Latest / This Jungian Life Podcast / The Devouring Mother: Facing Archetypal Darkness

Transcript

The Devouring Mother: Facing Archetypal Darkness · This Jungian Life Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: To pick up on Neumann again, now he says that
0:03
Speaker 1: the achievement of consciousness is a great work. We're initially
0:09
Speaker 1: born in this state of oceanic oneness. That's this kind
0:12
Speaker 1: of Oriboric bliss. There is no consciousness. We're just happy
0:16
Speaker 1: babies and all of our needs are met. And then
0:19
Speaker 1: over time, we have to kind of fight our way
0:22
Speaker 1: out of that. It's associated with the hero, the mother
0:25
Speaker 1: goddess in the form of a demon or monster, has
0:29
Speaker 1: to be slain, and that is symbolically an image of
0:34
Speaker 1: consciousness overcoming the kind of constant pull toward becoming unconscious.
0:43
Speaker 2: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
0:48
Speaker 2: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
0:52
Speaker 2: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
0:55
Speaker 2: a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.
1:01
Speaker 1: I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.
1:05
Speaker 2: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
1:10
Speaker 3: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst in Cape Cod.
1:25
Speaker 1: Well, we have covered the mother on this podcast several
1:29
Speaker 1: times before. We've done an episode on the negative mother,
1:32
Speaker 1: and kind of recently we did an episode on the
1:35
Speaker 1: deaf mother. And we wanted to take a slightly different
1:38
Speaker 1: look at mothers today by looking at the devouring mother.
1:44
Speaker 1: This is a concept that I think is most usefully
1:49
Speaker 1: framed very archetypally. And We are going to be helped
1:54
Speaker 1: along today by the work of an early Jungian analyst
1:59
Speaker 1: named Erich Neumann. Neumann wrote a real important tome called
2:05
Speaker 1: The Great Mother, and he talks about the different kinds
2:10
Speaker 1: of archetypal images of mother, and one of them is
2:13
Speaker 1: the devouring mother. So Neumann sees the development of consciousness
2:19
Speaker 1: as arising out of the unconscious. And in this formulation,
2:23
Speaker 1: we think of the unconscious as the mother and consciousness
2:29
Speaker 1: as the child that finds its way out of the
2:33
Speaker 1: maw of the great mother. So we're going to be
2:36
Speaker 1: looking at this today, both in terms of mythology, but
2:39
Speaker 1: also in terms of what this might look like in
2:42
Speaker 1: our own lives, either as mothers, as we mother, or
2:46
Speaker 1: in relationship to our mothers.
2:49
Speaker 3: I want to underscore, as we were talking before about,
2:55
Speaker 3: you know, the difficulty with this archetypal concept of Neumann's,
3:01
Speaker 3: of consciousness arising out of unconscious, which it does, and
3:07
Speaker 3: yet equating that and the various problems with that of
3:12
Speaker 3: equating unconscious with maternal, devouring, absorbing, female mother and consciousness
3:21
Speaker 3: with solar and more masculine. And apparently, according to Neumann,
3:27
Speaker 3: this is pretty universal. But let's hunker down and see
3:32
Speaker 3: what we really mean by that. But Lisa, you have
3:35
Speaker 3: a great story and image for the devouring mother from Mexico.
3:44
Speaker 1: Well, we're going to talk about that and other mythological
3:48
Speaker 1: images of the devouring mother because it is pretty universal.
3:53
Speaker 1: And I do want to just say, though, before we
3:56
Speaker 1: go there to the Aztec mythology that, you know, what
3:59
Speaker 1: Neumann says is that the struggle to achieve consciousness is
4:04
Speaker 1: is this universal archetype that is outpictured in the hero's journey,
4:10
Speaker 1: and that we can see the mother unconscious as the
4:15
Speaker 1: generatrix of consciousness. And again, the devouring part comes in
4:20
Speaker 1: because that mother has a tendency to want to reabsorb
4:24
Speaker 1: the life that she has created. And, you know, there
4:29
Speaker 1: has been a sort of gender assigned to both of these.
4:32
Speaker 1: And I think that it fits in that the unconscious
4:39
Speaker 1: is the mother. It is what births consciousness. It is
4:44
Speaker 1: always what births all new life. So I'm, you know,
4:49
Speaker 1: certainly we don't want to extend these archetypal realities to describe,
4:55
Speaker 1: you know, individual people or a whole class of people.
5:00
Speaker 1: But I do think that the sort of sexed assignation,
5:06
Speaker 1: it does kind of work for me. So you and
5:10
Speaker 1: I might disagree on that, Deb. But in any case,
5:12
Speaker 1: let's go to Mexico and look at this goddess named...
5:18
Speaker 1: Good luck. Talal Takutli. I think I got it. Talal Takutli.
5:23
Speaker 1: I think I've got it. So she was initially this
5:28
Speaker 1: kind of great sea monster who that floated in the ocean.
5:32
Speaker 1: And these two gods decided that they were going to
5:35
Speaker 1: get rid of her once and for all. So they
5:37
Speaker 1: turned themselves into serpents and they tore her apart. And
5:41
Speaker 1: part of her became the earth and part of her
5:44
Speaker 1: became the sky. So interestingly, you know, a lot of
5:47
Speaker 1: times cosmologies have a sky god and an earth god.
5:50
Speaker 1: And here it's one and the same. And she does,
5:53
Speaker 1: this goddess does have both masculine and feminine qualities. But
5:57
Speaker 1: she is a goddess. She's associated with fertility, but she
6:03
Speaker 1: suffered because she was defeated in this way. I mean,
6:08
Speaker 1: in a sense, it reminds me a little bit of
6:11
Speaker 1: the story of Tiamat, you know, who is also this
6:15
Speaker 1: goddess of chaos who is defeated. You know, so this
6:18
Speaker 1: is where you start to see these myths are so
6:22
Speaker 1: similar to one another. But Talal Takutli becomes both earth
6:27
Speaker 1: and sky.
6:29
Speaker 3: And there's also North American version of this myth, the
6:34
Speaker 3: goddess Sedna, whose many parts turned into fish and whales
6:42
Speaker 3: because she also was a sea goddess and primordial and
6:48
Speaker 3: generated out of her death were generated all these forms
6:53
Speaker 3: of life that we associate with the ocean.
6:56
Speaker 1: Yes, yes. I was thinking of Sedna too when I
6:59
Speaker 1: was a When I was reading about Talal Taquli. So
7:04
Speaker 1: because she's been defeated, she suffers and sometimes she weeps.
7:08
Speaker 1: And so the story goes that people demanded that she
7:13
Speaker 1: get some recompense. And so she was given the honor
7:16
Speaker 1: of kind of producing all of the things that people
7:19
Speaker 1: need from her body. So, you know, her hair became
7:22
Speaker 1: trees and crops grow from her body. But she demands something.
7:29
Speaker 1: So she was the first god that demanded the hearts
7:33
Speaker 1: and blood of humans. And human sacrifice was seen as
7:37
Speaker 1: necessary to ensure the survival of creation. And it was
7:43
Speaker 1: said that things couldn't grow unless her soil was moistened
7:47
Speaker 1: with the blood of men. Now, interestingly, in 2006, they
7:51
Speaker 1: were excavating the Templo Mayor in Mexico City, and they
7:56
Speaker 1: found this enormous monolith. depiction of Tlalocutli. And it is
8:02
Speaker 1: the largest Aztec sculpture and is now on display. I
8:06
Speaker 1: would love to see that. In her symbology, she is
8:09
Speaker 1: both womb and tomb. And I think that's going to
8:12
Speaker 1: be the nature as we go through this topic. That's
8:15
Speaker 1: kind of the leitmotif is the devouring mother is both
8:19
Speaker 1: womb and tomb. And we can amplify that as we
8:24
Speaker 1: continue discussing it. She was often pictured as an enormous
8:28
Speaker 1: toad with a large open mouth with sharp teeth. Sometimes
8:32
Speaker 1: her teeth are made out of flints. And here's another
8:36
Speaker 1: important detail that, again, we see in other mythologies. Each
8:41
Speaker 1: night she swallows the sun and the next morning she
8:46
Speaker 1: regurgitates it. So she's a very important figure in Aztec
8:51
Speaker 1: mythology and she's a good person to start with. as
8:55
Speaker 1: we begin exploring this imagery of the devouring mother. So
9:00
Speaker 1: I think the thing about the devouring mother, she is
9:03
Speaker 1: a mother. She does generate, but she always is threatening
9:09
Speaker 1: to reabsorb or take back the life that she has given.
9:15
Speaker 3: And in a way, that is simply the truth of
9:23
Speaker 3: not literally But the great round of life, things are generated,
9:29
Speaker 3: things are born, and then earth to earth and dust
9:34
Speaker 3: to dust, we are reabsorbed by Mother Earth.
9:40
Speaker 1: The imagery does show this kind of fundamental truth about
9:44
Speaker 1: the cycle of life and death.
9:45
Speaker 3: Yes. And the death is a source of anxiety and
9:53
Speaker 3: of that life is finite. It's an existential, um, that
10:01
Speaker 3: a man named Ernest Becker has written about the denial
10:04
Speaker 3: of death, of that we're all scared of being reabsorbed
10:11
Speaker 3: into the earth. Into what exactly? There are universal fears
10:19
Speaker 3: of this great round, the devouring mother of the nothingness
10:26
Speaker 3: or monsters, death, all kinds of ways of imaging it,
10:32
Speaker 3: including this goddess who has a huge devouring mouth into
10:41
Speaker 3: which one way or another we shall all go. It's
10:44
Speaker 3: also very much, part of mythology around the world, everywhere,
10:51
Speaker 3: that in order to receive life from the goddess, whoever
10:58
Speaker 3: that may be imaged as, there's a transactional element we
11:02
Speaker 3: need to acknowledge. We need to give something, something valuable,
11:08
Speaker 3: such as our blood, sometimes bodies, all kinds of various offerings.
11:16
Speaker 3: in order to balance the scales of acknowledging and giving
11:21
Speaker 3: back to the life-giving and life-absorbing or devouring source.
11:30
Speaker 1: And of course, you know, we see this in agriculture
11:34
Speaker 1: and some of these myths arose from, many of them
11:38
Speaker 1: arose from agricultural societies where you buried the seed And
11:45
Speaker 1: then something sprung up and arose. And then at the end,
11:49
Speaker 1: you would plow under the remaining parts of the plant.
11:52
Speaker 1: And this is seen as a kind of a corollary.
11:55
Speaker 1: We were born, we grow, and then we die, and
11:57
Speaker 1: then we are buried. And so there's that idea of
12:01
Speaker 1: this kind of continual, it's a very, very deeply archetypal idea.
12:05
Speaker 1: To pick up on Neumann again, he says that the
12:11
Speaker 1: achievement of consciousness is a great work. And, you know,
12:16
Speaker 1: we're initially born in this state of oceanic oneness. That's
12:20
Speaker 1: this kind of auric bliss. There is no consciousness. We're
12:24
Speaker 1: just happy babies and all of our needs are met.
12:27
Speaker 1: And then over time, we have to kind of fight
12:29
Speaker 1: our way out of that. And it's associated with the hero.
12:34
Speaker 1: So sometimes the mother goddess has to, the mother goddess
12:38
Speaker 1: in the form of a demon or monster has to
12:41
Speaker 1: be slain. And that is symbolically an image of consciousness
12:46
Speaker 1: overcoming the kind of constant pull toward becoming unconscious. And
12:54
Speaker 1: we can see that in our own lives. I mean,
12:57
Speaker 1: I remember kind of catching myself a number of years ago.
13:02
Speaker 1: I had done something that really wasn't okay. And I
13:08
Speaker 1: sort of caught myself just being very unconscious about it
13:11
Speaker 1: and thinking, well, it was just this. And I was
13:14
Speaker 1: sort of shocked to think, oh no, I had really
13:18
Speaker 1: let that slip into unconsciousness because it was uncomfortable to
13:23
Speaker 1: admit that I had really made a bad mistake. And
13:28
Speaker 1: I think all the time we are struggling to stay
13:31
Speaker 1: conscious of various things. And it's so easy to just
13:36
Speaker 1: go unconscious. You could just pick up your phone and
13:39
Speaker 1: scroll on your phone and your consciousness goes away. And
13:42
Speaker 1: we see this, there are so many stories about the
13:45
Speaker 1: sun getting swallowed at the end of each day. That's
13:49
Speaker 1: an interesting thing. What did mythologies do with that imagery
13:53
Speaker 1: of the sun? But in this Aztec goddess who swallows
13:57
Speaker 1: it at night and regurgitates it, there's a kind of
14:00
Speaker 1: violence to it. And I think that's part of life too.
14:05
Speaker 1: I mean, each of us goes to bed at night
14:08
Speaker 1: and hopefully... surrenders consciousness, which gets swallowed by the unconscious
14:15
Speaker 1: as we fall asleep. And then we're regurgitated out on
14:19
Speaker 1: the bank the following morning when we wake up. And,
14:22
Speaker 1: you know, Jung talked about this. He had this dream
14:25
Speaker 1: of this little light. And he said that he realized
14:29
Speaker 1: he was holding a little light and there was a
14:31
Speaker 1: kind of a wind blowing. So he's protecting it from
14:34
Speaker 1: the wind and it's casting this ginormous shadow behind him.
14:38
Speaker 1: And he thinks, I just have to keep this light going.
14:40
Speaker 1: It's so precious. And he interpreted it to be, this
14:43
Speaker 1: is consciousness. And consciousness in evolutionary terms is a real achievement.
14:51
Speaker 1: And it's always under threat, both on a personal level,
14:55
Speaker 1: but also on a sort of evolutionary scale. I mean,
14:59
Speaker 1: as far as we know, we're the only conscious species,
15:04
Speaker 1: in a manner of speaking, And it was a hard-won,
15:09
Speaker 1: hard-won achievement consciousness. And the kind of devouring mother is
15:14
Speaker 1: just waiting with her mouth open to take it back.
15:19
Speaker 3: You know, when we're talking about the great unconscious from
15:25
Speaker 3: which we all emerge and how hard-won consciousness is, as
15:33
Speaker 3: we can see with any toddler.
15:35
Speaker 1: Yes.
15:36
Speaker 3: Who is struggling to get his way and is frustrated.
15:42
Speaker 3: And we call it the terrible twos, but it's really
15:46
Speaker 3: the emerging of ego, of consciousness. It's one thing. But
15:53
Speaker 3: once we get it gendered into the dragon, according to Jung,
15:57
Speaker 3: the dragon that must be slain, that is the great
16:03
Speaker 3: devouring female force. or these other images, this unearthed statue
16:11
Speaker 3: in Mexico, a hundred images at least of this, then
16:17
Speaker 3: we start to get into trouble because it starts to
16:21
Speaker 3: bleed over into male and female. We start gendering it.
16:28
Speaker 3: And it's perfectly understandable since, you know, earth and wombs
16:35
Speaker 3: are Mother Earth is a universal, it's not Father Earth.
16:41
Speaker 3: And then we start moving it over into human beings
16:45
Speaker 3: and that it becomes gendered and it becomes problematic. And
16:51
Speaker 3: that's an important distinction versus consciousness arising from the unconscious
16:58
Speaker 3: and the struggle that we all have. to stay conscious
17:04
Speaker 3: rather than descending into earlier stages of development, various feelings,
17:12
Speaker 3: acting out, all of that kind of thing. And yet, universally,
17:18
Speaker 3: what we're talking about today and what it's called is
17:20
Speaker 3: the devouring mother.
17:21
Speaker 1: Well, I agree with you. I mean, I think we
17:24
Speaker 1: just have to remind ourselves that we're talking about kind
17:27
Speaker 1: of archetypal symbolic realities here. We're not talking about men
17:31
Speaker 1: and women. but there is a generative principle that does
17:35
Speaker 1: also destroy. That is sort of a fundamental nature of
17:43
Speaker 1: life on Earth as we know it. There's another image,
17:47
Speaker 1: just to give you an idea of how kind of
17:50
Speaker 1: widespread this imagery is. I know we've talked often on
17:55
Speaker 1: the podcast about the Hindu goddess Kali, She is also
18:00
Speaker 1: the creator and destroyer of life, and she can be
18:03
Speaker 1: very fearsome. And Sri Ramakrishna had a vision of her
18:10
Speaker 1: that I wanted to read. And I'm quoting here from
18:15
Speaker 1: The Hero with a Thousand Faces by James Campbell. One
18:20
Speaker 1: quiet afternoon, Ramakrishna beheld a beautiful woman ascend from the
18:24
Speaker 1: Ganges and approach the grove in which he was meditating.
18:28
Speaker 1: He perceived that she was about to give birth to
18:30
Speaker 1: a child. In a moment, the babe was born and
18:33
Speaker 1: she gently nursed it. Presently, however, she assumed a horrible aspect,
18:38
Speaker 1: took the infant in her now ugly jaws, and crushed it,
18:42
Speaker 1: chewed it. Swallowing, she returned again to the Ganges, where
18:47
Speaker 1: she disappeared. And that is taken from the Gospel of
18:51
Speaker 1: Sri Ramakrishna. To me, that is such a striking image.
18:57
Speaker 1: I remember the first time I read it, and it
19:00
Speaker 1: just really stayed with me. I mean, it's such a spare,
19:06
Speaker 1: very graphic image of, I think, the principle that we're
19:09
Speaker 1: talking about, that there's some archetypal force that both gives
19:16
Speaker 1: birth to life and can be nourishing and then can
19:19
Speaker 1: just as dispassionately turn around and swallow or devour life.
19:25
Speaker 3: There is that tension. between the generativity and also wanting
19:33
Speaker 3: to take life back in. That the same source that
19:39
Speaker 3: delivers it wants it back, that it's precious. And we
19:45
Speaker 3: want that kind of elemental, complex, wholeness, everything that I
19:55
Speaker 3: can put it out and I can take it back.
19:59
Speaker 3: I can deliver it and see it and see something objectively.
20:05
Speaker 3: And I also want my own wholeness back. back again.
20:10
Speaker 1: And when we think about how this principle works like
20:14
Speaker 1: out in the world.
20:15
Speaker 3: Yes.
20:17
Speaker 1: I mean, I think we can all think of examples
20:20
Speaker 1: where there's been something really generative in the world, you know,
20:24
Speaker 1: perhaps an organization, for example, you know, a new business
20:29
Speaker 1: that's been extraordinarily creative and has produced all this wonderful
20:35
Speaker 1: creative output. But then something sours at the top management
20:40
Speaker 1: and culture changes and it starts being a place where
20:46
Speaker 1: your most creative ideas are stolen or mocked. And it's
20:54
Speaker 1: like this thing that was so creative is now just,
20:58
Speaker 1: has gone from creatrix to the devourer. I mean, I
21:03
Speaker 1: think we all can kind of recognize dynamics in various
21:08
Speaker 1: places in our lives like that.
21:11
Speaker 3: So in a way, we're talking about an inevitable cycle.
21:16
Speaker 1: Yeah.
21:17
Speaker 3: Whether it's a biological life, crops, for example, human beings
21:24
Speaker 3: aging and dying, and organizations, the life cycle, psychologically speaking,
21:31
Speaker 3: of organizations and people of things peak and they're generative
21:38
Speaker 3: and then something else happens. And that's often experienced and
21:44
Speaker 3: imaged as something terrible, bad, isn't it a shame, it
21:48
Speaker 3: shouldn't be like this. The waxing is one thing and
21:53
Speaker 3: the waning is never welcome.
21:56
Speaker 1: Right, yeah. I like where you're going with that, Deb,
21:59
Speaker 1: because I think that if we look at it from
22:02
Speaker 1: a mythological perspective, It just looks like you said, it
22:07
Speaker 1: just looks like the inevitable next thing that's going to happen.
22:11
Speaker 1: And it feels terrible on the level of individual ego.
22:16
Speaker 1: But this is just part of the cycle. It doesn't
22:19
Speaker 1: feel good to be that baby being eaten, though.
22:23
Speaker 3: Well, I do want to really move toward... how this
22:31
Speaker 3: does get gendered and that there are patterns, as I
22:36
Speaker 3: have very wisely said, men are not women and women
22:44
Speaker 3: are not men. Everyone can write that down. And so
22:50
Speaker 3: we see these patterns happening. that are evident in daily
22:58
Speaker 3: life and in general, overall, historical and current cultural patterns.
23:08
Speaker 3: So here it is, as the archetypal realities kind of
23:15
Speaker 3: get funneled down into the things that we can see
23:20
Speaker 3: in terms of crops and organizations, and genders here on earth.
23:28
Speaker 1: And, you know, there are devouring fathers in mythology. There's
23:31
Speaker 1: quite a number of them. And that would make an
23:33
Speaker 1: interesting episode, too, because I do think that if we
23:36
Speaker 1: look at general patterns of, let's say, actual mothers and fathers,
23:42
Speaker 1: the devouring mother and the devouring father are going to
23:44
Speaker 1: look a little different and generally be motivated by different things.
23:48
Speaker 1: You know, Kronos eats his children because he doesn't want
23:52
Speaker 1: to be challenged by them.
23:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, he doesn't want to be supplanted.
23:57
Speaker 2: Right.
23:57
Speaker 3: He doesn't want to risk it.
23:59
Speaker 1: That's right. And so, you know, and that, again, interesting,
24:04
Speaker 1: interesting episode. We'll set that aside for the next one.
24:08
Speaker 1: The devouring mother looks a little different. Of course, the
24:11
Speaker 1: stuff about genders and what do we think of as
24:14
Speaker 1: masculine and what do we think of as feminine, it's
24:16
Speaker 1: all a little bit fungible. But I want to say
24:19
Speaker 1: that I think the devouring mother often looks really different
24:23
Speaker 1: than the deaf mother, even the negative mother, because the
24:26
Speaker 1: devouring mother might look very sweet and loving, but she's
24:32
Speaker 1: devouring in the sense that she doesn't want to release
24:36
Speaker 1: her offspring to the world. Now, having just seen my
24:41
Speaker 1: son graduate from college, I can really relate to this.
24:45
Speaker 1: You know, I am lining right up for the role
24:48
Speaker 1: of devouring mother because I'm delighted to have him back
24:52
Speaker 1: home and I never want him to leave. And I'm
24:54
Speaker 1: only kind of kidding, but I can really feel my
24:58
Speaker 1: way into, you know, and we've seen these people. I've
25:01
Speaker 1: had these people in my practice who are, you know,
25:04
Speaker 1: 35 years old and mom, usually mom has made it
25:09
Speaker 1: clear they are not allowed to leave. Well, I've certainly
25:12
Speaker 1: seen this in sort of recently immigrated Italian families where,
25:17
Speaker 1: you know, big, big Italian family, a bunch of kids,
25:19
Speaker 1: they're going to go off in the world. One child
25:21
Speaker 1: is kind of chosen to stay at home and care
25:24
Speaker 1: for mom and dad. And that is often enforced by
25:29
Speaker 1: mom who kind of makes it clear it's not okay
25:33
Speaker 1: to get married. It's not okay to have a profession.
25:36
Speaker 1: It's usually a daughter, you know, no, you're going to
25:39
Speaker 1: stay here and take care of us. Sometimes it's very explicit.
25:42
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's It happens more subtly. And sometimes it's quite subtle.
25:46
Speaker 1: If we have trouble launching, getting out in the world,
25:50
Speaker 1: finding a partner, getting a career, we can sometimes become
25:55
Speaker 1: aware that there's an unconscious bind, that it's clear that
26:00
Speaker 1: our parents, perhaps a mother, is expecting us not to
26:05
Speaker 1: go out into the world and fulfill our mission to
26:09
Speaker 1: become independent and live our own lives. because she wants
26:13
Speaker 1: to hold on to us, you know? And I think
26:17
Speaker 1: that's one way that that devouringness can manifest.
26:22
Speaker 3: You know, as you're facetiously saying, sort of, you know,
26:27
Speaker 3: I get it. You know, I'm the one that birthed you.
26:34
Speaker 1: How dare you leave me?
26:37
Speaker 3: You're mine. You're mine. I was pregnant, I birthed you,
26:41
Speaker 3: I raised you, I fed you, I did your laundry,
26:44
Speaker 3: I changed your diapers, and you're leaving? And that is
26:48
Speaker 3: very much an aspect of the devouring mother, that because
26:53
Speaker 3: I generated you, you belong to me. I created you.
27:00
Speaker 3: That possessiveness, I think, is probably the chief characteristic. of
27:10
Speaker 3: the devouring mother, of the control. And Linda Leonard, who
27:18
Speaker 3: is a colleague and a wonderful Jungian author to whom
27:24
Speaker 3: I can recommend everyone take a look at her works,
27:29
Speaker 3: wrote a book called Meeting the Madwoman. And She depicts
27:35
Speaker 3: a number of patterns that we can identify that can
27:42
Speaker 3: be mapped onto our concept this week of the devouring mother,
27:47
Speaker 3: such as the ice queen, the power-hungry, imperious woman who
27:54
Speaker 3: is very controlling and comes across as very superior. Thinking
28:00
Speaker 3: about Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, And the
28:06
Speaker 3: dragon lady who rules and exerts her power through rage
28:13
Speaker 3: and makes everybody scared to death of her. But then
28:17
Speaker 3: there are also, as you just touched on recently, Lisa,
28:20
Speaker 3: there's the saint, the very, very good woman who is
28:24
Speaker 3: always very, very nice and wants everyone to be proper,
28:28
Speaker 3: well-behaved and compliant. There's the sick mother. the tyranny of
28:35
Speaker 3: the weak. We can't leave because mom needs our help.
28:41
Speaker 3: Mom can't do these various things. Then there's the woman
28:45
Speaker 3: who herself has not been fulfilled and has not been
28:49
Speaker 3: able to get out in the world, who is, as
28:53
Speaker 3: Leonard calls it, a caged bird, who doesn't want her
28:57
Speaker 3: birds to fly away either. And then there are mothers
29:02
Speaker 3: that are envious or rejected and can wreak havoc and
29:08
Speaker 3: revenge upon their children. There are many ways, many flavors
29:15
Speaker 3: of how the mother seeks to reabsorb her child to
29:21
Speaker 3: control and manage that we are fitting into the metaphor
29:28
Speaker 3: of the devouring mothers. From a psychological point of view.
29:34
Speaker 3: And as you pointed out, it's not only a mother.
29:38
Speaker 3: Kronos devoured all of his children in Greek myth, but
29:43
Speaker 3: it somehow fits much more archetypally with the images such
29:50
Speaker 3: as Kali and Sedna and the Aztec goddess.
29:56
Speaker 1: Well, You know, the interesting thing is that the ultimate
30:00
Speaker 1: devouring mother is death. Death is the devouring mother that
30:05
Speaker 1: waits for us all. And so I think that mythologically, symbolically,
30:12
Speaker 1: the image of the devouring mother and devouring father are
30:17
Speaker 1: different in kind. The devouring father is not unimportant, but
30:23
Speaker 1: it doesn't have that same, it's more about that kind
30:26
Speaker 1: of competition. And parents can devour kids that way. You know,
30:31
Speaker 1: just rip the kid down. You will not compete with me.
30:35
Speaker 1: I will destroy you before you can challenge me. You know, again,
30:40
Speaker 1: not explicitly, but that's what's kind of happening versus this
30:46
Speaker 1: very large kind of almost cosmologic truth that we're positing
30:51
Speaker 1: that can be in the background with some of these
30:54
Speaker 1: other things. I want to just bring up another way
30:57
Speaker 1: that it can kind of look in someone's life. And
30:59
Speaker 1: I think, unfortunately, it's kind of relevant these days, is
31:03
Speaker 1: I think of the very, very anxious mother and how
31:06
Speaker 1: that can be a kind of devouring as well. And
31:10
Speaker 1: mothers these days are so anxious about so many things. And,
31:13
Speaker 1: you know, me too, right? So I'm not saying this
31:17
Speaker 1: with any disparagement. I'm kind of living this, which is
31:21
Speaker 1: why I'm why I think I want to talk about
31:23
Speaker 1: it a little bit. You know, you're very anxious when
31:25
Speaker 1: your kids are little that they're eating the right things
31:29
Speaker 1: and having the right experiences or you're anxious that they're not,
31:34
Speaker 1: you know, don't have good social skills or as they
31:37
Speaker 1: grow up, you're anxious that they're not going to get
31:39
Speaker 1: on the right travel baseball team or you're anxious that
31:43
Speaker 1: they're not going to go to college or you're anxious.
31:45
Speaker 1: You know, so there's all this anxiety. And what I've
31:47
Speaker 1: realized is, gosh, it's hard because I think that when
31:51
Speaker 1: our kids are a certain age, our anxiety can and
31:55
Speaker 1: perhaps should guide certain decisions. If you're anxious that your
31:59
Speaker 1: kid is eating too many nitrates, it might, you know,
32:03
Speaker 1: motivate you to buy the, you know, organic version of
32:07
Speaker 1: hot dogs or whatever it is. But as they get older,
32:12
Speaker 1: our anxiety becomes their We often freight them with our anxiety.
32:20
Speaker 1: And I know we do this all the time in
32:24
Speaker 1: little ways. You know, it's like if a kid is
32:29
Speaker 1: going off on a big adventure and our response isn't,
32:35
Speaker 1: that's great, I hope you have a great time. But
32:37
Speaker 1: we say, wait a minute, wait a minute, let me
32:38
Speaker 1: get that thing off your shirt. You know, just those
32:42
Speaker 1: little ways that we communicate, I'm worried about you. And
32:46
Speaker 1: sometimes we say it very explicitly, you know, I'm worried
32:49
Speaker 1: that if you don't do this, this won't happen. And
32:51
Speaker 1: of course, that usually doesn't help and doesn't feel good.
32:56
Speaker 1: I have done it many times. But I guess as
33:00
Speaker 1: I now have young adult kids, I try to be
33:03
Speaker 1: aware of what is my anxiety doing? How am I
33:09
Speaker 1: acting from it, even if I don't say it, because
33:11
Speaker 1: I do try not to say it these days. But
33:15
Speaker 1: even so, how is my anxiety put on my kids
33:19
Speaker 1: and how is that kind of devouring their life energy
33:24
Speaker 1: as they try to move out into the world?
33:26
Speaker 3: I think your point is really well taken, Lisa. It's
33:31
Speaker 3: really the feeling tone that gets communicated, which is it's
33:39
Speaker 3: not safe out there. You better watch out.
33:42
Speaker 1: I don't trust you.
33:43
Speaker 3: I don't trust the world. You better stay close. Sometimes
33:49
Speaker 3: the supervision, the adult supervision of the chaperones or the
33:53
Speaker 3: coaches isn't really good enough. Watch out. All these various things,
33:59
Speaker 3: it is instilling a kind of fear that can be
34:04
Speaker 3: very inhibiting, which is very different from the mom who says,
34:09
Speaker 3: you know, This is it. It's bedtime. Period. The end.
34:16
Speaker 3: Now get up there and brush your teeth, get into
34:20
Speaker 3: your pajamas and go to bed. Which it has, in
34:24
Speaker 3: a certain sense, it delivered correctly. Again, it's all about
34:28
Speaker 3: the undertones of get into life, be responsible, get enough
34:34
Speaker 3: sleep and don't be scrolling on your phone. The phone
34:38
Speaker 3: stays down here. You go up there. So it's really
34:41
Speaker 3: that question of whether the anxiety, even the anger, the directiveness,
34:50
Speaker 3: is coming from a place of encouraging development and healthy
34:58
Speaker 3: behavior when kids can't always make those decisions or have
35:02
Speaker 3: the self-discipline to do it themselves, or if the undertone
35:08
Speaker 3: is one of I'm scared when you go out there
35:11
Speaker 3: into the world. Right.
35:13
Speaker 1: Well, the other thing about I'm scared when you go
35:16
Speaker 1: out there or I'm scared, you know, that you won't
35:20
Speaker 1: hit the mark, which is another kind of parental anxiety,
35:25
Speaker 1: is that, and this is where the kind of family
35:28
Speaker 1: systems people talk about enmeshment, okay? But I think it's
35:33
Speaker 1: very real and something I'm familiar with. is I need
35:38
Speaker 1: you to reassure me that you will be okay so
35:42
Speaker 1: I can feel comfortable. You know, it has been a
35:46
Speaker 1: little piece of psychological work on my own part to
35:49
Speaker 1: recognize that that is not my children's job. But I
35:53
Speaker 1: want them to be okay so that I don't have
35:56
Speaker 1: to worry. And that kind of motivates my, that's like
36:01
Speaker 1: the object of my anxiety a lot of the time,
36:04
Speaker 1: which is, a little effed up. But I think we
36:08
Speaker 1: as parents just kind of can default there very easily.
36:12
Speaker 1: And we have to remember, like, I have to just,
36:14
Speaker 1: I have to release them to their fate. And it's
36:17
Speaker 1: not my fate. And it's not their job to make
36:20
Speaker 1: me feel comfortable. I don't like feeling uncomfortable. And I do.
36:26
Speaker 1: You know, I think all parents worry about their kids.
36:30
Speaker 1: You know, I remember actually being at And in a
36:35
Speaker 1: regional meeting once and being there with an older colleague
36:39
Speaker 1: and I don't know, she was like a full generation
36:42
Speaker 1: above me. And I think she was texting or calling
36:45
Speaker 1: as we waited for some shuttle bus or something with her,
36:49
Speaker 1: you know, like sort of middle-aged adult child. And I
36:53
Speaker 1: could hear the worry or problem solving or something. She
36:56
Speaker 1: got off the phone. I said, my kids at this
36:58
Speaker 1: point were young. I said, oh my God. you mean
37:01
Speaker 1: you never stop worrying? And she said, no, you don't
37:04
Speaker 1: ever stop worrying. And I was like, oh my God,
37:07
Speaker 1: no one told me that. Don't worry, it's not for this.
37:09
Speaker 1: So it's natural to worry. And then it's sort of
37:13
Speaker 1: like our responsibility to do, you know, it's our responsibility
37:18
Speaker 1: to deal with that because otherwise saddling our children with
37:23
Speaker 1: a responsibility for our anxiety drains their energy. And that's
37:29
Speaker 1: where it fits in with this devouring paradigm.
37:33
Speaker 3: And furthermore, it takes on the guise of wanting my
37:40
Speaker 3: child to be safe. So if I deliver all these
37:43
Speaker 3: warnings and caveats and preparations and let's check everything, it
37:51
Speaker 3: comes across as loving unless we can be really honest
37:56
Speaker 3: with ourselves and Versus I am anxious about you leaving
38:05
Speaker 3: for a summer trekking trip or any one of hundreds
38:09
Speaker 3: of other things. I am anxious. And that's what I'm communicating.
38:15
Speaker 3: The world is not safe. And I want you to
38:19
Speaker 3: stay close to me and not go out there.
38:25
Speaker 1: So the thing about the devouring mother, as we've been
38:27
Speaker 1: talking about her, is what that actually might look like
38:29
Speaker 1: in a kind of mother-child relationship is it often looks like,
38:33
Speaker 1: like you said, Deb, I love you. I love you
38:37
Speaker 1: so much. But it can feel like, I just want
38:45
Speaker 1: to take you in.
38:46
Speaker 3: I'm going to smother you. I'm going to wrap you
38:50
Speaker 3: in my big maternal wings. I will supervise you going
38:55
Speaker 3: out into the world. I'll check and double-check everything. You know,
38:59
Speaker 3: there's a little nursery rhyme, James, James, Morrison, Morrison, whether
39:05
Speaker 3: it be George Dupree, took great care of his mother,
39:08
Speaker 3: although he was only three. And then she says, you
39:13
Speaker 3: must never go down to the end of the town
39:15
Speaker 3: unless you go down with me. So, The nursery rhyme
39:20
Speaker 3: has it right. He took great care of his mother,
39:25
Speaker 3: helping her manage her anxiety.
39:27
Speaker 1: Right. You know, we do... see it also in this
39:32
Speaker 1: theme in fairy tales. I mean, if you think about
39:35
Speaker 1: the witch and Hansel and Gretel, who wants to eat
39:38
Speaker 1: the children. You know, she's an elemental force that wants
39:43
Speaker 1: to take back this life energy.
39:45
Speaker 3: But Lisa, don't we all want to eat our children?
39:48
Speaker 1: Exactly. So there's something called cuteness aggression. Oh, yes.
39:53
Speaker 3: I was going to say, what mother out there has
39:57
Speaker 3: not said to her baby, oh, my God, you're so yummy.
40:02
Speaker 3: I'm just going to eat you up. I'm going to gobble, gobble, gobble.
40:05
Speaker 3: I'm eating you.
40:06
Speaker 1: I'm going to eat you all up.
40:08
Speaker 3: Cuteness aggression.
40:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's called cuteness aggression. And we do. We have
40:12
Speaker 1: an impulse to want to bite into something that's really adorable,
40:16
Speaker 1: like it's a kitten or a baby. And yeah, I
40:20
Speaker 1: think that's a pretty common, you know, that's why there's
40:24
Speaker 1: this little nursery rhymes about I'm going to eat your
40:26
Speaker 1: little toes. And you do. You just want to eat
40:31
Speaker 1: them because they're just that cute. But isn't that interesting?
40:35
Speaker 1: Because if you could eat them, you could sort of
40:37
Speaker 1: keep them from changing in some sense. You could incorporate
40:41
Speaker 1: them and keep them safe. And they would stay that little,
40:46
Speaker 1: little baby. You know, in some sense, that's it. They
40:50
Speaker 1: wouldn't grow and develop.
40:52
Speaker 3: I have to say this idea is growing on me.
40:57
Speaker 3: But actually, that's exactly right of don't change. I'm finding
41:03
Speaker 3: this so satisfying and so delightful. And the whole trajectory
41:11
Speaker 3: of childhood is about separating. And how dare they? How
41:17
Speaker 3: dare they? especially when they become teenagers. You know, and
41:24
Speaker 3: they just do all kinds of things. So it is
41:29
Speaker 3: a difficult dynamic. And the shadow side is keeping close.
41:36
Speaker 3: You belong to me, which is also devouring the life
41:43
Speaker 3: of a child, teenager, young adult. the woman who stays home,
41:50
Speaker 3: the woman who succumbs to, you don't need to go
41:53
Speaker 3: out there. Stay here and be mom's best friend.
42:00
Speaker 1: Right. I'm totally okay with that, by the way, I
42:02
Speaker 1: just want to say. No, I'm just kidding. But I mean,
42:06
Speaker 1: there's a part of me that would be totally okay
42:08
Speaker 1: with it. But that would be the wrong thing. But,
42:11
Speaker 1: you know, so here's another version of a devouring mother,
42:14
Speaker 1: I think. The devouring mother who is very, very big.
42:20
Speaker 1: Maybe she's very beautiful. Maybe she's had a very big career.
42:26
Speaker 1: She's admired. She has a big audience. She's used to
42:30
Speaker 1: having a big audience. And here comes often a daughter
42:33
Speaker 1: who is going to supplant her beauty or her accomplishments.
42:38
Speaker 1: And the devouring mother is kind of going to repress
42:42
Speaker 1: that growth, repress her daughter's Her daughter's blossoming because she
42:50
Speaker 1: wants to take up all the sun. I think that's
42:53
Speaker 1: maybe a different kind of.
42:55
Speaker 3: Are you talking about Snow White?
42:57
Speaker 1: Could be. That could be a version of a devouring mother.
43:01
Speaker 3: The queen who could not bear for Snow White to
43:06
Speaker 3: be the fairest of them all. and to be supplanted. But,
43:13
Speaker 3: you know, that's a way of imaging don't be as
43:17
Speaker 3: successful or popular or any one of a number of
43:24
Speaker 3: other things. I need to be in the superior position.
43:31
Speaker 3: And your blossoming is threatening to some mothers.
43:38
Speaker 1: And if I recall, I think that in Snow White,
43:43
Speaker 1: the evil queen instructs the woodman to take Snow White
43:45
Speaker 1: into the forest and kill her and bring her back
43:47
Speaker 1: her heart. And if I'm not mistaken, and I should
43:51
Speaker 1: probably run check this, but I think that he kills,
43:55
Speaker 1: instead he kills a deer and he brings back the
43:57
Speaker 1: heart of the deer. I think she eats the heart
43:59
Speaker 1: of the deer, thinking that it's Snow White's heart. So
44:03
Speaker 1: there literally is some imagery of eating, devouring. And interestingly,
44:08
Speaker 1: it's the heart, which is what was required in the
44:12
Speaker 1: sacrifices to Talal Takutling. So again, deeply archetypal imagery, this
44:20
Speaker 1: that we're talking about that recurs in all of these
44:22
Speaker 1: different motifs from around the world and at different times.
44:27
Speaker 3: It seems to me, thinking of these examples and the
44:34
Speaker 3: examples of ways that mothers can be controlling, devouring, that
44:42
Speaker 3: it really has to do with when children become older,
44:48
Speaker 3: teens and young adults, and separate and leave home, and worse,
44:54
Speaker 3: they become different people from their parents. And that that
45:00
Speaker 3: is the part that instigates the devouring, controlling, manipulative aspects
45:10
Speaker 3: of motherhood. As long as we are needed, as long
45:14
Speaker 3: as our kids are young, as long as we can
45:17
Speaker 3: help them pick out their clothes and drive them places
45:23
Speaker 3: and tell them right from wrong, things are okay. But
45:27
Speaker 3: when It is like Snow White. When they go their
45:33
Speaker 3: own way, when they supplant us, they're different from us.
45:39
Speaker 3: That is when the pull come back to my values,
45:44
Speaker 3: my supremacy as a parent starts to get triggered.
45:49
Speaker 1: So a good example of this phenomenon is in the
45:53
Speaker 1: film The Black Swan by Darren Aronofsky. And the mother,
45:59
Speaker 1: I believe, is played by Barbara Hershey and the daughter
46:01
Speaker 1: by Natalie Portman. And Natalie Portman is this up-and-coming ballet dancer.
46:05
Speaker 1: And her mother was a ballet dancer but then got
46:09
Speaker 1: pregnant and had her daughter instead. And the mother is
46:13
Speaker 1: just obsessed with the daughter. She's always painting these different
46:16
Speaker 1: versions of her daughter. She infantilizes the daughter. She makes
46:20
Speaker 1: her food. She clips her nails.
46:22
Speaker 3: She.
46:23
Speaker 1: packs her bag every day before she goes off to rehearsal.
46:27
Speaker 1: And she's very, very controlling about who the daughter sees
46:30
Speaker 1: and what the daughter does. And as Nina, the character
46:35
Speaker 1: played by Natalie Portman, begins to kind of push boundaries
46:39
Speaker 1: a little bit and experiment in some new ways with
46:42
Speaker 1: some new things, the mother just gets enraged. She doesn't
46:46
Speaker 1: want her daughter to supplant her. She appears to be
46:51
Speaker 1: supportive of her daughter's aspirations to become a principal dancer.
46:56
Speaker 1: But at the same time, she undermines her and kind
46:59
Speaker 1: of says these little jabs to weaken her confidence and say, well,
47:03
Speaker 1: you probably won't make it. And I interpret that to
47:06
Speaker 1: be that the mother doesn't, you know, the mother never
47:08
Speaker 1: left the core, but Nina's on her way up as
47:12
Speaker 1: a principal dancer. And the mother doesn't like that. You know,
47:16
Speaker 1: she wants to, like you were saying, Deb, kind of
47:18
Speaker 1: keep Nina under her thumb, not be supplanted by her
47:22
Speaker 1: not sort of cede the territory to her daughter. But
47:27
Speaker 1: at the same time, it looks like she's very, very,
47:30
Speaker 1: very loving and attentive. So I think that that film
47:33
Speaker 1: is actually, it's a great image of a devouring mother. Yeah.
47:36
Speaker 3: And it's also called Envy, that the mothers, and this
47:41
Speaker 3: is straight out of Jung, about parents not wanting their
47:47
Speaker 3: children to live their own unlived lives. that mother had
47:53
Speaker 3: a baby instead of developing her career. And she's both
48:00
Speaker 3: ambivalent about the Natalie Portman figure of, yes, yes, you
48:05
Speaker 3: will live my unlived life, but your life also will
48:10
Speaker 3: be cut short as indeed it eventually turns out it is.
48:16
Speaker 3: So that That envy of the young, blossoming young man
48:23
Speaker 3: bursting into his own hero's journey and getting out in
48:28
Speaker 3: the world, a daughter who looks lovely and is up
48:33
Speaker 3: for life, that triggers a lot of feelings unless the
48:40
Speaker 3: mother has developed her own self and her own life
48:45
Speaker 3: and can enjoy seeing her young, blossoming children get out
48:52
Speaker 3: into the world. There can be that pull back.
48:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that on every level, so on the
48:58
Speaker 1: level of mother-child, on the level of individual consciousness, and
49:03
Speaker 1: even on the sort of level of the species, and
49:07
Speaker 1: the level of kind of life and death, there's always,
49:10
Speaker 1: as you said, Deb, the pull back. We have to
49:14
Speaker 1: sort of strive against this pull to go back in
49:20
Speaker 1: into the kind of matrix of creation, which of course
49:25
Speaker 1: is regenerative. That's why we wake up in the morning
49:27
Speaker 1: and we feel rested. It's generative to return to the womb,
49:33
Speaker 1: but it can also be a tomb. It's a womb
49:36
Speaker 1: and a tomb. Those things are different aspects of each other.
49:40
Speaker 3: I'm just reflecting on, you know, what it's like to
49:47
Speaker 3: have been the mother of young people getting out into
49:52
Speaker 3: the world. And some of the opportunities that I wanted
49:58
Speaker 3: my kids to have that I didn't have, and I
50:01
Speaker 3: wanted them to have those opportunities. And I could feel
50:07
Speaker 3: my own My envy, too, of I wish, you know,
50:12
Speaker 3: I didn't have that. I wish I could have had that.
50:16
Speaker 3: I wish I could have done that. My goodness. And
50:19
Speaker 3: now grandchildren and my granddaughter is one of them is
50:25
Speaker 3: graduating from the most wonderful school in the entire world
50:31
Speaker 3: of the stuff they do that is so, so inspiring
50:36
Speaker 3: and really nurtures creativity and curiosity with real attention to
50:45
Speaker 3: doing a good job and the mentoring necessary. I get
50:50
Speaker 3: the envy. I'm not as far away from Snow White's
50:55
Speaker 3: stepmother as I'd like to think. As you know, I'm
51:00
Speaker 3: well into the second half of life. There's a reality
51:04
Speaker 3: of one's own energies, directions, life force goes in a
51:10
Speaker 3: different direction. And it's hard to watch the trajectory of
51:17
Speaker 3: the blossoming, knowing that you're in a different stage of life.
51:25
Speaker 3: And so I'm beginning to get these patterns of the
51:29
Speaker 3: devouring mother in all those shades of That, as you
51:35
Speaker 3: said before, we are headed more toward the end of
51:40
Speaker 3: life and it can go down hard. So I will
51:45
Speaker 3: take that life and I will ingest it and then
51:50
Speaker 3: I will have it back. Now, of course, that's not true,
51:55
Speaker 3: but one can at least relate to the impulse.
52:00
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Definitely. So while you and I try our best
52:07
Speaker 1: not to be devouring mothers, is it a good time
52:11
Speaker 1: to look at a dream? Yes, it is.
52:13
Speaker 3: But I also, before we go, I made this list
52:18
Speaker 3: of fairy tales.
52:19
Speaker 1: Okay.
52:20
Speaker 3: That I often say, you know, these are our psychic bones.
52:25
Speaker 3: They wouldn't have lasted for thousands and thousands of years.
52:30
Speaker 3: and been ubiquitous everywhere in the world if there weren't
52:35
Speaker 3: real truths to them. And in the original Grimm's Tales,
52:41
Speaker 3: it was about the mother, and the Grimm's brothers thought
52:44
Speaker 3: that was so horrifying, they changed it to stepmother. But
52:48
Speaker 3: we can think of millions or many examples of stepmothers
52:54
Speaker 3: who are mothers, who have been difficult, unwitting, unwise, destructive,
53:04
Speaker 3: and how important it is, and the fairy tales always
53:07
Speaker 3: image it, that the young woman frees herself and claims
53:14
Speaker 3: her life. Mm-hmm. So these are, again, another way of
53:19
Speaker 3: saying these are the archetypal realities of whom Snow White's
53:24
Speaker 3: stepmother is just one. And these tales, these archetypal encouragements are,
53:34
Speaker 3: go ahead, go for it. Get out of there.
53:38
Speaker 1: Figure it out.
53:38
Speaker 3: You can do it. And I love that every one
53:42
Speaker 3: of these fairy tales ends with happily ever after. and
53:47
Speaker 3: hope it will be so.
53:50
Speaker 1: Amen.
54:03
Speaker 3: Today's dream is a 43-year-old woman who's a university lecturer,
54:09
Speaker 3: and she has entitled her dream, Planets Aligned. I'm in
54:16
Speaker 3: a small spaceship with my husband and son. I look out.
54:21
Speaker 3: It's very dark, but I can see the planets. They
54:25
Speaker 3: are aligned and look colorful and glowing and beautiful. Inside
54:30
Speaker 3: the spaceship, it feels like it's normal gravity like here
54:34
Speaker 3: on Earth. We wonder if we could go outside for
54:37
Speaker 3: a while to feel the weightlessness, but realize there won't
54:41
Speaker 3: be oxygen and it'll be too cold. We land back
54:46
Speaker 3: on Earth like a plane landing at the airport. It's dark,
54:50
Speaker 3: but I can see the bright lights of the city
54:53
Speaker 3: and the airport. For context, she says, I had this
54:58
Speaker 3: dream recently. I feel I've gone through big changes mentally
55:04
Speaker 3: in recent years, that I've entered a new phase of life.
55:08
Speaker 3: Listening to your podcast and doing some dream work and
55:11
Speaker 3: reading Jung has played a part in this. There have
55:15
Speaker 3: also been big changes in my life in recent years.
55:19
Speaker 3: We moved abroad a couple of years ago, but plan
55:22
Speaker 3: to move back to our home country. My career is
55:26
Speaker 3: going well, but I might want to do something else
55:29
Speaker 3: when we move back. I'm thinking about big questions all
55:33
Speaker 3: the time about what is going on in the world,
55:35
Speaker 3: how to live, what to do with my life. The
55:39
Speaker 3: main feelings in the dream were excitement and wonder about
55:44
Speaker 3: being in space and seeing the planets. Some worry about
55:48
Speaker 3: opening the door to try to go outside. It felt
55:51
Speaker 3: reassuring to come back on Earth. And for association, she says,
55:57
Speaker 3: my husband and son, love and steadiness. Space. I've always
56:03
Speaker 3: loved wondering about space and the universe, what's out there,
56:06
Speaker 3: how it's so vast and unknown. I'm amazed that people
56:11
Speaker 3: have actually gone to space. Spaceship, the most recent amazing
56:17
Speaker 3: Artemis mission comes to mind. And for planets, no special associations.
56:23
Speaker 1: I mean, it's such a lovely dream, right?
56:28
Speaker 3: Yeah.
56:30
Speaker 1: But one of the immediate associations that's clearly embedded in
56:35
Speaker 1: this dream that the dreamer did not mention is astrology.
56:39
Speaker 1: Because in astrology, you talk about the planets being aligned.
56:44
Speaker 1: And that is a special moment where everything is propitious.
56:49
Speaker 1: That somehow the cosmos has lined up with your intention
56:55
Speaker 1: or the events in your life in some way. You know,
56:59
Speaker 1: one of the interesting things about astrology is it is
57:02
Speaker 1: a symbol system that connects the cosmological with the personal.
57:07
Speaker 1: so that the moment of our birth, the position that
57:12
Speaker 1: the stars are in at the moment of our birth
57:15
Speaker 1: affects us. And it's this wonderful kind of system of
57:19
Speaker 1: correspondences between what is right here and what is above.
57:24
Speaker 1: So in a way, it's kind of a worldview, astrology,
57:28
Speaker 1: that we are part of this vast universe and are
57:33
Speaker 1: intimately attached affected by it in a kind of day-to-day way.
57:37
Speaker 1: So the moment that the planets are aligned is a
57:42
Speaker 1: very special moment. And it means, again, to try to
57:48
Speaker 1: put it in a resonant way, that the forces in
57:52
Speaker 1: the universe have aligned with our deepest needs, let's say.
58:01
Speaker 1: So it's quite an image.
58:05
Speaker 3: Yeah. I'm back on just the lovely feeling of the dream,
58:13
Speaker 3: which fits beautifully with just, you know, what you've said about,
58:17
Speaker 3: you know, her internal metaphorical planets are aligned. And it's
58:23
Speaker 3: a wonderful moment when everything seems to have... And order.
58:30
Speaker 3: And it's so beautiful. I'm also thinking about what would
58:35
Speaker 3: it mean to be in a small spaceship with husband
58:39
Speaker 3: and son and the container aspect of it. Here is
58:45
Speaker 3: the safe space. Here is the container.
58:50
Speaker 1: Yes.
58:52
Speaker 3: And how important containers are. It's such a secure feeling.
58:57
Speaker 3: And of course, you know, when we're pregnant, we have
59:00
Speaker 3: a container where something is growing and it's safe. So
59:06
Speaker 3: I love the idea of the container that can go out. out,
59:11
Speaker 3: that can go out into the far beyond, that can
59:14
Speaker 3: range far and wide. So it combines both the travel
59:20
Speaker 3: and the magic with the safety. And in the dream,
59:25
Speaker 3: they realize, that know that they can't go outside and
59:32
Speaker 3: feel the weightlessness and the terrible cold. And then they
59:37
Speaker 3: come back. So it's a little mini version, in a way,
59:43
Speaker 3: of kind of a hero's journey with the family, with
59:46
Speaker 3: the husband and the son, of we all go way
59:49
Speaker 3: out there. We see this magical thing of all these
59:53
Speaker 3: glowing planets all lined up. We stay safe. We don't
59:58
Speaker 3: push it, and then we come back, and it feels
1:00:01
Speaker 3: just like a plane landing back on Earth. The feeling
1:00:08
Speaker 3: is a very special, settled feeling, and we often say
1:00:15
Speaker 3: in dreams, then that's real. Then take that. The dream
1:00:22
Speaker 3: maker is telling you you're safe. You're close. You can
1:00:30
Speaker 3: travel far and wide, and our dreamer has been traveling abroad,
1:00:35
Speaker 3: and come safely back. It's a wonderful thing to be
1:00:39
Speaker 3: able to go and to return.
1:00:41
Speaker 1: And I think I want to kind of build on that, too,
1:00:45
Speaker 1: because this image of seeing these glowing planets that are
1:00:49
Speaker 1: all aligned, it is a numinous image. I mean, this is,
1:00:54
Speaker 1: in some sense, it's a big dream. But as per
1:00:57
Speaker 1: your point, Deb, you know, mythology teaches us that we
1:01:01
Speaker 1: cannot be in the unmediated presence of the God and
1:01:07
Speaker 1: be safe, that we will be killed. You know, there's
1:01:10
Speaker 1: in Greek mythology, one of Zeus's consorts begs him to
1:01:15
Speaker 1: let her see him in his unmediated form. And he
1:01:20
Speaker 1: finally accedes. And when she sees him, she is incinerated.
1:01:24
Speaker 1: And it speaks to the danger of the archetypal forces,
1:01:28
Speaker 1: how powerful they are and how they can incinerate us.
1:01:33
Speaker 1: They can be very dangerous, unmediated archetypal energy. So I
1:01:38
Speaker 1: really appreciate what you're saying about there's this container. They
1:01:42
Speaker 1: think about going out and then they're like, no, maybe
1:01:46
Speaker 1: that's not a good idea. And I love that. It's like, oh,
1:01:48
Speaker 1: there wouldn't be any gravity and it would be really cold.
1:01:50
Speaker 1: I mean, I think like space is like, super, super,
1:01:53
Speaker 1: super cold, right? I mean, it's not just like, oh,
1:01:55
Speaker 1: it's chilly and I should bring a parka. So it's
1:01:59
Speaker 1: incredibly hostile to life as far as I know. So
1:02:05
Speaker 1: wise decision not to open the hatch. She stays in
1:02:10
Speaker 1: this container and then is able, like you said, to return.
1:02:13
Speaker 1: And this is very, very important and positive to be
1:02:19
Speaker 1: able to have access two archetypal forces in a way
1:02:24
Speaker 1: where we remain in a kind of safely contained state
1:02:29
Speaker 1: and then can then return to Earth. You know, some
1:02:31
Speaker 1: people experiment with having access to these forces, say, by
1:02:35
Speaker 1: using substances, and it can be incredibly exhilarating and wonderful.
1:02:41
Speaker 1: If you can't bring it back down to Earth, it
1:02:43
Speaker 1: didn't do you any good. So the fact that she's
1:02:46
Speaker 1: able to go up there and come back feels really
1:02:48
Speaker 1: positive to me, especially given the context of maybe I'm
1:02:52
Speaker 1: going to do something else. I can really see in
1:02:56
Speaker 1: the dream what she says about she's been thinking about
1:02:59
Speaker 1: big things, about what is the nature of life? What
1:03:03
Speaker 1: is this world? How does she live in it? Because
1:03:06
Speaker 1: in some sense, that's an image of the planets aligned.
1:03:10
Speaker 1: I mean, she's been granted, I want to say, a
1:03:13
Speaker 1: vision of sort of cosmological order. And it's very positive
1:03:20
Speaker 1: that she can go and have that vision and then
1:03:23
Speaker 1: come back. Because that is, you know, that's what the
1:03:26
Speaker 1: hero does, right? Is he goes and encounters these archetypal
1:03:30
Speaker 1: forces and then is able to kind of bring them back.
1:03:34
Speaker 3: Yeah. The going forth and the return are really important.
1:03:40
Speaker 3: And I would add, You know, one of the pithy
1:03:43
Speaker 3: sentences in Jung's memoir, not that it's only there, is
1:03:47
Speaker 3: that one of our tasks is to find a relationship
1:03:51
Speaker 3: with the infinite.
1:03:52
Speaker 1: Yes.
1:03:53
Speaker 3: And in this dream, you know, this is a wonderful
1:03:57
Speaker 3: depiction of that, that she can go out and find
1:04:01
Speaker 3: a place and feel her place in the cosmic order.
1:04:05
Speaker 3: And it's very beautiful. Yes. And things are aligned. There's harmony.
1:04:13
Speaker 3: It's a real kind of a blessing. And then come
1:04:16
Speaker 3: back to the more sort of finite life on Earth,
1:04:21
Speaker 3: but now set in this context of cosmic beauty and order.
1:04:29
Speaker 3: It's A lovely, lovely dream. And her listening to our podcast,
1:04:37
Speaker 3: I'm really honored that we could be a part of
1:04:41
Speaker 3: this journey and ready to make a change in career,
1:04:47
Speaker 3: I would certainly imagine.
1:04:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we wish her well. Thanks for listening. To
1:04:56
Speaker 1: submit a dream, suggest an episode topic, or join our
1:04:59
Speaker 1: mailing list, visit our website, thisunionlife.com. If you enjoyed this episode,
1:05:05
Speaker 1: give us five stars and a good review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
1:05:09
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe to our YouTube
1:05:13
Speaker 1: channel and make sure to click the notification bell to
1:05:15
Speaker 1: be alerted whenever we upload videos. And keep up with
1:05:19
Speaker 1: all things TJL by following us on Instagram, Facebook, X,
1:05:23
Speaker 1: and TikTok.