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Feet, Fashion, and Freedom: Shoes as Symbols of Identity · This Jungian Life Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• 0:28
  Speaker 4: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst on Cape Cod. Today,
• 0:44
  Speaker 4: as we step into the new year, we are going
• 0:48
  Speaker 4: to talk about shoes and footwear, and In a way,
• 0:55
  Speaker 4: this seems like a kind of strange topic to embrace.
• 1:02
  Speaker 4: And yet, footwear and shoes are a huge part of mythology,
• 1:10
  Speaker 4: fairy tales, and obviously psychological depth. After having started out
• 1:17
  Speaker 4: for obvious functional purposes way, way back in our prehistoric past,
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: Shoes are now something like a $ 200 billion industry. And
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: we have a plethora of styles, shapes, price ranges, everything
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: else that are an extension of the seven basic kinds
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: of shoes that are pumps, boots, oxfords, sandals, clogs, slides,
• 1:53
  Speaker 4: and moccasins. So what is it about shoes? What do
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: they represent? What are they to us? And how do
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: they keep us grounded or not?
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: Well, I think one thing is that we can say
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: with some confidence is because shoes are ubiquitous and they've
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: been around for 40,000 years or so, that there is
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: something archetypal about it. that there's something universal about wanting
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: to wrap the tender foot and protect it from the
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: environment so that as humans, we can venture into inhospitable
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: terrain and successfully engage it. So shoes, in the most
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: primal sense, have something to do with agency and curiosity
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: and adaptability, which has been central. to our species' survival.
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: From a Jungian point of view, I might even kind
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: of reach into shoes as an expression of individuation, of
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: how do we define ourselves? And we notice that immediately,
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: even if sort of subliminally, whether a person is wearing
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: running shoes, sandals, or high-heeled red stilettos, there is an
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: aspect of definition, persona to shoes. This is who I am.
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: This is how I walk my walk, metaphorically as well
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: as literally.
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: So I can see that being connected to a persona
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: for sure, because it's something that is visible. And I'd
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: say more about how you're feeling that into individuation.
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: Well, I think this $ 200 billion a year shoe industry
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: really says it all of that shoes are such a
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: vehicle for design and imagination. And our feet are the
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: lowliest part of us. They get dirty. We walk the ground.
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: Having to go barefoot is a sign of poverty. And
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: then to have something like platform shoes, or stilettos, or
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: handcrafted leather Italian shoes, or the hundreds and hundreds of
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: different kinds of athletic shoes, this is not just a
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: women's fashion thing at all, gives us a choice as
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: to how do I see myself. Do I see myself
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: in hand-stitched Italian loafers? in basic running shoes, in beautiful pumps, flip-flops.
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: There's a choice there that we make about, yes, these
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: shoes are me. They reflect me. They symbolize something about me.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: But could that also be persona? This is how I
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: want to be perceived.
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: Or ego ideal.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, or ego ideal, yeah.
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: But they're also a form of self-expression. Man, I just
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: love these shoes. I love them. I love these boots.
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: They do have this particular emotional resonance shoes do. And,
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: and a lot of people are really identified with their shoes,
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: you know, I mean, and you're right, Deb, it's men
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: and women. I mean, I always enjoy traveling to Italy
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: and it's really a kick to, to look at men's
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: shoes in Italy. Men have beautiful shoes in Italy. You know,
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: you just, Um, so, and, and, you know, and some
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: men here in the States, um, make a point of, uh,
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: dressing in, in, you know, beautiful, beautiful dress shoes, whether
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: Italian or otherwise, but, um, but, but they, they, they
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: have a kind of fascination, perhaps a little unlike any other, uh,
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: item of clothing or accessory, you know, so that we, we,
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: you know, we know people who have Rooms full of shoes.
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: Imelda Marcos come to mind for anyone?
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: Of course. She was the famous shoeaholic.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: And they can be really beautiful and artistic.
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: And they say something about our standpoint in the world.
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: So I think there is a huge overlap, as you're
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: pointing out, Lisa, between persona and An expression of self
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: that might be a little bit more of what is
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: our standpoint in the world? And shoes are, in a
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: very literal sense, our standpoint in the world.
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: So we can make a differentiation that shoes and dreams,
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: which the dream maker has awarded us with, really reflect
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: very deep dynamics. shoes that are made by someone else,
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: Jimmy Choo, for instance, that women love his shoes, apparently.
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: I mean, that really says something about his vision as
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: the artisan. I mean, it's really about what's going on
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: inside of him and then people feeling affected by the
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: art of the shoe in the various ways that they do.
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: So I think purchasing, as it is for all of
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: us purchasing things, I think, are markers of identity, just
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: as you were saying, shoes, um, do give us a
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: sense of status for sure. You know, boys with their
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: really expensive sneakers, and that has become a thing in
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: the last decade or so. I also think that, um,
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: shoes can have a certain energy around transformation that is,
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: is kind of subtle. Um, I think that when, um,
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: And I notice this when people come into the office,
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: what shoes they're wearing, and whether or not they take
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: them off, and whether or not they come in with
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: a different kind of shoe. So when I have a
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: client that's coming in wearing stiletto heels, and then two
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: months later they're coming in wearing sneakers, and then a
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: month later they're coming in wearing sandals, which they then
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: take off and sit on their feet, that something is
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: changing in the relationship. that is reflected in the clothing,
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: not just shoes, it can be any number of things.
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: So there's something about change and shoes that seems to
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: be related. And of course, that's something to do with
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: utility as well.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm sitting with all of that, Joseph, and
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: especially that word transformation. And of course, we've been talking
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: about ego ideal persona identity. I'm just resting for just
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: a second into how, um, wearing something really fabulous, not
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: just shoes, although shoes are a part of it, um,
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: does help us inhabit a different kind of energy. I mean,
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, I, I suppose I'm not supposed to think
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: that because I'm a depth psychotherapist. So I, so I
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: shouldn't really ascribe much to, uh, you know, these, these
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: superficial accoutrements. And yet I know I was just thinking about, um,
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: a time I was going to give a presentation at
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: interregional about something. I can't remember, but I was like,
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: I've got to get the perfect outfit and I need
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: the perfect boots. I, I need to walk in that
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: room and own it. And I, I just need these
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: really great boots. And so I bought these, these wonderful
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: boots that I still have. Um, And it does. It
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: does make a difference. I mean, if you've ever been
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: an actor, you know, at least this is my memory
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: from doing theater and middle school, how amazing it feels
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: when you put on the costume the first time. And
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking about, you know, when they say dress for
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: success or times when I worked in offices and how
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: much I paid attention to my clothes because it conferred
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: a kind of authority. to dress a certain way. And
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: then I think about rituals of indigenous people that sometimes
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: involve kind of invoking a god or goddess. And then
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: the dancers in a ritual may don a costume, such
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: as you can now find in places like the American
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: Museum of Natural History in New York, with these incredible
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: headdresses or whatever. And what you understand is when the
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: people put this on, they felt like they were drawing down,
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: I think is the word that is used in pagan circles,
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: drawing down the energy of this archetype. So, long way
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: around of saying, I think finding that just really badass
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: pair of pumps or whatever, or stilettos or whatever it is,
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: that just makes you... it does alter the experience you
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: have of yourself in a very interesting way.
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: I'm also really liking the contrast between shoes and headdresses
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: or hats, that those are the two extremes of our body,
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: high and low, that really lend themselves to Just imagination
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: and a particularity of style that really helps to define
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: us in a way that a new sweater, for example,
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: it doesn't carry the same energy.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I like a good sweater.
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: But in service to some of the things that you
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: had said, I had collected a couple of quotes from
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: Jimmy Choo. Ooh. Because he's the shoe guy.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: Great.
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: And so one of his quotes is, shoes have the
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: power to make you feel like you can conquer the world.
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: And Nancy Sinatra's song, remember that? These boots are made
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: for walking. That's just what I'll do. One of these days,
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: these boots are going to walk right out on you
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: or something like that.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: Walk all over you.
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: Walk all over. Okay.
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: So the other quote I really liked was, from Jimmy
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: Choo is, shoes speak louder than words.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's great. Those are both great. And I mean,
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: I'm not much of a shoe person actually, but I
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: have owned a few pairs of shoes that conferred that feeling.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: And it's, they're mostly very uncomfortable. So I wouldn't wear
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: them for long. I remember one time one of my
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: clients was like, you really like sensible shoes, don't you?
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: I was like, What are you trying to say?
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: And that's such a sort of a condemnation.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a transference communication.
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: Older people wear sensible shoes of stodgy and all the
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: rest of it. I have a personal confession to make
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: for you guys and all our listeners. I just went
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: through all my shoes. And the ones that I'm getting
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: rid of are in a bag ready to go to
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: a Goodwill type of place. And now I'm down to
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: maybe a dozen pairs of shoes.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: And I thought about it. And they make closets with
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: lots of space for shoes. And I haven't filled up
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: the space yet. So I've been thinking about what other
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: shoes might I want to acquire or should I acquire
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: more shoes? Lest I descend into the sensible shoe category
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: of older woman.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: Oh, I've been there for a long time. But, you know,
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: just maybe this is sort of picking up on something
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: we were talking about a little while ago. Did you
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: know that the soles of your feet... have more nerve
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: endings per centimeter per square centimeter than any other part
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: of your body?
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: No, I did not.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: Which is really interesting. It's like, why? Why would our
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: feet be so sensitive? And it must be that, I mean,
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: I'm just trying to imagine, right, from an evolutionary perspective,
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: it must be that that was a way to get
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: maybe information or, I mean, it, you know, it's like, well,
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: that almost doesn't make sense because you think they'd be
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: sort of tough and leathery and not have a lot
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: of sensation because they, you know, you're walking over rough ground, but,
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: but somehow our, our feet, our bare feet are a
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: source of sort of immediate contact with the ground. And,
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: and there's a lot of, of information we might be
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: able to draw up with our incredibly sensitive, uh, souls
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: of our feet.
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: That is, it's so interesting, especially when I think about animals.
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: that usually have pads on their feet, you know, sort
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: of protective coverings or hooves or something like that, that
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: insulate them from the ground. And then here we are
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: as our hairless hominids with going barefoot and how vulnerable
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: that makes us to have such sensitive feet.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: You know, what I'm thinking about is, you know, when
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: I was a kid, and this is before, like, this
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: is kindergarten, first grade, three years old. We would spend
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: the summers at a little uninsulated cabin on Lake Hopatcong
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: in New Jersey. And this little cabin had a yard,
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: and then there was a gravel road. And on the
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: other side is where you would go and then go
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: downhill to go into the lake, go into the beach.
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: So it was a road that we crossed all the time.
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: And how in the beginning of summer, basically our shoes
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: disappeared for the summer. And how painful it is to
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: kind of walk across the gravel and it hurts and hurts.
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: And then about two weeks later, we're running on the ground. So.
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: There is this one adaptation. Your body is able to
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: tone down some of the sensitivity, but also our bodies
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: are remarkably responsive. You develop calluses, your feet become tougher.
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: So I think going barefoot in many cultures, particularly where
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: the weather is warmer and you're not dealing with frostbite,
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: being barefoot, is a thing that we can be highly
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: adaptive to. Um, so, so I am wondering about that transition,
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: like the, the pair of, um, foot wrappings that were
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: discovered in this prehistoric, um, 40,000 years BCE, you know,
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: it was found in the Antarctic. I mean, people were
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: protecting their feet from freezing and their frostbite. But even now, um,
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: In the Amazon, some of the tribal cultures that are
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: still intact, they're not wearing shoes, but I'm sure their
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: feet are tough. So what it suggests is that we
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: want that sensitivity and we want to protect the sensitivity,
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: which is an interesting choice, as well as, of course,
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: protecting it from injury and disease because parasites can get
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: into your feet from walking. But so what is it
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: about us that we would rather have our feet soft
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: and touchable and sensuous rather than being tough and calloused
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: and paw-like, which goes to the eroticism of the foot.
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: Yes, exactly. That a tough, calloused foot.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: It's not considered sexy.
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: No, and it's indicative of, you know, just as you're
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: saying you run around barefoot in the summer. And people
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: who are habitually barefoot because of climate and need or
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: can't afford shoes have tough feet. Whereas someone who has
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: a nice, soft, and preferably small foot is an indication
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: of not needing to do those things. earthy kinds of
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: things like just walk on gravel or walk barefoot all
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: the time. And it does become eroticized. There are foot fetishes.
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: The Chinese had a tradition of foot binding so that
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: these tiny lotus shoes could be worn for women who
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: did not have to do anything.
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: Or even walk because they were crippled. So it meant
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: that you had enough resource to be carried around like
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: a child. Yeah.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: And I'm also thinking about that in terms of like,
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: in addition to nerve endings, the feet have a lot
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: of sweat glands, right? So your point's really well taken, Joseph,
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: that whatever's going on with our foot, it's adaptive, like
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: from an evolutionary standpoint. And so then I think about
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: shoes as being an image of.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: That kind of layer of civilization that cuts us off
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: from the instinctual life. And of course, it's not the
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: only one, but it is one maybe image of that.
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: What was it like for you guys to give your
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: babies their first set of shoes? Because they're barefoot and
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: maybe have little socks on them to keep them warm.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: But then there's this moment like it's time to get
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: the baby shoes that look like adult shoes and start
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: putting them on the baby.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: Something goes off in the mind, right?
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: Do you know?
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: I have no memory of that.
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: But it goes to this issue of we have to
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: be part of civilizing the child or whatever it is
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: that one perceives as necessary. Right.
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I have no memory of that either. Of course,
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: you know, it was hundreds of years since my children
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: were that small. But I do remember, and it is
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: a regret that I have as a parent, I had
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: this idea that having, you know, really good, well-made shoes
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: was important for my kids. And they were going to
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: nursery school. So they were, I think they started out
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: in the threes class. And off we went to the
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: children's shoe store and there were the good brands and
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: I was a conscientious mother. And they had an adorable
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: pair of tie-up little sort of Oxfords and sort of
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: a patent leather red shoe. And of course, Rachel wanted them.
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: And I felt that the conscientious good mother would get
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: sturdier leather, hardier leather, and brown ones. And in this moment,
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: I just remembered that. And if I had to do over,
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: definitely the patent leather red Oxfords.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: Patent leather is surprisingly resilient material.
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: But, you know, that's sort of, is this going to
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: be frivolous or, you know, do we need to have,
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: in a sense, work shoes and so on and so forth?
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: And shoes can be fun.
• 22:06
  Speaker 5: I think that playfulness, particularly in a modern culture where
• 22:11
  Speaker 5: shoes are somewhat divorced from their practical uses, because when
• 22:16
  Speaker 5: I see shoes, Stiletto heels, really tall stiletto heels, they
• 22:21
  Speaker 5: don't seem terribly practical, but there's a whole story.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: About it and erotic meaning around stiletto heels that is
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: potent enough in the culture that a woman would put
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: up with wearing them. When I was an Alexander Technique teacher,
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: every so often I would have an elderly female client
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: who had lost the capacity to put her heels on
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: the ground.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: Oh my God, like Barbie.
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: But it's really true. Wearing heels all the time had
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: shortened the tendons in the back. And then as we age,
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: of course, things get inflexible. So she was wearing high
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: heels at home so that she wasn't literally just walking
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: on the balls of her feet all the time. So
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: there is this reciprocal relationship, as there always is, that
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: the body also adapts to the trappings that we submit
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: to it. So yeah, shoes change us. And this goes
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: to the whole therapeutic shoe world, like good feet is
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: this story you can go into and then they do
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: all of this diagnostic stuff because they believe if your
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: foot is exactly in the right balance that it's going
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: to change everything else.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: Yes, it'll change your posture and your circulation.
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: There's some truth to it. The feet are the platform.
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: They are the place where we connect with the earth
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: and they carry an enormous amount of body weight. And
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: so if the feet are injured or off balance, if
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: you're If your arches collapse later on in life, it
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: absolutely changes how the body moves and how the stressors
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: on the joints change. So I think the idea that
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: shoes are foundational, that in dreams and fairy tales can
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: represent a message from the unconscious that's relevant to the story,
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: because it does have It affects us so substantially.
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: So let's look at some fairy tales and mythology and
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: various other things. I was so surprised at how many
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: references we all came up with like that. And I thought,
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: I'd never thought about how frequently shoes are a topic
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: of fairy tales, of all things. We all know Cinderella,
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: of course.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: But let's look at Cinderella for a minute. And, you know,
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: I think it has such penetration in the culture, the
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: Disney version, which is mostly inspired by the French. I
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: thought I'd pull up the original Grimm's, which is she
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: has gold slippers that have not been provided by a
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: fairy godmother, but by this bush that her little tree
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: and it's by her mother's grave. So the prince wanted
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: to know who the strange princess was. So he had
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: people stationed on the road and they were to pay attention. Moreover,
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: he had the stairs painted with a black pitch so
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: that she wouldn't be able to run so fast. Cinderella
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: danced and danced with the prince and was filled with
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: so much joy that she didn't think about midnight. All
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: of a sudden, as she was in the middle of
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: a dance, she heard the clock begin to strike She
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: was reminded of the pigeon's warning and was terrified. So
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: she rushed to the door and flew down the stairs. However,
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: since they were covered with pitch, one of her golden
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: slippers got caught and Cinderella didn't stop to take it
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: with her out of fear. And then we all know
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: what happens from there. And the shoe in Cinderella plays
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: this really important role because it only fits her. So
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: it is somehow an image of something essential. It's golden,
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: you know, so of sort of permanent lasting value, and
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: it's only hers. So it's somehow synonymous with some essence
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: and can therefore be used to identify her.
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: If the shoe fits. I wonder if it has its
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: origin in Cinderella and And the uniqueness that her two
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: stepsisters can't fit into the shoes.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: Nor can anyone else.
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: Exactly. Only Cinderella.
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: So the shoes have something to do with identity and potential.
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: And strangely enough, I think it has something to do
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: with Jung's idea of the progressed ego. That inside of us,
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: particularly when we're young, there is an image of who
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: we are going to be. or at least the next
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: stage of what we are growing towards. And he first
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: came up with this when he was writing his thesis
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: on his cousin. Strange story, but Jung was going to
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: seances because he was really interested in this strange phenomena
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: where somebody's personality would seem to change and they would
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: know things they don't normally know or speak dialects or
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: languages they couldn't know in his cousins. seemed to be
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: able to do this. And so in university, he tried
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: to create a theory, a psychological theory. And what he
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: imagined is, although his cousin was rather young and unsophisticated,
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: somewhere in the unconscious, there was a very sophisticated version
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: of herself that she was growing into that would be
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: her later identity. And so with the Cinderella story, it's
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: as if the golden slippers or the glass slippers and
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: disney represent the progressed part of herself and once she
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: finds this then she's going to step into what has
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: been preparing for her in the unconscious yeah.
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: That does make sense i'm thinking you know going back
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: to the first pair of shoes or some special pair
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: of shoes of who do you want to be what
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: are you reaching for and um I remember in my
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: husband's family, they had a story about my husband as
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: a teenager saving up his money for a pair of
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: blue suede shoes, just like Elvis. And that's a really
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: good point, is here's who I want to be. Here's
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: what I'm growing into.
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: Having your kids go into your closet and put on
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: your shoes and clump around, how... It's kids do that
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: without hearing about it, putting on your clothes and trying
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: them on. We think it's so charming, but I think
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: it's very meaningful and very interesting.
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: It's very important in dress-up. My mother had a pair
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: of silver-heeled sandals. And at some point, you know, my
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: sister and I kind of, you know, we loved trying
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: on these sandals. And we were older. We were probably 8, 9, 10, somewhere.
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: And they actually kind of fit us. I mean, we could...
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: It was more than just shuffling around. And there was
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: a sense of what kind of feminine, attractive, magical beauty
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: did these particular shoes represent at an age when heaven
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: knows we would never have had heels of our own.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's the way that clothing in general,
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: but shoes in particular, can help you feel like you
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: become someone else you become like you were saying joseph
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: sort of like a different version of yourself.
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: And even borrowing your parents shoes is trying on their
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: stance trying on their personality um for size to see
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: what that's like i have a funny story to tell
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: on myself i i don't have a lot of memories
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: that go back to like one or two or three
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: years old but i do have one so uh I
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: must have been about two and a half to three
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: because I was old enough to walk outside of the
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: house and play on my own. So that's probably around three.
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: So I want to go out. I'm standing at the
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: top of a stairway and at the bottom of the
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: stairway is the door outside. We were on the second
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: floor of a garden apartment. And our little shoes were
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: kept right there at the top of the stairs. So
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: I put the shoes on. And then I stood on
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: the top of the chairs and I screamed for my
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: mother because she's supposed to tie my shoes and she
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: always did. So I just remember being just really loud
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: about it. It was like, I'm the house. And so
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: my mom dutifully comes over and she actually has to
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: go onto the stairway a bit because I'm at the top.
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: And she's leaning and she's just about to put her
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: hands on the shoelace. And I remember looking at her face.
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: She cocks her head and squints her eye and she goes,
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: You do it. And I raged trying to get her
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: to do it. And, um, and she was really good
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: in the moment. She just kind of listened. And then
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: she very quietly just went back to the kitchen and
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: I calmed down, sat on the top step and tied
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: my own shoes and went out and played.
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: Oh, that's a big moment. No wonder it's stuck in
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: your memory.
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: So, um, And she handled it well. So it's shoes
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: and it's even the agency of being able to put
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: your own shoes on is an initiatic moment. It was
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: for me, which also meant I could go out of
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: the house without needing help from one of my parents.
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: I could put on my own shoes because that was the,
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: you know, you put on your shoes, you go outside.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: You're an independent man.
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: That's right. It was an independent thing. And going outside
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: barefoot at that age, for some reason, I had been
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: taught that that couldn't, shouldn't happen.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: You know, that reminds me of a story that I
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: heard Clarissa Pencal-Estes tell once. And I can't remember where she,
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: it may have been when she was with us at Interregional,
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: but maybe it was on a podcast or something anyway.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: She says that when the publisher came back with the
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: cover for Women Who Run With the Wolves, they had
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: a woman with bare feet. And she said, no, no, no, no, no.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: With bare feet, you can't run away. I need another picture.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: I can't have a woman with bare feet. So I
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: think I'm just sort of picking up on your theme, Joseph,
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: of like, no, like agency, independence, autonomy. I got to
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: be able to put my shoes on.
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: Yes. Exactly. Such agency, such a coming of age experience.
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: But I'm thinking about what you just said too, Lisa,
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: about being barefoot. And the two sort of polarities that
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: come up for me around that are on the one hand,
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: it's a mark of a god or goddess. They're often
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: depicted barefoot. That is like the corollary to having fancy
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: shoes or stilettos or something, they don't need shoes. They've
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: gone way beyond needing something as mundane as shoes.
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: And nothing can hurt them.
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: Exactly. On the other hand, as we mentioned earlier, something
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: like the little match girl or being so poverty stricken
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: that you have no shoes is taking off your shoes
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: when you enter somebody's house or as part of a
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: religious tradition of submission. And that it's both those things
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: of what it means to be shoeless.
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: For the little match girl, that her lack of shoes
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: and she's in the snow represents this incredible vulnerability and
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: also Hence, Christian Anderson was talking about the absence of
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: societal protection, that shoes protect the feet, but they also
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: were symbols that no one in his culture was caring
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: for orphans, street orphans, and kids were dying.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: Thinking of other mythological images and fairytale images of shoes,
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: there is, of course, the elves and the shoemaker.
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: That's right. And elves seem to like cobblers. So there's
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: some interesting reason. Of all the people you could help
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: in the village, let's help the cobbler.
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: That was always one of my very favorite stories.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: That's such a good one.
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: And some version that I vaguely remember had an illustration
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: that these were not sensible shoots. They were really charming, pretty...
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: imaginative shoes with decorations and maybe the toes of one
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: pair curled up. I really can't remember, but they were elegant,
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: special shoes.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: Well, they were a little magic, right?
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: Well, but also he's in the story, as I'm recalling,
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: he's on his last leg. He's poor. He's got barely scraps.
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: He's right at the end. And it's that moment where
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: the The numinous swings in when all else has failed
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: and provides the creative genius, provides the thing that will
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: help us survive, which is a form of art and aesthetic,
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: which is an interesting thing. They don't show up with
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: a basket of salami. They show up with beauty. The
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: beauty will save you. Art will save you. I'm sure
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: Jimmy too would totally agree with this, that shoes will
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: save you, save your life and your family.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: Right, Joseph. He has enough money to buy, I think,
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: either food and leather or something. He winds up having
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: enough leather just for one pair of shoes, so he
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: cuts it out and he leaves it on his work table.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: And that night the elves come and the pair of
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: shoes that they make is so beautiful that that he's
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: able to sell them for enough money for food and
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: enough leather to make two pairs of shoes. And then
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: there's this multiplier effect. And they do, they make these, well,
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: and the illustrated versions that I've seen too, the shoes
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: are always really beautiful, but they are special shoes. They're
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: not just because they can be sold for more money.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: So there is something kind of magical about them. And
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: I I do think it speaks to the creative process.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: In fact, I've sometimes used that fairy tale to talk
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: about my writing practice because my writing practice is that
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: I write 300 words a day. And that's like being
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: the shoemaker cutting out the leather. It's like I just
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: sit down and I do the work and then I
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: go off and I take a shower and I go
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: for a jog or whatever.
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: And while you're gone, the elves grab the keyboard. Yes.
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: No, while I go about my life, the unconscious starts
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: whispering to me, you know, in the shower. It's like, oh, that.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: So that by the next morning, I have 300 more
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: words to say. And so it's this kind of marriage
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: of sort of just hard work and inspiration that is
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: portrayed in that fairy tale, I think.
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Right. There's a fidelity to his craft that he's
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: on his last legs.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: Yes. But he does it. He cuts them out.
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: And he has faith.
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: He doesn't give up. Right. And as you've said, Deb,
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: sometimes you do the next thing in front of you.
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: You take the one step that's in front of you,
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: even if you don't know where you're going to be
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: in five years. Right. But you can know there's one step.
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: So even in this desperate circumstance, the cobbler knows, well,
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: there is one step. I can cut out this leather.
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: I can at least do that. And then something in
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: the unconscious sometimes comes and does something extraordinary. And often
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: not until where the ego is right, just has nothing
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: more to offer.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: It's a beautiful story about that kind of reliance on
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: the unconscious and the partnership.
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: The generosity of the unconscious. I will come and help you.
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: But not only that, I'm going to make it great.
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: I'm going to have fun with this. Whoa, this is
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: a great avenue for my creative spirit.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: We could go in and talk about how the tale ends,
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: but I think that takes us off shoes a little bit.
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: I want to talk about another story because I loved
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: this one as a child. And then when we were
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: doing all our Jungian stuff and reading fairy tales, I
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: was so disappointed to hear the usual interpretation because it
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: meant something entirely different to me as a kid. And
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: that is The Twelve Dancing Princesses. It has different titles
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: and different versions, but in the story there are twelve princesses.
• 40:35
  Speaker 4: And every morning when people come in in the morning,
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: they see that their slippers are I imagine they were
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: wearing something like ballerina slippers, something of soft leather. But
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: every morning, their shoes were completely worn out. So they
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: would get each of them a new pair of shoes.
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: And the next day, those shoes would be completely worn out.
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: And the king paid somebody, various people, to try to
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: figure out what on earth was going on. And finally,
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: one man, ultimately successful young suitor hid and was very
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: silent and observed what went on at night. And off
• 41:23
  Speaker 4: they went to a special realm where they danced and
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: danced and danced the whole night through, thus wearing out
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: their slippers. And he discovered their secret.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: And then how does that end? He gets to marry.
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: The He gets to marry the princess of his choice. Yes.
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: And as a kid, I thought it was just so
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: magical to have a secret like that, to have this
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: realm in the unconscious, underground, where the music plays, sort
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: of like a fairy realm, where you just dance and
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: dance and have this kind of eros and joy and
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: movement and celebration. and be able to keep that part
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: of your private life a secret, that there's life in
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: the unconscious. Not that I would have phrased it that
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: way then. But often the interpretation of the tale has
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: to do with having to give up fantasy life in
• 42:27
  Speaker 4: the fairy world and get back into the palace and
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: get married and get on with young adult life.
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because that's the other part
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: of the elves and the shoemaker, right? Is that the
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: shoemaker and his wife watch one night to see, and
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: once they've seen, they say, let's make them a little
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: suit of clothes. And they make them the clothes, and
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: they leave the clothes out, and the elves come, and
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: they're so delighted, and they caper around, and they put
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: on the clothes, but then they never come back. One
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: of the ways to think about that is that the
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: magic in the unconscious needs to sort of water conscious life.
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: It need not just kind of stay walled off. The
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: elves don't come back because the shoemaker doesn't need them anymore.
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: He has good enough access to whatever that potential is
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: without the elves coming. you know, needing to turn up.
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: And he was grateful and he expressed his gratitude. It's
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: a little bit like Jung saying like toward the end
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: of his life, he barely ever dreamed because he didn't
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: need to dream because he was in contact with the unconscious. So,
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: you know, it's funny, I've always thought of the 12
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: Dancing Princesses, I mean, yes, Deb, to everything you said
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: about it. And also, like, it's potentially an image of
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: like sexual fantasies or masturbation or something, right? You go
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: somewhere all night, you're engaged in this kind of frenetic activity,
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: and then The morning comes, but that's part of life too.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: And it is delicious to have that secret part of
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: our lives. But there does come a time when something
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: has to be made of that in the real world.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: You need a real sexual partner or you need to
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: take all of that wonderful magical energy And find a
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: way to channel it, you know. And it is interesting
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: that they both involve shoes because I think like making
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: a beautiful pair of shoes, for example, is kind of
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: a lovely metaphor for taking the magic that's in the
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: unconscious and creating something in the real world, you know,
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: like Jimmy Choo.
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 44:45
  Speaker 4: Something in the real world that helps you go places. Yeah. Yeah.
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 44:51
  Speaker 4: You know, something that you can walk through life in
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: quite literally.
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: I was just thinking, just to step back a minute,
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: when you were talking about giving the elves clothes and
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: then they leave, that's exactly what happens in Harry Potter
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: with Dobby the house elf. That if you give Dobby clothing,
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: then the contract of servitude is liberated.
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: Oh, that's true.
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: He can leave. So I think, uh, Rawlings, uh, undoubtedly
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: either unconsciously or consciously knew that little, uh, wonderful bit,
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: but let's talk a little bit about, um, uh, a
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: more ambivalent, uh, part of this in the story of
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: the red shoes. And so in this story that a, um,
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: a poor girl is adopted by a very wealthy woman
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: and is, um, given or given access to a very
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: beautiful pair of red shoes. And she's warned that they
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: have to be worn at the proper time and the
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: proper context, but the girl is so gobsmacked by the
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: shoes that she chooses to wear them to church, which
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: is considered a very vain thing to do. And consequently,
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: she begins to dance uncontrollably and cannot remove them. It's
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: like she's been cursed. She's been cursed.
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: She's obsessed and possessed.
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: Finally, she needs to seek out a woodcutter to amputate
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: her feet, which then go, I think, dancing off into
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: the world without her body. But it does speak to
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: how shoes can attract a kind of valence, which I
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: think our friend Jimmy Choo is definitely feeding on, having
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: all of these hyperbolic claims around shoes, which are comfortable
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: in one way. Jimmy Choo tells us, I believe in magic,
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: and a beautiful pair of shoes can make magic happen.
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: Beauty starts from the ground up. So we have this
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: example of something that is so appealing, so delicious, so important,
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: and we are grasping for, and particularly grasping for the
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: status that the shoes might afford us, particularly if we
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: have felt diminished or have suffered in some way. It's
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: often used as an amplification for addictions.
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: Yes. And I, yeah, that story.
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: Mel DeMarcos.
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: Lived the red shoes story, right?
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: But on that story, Joseph, I want to say, you know,
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: to me, again, it's always seemed like a potential reference
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: to sexuality because red shoes, you know, the whole thing
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: about you can't wear them to church, right? They're okay
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: in some context, but, you know, and red shoes are
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: often sort of, associated with seduction and sexuality. So it's
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: almost like it's a little bit of a morality tale
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: in some way, that story. It's like, don't get too
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: taken with sex, otherwise you're going to get carried away
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: and you'll never be able to stop. Shoes can be
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: so sexual. They can be so sexy.
• 48:28
  Speaker 4: And, you know, everybody knows about shoe fetishes. Of all
• 48:32
  Speaker 4: the things that get fetishized, and there is a wide range,
• 48:37
  Speaker 4: shoes are the one that somehow come most to mind.
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: And I read a glancing reference to Freud about how
• 48:48
  Speaker 4: the foot is a vaguely phallic part of our anatomy,
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: and then it fits into... Guess what that references. And
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: so there we have it as, you know, the covering
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: and the foot itself. And that shoe fetishers enjoy the
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: smell of shoes.
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: Oh, really?
• 49:16
  Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.
• 49:17
  Speaker 4: And, you know, all of what goes on. into that as...
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: the object of a displaced kind of sexual desire, you know,
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: which we've been talking about with the red shoes.
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: By the way, just so that we're perfectly clear, when
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: I'm talking about shoes being sexy, I am not referring
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: to mine. Okay, just letting you know.
• 49:44
  Speaker 4: Well, thank you for the show and tell, Lisa.
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: It's snowing here. And so, yes, I have my, I
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: have my Uggs on.
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: Well, I'm in Florida, and it's not snowing here, and
• 49:58
  Speaker 4: I have running shoes on, and they're a nice, light,
• 50:04
  Speaker 4: denim-y blue.
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: And as an aside also, I think in medieval societies,
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: red shoes were really associated with authority. The Roman emperors
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: wore red shoes. Red and ultramarine blue were very difficult
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: dyes to acquire. So if somebody had red shoes, it
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: was really meant something. Louis XIV always wore red high heels,
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: which was a sign of the king. And the Pope,
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: the Pope wears red shoes.
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true. And if you, you know, I don't
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: own a pair of red shoes. I don't know that
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: I ever have. If I were going to buy a
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: pair of red shoes, like they are a statement, right?
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: Your eyes would be drawn to a pair of red shoes.
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: So yeah, they... So there's something there also about, like,
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: attention or something.
• 50:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: And then there's Dorothy.
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: Yes, we're in the realm of ruby slippers.
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: That's right. And with Wicked being on everyone's mind since
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: the movie came out, I think we should talk a
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: little bit about Dorothy.
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: Okay, go for it.
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: Oh. Well, Wicked is really interesting because, you know, the
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: anti-hero gets a chance to really have her voice in it.
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: becomes something else. They don't talk about the ruby slippers
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: in Wicked. That's Frank Baum's. Actually, Frank Baum's novels are
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: very different from the movies, and there's many, many more
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: dimensions to it.
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I don't know that the ruby slippers were
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: part of, were in the actual book, although I'm not
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: 100% sure about that.
• 51:44
  Speaker 4: The filmmaker did that. Yeah.
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: Well, and because it was in Technicolor, right? So why
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: not pick something really.
• 51:52
  Speaker 4: Sparkly ruby slippers.
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: And I remember that moment where she goes from the
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: black and white of Kansas and then she goes into Oz.
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: And that may have been the first Technicolor thing that
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: I had seen, at least on television.
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: So I think we're talking about red shoes as symbols
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: of power. And then the question is, what kind of power?
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: Of the power that the Pope has, the power that
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: Louis XIV had, the power that the little girl in
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: the fairy tale had and misused that was vanity, the
• 52:29
  Speaker 4: power that Dorothy has. How do you, if you're putting
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: on red shoes, what kind of power are you claiming?
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: So I actually write about this in my most recent book,
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: The Vital Spark. So if you don't mind me dipping
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: into that for just a second, because it's falling right up.
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: So I talk about how disempowering it can be to
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: be trapped in an innocence complex where you have trouble
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: claiming your own power, and you therefore can be very
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: susceptible to attacks of envy from other people because you
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: don't even know what you have. And to me, Dorothy
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: and the ruby slippers are a great example of that.
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: Though seemingly an accident, Dorothy's dispatch of the Wicked Witch
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: of the East, her great destructive powers and evidence and
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: the citizens of Munchkinland know it. Glinda arrives in her
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: ball of light and asks immediately, are you a good
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: witch or a bad witch? Glinda correctly presumes that Dorothy
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: is powerful and has the capacity to be destructive, but
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: Dorothy doesn't know her own power. She is too accustomed
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: to seeing herself as innocent and good. Who, me? she
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: asks in response to Glinda's question. Why, I'm not a
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: witch at all. I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas. When the
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: Wicked Witch of the West confronts her about having killed
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: her sister, Dorothy replies that it was an accident. Yet
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: Dorothy becomes the rightful owner of the powerful ruby slippers
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: because she dispatched the Wicked Witch of the East. As
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: Dorothy travels to see the wizard, the Wicked Witch of
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: the West hounds her, hoping to get the ruby slippers.
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: When the witch imprisons her and threatens to kill Toto,
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: Dorothy immediately offers her the slippers, right? This is the
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: way that we can kind of offer our gifts. That's
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: a good little girl, the witch responds as she reaches
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: for Dorothy's feet. But the slippers cannot come off the
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: girl's feet while alive, and the witch gets zapped when
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: she touches them. Dorothy's aggression and power manifest through the
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: action of the shoes while she consciously denies this part
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: of herself. Oh, I'm sorry, Dorothy says. I didn't do it.
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: Can I still have my dog? And so it's like
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: when we're not aware of our gifts, when we say, well,
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm not that pretty or I'm not that
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: smart or when we sort of do that to ourselves, meanwhile,
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: we're walking around with a pair of ruby slippers like
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: everyone else can see that we have these gifts. And
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: we're very susceptible then. to having people try to attack
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: us or take things away because they can see that
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: we don't see it. So I think it's just, I
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: think that film is just a wonderful example of that.
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: And what Dorothy has to learn at the end is that,
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: you know, they're hers, they're powerful, she can use them.
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: I think you said it all. That those shoes can
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: take her many places, take her all the way to Oz,
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: take her through danger, take her back home. And that
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: the real magic is you have to make a choice.
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: If you choose to go home, the shoes will take
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: you home. If you choose to go to Oz, the
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: shoes will take you to Oz. What do you want, Dorothy?
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: No, it's like you, little three-year-old Joseph, like putting on
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: his shoes.
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: That's right. It can take me out of that house.
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: Into that, well, it wasn't very much going on outside
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: the garden department, but get me out of that house.
• 55:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah. So I'm thinking that as we step into the
• 56:01
  Speaker 4: new year, you know, we could pay attention to our footwear,
• 56:06
  Speaker 4: our agency, what they symbolize, what they say about us,
• 56:11
  Speaker 4: and just be conscious of it.
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: I love this idea of, you know, should the new
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: year involve getting yourself a new pair of shoes? At
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: least metaphorically. Well, but even thinking about it symbolically. If
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: these shoes had the kind of meaning that I'd like
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: to invite into my life the next year, maybe they're
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: work boots, maybe they're high heels, maybe they're fry boots.
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: Who knows? But it's a powerful symbol, and to think
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: of it as a symbol and wearing them as a
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: ritual is a really interesting thing to consider.
• 56:51
  Speaker 4: It's a way to live a symbolic life.
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: And maybe before we leave this topic, finally, I just
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: want to share this quote from Jung about shoes, which
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: I've always really liked. He says, consisting of the short
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: span between birth and death. The limitation creates a feeling
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: that he is a haphazard creature without meaning, and it
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: is this feeling that prevents him from living his life
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: with the intensity it demands if it is to be
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: enjoyed to the full. Life becomes stale and is no
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: longer the exponent of the complete man. That is why
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: so much unlived life falls into the unconscious. People live
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: as though they were walking in shoes too small for them.
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: So we invite you to get a pair of shoes
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: that really fits.
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: And as an absurdist counterpoint, Jimmy Choo tells us, I
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: always say, the higher the heel, the closer to heaven.
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: Sorry, Jimmy. Can't do that.
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: No, that's great.
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: Today's dreamer is a 42-year-old woman who is an attorney,
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: and she has titled this dream, The Strange Little Turtle.
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: My sons found a small baby turtle. They bring it
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: into the house. I am disgusted by it. It can
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: move very fast and manages to get itself into our
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: kitchen sink by jumping, almost flying. I'm worried about Salmonella.
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: I try to get it outside, but when we get outside,
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: it starts almost attacking me around my head and face.
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: It doesn't hurt, but it is horrifying. Then, in a flash,
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: I realize it isn't attacking me. The little turtle is cold.
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: and wants my warmth. I press it to my face
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: and we have a tender moment and we are very still.
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: We bring it back inside and give it some food.
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: A bit later I go downstairs to my son's playroom
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: where my littlest son is playing. I scream because it
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: is a mess and I hate when it is a mess.
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: And now I am worried for the little turtle, who
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: I think is under the mess. There are these huge
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: white flashcards all over the floor, and I'm concerned the
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: little turtle is trapped under one of them. We do
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: find him easily, though, and I hug him. When I do,
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: he transforms into a toddler who looks a lot like
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: my youngest son. I know that I have three sons now,
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: and I love him very much. Oh, it's such a
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: sweet dream. And then the context, she says, I had
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: this dream the night before I officiated a friend's wedding.
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: I was honored to do it, but very nervous. The
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: day I had the dream, we had a rehearsal. I
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: talked to the bride, one of my closest friends, about
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: the wedding, and the groom's daughter was having a hard
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: time with it. She was in college. My dad got
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: remarried when I was in college, and I had a
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: difficult time with it. It brought up a lot of feelings,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: my own pain. It was hard to hold this alongside
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: how happy I am for my friend. The main feelings
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: in the dream were disgust and fear, then tenderness, rage,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: and love. And she also notes, I have two sons
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: in waking life. When my oldest was three, he did
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: get salmonella and was very sick for a few days.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: Every doctor who cared for him assumed we had a turtle,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: but we did not. Apparently that is the most common
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: cause of salmonella in kids, much more than contaminated food.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: I also had a similar dream almost two years ago,
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: which is still very vivid to me. The short version
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: is that there was a raccoon who transformed into a dog,
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: then transformed into my third son, but there was no
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: disgust in that dream.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 3: Well, I can speak to the ambivalence she has and
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 3: her concern about the turtle. Apparently, when I was two
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 3: years old, my mother came into the living room and
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: was wondering where the turtle was, and it was in
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: my mouth.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: Oh, shit!
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: Just seemed like a good idea apparently to run to.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: You little stinker. And what happened? I have to know.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: I have no memory of this, but I'm sure she
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: fished it out, put it back in the bowl. So yes,
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: there are ways that that salmonella can get into a
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: little boy's body that one wouldn't consider. To me, this
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: is a dream about, and a retrospective dream about how
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: her psyche has interpreted being needed. And it's not uncommon
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: that mothers, young mothers particularly, can feel almost attacked by
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: the ferocity of their infant's needs. They're so intense, so endless.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: The screaming is so powerful. Um, A mom can feel
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: gobbled up by infants' and toddlers' needs. So to me,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 3: I feel like this is a revisiting that I think
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 3: my toddler is like an animal that is attacking me
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: with all of its needs. And then there's this important
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 3: healing in the dream, which is, wait a minute, what
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: it wants is very reasonable and, in fact, would be
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: rather lovely to participate in, to warm the turtle warm
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 3: the toddler to cuddle, that this isn't taking anything from me.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: It's not attacking me. And I'm wondering why this message
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: would be coming to her now. And perhaps she is
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: in some way ambivalent about what's required of her, what
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 3: is being asked of her, and whether or not she's
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 3: experiencing someone else's needs, which could even be at work
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: for that matter, as a form of attack? And is
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: there a way to reframe what's being asked of oneself
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: so that it perhaps has something better going on in it?
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: To me, it reminds me of that thing that Jung
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: said several times. The face we turn toward the unconscious
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: is the face that looks back at us. So here's
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: this content, perhaps an aspect of herself that she feels
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: disgusted by, um, that she feels, uh, um, yeah, that
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: she maybe feels as dirty or something like that. And as,
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: as long as she's rejecting this part of herself, it
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: seems to be attacking her. But when she can turn
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: toward it with a friendly face, it, it transforms, it
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: turns into, uh, It turns into another kind of inner potential.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: It turns into this new baby boy. And it's, you know,
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: it's interesting because I was reading this dream. There's a
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: dream very much like this actually in Dreamwise where a
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: woman is accosted by, I think it begins as a
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: moray eel and she doesn't turn away from it. And
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: then it transforms into something a little easier to deal
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: with and all the way up until it turns into
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: this beautiful horse. Um, and I, I was, I was
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: expecting because, um, you know, she said, oh, and then
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: I realized, and I was like, you know, is, is,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: is it going to follow that pattern of when we
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: move toward an inner content, when we move toward an
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: unconscious part of ourselves that we maybe have disavowed before
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: that it, it does change and become something often closer
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: to consciousness. And also something kind of lovable. And indeed
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: it did. So this is, in some sense, a kind
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: of common type of dream where if we can move
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: toward something in us that we've rejected before, we have
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: a new possibility for relationship.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 4: I am thinking about two things. One is that I
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 4: had many a pet turtle as a child. I had
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 4: turtles for years and years and years.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: Did you? Oh, that's right. Your sister loves reptiles.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 4: And I loved watching them swim and so on, but
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 4: their shells could get pretty slimy. And there was a
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 4: way that I would sort of take a toothbrush and
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 4: sort of gently scrub all that off. But I'm thinking
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 4: about waterborne reptile potential for sliminess, that a turtle might
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 4: be particularly aversive and as a carrier of disease. So
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 4: the psyche has selected this as one of the actors
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 4: in this play. The night before she officiates a friend's wedding,
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 4: And that the wedding brings up two things. One is
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 4: her adult self who can officiate a wedding for a
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 4: friend that she's very close to. And it also brings
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 4: up what it was like for her, as it is
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 4: for the groom's daughter, to have been a very young
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 4: woman and having a parent remarry. And we know with
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 4: dreams that they're often commenting on something that we've experienced
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 4: or reacted to that's kicked up some feelings just very
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 4: recently in the past 72 hours or so. So this
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 4: is a big deal to officiate a wedding and the
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 4: contrast between then and now. And that she had a rehearsal.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 4: And so here's the dream that does just what you
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 4: two have been commenting on, of moving toward the initially
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 4: aversive psychic content, that all it wants is human warmth.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: You know, Deb, you've sparked something for me with your
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: reference to her context, which I think is right on,
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: you know, that Here's the groom's daughter who's having a
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: hard time and probably not behaving particularly well, I guess,
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: in my fantasy. And she's having this memory of perhaps
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: herself doing the same thing. And maybe she had, again,
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 2: I'm making this up, but maybe she had always felt
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: a little embarrassed maybe by the way she struggled with
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: her dad's remarriage when she was in college. But from
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: her standpoint now as the officiant, and seeing both sides
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: of it, she could really have empathy. She could have
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: empathy for that part of herself that maybe before she
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: was like, ugh, get out of here, you gross thing.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: And now she's like, well, yeah, of course that's hard
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: for her.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 4: And in a wedding, you are, as the officiant, you
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 4: are the agent who brings two together. And the dream
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 4: brings this turtle and all that we're hypothesizing is representing.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 4: It brings that together with things are different now. She
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 4: cares for the turtle, wants to make sure it's not
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 4: being hurt. And then he transforms into a toddler who
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 4: looks a lot like her youngest son.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 3: Which is as if a curse has been lifted.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 4: Exactly. And fairy tales do this all the time. You know,
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 4: the beast changes into a handsome prince, and so it goes.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 4: That when we can embrace that, it becomes something much
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 4: more attractive, lovable, closer to consciousness. It's a lovely dream.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 3: Really. This transformation from disgust and screaming anger to warmth
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 3: and love and understanding that the relational dynamic is what's important.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 3: I also have to say that she works as an
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 3: attorney in We are shaped by our careers. We spend
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 3: more time consciously developing our careers and our work personas
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: than probably any other thing that we do as adults.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 3: And so as an attorney, there's a particular way of thinking,
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 3: very strategically, so often very aggressively, both to get things
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 3: for your client and protect your client. There's a real
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 3: battling and protective defensive thing. There's a lot of mind.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 3: that is rewarded highly and needed in the situation. So
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 3: she's worried that the turtle, which comes to represent something
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 3: she loves, is under a mess of white flashcards under
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 3: the floor. And if we think of flashcards, they have
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 3: to do with learning things and intellectual development, words and
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 3: this idea you're going to be tested, so you've got
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 3: to memorize things. And that's the industry of getting yourself
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 3: smart And she's concerned that the weight of those things
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 3: could be injuring, suffocating, at the very least suppressing the
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 3: little turtle, which is the toddler, as you said, Lisa,
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 3: could be a part of herself. I still have a
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 3: feeling it has something to do with a change of
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 3: relational dynamics as well. As we know, inner changes also
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 3: are reflected in outer changes, so there's a dance in
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 3: all of that. I love that the first sentence and
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 3: the last sentence is really nice. Von Franz would often
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 3: say in a really long dream, just pair the first
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 3: sentence and the last sentence together and just see what
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 3: you can make of it. My son's found a little
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 3: baby turtle. I know that I have three sons now
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 3: and I love him very much. And everything in between
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 3: is a journey to get there. Yeah.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 4: Oh, isn't that great?
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: That's really lovely.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. To submit a dream, suggest an episode topic,
• 1:11:51
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• 1:11:56
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• 1:11:59
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