Latest / This Jungian Life Podcast / ARE YOU TRACKING TWISTERS? The reckless charm of creating tornados in our lives.

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ARE YOU TRACKING TWISTERS? The reckless charm of creating tornados in our lives. · This Jungian Life Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• 0:27
  Speaker 4: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst in Cape Cod.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: In light of all of the tornadoes that are happening
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: in the United States right now, we were moved to
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: think about the archetype of the tornado, its mythic significance.
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: How can we orient to the inner tornado, which has
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: all kinds of valences? Whirlwinds show up in the Old Testament,
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: scooping prophets up into the air. The voice of God
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: speaks from the whirlwind. Interestingly, the word tornado and the
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: idea of the tornado is uniquely American, and America has
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: more tornadoes than most other parts of the world. Native
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: American myth explains it, thinks about it in many different ways,
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: and I know in my practice, clients frequently have dreams
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: of tornadoes, which I often think of as visitations of
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: the self. So today we're going to lean into this powerful,
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: awful archetypal dynamic.
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: I was very curious about, you know, it's a storm,
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: of course, a variation on maybe a larger arch of storms.
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: It's the difference between a tornado and a whirlwind or
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: a hurricane or other sort of cataclysmic weather events. And
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: what I learned, and I hope there are no meteorologists
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: out there who are going to be able to correct
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: what are my inevitable errors here, is that, first of all,
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: tornadoes come on very suddenly. So it's not like a
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: hurricane where at least with today's technology, you can tell
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: when it's 250 or more miles away that, you know,
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: here it comes. There was a huge tornado in Joplin,
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: Missouri in 2011, and it was a beautiful day in
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: the morning. So all of a sudden, this terrible, devastating storm,
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: the tornado arose. And what happens, as I understand it,
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: is that there is warmer air on the ground and
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: then colder air coming down from above. And as those
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: two things mix, they create the famous, the cone, the
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: twister part of the cyclone as they interact and they
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: revolve in north of the equator they revolve counterclockwise. South
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: of the equator, they revolve clockwise. So it becomes this
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: violently rotating column of air that is both in contact
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: with the Earth's surface that fuels it, you know, and
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: with the upper, you know, areas of atmospheric areas, which
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: also fuel it. So keeping this above and below going, twisting...
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: around and around. Most of them are small and last
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: only minutes, but they can be 200 miles per hour
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: and over a mile wide. And there are some historic
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: tornadoes that have traveled great distances and As you mentioned, Joseph,
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: we've seen on the news, the destruction is simply devastating,
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: the power of a tornado.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: You know, when we're thinking about it psychologically, one of
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: the things about it that jumps out to me is
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: how easy it is to ascribe a kind of consciousness
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: or intent to a tornado.
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Because it appears and then it moves, it seems to
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: have some autonomous ability to propel itself. It seems like
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: a thing, you know, an entity that's coming to wreak
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: havoc and destruction. And of course, it kind of meanders wantonly.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, you don't know where it's going to go,
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: which as you said, Deb, you know, they can often
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: predict the path of a hurricane. But they may be
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: able to say it's likely that a tornado will happen
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: given atmospheric conditions in a certain area. But once the
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: tornado forms, they don't know where it's going to go
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: because they zigzag all around. So it really feels like
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: a manifestation of the kind of impersonal power of the divine.
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and that it can manifest so suddenly and intensely.
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: That they seem to come out of nowhere. It's a
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: very nice day. And then there is a tornado that
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: these atmospheric conditions create.
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: And the fact that it moves through the environment gives
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: it this sense of autonomy and consciousness. Why does it
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: go left? Why does it go a mile to the right?
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: And it seems so purposive in our meaning-making process.
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: Exactly.
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: The word tornado comes from the Latin tonare, which means
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: to thunder. And a tornado, as we've said, is this
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: vortex structure and it's vast amounts of air and water
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: and earth and objects are kind of swirling around. And
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: it gives us this sense that it lives and breathes
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: and it moves matter in and out the vortex. Things
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: are drawn in and cast out at violent speeds. There
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: are sometimes after a tornado, people will see blades of
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: grass embedded in a telephone pole.
• 6:41
  Speaker 5: Wow.
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: Because at certain speeds, things that would normally not be
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: missiles are suddenly have this enormous amount of power. But foremost,
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: it's a vortex that dissipates. that it breaks things down,
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: that it grabs structure and rends it into pieces as
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: the air is moving up and down. So this enormous
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: power to destroy, to break down into component parts, to
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: cut a swath through the world, not to, we of
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: course focus on homes and farms, but a swath through
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: a forest.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, there's an area near me a couple of
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: years ago, maybe not last summer, but the summer before,
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: it was like, tornado watch, tornado warning, whatever. And I
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: was like, what am I going to do with that?
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: It's like, I'm going to go to the basement. So
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: I sort of ignored it. But the next day, there's
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: still an area of trees along the roadside not far
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: from me where the trees have just been sawed in half.
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: We had a tornado down here near Edenton two summers ago.
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: Rock a hawk, which is an area. And again, just
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: these enormous old trees just split like ribbons.
• 8:06
  Speaker 5: Again, awe is the feeling.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: You know, Joseph, you were talking about how it looks
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: like they move with purpose, with a purpose that's not
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: clear to us, but nevertheless. And it's so easy to
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: understand how pre-modern people would have seen them either as
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: a manifestation of the divine or something made by the divine.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's a really great example of
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: what we think of one of the functions of myth,
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: you know, not psychologically, but just in terms of explaining
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: cosmological events. But even with our modern sensibility where we
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: understand why they formed, I think that when we see one,
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: whether we're lucky slash unlucky enough to see one with
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: our own eyes, or even just scrolling through social media
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: and we see an incredible dramatic video of one, something
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: in our bodies, I know at least for me, really
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: responds with just, with awe, really, with awe. I mean,
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: they are darkly numinous for sure. And they really do
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: call up just this kind of awesome power that we
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: cannot control.
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: Not at all.
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's why we often describe tornadoes as attacking
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: or assaulting a city. And just to place it that
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: an enormous tornado has the equivalent of 50 kilotons of explosives,
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: which is two and a half times greater than the
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: The power in a massive tornado is truly overwhelming.
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: There is a darkly numinous and truly awe-inspiring aspect to this,
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: and it's transformative. Transformative in a way that just is horrifying, especially,
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: you know, clips on the news of people the day
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: after who are just devastated. Loss of life, injury, homes
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: and property just laid absolutely waste. But the power to
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: transform what we invest in and build our homes and
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: schools and hospitals and automobiles of That we are made
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: to feel puny, and we are puny in light of
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: the power of a tornado.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: Our egos, our capacity to control, to build things, to
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: make a home.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it really relativizes the ego, doesn't it?
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: Yes, it does, which is, you know, one of the
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: aspects of the self is which in a way was
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: Jung's term for the divine, for God, is that it
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: has a dark side. And a tornado really epitomizes this
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: in a particularly dramatic way.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: And as that symbol of the divine, it links earth
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: and heaven, both visually, of course it does, but its power,
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: because of killing and destructive force, it does. you know,
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: translate things into spirit. And as such, we think, or
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: we have in the Bible, described the tornado or the
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: whirlwind to the voice of God.
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: Yes. And that is exactly what it says, is that
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind.
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: Exactly. Which was destroying his life, by the way.
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: And that's what God says is, who are you to
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: question me? Gird up your loin. Be a man. When
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: were you when I, where were you when I laid
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: the foundation of the earth? There is no dialogue here.
• 12:27
  Speaker 5: No.
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: This is not going to be a reasonable discussion.
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: No negotiations here.
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: No negotiations. This is raw, elemental power. Mm-hmm.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: And because it is wind, right? I mean, that's essentially
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: what it is. It's a rotating wind. So it is
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: a kind of perfect metaphor for the violent assertion of
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: spirit in one's life. It comes out of nowhere. It
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: comes from above. And it brings the tremendous force of
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: the wind to bear. It does call to mind this
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: quote from Jung, which we have used before on the podcast,
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: but it's very appropriate now. Jung wrote, to this day,
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: God is the name by which I designate all things
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: which cross my willful path violently and recklessly, all things
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: which upset my subjective views, plans, and intentions, and change
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: the course of my life for better or worse. So,
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: God is a tornado.
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: I think one could make a very good case for
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: that as the most incredible example living symbol. I mean,
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: it's one thing to look at a picture of a
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: tornado and I'm sure it is very much a different
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: thing to actually behold that kind of thing. And what
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: do we do to stand in front of it?
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: So my turn, because I think of the three of us,
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: I've been closest. So my family roots are from Northern Georgia,
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: North Georgia. So I was visiting my grandparents with my father.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: I must have been maybe 10 or 11. And they,
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: of course, have a storm cellar because, you know, Georgia
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: is part of Tornado Alley. And, you know, it wasn't
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: uncommon to have to go to the storm cellar. So
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: one day there was a tornado in the area. This
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: wasn't a warning. This wasn't a they might develop. This
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: was there was a tornado. So we all went down
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: into the storm cellar and the wind was howling. And
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: eventually my dad gets up and he goes and he
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: opens the door. I'm like, what are you doing? He said, well,
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: if I'm going to be close to one, I want
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: to see it. So I was sort of horrified, but
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: also really curious. So I crept up alongside him and
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: I was looking out and we did not see the funnel.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: But I will tell you what I do remember is
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: being shocked because I looked up at the sky and
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: it was as if the clouds were boiling. That's my
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: memory is that they were just, roiling and writhing so
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: quickly that it was like watching the bubbles in a
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: pot of water. It was very dramatic.
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: And I would imagine it changed you in some way
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: to actually behold that living thing versus just hearing about it.
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: I mean, I didn't actually see the funnel. And I
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: think the funnel is the thing that is truly... So,
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: you know, that's the thing that kind of captures our
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: imagination because it has structure and it has its own
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: particular movement and it's not anything we've seen before. I mean,
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: I'd certainly seen churning skies before, maybe not quite like that.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: One of the things that fascinates me is the psychology
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: of the storm chaser. So sometimes, you know, there are
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: people that will take out cameras and instruments and go
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: after these storms trying to film them. Recently, something came
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: across my social media feed where there was an enormous,
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: enormous tornado. And whoever was holding the camera was driving
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: toward it.
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: I don't know if you guys saw that movie Twister.
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: That was done years ago, but there was so many scenes.
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: These CGI scenes of them driving into these tornadoes on
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: like live cows, like flying through the air. I mean,
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: it sounds funny, but like if you really put yourself there,
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: how horrifying that must be. Right.
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: But what I mean, I think there are people who
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: will get close to tornadoes for legitimate scientific reasons.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: But I think it probably takes a certain kind of person.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: It's the same thing. I have a similar fascination with volcanologists, right? Because,
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: you know, if people who, you know, they go, they
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: get PhDs, they study volcanoes. And of course, the point
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: is to understand them better so that we have, we're
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: able to predict them better and save lives. But there
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: is also something there. You know, I have a sort
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: of pet interest in volcanoes. in volcanoes and volcanologists. Because
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you, volcanologists are so fascinated by it that
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: they put themselves, I mean, it's not uncommon for, you know,
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: the number one way that volcanologists die, probably in volcanoes,
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: in eruptions. Yeah, because it's dangerous. And it must be
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: something similar with these storm chasers who go after it.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: And of course, you know, nowadays, I don't know, maybe
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: the video I saw was CGI. I don't know who
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: would know, or AI generated even. But I think that
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: some of these people go after these shots because people
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: will pay money for those videos. So there's a kind
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: of perverse incentive. But I think we also recognize the
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: fascination with that which is more powerful than ego.
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: And to have an encounter, I mean, this is something
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: that happens in Virginia Beach, where I split my time,
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: that when hurricanes are coming into the area, the waves
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: become enormous and dangerous, and the police can't keep the
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: surfers out of the water.
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: Jesus.
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: This incredible drive to encounter that power of God, really.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: Exactly, exactly. And I think we're hungry for it in
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: a way because there are so few places in modern
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: life where we can have that experience of being humbled.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: And there's something kind of wonderfully reassuring about recognizing that
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: we're not the most powerful thing in the cosmos. So,
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think that's part of the thrill of
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: like a really big snowstorm that shuts everything down. It's like, ah,
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: we're not that powerful. But I think you're right. We
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: want to encounter the power of God, right? We want a.
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: Numinous experience such as it's offered to us. And given
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: in modern society, art, music, ritual isn't available to provide
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: that to us or perhaps we're too jaded to let
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: that come in. So people will participate in extreme sports.
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: Why do people cast themselves off of cliffs in these
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: strange flying garments? And I mean, it's really incredible. To
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: see the drive to encounter the thing that is infinitely larger, stronger, powerful, murderous,
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: you know, if we're not remarkably careful. that we somehow
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: need that.
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: I'm still, I'm turning this over in my mind of
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: people that fly, literally fly off cliffs with man-made wings,
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: who surf in the waves being generated by a hurricane
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: and or who are the storm chasers of tornadoes, and
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: wondering about the desire to encounter and to experience something
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: that is larger than self, and something from the unconscious
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: that we really cannot know. And it is very much
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: in my mind a parallel with Job going to encounter
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: and confront God. that we want to know something from
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: the depths. We want a chance to be in contact
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: with it and to understand it physiologically, experientially, because it
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: will not be reduced to rationality or cognition. And how
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: much of that is hubris?
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: I was going to say there's hubris there.
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: That I want to experience these waves if I'm a
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: surfer or this tornado if I'm a storm chaser.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: Or climbing Mount Everest.
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: Climbing Mount Everest or being lowered into... the mouth of
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: a volcano, of what is that that we think we
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: have the power to encounter nature at its most unpredictable
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: and most powerful that we can, in effect, stand up to?
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: The tornado, the volcano... your father was standing in the
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: doorway to the storm cellar and could quickly have stepped
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: down and shut the door. You know, so there was
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: a safety, there was a backup versus, you know, going
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: out into the middle of a field to say, oh,
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: I think I want to meet this thing. Yeah.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: You know, what comes up for me, Deb, when you
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: talk about that is the death of Semele. So Semele
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: was one of Zeus's many lovers. She's actually the mother
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: of Dionysus. And Hera, of course, got jealous, as Hera does.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: And Hera disguised herself as a crone and went down
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: and kind of made Semele doubt who her lover actually was.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: And so Semele made Zeus promise on the river Styx
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: to give her whatever she asked for. And he did.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: And she said, I want to see you in your
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: full glory. And he said, no, you don't. And she said, no, yes,
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: I really do. So, he showed himself in his full
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: glory and she was destroyed. She was, you can't, a
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: mortal cannot stand in front of God in the fullness
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: of his or her divinity without being destroyed.
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: Or being translated into spirit. Right, right.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: Another, yes.
• 23:19
  Speaker 5: I mean, the body can't withstand it. The body can't.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: Withstand it, right. And so... So these pictures of people
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: being lowered into volcanoes or chasing after tornadoes or whatever,
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: isn't that a little bit like Semele seeking something that
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: actually you don't probably really want? Although it was probably
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: great for a second.
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: Well, I think that you want it. You're hoping that
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: you can angle towards it so that it won't destroy you.
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: Like how close can we get to the aweful power
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: of nature slash God and not be killed? Although, as
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: we sometimes see, there is an underlying desire to literally
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: be taken out of this world. And sometimes the unconscious
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: orchestrates these fateful, tragic mistakes.
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: It's tempting the gods.
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: Well, tempting the gods, but I'm also thinking that just
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: as Jung's friend, who dreamt he was going to walk
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: off the edge of the Alps but miraculously be in
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: the air, and then he walks off the edge of
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: the Alps sometime after that, that the unconscious can flirt
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: or be seduced by the idea of death as an
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: ultimate encounter, which goes, again, to this very complicated piece.
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: But I wanted to come back to the idea of
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: the drive for initiation. I mean, to catch a glimpse
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: of the divine, I think, is is the hope of
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: all religious drives, but also to come to the encounter
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: and survive it and be changed by it, which is
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: why I was wondering your glimpse of the boiling clouds,
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: whether that was a kind of initiation, uh, perhaps not
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: the tornado, but even so much of the mythology of
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: tornadoes comes out of native American traditions because tornadoes, uh,
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: Water spouts, dust devils, these spiraling phenomena are something that
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: happens more so in North America. So here's an initiation
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: story called Bear White Child. An orphan boy was left
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: for dead after a run-in with a bully and wintered
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: alone in the mountains. In spring, dreams and birds told
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: him bear up there, was going to adopt him. As
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: the boy watched a large storm rolling in one evening,
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: a voice told him not to fear what was about
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: to happen. The hail fell all around, but the boy
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: was not touched. Again, he looked in the direction the
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: storm had come. A black cloud hung in the middle
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: of the hail. The cloud's center began taking shape. and
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: he saw the head of bear up there. At the moment,
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: the upper half of the bear's body appeared. The hail stopped.
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: The bear sang a song as he reached down to
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: embrace the boy. It lifted him into the air, and
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: when it finished singing, put him down again. Four times,
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: the funnel picked him up and put him down. Then
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: the tornado's spirit appeared, bestowed power on the guy, and
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: named him Bear White Child, and instructed him to return
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: and torment the bully, whose name was One Eye, and
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: ultimately kill him. Bear White Child first took One Eye
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: as prettiest wife, telling the women to make an elk-tooth
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: dress for her. After more attacks, On one eye's status,
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: bare white child magically slew him by throwing bare sinew
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: in the fire, declaring he would never indulge in slow
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: revenge again. And this could remind us of a fairly
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: modern story.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: A fairly modern fairy tale.
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: The Wizard of Oz getting sucked up and put down.
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: by tornadoes and setting you into this battle, you know,
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: within ourselves, with the inner witch, trying to find our
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: way truly to what home is. And even Bear Whitechild,
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: fighting against these averse forces, finally creating home for himself,
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: and much like Dorothy, has this bit of wisdom at
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: the end.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: One of the things about that story is that when
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: he is lifted up four times and put down, he
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: has powers at the end. And that's where this idea
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: of initiation comes from. He's been changed. He has a
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: changed relationship with the divine and a changed relationship with himself.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: And he has access to some of the powers of
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: the transpersonal. And that's also true for Dorothy in The
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: Wizard of Oz, which, I mean, I think everyone knows
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: that wonderful film where it begins in black and white
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: and Dorothy's a little girl in Kansas who's kind of unhappy.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: A cyclone comes and lifts her up in her little
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: house and sets the house down in the magical realm
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: of Oz and when she opens the door everything's in
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: technicolor and she has many adventures and then has to
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: try to figure out how to get back. So it
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: really is an incredible kind of fairy tale and it's
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: endured as an important cultural touchpoint for almost a century now.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: And of course, the tornado plays a major role in
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: that story, too.
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: You know, what I'm noticing in both of these tales
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: is that the protagonist has to be empowered. And in
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: The Wizard of Oz, it's the Wicked Witch of the
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: East who dies. In the Lakota tale, it is the
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: bully who dies. that some of this initiatory experience has
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: to do with what do you have the power to vanquish?
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: That is imaged as taking the life of somebody or
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: someone dies as a way of saying it's over and
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: it's ended. But that entering the tornado of getting some
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: of this power I wonder if that is part of
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: what happens with storm chasers and volcanologists and other people
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: is seeking that initiatory experience, seeking a certain kind of
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: empowerment and perhaps overcoming the fear of death.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: Well, and that is kind of the point of an initiation, right?
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: Because every initiation... has a metaphoric experience of death and rebirth.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: And part of the purpose of it is to lose
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: one's fear of death. At least that was one of
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: the explicit purposes of the Eleusinian mysteries, was that you
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: shall not fear death once you've gone through this, because
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: you will have died and been reborn ritualistically. So I
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: think you're exactly right, Deb. That may be the unacknowledged,
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: unconscious aim of, for people who do things like chase
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: these storms, is to have a kind of sense of
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: having vanquished death.
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: And in The Bare White Child and The Wizard of Oz,
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: it's as if the impossible conundrum conjures the whirlwind.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: And if we keep this as a purely.
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: Internal relationship, a symbolic relationship, that the impossible tension inside
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: of us often constellates the self.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: Ah, that's great.
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: As this massive force that reorients our attitudes, reorients fate sometimes.
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: So there's Dorothy in this impossible situation where her dog
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: is about to be surrendered, to be killed, euthanized. And
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: then she flees with her dog, not knowing, where to go,
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: and that home has now betrayed her because her dog
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: is going to be given to Miss Gulch to be killed.
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: So then that's the beginning, and we could even say
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: the impossibility of that moment conjures this encounter with the tale,
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: the Native American tale that we had told Bear White Child,
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: the impossible situation that he has been beaten almost unto
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: death has kind of crawled into the forest to find
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: someplace safe to survive. His fate is very unclear. Jung
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: also said that often in the nadir, in the darkest
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: moment of suffering, and sometimes just as suicidal fantasies begin
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: to emerge, that is when the self will constellate because
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: the ego is at its weakest and the self will
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: come and reorganize the central attitude.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: Sometimes violently.
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: Violently and life-savingly, as it was for the fairy tale.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great, Joseph. That's really good.
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: You know, I'm thinking about how we often say, quoting Jung,
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: how important it is to hold the tension of the opposites.
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: And that in the tale you read of Bear Whitechild
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: and with Dorothy... that those opposites were not held in tension.
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: The opposites interacted with each other in a way that
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: constellated this enormous amount of energy represented by the tornado.
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: Something else happened. Dorothy is so upset in the story
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: in Kansas when Miss Gulch wants to kill her dog.
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: the tornado when she finally lands in Oz, but that
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: when the tension is unbearable, is that when a tornado
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: gets constellated in the psyche? That can be initiatory, but
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: it can also be terribly destructive because as we know
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: from innumerable stories in the news, where somebody just does
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: something that cannot be undone and creates a murder that
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: cannot be undone because a tornado got constellated internally and
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: the person acted out murderous impulses.
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: That it could not be held symbolically. The ego is
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: not strong enough.
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: And then the energy is vented out into this enactment,
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: this horrific enactment. But when we're strong enough, even having fantasies.
• 35:19
  Speaker 5: Oh, I could just kill that person. I'm plotting it.
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: I've got it all in me. If we're able to
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: hold that and be crucified by the impossible situation, we
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: are often saved. And just as you were saying Deb,
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: there is an enormous destruction that happens inside of us
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: that what we used to believe about ourselves, about the world,
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: what we used to think we wanted or didn't want
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: can often just be torn into shreds as we encounter
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: these internal forces. Shadow work in a sense is kind
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: of a dust devil. I mean, I don't know if
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: it's a tornado, but it's definitely.
• 36:06
  Speaker 5: A kind of dust. Yeah. You know, it's like, that's
• 36:09
  Speaker 5: not me. That's not me. Wham. It's like, oh, my gosh,
• 36:13
  Speaker 5: that is me.
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: You know, and there's a breakdown that some sense of
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: my fantasy about myself is laid to waste, at least
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: in that small area. And then I have to rebuild
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: that little part of my sense of self. So embracing
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: this idea of salve coagula.
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: Things have to break down in order for things to
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: be built up. Or another way of saying it is,
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: we cannot be our full potential and remain exactly.
• 36:45
  Speaker 5: As we are.
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great. Yeah, so it's a profound and awe-inspiring
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: symbol of a deep psychological experience that reorients us that
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: changes us, that initiates us. So I think it helps
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: explain why we have such a fascination for tornadoes. And,
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: you know, Joseph, you mentioned this in your introduction, but
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: I want to come back to it here as we're
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: drawing close to a shift, perhaps, that tornadoes turn up
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: a lot in people's dreams. We've had many tornado dreams
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: submitted to the podcast, and I bet most of us
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: have had a tornado dream. Maybe only if you're in
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: North America, but I believe I've certainly had tornado dreams.
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: You know, one thing we haven't quite named that I'd
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: like to turn to is anger, fury. And the tornado itself,
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: you know, really... is symbolic of just this rage, of
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: just the swirling, and it just flattens everything in its path.
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: Indiscriminately.
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: Right, exactly. It's not a thoughtful process, shall we say.
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: It is indiscriminate and devastating. In Greek mythology, Typhon, or Typhoon,
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: was born to Gaia, the Earth, It was earth-born, which
• 38:28
  Speaker 4: I think is interesting. And she was angry at the
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: Olympian gods for the destruction of her offspring, the original
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: offspring of the giants. Right. And the Olympian gods said,
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: you know, off you go. We're done with giants. We're
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: taking over now. And Gaia, in her fury... gave birth
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: to Typhon. And I don't have the whole description, but
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: it's really wonderful. He's taller than the mountains. There are
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: a hundred snake heads on his shoulders. There are wings
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: and snakes on his back. It's just this really outrageously
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: over-the-top description of something truly monstrous. And then he in
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: turn gives birth to a two-headed dog that does some
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: sort of guard duty. the three-headed dog that guards the
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: gates of hell uh hydra the many-headed serpent where if
• 39:38
  Speaker 4: you chop off one of her heads it off up
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: spring war uh.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: That's like my to-do list yeah.
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: I'm laughing because I know exactly how.
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: That would make it. That is a great image. And
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: some say the Sphinx, and the list goes on and on,
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: that our ego's sense of outrage and fury is bad.
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: Part of what generates, psychologically speaking, a tornado. And instinct
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: takes over. And people hurl things through windows. We do
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: things we really regret.
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: So one thing I want to toss in is that
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: weather phenomena, is always purposive. There are reasons that the
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: planet needs hurricanes. The planet needs tornadoes. For instance, one
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: of the things that hurricanes do is that they redistribute
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: moisture and heat across the planet in a wider span.
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: That's why hurricanes generally generate around the equator for instance,
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: and then they start traveling up north is because there
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: cannot be an endless building up of heat and moisture
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: in the atmosphere in only one area of the world.
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: It has to, in order for life to maintain, it
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: has to be distributed to other parts of the planet. Now,
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: because of the extremes of heat that are increasing, that
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: we are seeing more need for this redistribution of energy
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: throughout the planet, this is also what happens in the psyche.
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: It's a process of self-regulation.
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: Exactly.
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: That when libido, life force inside of us, has been
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: locked up in a particular area, and it's not, for
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: whatever reason, not being distributed in a way that we
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: can thrive or the inner world can thrive, massive movements
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: of energy inside the psyche will require what we feel
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: often are violent changes of mood, unpredictable changes of life goals,
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: suddenly quitting your job, screaming and walking out of the
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: house saying, I'm out of here. Those are outer manifestations,
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: but internally, sometimes we need a massive movement. Thunderstorms create
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: tornadoes because there is so much moist, wet air close
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: to the planet. And there's dry, cold air above. And
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: so the moist air is being sucked up into the
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: atmosphere as part of the regulatory process that's essential for
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: the ecosystem, the health of Gaia. Now, of course, the
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: devastating consequences I'm not minimizing for people, but as metaphors,
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: We can also add that the internal hurricanes, tornadoes, or
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: even the dust devils, the water spouts, which we didn't
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: even talk about.
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: Right, right.
• 43:17
  Speaker 5: I have seen those. Water spouts are very bizarre.
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: Talk about feeling like there's a creature that's like moving
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: towards you. That these things play a role in the
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: inner world as well.
• 43:31
  Speaker 5: As the outer world.
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: And I think in that regard, we can have an
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: inner relationship with it, even though, of course, we would
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: seek to escape this outer destruction.
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: And that may be, in a way, when we see
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: something like tornadoes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, that we can make
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: an analogy to, you know, what is that like in
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: the psyche? But But hopefully it would not be necessary
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: to redistribute libido energy in that way that we would
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: be more aware of something building a little sooner and
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: seek to do something about it so that it does
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: not have to erupt in such a cataclysmic way. And
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: in mythology, a lot of the gods of storms... were
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: associated with war and warriors. And wait a minute, before
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: we have to have a war, is there some other
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: way to notice and identify, understand, and ameliorate the problem,
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: whatever it is?
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: And I would venture to say that the easiest mitigating
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: tool that we have in our hands is dream work.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: Oh.
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: Every dream is trying to redistribute that heat in the
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: inner environment, open up a blocked passage, move a little
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: passion over here, cool a little something over there, link
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: together some feelings and memories so that we have a
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: better structure inside. And just as you're saying, Deb, and
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: I mean this in very specific terms, if we are
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: doing dream work, and what I've seen is people's outer,
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: cataclysms actually reduce because what we are not conscious of
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: comes to us as fate. So the more dream work
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: we do, the less the unconscious has to constellate outer
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: situations to kind of smack us around to get the message.
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: And then also the inner agonies can reduce because we
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: are coming towards the learning. So we don't have to
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: wait for it to pound into us, you know, 500
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: miles an hour. So with that optimistic possibility, maybe.
• 46:11
  Speaker 5: It's time for a dream.
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: Perfect segue. Yes.
• 46:16
  Speaker 5: Brilliant.
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: Have you ever wondered what your dreams mean? Join us
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: in Dream School at thisunionlife.com and find out. Jung wrote,
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: dreams are a little hidden door in the innermost and
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: most secret recesses of the soul.
• 46:33
  Speaker 4: Dream School is a unique, self-paced online program you can
• 46:37
  Speaker 4: start at any time that unlocks access to your inner world.
• 46:42
  Speaker 4: Our 12-month program provides the support, knowledge, and guidance you
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: need to reach within, decipher your personal dream code, and
• 46:51
  Speaker 4: harness it to optimize your life. By enrolling, you'll join
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: an affirming community of fellow travelers, each pursuing a unique quest.
• 47:01
  Speaker 5: And it's fun.
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: Join us on an adventure to wholeness and healing through
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: understanding your dreams. Go to thisjungielife.com and click on Dream School.
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: You'll be taken to our secure checkout. Once you join,
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: you'll get immediate access to our first three modules. You
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: can get started right away. We look forward to seeing
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: you there. Our dreamer is a 39-year-old male who works
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: as a writer. And wonderfully, the dream is titled The
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: Tornado and the Tree.
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: I did seek out tornado dreams.
• 47:40
  Speaker 5: Thank you. Perfect.
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: I'm in this small, flat town near where I grew up,
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: just visiting, I think. I park my car at the
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: end of a short driveway. The sky darkens. A gray
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: or white tornado forms, reminding me of The.
• 48:02
  Speaker 5: Wizard of Oz.
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: It quickly knocks two trees onto the driveway. They'll have
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: to be cut for me to leave. The tornado then
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: moves onto this massive tree near the old house. The
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: tree is gray, maybe dead or bleached white by the sun.
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: The tornado knocks it down. and the tree falls in
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: an interesting, almost hypnotic way, like ice calving or a
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: vertical cascade. The tornado moves towards me, becoming invisible. It
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: lifts me slightly, but I begin to use the turbulent air.
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: I change direction and escape, crawling, almost gliding, on all sides.
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: fours through this large rectangular and shallow hole. I keep moving.
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: The dream fades. For context, he writes, I'm living abroad
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: and I just released my first book. I stopped drinking
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: about seven months ago and had one of my only
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: cravings for alcohol just the other day. I'm in my
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: first sober relationship. I've been dealing with waves of anger
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: and rage. His feelings in the dream were annoyance, awe, lightness, humor,
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: slight fear and dread, and fun. Some associations, he notes,
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: this was actually the result of a dream incubation. I
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: was asking for the first image for use in a book.
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: I've always loved the tornado scene in The Wizard of Oz. Well,
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: it's almost as if it's everything we talked about. I
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: don't know if there's anything else to say.
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: Well, the first thing that strikes me about, I mean,
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: we could begin right at the beginning and note that
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: he's near where he grew up. And so he is
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: sort of visiting back perhaps in a kind of psychological
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: territory of childhood. And then all of a sudden the
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: tornado comes and boom, you know, knocks down these two
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: trees and they'll have to be cut for him to leave.
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: So somehow there's a psychic situation where he's going to
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: have to where he's pinned into perhaps an old situation.
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: Something will have to be confronted. He can't easily leave.
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: That's a kind of initial thought that comes up for me.
• 50:45
  Speaker 4: And I'm building on that. I think there's this image
• 50:50
  Speaker 4: of being back somewhere where you can't get out, a
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: place of origin, but now something has to be cut
• 50:59
  Speaker 4: to get out. is repeated when it says there is
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: a massive tree that is gray, maybe dead, or bleached
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: white by the sun. Something has died. So here we
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: are in the old flat town. You're blocked in. There's
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: something that should be, you know, living and verdant and
• 51:23
  Speaker 4: have leaves. There is no life in it. And then
• 51:29
  Speaker 4: there is what I am wondering about here, as like,
• 51:33
  Speaker 4: then what happens? Well, the tornado moves toward him, becoming invisible. Hmm.
• 51:41
  Speaker 4: Then he is, I change direction and escape, crawling, almost
• 51:47
  Speaker 4: gliding on all fours through this large rectangular and shallow hole,
• 51:52
  Speaker 4: which would be something very different from the round vortex
• 51:57
  Speaker 4: of a tornado. But it feels a bit like a
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: magical wafting away solution, a la Dorothy in The Wizard
• 52:07
  Speaker 4: of Oz, that when she gets caught up in the tornado,
• 52:11
  Speaker 4: she lands in Oz instead of dying, being smashed on
• 52:18
  Speaker 4: the ground. So this feels a little bit like, hmm,
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: he escapes through gliding and crawling through And he keeps moving.
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: And I wonder if that has been, you know, how
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: that manifests in his waking life.
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, it is really interesting that he's lifted
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: up by the tornado, just as Dorothy or the Native
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: American story that you found, Joseph, you know, that there's,
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: there's been, there's maybe some possibility of transcendence. But I
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: think Deb, you're raising the very good question, is this
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: an experience of real transcendence or is this more like
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: a spiritual bypass?
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: And it's a little hard for me to say from
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: the dream.
• 53:05
  Speaker 4: Oh, I agree. It's hard to say, but it's something,
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: you know, it could be either way. And we can
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: just lift up to wonder about what's going on here.
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: I'm going to just.
• 53:19
  Speaker 5: Jump in? my fantasy about the dream.
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: It's not explicit in the dream, but I'm just thinking
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: about that first year of sobriety and the kinds of
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: processes that many people talk about. Yeah. So one of
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: the things that often happens is that when we are
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: caught in an addiction, there are all kinds of things
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: we come to believe in order to defend against confronting
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: or having to change something about the addiction. One of
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: those things is blame. And when somebody is actively using,
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: they'll often have stories about how their parents forced them
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: into some situation or something else kind of compels. It's
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: inevitable that I would be drinking or some other kind
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: of thing. And in general, often, and this is something
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: Bill W. wrote about in the big book, resentment and blame.
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: are sometimes even the causes of certain addictions.
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: So he's back near the home. It's a neighboring area,
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: but he's in the proximity, as you had noted, of
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: the home. Something in the unconscious says, you're not going anywhere. Boom,
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: you are going to sit here and have an encounter
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: relative to this area. And then we see these bones,
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: the white tree, the old attitudes, the old blaming. Well,
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: it's all about somebody else. It's all about the family
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: or this or this or this. But something, and I
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: would say it's reality. Reality is medicine. Reality begins to
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: come in and rip up some of the old bones,
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: the old resentments, blaming, bad attitudes, crashing them around. And interestingly,
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: the same reality that scourges the unhealthy attitudes is also
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: exactly the medicine. And so the ego is gently buoyed
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: up almost as if the whirlwind is a parent, sometimes
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: a parent that he may not have had in the
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: same way that the spirit bear treats him like the child.
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: He has a parent that he somehow was missing. And
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: so it treats him gently and lightly, even as it
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: scourges the psyche of old, dead things. So to me,
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: that is often the spirit people experience in AA. I've
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: had clients say that they were incredibly trapped in the addiction.
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: They went to their first meeting and their drive to
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: drink literally disappeared in a way that they cannot account
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: for and often attribute to a kind of spiritual process,
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: which then is followed by years of other kinds of
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: personality work. So there is a spirit in the work
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: that makes change. And often in AA, the prayer is
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: for God to do things, to make things better inside
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: of us. Take away traits that are awful in myself
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: as an alcoholic, for instance. I yield to the hand
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: of God or the higher power as we understand it.
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: So I feel that that narrative and the dream have
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: a resonance in my imagination.
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I really like that, Joseph. I think it really works.
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: And just to add to it, you know, he says
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: he's having a lot of issues with anger and rage,
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: which I think can also be part of the process
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: of becoming sober, especially that first year. You know, you
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: may feel very angry that you have to accept the
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: way things are. Mm-hmm. And we were talking before, Deb,
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: you brought up that the tornado can be an image
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: of anger. But I think you're right. In this dream,
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: it seems to be the instrument of change.
• 57:32
  Speaker 5: It's a cleansing.
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: And the final scene, which I think is so important,
• 57:37
  Speaker 3: is I am crawling on all fours. And often addiction
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: is characterized as self-will run riot. And so part of
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: the event that drives us into treatment is that the
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: self-will has just been brought to its knees. I've lost
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: the second marriage, the fourth business. I'm in terrible legal trouble.
• 58:06
  Speaker 3: I'm on all fours. And finally, I'm willing to open
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: the door to something else, something new. So I think
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: the dream is, although it could be seen as, you know,
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: somewhat scary. I think the dream is telling the guy,
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: you're on track. I mean, you're in a change process,
• 58:29
  Speaker 3: and the unconscious is helping you.
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. To submit a dream, suggest an episode topic,
• 58:40
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• 58:45
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