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Chance Encounters: When Life Calls Us to a New Path · This Jungian Life Podcast

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  Speaker 1: If I can bring in another quote from Jung, which
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  Speaker 1: does reference this idea of a chance encounter, and I
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  Speaker 1: think amplifies what you've just said really beautifully, Joseph. To
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  Speaker 1: this day, God is the name by which I designate
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  Speaker 1: all things which cross my willful path violently and recklessly,
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  Speaker 1: all things which upset my subjective views, plans, and intentions,
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  Speaker 1: and change the course of my life for better or worse.
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  Speaker 1: So these chance encounters that change our life, Jung's word
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  Speaker 1: for that is God.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
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  Speaker 2: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
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  Speaker 2: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
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  Speaker 2: a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.
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  Speaker 3: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
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  Speaker 4: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst on Cape Cod.
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  Speaker 3: Today we're going to explore life-changing chance encounters. A chance
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  Speaker 3: encounter is changes a life because it changes our governing fiction,
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  Speaker 3: the story we tell about ourselves. From an ego level,
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  Speaker 3: we have a sense that we live in a kind
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  Speaker 3: of continuous narrative of our own intentions. And when an
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  Speaker 3: encounter reveals a whole other world of openings and interruptions, calls, persons, animals,
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  Speaker 3: who in a sense were always there, it challenges us
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  Speaker 3: that the meaning is not always comfortable, and it brings
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  Speaker 3: us to a moment where we discover that the soul
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  Speaker 3: is autonomous and it offers a complication or a demand
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  Speaker 3: that we have to meet with a new perspective, which
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  Speaker 3: often in the remembering changes our path for the better.
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  Speaker 1: I'm just thinking of those things that happen to us where, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: something kind of arrives like a meteorite out of the
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  Speaker 1: sky that calls something into question, that makes us see
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  Speaker 1: something differently, that sometimes in a wonderful way opens a
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  Speaker 1: new door, but it's not always comfortable. Sometimes it feels
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  Speaker 1: really disruptive. And it's the thing that you look back
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  Speaker 1: years later and you're like, that moment, that moment, that person,
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  Speaker 1: that film, that book, that class that I took with
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  Speaker 1: that professor. And you think everything was different after that.
• 3:23
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• 3:27
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• 3:35
  Speaker 1: created a remarkable illustrated manuscript called The Red Book, in
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: which he recorded dreams, visions, and fantasies that emerged during
• 3:46
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• 4:28
  Speaker 1: to do so in the show notes for this episode.
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: I'm thinking about some of the chance encounters, you know,
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  Speaker 4: what we perceive as chance encounters that I experienced once,
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  Speaker 4: you know, many years ago before I had kids, we'd
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  Speaker 4: moved to Norfolk, Virginia. And for whatever reason, there was
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  Speaker 4: a line at the bank that was unbelievably slow. And
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  Speaker 4: I got talking to a man who was standing behind me,
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  Speaker 4: and I wound up with a job.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, my gosh.
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  Speaker 4: You know, I remember him saying, you know, you ought
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  Speaker 4: to go over. He taught at Norfolk State College. Why
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  Speaker 4: didn't I go over there? They needed English tutors and
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  Speaker 4: so on for, it was like, oh, great, okay, that's
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  Speaker 4: a great idea. Got a job. And interestingly, I never
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  Speaker 4: saw him again.
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  Speaker 1: That's so interesting.
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  Speaker 4: And what I'm thinking about is other chance encounters that
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  Speaker 4: I probably don't even remember, I'm sure I don't remember,
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  Speaker 4: that where somebody said, oh, you know, I have a
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  Speaker 4: great idea. Why don't you go up to the top
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  Speaker 4: of a building and try to fly, or something that
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  Speaker 4: my ego would have perceived as completely ludicrous, not a fit,
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  Speaker 4: and that my psyche would have just brushed off and
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  Speaker 4: never remembered. So it's, what do we do with these
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  Speaker 4: chance encounters? Does it strike a spark somewhere? There's a
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  Speaker 4: little receptor inside that goes, boom, or it just flies
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  Speaker 4: on by. Because there isn't anything inside, you know, the person, me,
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  Speaker 4: for example, that gives it some traction, that gives it
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  Speaker 4: a place to latch on.
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  Speaker 3: We may not know it's fateful until many years past
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  Speaker 3: when we're thinking, God, that one pivot, choosing to move
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  Speaker 3: here and not there, or this job or that job,
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  Speaker 3: and the incredible river of our lives that then gets
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  Speaker 3: redirected that we couldn't have imagined.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, there are always those things, too, where we wonder
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  Speaker 4: about if only. You know, if only I had agreed
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  Speaker 4: to meet that person for lunch. The path not taken.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. You know, Deb, your story about waiting in
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  Speaker 1: line and winding up with a job, it reminds me
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  Speaker 1: a little bit of something the three of us were
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  Speaker 1: discussing in advance of this, the way that those moments
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  Speaker 1: can feel very much a little bit like a fairy tale.
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  Speaker 1: And in fairy tales, there are often chance encounters, fateful
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  Speaker 1: encounters that change the course of the story. And they're
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  Speaker 1: often with, you know, a dwarf or a talking animal
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  Speaker 1: or a helpful hag.
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  Speaker 4: An old lady.
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  Speaker 1: And I'm thinking about one of my chance encounters, and
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  Speaker 1: I think I want to amplify it with a fairy tale,
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  Speaker 1: and this is a pretty common setup with a talking
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  Speaker 1: animal or a helpful hag, the French fairy tale Diamonds
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  Speaker 1: and Toads, there's sort of a typical, there are two
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  Speaker 1: older stepsisters and they're nasty, and then there's the young,
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  Speaker 1: beautiful sister who has to do all the work. So
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  Speaker 1: the oldest sister goes to a well and there's an
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  Speaker 1: old woman there, and the old woman says, would you
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  Speaker 1: please give me a drink of water? And she says,
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  Speaker 1: I don't have time to do that for you. And
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  Speaker 1: then after that, whenever she speaks, snakes and toads come
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  Speaker 1: out of her mouth. And then the next sister goes
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  Speaker 1: to the well, and I think the same thing. Oh, no,
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  Speaker 1: you know, I've got it backwards. The kind sister goes
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  Speaker 1: to the well first, and she's kind to the old woman,
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  Speaker 1: and she gives her a drink of water. And then
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  Speaker 1: whenever she speaks, diamonds and pearls come out. And her
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  Speaker 1: evil stepsisters wind up getting cursed and have snakes and
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  Speaker 1: frogs and toads come out whenever they speak. But there's
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  Speaker 1: this sense that we can, as you said, Deb, it's like,
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  Speaker 1: what do you do with it? When it happens, are
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  Speaker 1: you receptive?
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  Speaker 3: Do you listen?
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  Speaker 1: What fairy tales tell us is that it's very important.
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  Speaker 1: It's almost like those moments are kind of engineered by
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  Speaker 1: the self. And if your attitude is correct... You take
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  Speaker 1: it to heart and you're open and you talk to
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  Speaker 1: the kind, the helpful hag and you give her a
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  Speaker 1: drink of water or you talk to the talking animal
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  Speaker 1: and you take its advice. In the water of life,
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  Speaker 1: the three brothers go out one at a time and
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  Speaker 1: there's a dwarf on the side of the road who says, no,
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  Speaker 1: you need to go like this. And the first son says,
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  Speaker 1: what are you talking about? I don't need to listen
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  Speaker 1: to you. And he winds up trapped in the mountains.
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  Speaker 1: Same thing happens to the second brother. It's the third
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  Speaker 1: brother who goes, wait a minute, tell me what it
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  Speaker 1: is you have to say and thank you so much.
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  Speaker 1: And he listens to them and he's successful on his quest.
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  Speaker 1: So it's something about our ability to be receptive to
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  Speaker 1: these moments and to recognize that there might be something there.
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  Speaker 3: So I think in the fairy tales of the talking animals,
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  Speaker 3: the important thing is the instinctive level of inside of us,
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  Speaker 3: that strata, breaks free of our normal dismissal of it
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  Speaker 3: and then gives us a information and then this channel
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  Speaker 3: is open between our kind of waking language and the
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  Speaker 3: instinctive language of the unconscious and often if we are
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  Speaker 3: orienting correctly to that instinctive information the outcome is effected
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  Speaker 3: Because many of us, I think, if we're in a
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  Speaker 3: particularly rationalistic or deterministic attitude, we don't want to hear
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  Speaker 3: from our body. We just want our bodies to shush
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  Speaker 3: up and take us where we want us to go.
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  Speaker 3: We don't want our pets to interfere. Let's just give
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  Speaker 3: them the food and get them to the kennel. But
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  Speaker 3: the animal helper is not a tool. The animal helper
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  Speaker 3: is a visitation. And how the hero or the heroine
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  Speaker 3: treats the animal is actually the decisive test.
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  Speaker 4: I really like that way of looking at it, that
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  Speaker 4: it's a visitation. Something has visited you. And what do
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  Speaker 4: you do with it? I think for me, the universal
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  Speaker 4: thread is listen up and pay attention. It doesn't mean
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  Speaker 4: you have to agree, but don't just be reactive like
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  Speaker 4: those the typical of three brothers where the two older,
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  Speaker 4: seemingly more mature, worldly, sensible brothers, you know, typically disregard
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  Speaker 4: the instructions or the advice and just brush it off.
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  Speaker 4: And that's just reactive. They didn't stop, think, you know,
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  Speaker 4: maybe have a little more of a conversation, reflect that
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  Speaker 4: doesn't look like it makes sense, but maybe I should.
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  Speaker 4: So take it in and then discern. But I also
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  Speaker 4: think there's a theme that runs through it that if
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  Speaker 4: you're asked to help, there are fish that our hero
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  Speaker 4: is asked to help, there are ants, there are ravens,
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  Speaker 4: there are all kinds of animals that talk, that say,
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  Speaker 4: help me out, that maybe you should help, including a
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  Speaker 4: recurring theme where the hero who winds up succeeding, has
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  Speaker 4: to kill his horse in order to feed hungry ravens.
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  Speaker 4: And you kind of go like, what? Wait a minute.
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  Speaker 4: There's a real process of discernment. And what do we do,
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  Speaker 4: even with a request that sounds over the top?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, just kind of reacting to what you
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  Speaker 1: both just said, you're right. Oftentimes in these fairy tales,
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  Speaker 1: something is asking for our help. And that goes to
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  Speaker 1: your point, Joseph, of like, do we just want to
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  Speaker 1: shush up those voices that tell us, whether it's like
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  Speaker 1: from our bodies, like that you said that, you know,
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  Speaker 1: or do we stop and listen and go, wow, something
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  Speaker 1: needs my attention. I think the thing about these chance encounters,
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  Speaker 1: whether it's an outer encounter with somebody behind us in
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  Speaker 1: line or kind of a visitation from a bodily sensation,
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  Speaker 1: or any number of other chance encounters. The thing is
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  Speaker 1: that unless we're receptive, we may not even know that
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  Speaker 1: we had that opportunity. Most of the time we don't go, oh,
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  Speaker 1: there's a chance encounter. I think I'm going to ignore it.
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  Speaker 1: But it requires a kind of just a general opening
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  Speaker 1: in our attitude and a willingness to hear the voice.
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  Speaker 1: You know, Deb, the story you just referenced, it's the
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  Speaker 1: white snake. when the hero has to kill his horse.
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  Speaker 1: And the first thing that happens is the ants call
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  Speaker 1: for his help. So how do you make sure that
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  Speaker 1: you can hear the ants? That's a real, I mean,
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  Speaker 1: I think in our lives these days where there's just
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  Speaker 1: so much stimulation coming at us all the time, how
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  Speaker 1: do you make sure you can hear the ants? You
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  Speaker 1: have to be pretty quiet to hear the ants.
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  Speaker 3: Well, my ants, I never had to be quiet. You know,
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  Speaker 3: they'd show up with a cigarette in their mouths like, Joey! Joey,
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  Speaker 3: how you doing? Come over here. I need you to
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  Speaker 3: help me with something. So, I mean, there are different
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  Speaker 3: kinds of ants, you know. But I take it that
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  Speaker 3: some of them are probably quieter than others.
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  Speaker 4: But I think yours are definitely from Brooklyn.
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  Speaker 3: My ants were from Queens. They were rough around the edges.
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  Speaker 3: So we can imagine those little ants coming out of
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  Speaker 3: the wall smoking cigarettes, talking in a Brooklyn accent or
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  Speaker 3: a Queens accent, but they still get the job done. Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: they do.
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  Speaker 4: But it's such a good point of are we even
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  Speaker 4: able to hear it, you know, the proverbial sort of
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  Speaker 4: still small voice of something that has a knowing. I mean,
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  Speaker 4: of course, these talking animals in fairy tales, are personifications
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  Speaker 4: of our very own instincts, elements of the unconscious that
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  Speaker 4: are rising, sometimes softly, sometimes loudly, to the surface. You know,
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  Speaker 4: Von Franz says that. She says, animal stories represent archetypal
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  Speaker 4: human tendencies. They are human because they really do not
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  Speaker 4: represent animal instincts, but our animal instincts. And in that sense,
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  Speaker 4: they're really anthropomorphic. And then she goes on to say,
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  Speaker 4: you know, something like a tiger can represent greed. And
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  Speaker 4: it's our own tigerish greed. And, you know, we could
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  Speaker 4: go on and on about what is a wolf, what
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  Speaker 4: is a duck, what is a raven, etc. And they're
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  Speaker 4: represented with pretty typical kinds of human qualities. Tigers aren't
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  Speaker 4: represented as, you know, warm and fuzzy little kitty cats.
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  Speaker 4: And ants are not represented as eagles who can fly,
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  Speaker 4: and so it goes. So what are we responding to?
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  Speaker 4: An outer event that touches something in us that could
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  Speaker 4: or could not be receptive.
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  Speaker 3: What it makes me think is that, and this is
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  Speaker 3: so much of the whole corpus of Jungian theory, is
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  Speaker 3: that we have to cultivate a kind of ethic, really.
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  Speaker 3: that when life presents itself, when it rings the doorbell
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  Speaker 3: in all the many ways that it does, can we
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  Speaker 3: pause and stop treating it as if it's inferior, as
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  Speaker 3: if it's a pest and a problem? That God speaks
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  Speaker 3: to us through problems as well as successes. The self
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  Speaker 3: uses whatever levers that it's decided are going to be effective.
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  Speaker 3: And I think that if we are responding to the instinct,
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  Speaker 3: whether it's the animal in our dream or our own bodies,
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  Speaker 3: if we respond with respect and restraint, things are probably
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  Speaker 3: going to go better. And often we don't. The animal disappears,
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  Speaker 3: and then it returns as a symptom or a compulsion
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  Speaker 3: or a destructive shadow. So if you've got a greedy tiger,
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  Speaker 3: you know, somewhere in the back of your mind, you know,
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  Speaker 3: and you've given it a name and it comes and
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  Speaker 3: sits down and feasts at your imaginal table, actually, that's
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  Speaker 3: probably going to go better than pretending it doesn't exist.
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  Speaker 3: And all of a sudden, you find yourself spending your
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  Speaker 3: life savings on a crypto deal that goes bad because
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  Speaker 3: the lion made you carry its greed.
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  Speaker 4: But I think your point is so well taken that
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  Speaker 4: they often represent aspects of ourselves that we regard as inferior. Ants,
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  Speaker 4: little fish, ravens, the old crone sitting under an oak
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  Speaker 4: tree without any teeth, that they come across that way.
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  Speaker 4: And then there are the, you know, the lessons, the
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  Speaker 4: sort of the moral lessons around tigers and talking animals
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  Speaker 4: and Tricksters, there's a great fairy tale from Zanzibar about
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  Speaker 4: this tiger that gets let out of its cage and
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  Speaker 4: the hero can't get it back in the cage until
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  Speaker 4: he gets the help of a jackal. You know, jackals
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  Speaker 4: are not beautiful, you know, wonderful, glorious animals. And the
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  Speaker 4: jackal pretends that he can't understand what is trying to
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  Speaker 4: be said? Oh, excuse me, I can't get it. No, no, no,
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  Speaker 4: go over it again. Oh, I'm so sorry. And then
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  Speaker 4: he asks the tiger, of course, typical thing of like,
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  Speaker 4: show me exactly how it happened. I mean, it started
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  Speaker 4: when you were in the cage, right? So how about
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: if we just start there, get back in the cage
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  Speaker 4: so I can see it from the very beginning. And
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  Speaker 4: of course, they slam the door and the hero is saved.
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  Speaker 4: But usually they're parts of ourselves that we don't really
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  Speaker 4: want to contend with. They're vulnerable, they're weak, they're unattractive,
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  Speaker 4: or they're greedy and powerful like tigers.
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  Speaker 1: And they may really kind of challenge the ego's feeling
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  Speaker 1: of its own superiority. I mean, I'm thinking of those
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  Speaker 1: three brothers again and the water of life. It's like the,
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  Speaker 1: you know, the prince rides out and why should he
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  Speaker 1: talk to that dwarf? And that often is the way
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  Speaker 1: our ego feels when we get a little inkling that
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  Speaker 1: something's wrong or we're confronted maybe with an uncomfortable feeling
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  Speaker 1: that we've misbehaved, but we don't really want to have
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  Speaker 1: to confront that. So we rationalize it and move on.
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  Speaker 1: I think I'll tell a story of a chance encounter
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: that I had. I've told it more than once on
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: the podcast. So for some listeners, this may be a repeat.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: But when I was 28, I was living in Manhattan.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: I was going to graduate school, I was getting a
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: master's degree in international affairs and I was depressed. I
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: was having a really tough time. An important relationship had
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: ended and I just didn't, I just, just nothing really
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: was feeling right in my life. And I can look
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: back now and say, and say I was definitely in
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: my Saturn return. I had no idea that there was
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: such a concept at the time, but there I was 28, bang,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: right on schedule. And I lived on the Upper West
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: Side and I used to go to this bookstore that was,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: you know, right on Columbus Avenue. And I would, I would,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: I always liked browsing in bookstores, something, you know, that I,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: that I like to do. So I would go to
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: the bookstore to browse and I would just kind of
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: always find my way to the psychology self-help section. This
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: was in the early 90s. And there was this book
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: on the bookshelf called by Linda Leonard and the title
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: was On the Way to the Wedding. And I was
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: captivated by the title and I picked up the book
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: and I would open it to any page and I
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: would just kind of tear up. And then I'd be like, oh,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: maybe I should buy this book. And I was like, no,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: I have like 300 pages of reading and such and
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: such class. I have no business buying a book. And
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: I would put it back on the shelf. That's a
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: little bit like the first son meets the dwarf and
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: the dwarf tries to tell him something and he goes,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: I don't have time for you, right? I don't have
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: time for this book. This is not going to help
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: me with my graduate studies. This is not where my
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: head is supposed to be. So then two weeks later,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: I'm back in the bookstore. I surprisingly find my way
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: back to the psychology self-help section and I see that
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: book again. And I pick it up again and I
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: open it and feel myself fill with emotion as I'm
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: reading a paragraph or two and think I should buy
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: the book. And then I say, nope, you can't do that.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: You've got too much other reading to do. So that's
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: like the second brother that comes and the dwarf tries
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: to say, you need to do this. And the brother's like,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: I don't need to listen to you.
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: I've got this.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: I've got this, right? So eventually I did that. third
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: time and I still put it back on the shelf.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: But then on my way home, I crossed Columbus Avenue
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: and there used to be a New Age gift shop
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: pretty much across the street on Columbus, kind of near 81st.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: It was called, and I kid you not, I'm not
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: making this up, the little store was called The Hero's Journey.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: And I went inside and it was like this little
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: place that sold like incense and crystals and like dream
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: catchers and just kind of stuff like that. It wasn't
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: a bookstore. But at the back, they had, I don't know,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: like half a dozen books on a little shelf. And
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: that book was there. And I was like, okay, okay,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: I get it. I think I'm supposed to buy that book.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: So that was like, finally, after I'd gotten my behind
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: kicked around a little bit, then I was like, oh,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: maybe I shouldn't devalue this book. Maybe I should listen
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: to the talking animal on the side of the road
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: this time. And even though I have 800 pages of
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: reading to do by next Tuesday, I need to read
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: this book. So I bought the book and I brought
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: it back to my apartment and it was a signed copy.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: And Linda Leonard, as some of you may know, is
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: a brilliant Jungian analyst. And The book, like, it was
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: the chance encounter of my life. It opened every door.
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: It shifted.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: I just could feel the furniture getting rearranged inside me
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: as I read it. By the time it was done,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: I was in a different place mentally with my struggles.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: And I was also like, I wonder what it would
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: be like to become a Jungian analyst. So it really was...
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: a decisive encounter. And it's, you know, it's not surprising
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: for me that my chance encounter was with a book
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: because that, that tends to be where, that tends to
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: be where those things happen for me.
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: So this opportunity appears, the unconscious is arranging something. There's
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: an alignment with circumstance, but the ego's still not quite
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: dropping into the slot. And luckily it presented a second
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: time because often in fairy tales it doesn't. The treasure
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: only rises every nine years. No one's there to see it.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: It sinks back down. You know, too bad. But there
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: was something so determined in the unconscious to get that
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: in your hands that finally everything came together. It's in
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: your hands. And you have the libido to read it
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: because some of us, myself personally, are famous for buying
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: books that live on my shelf. And then they nag me.
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: And then I avoid them. But I don't read them.
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: So the fact that everything came together, and despite all
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: of your other distractions, the unconscious gave you this energy
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: and determination. So there's coordination between so many different levels
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: to get that fulcrum to come together. But I do
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: want to say, like, what if I hadn't?
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: What if I had been like that stubborn, first brother
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: in the fairy tale and I'd never bought that book.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Here's what I wonder is I know some people in
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: my life who I wonder if they put the book
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: back on the shelf too many times. And I'm speaking figuratively.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying that book. I'm just saying their opportunity
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: came and they never took it. And that happened repeatedly.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: You know, maybe this is a little bit similar to
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: what Jim Hollis is talking about when he says, we
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: all have an appointment with ourselves and most of us
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: never show up for it. And if we don't, does
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: our life energy just slowly begin to drain away because
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: we stayed in a kind of protective crouch and didn't
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: allow the new information in that the chance encounter was bringing?
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: I'm just speculating.
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: Well, What I'm thinking about is, again, is what do
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: we do with it? And it's not some sort of
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: a binary construct of like either you just go right
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: out and sign up for a whole different course of
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: study or you just put the book back on the
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: shelf and forget about it. But it's always about the,
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: you know, the relationship between the ego and the unconscious.
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: And that it costs nothing to to entertain the idea.
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: It will cost you nothing that you bump into somebody
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: you haven't seen in years who tells you about some
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: event or something, or you see a book that kind
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: of catches your attention, or all the 10,000 things. Do
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: you notice? Do you pay attention? Are you open enough
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: to say, whoa, wow, that was interesting. And then reflect
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: on it. And then ego has to make a determination
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: and have a process of discernment. But I think a
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: lot of the time, you know, like the three brothers
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: in the fairy tale, The Water of Life, we just
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: gaff it off. I'm like, oh, no, don't bother me.
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: I'm busy.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: There's a poem from Hafiz where he says, we can
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: come to God dressed for dancing or be carried on
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: a stretcher to God's ward.
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: Ouch, ouch.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but it is like, Deb, like you're saying, it's
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: about the relationship between the ego and the unconscious, and
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: it really costs nothing to come dressed for the dance.
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: Exactly. It costs nothing, or as we said in Brooklyn,
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: it don't cost you nothing to think about it, but
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: rather than those three brothers are not only dismissive, but scornful.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: So I think we're talking about a quality of attention.
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: Do we even notice that funny-looking book on a shelf? Or,
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: you know, the person waiting at the traffic light next
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: to us who says, excuse me, but do we even
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: notice it? And then what do we do with it?
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: Can we reflect on it as if that first brother
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: could have at least engaged in a conversation with the
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: dwarf of like, you want me to do what? No,
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: that doesn't make sense. Why would I do that? Now,
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: you know, maybe there could be a little more opening
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: up of a topic where the dwarf could say a
• 29:46
  Speaker 4: little more, explain a little more.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: Well, if I can just stretch out my own example
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: for a second, because I mean, you know, what was,
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, the book is over there on my shelf.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: I could look, but you know, maybe it was $ 12
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: or something. I mean, I was a poor student, but
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: I wasn't that poor. I could have, it wasn't the
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: cost of the book. Like I could have just said, well,
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: you know, gee, maybe I won't have time to read it,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: but I might as well just buy it.
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: And I didn't do that.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: I was like, no, I'm going to be a good
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: graduate student and put this book back on the shelf
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: because I shouldn't be reading it. You And I wasn't
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: going to make room for anything else to come in
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: until I kind of got carried on the stretcher.
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: So for most of us, the ego is the center
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: of the drama. And the chance happening is an opportunity
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: to relate to the center that's actually ordering the process.
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: So if we were to see our lives as a process,
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: that is organized by forces above us and within us,
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: then we can move into kind of a careful observation
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: of the auguries and the signs. So we can go
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: along with our personal determination, or we can go along
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: with the process of living. And one is more relational
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: than the other, and we all know that. There are
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: times when we're very driven to kind of accomplish something
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: and everything else kind of falls by the wayside. We
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: don't have time for our relationships. We don't have time
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: for our meditation. We're going to be heroic. So we
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: could also say that by relating to the center point,
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: that then a kind of relatedness to the self and
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: to all of the factors around us becomes more possible
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: because all of the characters around us become the agents
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: of the self and carry a kind of dignity and
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: value that we might not otherwise afford them, including books.
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: You know, I'm thinking about, it's not a chance encounter,
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: but it's kind of related of what happens when We
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: meet an animal and we are forced to contend with something.
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: So in the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, it's
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: the young heroine's father who commits the dire crime of
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: stealing a white rose. And she volunteers to go and
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: live with the unwanted beast. psychological content that presents itself
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: as the beast. Little Red Riding Hood, uh-oh, you know,
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: here comes the wolf. Have to contend with the wolf.
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: Flipping it in a way the other way when instead
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: of just a little encounter that ego can engage or not,
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: we have the other extreme of you have to engage this.
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: Right. So the helpful animal can also become the rapacious animal.
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: And that may have something to do with how we're
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: responding to instincts, but also sometimes the animal as an
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: emissary of the self knows that being rapacious is what's
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: required for some kind of a correction of ego attitude.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm also thinking, you know, it's not exactly a
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: chance encounter, but it is a fateful encounter right because
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: it's because she has asked for the white rose and
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: and there there is a way that things fall across
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: our path because of choices that we've made and then
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: in hindsight we look back and say that was what
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: was meant to be just like my my story with
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: the book I mean it's hard to imagine my life
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: turning out differently than it has and from that moment.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: It feels like that was what was fated to happen. But,
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: you know, if you ask for the white rose instead
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: of the gold brocade gown, it may be that that
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: becomes your fate.
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: I'm sitting with that.
• 34:26
  Speaker 5: You know, is it the ego's choice that then sets
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: the fateful event in line?
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: Or is it that Something else is organizing the libido
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: of the individual. So it's always that chance of, are
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: we putting the ego in the center? Are we putting
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: the self in the center? It's tricky.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: But what I would say for the fairy tale is
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: the fact that she wants the right rose. That is
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: a spiritual desire. So it is like.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: You know, the self is speaking through her choice, right?
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, that actually isn't an ego desire. Her sisters
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: are like, I want gold, I want jewels. And she's like, ah,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: just a white rose. So the way that our fate
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: comes to us sometimes, I mean, in a way it
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: comes to us, maybe the point is, and the point
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: of these poems is that it comes to us in
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: spite of anything that we do or don't do.
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I like that a lot, that in various guises
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: and with varying degrees of intensity, it comes to us.
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: This is what you are presented with, whether it's a
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: talking ant, a book on a bookshelf, or off you
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: go to live with this beast in the middle of
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: the forest. What do we do? with these things that
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: cross our path, which takes me to the famous Jung quote,
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: that whatever we don't recognize in ourselves that is unconscious
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: and bring to consciousness, we will meet externally as fate.
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: That's really worth pondering. And what is operating here? which
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: I think we're circling around the concept of the self,
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: of some central, mysterious, ordering principle that certainly will have
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: its way with us. We can go dancing toward it
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: or be carried in on a stretcher, and that we
• 36:51
  Speaker 4: are presented with the necessity of encountering.
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: So what I'm thinking about is if we thought of
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: chance as its own God, that chance is a mode
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: of psyche. It's a style of arrival. It's its own deity.
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: And what is it breaking? So it's breaking our own
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: fantasy of this kind of controlled continuity. Like it's going
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: to be this way. And when chance interposes, at the
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: very least, it exposes the ego's dependence, the outer system
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: rather than the inner system. If we become servants of
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: the culture, servants of the determinative path that somehow we've
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: absorbed into ourselves, you know, the gods of chance, you know,
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: flip that upside down, we're then left with our own distress, confusion,
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: all the stuff that happens inside of us, which also
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: makes us have to pause and reflect on how much
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: of myself did I put in service to my own
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: agenda without consideration of far deeper things. And so that
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: makes me think about, the propitious moment, which sometimes is
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: called kairos, the vertical time versus the horizontal time, and
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: that the kairos moment is a kind of tear in
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: the fabric of our expectations.
• 38:45
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: It's a great image that, yes, we have our plans.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: And if I can bring in another quote from Jung,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: which does reference this idea of a chance encounter, and
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: I think amplifies what you've just said really beautifully, Joseph.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: To this day, God is the name by which I
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: designate all things which cross my willful path violently and recklessly,
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: all things which upset my subjective views, plans, and intentions,
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: and change the course of my life for better or worse.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: So these chance encounters that change our life, Jung's word
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: for that is God.
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: And it is a summons to move and to move
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: out of position in some fashion. We have to depart
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: from something in order to absorb what's been offered, and
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: reasonably so, particularly when we lead a very deterministic life.
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: It can be deeply disturbing, you know?
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll just go back to my own story. So
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: here I am in graduate school. I'm getting a master's
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: in international affairs. And I read this book that is
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: 180 degrees away from the stuff that I'm studying and
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: that I've been interested in and that I've been invested
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: in and I paid money for this degree. And all
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: of a sudden I'm like, God, I think I want
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: to go study Miss Fairytales and Dreams, you know? And
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: of course, it took me years before I could actually say,
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: this is what I'm going to do.
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: Because it was.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: Hard to move away from this, you know, I have
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: this goal and I'm going to pursue it and this
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: is what I'm doing. And to admit that I may
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: have gotten that wrong.
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: It was such a sensible career path. It was a good, solid,
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: sophisticated career path.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: That could lead you to being what? Secretary of State?
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: I don't know about that.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I had made an investment of time, energy,
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: and money, but I had also, perhaps the biggest investment
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: was I had invested my ego identity in it. It
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: was who I was. This is the way the world worked.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: And I had to, like you said, Joseph, I had
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: to give that up and make room to absorb a
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: new kind of, and it took years.
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: What is that old saying that when man makes plans,
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: God laughs?
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: Yes, exactly. So I wonder if that is a thread
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: running through it, that regardless of what the chance encounter is,
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: for good or ill, from the perspective of our egos,
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: that's what gets nudged, pushed, called, and sometimes catastrophically wounded.
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: That the chance encounter is something awful, like being in
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: a car accident and being grievously injured. We have chance encounters.
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: And that the self is interested in the condition of
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: the soul. And if it has to sacrifice other outer
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: circumstances in order to constellate the maturation of the soul,
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: apparently it does that with some gusto. Now, this is
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: where dream work can kind of slip into the conversation.
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: If we are courting the unconscious, if we are asking
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: it to speak to us, and we are pondering over
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: its messages, it may be that the unconscious doesn't need
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: to drag us by our hair or on the stretcher.
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: Because it does feel spoken to, and it is being heard.
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: The unconscious may or may not always demand absolute external compliance,
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: and often maybe that isn't. In fact, anywhere near the
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: right road But like, for instance, taking our dreams seriously,
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: strangely enough, often changes what we call luck. What I
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: notice is that people who tend to their dreams seem
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: luckier and less obstructed because the self doesn't need to
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: stick a foot out or throw a banana peel in
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: front of you to cause you to stop so it
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: can talk to you.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you are probably right about that. I'm
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: thinking about going through my list of people I know
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: who've like slipped on banana peels. And it's like, yeah,
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: you know, you might be right about that. In a way,
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: if we're attending to our dreams, we're making that space
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: to listen to the ants, even those of us who
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: have quiet ants, unlike the ants from Queens. So yeah,
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: I think you're right. I wouldn't say I haven't had
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: any of those chance encounters, those really meaningful chance encounters
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: since I started down this road. But in a way,
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: like the more alive the attention to the inner world is,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: the outer world kind of gets quiet in a way.
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: I think that's true. Jung said late in life, I think,
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: that he no longer dreamed because the unconscious didn't require
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: that as a method to communicate with him because he
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: was in dialogue with the unconscious all day long. So
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: by the time his body was ready to rest, the
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: unconscious felt well-fed and the ego had taken in a
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: lot of information on and off throughout the day.
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: Nevertheless, I think we do continue to have all kinds
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: of chance events, let's say, throughout our lives. It's just,
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: I think, part of you know, this whole journey on Earth,
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: that things are going to happen to us. And like
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: chance encounters with man I met at the bank or
• 45:23
  Speaker 4: Lisa finally buying the book, that we will be disrupted
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: from time to time by all kinds of life events,
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: financial crises, geographic moves. sudden illnesses, unexpected losses, the list
• 45:39
  Speaker 4: goes on and on. And I'm, you know, thinking that
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: in a way these two are chance encounters and that sometimes,
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: you know, so big and so painful. And nevertheless, these
• 45:58
  Speaker 4: are the situations we must, one way or another, face. endure, bear,
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: make sense out of, hopefully find some way to have
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: it serve our individuation, hopefully.
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so we're searching for meaning, and that's part of
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: living a symbolic life, is that we decide that the
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: events that appear around us, before us, whether it challenges
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: us or we find it rewarding, is worthy of consideration
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: on multiple levels. So one thing anybody could do is
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: to sit down at the end of the day while
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: you're preparing dinner and you think about at least one
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: thing that surprised you, just one thing that surprised you
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: that day, and then to ask yourself, if I dreamed that,
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: how would I interpret that dream? And that is one
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: way of possibly freeing ourselves up from the kind of
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: literalistic context and allowing it to take on a number
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: of different possible meanings. I like that. I like that
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: a lot.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: It's like tips for being receptive to the talking animals
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: that you meet.
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. Let's talk a little bit about some of the
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: so to speak, of deciding to live a symbolic life,
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: to take the events of our life as meaningful interventions
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: of the self. So sometimes when people are flooded by
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: the unconscious and they begin to move into a psychotic state,
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: they will experience something called ideas of reference. where they're
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: driving down the road and they're looking at license plates
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: and they swear that the license plates, the sequences, the colors,
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: the letters, the numbers are talking to them. They're full
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: of profound meaning. And unfortunately, that does not turn out
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: to be so. So we have to have a certain
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: kind of sobriety around the intensity of feeling that sometimes
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: accompanies an event. And for an event to be life-changing,
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: it doesn't have to be saturated with intensity.
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: I mean, you went into that book and you're like, ah,
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: this book's haunting me, or what the heck, I'll buy it.
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: I mean, you didn't start sweating when you saw the book,
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: that it was actually an unfolding process. Much like, you know,
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: looking at a compass and just moving it two degrees
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: in another direction, you know, 10 years later, you're going
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: to wind up in Hoboken and you were shooting for Paris. Now,
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: that's its own, you know, purgatorial.
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: Can we switch that so I wind up in Paris
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: and I was shooting for Hoboken? I mean, nothing against Hoboken.
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: I know it's a lovely place, but.
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: But yeah, no, you're you're right. Just, I mean, maybe
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: just to, again, kind of extend your point a bit, like, yeah,
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: it wasn't, the buying of the book itself wasn't like,
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: oh my God, the clouds parted. Actually, what, what happened
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: that was so important was reading the book, right? And,
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: and then, and then the continued study I did, and
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: then I looked back and I was like, oh, Wow.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: You know, at the time, it didn't feel that saturated
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: with significance. It was just like, oh, yeah, I should
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: buy that book. Yeah.
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: Sometimes a fateful moment is met with a groan. Fine.
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: Fine.
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: And it doesn't matter what you've got in your bag
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: as you're taking that little turn to the side, as
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: long as you take the turn. So you can groan,
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: you can bemoan, you can be crabby. Maybe you'll be thrilled.
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: But can something inside of us be open? Be open
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: to the misdirection? And I think, I don't know if
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: it's von Franz or Barbara Hanna, who talks about cultivating
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: a spirit of adventure. when we begin to hold life
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: as a profound and meaningful process that is speaking to us.
• 50:50
  Speaker 4: I think what we're really wanting to focus on, because
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: I've been thinking about huge events, but we're focusing on
• 50:59
  Speaker 4: the smaller, quieter ones of can we pay attention? Can
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: we choose to pay attention? Can we notice? Because then
• 51:16
  Speaker 4: we have something where we can reflect, we can make meaning,
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: we can have a process of discernment. And as with
• 51:26
  Speaker 4: the content that comes to us through dreams, it will
• 51:30
  Speaker 4: then be up to ego to really decide, no, I'm
• 51:33
  Speaker 4: not buying this book. I've seen it a number of times.
• 51:38
  Speaker 4: I've noticed it. I've considered it. I've read the first
• 51:41
  Speaker 4: couple of pages. Really just not for me, which is
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: very different from just brushing it off or ruling it out.
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: I'm in a different program. I can't do it. Because
• 51:56
  Speaker 4: I think this makes it so much more possible. If
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: you could just notice and then reflect on it, let
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: it stick around for a while. And then decide, am
• 52:09
  Speaker 4: I going to do something with this? Am I not?
• 52:14
  Speaker 4: Follow through or not? That's what I think we're really
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: talking about is noticing. And I loved what you said, Joseph,
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: about being surprised. I was like, what was that? Oh,
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: forget it. You know, I got to catch the bus.
• 52:29
  Speaker 4: And then, you know, when you're making dinner, think about, like, whoa,
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: that was surprising at the bus stop today. That it's
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: really about an inner process of giving something a little
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: space to move around in our heads, our bodies, our souls.
• 52:49
  Speaker 4: So much just goes by. Life goes so fast that
• 52:54
  Speaker 4: I wonder if the first step is just hear the
• 52:57
  Speaker 4: talking animal.
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 52:59
  Speaker 4: Can you hear the ant? Never mind whether what it
• 53:03
  Speaker 4: says makes sense or not. You can figure that out later.
• 53:06
  Speaker 4: Job one is at least take in the message.
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: So here's a great story of a really important determinative
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: chance encounter. This is the story told in Deirdre Bear
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: about the first time that Marie-Louise von Franz met Jung.
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: So I think she was 19 and he was 58.
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: So at the university, most students steered clear of the
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: socially awkward girl who did not hesitate to use her
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: formidable knowledge to correct her professors when she thought she
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: knew more about a subject than they did. So this
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: is von Franz. Her ferocious intelligence and fearless outspokenness came
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: to the attention of Paul Neff, Tony Wolfe's nephew. Tony
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: was worried about Jung's foray into alchemical studies and his
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: seeming abandonment of orthodox medical and clinical psychology. She wanted
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: to expose him to the latest, trendiest topics in that
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: university students talked about when they were outside the classroom,
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: so she asked her nephew to be on the lookout
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: for interesting young people who should be introduced to Jung.
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: Toni hoped that their thoughts and opinions might interest Jung
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: enough that he would pursue them rather than the esoteric
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: scholarship she believed alchemy represented.
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: This backfires, by the way.
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: Pablo was a popular student with friends in many different departments,
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: so Tony invited him to bring the most intelligent and
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: amusing students he knew to Bollingen for Sunday lunch. Although
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: Marie-Louise von Franz was not among his friends, nor was
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: she anyone's friend, actually, as her authoritative behavior was so
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: off-putting to her contemporaries that Pablo Neff invited her because
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: he thought her strident brilliance and vast knowledge would amuse Jung. Thus,
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: she became the only woman in a group of eight
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: or ten young men. And because Bonfrance was recovering from
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: a broken ankle, I'm going to read this part because
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: it's just fun. Tony Wolfe met them at the train
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: station in her big black BMW sedan. It was her
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: first car bought in response to Jung's 1929 purchase, of
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: a red Chrysler convertible that he always called the Red
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: Darling and parked prominently on the Freystrasse every Wednesday afternoon
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: when he visited the Wolf House. Not wanting to be excluded,
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: Emma bought a Grey's Dodge sedan. All three were taught
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: to drive by Mueller, the handyman and general factotum of
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: the Kuznacht property. Okay, so anyway, she picks them up
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: from the train station and there we go. When Tony
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: arrived at the tower with von Franz and the other students,
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: Jung greeted them by popping up suddenly out of the bushes,
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: an enormous man with a dirty shirt, dirty trousers, and
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: gold-rimmed spectacles. This is von Franz recalling it. The tiny
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: von Franz was overwhelmed by the towering Jung, and many
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: years later, she recalled how she fell for him in
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: a terrific transference and a big schoolgirl crush. He told
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: the students he had not finished cooking lunch, then sent
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: the young men down to the lake and asked von
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: Franz to sit in the kitchen and help him chop vegetables.
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: Von Franz made no mention of where Toni was, but
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: only recounts how she was so enthralled by Jung's stories
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: that she sliced her finger as well as a cucumber.
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: Jung helped her bind it, all the while talking about
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: a female patient who believed she lived on the moon.
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: Von Franz, who was then a communist material atheist, dismissed
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: the delusion because the moon was only a dead satellite
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: and nobody's been up there yet. Jung only smiled and
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: poured more burgundy wine. The lunch was so successful that
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: the students remained to drink and talk until well after midnight.
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: Only then did von Franz realize that Jung meant his
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: anecdote about the woman on the moon to illustrate that
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: What happens psychically is real, and what happens outwardly is
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: only secondary. She thought it would take her 10 years
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: to digest what this old man talked about that day.
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: In years to come, she liked to add that it
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: had not taken 10 years, it had taken all her life.
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: As they prepared the lunch, von Franz told Jung she
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: was undecided about whether to specialize in mathematics, medicine, or
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: classical languages. Jung knew as soon as he met her
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: that she had a particular kind of intelligence he needed
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: to put to work for him. Interestingly, he did not
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: direct her to study medicine as he insisted all the
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: men who wanted to practice his theory should do. He
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: followed his usual pattern with women and set her to
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: investigate a specific area where he needed research assistance, in
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: this case classical languages and literature. Although her professors approved
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: of her major, she had to keep it secret from them.
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: that the reason she chose this concentration was because she
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: was determined to forge a career as Jung's chief associate.
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: Which she did. She was the crown princess. Yes, she was.
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: And the inheritor of his corpus, for sure.
• 58:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: So she says yes to a lunch, what the heck,
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: some free food, and her life changes.
• 58:33
  Speaker 4: Right. I also like, as, you know, maybe the bottom
• 58:37
  Speaker 4: line before we switch to a dream, that she gets
• 58:41
  Speaker 4: what Jung meant by the moon for this woman who
• 58:47
  Speaker 4: thought she lived on the moon. It was real. Yes.
• 58:50
  Speaker 4: And von Franz says, no, no, no, the moon is
• 58:53
  Speaker 4: up there in the sky. And she gets, all of
• 58:56
  Speaker 4: a sudden, that psychic reality... is absolutely real. And I
• 59:03
  Speaker 4: think that's what we've been talking about today and all
• 59:07
  Speaker 4: throughout this is what happens inside is really real. So
• 59:12
  Speaker 4: if you meet a talking animal, at least listen.
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: Yes. I'd like to just throw one more little chance
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: encounter out, which is the idea of the bright idea.
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: And this is something that C.A. Meyer really thought a
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: lot about. In German, it's the Einfall, which is this
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: kind of chance encounter with some greater intelligence.
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: And it shows up as a luminous, brilliant idea that
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: just falls into us from above, finished, foreign, not ego-manufactured,
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: ready to go. People can talk about it. It flows.
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: It's like a spring that just starts moving all on
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: its own. and particularly intuitive types, can often find a
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: thread that leads them to this bright idea which they
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: can't figure out where it came from. And his caution, Meyer,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: is how should we relate to the Einfall, to the
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: bright star that falls into us? And Meyer points Jung
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: also talked about thoughts that just land in his mind
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: like birds and he has to record them before they
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: fly away. To avoid the hubris of laying claim to
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: something that is not ours is to, again, honor the encounter,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: honor the unconscious, honor the source instead of arrogating it
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: to ourselves. And that kind of humble relationship between the
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: ego and the self, in a sense, makes it more
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: likely that another star-filled idea will drop because you handled
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: it and tended it respectfully and with the right attitude.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: That's great. And I love that. And with gratitude and
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: humility and openness. So we actually have a, like about
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: a two-minute clip of von Franz relating this story. And
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: this is from the documentary film A Matter of Heart.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: And so here that is.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 6: I met him when I was 18. And I began
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 6: in the year 1834, I began analysis with him. We
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 6: went out there to the tower and... out of the
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 6: bushes suddenly we were standing around kind of you know
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 6: awkwardly as one does not knowing what was going to
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 6: happen and then out of the bushes came a man
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 6: and I was deeply impressed by him. I thought naturally
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 6: he was a Methuselah because when you are 18 you
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 6: think a 58 year old is ready for the cemetery
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 6: He told that story, which you can read in the memories,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 6: about this girl who was on the moon and had
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 6: to fight a demon, and the black demon got her.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 6: And he pretended, or he told it in a way,
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 6: as if she really had been on the moon, and
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 6: it had happened. And I was very rationalistically trained from school,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 6: so I I said indignantly, but she imagined to be
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 6: on the moon or she dreamt it, but she wasn't
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 6: on the moon. And he looked at me earnestly and said, yes,
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 6: she was on the moon. I still remember looking over
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 6: the lake there and thinking, and either this man is
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 6: crazy or I'm too stupid to understand what he means.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 6: And then suddenly it dawned on me, he means that
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 6: what happens psychically is the real reality. And this other moon,
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 6: this stony desert which goes around the Earth, that's illusion
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 6: or that's only pseudo-reality. And that hit me tremendously deeply.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 6: When I crawled rather drunk into bed because he gave
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 6: us a lot of burgundy that evening, I thought it'll
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 6: take you 10 years to digest what you experienced today.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: Today's dreamer is a 41-year-old male who works as a
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: documentary filmmaker and educator. He titles this dream, Wrestling with
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: a Talking Donkey. I was in a room living in
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: my parents' house. In the room, there was only a
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: TV that was on and a big bed. At some point,
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: a donkey walks in, and I remember that I had
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: a donkey. and this donkey started to talk, which I
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 3: also remember he was a donkey that could talk. At
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 3: first he was very friendly and witty and charming, and
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 3: I enjoyed talking with him. But I could tell that
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: he had an agenda hidden behind a sinister smile. There
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: was something he wanted, I could tell. We talked for
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: a while, and eventually I climbed in bed. He wanted
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: to be in bed too, so we climbed up to
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: the bed. As I was falling asleep, he started rolling
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: around like a cat, and I was worried that he
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 3: would hit me with his hooves. So I pushed him
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: over the side, and I told him to stay on
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 3: his side of the bed. But he kept rolling around,
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 3: making jokes, being playful, and ignoring what I was asking.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 3: Then I told him if he didn't stop, he was
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: going to go on the floor, or I was going
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 3: to put him in the bathroom. At this point, he
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: became more aggressive. and he started rolling closer to me,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 3: and eventually we started wrestling. I was trying to hold
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: his front legs and also hold his head so that
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: he could not bite me or hit me, but I
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 3: had his rear legs free to kick me, so it
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: became very hard to contain him. Eventually, I put my
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: hands on his mouth so he wouldn't bite me. I
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 3: was holding his jaw and And this way, I could
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: also control his body a little more effectively. I was
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: using all my strength, and I could barely hold him off. Eventually,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 3: we rolled off the bed, and we continued to wrestle
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 3: on the floor. I was using all my strength, and
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: I was impressed to see he wasn't struggling at all.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: In fact, he was enjoying the match. While wrestling, I
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: told the donkey, Tomorrow morning, gonna get a bridle so
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 3: I can have better control of you. I wanted it
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 3: to be loud enough so my dad would come into
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 3: the room and help me fight him off, but he
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 3: never came in. Instead, my parents played music loudly outside
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 3: the room, I'm guessing with the intention of drowning out
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: this noise from my room. It was Christian music, and
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 3: the chorus in the song was, Jesus Christ, give me strength.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: The words of this song became very clear, and as
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 3: I focused on the lyrics, I woke up from the
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 3: dream with my entire body still clenched in the position
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 3: I had been in the dream. For context, he writes,
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: I'm currently struggling to find work. I'm underemployed. Some of
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 3: the projects I've been working on are paused as I
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 3: struggle to find funding to complete them. His main feelings
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: in the dream? While it started as a joyful and
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 3: fun dream, it quickly became scary, almost like a nightmare.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 3: And he adds, I grew up in a very strict
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: and violent Christian household. It's within the last five to
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: six years that I've rediscovered my own spiritual practice and
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 3: now have more empathy towards my parents' religious beliefs. I
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: see the donkey as a steadfast, hard-working symbol. I think
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 3: he means well, but I'm struggling to surrender. I really
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: enjoy this journey.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: I know, it's so great.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: It's really something. Struggling with that sassy, cheeky donkey inside
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 3: of him.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, we could start at the top and
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: note that it takes place in his parents' house. And
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: it's interesting because it actually takes place in the living room,
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: but there's a big bed. So interesting that it's a
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: living room and not a bedroom. One of the things
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: that struck me is that When the dream ego gets
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: a little bit more punishing toward the donkey, then the
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: donkey gets more aggressive toward him.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 3: So the.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: Donkey is rolling around, making jokes, being playful. And then
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: the dream ego says, I told him if he didn't
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: stop what he was doing, I was going to put
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: him on the floor in the bathroom.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 3: I just have to say, I want to know the
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 3: joke that the donkey told.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 3: Like, I'm totally possessed by that idea.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the donkey jokes. Donkey jokes. Listeners can put them
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: in the comments.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 3: Please.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: But when the dream ego says, I'm going to put
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: you in the bathroom, then the donkey becomes more aggressive.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 4: And they start wrestling.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: So there's something about, and it goes to what we've
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: been talking about, like the more you resist what the
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: unconscious wants from you, the more aggressively the unconscious comes
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: at you.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 4: I'm exactly the same place that you all are. And
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 4: we were all, you know, I thought, oh, this is
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 4: like a fairy tale and this is so delightful. You know,
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 4: that here's the talking donkey. I remember I had a donkey.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 4: And then I remembered, oh, yeah, that's right. So it's like, oh, great,
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 4: everything's wonderful. But he has a somewhat sinister smile. And
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 4: behind his witty, friendly, charming nature, there's a somewhat sinister smile.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 4: And then I think about, you know, being with a
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 4: little kid, like a four-year-old, who wants to climb in
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 4: bed with you, and then he doesn't want to go
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 4: to sleep, and he's telling four-year-old jokes, and he's kicking
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 4: the covers and having a great time, and all you
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 4: want is to just say, you know, pipe down, go
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 4: to sleep, but the kid is really rambunctious. At which point,
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 4: exactly what you're saying, you know, more aggressive, and Then
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 4: the contest is on with our dream ego determined to
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 4: be in the parental role and bring this obstreperous donkey
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 4: to bend to his will. But, you know, the other
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 4: part is it's also still remains very funny. You know,
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 4: his real legs can kick him, but I put my
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 4: hands on his mouth and all the rest of it.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 4: And then they wind up wrestling on the floor. And
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 4: then he says that he wasn't, the donkey wasn't struggling.
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 4: He was enjoying the match.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: Yes, the donkey's enjoying it. The dreamer says it becomes nightmarish.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: The donkey and the ego, the dream ego, start off
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: in more or less the same place where there's something
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: kind of funny and charming about this. The donkey doesn't move.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: The dream ego doesn't. does, though, which is interesting.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 4: You know, at the end of this part of the dream,
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 4: I think of these things in scenes that while wrestling,
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 4: I told the donkey, they're both enjoying it. The donkey
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 4: is anyway. And our dream, he goes, you know what?
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 4: Tomorrow morning, I'm getting a bridle. And that's how I'm
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 4: going to control you. And then it switches. I want
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 4: it to be loud enough so my dad would come
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 4: into the room. and helped me fight him off, but
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 4: he never came in. Instead, the parents, the parental complex,
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 4: is playing loud music so that they don't have to
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 4: know what's going on. And it's Christian music. The chorus is,
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 4: Jesus Christ, give me strength. Our dream ego focuses on
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 4: the lyrics with his body and the position in the dream.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 4: And I was thinking, huh, Christian music, what do we
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 4: make of that? And then he tells us in the context.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 4: I grew up in a very strict and violent Christian household.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 4: So I'm wanting to import that into this, you know,
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 4: the whole previous part of the dream of the ambivalent
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 4: nature of his relationship with the donkey, with the donkey
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 4: part of him.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: You know, he says, and I think this is a
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: good association or a solid one, is that, you know,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: the donkey is a very kind of stolid, hardworking kind
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: of animal. And it makes me think if you had
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: an inner donkey, that would be a pretty good thing
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: to have because it would serve you well if you
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: had a big, difficult job in front of you, that
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: sort of donkey energy that you could just donkey through it.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: You know, you could just keep on putting one foot
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: in front of the other. But there's something about his
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: relationship with his own inner donkey that it becomes contentious
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: when I don't think it actually needs to be. And
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: then he wants to get rescued from that by the
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: parental complexes. But that's not what's going to happen. He
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: needs to He needs to work on his own relationship
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: with his inner donkey. And I think that the dream
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: is saying that it could be a real resource if
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: he could, and he uses this word somewhere, surrender.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. And the thing I also want to point out
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 3: that the donkey's infraction is keeps rolling around making jokes.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 3: Enough of that. And this is a person who feels
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 3: like he's underemployed. And he's got to make some decisions.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 3: He's got to buckle down.
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 3: So the donkey is a bit like a pu-erh. There's
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 3: something young about him rolling around just as you caught
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 3: Deb and being funny and a jokester and entertaining. And
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 3: so we could easily think that, you know, that's him.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 3: That may be very much his style of being in
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 3: the world. And now that he's under a lot of
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 3: stress and he's looking to be more responsible, he's beckoning
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 3: to the cynics to kind of come to him so
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 3: that he can be more rigorous and planned. And that
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 3: donkey part of him just isn't interested in being harnessed
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 3: to his rigorous plan. The other thing that I noticed
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 3: is who's making what decision? is really interesting to me.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 3: We talked for a while, and eventually I climbed into bed.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 3: He wanted to be in bed too, so he climbed
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 3: up to the bed. So didn't invite him. Now the
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 3: donkey's autonomously kind of doing the stuff he does, which
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 3: I think is really great, rolling around. And the donkey
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 3: is ignoring him. Mmm. So I would have fun talking
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 3: about how do you feel when people ignore you? When
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 3: you ask things, beckon for things, and they don't fall
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 3: into your hands, what do you wind up wrestling with
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 3: and the aggression that comes forward? The other thing is interesting.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 3: He started rolling closer to me, and eventually we started wrestling.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 3: But I'm curious, who is the one who started wrestling?
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 3: Who grabbed who? To wrestle around. Yeah.
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 4: You know what this dream reminds me of as a
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 4: fairy tale? The Frog Prince. Mm-hmm. Where the little girl
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 4: is playing by the pond with her golden ball, and
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 4: she drops it in the pond. The frog brings it
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 4: up and says, if I get your ball for you,
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 4: I want to come to the palace and and eat
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 4: off your plate. I want to be your companion. And
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 4: because she wants the ball, she agrees. But, you know, okay,
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 4: if he eats off her plate because her father, the king,
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 4: says you have to let him do that, you're the
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 4: one that made this deal. And then, you know, these
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 4: things and those things. And finally, when they get up
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 4: to go to bed and the frog wants to get
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 4: on her pillow, that's the part that's too much. So
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 4: it starts off fine with the donkey, but then it
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 4: gets like this business of like, you know, will you
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 4: move away? Get off. And then that's where the aggression
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 4: comes in with our dream ego behaving toward the donkey
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 4: the way the princess eventually behaved toward the frog. Now,
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 4: our princess took the frog and flung him against the
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 4: wall where he went splat and turned into a prince. Now,
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 4: this dream doesn't quite go like that, but I'm thinking
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 4: about it that way, that there is this, instead of
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 4: frog energy, we have donkey energy. And how might our
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 4: dreamer dream this dream on of, wait a minute, what
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 4: are we supposed to do here together? Maybe not sleep
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 4: in the same bed, but does it have to be
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 4: quite so contentious?
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 3: Yes, but this is also a echo of how he
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 3: was raised. He was raised in a violent, intensely religious home.
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 3: And I can't imagine there was a lot of room
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 3: for hijinks and jokes and rolling around. And so I
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 3: think the real confrontation is, I swore I'd never be
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 3: like my parents. And the way I treat My instinctive self,
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 3: the way I treat the funny part of me, the joking,
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 3: rolling around part of me, may be very close to
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 3: the problem that I experienced as a kid. And often
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 3: that is a very difficult part of trauma work, is that, yes,
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 3: maybe our parents did us wrong, teachers did us wrong,
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 3: we were mistreated, even violently. We often don't realize that
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 3: the predator, the abuser, is installed inside of us as
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 3: an inner figure that is prompting us to act in
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 3: the way that we were treated and here to exercise
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 3: power over making jokes, being funny, Yeah.
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: Joseph, I was kind of winding up at the same place.
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: Like the donkey is playful.
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's a kid.
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: And all of the donkey's actions are an invitation to
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: the dream ego to play. And the dream ego's response is,
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: I've got to bridle you. And I want daddy to
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: come in and help me put you down. But this
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: guy is in a creative field. He's a documentary filmmaker.
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: He needs to have his playful side. And so I
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: think you're right. You know, it's like the way that
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: he's treating this part of himself, he wants to bring
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: to bear the way his parents treated him, right? He
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: wants his dad to come in and help him get
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: that donkey in line. But actually, I think what he
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: might need, especially, you know, if he's in any kind
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: of creative block, is to just let that donkey play.
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. That Jesus Christ give me strength song, give you
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 3: strength to do what? often to subdue our sinful, errant,
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 3: undisciplined parts that are not holding on to a good
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 3: Protestant work ethic and the stark austerity which is present
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 3: in the parent's home that he is abiding in. So
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 3: when he's in the parental complex, he takes on, it seems,
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 3: the parental attitudes. And there is a wonderful moment where
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 3: he is enjoying the donkey. That's the redeeming thing. Oh
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 3: my gosh, I've got a talking donkey. That's right. What
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 3: was I thinking? Charm, wit, we're talking. Oh my goodness.
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 3: And then the parental attitude begins to poison the joy
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 3: and begins to look at that fun, playful part of
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 3: him going, There's original sin. Right. Something sinister is in
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 3: that baby rolling around playing, and we've got a name
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 3: for it.
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 4: You know, I'm still kind of a little bit stuck
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 4: on the fairy tale and the dilemma, because it's so
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 4: puzzling in the fairy tale that, you know... splattering the
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 4: frog against the wall is the right thing to do,
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 4: according to the tale. The other version is she kisses
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 4: the frog and he turns into a prince. But I
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 4: think the question for me is not about do you
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 4: enjoy the playful donkey?
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes.
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 4: You know, if I'm back to my idea that this
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 4: is an obstreperous four-year-old who is hilarious, fun, delightful, creative-like,
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 4: We hope all four-year-olds would have this way of being.
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 4: But how do you get this kid, this donkey, also
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 4: to listen up and stay on his side of the bed?
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 4: And it's time to go to sleep. It's nighttime now.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 4: Enough already. Without the polarities of either the indulgence of, yes,
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 4: the donkey can get in bed with you and roll around, or.
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 4: I'm going to hold you down, lock you in the bathroom,
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 4: buy you a bridal. You know, how are we going
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 4: to negotiate this relationship so that we have something that
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 4: can actually work?
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 3: Well, and the pivot point is he stops talking to
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 3: the donkey. Yeah. As soon as they're in bed and
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 3: he wants to go to sleep, the dialogue stops. then
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 3: he's just being an interference, and then it's all about
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 3: fighting for dominance. He never talks to the donkey, saying, oh, buddy,
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 3: could you sleep on the bottom bunk? You know, like,
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 3: I have to get up early tomorrow. That the whole
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 3: relationship disappears once he climbs in bed. So there's something
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 3: about bedtime that I would be interested to know about.
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 4: I have to say, on the other side of this equation,
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 4: I have to say I can relate as a parent
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 4: with two four-year-olds of enough.
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: Let me go get a bridal.
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 4: Right. You've had a bath. You've had a story. You
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 4: had a cuddle and a kiss goodnight. You better stay
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 4: there and go to sleep because I'm done.
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 3: But what we see is that that donkey's not even
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 3: tired at all. Like, this is not, the ego's not
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 3: going to win this. Maybe it's going to get this bridle.
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 3: Maybe dad's going to put it on. You know, okay, perhaps.
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 3: And there is a way of perhaps bringing enough respect
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 3: and kindness to the beasts inside of us that they
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 3: will condescend to help us and be bridled to our tasks.
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 3: But he's going to do this with violence. And the
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 3: animal inside of him is not going to take that.
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 3: And we're left with all the tension. There's no lysis
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 3: in the dream. He wakes up and he's got all
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 3: of this unexpressed aggression. And that's also one of the
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 3: troubles coming from a really violent home. It's very dangerous
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 3: to show aggression. So one of the gifts that the
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 3: donkey gives him is, let's be aggressive. You can't hurt me.
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 3: Let's just wrestle around. Let's jump on the floor, jump
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 3: up and down, scream, go like this, because guess what?
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 3: Your dad probably didn't let you do that. You were
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 3: to be obedient, and it was probably terrifying if you weren't.
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 3: But the donkey's saying, let's have fun. You want to
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 3: be aggressive? Yeah, you're not going to hurt me.
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 4: And of course, the other side of donkey is incredible stubbornness.
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 4: You know, they put their front legs out and, you know,
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 4: there's no way that when you get into that battle
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 4: for dominance and power.
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 3: It's hard to make a donkey do what it doesn't want.
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 3: Just as an aside, I have donkeys all over the
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 3: place here in North Carolina, just down the road. And
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 3: donkeys are added to all kinds of livestock situations because
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 3: they have a natural protective instinct. Like if you put
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 3: a donkey in with a bunch of cows, they're watching.
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 3: And if something's coming after that cow, that donkey's the
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 3: first one there clubbing the wild dog to get away.
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 3: So they're often put in with chickens and they're put
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 3: in with goats and other things because they have a
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 3: natural care that they take. And they're also, if they're
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 3: treated well, are remarkably sweet. They're really affectionate and sweet
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 3: and they bond very meaningfully to people if they're taking
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 3: care of them. I often drive down the road and
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 3: I see the donkeys grazing and there's a part of
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 3: me that totally wants to park the car and run
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 3: into the field and meet the donkeys. But I don't
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 3: know that they would see me as a good thing,
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 3: given that they are patrolling the perimeter of the field
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 3: with the cows.
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. To submit a dream, suggest an episode topic,
• 1:26:59
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• 1:27:04
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