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Prayer and the Psyche: A Jungian Exploration · This Jungian Life Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: C.S.
• 0:00
  Speaker 2: Lewis is sitting in his study with his other friends
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: who are also Cambridge and Oxford Dons, and Harry, the minister,
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: says to Lewis, Jack, I know how hard you've been praying,
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: and now God is answering your prayers. The playwright has
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Lewis answer, that's not why I pray, Harry. I pray
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: I pray because the need flows out of me, waking
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: and sleeping. It doesn't change God. It changes me.
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• 1:12
  Speaker 4: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst in Cape Cod. Today,
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: we are going to talk about prayer, and I will
• 1:33
  Speaker 4: say a little bit more about that. But the first
• 1:37
  Speaker 4: priority is to introduce Bob Shevely, who is a delight
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: to have. It's really such a homecoming to have you here, Bob,
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: because Bob and Lisa and I, way back shortly after
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: World War I, When we started training, all trained together
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: in Philadelphia and with interregional. And the kind of camaraderie
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: and depth of connection is, you know, sort of impossible
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: to explain. But I'm sure most of you have had
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: bonds that are similar to this. Bob is now living
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: in Portugal. He's lived in Germany. He's worked at Walter Reed.
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: He has run a whole practice in Washington, D.C. He
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: is certainly a man of many talents, lots of life experience,
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: and a really very, very big, big heart.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: And an organist.
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: And an organist, yes.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: You got it, Lisa.
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: Here we certainly have Bob's a Renaissance man. And he is,
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: you know, has also been steeped in Christian traditions and
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: spirituality and is in every possible way absolutely perfect for
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: our topic today, which is ages old, practiced around the
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: world from time immemorial. And we are going to circumambulate prayer, which,
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: according to one survey, something like 97% of Americans say
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: that they pray at least once a week. It goes
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: on all over the world as private devotional practice and
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: certainly in religious institutions. There are rituals, rites. holidays, songs, words, silence.
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: It takes on all kinds of nuances, is expressed in
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: all kinds of ways. We will also try to take
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: a look at how or if it differentiates from something
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: like active imagination, ritual, meditation, and last but hardly least,
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: How does this fit into Jung's ideas about the dynamic
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: between the self and an individual human? So, here we go.
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: Let's jump in.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: Deb, thanks for that introduction. Oh, you hit the nail
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: on the head when you talked about the heart connection
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: that we share, that wonderful Jungian concept of eros, which
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: is heart connection. .
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: We were
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: just trying to nail it down.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: And I think we got it. Bob and I got
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: into training the same year. And that very first wonderful
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: year of training that I have so many fond memories
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: of was the three of us.
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: And I had gotten in a year before you guys did.
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: And then you guys went ahead and graduated before me.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Well, it's a winding path. It certainly is.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: And not one that is necessarily directed by the ego,
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: although we wish it were.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, very much. So, Bob, you had started off with
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: this really great quote from this wonderful book that you found.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: I wonder if that would be a good sort of
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: start us off there. Sure.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: I was really, when you had asked me to come on, Deb,
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: and had given me a list of topics, and I
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: saw prayer, I thought, oh, that one. Largely because it
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: does so sync with the reason why I'm a Jungian analyst,
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: was the connection between Jung and spirituality. One's connection with
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: spirituality is never an easy thing, and mine certainly has
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: been circuitous from a rather fundamentalist upbringing in church to
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: my agnostic years. And that's where the organ playing actually
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: worked in my favor because while I might have drifted
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: away from corporate religious practice because of the questioning and
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: the fact that, you know, the dogma that I was
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: being fed didn't fit with my experience, I had a
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: job to do on Sunday. So it kind of kept me...
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: The apron strings of Mother Church were tied in that way.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: And actually, it was the rector of my first job
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: as an organist in an Episcopal church. Early on, at
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: age 10, Sister Mary Music said, you will play the
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: organ for the Daily Mass. So it went way, way back.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: But.
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  Speaker 2: It was that transition from Catholicism to Anglicanism that had
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: an important effect on me because he gave me this
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: book by Morton Kelsey on Christian meditation. And it resonated
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: with my personal experience, you know, my own wrestling with
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: who I am, the nature of spirituality, who or what
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: is God, those kinds of questions. But to get back
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: to the quote, in sort of preparing, one of the
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: books that I looked at was Primary Speech, a Psychology
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: of Prayer, which is written by Ann and Barry Ulanov.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know if they're still alive, who were in
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: New York City, two analysts, and both taught at.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: … Union Theological Seminary? Yeah.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: Union Theological Seminary. Thank you so much. And they start
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: out by saying, everyone prays. People pray whether or not
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: they call it prayer. We pray every time we ask
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: for help, understanding, or strength, in or out of religion. Then,
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: who and what we are speak out of us, whether
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: we know it or not. Our movements, our stillness, the
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: expression on our faces, our tone of voice, our actions,
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: what we dream and daydream, as well as what we
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: actually put into words, say who and what we are.
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  Speaker 2: To pray is to listen to and hear this self
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: who is speaking. This speech is primary because it is
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: basic and fundamental, our ground. In prayer we say who
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  Speaker 2: in fact we are, not who we should be, nor
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: who we wish we were, but who we are. All
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: prayer begins with this confession. And then prayer is primary
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: because this speech of confession comes first in any act
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: of praying. whether we know it or not. In prayer,
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: we speak out of our flesh, the ground of all
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: of our experience, collecting into awareness what our self is saying,
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: both what we know and what we do not know.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: And the grounded, prayer being grounded in the body, in
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: our flesh, just speaks of, you know, some very important
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: prayerful experiences in my lifetime.
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that it's not, I mean, what I like about
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: that quote, it's a complex idea, what's about in that quote,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: but it's something like that when we're in a prayerful attitude,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: we're not speaking from the persona, that there's something really
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: vulnerable and revelatory, personally revelatory about, you know, how we
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: pray or what we pray about. Or, you know, and
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Jung says somewhere, he says somewhere that prayer is very
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: profound because it The fact that we've addressed ourselves to
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: the that is this big thing, right? So the second
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: that you pray, whether or not you realize that you're praying,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: you have acknowledged that you are in relationship to something
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: eternal and infinite.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: And to your point, we are lower than because we're
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: supplicating something some force larger than ourselves, we need help
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: or we want help for someone else. So there is
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: a way in which prayer is relativizing just the way,
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: you know, Lisa, you mentioned before this whole idea of
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: the ego self-axis that I know you've talked about before
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: in your podcasts that Neumann introduced, but then was popularized by.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Edinger.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: Edinger. Oh, I'm blocking on the title, ego and archetype. Yeah.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: And in that, the importance is that we're in relationship
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: with something other, something larger than ourselves. And it requires
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: two positions, us, the ego, and otherness. But the quote,
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: when we pray, when we're in supplication, There's a humility there.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: The ego's on the bottom.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Right. There's a clear hierarchy.
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  Speaker 2: Dingo.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: So there is something about both that sense of the
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: relativization of the ego that you just talked about, that
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: we're sort of acknowledging our status is lesser. There's that
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: very healthy sense of humility. And also... just to kind
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: of nail it down, this idea of the ego-self axis,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: the ego is seeking guidance from, is open to the
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: influence of the guiding self.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: And that's where that concept of humility comes in, I think.
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  Speaker 4: I think there are nuances, however, that it's not always supplication.
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  Speaker 4: And I've known a couple of people that The best
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: way that I would understand their relating of their own
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: experience would be that it was almost a meditative state.
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: But your point, Bob, about a relational twosome, that there's
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: a sense of two, of communicating with, whether it's in
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: praise or in dialogue or any of these other things,
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: that there's a relationship clearly. with something that is other. Mm-hmm.
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  Speaker 4: You know, now how much is out there and how
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: much is in here, I suppose could be like how
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: many angels dance on the head of a pin, but
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  Speaker 4: I think there are various tonal resonances with whatever is
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: considered greater. You know, and I'm thinking about things like
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: practices such as circumambulating something. Simply one engages in a
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: practice of acknowledging the something greater. But you're right. I
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: think overall there is, you know, a power differential, if
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: I can put it that way.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. As you're talking, Deb, I was thinking about
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: active imaginations. And in order for there to be active imagination,
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: there has to be an ego position. But then we're
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: engaging with, in whatever form of active imagination we're using,
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  Speaker 2: we're engaging with psychic material, with archetypal material, with something
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  Speaker 2: that is other-ish.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's almost like any kind of prayer or let's
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: call it devotional practice. Again, even if we don't recognize
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: it as such, presupposes the existence of this other pole.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: It's there's us and what we know, and then there's
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: this other thing. And Deb, I appreciate your point about
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: it's not always a kind of entreaty. The etymology of
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: the word prayer comes for the Latin for a petition.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: So there is that sense of kind of asking for something.
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  Speaker 1: But it can also just be that acknowledgement. It can
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: be praise. You know, in Islam, prayer is one of
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: the five pillars of Islam. And there are five daily
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: prayers that are aligned with the times of day. So
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: there's one at dawn and there's one. And there's something
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: similar in Judaism, too. There's three prayers you're supposed to
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: do throughout the day. And what I think is kind
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: of lovely about that is that it's linking prayer or
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: this sort of acknowledgement of the infinite with the movement
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: of the sun across the sky. So it's directly linking
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: us with the natural world.
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  Speaker 4: And I think constantly reminding people who have such practices
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: that they are part of something greater. And don't forget
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: it because you're praying or doing this observational practice, you know,
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: with some regularity so that your body is involved in
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: it of remembering that that you're part of something greater.
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: I think it's a constant reminder to ego of what
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: its proper place is in the great mystery of life.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: What you were saying, Lisa, about prayer, the cycle of
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: prayers in many religions, and also the monastic tradition where
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: you pray at certain times of the day, but then
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: the linking of that with the natural world, That has
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: resonance with me with prayers at Thanksgiving. In the sense
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: of whenever we focus our mind, our thoughts, onto that
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: for which we are grateful, that's about life. That's about flesh,
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: as Ann and Barry Ulinov said in that opening quote.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: That's about concrete reality. The fact that we get to
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: live where we get to live and how we live
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: and having health, having enough to eat, having abundance.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: I was raised in a home that was pretty atheistic
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: for kind of, Well, both of my parents had been
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: raised Southern Baptist. And then as soon as they became
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: of an age where they could leave their families, they did.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: And they never had anything to do with, you know,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: I think they both felt kind of spiritually wounded. And
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: so I was never baptized. We never went to church.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: We were like kind of like culturally, like we had
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: a Christmas tree. Okay. But we certainly never, you know,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: had any prayer in the house at all ever. And
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: But I do have relatives who are still fairly religious.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: And so the rare occasions that I visit those relatives
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: and people say grace. I mean, I always find that
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: like some combination of awkward and a little cringe. But
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: there is a part of me, Bob, that is so
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: moved by it. And I sometimes find myself wishing I
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: had that in my life because it's just what you're saying.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: It's You know, saying grace before a meal, it's a
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: prayer of thanksgiving for the food you're about to eat.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: It's such a direct communion with mortality, with the idea that,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: you know, our body and our health are precious and
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: we have to stop three times a day or more
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: and feed them to keep them going.
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: And I think it taps into a very, very ancient
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: belief part of our human history that we used to
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: have to... go and grow our food or pull it
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: up out of the earth and kill the things that
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: we ate. So I think it also sort of expiates
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: our guilt at having to be part of the great
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: round where we all have to feed on something.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Right. So it's this beautiful, you know, three times a day,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: I suppose, or at least once, of kind of recognizing, Deb,
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: our indebtedness. You know, it's sort of a lovely thing.
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: It goes back again and again to what in our
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: wordy Jungian lingo is called the relativization of the ego.
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: we like to think the ego is just running the
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: show and we're all very identified with our egos and
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: it does lots of great stuff for us. But all
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: these practices remind us there is something greater, something you're
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: part of, something you're subservient to. You know, it's something
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: as basic as food. Be grateful for that which is
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: given because sometimes it's not Exactly.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: And when we do that, it changes us. I was
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: just recently in London and heard Shadowlands, which is a
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: play by William Nicholson about the time in C.S. Lewis's
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: life when Joy Davidson and he were forming a relationship.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: And then as you probably know, she had I think
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: it was bone cancer. And so it was, you know,
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: a very interesting relationship in that it was very intense,
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: but then it ended so catastrophically. And at this point
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: in the play, C.S. Lewis is sitting in his study
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: with his other friends who are also Cambridge and Oxford Dons,
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: and one of which is the minister. And Joy has
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: had a little bit of a remission. And Harry, the minister,
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: says to Louis, Jack, I know how hard you've been praying,
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: and now God is answering your prayers. The playwright has
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: Louis answer, That's not why I pray, Harry. I pray
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: I pray because the need flows out of me, waking
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: and sleeping. It doesn't change God. It changes me. Of course,
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: when we're facing mortality, we're very humbled. But also just
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: appreciating the fact that I have all of this good food.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: I have the nourishment to sustain myself in a way
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: that is... pleasing and aesthetic to the senses and nourishing
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: to the body.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: You know, there has been some research on prayer, as
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: probably many people are aware. There were these very impressive
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: studies where cardiac patients were prayed for. But if you
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: look at this sort of meta-analysis of these studies, it's
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: pretty messy and the methodology is problematic. And I don't
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: know that there's much we can say about it. And
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: I don't even know that I'm that interested in it
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: in any case. It seems a little reductive. or a
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: little concrete. But I think to the point of that
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: beautiful quote, Bob, what does interest me is how it
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: affects us to pray. Because I think it does put
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: us in this mindset where we can acknowledge our helplessness.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: You know, speaking of prayers, the serenity prayer that they
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: teach you in AA, which is very ancient, by the way,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: is it's short and so full of good wisdom. It's
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: give me the courage to change the things I can,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, and
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: the wisdom to know the difference. And I think that,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: you know, the hard part of that is the third one.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: What can I do something about and I need to
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: just go do it? And what do I just have
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: to accept? But when we really are helpless and appeal
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: to something larger than ourselves is one of the few
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: things that brings comfort. And I mean, I can say
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: this as a clinician, you know, you get someone in
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: your consulting room who is going through something, I mean,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: just unspeakably awful. And there is nothing that they can
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: do that perhaps they haven't done. I mean, to think that,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: you know, either they're facing a, you know, a fatal
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: illness or someone they love is or something terrible like that.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: And I often will say to that person, are you praying?
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: Not because I'm suggesting that they should ascribe to a
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: dogmatic faith, right? But here is something that you can
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: do that may bring you some comfort in whatever way
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: you do it, right? But I think that, you know,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: and why does it change us? Well, it may give
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: us a sense of control where we have none, but
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: I think on a deeper level, Bob, and I think
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: this is what you were getting to, it reminds us
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: of our helplessness. And it reminds us that we are
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: connected to something larger than us.
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: And that's where there's also protection and safety. Even, you know,
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: I think for people, You know, many, many people. It's both.
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: It's not just I'm helpless and I'm hoping for, you know,
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: some kind of uber parental arms to wrap around me
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: and save me. But it puts us in our proper place.
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: I think it helps us with metabolization and integration of.
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: Of our own inner stresses and conflicts.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: It provides a greater context. And Jung did this with
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: his discovery of the collective unconscious, that reservoir of human
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: history that's in each of us. And we experience it
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: as myth and fairy tale, religions, art, all kinds of
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: things that all humans everywhere share. And we get connected
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: to that in prayer of, I'm not the only one.
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: This has happened before. Oh, you know, it can make
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: a difference in the consulting room of like, oh my gosh,
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: you know, this is an ugly duckling story. But I
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: may be out in the woods all winter, but it's
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: going to be okay that we get a connection. with
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: a mythologem, a religious principle with ourselves, we belong.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: And I mean, if you think about rituals around grief,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: in many traditions, there are specific prayers that are said
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: at the time that someone dies and how comforting it
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: must be. As someone without a religious tradition, I haven't
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: experienced this personally, but to have those words spoken at
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: such a time, those words that have been spoken And
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: shared among a people for thousands of years to have
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: those words spoken in a shared context and to be
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: knitted together by those words.
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: It's containing of that the words will be spoken, then
• 28:03
  Speaker 4: the rituals will be observed. And after a certain period
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: of time, there are these prayers, this ceremony. There's a
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: ritual in Japan that is observed 13 years after someone's death.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: Oh, my gosh. I know.
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: I mean, there are stages, in other words. So it
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: helps us go through the process. There's a way to
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: do it.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: There's that containing matrix or structure. But also, Deb, I
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: liked when... when you were talking about at the deathbed,
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: there's also the dimension where we are no longer alone.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: We're not in it by oneself. Even if there's not
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: another human being right there, when one is facing a
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: trial and one has prayers of supplication, there's the feeling
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: that one is not alone. And Lisa, I agree with
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: you that the The scientific studies to try to prove
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: the efficacy of prayer is pretty convoluted and not very convincing. Yeah.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: And it seems to me to be barking up the
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: wrong tree.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: Because there is plenty of literature that say if you
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: socially connect it, if you perceive that you have support,
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: if you're embedded in a social matrix, that predicts better
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: medical outcomes.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and in fact, I think, I actually believe, and
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: I would need to check this, but I'm pretty sure
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: the research shows that sort of all things considered, if
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: you are engaged in actively in a religious tradition, that
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: you have better mental health Which is interesting and a
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: little different than our topic, but I do want to
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: pick up on that because it strikes me that we're
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: talking about two different aspects of prayer. We've been talking
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: about the kind of communal aspects that it might be,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: there might be prayers that we say together at certain,
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: we might say them in the context of worship or
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: we all say this prayer together at dawn or.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: We say a prayer together over a meal or we
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: say a prayer together when someone dies or another life transition.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: I've been lucky enough to attend some really beautiful bar
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: and bat mitzvahs where the prayer was very beautiful and meaningful.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: But I'm also aware that one of the cool things
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: about prayer is it can also be very individual, just
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: between you and God, whatever God might mean. But it
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: has that quality, or it can have either quality of
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: being collective, which is powerful, and also deeply, deeply personal.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: And in that sense, you know, you hear people talking
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: about it doesn't matter what words you say, it doesn't
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: matter how you pray, just pray. But, you know, which
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: is that sense, I think, that we really understand as
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: Jungians of the ego... attempting to make a connection or
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: strengthen a connection or open to the influence of what
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: Jung called the self. And that's just personal. It doesn't
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: have to follow a certain form. It doesn't have to
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: be to a certain God. But just that sense that
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: we have acknowledged that we are in relationship to something
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: that is larger than us that we cannot wholly understand.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: Absolutely beautiful, Lisa.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: It brings to my mind one of the experiences that
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: I've had where prayer is associated with mortality. This was
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: when I was working for the U.S. Army in Munich
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: in Germany. And one morning I was on my way
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: using public transportation and sitting on the tram and a
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: gentleman once removed from me collapsed onto the floor. And
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: fortunately there were people who knew what to do, who
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: seemed to be skilled because somebody immediately started CPR. They
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: stopped the tram, the ambulance was on the way. And
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: I'm sitting there while they're giving this man CPR, feeling
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: absolutely helpless, wanting to do something. And I realized that
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: what I could do was pray. But the form that
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: the prayer took was not words. I think you referenced
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: different forms of prayer, Deb, but rather imagery. And I
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: just imagined that horrible scene transpiring at my feet. I
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: imagined the gentleman and the people helping him in a
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: waterfall of healing white light. And no one can ever
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: prove whether that was efficacious or not.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: That's not the point. The point is that, like in
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: Nicholson's play about C.S. Lewis, I felt changed.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: You offered what you could. You let that experience touch
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: you deeply. You could have said, oh, I'm going to
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: be late for work and shuffled off the tram. But
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: you allowed yourself to be moved by that. And you
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: responded in the way that you could.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: And I believe it was efficacious.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: How?
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: Who knows?
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I will tell you, I'm just going
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: to counter that example by just telling you that whenever
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: the Phillies are in the World Series....
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: That's such a touching example.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: But I'm there, man. I'm like holding him in the
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: light and it doesn't work. So I don't know.
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: I'm thinking about my experience that I had where I
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: just think it is a fact that our energy affects
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: one another. I was in a Hindu meditation group, a
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: Raja meditation group, for a good while, many years ago.
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: And a group would get together and meditate, sort of
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: according to this particular tradition.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: Wait, Deb, can I just say something? I love the
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: fact that I've known you for 26 years and that
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: yet in doing the podcast, I get to learn something
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: new about you like all the time. Okay, keep going.
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: I was curious. Well, I mean, I'm here to tell
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: you that meditating in a group is much easier, much
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: more powerful. There's definitely an energy field. There's no question.
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: You know, I know what I experienced, you know, and
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: then I'd go home and I'd go, oh, you know,
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: this is, I could never get to the depth that
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: was possible in this group. It wasn't a big group.
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: It was, I don't know, seven, eight, ten people maybe. So,
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: I mean, of course we affect each other. We know
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: this from the consulting room. You know, in Jungian tradition,
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: we talk about the third. And I just love this idea.
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: I just love this idea. That I'm there and my
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: client is there. And together and out of who knows where,
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: a third thing is created that's not either one of us.
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: It is the chemistry that Jung talked about, that the
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: third thing is created. Of course, in Christian, the Christian
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: tradition is often imaged as a dove. So, of course,
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: your imagery, I would posit everything that it helped this person.
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: But the impulse to give, how could that ever possibly
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: be for naught? It can't be. It just can't be.
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. Absolutely.
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: Kindness and love and the mysterious energies of the universe.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: Your reference to analytic practice resonates here with me. Because
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: you're talking about that the transcendent function, something larger, the
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: the one who had to take Latin in high school,
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: loved when I read volume 16 and the psychology of
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: the transference and the dove lowering the gift, the domum
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: sancti spiritus, between the king and the queen. That effect
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: happens even if you're not in the room. We know
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: this from just reflecting on how the field is constellated
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: in an analytic encounter that even occurs over video. The
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: field that's created just between the three of us because
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: we share so much history and affection for each other.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: It's palpable. So, yeah, I don't have to convince myself
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: that it's real, even though the scientists can't prove it.
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: You know, it's really sort of like it's one whole
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: realm doesn't just intersect with another. I mean, how can
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: we dare to try to translate this into just data?
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: Keep it in a smaller scientific measurable box. I don't
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: think it will go there. It never has gone there.
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: And we have to... rely on our own experience.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: Jung had something to say about prayer that I think
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: fits right here. And we talked about this just briefly before,
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: but I think this is a good place to insert it.
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: It's in letters. And this is in 1950, where Jung
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: is writing to a Philip Magor. And there's a little introduction,
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: but then he says, you are sure to know the
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: home truth that prayer is not only of great importance,
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: but also has great effect on human psychology. If you
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: take the concept of prayer in its widest sense, and
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: if you also include Buddhist contemplation and Hindu meditation, one
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: can say that it is the most universal form of religious,
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: or philosophical concentration of the mind. And thus, not only
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: one of the most original, but also the most frequent
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: means to change the condition of mind. Very much, Lisa,
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: like you're asking your client, who's an extremist, whether they
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: are praying or not. And he concludes, if this psychological
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: method had been inefficient, It would have been distinguished long ago.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: But nobody with a certain amount of human experience could
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: deny its efficacy. And then a few concluding sentences. So
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: there's Jung saying it works.
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: You know, when my son was a baby, something terrible
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: happened to him. And I was so distraught. And I
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: was doing everything I could, you know, medically. But my
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: analyst actually told me about a Buddhist, I guess it's
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: a meditation, and I can't even remember, it has a name,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: but I can't remember what it is now. But it
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: was a visualization, effectively, of imagining me kind of taking
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: in the toxin that he'd been exposed to. And I
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: used to just do that every night as I sat
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: with him as he went to sleep. And it was, again,
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: that sense of, it was, I mean, did it work?
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Was it comforting? It sure as heck was.
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: I'm going back to the phrase you said, Bob, that
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: fits right here, which is that it changes the condition
• 42:01
  Speaker 4: of one's mind.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: You know, which goes back to what you said earlier, Bob, about,
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: you know, the prayer changes us. You know, that we have,
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: that we have available, that we can do. You know,
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: we may not be able to change something in the
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: external world, something that matters, something that should be changed.
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: You know, would we want your baby to be healthy?
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: Of course we would. But what we can change is
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: some part of ourself into something something generous, something loving,
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: something of radical acceptance, sometimes a surrender.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: That.
• 42:54
  Speaker 4: We can do.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm thinking about Jung's list in that letter, Bob,
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: which is, you know, prayer, and he talks about Buddhist
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: contemplation and Hindu meditation. And you know, we've kind of
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: identified that these are all related. And I'm thinking the
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: Jungian version of that, of course, is active imagination. And
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: what they all have in common is that in some sense,
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: the ego kind of applies itself to the unconscious and says,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: I'm here, I'm listening, I'm bringing you my problems. You know,
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: it's like Vasilisa with her little doll, you know, let
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: me give you some, the fairy tale Vasilisa, the beautiful,
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: she gives the doll something to eat and something to drink.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: And then she pours her heart out to the doll.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: And the thing is that when we do this, it's
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: not like we're actually going to get an answer, right?
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: Most of the time, I mean, I don't know, maybe
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: some people do, but it's more that, like the quote says,
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: we've sort of subtly rearranged our attitude.
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we are changed. But also, something larger than self
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: is comes into play. If I can't comment on the
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: story of your prayer, Lisa, I was really touched by
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: that because there you are praying for your infant son
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: willing to absorb the toxins. And all I can say
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: is that shower of maternal love and care and protection
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: that had to have been present for you to pray
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: in that way. Extremely powerful. Yeah.
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: It's very shamanic. You know, the shaman takes on, takes
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: in the illness of the person he or she is
• 45:02
  Speaker 4: working with. because the shaman can metabolize it through all
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: the training and so on. Here's another tradition that is
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: eons and eons old. And like prayer, if there wasn't
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: something to it, it wouldn't have lasted this long.
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: And I did do this little research. The oldest known prayer,
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: I suppose, that's written down is 4,000 years old. And
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: it's the Gayatri Mantra from the Rig Veda. Oh. Would
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: you like to hear it? Yes.
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: You can't give that introduction and not read it.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: I thought you'd never ask. So here's one translation. O
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: thou existence absolute. creator of the three dimensions. We contemplate
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: upon thy divine light. May he stimulate our intellect and
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: bestow upon us true knowledge. So, and I think there's some, yeah,
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: I think you're supposed to, I think, I believe it's
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: 24 words, I think, in Sanskrit and people recite it
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: to this day and that kind of thing. You know,
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: I think that maybe what we're really circling around is
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: the fact that prayer, however we access it or define it,
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: whether it's meditation or reciting prescribed words or even doing
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: an act of imagination, is the connection with the deeper thing.
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: There is a wonderful poem by Rumi, who was a
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: Sufi mystic, that a client introduced to me. So thanks
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: to him, and I hope this speaks to all of you.
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: It's called Love Dogs. One night a man was crying, Allah, Allah.
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: His lips grew sweet with the praising until a cynic said, So,
• 47:12
  Speaker 4: I've heard you calling out, but have you ever gotten
• 47:15
  Speaker 4: any response? The man had no answer to that. He
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: quit praying and fell into a confused sleep. He dreamed
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: he saw Kidder, the guide of souls, in a thick
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: green foliage. Why did you stop praising? Because I never
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: heard anything back. This longing you express is the return message.
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: The grief you cry out from draws you toward union.
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: Your pure sadness that wants help is the secret cup.
• 47:48
  Speaker 4: Listen to the moan of a dog for its master.
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: That whining is the connection. There are love dogs no
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: one knows the names of. Give your life to be
• 48:00
  Speaker 4: one of them.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: That's so perfect. That's just beautiful.
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: That brings tears to my eyes.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: Thank you for that, Deb.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: And we all can thank Rumi.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. That's just beautiful.
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: And I love that these things come from all around
• 48:22
  Speaker 4: the world.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: Well, what did he say? If this psychological method had
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: been inefficient, it would have been extinguished a long time ago.
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: But nobody with a certain amount of human experience could
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: deny its efficacy.
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: That's a perfect way to end. And perhaps we'll switch
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: over to a dream. Today's dream is from a woman
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: who's 48 years old, and she's a wife and mother,
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: and the title of the dream is A Swan Falls.
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: I'm in New York City with my husband, where I'm
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: independent on his knowledge of the city. Everything is white.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: I notice a cloud spattered with blood and a white
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: swan comes flying over us, fatally injured. As she falls
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: toward us, a green and white airplane flies the other direction.
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: It has clipped the swan's body with its wing and
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: in doing so sustained damage itself and is unable to
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: keep flying. I watch in horror as the plane loses
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: altitude too close to the city and flips over and
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: falls down. Not a violent crash. There may still be survivors,
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: but awful to witness. And for context, she says, my
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: husband and I are confronting a turning point in our
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: 15-year relationship. I've grown away from him and we are
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: not sure if we will make it as a couple.
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: The feelings in the dream, she says, were fear, horror,
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: a sense of inevitable calamity. For knowledge, I saw this
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: happening before anyone else did. And she says, we were
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: recently in New York, a place my husband knows well,
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: but I do not, on a family vacation. I don't
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: know what to make of the swan, the green color
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: on the airplane and the red on the swan.
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: Well, the first sentence does tell us a lot about
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: the nature of the relationship. Because she says quite directly
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: in the dream, I am dependent on him, on his
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: knowledge of the city. And what do we make of
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: everything being white, not differentiated, the same?
• 50:42
  Speaker 4: You know, sometimes there's such a powerful feeling in a
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: dream that it just sort of just goes right in.
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: And this is one of those dreams for me. Neither
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: the swan nor the airplane is going to be okay.
• 51:07
  Speaker 4: The white cloud is spattered with blood. The white swan
• 51:13
  Speaker 4: is fatally injured. And the airplane clips the swan's body
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: and sustains damage itself. And I'm contrasting a swan, which is,
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: you know, a bird, a living being. And, you know,
• 51:32
  Speaker 4: all the mythology around swans and how beautiful they are.
• 51:36
  Speaker 4: featured in fairy tales, and swans are very magical animals.
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: And an airplane, a mechanical, man-made, you know, we know
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: what an airplane is, and that they collide. So neither
• 51:56
  Speaker 4: one comes away from this encounter with anything less than
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: at least serious damage, if not if not destruction. And
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: we're using our sort of when-then tool of if you're
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: in New York City, when you're in New York City
• 52:16
  Speaker 4: with your husband and you're dependent on him, then everything
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: is white, there's a cloud, there's a swan spattered with
• 52:27
  Speaker 4: blood and a collision with a plane.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: You know, I think it's interesting, this everything is white,
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: which is, of course, the second sentence. And I wonder,
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: I mean, if the dreamer here will tell me more,
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: what is white? Are all the buildings white? Because New
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: York is not a particularly white city. But there is
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: the sense of the contrast between the whiteness and the redness. Mm-hmm.
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: And I wonder if the whiteness means a kind of deadness,
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: a lack of real emotion. Maybe there's a kind of
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: numbing that's happened in the relationship. And then there's the
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: white cloud that's been spattered with blood and is red.
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: And suddenly there certainly is a lot of feeling. There
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: certainly is some redness, whether that's the redness of... the
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: sorrow of exsanguinating or the hot-bloodedness of anger. Something has
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: happened now that means that things are no longer just white.
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: And I wonder about that. I wonder what else happened
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: in that trip to New York or what else has
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: happened in the relationship. But I do agree with you, Deb,
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: where you started. There is an overall feeling about the
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: dream that there's Something is not the way it was,
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: and it's not going to be the way it was.
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: And there's some real grief around that.
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: Both with the living creature, which falls from the sky dead,
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: but also the airplane. Yeah. For some reason, for me,
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: there is definitely a contrast between those two flying entities.
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: anything mechanical always resonates with me as sort of carrying
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: a kind of masculine energy. It's technology. And so I
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: felt that resonance there. And then the swan, you know,
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: swan lake, swans are beautiful. It's their aesthetic creatures. They
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: float upon the surface of the water. There's a feminine
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: kind of quality there to me. I mean, I certainly
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: wouldn't want to ascribe the husband or wife to the
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: airplane or the swan. But it does seem that those
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: dual energies are at least present in those two different objects.
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: I think there is a little bit of a hope, though.
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: There will be survivors. It's awful to be going through.
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: It's awful to witness. But it's not a violent crash.
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: I mean, which does fit with the ongoing discussion about
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: the nature of the relationship.
• 55:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Building on your point, Bob, is what a huge
• 55:29
  Speaker 4: difference if we take just the word flying. What can fly?
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: The contrast between a swan and an airplane sort of
• 55:39
  Speaker 4: images huge gulf in what the flying experience would be
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: like if you were a swan. versus a passenger on
• 55:51
  Speaker 4: a plane. It's a radically different experience engaging in the
• 55:56
  Speaker 4: same thing, same thing of flying. So it does feel like,
• 56:03
  Speaker 4: you know, that could be related to the state of
• 56:07
  Speaker 4: the relationship.
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: You know, I also want to say that swans mate
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: for life, too. They establish really strong pair bonds and
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: generally stay together. So there's and there's they're sort of
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: known for that. You know, they can be very affectionate
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: with one another. There's also the sort of myth of
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: the swan song, which is that that's, you know, because
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: swans don't, you know, they kind of make unappealing noises.
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: But there's a kind of myth, a fable that they
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: will they have a beautiful song to sing, but they
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: only sing it right before their death. So I wonder
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: if that has any resonance. If the dream were here,
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: I'd be curious if that has any resonance, you know,
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: because this is sort of the death of something, for sure,
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: the death of something.
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: And it's awful to witness.
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: And it's awful to witness, yeah.
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: Well, you know, the hopeful note that I would like
• 57:09
  Speaker 4: to interject here is as the survivor and thriver of
• 57:17
  Speaker 4: a very long marriage is that we go through some really, really,
• 57:22
  Speaker 4: really hard times where it feels like, boy, there's not
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: going to be any coming back from this. And then
• 57:34
  Speaker 4: there can be, and there are stages of marriage. you know,
• 57:39
  Speaker 4: the honeymoon stage and the householder stage and on it goes.
• 57:44
  Speaker 4: So one stage of marriage could be what is changing.
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: Totally. Yeah. And you hear people, I mean, I know
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: Esther Pirella said it and I think Marian Woodman said
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: it too. I've been married many times just to the
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: same man or I've had many marriages, you know, and
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: it is true. I mean, Deb, I haven't been married
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: quite as long as you have. But I've been married
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: a good long time.
• 58:10
  Speaker 4: You said the funniest thing the other day. Lisa said,
• 58:16
  Speaker 4: you've been married as long as I've been alive.
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, isn't that.
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, Deb laughed so hard. And it's true.
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: She told me what anniversary she was about to celebrate.
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: And I realized that that's the birthday I just celebrated. So...
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: So yes, so you have been married a very, very,
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: very long time, as you like to say, since the
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: War of 1812. I haven't been married quite that long,
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: but it's been a while. And it's true. You know,
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: some version of the marriage dies, and you don't know
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: at the time. You think, oh boy, this is it.
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: Here we go. And then another version is born sometimes.
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: And I think both of those observations are so important
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: because there's a way in which that's in the dream.
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: You know, the airplane comes down, but it's not a craft.
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: there are survivors the swans wings are clipped but it
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: doesn't fall to its death so it both of the objects.
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: Well it does say she's fatally injured i just want
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: to say it says she's fatally injured But I think
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: your point, Bob, is, you know, look, something is going
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: to die, but there may still be survivors. So we
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: don't know what's going to happen, actually. We really don't.
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: But there's grief and mourning here, for sure.
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: And the swan and the airplane are flying in opposite directions.
• 59:53
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: That's important. The whole thing is we are at a
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: turning point in our relationship.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, and the psyche is speaking to it. And
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: that's the good news, too.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: I find myself wondering, well, what's the telos of the dream?
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: What's the purpose for the dreamer?
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: What does this dream provide the dreamer?
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, I have a couple of imaginations, but it's
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: hard to know for sure without the dreamer here. But
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: I wonder about the redness, as I said before.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: Well, it's spattered with blood, which is all about the
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: essence of life. In a negative way, there's an injury,
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: but blood is present. Mm-hmm.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: And everything's not white, all white anymore. Mm-hmm. Now we've
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: got some color. We've got the red, and then we've
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: got the green.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 4: Another polarity. Yeah.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would love for us to talk about green,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: just that as a topic sometime, because here I'm wondering,
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: it doesn't seem to me that green is associated with
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: the positive side of the archetype of the color, you know,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: with verdancy and aliveness, but rather the poisoned apple.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: Well, and also green is associated with death as well.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: We're just not sure, but there are some. But again,
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: as I said, the psyche is speaking, and that's always
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: a good thing. So we wish this dreamer well. Thanks
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: for listening. To submit a dream, suggest an episode topic,
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: or join our mailing list, visit our website, thisunionlife.com. If
• 1:01:47
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• 1:01:50
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