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What Remains When All Is Taken: Standing in the LA Fires · 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 3: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• 0:28
  Speaker 4: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst on Cape Cod.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: We wanted to take this opportunity to address what's going
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: on in Los Angeles with the fires. And there is
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: a vibrant community of Jungian analysts in Los Angeles, many
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: of whom are our colleagues. Joining us today is Pamela Power.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: She is one of our colleagues from the Interregional Society
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: of Jungian Analysts, and she is also a member of
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: the C.G. Jung Institute in LA. She's a clinical psychologist
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: who trained initially as a classical musician. She was a cellist.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: She has written numerous articles. She's been very involved in
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: training in LA. And she is the author of the
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: recently published book, Transitions in Jungian Analysis, Essays in Illness, Death,
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: and Violence, which was published in February of 2024 by Rutledge.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: So Pamela, thank you so much for agreeing to meet
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: with us and discuss this really important and timely topic.
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: So, Pamela, what's happening on the ground in Los Angeles?
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: What are you seeing? What are you sensing? What's happening
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: inside of you in a visceral way as these fires
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: are kind of ebbing and flowing all around you, all
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: around the city?
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: Well, we're at a place of calm at the moment
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: because we've had a few days' respite. But today, the
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: winds are supposed to kick up again up to... 80
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: mile an hour gusts. And so all the resources are
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: out there ready to go again. But they're better prepared
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: this time. But the last week and a half since Tuesday,
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: January 7th, have been something of a firestorm emotionally and
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: psychologically and literally. Where I live is... kind of close
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: to the evacuation, evacuation warning and close to the evacuation.
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: So I feel like I've been on the edge of
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: what's been going on and exposed to it that way.
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: But I've also been on the edge a bit psychologically
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: with having so many friends and colleagues that are affected.
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: I have friends and colleagues that have lost their homes
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: in the Palisades fire and in the Eaton fire, and
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: many more are just displaced or out of their houses.
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: For months and months because, you know, you can't go
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: back into these areas because the air is so bad
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: and the stuff that's burned on the ground is toxic.
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: The air is full of toxic, you can't see it.
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: It's toxic, what they call particles, the 2.5 particles. And
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: so you don't want to go out and breathe it.
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: So it's been very disruptive. And the interesting thing for
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: me is that, The people I know that have been evacuated,
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: they have something to do. They have to pack their
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: go bag. They have to figure out where they're going
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: to go. Colleagues have invited other colleagues into their homes.
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: It's been a very generous community. But for someone like me,
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: I'm surrounded by it, but I have nothing to do.
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: I mean, I have my stuff packed, but I have
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: nothing to do. So for me, it's like, the anxious
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: anxiety energy that's been stirred up in me and other
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: people like me, because we don't have anything literally to
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: do except to be anxious and frightened and horrified about
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: what's been going on. So that's been kind of the
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: way it's been since January 7th.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: That's an interesting distinction, I think, because in some sense
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: with the way the world is now, and there's so
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: many crises and things to be concerned about, and we
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: have so much information about them all, we're all kind
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: of living in that, or many of us, I should say,
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: are living in that state where we know that there
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: are terrible things happening, maybe even close by, but there's
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: really nothing for us to do. So we sort of
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: sit in the anxiety and maybe feel somewhat oddly guilty
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: for just going about our lives.
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: It's a particularly modern predicament, I think, to be on
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: the metaphorical edge of disaster at any point and having
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: to somehow metabolize that.
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: That's right. A lot of people are getting involved in
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: donations and gathering things and so on. So they find
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: ways to do something, but it's helpful to have something
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: physical to do. But I haven't had anything like that,
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: and I wasn't able to go out and be out
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: in the air. The air is just terrible. So I
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: put my mask on to go to the market and
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: then put it on again when I go from my
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: car to the store and then come home.
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: So you're sitting in that classic analytic container of reflection,
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: reflecting on what's happening.
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: Well, you know, there was a day last weekend when
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: it just was too much. I felt like I lost
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: my mind. I couldn't be reflective. I couldn't think. All
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: I could do was just kind of hunker in myself
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: the best I could and watch a lot of TV
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: because I had to distract myself a little bit. But
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: then as I got into the week and I began
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: to work analytically with people, both people, people who were evacuated,
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: people who lost their homes. I have people, a lot
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: of people that I see that are affected. And so
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: to work with people felt like I had something to do.
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: And that was very, very useful. And then on Thursday,
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: I went over to the Institute and did my dream seminar.
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: And that was very powerful. because somebody in the group
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: was evacuated and told us how that went. And everybody
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: was processing all of their emotions. And that was very
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: profound and very powerful and very helpful for all of
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: us to do that.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: This was a dream seminar for the candidates and training.
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the candidates. And half of us were in person.
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: Half of us drove over there. And the other half
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: were on Zoom because they couldn't get there for one
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: reason or another. You know, the traffic, they encourage you
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: to not be out on the roads too much so
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: that the emergency vehicles can have the roads.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: So the whole city is kind of shut down.
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah. But this is L.A. You know, L.A. is what
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: they call the city of catastrophe because we're subject to
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: these winds, these Santa Ana winds. They call them devil winds.
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: But there are winds that come down from the canyons.
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: in the late fall and into the winter. So December
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: and January are the months that are most subject to
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: these Santa Ana winds. They call them Santa Ana because
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: it's named after one of the canyons. The winds come
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: down from the canyons to the beach. They're called offshore winds.
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: And so we have them every year. But this particular year,
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: there was a confluence of factors, which were the winds
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: were particularly intense. And we have a drought. We haven't
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: had any rain since, I think, last April or something.
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: And so everything is very dry and everything is, so
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: to speak, kindling for these fires just to take off.
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: And that's the way it is today. So it's very
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: eerie today because we're waiting to, like, how are we
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: going to get through the next 24 hours?
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: And we should maybe mention that we're recording on January 20th,
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: Monday morning.
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah. So today and tomorrow.
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: So there's this feeling, this atmosphere of menace.
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: You know, that's literally in the air and carried through
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: the air.
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: And I'm reflecting on the fact that you mentioned they're
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: called devil winds and that imagery brings up the kind
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: of archetypal nature of this. And I'm It's not lost
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: on me that it's the city of angels that's exposed
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: to these devil winds. And it does give us a
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: sense of being at the mercy of forces much larger
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: than ourselves. And there's certainly, of course, kind of a
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: man-made element to this disaster as there is with any disaster.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: But that it certainly is something beyond our individual understanding.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: ability to influence. And so we have to sort of
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: sit with it and feel ourselves at the mercy of it.
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: Yes, at my dream seminar, I said, you know, we're
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: not really in a position to really, we can't really
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: talk about it. We can't go to the symbolic yet.
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: We're in the middle of the literalness of what's going on.
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: But I said, but If we can just dip over
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: there for a minute, I read something from the paper
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: where one of the officials with the fire department said
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: that the nature of this particular winds, the way the
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: winds were going in unpredictable ways, said there was no
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: way to catch this one. And it made me think
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: of Mercurius, of how we talk about Mercurius, and how
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: Mercurius is... pleading and fleeing and Mercurius duplex. Because it's
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: a dream image, you know, fire can be destructive but
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: be transformative. But we don't know in California how the
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: other side of fires will manifest. How will it be
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: a transformative in the long run? Right now, we're only
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: on the one side of it, which is the destructive
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: side of the fires. But perhaps... For instance, perhaps the infrastructure,
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: when it's built again, it will be more thoughtful. People
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: are talking about making sure that the power lines are
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: put underground so they aren't. Because you know what happens
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: here is when the winds blow, the power companies turn
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: off the power that go to the power lines. So
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: then people lose their electricity for days and days on end.
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: So there's the thought about putting the power lines underground,
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: which would be very expensive, but probably be a necessity
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: going forward. So that could be a constructive outcome of this.
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: But right now, we're living the destructive element, if we
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: think about it symbolically, as Mercurius' duplex.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: And just for the listeners, just say a little bit
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: about Mercurius' duplex, and what is the symbolism of that image,
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: and where does it originate from?
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: Well, Mercurius is an alchemical, the spirit Mercurius is an
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: alchemical transformative agent. And Mercurius is described as, you can't
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: pin him down. You can't catch him. You can't pin
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: him down. He's ever fleeing.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's quicksilver alchemically, right? He's mercury. And related to
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: the winged god Hermes, who could traverse the realms.
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: He's also the prima materia and the lapis philosophorum.
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: It's the both. It's the prima materia and the lapis, right?
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: It's the beginning and the end.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: So he represents some kind of strata underneath the transformative process,
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: so that whatever he represents, which could be the unconscious itself... Mm-hmm.
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: remains congruent even though it can manifest in all of
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: these different ways that on the surface don't seem to
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: be related. And this goes in some way to the
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: task and the struggle of finding a symbolic attitude that
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: on the outset, of course, on the outside we look at, well,
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: my home was solid there, all my memories, all of
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: the good things that happened in my home And the
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: home is now gone. It has been reduced to ashes.
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: So what is the level inside the human soul that
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: is not disrupted, that is able to stay congruent despite
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: the fact that the outer seeming of a thing is
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: radically changing between its opposites? And this is also inferred
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: in Heraclitus' idea that if a thing goes wrong, further
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: and further to its extreme, it will suddenly and miraculously
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: become its opposite, which suggests there is a singular strata
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: that can manifest as one thing and then its opposite.
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: So I think of Mercurius duplex as whatever the singular
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: substance is that can become many things.
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: Well, it certainly is an experience also of, you know,
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: We talk a lot about the objective psyche that is
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: beyond and below the ego, out of control. The ego
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: can't control it. There's the objective psyche. So this is
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: a literal experience of something that we can't control. It's
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: the objective psyche. And we like to think we have
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: more control from the ego realm. But This is an
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: experience of something we can't control. The blame game is
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: going now in LA. Everybody's blaming, you know, the fire,
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: you know, the people in the city and the county
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: and so on. They're like, they could have done more
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: of his articles and all the paper, what should have
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: been done, should have, could have, would have. And of
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: course that is trying, I think that that's trying to
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: feel like the ego realm has more control than it does.
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: Because things like this happen. You can't, I mean, they
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: say we could have done more to prevent the fires
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: from spreading. But when it rains, we have no control
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: over how much rain we're going to get. We have
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: no control over the mudslides. We have no control over
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: the earthquakes. I mean, LA is the city of catastrophe.
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: It's the winds, the fires, the earthquakes, the mudslides. And
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: why do we live here? Why do we live here?
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: with this city of the angels, which is also the
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: city of catastrophe. We leave here because when that's not
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: going on, it's paradise. It's a city of catastrophe and
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: paradise because on gorgeous days here, it's just fabulous. It's
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: just a wonderful place to live.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, it is interesting to think and talk about
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: Los Angeles a little bit because it's not a place
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: I know particularly well, I will say. But it does
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: occupy a particular place in the American psyche, and maybe
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: even in the world psyche, because, you know, it is
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: the home of the film industry, which is sort of
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: like the generator of our collective dreams. And so there's
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: something particularly significant, maybe, about this happening there, just as,
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: you know, any kind of world city, you know, has
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: some significance to us all, I think. And so how
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: do we understand the fact that parts of Los Angeles
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: are just being absolutely burnt to the ground? And what
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: does that say, if we can imagine it kind of archetypally,
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: about the values that Los Angeles represents?
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: Well, I mean, I think each city can be seen
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: as a kind of a self. Every city has its
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: own unique configuration on its own set of opposites that
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: come together. Um, at least every big city that I've
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: been to, it's, it's like, like its own entity. And
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: Los Angeles is so multicultural, you know? Um, that's one
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: of the things I love about it is so, I mean, the,
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: the food, all the different foods and LA has all
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: like little, little, um, Areas, you know, little Korea, little
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: Japan town, little Chinatown, is the biggest number of people, say,
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: from Iran. We have Iran and Westwood. The Persian Square
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: is in Westwood. And so that's all over L.A. And
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: it's what makes L.A. particularly rich and wonderful. You can
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: just drive, you know, a couple of miles and you're
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: in another country. Or you drive to Monterey Park and
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: there's a new book about how you can go there
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: and be an Asian and you never have to assimilate
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: because all the drugstores and the restaurants and your doctors,
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: they all speak Mandarin or Cantonese or something. And so
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: it's very interesting that way.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: It's such a loss.
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: Some people will say, well, we're building houses where... it
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: needs to burn. The chaparral, the natural vegetation in Southern
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: California is meant to burn every few years. That's the
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: way the vegetation regenerates, and that's the way the seeds regenerate.
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: So we're building where we technically shouldn't be building. But
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: how can you resist building a house up on a
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: peak where you get to see this vista of ocean
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: or build up in the Hollywood Hills and you get
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: to see the whole, get to look and see the
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: valley and see the downtown Los Angeles. It's just incredible views.
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: So on the surface, there are these multiple differences, these
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: many different cultures which have found a way to maintain
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: their integrity within the system. And there is something about
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: Los Angeles that welcomes this retention of individual culture, there
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: doesn't seem to be an enormous pressure for people to
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: have to assimilate or adapt. but people can keep this
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: siloed integrity. In the Shiva tradition of India, ash is
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: a sacred substance. Shiva takes all differences and reduces them
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: to a single substance, which is the ash. So often
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: it is in catastrophe that on the surface we'll speak
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: all these different languages. On the surface, our bodies reflect
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: these different ethnic qualities. And in the final analysis, when
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: all things are taken from us, when all of the
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: forms of the psyche have been taken from us, there
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: is a singular substance which Jung might have called the anthropos,
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: There is a singular substance of humanity that is left
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: when all things are taken. And fire and ash are
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: an apt symbol. And I think that's also present relationally
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: in the way that disparate cultures and groups will come
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: together and support each other, support each other's humanity in
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: the face of a catastrophic process.
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's been enormous coming together and helpfulness. Unbelievable. Speaking
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: of opposites, there we go. Like all the people that
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: are helping everybody, and it's very moving to see these
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: stories on TV. At the same time, they have to
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: station National Guards at the bottom of certain canyons because
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: the looters, the looters go in. And so the looters
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: going into the Palisades and into the Mandeville Canyon and
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: these canyons that are under evacuation, but they're not burning,
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: people sneak in and they go into the houses. There's
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: the two sides again. And then the ash, as you know,
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: in alchemy, ash is another name for the arcane substance.
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: It's the special, it's what's left after everything's been burned. However,
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: the ash that's, you know, for a couple of days,
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: the ash is kind of raining down like these kind
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: of weird snowflakes. And so you're... Yard is covered with ash,
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: and you have to be careful not to sweep it
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: or blow it up, because if you breathe it in,
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: it can be very dangerous. So there's the poison and
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: panacea nature of Mercurius. Here's the ash symbolically, which is
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: the special substance, and yet it can be very poisonous
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: and dangerous if you breathe it in. So they're telling
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: all the guards, you know, they're saying, don't use the blowers.
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: Don't sweep. Don't go out and sweep. Don't do anything.
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: Just let the water take it away. Like, I forget
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: what they tell us to do, but you don't go
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: out and get involved with all that ash out there.
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: And yet we know symbolically the ash is very numinous.
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: It's what's left after the great catastrophe.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: It's the incorruptible substance.
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: Exactly, I think. And as I said in the Shiva tradition,
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: the Shiva's wiping the three lines of ash across the forehead,
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: which is a symbol of placing one's roots, placing one's
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: home in something other than the outer seeming of things.
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: Which, of course, in the middle of a traumatic event
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: seems almost ridiculously abstract. But it is something that I
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: think we work towards. And I think this goes to, Lisa,
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: your evocation of Jung's writings on Job, that in the
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: midst of it, just as Job was sitting in ash
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: and sackcloth and in the ruination of his life, and
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: yet at the end of that incredible, excruciating experience, he
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: is restored. He finds something that comes to fruit again.
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: a new life.
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: Before he does that, when he realizes what God is,
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: how powerful God is, and how, in a way, if
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: I can be blasphemous for a minute, how narcissistic God
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: is when he says, when he says, you know, I
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: created this and I did this and I did this.
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: Who do you think you are that you're asking me
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: to explain myself? You know, Job says, I better put
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: my hand over my mouth and not say anything more.
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: But he saw what God was. And how powerful he was.
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: And so he better, he says, I'm going to keep
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: my place here. I'm going to hold myself. And so
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: in a way, it's like, that's the object of psyche.
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: It's like, it's going to have its way.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: And so we need to cultivate humility. And my guess
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: is that people that are in distress as a result
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: of these fires, some will prove to be resilient. And
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: others will really struggle. This may be a sentinel event
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: for some people. And some of that will be circumstantial,
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: but some of it will be the attitude that we're
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: able to bring to it. And that's a mysterious process.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: I'm not trying to say that one can just choose
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: to hold things a certain way and then everything's going
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: to be just great. Uh, but, but you, but you
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: do see that some people are broken by, uh, events and,
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: and others, uh, somehow prevail. And I'm wondering what you're seeing.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: You mentioned you have friends, colleagues, perhaps in Alizans who have,
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: have lost everything. What, what, how are people responding?
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: In very, in very different ways, as you can imagine.
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: Some people are, they're so, they're so overcome with grief and, and, uh,
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: And loss, that they're just kind of like one step
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: in front of the other. They're just doing the best
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: they can. And other people are really, it's like something
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: is coming forward in them that was kind of latent
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: in their psyche. Like they're taking life on in a
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: way that has been surprising to them and been surprising
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: to me to see. Like they've taken the challenge on.
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: And so it is true. One doesn't quite know. what
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: one is going to do when confronted with such a life-threatening,
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: catastrophic situation. And some people kind of go under and
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: take a long time to find their way out. And
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: other people, like they find an attitude, rather, they're surprised
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: at the kind of strength that comes out of them.
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: It's really interesting. I feel very fortunate myself to be
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: in the field that I'm in and be a Jungian
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: because I have a very broad perspective to observe and
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: to metabolize and deal with things literally and psychologically and emotionally.
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: Except for that one day last weekend when I was
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: just like down for the count. I was like comatose.
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: I couldn't think. I couldn't do anything. I was so
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: upset and anxious and worried about everything.
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that if we sit in just the
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: science around trauma, that the psyche... at first responds often
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: with numbness or even dissociation. And these defenses that come
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: forward are these ancient ways of protecting us.
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: That the psyche will encapsulate us in this feelingless state
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: so that we don't collapse. It's incredibly important. Another response
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: that people often have is rage and protest. So that
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: part of people that they just are howling at an
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: agency or a government body or at God or themselves.
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: And that's a way, again, of also protecting oneself. Because
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: when we're angry, we feel at least a temporary sense
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: of strength.
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: Temporary sense of power, yeah, too.
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: Exactly. And then despair and surrender is also a way
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: of accommodating. It can be excruciating. But surrendering into that
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: young and collapsed, regressed place is also very reasonable and
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: is part of that hope of being cared for. And
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: so we move through these, again, very reasonable ways of
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: trying to keep the center of the personality intact. And
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: these are very ancient impulses to try to keep us
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: okay until... We can exhale and then look around and,
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: as you were saying, Pamela, find a way to reflect.
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: And Jung called mentalize, talk to ourselves about what the
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: heck has happened here, which will happen, of course. And
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: in the moment, people are just literally and figuratively just
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: trying to breathe.
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: Yes, I agree. I think that the way people are
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: coping are very different. And Each one has a validity
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: and compassion and respect for whatever ways people are dealing
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: with it.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: I find myself also thinking about these historic fires, without
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: being too Pollyanna about the whole thing, but the Great
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: Fire in London in 1666. The entire city of London
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: just burned to the ground. which caused the human soul,
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: the psyche of the culture, to have to rebuild the
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: city and ultimately rebuild it on a higher arc. Rebuild
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: it in a way that it was more robust, more thoughtful,
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: more capable of withstanding the challenges of the enormous population
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: that was growing in London. And so it does, just
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: as you were saying, Pam, it does set up this
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: question inside of the psyche, the part of us that
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: wants to take advantage of the beauty of the natural
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: environment or the resources that we have to create an
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: extraordinary home. And yet, At what point do we learn
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: that we have to accommodate and change the way that
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: we live in the environment so that we can minimize
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: the negative impact of nature, which is red in tooth
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: and claw, as they say in the Age of Enlightenment,
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: in the Renaissance.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm thinking, Joseph, picking up on that. Pam,
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: you mentioned the chaparral. I knew that lodgepole pines required
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: fire to regenerate or to procreate, but I didn't realize
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: there were other fauna as well. But it makes sense, right?
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: So that these are environments... And it's such an incredible metaphor.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: I've always loved that the lodgepole pine has these pine cones,
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: and the seeds are in the pine cones, but they're
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: sort of sealed with this resin that is so hard
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: that it only opens under intense, intense heat, such as
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: you would find in a wildfire. So that's how you
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: get more lodgepole pines, is that things burn down. And
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: it's a wonderful metaphor, I think, for psychic processes, right?
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: That sometimes, as you were saying, people who just seem
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: to blossom with the heat of this tragedy, and they're
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: just maybe finding new aspects of their personality that when
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: we're burned in our lives in some way, whether it's
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: some kind of a physical loss, like people losing their homes,
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: or sometimes it's just the loss of our hopes and
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: dreams or but that that can open us up in
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: a new way and make room for, or cause something
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: to open maybe that was sealed before. I mean, just
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: to stick with the metaphor. So not to go to
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: this overly positive place, but there is something about the
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: searing heat of the failure of ego's plans that does
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: sometimes allow something new to occur.
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: Yes, I agree. We certainly know metaphorically something, sometimes something,
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: a relationship or something needs to be kind of like
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: burned to the ground so something else can happen. But
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: in terms of this situation here, I'm very interested and
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: curious about what will happen in the aftermath. Right now,
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: we're just still surviving it and people are, people's just,
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: there's so many people who's, Someone was saying like all
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: the workers, all the people that work in the restaurants
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: that were burned down or the gardeners and the housekeepers
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: and so on. I mean, so many lives are ruined.
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: But in the long run, and we're talking like years
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: and years, I'll be curious like what will LA do
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: with this? Yes. how what what will it do and
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: i i can't even the only thing i can think
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: about is that they will work on the infrastructure somehow
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: but that's just my own individual kind of thought.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: I was very early in my training in uh 2005
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: when uh when new orleans was hit by the the
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: very bad hurricane that really um just devastated parts of
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: the city. And I remember our community, the New Orleans
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: analysts were so heartbroken. And just being aware of the
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: tremendous grief that they were carrying, that they were carrying
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: because of their, you know, the destruction of their beloved
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: city and what they were carrying for their analizands who
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: were suffering. there was just such a grief. And I wonder,
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: I imagine that will be part of what we'll all
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: be processing as well, is just grief.
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: One of the ideas that's also coming up in my mind,
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: and Pamela, you were alluding to this in a certain way,
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: is some of Viktor Frankl's work in Man's Search for Meaning,
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: is that people are holding stark reality of what one
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: is caught in, the inexorable suffering that is around us.
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: And within that suffering, what human and ethical choices remain
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: to us? You know, Viktor Frankl is there in a
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: concentration camp. He has one piece of bread and no
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: other choice, but to break that piece of bread in
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: half and to give it to someone who is ill
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: and great suffering, more so next to him, reminds him
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: of his own humanity. And so his message is that
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: even in the most horrendous of circumstances, we still stand
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: in small moments of choice where we can then reconnect
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: with who we are and what is valuable to us.
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: And as you were talking about some individuals waking up
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: to that energy and looking for what choices are possible
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: within this devastated situation, and that gives them a certain
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: amount of vitality. It gives them access to a life force.
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: So I'm wondering, what are some of the kinds of
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: small choices that people are making or can make in
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: the face of this kind of devastation? One is that
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: you said is inviting people to come and stay with
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: them if you have been a protected and have resources
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: or a home to invite somebody into safety.
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: There was quite an extraordinary email activity online from my institute,
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: emails going out. It became one that would reply all
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: to the whole, like, you know, 130 people that were
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: talking about all the interns and all the candidates. going
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: out about, you know, someone would say, I have a room,
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: extra room here with the bathroom. I have this, you know, um, um,
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: and the kind of, the kind of responses and the
• 37:02
  Speaker 4: kind of care, caring and loving provided a kind of
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: holding for the community. It was really quite wonderful. The,
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: those emails you get, you get several a day and
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: with people, I'm, thinking about, you know, so-and-so I'm thinking about.
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: And then when someone would post that they lost their house,
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: they would put that in the email. And then people
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: would write and know about it. So the community knew
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: what was going on and suffered with every story about
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: loss or evacuation. Because even the people that are evacuated
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: and they know their houses are okay, they can't go
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: back for months. until all the toxic stuff is cleaned
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: up and the electricity is restored and the water is restored.
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's going to be months even for people.
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: And people are having to find places to live. Already,
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: Los Angeles is short on housing, and so now it
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: makes it worse. But there's been a lot of people
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: taking advantage of the situation by charging very high rents.
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: But there's also been.
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: Like the hotels around here, you know, put up the firefighters.
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: Some of the firefighters were staying in some of these
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: fancy hotels for free, you know. So the whole mixture.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it brings out the best in us and it
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: brings out the worst.
• 38:31
  Speaker 4: But the tremendous kind of holding and containing that, you know,
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: my institute has done has been quite extraordinary. And I
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: think that goes on with other communities too, the same
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: kind of activity.
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: And are you seeing these themes come up in people's
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: dreams at all?
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: Not yet. When people come in to see, they don't
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: want to talk about their dreams particularly. They want to
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: talk about how they're feeling, how they're coping, you know,
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: a lot of kind of survivor's guilt and feeling bad
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: they're not doing more, you know, that kind of feeling
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: and what they're doing. They just want to talk about...
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: What's going on right now? It's only been one week,
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: so we'll see. We'll see what kind of dreams show up.
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: I remember Jung writing about dreams at the end of
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: life and how sometimes we're surprised to discover that even
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: though the ego is very, very concerned about the loss
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: of the house and the resources, sometimes the psyche is
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: actually looking far beyond that and is not concerned at all,
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: but is still thinking about the quality of how well
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: you love or what kinds of complexes. that you're still
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: struggling with, which is that strange, uncanny, and remarkable reality
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: that the unconscious can choose very different things to be
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: concerned about.
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: That's why I always think that the work on ourselves
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: and individuation continues until our last breath. I don't think
• 40:12
  Speaker 4: we suddenly get to a phase where, okay, we're we're
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: done with our growth and development, and now we're going
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: to think about dying. No, it's like the psyche doesn't
• 40:21
  Speaker 4: care about that. It's like, how is your relationship with
• 40:25
  Speaker 4: so-and-so or whatever? It cares more about seeking out every
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: bit of increased kind of consciousness and growth that it
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: can get. It's so interesting.
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: I wanted to also swing back to something that had
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: come up briefly in the conversation in terms of, you know,
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: What does it say to the national psyche that Los Angeles,
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: of all cities, should be subject to something like this?
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: And what does Los Angeles, or might it represent in
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: the national psyche? And I think that Los Angeles and Hollywood,
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: at least in the national perception, go hand in hand.
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: And of course, that's not true in terms of the
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: on-the-ground life of Los Angeles. But I do think about
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: this idea of Hollywood, quote-unquote, burning down, that this world
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: of illusion and entertainment and this reflection of national fantasies,
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: you know, is under threat by this very realistic, concrete disaster.
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: Something about that seems poignant. Mm-hmm.
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah. That's an interesting question. I, I guess I don't
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: quite see it. I understand the Hollywood, like, like in some,
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: some ways people think, well, we are the center of
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: the world, Hollywood, you know, we're the one that do.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: New York is the center.
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: But because, you know, nowadays filmmaking and TV and movies are,
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: are really all over the, they're all over the world
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: and all over the country. Um, that it's not quite
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: the center that people think it is, but even though
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: the studios and a lot of it is kind of,
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: you know, a lot of it's symbolically is here.
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: I think that, I think there's, there is a kind of, yeah, symbolically,
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: symbolically it's there and it's this, yeah, it's this kind
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: of generation of fantasy and which has a, I think
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: a kind of global impact.
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: But fantasy and creativity, you know, David Lynch just died.
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: And if you know David Lynch's work, I mean, so
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: it's not just a kind of a stereotypical, you know,
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: surface Hollywood fantasy stuff. It's a place of enormous creativity.
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: Think of the, you know, I read, you know, Arnold Schoenberg,
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: the composer, lived here in Los Angeles, the last part
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: of his life. He lived in the Palisades. Schoenberg Hall
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: at UCLA, which is where I attended school, named after
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: Arnold Schoenberg, who lived here. And his son was in
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: charge of the Arnold Schoenberg archives, all the scores and
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: papers of his work, and lived in the Palisades, and
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: it all got burned in the fire.
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: Oh, God, what a loss.
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: A lot of very important art was lost in the fire. So,
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: you know, at one time, L.A. was a place where
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: a lot of people, refugees from the war, came and
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: lived in Los Angeles. There was a group in Tomasman,
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: and that group met in the Pacific Palisades.
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: That's also how the L.A. Institute started, right?
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: From the refugees, yeah, from the Kirschers and the Zellers, right?
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: So yeah, so it's been, so yes, it's a point
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: well taken. It's been a locus of tremendous kind of creativity.
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: And Wilfred Bion, who I liked, he lived here for
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: 10 years because he found living in LA, he could
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: open up and be a more creative version of himself.
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: And he did some very creative work when he lived here.
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: He felt, and he got a bigger reception for his
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: creative ideas here in LA than he got when he
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: was still living in England, in London.
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so in many ways, it's been the vanguard. It's
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: been the place where the new thing can take hold
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: or be received. And for listeners who don't know, Bian
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: was an important psychoanalyst. So again, just a tremendous loss
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: on many different fronts. And it's not over, as you've said.
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: Not over. We don't know what's going to happen in
• 45:09
  Speaker 4: the next 24 hours, we hope. And there's, you know,
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: some possibility of rain toward the end of the week.
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: So we're keeping fingers crossed. But not too much rain.
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: We want some rain, but not too much. Because if
• 45:25
  Speaker 4: we got too much rain, then we would have catastrophic mudslides.
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: Wow. Gosh.
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: Which really points to how delicate the balance is. between
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: hope and despair, between what will help and what will hinder,
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: how fragile our systems are, how fragile we are on
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: a certain level, which is difficult to sit with.
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: And I so appreciate your point about you've stepped into
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: your job being to help others sit with this. And that,
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: I think, Joseph, you went there right at the beginning.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: That is kind of the analytic task. is to sit
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: with us.
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: Pamela, if I might ask you, when you turn inside yourself,
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: even right now, if we just take the luxury of
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: that time and you ask your own psyche to give
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: you an image, an image of how it is responding
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: to what's happening in the city all around, what comes forward?
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: Well, how interesting that you say that, that, um, I mean,
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: I want to say tremendous grief. But right at the
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: time when these fires were starting, and now I'll tell
• 46:40
  Speaker 4: you a dream, like, I can't remember exactly. I have
• 46:44
  Speaker 4: to look and see. But it was right around the
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: time when it started. I had a dream. And in
• 46:51
  Speaker 4: the dream, I was living in a house where you
• 46:55
  Speaker 4: give birth to children. And I had given birth to
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: one baby. And then I was about to give birth
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: to another baby. And someone said, the baby's coming. And
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: it was said, the baby boy is coming. You know,
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: you're going to start pushing. Well, you know, I'm way
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: beyond the age of giving birth. But as you know,
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: in our dream life, we're never too old to give birth.
• 47:21
  Speaker 4: And so I know what it's like to push a
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: baby out. And in that dream, I was getting ready
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: to push a baby out. And I've been living with
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: this kind of like, speaking of the opposites, of feeling
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: this loss and grief, and yet something is happening in
• 47:39
  Speaker 4: me where new things are coming forward.
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: With the necessity of some labor and pain, I imagine.
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 47:49
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for sharing that. I think that
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: captures something about the nature of this. We are so
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: grateful that you joined us today and gave voice to this,
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: and we hope it's brought some perspective.
• 48:13
  Speaker 4: It's helpful to me to have an opportunity to process
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: what I'm going through. As you can hear, there's a
• 48:22
  Speaker 4: lot that's going on, and so it's been therapeutic for
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: me to be able to talk with you. about what's
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: happening to my beloved city.
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: I want to offer my response to your dream. As
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: you were talking about it, I was thinking about this
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: wonderful Christmas song. Come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel.
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: And Emmanuel... in Hebrew, means God with us. And so
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: when I think of the birth of your child, your
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: dream child, I think of that as Emmanuel, you know,
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: as the birth of this certitude that there is something
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: that is with all of you, that there is something
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: transcendent that is with all of you. And prepare to
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: ransom you, prepare to help, to rescue.
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: It's the resilience of the human spirit.
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: Something cares about us, apparently. Yeah. Yeah. Something cares about
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: us that comes through us and from us and is
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: more than us.
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: That's lovely, Joseph. And perhaps that's a good place to
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: take a break and let you go, Pamela. I know
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: you need to get your day started and we will
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: be thinking of you today and tomorrow. And thank you
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: again for taking the time to be with us and
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: our thoughts are with you and our other colleagues in
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: Los Angeles.
• 50:02
  Speaker 4: Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: Take care. So today's dreamer is a 50-year-old male who
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: is a school principal and titles this dream, Bringing Wild
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: Animals to a New Home. And here's his dream. My
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: wife and I are riding an ATV through the woods.
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: And for those who aren't familiar, an ATV is an
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: all-terrain vehicle. It is a sunny day and we come
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: to a clearing. There is an abandoned camper trailer that
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: we decide to live in. The camper trailer is well
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: kept up but is brown and orange and very 1970s.
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: We get back on the ATV and drive through the woods.
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: We see a father and his grown son in a
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: dune buggy. They are stuck in a muddy hole and
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: we go to help them. I am worried that my
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: wife is going to leave me for the sun. I
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: don't want to help them but my wife says we
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: have to. I lift the dune buggy with the father
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: and son in it and get them unstuck. My wife
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: and I hop back on the ATV and continue exploring.
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: I see a mother skunk with two baby skunks. The
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: babies are hiding underwater. I can see them, and it
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: is like they can breathe. The mother skunk seems to
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: be okay with the baby skunks coming out of the water,
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: and they do. They waddle off with the mother, and
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: they all go into our camper trailer. We go in too.
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: There's a big fight between the skunks. Some raccoons that
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: are in there are a cat named Nelly, who has
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: superpowers and is beating the other animals up, and an
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: animated cartoon-like three-toed sloth. The cat Nelly is doing Matrix-like tricks,
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: floating in the air and then shooting her paw out.
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: The sloth is chill, almost like he's stoned, just watching
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: it all. My wife is narrating the fight between the animals,
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: saying things like, and the raccoon takes it on the chin. Now,
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: for context, he offers, work has been very stressful as
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: my supervisor and I have different philosophies, although we get
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: along well on a personal level. My wife and I
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: both have had major medical issues in the past five
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: years and are now healthy. Our two oldest children have
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: left home in the past couple of years for college
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: while our youngest is still in high school. It has
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: been a hard adjustment. My wife and I have been
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: working on our relationship and have entered a new stage
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: of emotional closeness after a period of disconnection. As for
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: main feelings, he writes, I felt relaxed and happy when
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: we were riding about in the ATV. I felt stressed
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: when we saw the two men, but that faded as
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: we drove away. I felt worried about the baby skunks
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: until I realized they could breathe underwater. I felt curious
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: about what they were going to do in the camper
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: and I was entertained by the fighting animals. I admired
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: the cat. And a sentence or two describing his associations,
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: he writes, I associate the camper with my grandmother, whose
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: house was decorated the same way when I was a
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: little kid. She was loving and took care of me
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: every day. I associate the woods with the farm where
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: I grew up, which I hope to return to in retirement.
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: The water reminded me of the lake where we have
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: our cottage currently. The fighting reminds me of the WWF matches,
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: which is this World Wrestling Federation matches my father and
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: I would watch in the 1980s. It's very lively.
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. You know, a couple things come to
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: me initially about this dream. We have a chapter in
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: our new book, Dreamwise, Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams,
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: where we talk about past, present, and future in dreams.
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: And this is a dream that has all of these
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: references to the past. And that seems to me to
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: be important. So there's the sense that the camper trailer
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: looks like it's from the 70s, and the fighting reminds
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: him of the the WWF things that he would watch
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: with his father in the 80s, and the woods remind
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: him of his kind of, you know, where his grandmother
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: lived his childhood, where he spent his childhood. And so
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: there's something here about going back to the past, I think.
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: And that squares very much with my imagination about what
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: this dream might be about. But let me toss it
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: over to you while I'm continuing to chew on it, Joseph.
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: Well, I like this idea of this movement backwards and
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: forwards in time. My first personal response is having ridden
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: an ATV, which can be really exciting. It's very robust,
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: and quite frankly, it affords you the opportunity to get
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: to areas in the natural environment that would be very,
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: very difficult to get to. I mean, you could take
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: an ATV up an extremely steep cliff and then kind
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: of go over to a place that you might find
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: really scary as well as moving quickly over terrain. So
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: being in the all-terrain vehicle lets us know that there's
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: something that the dream ego is able to find and
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: traverse that would be normally very difficult if left to
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: its own devices. And the first thing that he finds,
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: is something that has been abandoned. And my question would be,
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: what has he abandoned within himself that the dream maker
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: is saying? It's time. It's time to bring back images, memories, traits,
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: aspects of the personality that you have really abandoned in
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: the unconscious, and you've been afforded this opportunity to fairly
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: easily drive into the unconscious and find some stuff.
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: So I love that. And it does square with what
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: was beginning to take shape in my mind. I mean,
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: what he finds is this kind of camper trailer, but
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: it's in good shape. It's been abandoned, but it's still
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: in very good shape. By the way, I remember the
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: brown and orange aesthetic. That definitely was part of my childhood.
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: My Burger King uniform in high school was brown and orange.
• 56:44
  Speaker 4: No.
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: Yes, it was.
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: Oh my God. Whoever thought that was a good idea? But,
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: you know, so he says that's from the 70s. He's
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: about 50. So this would have been the decade of
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: his birth is the 70s. So this is kind of
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: early childhood stuff. And and what here's what I make
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: up about this is that he's at this stage of
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: life where the kids are leaving home. Two are gone.
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: One's going to be out the door soon enough. He
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: and his wife have gotten disconnected. Now they're trying to
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: reconnect a little bit with each other. Most of life's
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: big tasks are behind him. He established himself in a career.
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: He became a principal. He had the kids. He's in
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: the process of launching the kids. And then what? And
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: what I kind of make up, and you're helping me
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: think about it is, Yeah, time to go back and
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: find these things that have been abandoned, but they're still
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: there and in good form. And there's something so playful
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: about it all. The kind of WWF fight with the animals.
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: There's something, it's entertaining, it's funny. It made me chuckle
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: when I was reading it. His wife seems to be
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: kind of into it. She's, you know, doing this sort
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: of over-the-top narration. Um, and it's, it's a little silly
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: and it's a little playful and there, there is a
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: time I think around, around this moment in our lives
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: when it's okay to almost go back. You know, I
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: remember reading somewhere that, that Jung said that sort of
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: the later years, it's like, it's okay. It's, it's now
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: appropriate to almost go back and be a bit of
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: a Puer or a Puella and just sort of play and, and,
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: be spontaneous and not worry too much about your responsibilities.
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: You spent your whole life being responsible at this point.
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: You know, now maybe you can just be a little
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: silly and have fun. I don't know what you think
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: about that.
• 58:41
  Speaker 4: I like it.
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: If we just lift up a couple of words out
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: of the dream. So one is getting unstuck. Another is exploring.
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: That's great.
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: And waddling and fighting. So there's just a handful of
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: descriptors in there that carry some of this dynamic that
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: I think you're noticing. and perhaps he seems to be enjoying.
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: The first task in this return to the unconscious is
• 59:21
  Speaker 3: getting something unstuck, and something unstuck between the Father and
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: the Son. And the good news is, he gets it unstuck.
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: He finds it. The ego is required to do a
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: little bit of work, does the work, and moves on.
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: That's very encouraging.
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great.
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: I don't know exactly how that's playing out in his
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: day-to-day life, but he has some kids. And so if
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: the father-son dynamic has been kind of spinning its wheels,
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: which is a way of saying that the effort is
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: not helping in any way, I would be curious to know, well,
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: has your relationship with either the father complex or with
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 3: your own son, has it gotten a little traction in
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: some fashion? What might that look like? But it's handled
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: pretty well. I find this part interesting that the wife
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 3: is going to run off with this young man. That's
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: a delicate conversation, but I am wondering about as the
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: children are going off to college, the transition from your
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: wife's prioritization of the children, of the sons and daughters,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: and the concern as to whether or not all her
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: attention is going to go to the children, or is
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: she able to kind of return back to you as
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: the primary partner? And I think what's nice in the
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: dream is she doesn't stay connected to the son. She
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 3: comes back to the dreamer. she's on the journey with you.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 3: And that's part of that transition as the kids go
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: off to college and the two of them rediscover themselves
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: as partners and lovers.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: And if we want to build on that and look
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: at it at the psychological level, we could see the
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: wife as an image of the anima. And this young
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: man might be an image of a sort of shadow figure.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: And oftentimes in dreams, The anima does want to run
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: off with the shadow because the shadow exemplifies some qualities
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: that the ego has let languish that could be very
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: attractive and renewing. And so there is a little bit
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: of a challenge there. Can you engage this shadow material?
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: But he does in a sense, and he sets it free.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: So that's good. Joseph, I like your reference to the
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: father stuff. I do wonder about the father complex. Lex,
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: especially because there was this kind of memory of watching
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: WWF fights with the father. But I think you're right
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: that somehow this is okay. Something gets unstuck pretty easily.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: And I also love that you called it the first task,
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: because there is a kind of fairy tale or mythic
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: quality to this dream in a very gentle way, because
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: there's There's the one task. And then as there often
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: is in a fairy tale, there's a second task. There
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: is the skunk with the two babies. And it felt
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: a little similar. You know, here's another situation that potentially
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: it seems like something's wrong. These baby skunks are under
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: the water. But oh, well, it's okay, actually. And then
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: they can get free of the water. That's okay.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: And then we have this contention with configuration. So we
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: have a mom and child, the skunks and her babies.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 3: Then we have the three-toed sloth, and we have a raccoon,
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: and then we have Nellie, the amazing karate cat, you know?
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: The karate cat, that's great.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: And he seems most aligned with Nellie. Nellie is the
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: instinctive creature that he's closest to that is most aligned
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: with him. And there are fairy tales of... the fairy
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 3: tale of the prince who marries a cat as his wife.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: All the other princes marry princesses, but the cat says, oh,
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: marry me, everything will be great. And it turns out
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: that the cat can make better dresses than the other princesses,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: make better bread, and Hera can fight better. So to me,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: Nellie represents something about his own anima, just as you said,
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: his own inner feminine that looks just like an ordinary cat,
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: but actually has these remarkable potencies and is able to
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: subdue other instinctive forces inside of the psyche that are
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: competing for dominance inside of him. And so the inner cat,
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: the inner feminine, his anima in the form of the
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: cat is really wiping up the floor, really has amazing
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 3: potential to create order out of this chaos of instincts
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 3: inside of him, and that the inner wife is enjoying this,
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: and he might, after this is all said and done,
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: feel a kind of relief that something has risen as
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: the dominant image or the dominant organizing principle inside of him.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. To submit a dream, suggest an episode topic,
• 1:04:48
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• 1:04:53
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• 1:04:56
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• 1:05:00
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