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VOLCANO: ARCHETYPE OF CREATION AND DESTRUCTION · 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 2: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst in Cape Cod. Well,
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: today on the podcast, we're going to be doing a
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: topic that I'm going to confess was my choice. I
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: have always been interested in volcanoes. I think, you know,
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: if I had another eight lifetimes to live, perhaps at
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: some point I'd become a volcanologist. I just find them
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: really fascinating. Some of you may have noticed I wasn't
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: here for a couple of weeks. I actually took a
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: trip to visit some volcanoes. And so today I said,
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: Can we talk about the archetype of volcano? Volcanoes are
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: really interesting scientifically. I won't pretend to have much knowledge.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: I will try to talk about what I do know today,
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: and I'm sure I will butcher it all. So all
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: of those geologists and volcanologists that are listening, feel free
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: to write in and correct me. But of course, they're
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: also very interesting mythologically. There's a ton of great mythological
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: stuff from various sources about volcanoes. And they're also just
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: a wonderful, I suppose, symbol for psychological processes. And this
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: enters our language. We talk about things feeling volcanic or
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: emotions erupting. So we're going to be just having fun
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: with all of this today. And I'm personally really excited
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: for this one. So Joseph, thank you for going along
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: with this with me. And we should just mention also
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: that Deb took some time off. to have an adventure
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: of her own this week. So it will just be
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: me and Joseph.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: So I thought that I would just jump in and
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: read a quote of Jung's from The Symbolic Life. And
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: he's talking about our relationship to nature. Man feels himself
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: isolated in the cosmos. He is no longer involved in
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: nature and has lost his emotional participation in natural events,
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: which hitherto had a symbolic meaning for him. Thunder is
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: no longer the voice of a god, nor is lightning
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: his avenging missile. No river contains a spirit, no tree
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: means a man's life, no snake is the embodiment of wisdom,
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: and no mountain still harbors a great demon. His immediate
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: communication with nature has gone forever, and the emotional energy
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: it generates has sunk into the unconscious. And so Jung
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: is talking about the rise of the scientific attitude, particularly
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: intensely in his time period. And one of the things
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: that Jung tries to do, and we try to do
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: here at this Jungian life, is to restore that strata
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: of the mythic, of the psychic, to the natural phenomena,
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: which in a sense ensouls the things that our eyes
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: report to us. And so as we move around the
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: mythology of volcanoes and use it as a metaphor. We
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: are trying to return the spirit to the physical. And
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: so one thing I'm curious about, Lisa, just in terms
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: of your personal experience, how did your psyche respond when
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: you were close to an active volcano? What did it
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: do to you?
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: That's a great question. Well, I did get to climb
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: a Stromboli, which is a volcanic island off the north
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: coast of Sicily, that has been continuously erupting for 3000 years.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: And so I did get to see it give a
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: little bit of show after sunset. I want to say
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: that there's a kind of inflation that goes along with it.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: It's so tremendously exciting. And you feel like you're close to, well,
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: you feel like you're close to what Jung called the
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: central fire. So it's tremendously exciting. It was perhaps a
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: little bit more humbling being on the summit of Etna.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: So I also did climb up Etna, which is on
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: the mainland of Sicily. And we'll be talking more about
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Etna today because there's lots of great stories connected with it.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: But it was so barren and overwhelming and kind of inhospitable.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: At one point, you know, it's Very cold, even though
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: it was quite hot in Sicily in September. Cold and
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: the wind is whipping around and you have to have
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: on all kinds of special gear. And the guy took
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: out a piece of paper and simply put it in
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: a small crack in the ground and it lit on fire.
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  Speaker 3: Wow. Small but really intense and really close by. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So it was a little more humbling and a little
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: kind of tiring in a way. And I found that
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: I was happy to get back to normal sized everyday
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: reality there at the bottom of the mountain.
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: I am struck by that image of just slipping a
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: little piece of paper through a crack in the earth
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: and having it burst into flames. That is so intense.
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: And it really holds that paradox of something being small
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: and human that you can hold in your hand. And
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: then also something right under your feet, just a few
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: inches under your feet, which is life-threatening and overwhelmingly powerful.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: And only this little, thin, cool crust is protecting you
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: from it.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: Yes.
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  Speaker 3: Which in a way is kind of Jung's model of
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: the psyche.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: That we are standing, the ego is standing on this
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: thin crust. And right underneath us is this roiling ocean
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: of power.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: And sometimes a little fissure opens up. And even though
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: it's just a little crack, the energy that comes out
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: of that's enough to change your life.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: You know, I think that any large natural phenomenon often
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: functions as a symbol of the self. So whether or
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: not we're talking about a hurricane or a tornado or
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: the ocean, I think volcano kind of fits in that category.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: It is awe-inspiring. And in that sense, it is numinous.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: There are features of volcanoes that make them particularly good
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: symbols for the relationship between the unconscious and the conscious.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: And it's just as you were saying, Joseph, and I
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: have a little quote here from Jung. He says, we
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: are constantly living on the edge of a volcano. And
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: there is, as far as we know, no way of
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: protecting ourselves from a possible outburst that will destroy everyone
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: within reach.
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: So it sounds like he's talking about World War II
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: on one level, this roiling psychic infection that is right
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: under the surface of what looked like a fairly intellectual
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: and civilized society. Yep, it's great. Right underneath it, you know,
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: fire is bursting out.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: I think it's great to link it to World War
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: II and even in the times we're living now, that
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: there is a kind of caldera that we're all sitting upon.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: And we don't know when it's going to go. But
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: of course, that's also an apt description for any one
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: of us in our kind of personal day-to-day life. I mean,
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: what kind of unprocessed grief? rage, envy, kind of shadow
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: stuff that's down there beneath the surface, bubbling, as you will,
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: that might erupt at any minute. I mean, I can
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: certainly relate to that. I have a little bit of
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: a hot temper. I am chagrined to admit, but there
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: it is. It's the truth. And I can be somewhat
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: explosive sometimes. So I know what it I can relate
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: to that volcanic experience.
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: Well, and of course, everything is in different magnitudes of order.
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: So there's, you know, really venting off the hot material
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: of the psyche and really, you know, ranting at the heavens.
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: And then there's that explosive, overwhelming moment. And the next
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: thing you know, you're shouting at your boss and you're
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: resigning and you're walking out of the door, which is,
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: which is a more more globally powerful decision and on
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: and on from there. But this feeling that pressure builds
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: up and if the pressure is not released in one
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: way or another, at some times it's going to create
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: a radical change. And the basis of the word tectonic
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: is tecton, which means builder, ironically. So when we think
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: about the tectonic tension in the psyche building, building, building,
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: and then there's the eruption of some unconscious material, that
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: it also is in service to building a new life,
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: building a new attitude.
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  Speaker 2: And this is maybe a good time to visit my
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: very superficial knowledge of volcanology and and again, I welcome
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: input from people who know more than I do, volcanoes
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: tend to occur at areas of convergence and divergence of
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: tectonic plates. My understanding is that you get slightly different
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: kinds of volcanoes depending on whether these are places where
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: the plates are diverging, like at the seafloor, and you
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: get these underwater volcanoes that are kind of constantly creating
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: new crust, they're underwater just all the time, or in
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: subduction zones where one plate is being kind of pushed
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: underneath the other, which is the case actually in this
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: area of Italy where I was, it's a subduction zone.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: In that case, I believe that it's accurate to say
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: that part of what is happening is because of the
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: friction of the two plates rubbing against each other, The
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: crust is actually being broken down, melted, turned into magma,
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: which then, of course, gets expelled in these eruptions, creating
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: new crust, creating new land. So we are looking at
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  Speaker 2: this force that is primordial and is both incredibly destructive
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: and also creative. And in fact, today, when I went
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: to Google volcano in preparation for this, the headline that
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: came up was, there's a new island in the Pacific
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: as a result of volcanic activity. Now, they say it
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: probably won't stay there. But certainly volcanic activity creates new land.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: It creates new rock. I mean, that's another thing that's
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: kind of fascinating about it is Much rock takes eons
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: to create sedimentary rock. Volcanic rock is kind of created
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: in an instant, which is fascinating to me. So you're
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: actually seeing a kind of geologic process that happens in
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: fact very quickly when you're talking about something volcanic.
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  Speaker 3: And that part of the rapid creation involves rapid destruction
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: as well. I mean, in the island in the Pacific,
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: we might imagine that this is happening in the open waters,
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: so the destruction is not quite so clear. But Pompeii
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: being the great example, a volcano can erupt and simply
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: wipe away an entire city as well, and yet cover
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: it in a kind of fertile mineral base, which once
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: that begins to break down, becomes part of this lush regrowth.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: and reestablishing. And haven't we all gone through at least
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: one experience of that in our own psychological lives, whether
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: it was purely internally or perhaps something that was a
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: big external transformation which involved letting go or dissolving or
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: destroying the old thing?
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: One of the things that struck me was I can't
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: tell you how many people told me when I was
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: in Sicily and I visited the city of Catania, which
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: sits kind of underneath Etna. And several people said, we
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: call Etna Mama Etna. And they were very emphatic about this.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: And the volcanologist guide who took us up to Etna said,
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: we think Etna is a female. And part of the
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: reason for that is because of these explosions, the area
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: around Etna is, is incredibly fertile. The produce is just,
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: you know, especially delicious and rich and fecund because of
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: the volcanic soil.
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: And drawing in another mythology is that Hawaii, which is,
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: of course, a culture that for thousands of years has
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: surrounded this volcanic activity, attributes volcanic eruptions to Pele, who
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: is the beautiful and tempestuous goddess of volcanoes, and that
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: she would have these moments of rage and anger, and
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: the volcano would explode. And so part of the religious
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: process was to propitiate Pele to kind of keep her
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: anger at bay.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great. I'm really glad you brought that up
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: because she's an important volcano goddess. And that kind of
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: maps onto this idea about this as a feminine power,
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: this kind of creation destruction, which we often see with
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: the goddess. And meanwhile, there are also some volcano gods,
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: such as, for example, Vulcan, which is where we get
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: the word from, who is the Roman counterpart of Hephaestus.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: We have both of these things in play here. There's
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: a kind of rich mythological... Pantheon around volcanoes.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: So if we lean into the Hephaestus story a bit,
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: that Hephaestus was the club-footed, imperfect, very human, often embarrassed god.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: Cuckolded.
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: Cuckolded in a way that was really humiliating, who is
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: in his workshop under the ground, firing up the bellows,
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: striking at the metal, and that the volcanic explosions were
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: the sparks from his workshop. And his primary task, although
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: not the only one, was to make tools for Zeus
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: to help him control the world. And so, in that myth,
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: the fire has something to do with, quite frankly, that
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: patriarchal determination to subdue nature. and subdue individuals to comply
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: with the prevailing culture.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: But it's also associated with the fire being channeled into
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: creative ends. And Hephaestus made beautiful, wonderful kind of magical
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: things as well. So it's another image of the kind
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: of creative aspect of fire. And the god Vulcan is
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: slightly different in the Roman pantheon. But again, with this
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: real emphasis on, well, we have to propitiate this god
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: because fire can be so destructive. But at the same time,
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: it's so tremendously creative.
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: And undoubtedly, undoubtedly so. And when I talk about it
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: as part of that effort to exert cultural control, That
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: is part of creativity. I mean, creating a culture is
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: no small thing. And whether we agree with the cultural values,
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: thinking they're positive or negative, it's all an effort to
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: bring order from chaos. And that is also in the
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: realm of the self being an ordering principle.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean, as I said earlier, you're kind
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: of bringing it around to the self. I think volcanoes
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: can be a particularly potent image of the self. They
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: almost have a mind of their own. They can seem
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: dormant for a long time. It seems like nothing's going on.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: And then they kind of kick off. They're essentially unpredictable
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: at this point, although there are warning signs, and I
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: think volcanologists are getting better, kind of predicting when there
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: might be a problem. But if you look at Mount St. Helens,
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: it's a great example. It was just absolutely quiet for
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: a long time. And then there were these earthquakes and
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: these different kinds of activity that it was going through.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: And the volcanologist said, listen, something's going to happen. We
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: need to close the area. There was tremendous pressure not
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: to comply with that recommendation, but they did. And it
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: probably saved just countless lives. that that area was closed
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: at the time of that enormous eruption. So it's the
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: sense of something that's really beyond conscious control, that seems
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: to have its own sense of telos, that it's so
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: much bigger than ego. And this is also where I
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: think the experience of inflation comes up, in my interest
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: in volcanology and in part to kind of prepare myself
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: for the trip, I went to see that movie that's out.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: It's a documentary. It's called The Fire of Love. And
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: it's a documentary about a couple, a French couple of
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: volcanologists who spent their lives sort of traveling from volcanic
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: hotspot to volcanic hotspot around the globe. These just incredible
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: people They took a lot of videos. And so there
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: are these incredible images, footage of them sort of standing
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: right at the edge of a crater with just, you know,
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: the whole screen is taken up with molten lava. And
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: there's just this one little person in this kind of place. suit.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, it was something I wanted to make sure
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: that I saw on the big screen because of images
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: like that. But, you know, as I suspected, there was
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: a certain kind of inflation, you know, that we can
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: get close to this. The self draws us closer to it.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: We are fascinated with it. we want to get closer
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: to it. And some of us are kind of drawn
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: to it in these ways, um, where we, we could
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: get burned up in getting, in getting too close to
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: the central fire. And in fact, that is what happened
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: to these two volcanologists. They were, they went to the, um,
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: I think it's Mount Unzen in Japan was exhibiting some
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: activity and, they went to observe the eruption and they
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: did not survive. There was a massive pyroclastic flow that
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: killed a number of people, including these two volcanologists. So
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: there's something about the power, and I think it's really
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: sort of the symbol of that which is so much
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: bigger than ego. We want to control it, perhaps. This
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: one French volcanologist in the film, he had a dream
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: of creating a boat that he could use to ride
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: on a flow of lava. He never did it.
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: It's quite a fantasy.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: It's quite a fantasy, isn't it? So that we could
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: control this or we could be in control of it.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: And this is the age-old kind of hubris.
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: I think this idea that we can master all things.
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: I mean, I understand that's part of human spirit, particularly
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: trying triumphing over matter itself. But in our imaginations, we
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: often fantasize that we can lay right up against the
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: gods with no repercussions, or perhaps even triumph over them.
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: In one sense, I even feel that in the ancient mythology,
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: because Once we start adding anthropomorphic images to natural phenomena,
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: we are trying to take something that we really cannot
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: control and turn it into a person who we can
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: interact with, negotiate with, offer sacrifices to. And in that
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: same way that the scientist was imagining a boat to
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: ride across the lava in, imagining that whatever sacrifice is
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: going to change how nature behaves. any of these efforts
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: that we have to try to reduce our existential anxiety
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: in one part, and also to try to minimize the
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: suffering that nature can cause us either because of the
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: uncertainty around how it will behave, or because we really
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: do see harsh and life-threatening things that nature serves up
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: to us. And we're trying to figure out some way
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: to not be in a constant state of horror.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: You know, you mentioned sort of taking these uncontrollable and
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: understandable natural phenomenon and kind of creating persons associated with them.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: There's also the story of Typhon, this terrible monster that
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: Zeus was in a battle with. And Zeus managed to
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: overcome him. And then to kind of subdue him, he
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: stuck him, so the story goes, under Mount Etna. So
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: I think that's another explanation for Etna's activity, is that
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: there's this monster underneath, trapped by the mountain, who's kind
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: of spewing forth repressed fury as a result of having
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: been defeated by Zeus.
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: And so there's a way in which the cosmic order
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: is being maintained. by taking something that is dangerous and
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: placing it under the earth where it only intermittently roars
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: and spits magma, but for the most part is rather
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: calm and just rumbling in the distance. And such a
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: perfect way of understanding how we cope that when we
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: are in a terrible war inside of ourselves, sometimes if
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: there is no other choice, the psyche will take one
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: side of the war and plunge it into the unconscious,
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: but it never goes to sleep fully. So there are
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: still eruptions, whether just as you said, it might be
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: an angry outburst, but the eruptions from beneath can show
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: up as strange somatic disorders. The body's not behaving correctly.
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: There are ways in which it can show up as
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: misfortune around us that Our unconscious mind can pull certain
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: behaviors out of other people, which are disadvantageous to us. Or,
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: in some cases, it can blind us from seeing something,
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: perhaps like a vehicle careening towards us as we're stepping
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: in the street. Or the terrible story that Jung tells
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: of a young man he had given a warning to
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: who was mountain climbing. saying, you know, you need to
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: give up mountain climbing. Your dreams are dangerously informative. And
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: the fellow did just kind of walk off the edge
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: of a mountain, which cost him his life. So this
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: feeling that monsters are underneath in the unconscious. And in
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: one way, mythologically, we have to keep our finger on
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: the pulse of what's going on under there and not
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: forget it in some way. And yet, sometimes things do
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: need to be put into a repressed state because the
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: ego can't develop without some of these primordial forces being
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: put to sleep or put under the ground, at least
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: for a while.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when I think about what we know about the
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: structure of the planet, that there is this friendly crust
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: that we're very familiar with, that we live upon, but
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: deep underneath there's this kind of liquid magma that there's
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: like a sea beneath our feet of swirling liquid rock,
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: for heaven's sake. And that is, in some sense, a
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: little bit like how I imagine the unconscious. It seems
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: like it's pretty far away, and it's doing whatever it
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: does down there, but mostly we don't have to know
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: about it, except in these places where it kind of
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: pokes through, some of them being volcanoes. So that's another
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: way that I think it's a pretty good metaphor or
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: an evocative symbol. And, you know, related to that, another
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: belief about volcanoes in many cultures is that they are
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: the entrance to the underworld or the entrance to hell.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: So this is the point of communication, if you will,
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: between consciousness and the unconscious.
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: And out of Ovid's Metamorphosis, which was written in the
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: Christian era, Pluto leaves the underworld through Mount Etna again,
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: so that the underworld is placed within the Earth's crust,
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: and that it is associated with fire and brimstone and
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: sulfurous odors and this destructive, consuming magma. And Christian religion
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: has absorbed that part of the mythology and we begin
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: to feel that hell is somehow in the earth and
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: that God is somehow above the earth and far away.
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: One way we might wonder about that in terms of
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: the larger psychic possibility is that something in humanity needed
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: to put the God image away and far away from
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: the human personality so that we were not overwhelmed in
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: our own ego development. And this goes to Jung and
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: Neumann's idea that the ego has to separate from the
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: primordial self at birth and through the next several years
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: and to create a tremendous amount of distance so that
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: I become a discrete, small ego, and I'm not overwhelmed
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: with all of the archetypal conditions that the primordial God
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: image carries. It feels to me that this separation of
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: heaven and earth and heaven and hell is part of
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: that effort to become a discrete and specific person. And then,
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: of course, it makes hell a lot closer than heaven.
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: which becomes an interesting theological problem. Yes.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: And it also separates the divine from those earthly, chthonic
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: qualities that we find in this mythology of volcanoes, for example.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: That it can be both creative and destructive at the
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: same time. That's not so much an aspect of the
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: Christian God, but it is an aspect of God in
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: many other cultures, and especially often the goddesses. You know, Kali,
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: for example, is the creator and the destroyer. And we
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: know that sort of nature is the creator and the destroyer.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: So somehow this kind of spiritualized Christian God that gets,
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: you know, kind of lobbed out there into the heavens
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: gets separated a little bit from that kind of earthiness
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: that we see in a God like Theistos. Right.
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: I think that the Christian God is always calm, very
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: apollonic in a lot of ways. Harmonious, musical, calm, a
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: being of light, of undifferentiated light. And then all of
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: the primal, natural, and bestial parts of humanity are forced
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: into the earth, not just on the earth, but down
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: below the crust.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: There's also this idea, at least for me, when I
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: think about volcanoes, about the magma in some way being
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: an image of the primordial source. I mean, it really is.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, magma is a great image for the prima materia.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: It's a liquid rock. It hasn't taken form. I'm thinking
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: of a sort of literary example of volcanoes with the
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: Lord of the Rings. And of course, the ring has
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: to be taken. It can only be destroyed in one place.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: And that is Mount Doom. It cannot be destroyed in
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: ordinary fire, no matter how hot. It can only be
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: destroyed in Mount Doom, which of course is essentially a volcano.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: And the climax of the trilogy happens right at the brink,
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: where it has to be thrown in. This idea that
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: we could have access to that somehow, that this is
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: awful and terrible and frightening and destructive, but it's also
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: the primordial source from which all things come. You know,
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: another Etna story here that I think is related to
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: what I'm talking about is the myth around the death
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: of the pre-Socratic philosopher Empedocles. He was an important pre-Socratic philosopher.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: He was a real person. He really lived, but there's
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: this What is almost certainly sort of a legend about
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: his death was that he climbed Mount Etna and threw
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: himself into the crater, either believing he was a god
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: or hoping that he would become a god or that
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: he could prove that he was a god. There's all
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: kinds of variations on it. And it's either sort of
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: triumphant that he was then kind of lofted up to
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: the heavens from the volcano summit or that this was
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: a real example of a kind of hubris. But it's
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: that longing for the source, I think.
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: I think that longing for return is really powerful. I
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: think in modern times, people have that experience when they're
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: at a great height, they'll suddenly be overcome with this
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: fantasy of casting themselves off. This used to happen frequently
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: enough at the top of the Empire State Building that
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: they had to cage it in because they could just
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: anticipate a certain percentage of of people would have an
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: overwhelming beckoning to cast oneself into the divine void in
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: one way or another. And the fantasy of somehow returning
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: to the primal perfect wholeness in one way or another
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: is seductive and dangerous. Goes back again to Jung's idea
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: of the regression, that there's something inside of us that
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: longs to go back to that primal union And when
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: it happens prematurely, there's a tragedy. When it happens very
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: much at the end of life, there's a sense of
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: appropriateness that as we naturally near death, we hear the
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: call to return to the primal sleep, the primal unity,
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: but that we have to kind of fight against that
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: urge while we are still vital and have work to
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: do in the world. The Japanese also at one point
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: in their ancient history used to dispose of the dead
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: in volcanoes. And it was a place where the dead
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: could then go to the next world. It was a
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: portal as well, a way of going through to something else.
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: When we think about the self, a lot of times
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: we tend to project a certain sweetness on it, which
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: I think is deceptive and young work. tirelessly to disavow
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: us of that idea. And I think the volcano really
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: captures the bivalence of this image of the self. That yes,
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: it is creative, but it's a kind of creative act
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: that has to be observed from a distance because it
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: is too much for we vulnerable humans.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: It is not of human scope.
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: It is not. and that its destruction can be terrifying and, again,
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: cannot be controlled by human intervention. And yet we rely
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: on it in as much as the Earth requires these
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: eruptions in order to continue to be physically viable. It's renewing.
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: It is renewing. Another way to think about it, in
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: terms of just the geological phenomena, is that even the Earth,
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: has something specific in it that every so often it
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: needs to get rid of. So the volcano is an
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: off casting of tension when it's put into this very
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: physical term, but that something needs to be released out
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: into the upper world for the, so to speak, health
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: of the planet as a whole. And that the cost
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: of that in terms of human life is irrelevant as
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: it is with nature.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: You know, there's a fairy tale that's called The Golden Tree.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: And it's a lovely tale, but it has this image
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: in it that I just want to share. There is
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: a golden tree. And when you draw closer to it,
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: you see that it's actually not static. It's actually constantly
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: being created out of this kind of fountain of molten gold.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: And then as soon as it forms, it breaks off
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: and falls back into the liquid gold underneath. So the
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: hero has to find a way to break a branch
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: off of this tree. But it's just a fantastic image,
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: I think, of this ongoing process of creation and destruction
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: that's ever renewing. that we can witness in some sense
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: in our lives psychologically and also when we see volcanoes.
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: It also reminds me of Jung's attitude towards the creative spirit,
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: that creativity will rise up out of the molten gold
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: and then we have to risk something in order to
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: break a piece of it off and bring it back.
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: And it's a bit of, Like stealing fire from the gods.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: This transcendental branch is now going to be mine and
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: the ramifications for that. Jung felt that the unconscious would
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: make us pay for what we extract from it in
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: order to create and put it out into the world.
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: And maybe that payment is a kind of suffering, kind
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: of neurotic process that one has to go through, but
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: that the unconscious can be somewhat selfish about its own material.
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: And so there is a heroic element to getting a
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: piece of that branch for oneself.
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: That's, that's really, that's really lovely. That's really perfect. You know, um,
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: as with, I think other similar phenomena, Volcanoes show up
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: a lot in dreams.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: Did you know your dreams reveal the wisdom of your
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: guiding self? Dreams connect us to the secret world within
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: and remind us that we're never alone. We're always accompanied
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: by our inner companion who offers healing, balance, insight, and
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: guidance as we make key decisions. At 28, Charles felt
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: lost and isolated. He had a dream that touched him deeply.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: As he worked with the dream in Dream School, he
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: understood that it was showing him how he was profoundly
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: connected to life. This powerful insight led him to make
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: real progress with his goals. During Dream School's 12-month transformational program,
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: you'll learn to harness the power of your unconscious wisdom,
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: decode the language of metaphor and symbol, discover mythological motives
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: that shape your life, reveal unknown facets of your personality,
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: unlock the door to inner wisdom. To enroll, just go
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: to Interpretation. and sign up today to gain immediate access
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: to the first three Dream School modules. Your best life
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: awaits you at Dream School, and we can't wait to
• 39:39
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• 39:46
  Speaker 2: What I did was I went back and kind of
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: mined through our wonderful dream database of people that have
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: sent us dreams. And I found an older dream that
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: a listener submitted that is a volcano dream. And I
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: think I'm just going to read that right now. And
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: maybe Joseph, you and I can talk about the image
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: of the volcano in the dream. So this dreamer is
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: a 32-year-old woman, and she says, a man and a
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: woman are hiking down through a rocky environment. The man
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: is leading her and tells her that they're on the
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: side of a volcano. She's intrigued and allows him to
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: guide her. They walk around for a while, and then
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: on their way back to the top of the volcano,
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: they come across a large stone bridge. The bridge is wide,
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: made of heavy stones the color of sandstone, like something
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: out of ancient Rome or medieval Spain. The rapids beneath
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: the bridge are incredibly strong. The waters are white. The
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: man and the woman embrace each other on the bridge
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: in an all-encompassing, deeply intimate hug. The emotion is palpable.
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: There is a close-up of her face, and she looks
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: alarmingly like Beyoncé. She fights tears. I can only see
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: the man's back, but I can tell he too is
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: fighting tears. When they pull away from each other, they
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: see at their feet, right where they are standing, a
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: bright orange ember burning close to the ground. This signals
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: to them that they have to go. At this point,
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: I am now the woman. The volcano is unstable and
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: we only have a few moments before we can make
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: it to the other side before eruption. We pull away
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: from each other and start heading to the top of
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: the volcano. As we walk hand in hand, magma begins
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: to break through the dark charcoal gray landscape like veins
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: through skin. Then the volcano begins to erupt. Smoke billows,
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: lava flows, and the man and I face away from
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: the eruption, pressed up against something like the side of
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: a wall. He presses himself against my back. I wonder
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: if he's even really there or if he's going to stay.
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: Everything goes black. The ash engulfs us. We survive. The
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: sun reemerges and I leave my male companion and climb
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: to the top left side of the volcano where I
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: find a small wooden hut. I pull aside a curtain
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: and see that inside of the hut are my older
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: brother sitting next to his child self as well as
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: my child self though she's sitting on her own. I
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: check on them and ask them if they're all right.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: A woman's hand hands me a cool washcloth, and I
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: believe the woman is my deceased grandmother. I press it
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: to my brother's face, then his child self, then my
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: child self. I tell them I'll be back as they
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: seem somewhat infirm. My brother jests, hey, mind bringing me
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: some coffee? His child self jumps in and says, yeah,
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: me too, to which I respond, I'm not bringing you anything,
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: but I'll bring her coffee. as I point to my
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: child self, she smiles and the dream ends. And for context,
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: she says, I'm in therapy and it's brought up years
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: of childhood neglect I'm only just starting to process. I'm
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: also in a push-pull casual sexual relationship with a man
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: who is himself going through intense changes in his life.
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: So there's the image of the volcano sort of in action,
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: as you will. What do you What do you make
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: of it, Joseph?
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: Well, if I break the dream up into three stages,
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: there's the appearance of the animus and this adventure which
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: culminates in a connection and a great passion. The passion
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: then leads to this volcanic destructive explosion which then leads
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: to this appearance of the child selves. So I think
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: It's an apt metaphor for a very deep psychoanalytic process
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: that the path to connect and the path for romantic
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: love at least in this dream is fraught with a
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: kind of unconscious activation and explosive unconscious activation which then
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: casts the dream ego back in time into this regression
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: where she's dealing with early childhood dynamics and choosing there
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: at the end to tend at least to her own
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: inner child, which ostensibly is in fact the medicine that's
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: required for her to be able to tolerate the kind
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: of passions that rise up in these erotic situations.
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: I think I have a slightly different read on it.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: Let me throw it out and you let me know
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: what you think about it. I'm more thinking that the
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: analytic process that she's been going through has kind of
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: thinned the earth's crust and allowed this tremendous explosion and
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: eruption to happen. And it could be that the engagement
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: with the male figure, the animus figure, is an image
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: of her being able to companion herself or perhaps finding
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: that in the analyst and then in herself and that
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: There is something potentiating about the hug on the bridge.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: I don't necessarily see it as about eroticism in the
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: external life, but more about this sort of inner union.
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: And then, you know, this image, the most striking part
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: for me about the dream anyway, was this image of
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: these red veins through the gray ash. And, you know,
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: sometimes if we've been through really difficult experiences in childhood
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: and they may be covered up with a lot of
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: gray ash, but then here they are poking through and
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: then they erupt explosively, seemingly in a way that could
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: be quite destructive. And, you know, doing early trauma work
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: and therapy can feel exactly like that. But at the
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: end of it, what's left is the ability to go
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: back and be with her wounded child self and tend
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: to her you know, in a way. And so, you know,
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: I'm curious about the brother and I'd be curious about
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: that relationship. It seems like the dream ego at the
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: end is able to set a boundary with the dream
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: brother and really focus on meeting her own needs. So
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: I'm seeing it more as an image of something that
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: might kind of erupt in a therapeutic process, but might
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: have been early wounds that have been roiling there.
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: To me, I see them both as parallel processes, that
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: if this is the state of a purely internal condition,
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: it's undoubtedly influencing outer relationships. But I take your meaning
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: that if we have a purely subjective lens, that we
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: could put it in that context, and that the connection
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: with the animus releases this huge amount of libido, which
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: is frightening, and its ability to reconfigure the inner world.
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: But I also think that for many of us that
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: were raised in really, really difficult homes as children, that
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: our ability to regulate affect is often compromised. That there's
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: often a lot of unmetabolized, intense feeling. Now, the dreamer
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: suggests that right now, at least, she's dealing with being
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: neglected as a child, which suggests that As a child,
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: when she would have the natural tempestuous eruptions that children have,
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: there was no adult there to mediate it, to actually
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: calm her, to put it into its right perspective or
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: to help her or demonstrate to her how to contain it.
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: So in the dream, he's fighting back tears. They pull
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: away from each other and where they were standing. There's
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: this Amber. burning close to the ground. And that's the
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: signal that they have to flee, that they have to
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: get away because of the combustibility of what's happening. And yes,
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: that is absolutely an internal place. And it also happens
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: in the external relationships that we play out our childhood
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: wounds with our closest partners. Unfortunately, I mean, we wish
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: we could protect people from our unfinished business, but I
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: Freud and Jung and lots of others have clearly demonstrated
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: that we can't. But as you said, the most important
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: part is the sun emerges, everyone's still alive, and that
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: she really has a solo journey. She leaves her companion.
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: She climbs to the top of the mountain, so to speak,
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: which is often... a metaphor for a kind of internal
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: and deep spiritual journey. And then in the hut where
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: often the sage could be, there's... her brother and her,
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: their inner children, and what seems to be some kind
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: of a mother figure, the deceased mother.
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes. The kind of wise old woman.
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: It also, to me, leans into the idea of the
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: archetypal compensation that when we are lacking enough parental care
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: as children, an archetypal image of the mother, for instance,
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: will then try to tend us just to keep us
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: psychologically alive until we can kind of get to adulthood
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: and then kind of grapple with whatever we need to.
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: So it seems like there's almost a spirit woman who's
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: tending to the children. Very importantly, at the end, she decides, no,
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: I'm I'm going to be involved in this. And she does,
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: but she's going to bring her kid coffee, which is
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: a little bit complicated.
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah. That's, that's interesting. That's interesting too. We'd have to
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: talk about the archetype of coffee. Which is very enlivening. Yes.
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: And that might, that might be relevant.
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: That might be relevant.
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: If you give a kid a cup of coffee, you
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: better be ready for what happens.
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. You know, there's sort of two potential self-images in
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: the dream. There's the volcano, and then there's the grandmother.
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: And they could both be kind of self-images. So the
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: grandmother would be the more sort of beneficent version, while
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: the volcano and its eruption is the terrifying, darkly numinous version.
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: But the grandmother is there with a cool white washcloth.
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: She's cooling down the emotional explosion of the volcano. And
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: she's doing what a present parent would have done.
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: Which is to cool things down, calm things down, and
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: also get some needs met. Coffee may not.
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: Like you said, it's one of my primary needs.
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: But she's, um, she's going through a process of change and,
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: and there is some really intense restructuring happening. She also
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: mentions just at the end that a couple of weeks prior,
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: she had a dream involving giants battling on a volcanic landscape.
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: which certainly evokes that myth of Zeus and Typhon.
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: Battling on the earth and crashing into things. And so
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: we might even fantasize that Typhon has been kind of
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: cast into the earth several weeks ago. And now there
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: is this volcanic eruption of what has been cast aside.
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: It's a great, it's a powerful, powerful dream. And I
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: am clearly an encounter.
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: You've been listening to This Jungian Life. From our website, thisjungianlife.com,
• 52:26
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• 52:33
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• 52:40
  Speaker 1: for today's show and hope you'll let us know what
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  Speaker 1: topics you'd enjoy hearing more about. Until next time, keep
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: living this Jungian life.
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: Thank you.