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The Princess Who Changed Her Fate: How to Negotiate with Destiny · This Jungian Life Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to This Jungian Life, conversations with Jungian analysts on
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: the unseen forces shaping our lives and what it means
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: to be truly human in today's complex world. I'm Lisa Marciano,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst in Cape Cod. Today,
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Lisa and I are going to dive into a fairy
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: tale that has to do with development of the feminine.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: And of course, as ever, we mine these fairy tales
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: for their deep psychic truth, which is as true today
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: as it ever was in the past, and is a
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: guide for all of us at some level. So we'll
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: start with Lisa reading the tale so we all have
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: the same place to begin thinking about it from.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: So this is a Greek fairy tale, and it's one
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: that you may not know. I love this story. It's
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: very psychological. You'll see why. It's called The Ill-Fated Princess.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: And so here's the tale. There was once a queen
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: with three daughters for whom she could not find husbands.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: One day a beggar woman came to the palace. She
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: saw the distress of the queen and offered advice. I
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: can help, but you must do as I say. Tonight,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: when your daughters go to bed, notice how they sleep
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: and come and tell me about it in the morning.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: The queen did as she was told and noted that
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: her eldest daughter slept with her hands on her head,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: her middle daughter slept with her hands on her bosom,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: while her youngest daughter slept with her hands in her lap.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: The queen reported all of this to the beggar woman.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Listen well. Your youngest daughter, who sleeps with her hands
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: in her lap, is the ill-fated one. Her evil fate
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: is affecting those of her sisters as well. The queen
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: was disturbed by this news and did not know what
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: to do, but her youngest daughter came to her. I
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: heard everything, mother, and I know that my evil fate
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: keeps my sisters from getting married. I know what I
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: must do. Have the gold of my dowry sewn into
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: the hem of my dress and let me go. Her
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: mother tried to dissuade her, but the girl's mind was
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: made up. She packed a few things, dressed in simple clothes,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: and said farewell to her mother and sisters. As she left,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: she saw two bridegrooms approach the palace on horseback. The
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: girl walked and walked, and by nightfall, she had arrived
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: at a cloth dealer's house in a village. She asked
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: if she could spend the night there and was given
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: a place to stay in the basement. That night, her
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: fate came and began to tear all the cloth stored
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: in the basement. The fate overturned the bolts of fabric
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: and ripped everything to shreds. The princess begged her fate
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: to stop, but she threatened to tear the princess into
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: shreds as well. In the morning, the fabric dealer was distraught.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: What will become of me? You have ruined me. but
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: the princess took some gold coins from the hem of
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: her skirt and gave them to the dealer. Then she
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: took her leave and wished him well and kept walking.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: At night, she came to the home of a glass
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: merchant and asked to spend the night. The same thing
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: happened as on the first night. Her fate came and
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: broke all of the glass in the shop, screeching and
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: howling as she did so. When the glass merchant awoke
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: and saw what had happened, he was beside himself. but
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: the princess gave him some gold coins from the hem
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: of her dress and went on her way. Now she
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  Speaker 1: walked until she came to the royal palace of that country.
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  Speaker 1: She sought out the queen and asked for work. The
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: queen was a wise woman and could see that the
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: princess was of noble birth, even though she was dressed simply.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: The queen had the princess sit beside her and embroider pearls,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: But when the girls set to work, the pictures fell
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: from the walls and the pearls scattered everywhere. While the
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: princess stayed with the queen, the dishes flew off the
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: shelves at night, and the servants complained, but the queen
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: told them to be patient. She is a princess, but
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: under an evil fate, have pity on her. One day,
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  Speaker 1: the queen said to the princess, You cannot go on
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  Speaker 1: in this way with your evil fate always pursuing you.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: You must find a way to change your fate. But
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  Speaker 1: the princess did not know how to do this, so
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: the queen explained. On a high mountain far away lived
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: all the fates. The princess needed to travel to the
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  Speaker 1: mountain and seek out her fate. Give her a piece
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  Speaker 1: of the bread that I will give to you, explained
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  Speaker 1: the queen, and say to her, Fate who decreed my
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: fate changed my fate. Do not leave until she has
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: taken the bread. The princess did as the kind queen
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  Speaker 1: had instructed. She took the bread and walked and walked
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: until she had climbed the far mountain and arrived at
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  Speaker 1: the gate. When she knocked, a beautiful woman in fine
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: clothes appeared. The woman looked at the princess for a
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: minute and said, You are not mine, and then left.
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  Speaker 1: A few minutes later, another fate appeared just as beautiful
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: as the last. I don't know you, she told the princess.
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  Speaker 1: Things continued in this manner for some time until a
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  Speaker 1: hideous woman with wild, matted hair and twisted features approached
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  Speaker 1: the gate. The girl quaked, but she was determined. Are
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: you my fate? she asked, anticipating the answer. The ugly
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: woman laughed cruelly, and the girl knew she had found
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: the right fate. The princess handed her the bread and said,
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  Speaker 1: Fate who decreed my fate changed my fate. But the
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: haggard woman threw the bread back and spit at her,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: shouting at her to leave. But the princess did not
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: give up. Each time her fate threw the bread back
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: to her, she picked it up, handed it again to
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: her evil fate, and asked her to change her fate.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: At last, the fate snatched the bread. Listen to me,
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  Speaker 1: she said. and drew a ball of silk thread from
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  Speaker 1: her pocket. Take this ball of thread and keep it
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: for yourself until someone comes looking for it. Then demand
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  Speaker 1: its weight in gold. The girl took the ball of
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: thread and returned to the queen. Now there were no
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: more broken dishes or spoilt embroidery. It came to pass
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: that the king of the neighboring land was ready to marry,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: but the bride's dress was missing some silk thread. The
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: king's men were searching near and far for the right
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: thread and learned about the princess in the next kingdom
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: who had a ball of silk thread. They sent a
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: messenger to ask her to come to the palace and
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: bring the silk thread to see if it matched. When
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: the princess arrived and held up her thread, everyone could
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: see that it matched the bride's dress perfectly. The princess
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: said she would happily sell the ball for its weight
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: in gold. They placed the thread on one side of
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: the scale and a quantity of gold on the other,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: but the scale would not balance. They went on heaping
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: gold on the scale, but it never moved. Then the
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: king's son, the prince, stepped on the scale, and it
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: balanced perfectly. If we are to have the silk, then
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: you must have me, he said. And so the princess
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: and the prince were married and lived out the rest
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: of their days in happiness and contentment.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: You know, I've been familiar with this fairy tale for
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: some number of years. And when I was writing my
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: dissertation for our whole Jungian training program, I included it
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  Speaker 2: because it is such a great way of depicting what
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: happens very often with, not just with our clients, but
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: with us and with all kinds of people, that we
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: experience something external that really is what we know today
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: is really an internal phenomenon. I can't help smiling when
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: I hear you read it about that somehow mysteriously, incomprehensibly,
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: when she was in the basement at the cloth merchant's house,
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: something happened that she had no knowledge of. It was
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: just The most unfortunate, catastrophic thing ever. And she paid
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: for the damage. And the same thing at the glass
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: merchant's house. So it's such a great story about how
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: do we take self-awareness and our own shadow into consciousness.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: Because today we hear that and we know that what
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: happened was created by our ill-fated princess.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Herself. It is such a great story because it does
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: depict this very familiar psychological situation. You know, Jung said
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: outside as fate. Yes. And so, you know, we might,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: if we were going to diagnose this young woman from
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: a Jungian standpoint, we might say that she had this
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: kind of particular complex disorder. that remained unconscious and so
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  Speaker 1: influenced her very much. And she had to kind of
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: make it conscious, bring it to consciousness and really countenance
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: it before it could be transformed into something that was
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: actually positive. So it's a great, it's a very hopeful
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: fairy tale. And I think it is psychologically accurate, though.
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  Speaker 1: So the hope is merited. that when we are driven
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: by these unconscious forces that seem to direct our lives
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  Speaker 1: as if a fate, if we take the right attitude,
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  Speaker 1: we can change that. You know, if we're going to
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: just sort of start at the top, we initially have
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: this mother and these three daughters, and the masculine is
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  Speaker 1: noticeably missing. And that kind of continues throughout the tale.
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  Speaker 1: You know, and interestingly enough, You know, this is like
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  Speaker 1: oil and water. She, with her evil fate, you know,
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  Speaker 1: she repels men, right? And so when she leaves, her
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  Speaker 1: sisters can get married. But actually, there is a bit
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: of a quaternity in the beginning because there's the queen,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: there's her and her three daughters. But there's just the
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: missing masculine.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, the missing masculine. And some way that there is
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  Speaker 2: something toxic, You know, that affects everybody. It infuses or
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  Speaker 2: infects the whole environment so that her two older sisters
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  Speaker 2: cannot get married. Not even suitors for her sisters will
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: come close. But as soon as our ill-fated princess departs,
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  Speaker 2: in comes the new masculine seeking the hands of her sisters.
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  Speaker 2: And then that same theme repeats when the cloth merchant
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  Speaker 2: and the glass merchant take her in and destruction ensues.
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  Speaker 2: And something is different when the queen in a neighboring
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  Speaker 2: kingdom takes her in.
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  Speaker 1: Right. I mean, the queen is such a kind of
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: positive maternal figure. And it's interesting because The princess's own
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: mother is kind. She doesn't want to send her daughter away.
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  Speaker 1: But she's also unaware. She's unconscious of her daughter's evil fate.
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  Speaker 1: And so there's this kind of split in the first part.
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  Speaker 1: There's the wise woman who says, your youngest daughter has
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: an evil fate. And there's this, you know, kind of
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: tenderhearted mother. The queen brings those things together, the queen
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: and the neighboring kingdom, because she sees that she's a princess.
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  Speaker 1: She sees that she has an evil fate, and she
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  Speaker 1: wants to help her and take pity on her. So
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  Speaker 1: it's this transformative force of awareness, consciousness, and I want
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  Speaker 1: to say something like empathy or mercy or something like that,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: that combined, those things have a mutative potential.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and... The version that I had, of course, like
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: many fairy tales, there are myriad versions. It was interesting
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: that when she got to the queen's household, the queen
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: sees her potential.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: You know, that's the code for noble birth. I see
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: your potential. And the servants in the palace keep coming
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: to the queen and saying, you know, basically, guess what
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: she's done now? This got broken. Those things got ripped apart.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: And the queen contains her without denying the damage, but
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: keeps saying, you know, hush and be patient. Hush and
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: be patient. But then one day, the queen has this intuition.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: We don't have access to this in the tale. We
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: just get the bare bones of what happened next. The
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: queen must have thought, now you're ready. Now you've had
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: enough containment without everybody flying into a tizzy for me
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: to send you off on the individual pilgrimage that you
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: need to make. And she tells her how to do it.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: Which our princess's mother could not do. Nope.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Right. She has no idea.
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  Speaker 2: So it makes me, this is a little riff that
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: can't be proven, but whether the princess's mother was the
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: indulgent mother, that whole range that can go from the
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: overindulgent mother that says, whatever you want, honey, or okay,
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: don't upset her, just let her have her way, to
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: the other extreme would be, a mother who is too harsh.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: But in The Queen from the Neighboring Kingdom, she gets
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: both nurturing and appropriate discipline and the tool to get
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: the task accomplished.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: Take the bread, which is what? The staff of life.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: You know, it's interesting that that's the gift that she
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: has to bring to her fate.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: And the fate must accept it, must metabolize it.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: You know, that's interesting what you say about, you know,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: that maybe the queen is, the first queen is the
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: indulgent mother. And of course, you know, being overly indulgent
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: with a child is a way to give them a
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: terrible fate, actually. I mean, that definitely can, you know,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: not having firm boundaries and expectations and that kind of
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: thing certainly sets kids up to have a difficult time.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: It seems to me that another way to understand it
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: is that our heroine is kind of the scapegoat. In
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: other words, she's sort of the identified patient. So, you know,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: this is this idea that comes out of, you know,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: family systems theory that one member of the family kind
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: of carries the family pathology and that person is the
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: identified patient. So, you know, there's a family with a
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: lot going on. Mom and dad don't get along or
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: communicate anymore. And what happens is the teen daughter starts
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: acting out or experiencing internalizing symptoms, gets depressed or something,
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: and the parents bring the daughter with them to therapy, say, here,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: you deal with it. But the way the therapist might
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: understand this is that the patient, the daughter in that case,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: is expressing some dysfunction that's in the family at large.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: And they might say something like, well, you're being a
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: very good daughter, actually, because by having this difficulty, you're
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: uniting your parents, you're helping them get back together and
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: communicate or something like that. So there's a way that,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: you know, she literally is kind of cast out of
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: the family like a scapegoat. And so I, and, you know,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: you do see this, you do see this clinically, right?
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: Where people from certain family backgrounds where there's like some
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: dysfunction and maybe a lot of unconsciousness, The people that
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: wind up in our offices most often are like this
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: princess who got driven out of the family, who were
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: the ones who were conscious of how like effed up
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: things were in the family, who maybe experienced the symptoms,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: who had the conscious awareness, who struggled with it. Now,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe there's like continued pathology and dysfunction in
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: other family members, but no one else is kind of
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: suffering it consciously. And so the person comes into our
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: office and they're really kind of bearing the burden of
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: this and almost doing the metabolizing for the whole family.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: So in some sense, I see this as, you know,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: maybe a version of that. And I love her kind
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: of stoicism about, I know what I need to do.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: You know, sew my dowry into the hem of my
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: dress and let me just go on my way. You know,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: there's something important about her having to leave home. She's
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: not going to fix this problem if she stays.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: As you say that, Lisa, I'm really moved by the
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: number of clients I've had, and I'm sure you have too,
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: who at some point realized, I have to move to
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: a different city. I have to physically get out in
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: order to be able to undertake the deeper task of
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: truly separating. But our princess's practicality of, first of all,
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: she eavesdrops, which is kind of breaking the rules, but
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: obviously it served her well. She is interested in knowing,
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: unlike her mother, who doesn't have a clue. and who
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: has to be advised by an old beggar woman, a
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: poor woman. So at least she's conscious of, I heard it.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: This has to stop. I'm going to need some money.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: The money needs to be sewn into my garment, so
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: I'm not a target for theft. I will dress simply
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: to preserve some anonymity and again, not be getting unwanted attention.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: And I will take myself off into the world. It's
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: really a version of the hero's journey of I must leave.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And, you know, it is a heroic thing to do.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think the part about dressing simply is interesting, right?
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: Because it sort of is a rejection of the princess persona. Yeah.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: she can't really inhabit that truth of herself. She, you know,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: she's a little bit like many fur, which is another podcast.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: We've also talked about that on the podcast, you know,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: that you almost have to hide yourself at some point
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: in your journey, both her safety, as you alluded to that,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: but also psychologically, it just isn't congruent yet to fully
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: inhabit that aspect of yourself. So it can feel safer.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: And she certainly, has not been acting like a princess.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: This is why she has to leave home. She's toxic.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. Right.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: So no wonder she doesn't really see herself quite as
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: a princess. Not desirable, not attractive, not appealing.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Which is, you know, I think to your point earlier
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: about the queen, you know, that line... She is a princess,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: but is under an evil fate. Have pity on her.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: I was thinking, how many of us at a difficult
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: moment in our lives, you know, where maybe we weren't
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: at our best or things weren't going our way, how
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: good would it feel to have someone say, she's a
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: princess and she's under an evil fate. Have pity on her.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: You know, that I can, as you said, Deb, I
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: can see who you are. I can see that about you.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: I can see your potential. I can see what's standing
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: in your way. That's like what a really good mentor does, right?
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: You know, maybe you're rough around the edges, but boy,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: I can see the potential there. So yeah, that's something
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: that sometimes we do have to grow into.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: I can't help thinking about the masculine here. That again,
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: we have four male references. There's no king in the story.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: So that's, Masculine number one, who's not there, but is
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: implicit in running a kingdom. And then we have the
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: cloth merchant. We have the glass merchant. And finally, we
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: have her prince, who at the very end is another
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: person that reads the scene and he gets it right away. Okay,
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: the scale thing and the gold isn't working. How about
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: if I hop on the scale? Another order of payment,
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: another order of resolution, negotiation is called for. It can't
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: be about money. So I'm imagining, again, this progression from
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: the absent masculine to two obviously kindly men who take
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: her in, it results in destruction of their livelihood, which
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: the next morning she pays for.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's, I think you're right. I think
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: that's interesting that the way the masculine first shows up
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: is like having something to offer, but it's not really
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: something she can make use of actually at this point,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: you know. And to me, there's something about those images
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: of I'm going to work at the cloth shop and
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: that doesn't work. And so now I'm going to try
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: to the glass shop and that doesn't work. It's sort
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: of like when we're on this journey, sometimes we have
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: to put our heads down, go through something really difficult
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: and have some kind of faith that something eventually will change.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: You know, I mean, everywhere she goes, she makes a
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: horrible mess and she ruins everything. But there's some kernel
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: of faith that she has that something can be different.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: So even when she's at the Queen and, you know,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: the dishes are flying off the shelves and the paintings
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: are falling from the walls, you know, she doesn't despair.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: She just sort of puts one foot in front of
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: the other.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm thinking about staying overnight in somebody's shop. It's
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: a very decent thing to do, to take someone in
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: for the night. But at a remove of, okay, you
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: can come in and Go down there and you can
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: be safe from external threats, but I'm just doing you
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: a favor. Versus the queen, who sees her potential, sees
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: that she's royalty, and takes care of her over some
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: time in the palace itself. So it's a much more
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: human connection. with the queen than just being offered a
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: place to lay her head, which I'm not disparaging, but
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: it wasn't enough.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: But it could be, you know, in the kind of
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: internal logic of the fairy tale, it could be that
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: she had to have those experiences first before she could
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: be taken in by the queen, right? We have to
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: almost make an assumption when we're looking at a fairy
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: tale that everything is as it has to be, you know?
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: She had to have those those failed experiences in the
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: cloth shop and the glass shop before she could be
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: taken in.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: It actually happens. I mean, I can see a parallel
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: to two or three young post-college women. We were living
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: in Brooklyn, New York, and one of the things that
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: a lot of young people do is after college, well,
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: I'll go to New York.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: I did it.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: After college, I went to New York to seek my fortune.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: And my first job was just a disaster.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Oh, you have to say more now.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: Oh, my gosh. It was as if I knew what
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: I was doing. I did not. Just like our princess.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: She's never been outside the palace walls. So I got
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: this job. Where I, knowing nothing whatsoever about building or
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: building products or architecture or anything like that, got a
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: job selling services and products to architects. Now, if you
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: can imagine anybody less suited for this work than I.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: And I got fired. It was very funny. But from
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: then on, of course, there were other difficulties and so on.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: But imagining me in the same position, sort of, as
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: our princess in the cloth merchant's shop, that the first
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: couple of tries often don't work.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: You know, it's only then that maybe someone takes you
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: in who sees your potential.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And I've had other young women where you
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: try one thing and you try another, and eventually you
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: find your way. And, you know, if I'm referencing clients,
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: having some help along the way is certainly advantageous.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: The right kind of help, right?
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: Yes, the right kind of help.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: And the queen really knows what that is. She knows
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: who she is. She knows what she needs. And she
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: knows the secret to this very mysterious thing of communicating
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: with the fates and changing your fates. You know, so
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: I want to just sort of bring in another psychological concept,
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: which is repetition compulsion. So this is something that Freud
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: first identified. And it has been remarked upon since then. It's,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: you know, it's pretty, I believe there's probably research on it,
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: although I didn't look that up chapter and verse, but
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: it's so, it's so common that any therapist knows exactly
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: what you're talking about when you say this. So repetition compulsion,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: the idea behind it is that if you go through
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: a difficult experience, let's say a trauma as a child,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: you will find ways of repeating that trauma. So, for example,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: if you were sexually abused as a child, one of
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: the things that happens to children who've been sexually abused
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: is they become hypersexual adolescents. So the girl maybe who
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: was molested by her uncle, you know, when she was six,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: when she's 16, she often is the one who is,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe kind of sleeping around a lot. So
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: that can be actually a symptom of that if you
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: look at that. So, and it does apply to tremendous
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: circumstances like that, but I think we all have patterns
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: that we repeat. If we were our father's little darling
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: and he took care of us and never expected very
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: much from us because we were just so perfect the
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: way we were, we are likely to repeat that pattern
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: with other men. It might be male bosses, it might
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: be boyfriends, and that could be for good or ill.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: So there's a way that we all repeat these patterns.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: And some of growing a big, you could say that
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: a big part of healing or growing psychologically is transforming
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: these patterns. And the interesting thing is that another term
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: for repetition compulsion, it was also referred to as destiny neurosis.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: So that we experience these early patterns as our destiny.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: And then you can see where this fairy tale comes
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: to the rescue because this is a fairy tale about
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: changing your destiny. And when you do the psychological work,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: I don't want to say to understand your patterns because
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: we all know that insight is not enough. And that's
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: what's so great about this scene where she is trying
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: to get her fate to accept the bread, is that
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: if it were just like, oh, I got that. Okay.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: Now it's like, no, it actually takes, there is a
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: kind of back and forth process. There's kind of an
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: ongoing dialogue with the unconscious who holds on to these
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: patterns and in the form of complexes. And it takes
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: a while to shift a complex. It takes a while
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: to uproot an old pattern so that it can shift
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: just a little bit. You know, they never really go away,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: by the way. But they do change enough that you
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: can have a different outcome.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: I want to go back to repetition compulsion, that when
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: there is trauma, that tendency gets, you know, sort of
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: underscored and bigger and more pronounced. But basically, I see
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: repetition compulsion as simply what we do as human beings.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: We learn how relationships work when we're, you know, very,
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: very little. We just absorb it into our skin and
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: our bones and the fiber of our being, that this
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: is what, this is how mom works. This is how
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: dad works. This is what I have to do to
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: get my way. This is the way relationships are. And
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: construct some sort of response pattern to whatever the environment
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: is offering. Some of it is very benign. We have
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: to learn to say please and thank you, eat with utensils,
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: raise your hand and wait your turn in school. And
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: those patterns can be very deeply ingrained, and so can
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: maladaptive human patterns. And they get repeated as complexes. It's
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: an unconscious response, an unconscious, strongly evolved pattern. that is
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: an attempt to heal the complex, but going about it
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: the wrong way of like, but this time, you know,
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: this time I'll go somewhere else or I'll do it
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: a little differently, like our princess. This time I know
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: what I'll do. I'll leave and make my own way.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: I'll stay overnight at the cloth merchant's house. So as
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: you said, it takes time and it takes some effort. And,
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: of course, it takes bringing it to consciousness. But not
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: just in your frontal cortex as an idea. And it's
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: imaged in the fairy tale as she has to trudge
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: up a big mountain. So you have to work it.
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: And then she has to keep confronting her bad fate.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: So we have to live it.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: And suffer it.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: Yes. You know, I can't tell you how many times
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: it happens that I'm in a session with someone and
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: we're identifying like, oh, there's that pattern again, you know,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: and this is, and someone will go, well, what do
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: I do? You know, and it's like, it's like, it's okay,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: now I know. How do I do, what do I do? And,
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: you know, the, I thought, I mean, it's a real
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: creed occur, right? How do I, how do I stop
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: this so that I don't keep on generating, you know,
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: more suffering? But it Like you're saying, Deb, you have
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: to live it. And I do adore the scene of
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: her just tossing the bread back and forth because it
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: says something about you just kind of have to stay
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: in the conflict and keep working it. And then sometimes,
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: some one way or another, in some ways that's a
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: little mysterious, something does change. There's this book that discusses
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: this fairy tale called The Vital Spark.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: Who wrote it?
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: That I wrote. And I'm wondering if I can read
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: a little bit from it because it's right at this. So,
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: changing one's fate isn't a simple, straightforward process. There is
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: no recipe for transformation. Often, people in analysis come to
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: an awareness of their evil fate, the inner attitudes and
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: constellations of past hurts and defensive injunctions that constrain and
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: restrain them. Then they ask with some despair, what do
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: I do about this? The answer is imaged in this story.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: To bring about lasting psychological change, we must be prepared
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: to confront that part of ourselves that holds us back,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: and then we must be willing to remain in relationship
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: with it. The princess patiently and persistently tosses the bread
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: back to the fate without rancor. There is no wish
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: to dominate or surrender, just an earnest desire. to be
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: recognized and received. When we long to transform some painful
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: aspect of our lives, we will need to stick with it,
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: to keep noticing our patterns every day, to be curious
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: about what motivates us and to look for new ways
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: of approaching old, sticky issues. We will have to turn
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: towards these dark, messy parts of ourselves with a friendly face,
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: wanting to get to know them. We will meet them
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: in our dreams, and this will give us an opportunity
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: to learn from them. We'll need to have faith that
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: things are changing, even when it's hard to see that
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: they are. The poet Rainer Maria Rilke gave advice to
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: another young poet that captures the nature of the transformation
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: process imaged by the tossing of the bread. So this
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: is Rilke. Be patient toward all that is unsolved in
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: locked rooms and like books that are written in a
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers which
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: cannot be given to you because you would not be
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: able to live them. And the point is to live everything.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: noticing it, live along some distant day into the answers.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: That reminds me so much of Jung saying, we don't
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: solve our problems, we get bigger. And I always imagine
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: this as a tree that is a sapling, maybe three
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: or four inches in diameter at its trunk. And somebody
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: comes along with an ax and gives it a really
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: good whack. And it's awful. It's really, for that little sapling, it's...
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: really life-threatening. But it hangs in there and it grows.
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: And as it grows and grows and gets into a
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: much bigger tree, eventually that initial wound becomes, oh, just
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: a place that's healed over and it's not so big
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: in relation to the rest of the tree. And in
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: a way, that's what our ill-fated princess does. She keeps
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: going and she keeps trying. She stays overnight here. She
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: stays overnight there. She finally hits the queen's palace, which
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: is much better than staying over at a merchant's house anyway.
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: And then she trudges up the mountain. But that sense
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: of agency and somehow hope, even when there doesn't seem
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: to be much hope, just keep putting one foot in
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: front of the other.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: And, you know, when I've seen people tackle really thorny
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: issues in their lives, and I mean, of all kinds, right?
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: And we all have them. You know, there is rarely a, oh,
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: this is the thing, and then it's all fixed, right?
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: And I think we're kind of primed to think that
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: way in our modern culture, but that's usually not the case.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess sometimes it is. But it's like,
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: first you try this, and then you try that, and
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: then you try this, and then you try that. And
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: It might be, you know, it's a little bit like
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: when you're really working on to loosen, you know, you're
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: trying to open a jar and you hand it to
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: someone and they pop it right off and it's like, oh,
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: I loosened it for you. But it may be true
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: that each time you try a different strategy or a
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: different approach that you do loosen the problem just that
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: little bit. And then suddenly, suddenly something happens. And it
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: looks like it happened all at once, but actually you've
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: been making efforts to understand, to solve, to relate to
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: it differently. And you've been growing, Deb, as per your point.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: So that by the time, you know, by the time
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: that thing happens, that seemed like it was this magical thing,
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: it's actually the sum total of a lot of kind
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: of effort and psychological work and that kind of thing
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: that's been going on in the background for years. So So,
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: you know, and I hope we can do an episode
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: on this at some point. I think the right attitude
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: to have is what I think of as the experimental attitude.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: If you've got a problem, try something and give it
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: a good try and notice what happens. And take notes,
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: you know, take note. Did this work a little bit?
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: This helped somewhat. But if it's not the answer, ditch it,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: try something else. And then, you know, maybe there's a
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: little piece you want to hold on to from that.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: And You know, she just keeps on trying. She just
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: keeps on trying. And that is kind of the key
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: to her success is that she has to kind of
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: stay engaged with the complex long enough that something can happen. Yeah.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: It's really wonderful examples of all. She engages it. She
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: engages herself right from the beginning by leaving. Yeah.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: She tries staying over at the cloth merchants. Uh-oh. Of course,
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: by the time she gets to the glass merchants, we're
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: all ready for like, whoa.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: Glass really?
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: This is really not going to be good. But she
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: does stay engaged. There is a lot to be said
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: for that, isn't there? And I love what you said
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: about try something. Try something. that is the best you
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: can do in this moment. You know, don't go out and,
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: you know, sort of indulge yourself in a movie and
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: a pizza. Try something that would address this situation.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: And be prepared that it might not work.
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: But then be prepared to try something else.
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: You know, this is a major plank in gestalt work
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: that we're talking about now, but I've not engaged it
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: much before, if ever, in our Jungian training or practice recommendations.
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: But in gestalt, every session, hopefully, can include an experiment,
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: which one of my mentors reduced to, let's try. So
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: let's try taking a walk. Let's try writing a draft
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: of that difficult letter. Let's try, the list obviously can
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: go on and on. And the original term, an experiment,
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: means you don't know how it's going to turn out.
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: You're really going into it in order to learn something.
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: And If it really falls flat, then you learned that.
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: That's not a good idea. If it gets you a
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: little bit further ahead or whatever, that's all good. But
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: we start often with that, of trying something. I can't
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: emphasize how important that is. Don't just sit with it
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: and stew. Try something. Try calling your best friend and
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: see what he or she thinks. Try going to therapy.
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: Try calling your Uncle George. He was always great with advice,
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: and he used to work in this field. Try something.
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: Get moving. First move, then understand. And when you understand,
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: then try something else based on what you've learned. And
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: our princess... Boy, she's gutsy, isn't she?
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she has perseverance for sure. And she has, you know,
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: access to that queen energy too. And we might imagine,
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: as we've talked about, that that's a sort of positive mother.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: You know, maybe it's really makes me think of Neumann's
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: transformative mother, right? Because she does provide support, but she
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: doesn't just provide support, she pushes her. To engage, you know,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: and to engage your fate is to engage the transpersonal.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: It's to engage that which is certainly bigger than ego.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: And you can't control that. So it's a real act
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: of courage to do that.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: So let's turn to our evil fate, the bad fate,
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: who produces of all things. a spool of thread. Special silk,
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: ivory-colored thread. And part of me wants to go, this
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: is it? You know, I did all this and you're
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: giving me some thread. Oh, thanks. You know, I was
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: hoping for a magic wand or a little pot that
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: magically refilled itself with gold or, you know, but instead
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: she gets something that would appear to be of not
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: very much value at all. But then again, what do
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: you expect from your bad fate? But the thread is
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: often in mythology a symbol for the connecting principle, the
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: thing that joins. Ariadne gave Theseus ball of thread so
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: that when he entered the labyrinth in search of the Minotaur,
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: he could find his way out again by rolling up
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: the ball of thread. We thread our way through things.
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: We try to follow the thread. We talk about something,
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: difficult problem, I have to thread the needle. So our
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: princess gets it. and accepts the thread with gratitude. She
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: gets something very ordinary, not at all magical, and is
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: willing to accept it. And I think that, too, is
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: a real-life principle. I didn't get into the program I
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: wanted to get into. I wasn't accepted for one of
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: those writer's workshops. I can only go to community college,
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: not an elite university. I got a job as an
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: administrative assistant after majoring in all kinds of wonderful stuff,
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: and I thought I would do something more.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: Or selling architectural products.
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: Oh, my goodness. I look back on it, I thought,
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: you know, why on earth did she hire me? What
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: was she thinking? I know I wasn't thinking. But anyway,
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: to take, to want what you can have and be
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: grateful for it. And to amplify this a smidge further,
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: my joke is that I have always wanted a yacht.
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: I really do. I think it would be great. I
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: think it would be so wonderful to just have a
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: real yacht and sail around to places and comfort. Of course,
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: I would have a crew. I'm not doing it. But
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: what I have is an ocean kayak. And I like it.
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: And I'm glad to have it. And the cove outside
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: where we are in Cape Cod is very calm and flat.
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: And it's perfect. And I'm happy to have my kayak
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: because I'm not going to have a yacht.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: You know, just to amplify the ball of thread, which
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: you did such a great job, Deb, but of course
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: we also associate thread with fate. And the three fates
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: in Greek mythology, there's Clotho the spinner who spins the
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: thread of life, and I'm probably going to pronounce these wrong,
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: but Lachesis measures the thread, and then Atropos measures just,
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: you know, cuts the thread. So, you know, so again,
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: it's another reference to fate, and she has kind of
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: gifted her this new fate with this ball of thread. And,
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: you know, what we want to say about our intrepid
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: heroine here is that, you know, sometimes things like this
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: happen in the fairy tale, and the heroine goes, what?
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: What's this? This is worthless. What would I want this for?
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: But she does a good thing when she sees it.
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: And she follows the directions to the letter. She keeps
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: the thread until the appropriate time. And then she does
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: just as she was told and says, you know, I
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: demand its weight in gold. And of course, You know,
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: we could see this as maybe a kind of, I mean,
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: we could interpret this like this is someone who's looking
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: for a life partner and she's finally able to achieve that.
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: But we could also see this from a psychological and
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: more kind of archetypal standpoint that this happy ending, as
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: many fairy tales end with a happy wedding, it's an
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: image of psychological wholeness. It's the image of the coniuntio,
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: the marriage. So she has found her missing masculine, as
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: it were. She is now uniting with her own potential
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: in the form of the animus. And she's, you know,
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: set for life, as it were, as a result.
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: I also like how this prince is portrayed. You know,
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: in many fairy tales, at the end of it all,
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: it's just a prince. as an image for the inner other.
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: But this prince is clever.
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: And nimble.
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah. He's very clever and he's very smart. Yeah.
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: He comes in, he's interested in the making of the
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: wedding dress for his prospective bride.
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: Is it his prospective bride or is it his father's?
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: Do we know that? I think it's his.
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's the one getting married, not his father.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: Well, I think in the version I read, it was
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: the king who's getting married and the prince who puts
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: himself on the scale. But I think that may be
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: different in different versions. Anyway, yeah.
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: But the prince is... able to switch the problem out
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: of the way it's presented. And that happens to us
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: all the time. You know, should I do A or
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: should I do B? And that the solution is K.
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: And here they all are with the scale and the thread.
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: And of course, it's sort of magical. So no amount
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: of gold is going to be able to balance of scale.
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: But the people that are in the circle of courtiers
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: just say, well, you know, put some more gold in there.
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: Let's do the same thing, but do more.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: Okay, even more.
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: Usually a bad idea.
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: And the prince is the one that says, nope, time
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: to really step back, revision this problem and take a
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: new approach. And I'm appreciating that her union with the prince,
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: the connecting thread that our princess has, is one that
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: is much more fulsome than, first of all, there's no
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: relationship that we know of with her father. He's not
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: even on stage. And then the two merchants, who mean well,
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: but they don't, as we might say, get it.
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: You know, it's the lack of the literal attitude. It's
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: the ability to think about something in a very different way.
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: And actually, I think it is referring to sort of the,
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: you know, symbolic thinking, just to take it out of
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: the literal. And I come up with something very surprising
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: that solves the problem in a new way that we
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have thought about.
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: And so she works her way back to being a princess.
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: And that's what a princess really is. someone who has
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: the energy and the perseverance to keep on going.
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: Well, then you can call me Your Majesty. I'm teasing, obviously.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: But yeah, it's such a great, she's such a great heroine.
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: She's like maybe one of my favorite fairy tale heroines
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: because she just, well, she chooses her fate and what's
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: not to love about that?
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a wonderful tale, and it's not unique, but
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: this tale in particular is about developing consciousness.
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yes.
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: And each time she learns from it, learns from it,
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: works it, works it, and we can really see in
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: the tale the kinds of steps and the kinds of
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: ordeals that individuating entails. Yes. Yeah.
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: And, you know, I want to, you know, part of
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: the reason I think why I love this tale is
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: because I have had, you know, in some ways my
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: own story, but also many, many clients who have come
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: in with a thorny difficulty and who have just kind
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: of hammered away at it and hammered away at it. And,
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: you know, and sometimes it looked hopeless and maybe hopefully
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: I was helping to play the role of the wise queen,
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: you know, and then something changed. then something changed. It
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: might have just been their attitude or maybe it was some,
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: you know, deus ex machina, outer life thing that just
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: happened or some combination of both or, you know, it's
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: like very mysterious. But then, you know, it doesn't always happen,
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: but it happens a fair amount of time. And it's
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: so great to see that, you know, that someone comes
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: in with a problem that's really creating a lot of
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: suffering and somehow, you know, we stick with it, you know, together.
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: And then in some period of time, it's like, whoa,
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: look at that. It's different.
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: It reminds me of the old saying, when the pupil
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: is ready, the teacher appears. And the teacher in all
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: of its possible lived expressions of the teacher out there
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: in the form of an analyst, the teacher out there
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: in the form of a mentor, the teacher within that
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: starts to become more self-reflective, more open, more vulnerable. And then, coincidentally, often,
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: something in the external world shifts. An opportunity comes along.
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: Or sometimes people say, oh, something shifted. I'm in the
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: wrong job. Mm-hmm. as I was, selling products I didn't
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: understand to architects. By the way, I don't think I
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: ever made a sale. I might have made one, but
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: after six months, my record was pretty bad. But however
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: that solution, the teacher, it will appear. Something will shift.
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: something will shift with engaging it in all the myriad
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: ways we have open to us.
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: And I wonder with that, if it's a good time
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: for us to turn our attention to a dream.
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: Today's dreamer is a 41-year-old woman who is a chaplain,
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: and she's entitled her dream, The Dragonfly. And here's the dream.
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: My dream began on a shore where I watched an
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: ordinary gray fish suffocating on land. Another figure, a man,
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: was also present, and I watched him as he provided
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: water until the fish recovered. and then both returned beneath
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: the surface. I began wading into the very clear water
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: and felt surprised as to how comfortable the temperature was.
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: As I looked around underwater, I saw some fish, but
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: no other evidence of undersea life. I felt curious and
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: intrigued by the fish and drawn to them. I first
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: encountered a beautiful, round, golden fish. It reminded me of
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: the sun. I could touch it gently, and in doing so,
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: I felt protective, and I hoped it was not unwell.
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: I also saw a dark, hairy, and somewhat scary fish. However,
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: I wasn't afraid and reached out to hold it. It
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: felt prickly, and its movements startled me slightly, but I
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: remained interested before letting it go. As I surfaced, a
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: dragonfly landed on my hand and I felt its legs
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: lock onto my skin. I felt very uncomfortable, even scared,
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: and tried to wave it off, but it remained stuck. Eventually,
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: I brushed it away and in doing so, accidentally knocked
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: off a portion of its tail and wing. and I
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: felt very worried I had killed it. For context, our
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: dreamer says, I recently left my job of the last
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: four years as a hospital chaplain, which was very hard
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: to do. I accepted spiritual care work in hospice. but
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: continue to question my vocation and its many pitfalls. I
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: often think of going back to school and becoming a therapist.
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: My mother is also unwell, and her dementia has been
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: progressing quickly since my father passed away several years ago.
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: I have not had a good relationship with my mother,
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: and caring for her is incredibly draining. The feelings in
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: the dream, she says, were... Generally, I felt a comfort
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: in the water that could best be described as contentment,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: though I had a range of emotions to each element
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: I encountered. For the golden fish, I felt awe and worry.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: With the dark fish, I felt curious and also wondered
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: why I was not more fearful of him. The dragonfly
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: terrified me and caused me to become frantic. After I
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: damaged it, I felt ashamed and worried. Notably, I did
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: not have any strong emotions with the initial sequence with
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: the fish out of water or the male figure. If anything,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: I felt ambivalent, distanced, and removed like an observer before
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: I entered the water. She says of the gray fish,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: it reminded me of those whole fish you can buy
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: at the supermarket, so literally food to eat. The man
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: reminded me of a magician, teacher, or healer. Above the surface,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: the shore and air I associate with both growth and danger.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: To me, it seems more present and modern. Below the surface,
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: the water below the surface seems like a womb. I
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: associate it with ancient knowledge and even somewhat with stagnation.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: The golden fish I immediately connected to the sun. Not
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: only did it resemble the sun, but I felt drawn
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: to it like a light. I associate the worry I
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: had for it as an indication of its importance. The
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: dark fish, this strikes me as primordial and ancient. I
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: associate it with the wild unknown. The dragonfly is hard
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: for me to personally associate the dragonfly with anything. Amplified,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: it would speak to me of transformation and being both
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: a water- and air creature. Okay, there is a lot here.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there is. It's really, it's quite, it's quite a
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: remarkable series of images.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: And progression of feeling. That it starts with on a shore.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: So I often think because I'm on Cape Cod, so
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: I see the beach and I so appreciate The connection
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: of the two worlds of land and water and the shoreline.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: And little kids will run in and out of the
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: water of transversing the boundary between worlds. And they meet
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: where water hits the land. So there she is, close
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: to another world. And it's just an ordinary fish. It's
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: not a fearsome fish. It's not a glorious fish. It's ordinary.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: So I'm paying a lot of attention to ordinary. But
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: it is suffocating. And our dream ego feels nothing. But
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: another figure, a man, comes over and provides water until
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: the fish recovered and then dies. Both of them go
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: into the water and disappear beneath the surface.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: So just to think about a fish suffocating on land.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: First of all, it's kind of interesting, right? Because if
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: a fish were suffocating on the beach, you would probably
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: just like throw it back in the water. But it's
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: something about the man has to provide the water. And
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: we can think about the water as some sort of
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: the water of life, the healing substance. And is that
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: the sort of the life of the feeling function, say?
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: that the man is kind of providing and that revives
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: the fish enough so that both of them can go
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: beneath the surface. So there's something about being on the surface, right?
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: There's something about, you know, on the surface where things
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: feel dry and desiccated, perhaps, and there isn't a lot
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: of feeling or a lot of emotion. And that's what
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: this man, and is he, she says, you know, kind
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: of a teacher or something. So he's kind of a,
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: He's sort of the wise old man archetype, perhaps. And
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: he is restoring, feeling life to this fish. And of course,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: the fish, you know, just if you think about it archetypally,
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: the fish are creatures that inhabit the unconscious. So it's
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: kind of, you could think about it very loosely as
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: contents of the unconscious.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: Yes, the life of the unconscious. Swimming around mysteriously. You know,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: and I think about, you know, so many stories in mythology,
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: in the Bible, about going fishing. And sometimes you catch
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: fish and sometimes you don't. The life of the unconscious
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: is elusive. But once this happens... She says, I began
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: wading into the very clear water and felt surprised about
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: how comfortable the temperature was.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: And then she sees additional fish. So I agree with
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: you that the feeling function is welcoming. The water is warm.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: The unconscious is interesting and pleasant and clear.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: I was assuming somehow that she was, when she goes
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: into the water and she's looking around, that she is,
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: you know, sort of able, those dreams where you can
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: kind of breathe underwater or, you know, sort of you're
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: underwater and it's fine and there's no distress or anything.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: That's kind of the feeling I had about it. I'm
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: not sure if I'm right about that. Yeah, and then
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: there are these kind of almost alchemical opposites. There's this
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: sort of literally kind of a sunfish, a fish that
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: is round and golden and reminds her of the sun
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: and then this kind of dark hairy fish, you know,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: which is, you know, sort of the opposite of that
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: in some sense. And it's only when she surfaces that
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: the dragonfly lands on her.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: It's startling in a way, isn't it? I mean, we
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: sort of, like, I'm on board. Okay, it's a beautiful
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: round golden fish. You know, okay, I get it. She
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: could touch it. and feel awe. And then she grabs
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: hold of the dark, hairy, somewhat scary fish. It's prickly,
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: but I remained interested. So I always pay attention to
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: what is the dream ego doing. As a dream ego, basically,
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: you can go towards something. You can ward something off
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: or battle with it, refuse it. You can hide. So
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: our dream ego is willing to go toward both of
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: the fish. And then it's sort of like, and you're
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: terrified of a dragonfly landing on your hand?
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: After all that? What happened here? And what is so
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: alarming about a dragonfly that she attacks it? I brushed
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: it away and accidentally knocked off a portion of tail
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: and wing and was worried that she killed it, which
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: if this happened in real life, it would die.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: So, you know, here's what I think about. She's very
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: comfortable under the water, right? She's very comfortable in the unconscious,
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: checking out the fish. It's when she comes up that
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: this thing becomes startling. And of course, The dragonfly lay
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: their eggs on the surface of the water and then
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: these nymphs are born. And they're actually very ferocious little critters. They're,
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: you know, for dragonflies, they can be like pretty big
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: and they will eat anything that they can get. They
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: have these little claws. They look like little dragons. They're
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: kind of scary looking. And they'll eat fish and other
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: insects and that kind of thing. And then at the
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: right moment, they climb out. onto a reed or something,
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: and then their shells will split open and out will
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: emerge a dragonfly. So there's something about going from under
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: the water up into the realm of consciousness, up into
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: the realm of air. That's something associated with this. So,
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: you know, it's it's hard for me to relate that
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: necessarily to the fact that she's just changed she just
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: left her job and it's and she's wondering about a
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: career change and it's draining it's draining taking care of
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: her mom but i wonder here this would be my
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: wild my wild hair okay is Is it somewhat easier
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: for this dreamer to kind of stay in the watery
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: unconscious rather than bringing back the riches of the unconscious
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: into her conscious life? And that the dragonfly represents some
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: principle of transition or change. And somehow that feels a
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: little bit threatening to her. And by the way, one
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: of my symbol dictionaries points out that dragonflies can share
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: butterfly symbolism as immortality and regeneration. So that's also interesting.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 2: I'm still back on... The dragonfly landed on my hand. Okay,
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: that's a logical sort of place... for a dragonfly to land.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: And it's true, like the big ones, when they land
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: on you, like you do feel their legs, you know?
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: And that's what she then says. I felt its legs
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: lock onto my skin. So I'm going back to the
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: beginning where she doesn't know what to do with the
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 2: suffocating fish. But when the man provides the water and
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: they both return beneath the surface, it's almost as if
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: he taught her what to do. And then she goes
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: into the clear water and it's all very, really very wonderful.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: The golden fish and even the hairy, scary fish, she
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: stays curious and engaged. But there's something about when something
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: comes in from the outside, it's very different from when
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: she is initiating. In other words, the fish that is
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: floundering on the shore is not something she chose or
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 2: initiated or made cause to happen. When she voluntarily goes
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 2: into the water, she can engage the golden fish and
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 2: the darker, hairier fish. And then she comes back up
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: out of the water, which is where she started on
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: the shore. And again, something intrudes on her that she
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: didn't choose or prepare for. The dragonfly. So what I'm
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 2: mulling over is, you know, I might want to know
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: if the dreamer were here, about that, of the difference
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: between the things she chooses to engage versus the things
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 2: that present themselves to her for a possible engagement.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: That's interesting. Yeah, I can see that.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 2: As she says in her associations, she'd been a hospital chaplain.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 2: I left my job as a hospital chaplain, which was
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 2: very hard to do. I accepted spiritual care work and hospice.
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 2: So that doesn't feel like a proactive choice, but something
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 2: that was somehow offered her. And then I often think
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: of going back to school and becoming a therapist. So
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: that would be a proactive decision on her part. And
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: then we also have my mother is unwell. dementia progressing quickly,
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: father passed away, and she hasn't had a good relationship
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 2: with her mother and the care is really draining. So
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 2: here again, the difference between what she might choose to
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 2: become a therapist, does she choose to work in hospice
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: versus this is what has happened to her or what
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: she is required to do.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: You know, I like that. And I think that's an
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: interesting thing to try on. As I'm sitting with it, though,
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: I am, there is something pressing forward for me about,
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: you know, she goes into the unconscious. She has this
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: lovely experience there. It feels really nice. But you can't
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: stay under the water. You do, the task is to
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: come back up and bring what you learned there to consciousness.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: And the truth is that If you can deal with
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: a hairy, scary fish, which, ew, like, why, what is
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: so scary about the dragonfly? And, you know, so the
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: dragonfly is interesting because it swims in its larval state,
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: and then it flies. So it is a kind of
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: transmutation of psychic energy that requires a certain, like, shift,
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: maybe in a kind of agentic attitude or something like that,
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: which I think is kind of getting at what you're
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: saying too, Deb, but I wonder if it, I wonder
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: if there is a tendency to sort of just, I'm
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: just going to rest back into the state when what
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: my life might be asking of you is a little
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: bit more of kind of dragonfly energy, which is, you know,
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: kind of arise and go out there and get it.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: You know, they are predators. And I mean, they're not
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: scary at all if you're human. They don't, they have
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: no ability to hurt a human in their Beautiful. They're so,
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: I love dragonflies. But if you're a bug, if you're
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: a bug, you should be scared, right? Because they, you know,
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: it's like, oh, they grab on and eat other bugs.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: But yeah.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: No, you just hit the point that is the real
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 2: surprise for me. Dragonflies are magical. Yeah. They're big and
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 2: they're like helicopters and they're sparkly. And they have big eyes.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 2: And they're very, very magical. You and I were together
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: a couple of years ago by your little pond. And
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 2: we both saw a dragonfly on top of some kind
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 2: of a leaf or plant that had lost one of
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: its wings was bent. And we were on our way out.
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 2: But you were worried about it. You said, oh my gosh,
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 2: you know, will it be okay? Dragonflies usually elicit something
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 2: other than fear.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, some little kids are troubled
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: by them because they look like they're going to sting
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: you because they have that long phallic body.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 2: Interestingly, our dreamer has associations to the other elements in
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 2: the dream, but not with the dragonfly itself. Except she
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: says it would speak to me of transformation. Yes. Being
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 2: a water and air creature. But again, the feeling is missing.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which is so interesting because that's missing in the
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: beginning too, right? And there's just fear. I mean, you know,
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: the dream's a little opaque. I don't think we, you know,
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: sort of like, ah, that's what it means. But certainly
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: the invitation, I think, is to lean into this image
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: of the dragonfly, which is what she chose to title
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: the dream. For all the other really compelling imagery in
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: the dream, somehow the dragonfly is the lysis. The dragonfly
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: is the surprising thing that ends the dream. So that's
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: where the telos is. That's where the new energy is heading.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: So certainly that would be the place where I would
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: want to really sit with this dream.
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 2: And I might ask the dreamer, you know, what would
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: it be like to lead a dragonfly life? What do
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: dragonflies do? What do you imagine it's like for them?
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 2: You know, because I'm thinking of something beautiful, airborne, that
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 2: traverses the realms and is not beholden to a lot
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 2: of external world constraints.
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: Right. Yeah. Thanks for listening. To submit a dream, suggest
• 1:17:54
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• 1:18:00
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