they're
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: walking down the street and they see all these beautiful
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: potential connections that are denied to them, and then it
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: becomes a story of why are these people making me
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: want them and not ever allowing me to have that
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: first date, to have that union, and the person can
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: become dangerously enraged or chronically hostile or resentful. They can
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: retreat into a kind of a hermiting, festering place. Well,
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: I'm not gonna give life anything because life isn't giving
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: me anything back. It can activate these strange reservoirs in
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: the shadow that can hurt the individual and inspire them
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: to hurt other people, for that matter. So I think
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: we've covered a lot of terrain. There is absolutely a
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: very dark place where unrequited desire can have a boomerang effect.
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: It can wind up festering in a lot of strange
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: and sometimes even dangerous places. But for the most part,
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: I think we've been able to establish that this divine
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: ache that seems to be archetypally activated at the level
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: of Eros, that if we can welcome that as a
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: psycho-spiritual experience, if we can believe that some kind of
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: stardust has been thrown in a direction that is intelligent,
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: that is capable of waking something up in us just
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: by virtue of acknowledging it and enjoying it and taking
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: the ride even into the fantastical place of what if.
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: And yes, we may be disappointed. Hopefully we won't be
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: trapped like Tantalus. But at the end of the day,
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: we will know something more about the depths of our
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: own passions. And there may come some future time where
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: access to that vitality will be incredibly important. And so
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: with that hope, maybe it's time to transition into a dream.
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: Just a quick reminder, as I usually do listeners, that
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: it would be great if you could like us and
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: subscribe on whatever platform you listen to us on, leave
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: a review. These things really help the podcast. If you'd
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: like to sign up to get bonus content every week,
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: you can become a patron. Just go to our website, thisunionlife.com,
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: click on podcast, and you'll find a link to our
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: Patreon page there. And as well, consider signing up for
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: Dream School. Dream School is our 12 month online platform
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: where we teach you how to work with your dreams.
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: And finally, just to plug that my book, The Vital
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: Spark is now out. It has been published and I'd
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: love it if you would check it out. If you've
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: liked it, leave a review. Those things are very helpful
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: to authors. So thank you. So today's dream comes from
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: a 46-year-old woman who works in the environmental field, and
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: she named it Transparent Swan Hatchlings and Bloody Nose. And
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: here's the dream. I'm at the beach with my two
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: sons and a friend of my older son. We are
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: staying in a hotel connected to the beach by a trail.
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: We are walking back from the ocean along a raised
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: compacted sand path through wetlands. There are low fences on
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: each side of the path. My dad is walking ahead
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: of us and tells us to check something out, pointing
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: to the wetland to our right. He says there is
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: a whale and some bluebirds. We look and see some
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: bluebirds hopping around in the grass. We also see a
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: nest of swans. There are several swans just emerging out
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: of their eggs. There are broken eggshells and slimy, transparent
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: baby swans moving and stretching. They are so clear we
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: can almost see right through them. My older son wants
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: to see them better and gets closer. He walks over
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: the fence and right into the nest. He steps on
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: one of the baby swans and I think he may
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: have killed it. It turns out he was stepping on
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: a transparent slimy fish that is also in the nest,
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: a large transparent koi. He steps on it, but it
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: is only on the edge of its tail and the
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: fish is not harmed. But I am really mad. I
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: tell him it is not okay. He shrugs it off,
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: acting like it is not a big deal. I start
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: to yell, telling him it is a big deal, that
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: it is illegal, and that he could get arrested for
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: trampling on wildlife so carelessly. Other people are around and
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: hear my yelling. They are starting to stare. My son
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: is getting upset and embarrassed, but he still shows no
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: sign of regret. He tells me to stop yelling. I
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: get so mad I punch him in the nose. Snot
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: and blood run down his face. The tension is released
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: and my anger subsides and is replaced with shock and
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: regret that I punched him. And she notes, my work
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: is environmental and I realized just recently how much earth
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: grief I am holding in, repressing. I am actively working
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: to hold this grief and forgiveness for all we have
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: done to Mother Earth in my heart. To feel the grief.
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: This dream made me realize how much anger is mixed
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: in with this grief and how this anger is not
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: helping me and is only leading to destructive violent thoughts
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: or behaviors. The main feelings in the dream were awe
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: and wonder as she saw the swan hatchlings and then
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: overwhelming anger at her son, then shock and regret for
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: her violent behavior. She says, my two sons are the
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: ages they currently are, 12 and 14. My older son
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: is independent, musical, creative, sometimes impulsive, kind, and responsible. My
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: younger son is creative, smart, driven to work the things
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: he loves, sensitive, cares deeply about others, and is a
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: rule follower. I live in the mountains, but the coast
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: shows up frequently in my dreams as a setting. I
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: love water and visiting coastal areas. I am working on
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: a project in a coastal area where we are discussing
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: sea level rise and storm surge. and their impact on
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: the landscape. Climate change is undeniable in coastal communities.
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: To me, this is a dream about compensation. And the
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: reason I say that is that when the ego has
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: a particularly one-sided conscious orientation, which let's say is the
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: preciousness of all natural life, the preciousness of wildlife, of
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: nesting areas, that at the moment where that level of
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: intense position constellates, its opposite also constellates somewhere in the unconscious,
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: which is the indifferent, cavalier, childlike, awkward, and clumsy relationship
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: to those exact same values. So what we see in
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: the dream is this confluence of the opposites. that as
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: the dream ego is full of wonder and protective, even
• 55:31
  Speaker 3: rage about the sanctity of nature, that there is also
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: an unconscious teenage figure inside of her that is just
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: out of curiosity, trampling, walking in, manhandling, sticking fingers in things,
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: moving them around, maybe accidentally crushing you know, a baby
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: swan with a kind of perhaps naive, enthusiastic clumsiness. And
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: that both of those qualities are inside of her. And
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: that right now it's very difficult for her to embrace
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: that young, unskilled, clumsy part of herself that she wants
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: to subdue it. hunch it in the nose, be aggressive
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: towards her own unskilled handling. And the good news is
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: that the two parts of her meet in the dream. Yes,
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: the dream ego acts out, but there is the beginning
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: of a reconciliation in as much as she realizes that
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: she is mistreating some part of her own psyche that
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: requires a very different response. And that dominating rage is
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: is not adequate for her to understand that she is
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: both the protector of the natural environment and also equally
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: as clumsy and injurious as the average person marauding through
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: the natural world.
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: You know, there's something there. There's something I'm reaching for
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: that I'm not going to, I don't think I'm going
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: to be able to get my hands all the way
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: around it. But the sun does not, injure, first of all,
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: in the end, nothing, maybe it's just slightly injured, but
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: he doesn't, he doesn't wind up killing anything. And as
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: you point out, Joseph, it's not done in any, out
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: of any malice. It's actually done in a kind of
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: enthusiastic enjoyment of this phenomenon. I remember there was this
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: book that I read a number of years ago called
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: The Last Child in the Woods. And I was talking
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: about children's relationship with nature. And we teach kids to
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: be very careful. And we say, don't touch, don't touch,
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: don't touch. But You know, it used some of the
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: greatest naturalists actually as children did things like hunt, you know,
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: and it's just sort of like being out in nature.
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: I'm not sort of proposing here that, you know, hunting
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: is the answer to our ecological crisis, but I think
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: I'm going to something along the lines of what you
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: were talking about, which is that there's something very precious here.
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: It's fenced off. It can only be enjoyed from this
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: narrow path. And if we think about that, even taking
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: it out of the context of the environment and just say,
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: what about our relationship to instinctual life in general, our
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: own instinctual life? Where is that so fenced off that
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: it can only be enjoyed from a distance? And could
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: we imagine that the spirit of this 14 year old
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: let me take a closer look, that that's actually the
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: medicinal attitude that one would want to take, that the
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: ego might, there's some kind of rigidity I'm sensing in
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: the ego. I also want to say, just throwing this
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: out there, we don't know a lot about, you know,
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: who her sons are and what their relationship is like
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: right now. This is one of those dreams where if
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: I had the dreamer here, I would explore whether there
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: might be an objective aspect to this dream. Is it
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: saying something about her actual relationship with her actual son is.
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: There's something about the dynamic between them in the dream
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: that is commenting on a real life waking dynamic as well.
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: And I just don't know because I don't have enough information.
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: You know what I noted at the beginning of the
• 59:46
  Speaker 4: dream is that we have the dream ego who is
• 59:49
  Speaker 4: a woman, her two sons, a friend of one of
• 59:55
  Speaker 4: her son's, And her dad. So there are actually five
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: people here, four of whom, I assume the friend of
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 4: the son is another boy. What might be playing out,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 4: we call nature Mother Nature, and there's a nest of hatchlings.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 4: So there's a lot of this new birth, tenderness, mothering, nurturing,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 4: as opposed to what the dream ego sees as this
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 4: recklessness by the 14-year-old. He's just curious. So he just
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 4: pops himself over the fence and isn't especially attentive. And
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 4: I'm thinking you're... I think you've gotten to it, Joseph,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 4: with the idea of the compensatory function of the psyche.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 4: And Jung says that that is the key component in
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 4: every dream, that something about the dream, like balancing a seesaw,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 4: will take something that is too much in one direction
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 4: and present the other, and that maybe there is something
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 4: in this male side energy, the three boys and a father,
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 4: that it also serves a purpose. Turns out it's not
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 4: a baby swan. It's a fish. The fish isn't hurt.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: And I'm also, so no harm was done, but she's mad.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 4: She's mad about the attitude. The other thing that I
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 4: have to say has gripped me is that she lives
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 4: in the mountains and and does coastal work. So there's
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 4: those two opposites of living up high and working down
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 4: where the water is, you know, the great mother, the
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 4: great unconscious. So I think we're all walking around a
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 4: series of opposites here that the dream presents. And that
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 4: at the end, she feels bad about having been herself attacking,
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 4: which is what she accuses her son of doing. That
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 4: her son, you know, so it sort of comes full circle.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: I'm curious about what the dad is doing there. I'm
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: sorry we don't have any associations to him. That would
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: be interesting. And, you know, you're right, Deb. I mean,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: the son, what the son does is transgressive. In order
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: to individuate, we usually have to transgress. I'm also really
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: curious about the whale in the wetlands. And I'm noticing,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: which of course is an entirely inappropriate place for a whale.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: And I'm noticing that there seems to be an echoing
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: of that theme with the fish in the nest, which
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: presumably is still alive because she's worried about it being injured.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: So there are these new contents, the, what do they
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: call baby swans? Cygnets? Is that what they call them?
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: These little baby swans and the fish, they're transparent. They're
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: so vulnerable and fragile. But it's this kind of new
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: and a little bit gross. You know, it's kind of
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: slimy and bloody, both of them, really slimy. And it's
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: a little gross, but it's miraculous and it's life. And
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: the sun just kind of instinctively moves toward it. So yeah,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: but somehow there's a whale in the wrong place. A
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: whale does not belong in the wetlands. And a fish
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: in the wrong place. And both of them are, you know,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: perhaps constrained. You know, like a whale in the wetlands
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: wouldn't be able to swim. And a fish in a
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: nest wouldn't be able to swim either. And this boy
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: is trying to break out of the constraints. So I
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: wonder if there's a theme there. I don't know.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 4: I'm just going to the last part of the dream
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 4: of all these feelings that come up. She says, I
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 4: am really mad. The fish is not harmed. She's mad.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 4: She tells her son it's not okay. He shrugs it
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 4: off so he's disdainful. Then she starts yelling at him.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 4: Then she's embarrassed because other people are nearby and hear
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 4: her yelling. They start to stare. Her son gets upset
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 4: and embarrassed. She gets so mad she punches him in
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 4: the nose. And then the tension is released. And my
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 4: anger subsides and is replaced with shock and regret that
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 4: I punched him. I am still puzzling over all these
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 4: feelings of the tenderness of our dream ego toward the
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 4: wetlands and bluebirds and the whale and the little swans
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 4: and everything is very, very precious, juxtaposed with the anger
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 4: toward her son. And it goes to the interpersonal realm
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 4: instead of the natural realm. And that it's maybe somehow
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 4: the dream ego is loving nature in its tenderness and
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 4: all these wonderful images of whales and so on. But
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 4: when it comes to an interpersonal relationship that doesn't feel
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 4: the same way, that's where this anger and embarrassment and regret.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 4: I'm not quite sure where I'm landing with this. Maybe
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 4: you guys can help me. But it's two very opposite
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 4: sets of feelings.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: It's an interesting task to hold a dream like this
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: because I hear the dreamers great sorrow for, uh, what
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: we're doing to the planet. And, and it's, it's hard
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: to know like where that is in the dream. And
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: I think maybe to your point, Deb, although I, I
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: very much, you know, agree with this dreamer that, that
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: there's this unbelievably tragic thing that we're just doing to
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: the planet every day. I mean, it's too big to
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: take in. I wonder if there's something about being with
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: that sadness, that the shadow side of being so aware
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: of that is something like a power drive or self-righteousness
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: or something. And maybe that goes to your point, Deb,
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: about the you know, this kind of very unlikely feeling
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: that arises that she's going to punch her kid in
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: the nose.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 4: It must be hard.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 4: To work, you know, I find that really moving how
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 4: you devote your life, your professional life, education, to a
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 4: love for the planet, for nature, and it is unrequited.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 4: which is what we just finished talking about, that environmental
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 4: damage continues. There are, you know, all the things we
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 4: all know about from flooding to fires. And I wonder
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 4: if it is really hard to hold going to work
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 4: every day to preserve, to do your small part of
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 4: preserving natural balance. And have the feeling that despite all
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 4: that she and others do, it feels like the son
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 4: who just shrugs it off and acts like it's not
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 4: a big deal.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 3: The son represents a certain pleasure in defiance. That I
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 3: think there is also a tension in the psyche of
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 3: the dreamer that has to do with uh, obedience versus disobedience,
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 3: which I think of course is played out in the home.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 3: You have a teenage child who is individuating from the
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 3: mother is getting out of the nest is not respecting
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 3: the nest and is dismissing the world of the nest
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 3: and the world of the mother. Which goes a bit
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 3: to what you were saying, Lisa, about the possibility that
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: this has something to do with just... the development of
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 3: her relationship with her son. Robert Bly gives this interesting
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 3: story towards the end of Iron John. I think it's
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 3: in Iron John. It may have been one of his
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 3: lectures where he's talking about the tension between the mother
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 3: and the teenage son. And in one of these stories
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 3: that parents had divorced, mom is raising the teenage boy.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 3: And they're in the kitchen. She comes in and she
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 3: just walks behind her son and just puts her arms
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 3: around him and gives him a hug. And the boy
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 3: has this explosive, shocking reaction where he kind of throws
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 3: his arms open and kind of catapults her back onto
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 3: her on the floor of the kitchen and they both
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 3: turn and look at each other in shock. And the
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 3: next day she calls her ex-husband and says, I think
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 3: it's time for him to move in with you. That
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 3: there also is this archetypal activation where if the son
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 3: is not helped to leave the world of the mother,
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 3: that this other kind of energy will start stomping around,
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 3: both in terms of the son stomping around in the
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 3: nest because he needs to get out of the nest,
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 3: but also something about the mama bear, you know, running
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 3: the cub up the pine tree with her growls as
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 3: she walks off and leaves them to fend for themselves,
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 3: kind of the bloody nosing, so to speak, of the cub.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 3: So part of this is the rupture around the nest
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 3: that she might learn something from it. It's like, you know,
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 3: I think my son probably should be disregarding the rules
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 3: of the nest right now because that's going to prepare
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 3: him to leave the nest.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: You've been listening to This Jungian Life. From our website, thisjungianlife.com,
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: you can follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook,
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: help us produce future episodes by funding us through Patreon,
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: and submit your dreams for possible interpretation on another episode.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: We'd like to thank our listener who shared a dream
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: for today's show and hope you'll let us know what
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: topics you'd enjoy hearing more about. Until next time, keep
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: living this Jungian life.
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 3: Thank you.