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Gratitude and Reverence: How to Lead a Sacred, Soulful Life · This Jungian Life Podcast

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
0:06
Speaker 1: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
0:10
Speaker 1: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
0:14
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.
0:23
Speaker 1: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
0:28
Speaker 3: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst in Cape Cod.
0:43
Speaker 2: In the United States, today is Thanksgiving. It's a day
0:48
Speaker 2: that Americans pause and reflect about what they are thankful for.
0:54
Speaker 2: So we thought it would be appropriate to take a
0:57
Speaker 2: Jungian look at gratitude. We know there's a lot of
1:01
Speaker 2: science about a gratitude practice and how that can be helpful.
1:06
Speaker 2: It can help mental health, resilience, physical health even. So
1:10
Speaker 2: we'll just visit that science briefly. But then we want to,
1:14
Speaker 2: of course, bring a Jungian perspective to it. So Deb
1:18
Speaker 2: and I are going to do our best to do
1:20
Speaker 2: that today.
1:22
Speaker 3: So I thought maybe I would share some of the lovely,
1:27
Speaker 3: beautiful things, totally in keeping with our theme, that people
1:33
Speaker 3: have said about gratitude as the moral memory of mankind.
1:41
Speaker 3: the memory of the heart, the queen of the virtues.
1:46
Speaker 3: I liked those little quotes because they had such a
1:50
Speaker 3: lovely feeling tone. And that is very important because gratitude
1:57
Speaker 3: is not about just doing routine social thanks for acknowledging
2:04
Speaker 3: something that we just do because we were taught to
2:07
Speaker 3: do that. And neither is it about tit for tat
2:11
Speaker 3: you did this for me, you did me a favor,
2:13
Speaker 3: so now I have to do a favor for you,
2:15
Speaker 3: and we need to make it reciprocal. And neither is
2:20
Speaker 3: it something that we do out of obligation, that, you know,
2:24
Speaker 3: because I owe you or I should. We are, I hope,
2:30
Speaker 3: in expressing gratitude, recognizing that we are part of the
2:35
Speaker 3: great round of giving and receiving. We're given all kinds
2:41
Speaker 3: of things. We receive them. We give back. And we're
2:45
Speaker 3: participating in the great dance of the cosmos in some
2:49
Speaker 3: way that we feel and know that we're part of
2:53
Speaker 3: something larger. And it comes from a sense of abundance.
3:02
Speaker 3: I can see your face, Lisa. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And
3:08
Speaker 3: I have to say that all the years that we've
3:11
Speaker 3: celebrated Thanksgiving, as many of you have too, this year
3:18
Speaker 3: and doing this podcast totally got me.
3:21
Speaker 2: Yeah. You know, I was thinking, Deb, I think the
3:24
Speaker 2: reason I'm getting teary and I just, I can't, I'm
3:27
Speaker 2: not going to be able to not get teary. So
3:29
Speaker 2: I'm just going to, I'm just going to own it.
3:31
Speaker 3: That's all to the good.
3:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, is you were talking about the sort of like
3:36
Speaker 2: social niceties. And I was thinking about how we teach
3:38
Speaker 2: kids to say please and thank you. And, you know,
3:41
Speaker 2: you teach your kids say thank you, thank you, thank you,
3:43
Speaker 2: thank you. And of course, kids with good manners will
3:46
Speaker 2: say thank you. But I was thinking about that moment.
3:48
Speaker 2: You know, one of the when I was thinking about
3:50
Speaker 2: this topic, one of the things I was thinking about
3:51
Speaker 2: is that real gratitude requires, you know, this thing that
3:55
Speaker 2: psychologists call theory of mind, right? And theory of mind
4:00
Speaker 2: is where you can kind of put yourself into another
4:02
Speaker 2: person's experience. So when you're a little kid and you
4:06
Speaker 2: ask for a glass of water and the adult gives
4:08
Speaker 2: you a glass of water and you say, thank you,
4:11
Speaker 2: it's rote, right? You don't really have an understanding of
4:15
Speaker 2: what that costs. But I was thinking about like that,
4:18
Speaker 2: when that flips and when you can sort of understand
4:22
Speaker 2: when the thank you is this deep gratitude. One of
4:27
Speaker 2: the memories that came back to me was, Oh, being,
4:33
Speaker 2: being a, um, graduating, graduating from college. Um, we, I
4:38
Speaker 2: had two of my, lived with two of my best
4:40
Speaker 2: friends and we, um, we invited our, our parents for dinner. Um,
4:47
Speaker 2: so here we, you know, it's the eve of our
4:49
Speaker 2: graduation from college. We're in this apartment. We've managed to
4:52
Speaker 2: kind of, uh, you know, Jerry, Jerry Riggs, some kind
4:56
Speaker 2: of big table, um, We had made this nice meal.
5:00
Speaker 2: There's the three of us and then there's our parents
5:02
Speaker 2: sitting around. And, you know, I mean, I was probably
5:06
Speaker 2: a very typical kind of adolescent. I was full of
5:11
Speaker 2: like drama and angst and probably a certain amount of
5:14
Speaker 2: resentment at my parents for various things. And that night
5:20
Speaker 2: at dinner, we toasted. And I remember making a toast
5:25
Speaker 2: and just saying, thank you. Duh. I mean, my parents
5:28
Speaker 2: had like cut me through college. But it was the
5:32
Speaker 2: first time I think that I really was thinking about
5:35
Speaker 2: what that meant. And I still remember the look on
5:38
Speaker 2: my father's face because I think he wasn't expecting that.
5:43
Speaker 3: Yeah.
5:44
Speaker 2: But it was like me just getting out of my
5:48
Speaker 2: own stupid adolescent head and thinking about what other people
5:54
Speaker 2: had done for me.
5:55
Speaker 3: Yeah. And the experience that obviously the memory brings up
6:04
Speaker 3: of really taking that in and the undeservedness of it
6:11
Speaker 3: that your parents had saved and maybe even gone into debt,
6:17
Speaker 3: as many parents do, that they want to give their
6:21
Speaker 3: children this opportunity. And recognizing that there were others who
6:29
Speaker 3: had stretched to do this, that does go back to
6:36
Speaker 3: the very early years of when children learn that theory
6:43
Speaker 3: of mind and develop empathy and really kind of get
6:47
Speaker 3: that from somebody else's perspective, This looks altogether different.
6:53
Speaker 2: Yes.
6:53
Speaker 3: Of that first little step out of your own little self.
6:57
Speaker 3: But as your memory says, you know, then we spiral.
7:01
Speaker 3: And the same thing happens in adolescence or young adulthood
7:07
Speaker 3: or even later that we get what it took.
7:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, right.
7:13
Speaker 3: For someone else to give us maybe fund a college education.
7:20
Speaker 3: But maybe come and get us at one in the
7:24
Speaker 3: morning on a dark, rainy night when the car broke
7:27
Speaker 3: down on the highway and that dad or a friend
7:32
Speaker 3: or uncle so-and-so was willing to get up and come
7:36
Speaker 3: out and pick you up on the side of the
7:40
Speaker 3: highway or go down to the police station because you
7:44
Speaker 3: were at a party and being really rowdy. Yeah. and
7:50
Speaker 3: sees you through it, that senses someone else has had
7:56
Speaker 3: a generosity and that we can be thankful for it
8:00
Speaker 3: instead of taking it for granted. This Jungian Life Dream
8:04
Speaker 3: School is our year-long online program in the art of
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Speaker 3: Jungian dream analysis. We offer guidance, instruction, and community as
8:15
Speaker 3: you learn to work more deeply with your dreams. There
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8:36
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8:40
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8:54
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8:59
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9:02
Speaker 3: of you in Dream School in time for 2026.
9:06
Speaker 2: I'll give you another example that, you know, when we
9:13
Speaker 2: were in training, there were all of these requirements. We
9:16
Speaker 2: had to do this reading. We had to write these papers.
9:18
Speaker 2: We had to get these case presentations. We had to
9:20
Speaker 2: attend all this stuff. And, you know, I know that
9:23
Speaker 2: we at certain times, and I think I'm speaking for
9:26
Speaker 2: both of us, felt a little put upon or, you know,
9:30
Speaker 2: impinged upon somehow, maybe a little bit resentful about everything
9:33
Speaker 2: that we were being asked to do. And if we
9:36
Speaker 2: had a run-in with one of our evaluators, we felt
9:39
Speaker 2: really salty about it. And And then you get through training,
9:43
Speaker 2: and I think I didn't really have much feeling about
9:47
Speaker 2: the training experience other than I'm going to be a
9:50
Speaker 2: good student, I'm going to get through it. Then you
9:55
Speaker 2: turn around, you graduate on the other side, and suddenly
9:58
Speaker 2: they hand you the reins. and they say, great. Now
10:02
Speaker 2: you're going to run the seminar. You're going to teach
10:04
Speaker 2: the candidates. And I'm like, oh, my God, this is
10:09
Speaker 2: so much work. You know, that you really don't get
10:14
Speaker 2: paid for. There's a tiny little honorarium, but you really
10:16
Speaker 2: don't get paid for it. And suddenly. I was overcome
10:21
Speaker 2: with profound gratitude of all of the people, all of
10:26
Speaker 2: the analysts who through the years had spent time, had
10:31
Speaker 2: given their time to me and my training. And I
10:35
Speaker 2: will never take that for granted again, but it was
10:38
Speaker 2: very similar. You know, the thing about gratitude is it's
10:41
Speaker 2: a moment that pops you out of your solipsism. You know,
10:45
Speaker 2: when I was in college, it was like me, me, me.
10:47
Speaker 2: And oh, my God, I've got this paper and I've
10:48
Speaker 2: got this exam. And I just didn't think about, well,
10:52
Speaker 2: who made this whole thing possible? I mean, obviously, I
10:55
Speaker 2: knew that in some level, but on a feeling sense
10:58
Speaker 2: or in training, it's like, oh, I've got to do this,
11:00
Speaker 2: this and this. And yeah, like I knew the other
11:02
Speaker 2: analysts were there. But that feeling, that emotional experience of, wow,
11:08
Speaker 2: somebody did this for me.
11:11
Speaker 3: So there's a developmental... growth around gratitude from the routine
11:21
Speaker 3: social thanks or the tit-for-tat stuff. I remember going through
11:26
Speaker 3: that as a kid.
11:27
Speaker 2: Right.
11:28
Speaker 3: You know, you did this, so now it's my turn,
11:30
Speaker 3: taking turns and all of that. But that place that
11:36
Speaker 3: we're so aware of now, that breakthrough moment where we
11:41
Speaker 3: get that it was undeserved. And people really put themselves
11:47
Speaker 3: out for us. That experience of gratitude, of you gave
11:56
Speaker 3: me something. I was thinking, this is probably going to
12:02
Speaker 3: get me. I had a tough time as a teenager,
12:09
Speaker 3: all kinds of family stuff and big long list. And
12:17
Speaker 3: we had bonded to this very nice church, very liberal.
12:21
Speaker 3: They had a fellowship, a junior pilgrim fellowship for junior
12:26
Speaker 3: high school students, senior pilgrim fellowship for high school students.
12:32
Speaker 3: And I thought about, I never thanked the associate minister
12:40
Speaker 3: and the seminarian who did so much for us, and
12:48
Speaker 3: it saw me through difficult, troubling, lonely years that every
12:59
Speaker 3: week there was that, and we played games, and there
13:04
Speaker 3: were some serious discussions, and they organized dances for us.
13:10
Speaker 3: I had a place to belong. I had a home.
13:15
Speaker 3: And I never thanked them. And what it must have
13:18
Speaker 3: taken to do this every week and then the retreats
13:25
Speaker 3: and the dances. It was a steady stream of generosity.
13:34
Speaker 2: And there is a way, I mean, I think that
13:37
Speaker 2: people say of parenthood, for example, you can't, but maybe
13:41
Speaker 2: it's not just parenthood, you can't, You can't repay someone,
13:44
Speaker 2: but you can pay it forward. Yes.
13:48
Speaker 3: And that hopefully, when we get it, gives us a
13:54
Speaker 3: place of abundance of, oh, my goodness, I'll reach out
13:59
Speaker 3: to you. I can. You filled me up. Let me
14:03
Speaker 3: give you a little something.
14:05
Speaker 2: So I'll tell a funny story about paying it forward
14:08
Speaker 2: or repaying it. I guess it was like my first
14:12
Speaker 2: Mother's Day after I became a mom. And my husband
14:17
Speaker 2: had a great comment that I still chuckle at. He said,
14:22
Speaker 2: you know, I can't believe all these years I've been
14:25
Speaker 2: sending my mother a card. I should have been like
14:27
Speaker 2: buying her a new car every year. Like, this is
14:31
Speaker 2: so hard. And I, you know, I think that really
14:35
Speaker 2: captures it, right?
14:38
Speaker 3: Here is a wonderful poem by Billy Collins, who was,
14:42
Speaker 3: I think, the poet laureate for the United States at
14:45
Speaker 3: one point. And he writes a poem called The Lanyard.
14:50
Speaker 3: The other day, as I was ricocheting slowly off the
14:54
Speaker 3: pale blue walls of this room, bouncing from typewriter to piano,
14:58
Speaker 3: from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor, I
15:02
Speaker 3: found myself in the L section of the dictionary where
15:06
Speaker 3: my eyes fell upon the word lanyard. No cookie nibbled
15:11
Speaker 3: by a French novelist could send one more suddenly into
15:15
Speaker 3: the past, a past where I sat at a workbench
15:18
Speaker 3: at a camp by a deep Adirondack lake, learning how
15:23
Speaker 3: to braid plastic strips into a lanyard, a gift from
15:28
Speaker 3: my mother. I'd never seen anyone use a lanyard or
15:32
Speaker 3: wear one, if that's what you did with them. But
15:35
Speaker 3: that did not keep me from crossing strand over strand
15:39
Speaker 3: again and again until I had made a boxy red
15:42
Speaker 3: and white lanyard for my mother. She gave me life
15:48
Speaker 3: and milk from her breath, and I gave her a lanyard.
15:54
Speaker 3: She nursed me in many a sick room, lifted teaspoons
15:57
Speaker 3: of medicine to my lips, set cold face cloths on
16:00
Speaker 3: my forehead. and then led me out into the airy
16:04
Speaker 3: light and taught me to walk and swim. And I,
16:07
Speaker 3: in turn, presented her with a lanyard. Here are thousands
16:13
Speaker 3: of meals, she said, and here's clothing and a good education.
16:17
Speaker 3: And here is your lanyard, I replied, which I made
16:20
Speaker 3: with a little help from a counselor. Here is a
16:23
Speaker 3: breathing body and a beating heart, strong legs, bones, and teeth,
16:28
Speaker 3: and two clear eyes to read to the world, she whispered.
16:32
Speaker 3: And here, I said, is a lanyard I made at camp.
16:37
Speaker 3: And here, I wish to say to her now as
16:40
Speaker 3: a smaller gift, not the archaic truth that you can
16:44
Speaker 3: never repay your mother, but the rueful admission that when
16:49
Speaker 3: she took the two-tone lanyard from my hands, I was
16:53
Speaker 3: as sure as a boy could be that this useless,
16:57
Speaker 3: worthless thing I wove out of boredom would be enough.
17:01
Speaker 3: To make us even.
17:03
Speaker 2: That's the place where we usually live, right? It's like,
17:07
Speaker 2: here's a lanyard.
17:09
Speaker 3: It's, of course, you know, we were talking about the
17:12
Speaker 3: developmental awarenesses.
17:15
Speaker 2: Right.
17:16
Speaker 3: Of here's a, you know, maybe a 10-year-old boy. And
17:21
Speaker 3: so there's both. There's the poignance that every mother receives
17:25
Speaker 3: these gifts from her children. Right. that often are instigated
17:30
Speaker 3: by their teachers, that it's Mother's Day or Christmas or something,
17:34
Speaker 3: and we're all going to make something. And we do
17:38
Speaker 3: receive them with the appropriate gratitude for the thoughtfulness of
17:45
Speaker 3: a six-year-old or a 10-year-old or a 20-year-old or even older,
17:52
Speaker 3: that we get that that is the stage of heart growth.
17:56
Speaker 3: that is appropriate to that age and stage of this
18:02
Speaker 3: younger person. And we also get from this poem that
18:10
Speaker 3: we can't repay these kinds of gifts that what you
18:17
Speaker 3: were talking about that was so moving of the realization
18:21
Speaker 3: of what your parents had done to put you through college.
18:27
Speaker 3: of really getting the value of the gift and being,
18:32
Speaker 3: and when we acknowledge it, it's incredibly moving.
18:37
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's that shift. I mean, one of
18:39
Speaker 2: the things that's so brilliant about that poem is that
18:42
Speaker 2: last stanza, you know, where he basically says, I thought
18:46
Speaker 2: we were even.
18:47
Speaker 3: Yeah.
18:48
Speaker 2: And yes, that is like a developmental stage of childhood,
18:53
Speaker 2: but I'm sort of thinking that But we repeat that
18:57
Speaker 2: again and again because, you know, I didn't really realize
19:00
Speaker 2: what I was taking for granted when I was in college.
19:03
Speaker 2: I didn't realize when I was in training I didn't
19:05
Speaker 2: know what I was taking for granted. What am I
19:07
Speaker 2: taking for granted right now? I don't know, you know.
19:10
Speaker 2: So there's new opportunities in every stage of life to
19:16
Speaker 2: become aware of how we are invisibly supported. Invisible to us, anyway.
19:21
Speaker 3: Exactly. Exactly. And so I think, you know, we're also
19:28
Speaker 3: circling around awareness of in that Billy Collins poem, of course,
19:36
Speaker 3: is his boyhood self was not that aware.
19:39
Speaker 2: Right.
19:40
Speaker 3: You had a moment of tremendous awareness of the magnitude.
19:46
Speaker 3: And I hear you about training. Honestly, and God knows
19:51
Speaker 3: I was old enough to know better, but it was
19:56
Speaker 3: given without any intimation of what it cost our teachers
20:06
Speaker 3: in time and preparation and generosity. And showing up when
20:12
Speaker 3: they had other obligations.
20:16
Speaker 2: Of their own.
20:18
Speaker 3: And there they were for us to pass on the
20:23
Speaker 3: gifts that they had been given by their teachers. And
20:28
Speaker 3: then all of a sudden, I remember that moment of like,
20:33
Speaker 3: you mean me? I don't know that I have it
20:39
Speaker 3: to give. I don't. Know enough I don't know that
20:41
Speaker 3: I'm worthy. And yet, there's the call. Show up.
20:49
Speaker 2: Be who you are.
20:51
Speaker 3: Give what you have as others did that for you.
20:57
Speaker 3: And it was not a repayment. No. But it was
21:01
Speaker 3: a stepping into the tradition that, of course, I'm not ready.
21:06
Speaker 3: Of course, I don't know enough. But I'm going to
21:09
Speaker 3: do it anyway.
21:11
Speaker 2: You know, one of the themes in everything we've talked
21:13
Speaker 2: about so far in this episode is that when you're
21:17
Speaker 2: granted a great gift, you don't know what you've been given.
21:22
Speaker 2: And the gratitude only comes later. I don't know that
21:26
Speaker 2: that's always true, but I am noticing that that's what
21:29
Speaker 2: our theme has been so far.
21:31
Speaker 3: Yes.
21:31
Speaker 2: You know, there are other times when perhaps you're granted
21:34
Speaker 2: a great gift, when you have an overwhelming immediate sense
21:37
Speaker 2: of Of gratitude. But perhaps it's often true that gratitude
21:43
Speaker 2: only comes later. That really understanding what you've been given
21:48
Speaker 2: only comes later.
21:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's a huge part of it. And
21:54
Speaker 3: then how do we say thank you? We pass on
22:01
Speaker 3: what we have to pass on. that is often not reciprocal,
22:07
Speaker 3: that we can thank the giver. Instead, we have our
22:14
Speaker 3: own abundance from which to offer something. And I'll tell
22:22
Speaker 3: a story about being, serving my very, very first clients,
22:29
Speaker 3: patients in a community mental health clinic. And I had
22:34
Speaker 3: no idea. what to give them. I didn't know enough.
22:38
Speaker 3: But the idea that you give what you have. And
22:43
Speaker 3: all I could think about as I was about to
22:45
Speaker 3: see people as clients was what do I have to
22:51
Speaker 3: give them? I don't have years of experience. I don't
22:57
Speaker 3: have piles of wisdom. But what do I have to
23:00
Speaker 3: offer them? And what came up was the image of
23:03
Speaker 3: offering people a sandwich, that it would be like offering
23:08
Speaker 3: someone lunch, and that I could offer them a sandwich
23:15
Speaker 3: and a slice of pickle and some chips, and that
23:20
Speaker 3: that's what I wanted to give. That's what I had
23:24
Speaker 3: to give. And it made the gratitude and the act
23:31
Speaker 3: of giving seem so much more possible for me. And
23:35
Speaker 3: it took me out of my own ego that I
23:38
Speaker 3: had to know everything and be, you know, be wise
23:42
Speaker 3: and skilled and all the rest of it. It was
23:46
Speaker 3: very humbling. All I have to offer you is a sandwich,
23:51
Speaker 3: but here it is. Mm-hmm. And if you're hungry, it's food.
23:56
Speaker 3: It will feed you.
23:57
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. You know, you talked about sort of getting out
24:03
Speaker 2: of your own ego, and I think that that's another
24:05
Speaker 2: common denominator, right? And that's why, you know, there is
24:08
Speaker 2: all this silence about the benefits of gratitude. And I
24:12
Speaker 2: think it's because, and you talked about the feeling tone,
24:15
Speaker 2: which obviously we've both been feeling this morning as we're recording.
24:21
Speaker 2: But it does evoke this feeling of this kind of
24:25
Speaker 2: humility and a sense of being in relationship to something larger. Yes. And,
24:31
Speaker 2: and it's, it is exactly that, that it's, it's what
24:35
Speaker 2: Jung called the relativization of the ego. You know, like
24:38
Speaker 2: there I was in college, like I'm, I know, I
24:40
Speaker 2: know that I probably was kind of a pain in
24:44
Speaker 2: the ass because I was just like, oh, stress, exams, papers,
24:48
Speaker 2: you know, I was in my ego and I've got to,
24:50
Speaker 2: I've got to do really well. And I've got to,
24:52
Speaker 2: you know, but, but it's like, whoa, you know, it's,
24:55
Speaker 2: it's that where's the broader perspective, you know? And I
25:00
Speaker 2: think that there's this Polynesian saying that Joseph Campbell has
25:05
Speaker 2: mentioned that I really love. So in Polynesia, they say,
25:10
Speaker 2: standing on the back of a whale, fishing for minnows.
25:15
Speaker 2: And fishing for minnows is what we do every day
25:18
Speaker 2: in our ego life. And only rarely do we even
25:21
Speaker 2: become aware that we're standing on the back of a whale. Yeah.
25:26
Speaker 2: So to understand the sort of the transpersonal basis of
25:29
Speaker 2: our lives and how we're connected to our ancestors, how
25:34
Speaker 2: we're invisibly supported by all the people who have given
25:38
Speaker 2: us things, that wider, broader perspective is standing on the whale.
25:43
Speaker 2: And I think that's the perspective that gratitude invites. So
25:48
Speaker 2: when you're fishing for minnows, there I was in college,
25:50
Speaker 2: like fishing for minnows, like I got to finish 300
25:53
Speaker 2: pages of reading instead of like, oh my God, look
25:57
Speaker 2: at how incredibly lucky I am. Yeah.
26:00
Speaker 3: I want to take us to Jung and a beautiful
26:06
Speaker 3: story of this wider perspective from which gratitude can spring.
26:13
Speaker 3: He was traveling and he was meeting with the Pueblo Indians.
26:23
Speaker 3: And he's meeting with a group of people and he says,
26:27
Speaker 3: suddenly a deep voice, vibrant with suppressed emotion, spoke from
26:33
Speaker 3: behind me into my left ear. Do you not think
26:37
Speaker 3: that all life comes from the mountain? An elderly Indian
26:41
Speaker 3: had come up to me inaudible in his moccasins and
26:45
Speaker 3: had asked me this heaven knows how far reaching question.
26:51
Speaker 3: A glance at the river pouring down from the mountain
26:53
Speaker 3: showed me the outward image that had engendered this conclusion. Obviously,
26:59
Speaker 3: all life came from the mountains, for where there is water,
27:02
Speaker 3: there is life. Nothing could be more obvious. In his question,
27:07
Speaker 3: I felt a swelling emotion connected with the word mountain
27:12
Speaker 3: and thought of the tale of secret rites celebrated on
27:15
Speaker 3: the mountain. I replied, everyone can see. that you spoke
27:20
Speaker 3: the truth. And then these conversations go on, and another
27:28
Speaker 3: person says, you know, they're trying to understand the American
27:34
Speaker 3: misunderstanding or lack of understanding about their religion. And he says,
27:40
Speaker 3: we do nothing to harm the Americans. Why can't they
27:44
Speaker 3: let us alone? What we do, we do not only
27:49
Speaker 3: for ourselves, but for the Americans also. Yes, we do
27:53
Speaker 3: it for the whole world. Everyone benefits from it. I
27:59
Speaker 3: could observe from his excitement that he was alluding to
28:01
Speaker 3: some extremely important element of his religion. I therefore asked him,
28:07
Speaker 3: you think then that what you do in your religion
28:10
Speaker 3: benefits the whole world? He replied with great animation, of course.
28:15
Speaker 3: If we did not do it, what would become of
28:17
Speaker 3: the world? And with a significant gesture, he pointed to
28:22
Speaker 3: the sun. I felt we were approaching extremely delicate ground here,
28:27
Speaker 3: verging on the mysteries of the tribe. After all, he said,
28:31
Speaker 3: we are a people who live on the roof of
28:34
Speaker 3: the world. We are the sons of Father's Son, and
28:38
Speaker 3: with our religion, we daily help our Father to go
28:41
Speaker 3: across the sky and We do this not only for ourselves,
28:46
Speaker 3: but for the whole world. If we were to cease
28:49
Speaker 3: practicing our religion in 10 years, the sun would no
28:52
Speaker 3: longer rise. Then it would be night forever. I then
28:57
Speaker 3: realized on what the dignity, the tranquil composure of the
29:02
Speaker 3: individual Indian was founded. It springs from his being a
29:06
Speaker 3: son of the sun. His life is cosmologically meaningful. for
29:12
Speaker 3: he helps the father and preserver of all life in
29:17
Speaker 3: his daily rise and descent. And there is gratitude, and
29:24
Speaker 3: we've been talking implicitly about the generosity to give back,
29:31
Speaker 3: of the great round of being given to, receiving, and
29:37
Speaker 3: giving back, this great cycle. of life, the great round,
29:44
Speaker 3: and knowing that we're part of something greater.
29:47
Speaker 2: You know, I was thinking while you were reading, Deb,
29:52
Speaker 2: that gratitude is sort of like the opposite of resentment, right?
29:56
Speaker 2: And resentment is such like a kind of poisonous emotion.
29:59
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not saying that sometimes it's not totally justified.
30:02
Speaker 2: I'm not saying that we shouldn't feel resentment. But if
30:06
Speaker 2: you indulge in resentment, it poisons your life. It really does.
30:12
Speaker 2: So if you feel resentment, you need to deal with it,
30:18
Speaker 2: not dismiss it, not deny it, but deal with it. But,
30:22
Speaker 2: you know, there's that thing about which wolf do you feed?
30:26
Speaker 2: The reason that that's powerful, I think, the thing about
30:29
Speaker 2: feeding wolves is because, you know, you can rest into
30:33
Speaker 2: resentment and just like churn that through your brain again
30:36
Speaker 2: and again and again. It's like, oh, you know, you
30:38
Speaker 2: perseverate on it, you ruminate on it. My God, he
30:41
Speaker 2: did this to me, whatever. And it's like some of
30:44
Speaker 2: that is helpful, but there's a point beyond which you're
30:48
Speaker 2: just like feeding a bad wolf. And I think you
30:51
Speaker 2: can also kind of do the same thing with gratitude, right? Like,
30:55
Speaker 2: and this is the whole idea behind a gratitude practice
30:58
Speaker 2: is you can kind of like hack your brain basically
31:03
Speaker 2: by thinking about like, God, all the things that you're
31:06
Speaker 2: grateful for and it will change your state and it
31:09
Speaker 2: will change your attitude and you can just like hack
31:13
Speaker 2: right into that. I'm going to try to do a
31:15
Speaker 2: little tiny bit of neurobiology, which I'm sure I will
31:17
Speaker 2: make a total hatchet job of. But there are sort
31:21
Speaker 2: of like two neurobiological systems. One is the approach or
31:27
Speaker 2: the appetitive emotions, the pro-social emotions that draw us to
31:31
Speaker 2: each other or to something. It might be food, it
31:34
Speaker 2: might be, you know, a relationship, but it's like we're
31:38
Speaker 2: open and we're moving toward life. And then there's the
31:41
Speaker 2: aversive kind of neurobiological pattern, and that's fear and defense and,
31:48
Speaker 2: you know, anger and that kind of thing. And it's
31:50
Speaker 2: like they both have their role. But you also want
31:53
Speaker 2: to notice where you are. Where are you? Because there's
31:58
Speaker 2: an extent to which you can choose where you are.
32:01
Speaker 2: Not all the time, not 100%. Sometimes something happens and
32:05
Speaker 2: it gets you really angry and worked up and you
32:08
Speaker 2: need to be in that defensive, angry, resentful place so
32:13
Speaker 2: that you can work it through and figure out how
32:14
Speaker 2: to protect yourself. I'm not saying that's bad, but if
32:19
Speaker 2: that's where you're idling, that will take a toll on
32:22
Speaker 2: your mental health and possibly even your physical health. And
32:26
Speaker 2: so I think that the idea behind like doing a
32:28
Speaker 2: gratitude practice is to actually choose to make that shift
32:34
Speaker 2: and into that other place, that open-hearted place, that place
32:39
Speaker 2: of approach. So the neurobiologists, please, you know, write in
32:45
Speaker 2: and correct me, but that's my understanding of it. And
32:49
Speaker 2: I think, again, it goes back to the kind of feelings,
32:51
Speaker 2: the feelings that this topic has generated in us. And again,
32:55
Speaker 2: to just sort of put it into Jungian language and
32:59
Speaker 2: to go back to that beautiful passage that you just read,
33:03
Speaker 2: it's about, It's about understanding. The thing is that when
33:08
Speaker 2: we're feeling defensive and resentful and angry, first of all,
33:12
Speaker 2: we're the center of the universe, right? Right. And in
33:16
Speaker 2: a sense, our life is very small.
33:18
Speaker 3: Right. Look what happened to me.
33:20
Speaker 2: That's right. When we can open up into that approach space,
33:25
Speaker 2: that appetitive space, where we are saying... my life has
33:32
Speaker 2: cosmological meaning. I am part of this great round. Then, wow, wow,
33:40
Speaker 2: that's an open-hearted space. And it brings to mind, I'm
33:46
Speaker 2: just pulling up this beautiful quote that we have read before,
33:49
Speaker 2: and I have certainly quoted before in my books. This
33:55
Speaker 2: is from Memories, Dreams, Reflections. The decisive question for man is,
34:00
Speaker 2: Is he related to something infinite or not? That is
34:03
Speaker 2: the telling question of his life. And I think, you know,
34:07
Speaker 2: and that's even related to the minnows and the whale.
34:10
Speaker 2: It's like when you can relate to the infinite, then
34:16
Speaker 2: you are in right relationship with these larger forces and
34:21
Speaker 2: gratitude gives us access to that.
34:24
Speaker 3: I think that in a way is the whole heart
34:28
Speaker 3: of today's podcasts is the story of the Pueblo Indians
34:34
Speaker 3: which I've read about before somehow I got it at
34:39
Speaker 3: a bigger at a bigger level that from the developmental
34:45
Speaker 3: stance of a child through your young adult experience of
34:49
Speaker 3: gratitude to your parents of all of a sudden this
34:54
Speaker 3: Thanksgiving being part of something bigger and appreciating the value
35:03
Speaker 3: that these things, the meaning that they have, and really
35:08
Speaker 3: taking it in in some new way. It's an astonishing
35:16
Speaker 3: realization that all the words are really a way of
35:21
Speaker 3: trying to capture the feeling where Jung got it with
35:26
Speaker 3: the Pueblo and Billy Collins got it with the lanyards.
35:32
Speaker 3: You got it. I got it. And it's sort of
35:35
Speaker 3: like the special secret to everything of how much there
35:44
Speaker 3: is to notice and take in and be responsive to.
35:50
Speaker 3: And I want to take up your point about, yes,
35:53
Speaker 3: we feel resentment and we get angry or we're in
35:55
Speaker 3: a bad mood. So we're not talking so much about
36:00
Speaker 3: not feeling those feelings or doing sort of a spiritual
36:04
Speaker 3: bypass where those things don't exist anymore. They do exist.
36:09
Speaker 3: But I liked how you said it of let's not
36:11
Speaker 3: linger there. Let's not put our engine on idle and
36:15
Speaker 3: stay there over long. Let's add to it other realizations
36:25
Speaker 3: that help us practice and really be proactive with ourselves
36:32
Speaker 3: about gratitude. So, you know, all the things that I
36:36
Speaker 3: listened to and read about and thought about of, you know,
36:40
Speaker 3: you can do a gratitude journal. It's really about does
36:45
Speaker 3: it touch your heart? This is really real. And then
36:53
Speaker 3: you're a rich person. You have an abundance.
36:58
Speaker 2: You know, I want to talk for a minute, picking
37:01
Speaker 2: up on that, about gratitude and individuation. Because I think
37:06
Speaker 2: what the neurobiologists call pro-social or appetitive or any of
37:11
Speaker 2: those terms is kind of like approach, the approach system.
37:16
Speaker 2: The way I think about that is it tracks with
37:19
Speaker 2: this quality that I think of as open-heartedness. And a
37:24
Speaker 2: number of years ago when I was working on my
37:26
Speaker 2: first book on motherhood, I wanted to talk about individuation
37:32
Speaker 2: and I wanted to talk about Jung's idea of individuation
37:34
Speaker 2: in a really sort of like practical way. I was like,
37:37
Speaker 2: what does it really mean? You know? So I went
37:40
Speaker 2: through all of the, I went through the index of
37:43
Speaker 2: the collected works and I read all of the entries
37:46
Speaker 2: on individuation. And I, you know, read a couple books
37:50
Speaker 2: about individuation. I was like, what is that? What is that?
37:54
Speaker 2: And one of the ways I sort of, condensed it
37:58
Speaker 2: for myself was was individuation requires you to move through
38:03
Speaker 2: the world in an open-hearted way so that so that
38:07
Speaker 2: whatever comes toward you whether it's a difficult challenging experience
38:11
Speaker 2: you you take it in you know there's heartbreak and
38:14
Speaker 2: you and you allow it to change you if you
38:18
Speaker 2: experience something wonderful you allow yourself to feel that too
38:22
Speaker 2: and it is it is this sort of expansiveness. And
38:25
Speaker 2: I think we all know people who approach life that way.
38:28
Speaker 2: And then we know people who are sort of shut down.
38:32
Speaker 2: And when something bad happens to them, they do sort
38:35
Speaker 2: of stay in resentment and they just kind of grind
38:38
Speaker 2: on that thematically again and again. And those people, even
38:41
Speaker 2: when something good happens to them, sometimes it's hard to
38:45
Speaker 2: stay with that. Or they experience the good thing, but
38:49
Speaker 2: they do it very comparatively, like, well, what I got
38:51
Speaker 2: was better than what this other person got or something
38:54
Speaker 2: like that. So I think we can all kind of intuitively,
38:57
Speaker 2: at least I can, really feel that difference between kind
39:01
Speaker 2: of openheartedness is the quality that I wound up feeling
39:05
Speaker 2: was like sort of essential for individuation, for this idea
39:09
Speaker 2: of kind of becoming the fullest version of ourselves possible.
39:13
Speaker 2: And it strikes me today that the gratitude is one
39:19
Speaker 2: of the keys to openheartedness. It's one of the keys
39:22
Speaker 2: that can unlock that state, that kind of emotional, affective
39:28
Speaker 2: state of overwhelm. And I would say that the other
39:32
Speaker 2: two emotions that I think are closely related are awe
39:37
Speaker 2: and reverence.
39:39
Speaker 3: Oh, reverence is a very, very big, and it takes
39:44
Speaker 3: me back to, um, Jung's friend who was named Mountain
39:49
Speaker 3: Lake in the Pueblo community, and what I read of
39:56
Speaker 3: the reverence for just being alive and being on the
40:01
Speaker 3: earth and being part of something greater, to help father-son
40:08
Speaker 3: in his travels every day. Now, that is open-hearted. I
40:17
Speaker 3: like your word. I think that's what I went into
40:21
Speaker 3: that first week of seeing my first psychotherapy clients with
40:25
Speaker 3: is I'm open-hearted and what I have to offer you
40:29
Speaker 3: is a ham and cheese sandwich and a pickle. It's
40:34
Speaker 3: not so much about ourselves and what we want or
40:39
Speaker 3: our own inadequacy that what I have to offer you
40:42
Speaker 3: isn't enough, that there is that sense of, appreciation, and humility,
40:52
Speaker 3: and being willing to make our own ego smaller just
40:55
Speaker 3: to be part of something greater of a moment, a session,
41:02
Speaker 3: an initial session with a client that here I am,
41:07
Speaker 3: And it's not just about me. And it's not even
41:10
Speaker 3: just about you and me, whoever the you is. It
41:14
Speaker 3: goes to that third thing that we learned about and
41:17
Speaker 3: learned about over and over again, the third, that there
41:23
Speaker 3: is another presence, there is another dynamic, that the you
41:29
Speaker 3: and the me generates something, a third thing, that there
41:34
Speaker 3: is a sustaining... other current in an interpersonal transaction or
41:41
Speaker 3: in this beautiful sense of helping the sun to go
41:46
Speaker 3: across the sky to help the whole world. We do
41:49
Speaker 3: it for the whole world. It's the most beautiful act
41:53
Speaker 3: of reverence and generosity, participating in the great round. I'm thinking, too,
42:01
Speaker 3: about other religious traditions that emphasize gratitude For the Jewish Seder,
42:10
Speaker 3: there is a song, Dayenu. And it's a beautiful song.
42:16
Speaker 3: And I go on YouTube and listen to a rendition
42:20
Speaker 3: of it if you want. But the song is about,
42:25
Speaker 3: if God had just given us this, it would have
42:28
Speaker 3: been enough. But no, God gave us this and this
42:31
Speaker 3: and this and this and this. The appreciation. there's a
42:36
Speaker 3: spiritual component to 12-step programs, to AA, the original 12-step program,
42:46
Speaker 3: in which Jung corresponded with Bill Wilson. And gratitude, gratitude
42:53
Speaker 3: is woven all throughout because if we stay stuck in
42:58
Speaker 3: the bad things that happen to us or our misfortunes
43:01
Speaker 3: and what we don't have, It's a narrow, small, sad, confining,
43:08
Speaker 3: unrewarding place to be.
43:10
Speaker 2: To go back to my earlier attempt at this, I
43:13
Speaker 2: think that when we're in that kind of like noticing
43:18
Speaker 2: what's wrong, noticing what's lacking, feeling resentful, then we're really
43:22
Speaker 2: just with the minnows and we're not seeing the whale.
43:26
Speaker 2: And I don't know if gratitude... Like, I don't know
43:29
Speaker 2: what the causal effect is. If when we find gratitude,
43:32
Speaker 2: then we realize we're standing on the whale or we
43:35
Speaker 2: realize we're standing on the whale and we feel gratitude.
43:37
Speaker 2: But those two things are really, really linked. It's a
43:41
Speaker 2: real perspectival shift, right? Where we go from, well, like
43:48
Speaker 2: me being a college student, like feeling very wrapped up
43:51
Speaker 2: in myself, you know, about I don't know, whatever it
43:56
Speaker 2: was I was wrapped up in. When you're 22, what
43:59
Speaker 2: are you wrapped up in? All that stuff to being like,
44:04
Speaker 2: oh my God, there's this whole other way of looking
44:07
Speaker 2: at this situation. It's like, hmm, duh. But it was
44:13
Speaker 2: a real click for me.
44:15
Speaker 3: I'm going back to your relating all this to individuation
44:20
Speaker 3: and being open-hearted. and moving into the fullness of our
44:29
Speaker 3: being that has to come from a realization of some
44:36
Speaker 3: kind of abundance, of opening ourselves rather than closing ourselves up.
44:49
Speaker 3: And then we have those moments when we realize we're
44:53
Speaker 3: standing on the back of a whale. Right. And even sometimes,
44:57
Speaker 3: you know, just the smallest things can light us up
45:05
Speaker 3: and strike a chord. I think I have to say this.
45:10
Speaker 3: It keeps coming back to me. Of course, like, I
45:14
Speaker 3: don't know how many millions of people. I bought a turkey,
45:19
Speaker 3: and I'm going to pick it up But I never
45:23
Speaker 3: actually thought to be thankful to that turkey. Something lived.
45:30
Speaker 3: It gave its life to be at our Thanksgiving tables.
45:38
Speaker 3: And I don't think it had a very good life.
45:42
Speaker 3: But I'm profoundly grateful for the sacrifice and for the import,
45:50
Speaker 3: the magnitude, that something really did die in order to
45:56
Speaker 3: give me and all our family this particularly incredible meal.
46:05
Speaker 3: I think about the archetypal roots of saying grace, which
46:14
Speaker 3: is acknowledging that something died. So that we could live.
46:25
Speaker 3: There's a tradition in deer hunting that when you kill
46:33
Speaker 3: the deer, it shakes the hunter, who often has a
46:39
Speaker 3: moment of real physiological reaction to the import of what
46:48
Speaker 3: he has just done. And then... the hunter goes and
46:54
Speaker 3: gets a handful of grass and puts it in the
46:59
Speaker 3: dead deer's mouth so that it will have food for
47:05
Speaker 3: the journey. This great round of life and death and
47:11
Speaker 3: the gratitude and this symbolic giving back to the animal
47:19
Speaker 3: to give it something for its journey in a symbolic way,
47:23
Speaker 3: and we give back by saying grace.
47:27
Speaker 2: You know, you pointed out the role of gratitude in
47:30
Speaker 2: religious traditions, and I mean, I think that that's a
47:33
Speaker 2: major part of every religion that I can think of,
47:37
Speaker 2: that humans express their gratitude to the gods for the
47:42
Speaker 2: gifts granted. It's kind of, it's sort of a foundational
47:46
Speaker 2: thing in most religious traditions. In one way or another,
47:51
Speaker 2: there are rituals, prayers of gratitude.
47:58
Speaker 3: And we are grateful for this life. With all of
48:03
Speaker 3: its difficulties, and of course, some people live incredibly difficult
48:09
Speaker 3: lives of want, and yet we are here and we
48:15
Speaker 3: cling to life. And we will be here for some
48:20
Speaker 3: limited amount of time. And how do we, in whatever
48:25
Speaker 3: circumstances we're in, how do we live our best life,
48:31
Speaker 3: appreciate it, just recognize it in something as foundational and
48:40
Speaker 3: obvious and present as that incredibly moving story of helping
48:46
Speaker 3: the sun make its daily journey across the sky. We
48:52
Speaker 3: can do that.
48:54
Speaker 2: So I'm also thinking about gratitude toward the unconscious. And,
49:00
Speaker 2: you know, the unconscious is something that we usually take
49:04
Speaker 2: for granted. And the unconscious is, you know, Marie-Louise von
49:07
Speaker 2: Franz talks about this so beautifully. It's like the origin
49:11
Speaker 2: of all creativity. Talk about something that invisibly supports us.
49:16
Speaker 2: the unconscious does that every single day. And how often
49:19
Speaker 2: do we turn toward it with gratitude? And one of
49:23
Speaker 2: the things I think about is, you know that book
49:25
Speaker 2: that they, for no good reason that I can understand.
49:30
Speaker 2: When you have a baby, somebody will give you the book,
49:33
Speaker 2: The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. And it's sort of
49:37
Speaker 2: a horrifying book. I'm not really sure why we read
49:39
Speaker 2: it to kids all the time. But as I was
49:42
Speaker 2: sitting with that book as a young mother and a
49:45
Speaker 2: Jungian analytic candidate, I was like, what is this about?
49:49
Speaker 2: And I decided that it says something about our habitual
49:52
Speaker 2: relationship to the unconscious, perhaps. That we just expect it
49:56
Speaker 2: to give and give and give and give. And it does.
50:00
Speaker 3: It does.
50:01
Speaker 2: But But how much more generative that relationship could be
50:06
Speaker 2: with the unconscious if we could express gratitude toward it.
50:11
Speaker 2: And for my money, cultivating a dream work practice is
50:18
Speaker 2: part of how we can do that. I think when
50:21
Speaker 2: you wake up in the morning and you've been gifted
50:23
Speaker 2: a dream, I mean, what an incredible gift. If you
50:26
Speaker 2: reach for your dream journal and you write it down
50:28
Speaker 2: and you think about it or you draw it, you
50:31
Speaker 2: know that, That that's a way of sort of expressing
50:35
Speaker 2: gratitude to the unconscious for that gift. Right. So, you know,
50:41
Speaker 2: and it's just been incredible in dream school recently to
50:45
Speaker 2: see this burgeoning of creativity and energy through our dream studio. So,
50:52
Speaker 2: by the way, we invite you to check that out.
50:54
Speaker 2: But just in general, I want to say, let's make
50:59
Speaker 2: room to give thanks to the unconscious.
51:03
Speaker 3: Yes, and it's gifts that we can draw, journal about, imagine.
51:09
Speaker 3: It gives us more of ourselves, more life. We should learn, appreciate,
51:20
Speaker 3: use what we have been every night so generously given
51:29
Speaker 3: again and again.
51:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, in a way, it takes me back to the lanyard,
51:33
Speaker 2: you know, because it's like there the unconscious is, just
51:36
Speaker 2: every idea you have, every, you know, it's like, it's
51:39
Speaker 2: just this abundance. And we just don't even think about
51:43
Speaker 2: it most of the time. Well, I know that I
51:47
Speaker 2: am grateful to all of our listeners. I know you
51:51
Speaker 2: mean a lot to all of us.
51:54
Speaker 3: We are very grateful to you and for your... your
52:00
Speaker 3: interest and your appreciation. It goes both ways. We know
52:08
Speaker 3: you're out there and that we belong to a community.
52:25
Speaker 3: This week's dreamer is a woman who is years old.
52:30
Speaker 3: She's a retired librarian and library administrator, and she has
52:38
Speaker 3: titled her dream, You Have to Find Another Way. Here's
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Speaker 3: the dream. I was driving down a highway and everything
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Speaker 3: along the roadway was very green and the sun was shining.
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Speaker 3: Suddenly I had to stop. because there were doors across
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Speaker 3: the roadway in both directions. The doors were white and
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Speaker 3: looked like the interior doors of my house, only much larger.
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Speaker 3: There was a small building next to the doors, and
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Speaker 3: inside I found a young man. I asked him about
53:13
Speaker 3: the doors, and he said, yes, they blocked it. You
53:16
Speaker 3: have to find another way. In the distance, I could
53:20
Speaker 3: see a couple of other cars that were going in
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Speaker 3: different directions. He opened a plastic box and told me
53:28
Speaker 3: he would give me some magic mushrooms if I wanted them.
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Speaker 3: He asked if I would use them because he didn't
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Speaker 3: want to give them to me if I wouldn't use them.
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Speaker 3: I said yes. The mushrooms were also tinted green. I
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Speaker 3: thanked him, took the mushrooms, and headed back to my car.
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Speaker 3: I considered going off-road and driving around the building and
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Speaker 3: the doors to continue my journey in the direction I
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Speaker 3: had been heading. but didn't know if I should be
53:57
Speaker 3: driving in the field. In other words, that it might
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Speaker 3: be an improper thing to do. And then I woke up.
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Speaker 3: So for context, she says, I've been recovering at home
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Speaker 3: from surgical complications for the last six months and had
54:14
Speaker 3: to stop most activities, including art classes. I had been
54:19
Speaker 3: studying botanical illustration and completed all coursework, but there were
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Speaker 3: significant administrative problems and the program imploded. I have been
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Speaker 3: stuck artistically since then and torn between continuing with the
54:35
Speaker 3: laborious and time-consuming practice of scientific botanical illustration or a looser,
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Speaker 3: more joyful style, which I seem to find very hard
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Speaker 3: to do. Also, I ask myself, what is the point
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Speaker 3: of doing either? although I had been teaching others nature
54:54
Speaker 3: journaling as a response to climate crisis and to find
54:59
Speaker 3: purpose and meaning in that, the main feelings in the dream,
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Speaker 3: she says, were confusion, being suddenly thwarted and not knowing
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Speaker 3: what to do. And she adds, the field related to
55:12
Speaker 3: botanical illustration is associated with her dream. The doors across
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Speaker 3: the roadway, the same as the interior doors of my home,
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Speaker 3: where I've been stuck in recovery but now starting to
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Speaker 3: get out again, though not fully recovered. The car I
55:28
Speaker 3: was driving was my car.
55:31
Speaker 2: You know, one of the things that I pay attention
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Speaker 2: to in dreams is when a non-dream ego figure speaks,
55:39
Speaker 2: I'm always like, what?
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Speaker 3: What?
55:41
Speaker 2: What is that for? You know, it's like significant. And
55:44
Speaker 2: this person clearly thought that that was significant too, right?
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Speaker 2: Because she makes it the title of the dream. You
55:50
Speaker 2: have to find another way. Well, that's pretty clear. I mean,
55:57
Speaker 2: you know, the dream is saying the road is blocked.
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Speaker 2: You can't go this way. I kind of love that
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Speaker 2: she can see other cars driving in other directions because
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Speaker 2: it's like she knows there is another way. She doesn't
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Speaker 2: maybe know how to get there yet. But I think
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Speaker 2: that's the significance of seeing these other cars. It's like, well,
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Speaker 2: there is another way. But right now she's just blocked.
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Speaker 2: And I think it's interesting that it's the same doors
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Speaker 2: that are in her house. It's like we can get
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Speaker 2: blocked because we only see what we already know. So
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Speaker 2: for me, I'm really curious about this man. I'd love
56:34
Speaker 2: if I had the dreamer here, I'd love to know
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Speaker 2: more about him, what he looked like, do you remind
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Speaker 2: her of anybody, all of that. But the whole, the
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Speaker 2: sort of big money image in the dream are the mushrooms.
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Speaker 3: I was wondering when you were going to get there.
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Speaker 2: So what do we think of the mushrooms?
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Speaker 3: I love this dream figure who says, first of all,
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Speaker 3: you have to find another way. And then he offers
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Speaker 3: her magic mushrooms. He offers a gift. And then he says,
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Speaker 3: and will you accept them? Will you use my gift?
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Speaker 3: And here we've been talking about gratitude. And part of
57:22
Speaker 3: gratitude is to really accept and value the gift and
57:28
Speaker 3: not just take it for granted or, oh, yeah, thanks
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Speaker 3: a lot, and keep moving. And what is this gift,
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Speaker 3: symbolically speaking, in the dream? It's a kind of promise
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Speaker 3: of transcendence, an altered state of consciousness.
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Speaker 2: A very new perspective.
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Speaker 3: A new perspective, another way. But our dream ego, like
57:59
Speaker 3: our waking egos, she goes back to the literalization of life.
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Speaker 3: Then she says, oh, okay, maybe I should just go
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Speaker 3: off-road and drive around the building. And he's offering a
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Speaker 3: whole change of consciousness. Change your conscious attitude. Go to
58:17
Speaker 3: something altogether different. Forget the car. Forget the literal road.
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Speaker 2: Yes. But I do want to say, too, you know,
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Speaker 2: I was thinking about this, and of course, again, if
58:29
Speaker 2: I were working with a streamer, I'd want to know
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Speaker 2: what's her experience of, you know, psilocybin mushrooms, and has
58:35
Speaker 2: she ever done that, or what does she think about that?
58:37
Speaker 2: But Because I mean, it is, I think what you're
58:40
Speaker 2: saying is 100% there. But I found myself thinking a
58:45
Speaker 2: little bit more broadly about mushrooms. Mushrooms are, first of all,
58:51
Speaker 2: you know, she makes the connection with this botanical illustration.
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Speaker 2: Mushrooms are a very particular kind of a life form
58:59
Speaker 2: because they're very earthy. They grow in the earth. And
59:07
Speaker 2: they grow, I think all of them. them do, but
59:11
Speaker 2: certainly a lot of them do. They grow from a rhizome. So,
59:16
Speaker 2: you know, and I know that people that study mycology
59:19
Speaker 2: talk about like these incredible networks underground that apparently are
59:26
Speaker 2: very important for trees and this kind of stuff. You
59:29
Speaker 2: can see I'm at the very edge of my knowledge
59:31
Speaker 2: and my ability to talk about it. But I think
59:34
Speaker 2: it does call up, in addition to the psychedelic properties
59:38
Speaker 2: of magic mushrooms, I'm just thinking about mushrooms. You know,
59:43
Speaker 2: Jung used the idea of the rhizome, very movingly wrote
59:49
Speaker 2: about it as a metaphor for the collective unconscious. that
59:52
Speaker 2: we are all just like a single mushroom. A mushroom
59:55
Speaker 2: is like a fruit of this much larger organism, right?
59:59
Speaker 2: So Jung said something very similar to that. Like we're
1:00:03
Speaker 2: just one manifestation of the greater organism that we're connected to.
1:00:10
Speaker 2: So I think the image of mushrooms might also be
1:00:14
Speaker 2: calling our attention to the sort of like transpersonal foundation
1:00:19
Speaker 2: of our life. Because it's not, I don't know, it's
1:00:25
Speaker 2: not a vial of LSD that he's offering, or it's
1:00:27
Speaker 2: a mushroom.
1:00:29
Speaker 3: I hear that, and I'm appreciating the specificity that the
1:00:36
Speaker 3: dream maker can provide to get us to do exactly that.
1:00:43
Speaker 3: That it's not just an altered state of consciousness, but
1:00:46
Speaker 3: it's this particular item, the mushroom that is connected with
1:00:51
Speaker 3: with this web that goes way underground, is somewhat mysterious,
1:00:58
Speaker 3: but worldwide, and everything's connected.
1:01:03
Speaker 2: And so if I were the dreamer, if I were
1:01:05
Speaker 2: going to look at sort of what's the medicine, I mean,
1:01:07
Speaker 2: I suppose some people might say, well, I'm going to
1:01:08
Speaker 2: go do a psilocybin trip. And maybe that's part of
1:01:12
Speaker 2: what the dream is recommending. But I think I would
1:01:15
Speaker 2: also say, where am I not seeing The web of
1:01:21
Speaker 2: the eternal archetypal images that lie beneath my feet. Where
1:01:28
Speaker 2: can I tap into those energies and images in my life?
1:01:33
Speaker 2: I think it's both.
1:01:35
Speaker 3: The image of the mushroom, especially magic mushrooms, promise us both.
1:01:41
Speaker 3: The above and the below. And our dreamer... talks about,
1:01:49
Speaker 3: I wonder if it's connected to her artistic coursework and
1:01:55
Speaker 3: her interest and skill, I'm sure, in botanical illustration. So
1:02:03
Speaker 3: of course it would be an actual mushroom and not
1:02:07
Speaker 3: a powder or a pill or whatever else. And then
1:02:11
Speaker 3: she says she's been stuck artistically and caught between the
1:02:17
Speaker 3: laborious and time-consuming practice of scientific botanical illustration, which I'm
1:02:23
Speaker 3: sure must be very exact to render things correctly, or
1:02:28
Speaker 3: a looser, more joyful style, which I seem to find
1:02:32
Speaker 3: very hard to do. And I wonder about that in
1:02:39
Speaker 3: connection with the magic mushrooms of it can be both.
1:02:46
Speaker 3: the grounded skills and something that is more individual, more joyful,
1:02:55
Speaker 3: more transcendent of lighten up, loosen up, and enjoy.
1:03:02
Speaker 2: Get out of that smaller perspective and into the larger perspective.
1:03:10
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. To submit a dream, suggest an episode topic,
1:03:14
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