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DO WE INHERIT OUR PARENT’S FEARS? · This Jungian Life Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
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Speaker 1: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
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Speaker 1: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
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Speaker 1: a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.
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Speaker 2: 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 in Cape Cod. Today,
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Speaker 4: we are going to explore a fairy tale known to
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Speaker 4: many people as Sleeping Beauty, also known as Little Briar Rose.
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Speaker 4: The fairy tales I often think of as our psychic bones.
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Speaker 4: They have been around for millennia and have lasted because
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Speaker 4: embedded in them are really deep psychological truths about life.
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Speaker 4: So in today's tale, we'll think about whether Sleeping Beauty's
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Speaker 4: parents were they, in fact, the first snowplow or helicopter parents.
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Speaker 4: They try to avoid fate. Can you really avoid your fate?
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Speaker 4: And how do we acknowledge the forces that be that
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Speaker 4: are beyond our ego capabilities for good or for ill?
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Speaker 4: And then finally, we'll be discussing a dream that a
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Speaker 4: listener submitted. In her life, she is facing a deep betrayal,
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Speaker 4: and the dream images some of that. So it's a
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Speaker 4: poignant dream. Stay with us.
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Speaker 2: Thank you. So this is Sleeping Beauty, which is otherwise
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Speaker 2: known as Little Briar Rose, and it's a Grimm's fairy tale.
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Speaker 2: In times past, there lived a king and queen who
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Speaker 2: said to each other every day of their lives, would
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Speaker 2: that we had a child, and yet they had none.
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Speaker 2: But it happened once that when the queen was bathing,
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Speaker 2: there came a frog out of the water, and he
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Speaker 2: squatted on the ground and said to her, thy wish
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Speaker 2: shall be fulfilled. Before a year has gone by, thou
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Speaker 2: shalt bring a daughter into the world. And as the
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Speaker 2: frog foretold, so it happened, and the queen bore a
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Speaker 2: daughter so beautiful that the king could not contain himself
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Speaker 2: for joy, and he ordained a great feast. Not only
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Speaker 2: did he bid to it his relations, friends, and acquaintances,
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Speaker 2: but also the wise women, that they might be kind
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Speaker 2: and favorable to the child. There were thirteen of them
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Speaker 2: in his kingdom. But as he had only provided twelve
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Speaker 2: golden plates for them to eat from, one of them
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Speaker 2: he left out. However, the feast was celebrated with all splendor,
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Speaker 2: and as it drew to an end, the wise women
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Speaker 2: stood forward to present to the child their wonderful gifts.
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Speaker 2: One bestowed virtue, one beauty, a third riches, and so on,
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Speaker 2: whatever there is in the world to wish for. And
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Speaker 2: when eleven of them had said their say, in came
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Speaker 2: the uninvited thirteenth. burning to revenge herself, and without greeting
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Speaker 2: or respect, she cried with a loud voice, In the
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Speaker 2: fifteenth year of her age, the princess shall prick herself
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Speaker 2: with a spindle and shall fall down dead. And without
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Speaker 2: speaking one more word, she turned away and left the hall.
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Speaker 2: Everyone was terrified at her saying. When the twelfth came forward,
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Speaker 2: she had not yet bestowed her gift, and though she
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Speaker 2: could not do away with the evil prophecy, yet she
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Speaker 2: could soften it. So she said, The princess shall not die,
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Speaker 2: but fall into a deep sleep for a hundred years.
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Speaker 2: Now the king, being desirous of saving his child even
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Speaker 2: from this misfortune, gave commandment that all the spindles in
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Speaker 2: his kingdom should be burnt up. The maiden grew up
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Speaker 2: adorned with all the gifts of the wise women, and
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Speaker 2: she was so lovely, modest, sweet, and kind and clever
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Speaker 2: that no one who saw her could help loving her.
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Speaker 2: It happened one day, she being already fifteen years old,
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Speaker 2: that the king and queen rode abroad and the maiden
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Speaker 2: was left behind, alone in the castle. She wandered about
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Speaker 2: into all of the nooks and corners and into all
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Speaker 2: the chambers and parlors as the fancy took her, till
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Speaker 2: at last she came to an old tower. She climbed
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Speaker 2: the narrow winding stair, which led to a little door
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Speaker 2: with a rusty key sticking out of the lock. She
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Speaker 2: turned the key, and the door opened, and there in
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Speaker 2: the little room sat an old woman with a spindle,
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Speaker 2: diligently spinning her flax. Good day, mother, said the princess.
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Speaker 2: What are you doing? I am spinning, answered the old woman,
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Speaker 2: nodding her head. What thing is that that twists round
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Speaker 2: so briskly? asked the maiden, and taking the spindle into
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Speaker 2: her hand, she began to spin, but no sooner had
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Speaker 2: she touched it Then the evil prophecy was fulfilled, and
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Speaker 2: she pricked her finger with it. In that very moment,
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Speaker 2: she fell back upon the bed that stood there and
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Speaker 2: lay in a deep sleep. And this sleep fell upon
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Speaker 2: the whole castle. The king and queen who had returned
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Speaker 2: and were in the great hall fell fast asleep, and
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Speaker 2: with them the whole court. The horses in their stalls,
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Speaker 2: the dogs in the yard, the pigeons on the roof,
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Speaker 2: the flies on the wall. the very fire that flickered
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Speaker 2: on the hearth became still and slept like the rest,
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Speaker 2: and the meat on the spit ceased roasting, and the cook,
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Speaker 2: who was going to pull the scullion's hair for some
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Speaker 2: mistake he had made, let him go and went to sleep.
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Speaker 2: And the wind ceased, and not a leaf fell from
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Speaker 2: the trees about the castle. Then round about that place
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Speaker 2: there grew a hedge of thorns thicker every year, until
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Speaker 2: at last the whole castle was hidden from view, and
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Speaker 2: nothing of it could be seen but the vein on
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Speaker 2: the roof. And a rumor went abroad in all that
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Speaker 2: country of the beautiful sleeping Rosamund, for that was what
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Speaker 2: the princess was called, and from time to time many
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Speaker 2: king's sons came and tried to force their way through
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Speaker 2: the hedge, but it was impossible for them to do so,
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Speaker 2: for the thorns held fast together like strong hands, and
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Speaker 2: the young men were caught by them. and not being
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Speaker 2: able to get free, there died a lamentable death. Many
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Speaker 2: a long year afterwards, there came a king's son into
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Speaker 2: that country and heard an old man tell how there
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Speaker 2: should be a castle standing behind the hedge of thorns,
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Speaker 2: and that there was a beautiful enchanted princess named Rosamund
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Speaker 2: who had slept for a hundred years, and with her
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Speaker 2: the king and queen and the whole court. The old
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Speaker 2: man had been told by his grandfather that many king's
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Speaker 2: sons had sought to pass the thorn hedge, but had
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Speaker 2: been caught and pierced by the thorns and had died
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Speaker 2: a miserable death. Then said the young man, Nevertheless, I
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Speaker 2: do not fear to try. I shall win through and
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Speaker 2: see the lovely Rosamund. The good old man tried to
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Speaker 2: dissuade him, but he would not listen to his words.
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Speaker 2: For now, the hundred years were at an end. And
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Speaker 2: the day had come when Rosamund should be awakened. When
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Speaker 2: the prince drew near the hedge of thorns, it was
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Speaker 2: changed into a hedge of beautiful large flowers, which parted
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Speaker 2: and bent aside to let him pass, and then closed
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Speaker 2: behind him in a thick hedge. When he reached the
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Speaker 2: castle yard, he saw the horses and brindled hunting dogs
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Speaker 2: lying asleep, and on the roof the pigeons were sitting
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Speaker 2: with their heads under their wings. And when he came indoors,
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Speaker 2: the flies on the wall were asleep. The cook in
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Speaker 2: the kitchen had his hand uplifted to strike the scullion,
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Speaker 2: and the kitchen maid had the black fowl on her lap,
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Speaker 2: ready to pluck. Then he mounted higher and saw in
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Speaker 2: the hall the whole court lying asleep, and above them
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Speaker 2: on their thrones slept the king and the queen. And
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Speaker 2: still he went farther, and all was so quiet that
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Speaker 2: he could hear his own breathing. And at last he
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Speaker 2: came to the tower and went up the winding stair
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Speaker 2: and opened the door of the little room where Rosamund
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Speaker 2: lay asleep. And when he saw her looking so lovely,
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Speaker 2: he could not turn away his eyes. Presently he stooped
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Speaker 2: and kissed her. And she awakened and opened her eyes
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Speaker 2: and looked very kindly on him. And she rose and
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Speaker 2: they went forth together. And the king and the queen
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Speaker 2: and whole court waked up and gazed on each other
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Speaker 2: with great eyes of wonderment. And the horses in the
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Speaker 2: yard got up and shook themselves. The hounds sprang up
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Speaker 2: and wagged their tails. The pigeons on the roof drew
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Speaker 2: their heads from under their wings, looked round, and flew
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Speaker 2: into the field. The flies on the wall crept on
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Speaker 2: a little farther. The kitchen fire leapt up and blazed
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Speaker 2: and cooked the meat. The joint on the spit began
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Speaker 2: to roast. The cook gave the scullion such a box
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Speaker 2: on the ear that he roared out, and the maid
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Speaker 2: went on plucking the fowl. Then the wedding of Prince
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Speaker 2: and Rosamund was held with all splendor, and they lived
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Speaker 2: very happily together until their lives end. Such a great
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Speaker 2: and well-known story. Most of us grew up hearing some
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Speaker 2: version of that.
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Speaker 4: You know, one of the things that has amused me
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Speaker 4: over the years in the course of all the Jungian
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Speaker 4: study and work and way of looking at fairy tales
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Speaker 4: is is contrasting what an interpretive stance looks like with
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Speaker 4: the stance that I had as a child. Because I
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Speaker 4: certainly did not read fairy tales through a Jungian lens
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Speaker 4: when I was just enraptured with all these tales. And
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Speaker 4: I was particularly interested in this passage. because as a child,
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Speaker 4: it was my least favorite. I liked fairy tales where
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Speaker 4: the heroine was active and clever and doing something to
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Speaker 4: take her destiny into her own hands. And this one
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Speaker 4: always felt to me as a child, like everybody just
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Speaker 4: behaved like ninnies. You know, the parents don't have enough
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Speaker 4: place settings to invite all of the 13 wise women.
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Speaker 2: Just go buy another place setting.
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Speaker 1: Right. Who does that?
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Speaker 4: You know, and then they clear out all the spindles
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Speaker 4: from the kingdom. But when it's her 15th birthday, the
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Speaker 4: fated day, the king and queen are somewhere off site
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Speaker 4: doing God only knows what, but not paying attention. And
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Speaker 4: then our lovely Briar Rose says, actually pricks herself with
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Speaker 4: a spindle. And I thought, well, that would be hard
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Speaker 4: to do. So I'm interested in what is the meaning
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Speaker 4: of this tale? Because from an ego point of view,
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Speaker 4: the people don't do things that make sense. This is
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Speaker 4: not the way to look at the tale.
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Speaker 2: Well, let's start right from the beginning. Let's take a
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Speaker 2: page out of your depth. Of your book, Deb.
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Speaker 4: And I'm going to, before you give us some explanation,
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Speaker 4: we know that you have analyzed this tale in your
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Speaker 4: book on motherhood.
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Speaker 2: Yes.
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Speaker 4: So for listeners who might want to delve a little
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Speaker 4: more into that, there it is.
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Speaker 2: Thank you for plugging it.
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Speaker 3: Yes.
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Speaker 2: I did indeed write about this story in my book, Motherhood.
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Speaker 2: So we start off and there's a king and a
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Speaker 2: queen and they can't have children. So this is a
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Speaker 2: rather common beginning of a fairy tale. And what we
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Speaker 2: know is that something in the kingdom, which we can
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Speaker 2: imagine as the kind of dominant reigning attitude, is sterile.
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Speaker 2: So something is sterile in the dominant reigning attitude. And interestingly,
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Speaker 2: the queen sort of wishes and wishes and wishes, but
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Speaker 2: it's a frog that announces the change. So if we
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Speaker 2: think about that, there's a couple of things about frogs.
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Speaker 2: First of all, they're kind of wet and slimy. They
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Speaker 2: come up from the depths. Some people would consider them
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Speaker 2: kind of disgusting or kind of a lower level life form.
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Speaker 2: So new life sort of arises from The froggy, slimy deeps,
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Speaker 2: you know. And, you know, one of the things about
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Speaker 2: this fairy tale, by the way, that I'm just going
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Speaker 2: to sort of introduce right away is there's a lot.
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Speaker 2: Let's say that the Freudians have a lot of fun
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Speaker 2: with this fairy tale. And there is a lot of
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Speaker 2: kind of sexual imagery. And I think it kind of
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Speaker 2: starts right there with the frog, you know. The sexy frog.
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Speaker 2: The sexy frog, right.
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Speaker 3: There's hope for all of us.
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Speaker 2: It wasn't exactly how I meant it, Joseph, but I
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Speaker 2: appreciate that.
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Speaker 4: Okay.
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Speaker 2: Frogs are interesting because they can go down to the
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Speaker 2: depths and they can go down to the bottom of
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Speaker 2: the pond, spend a long time there, and then come
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Speaker 2: up and also go out on land. So they're kind
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Speaker 2: of a psychopomp or possibly could be, and I think
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Speaker 2: in some other fairy tales they are, because they can
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Speaker 2: bring up communication from the depths. And they also start
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Speaker 2: life as tadpoles. that are totally aquatic, and then they
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Speaker 2: go through a metamorphosis and change into frogs. I love frogs,
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Speaker 2: by the way. I just love them.
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Speaker 3: Well, they're also very thickened. When frogs lay eggs, there
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Speaker 3: are these large masses of eggs, and hundreds of tadpoles
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Speaker 3: will burst forth. So this enormous visible fertility, as fish
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Speaker 3: are often for the same reason, a lot of it's fertile.
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Speaker 2: That's great. And I just want to say If you
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Speaker 2: go to my personal Instagram, at Lisa Marciano, and you
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Speaker 2: scroll back through to the summer months, you'll see lots
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Speaker 2: and lots of pictures of frogs, including my favorite frog,
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Speaker 2: whom Deb has met, and frog eggs.
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Speaker 4: Yes, Mrs. Blue.
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Speaker 2: So in any case, right, so we have the frog.
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Speaker 2: So new life, fecund, sexy, messy is now in the picture.
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Speaker 2: And indeed, new life arises.
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Speaker 3: I think we can talk a little bit about, um,
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Speaker 3: what does it mean to be psycho spiritually sterile? Because
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Speaker 3: that's usually precedes a state of change. So it may
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Speaker 3: be that in any number of stages of our life,
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Speaker 3: particularly a midlife after a successful career, after we have
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Speaker 3: reigned or created some kind of a kingdom of, uh,
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Speaker 3: Our lives, we have a career, perhaps we even do
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Speaker 3: have a family, but there comes this tremendous dry spell
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Speaker 3: where nothing new is happening. Everything is just going on
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Speaker 3: the same and the same and the same. We begin
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Speaker 3: to get this kind of withered feeling inside of ourselves
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Speaker 3: and we're craving to be fertile again, whether it's a
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Speaker 3: fertile idea or a fertile experience or a new relationship.
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Speaker 2: First of all, I just want to say that I
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Speaker 2: loved how you talked about a dry spell and withering.
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Speaker 2: And so again, we have these kind of metaphors of
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Speaker 2: moisture and dryness. And yeah, that's great. I think we
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Speaker 2: all know that feeling of that dry spell and longing
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Speaker 2: for energy to reawaken, desire, longing for desire to awaken.
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Speaker 3: There's also something in the beginning that has to do
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Speaker 3: with expectations and legacy. So there also comes a time
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Speaker 3: in our lives where we're wondering, have we done anything
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Speaker 3: that matters? Have we done anything in our lives that
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Speaker 3: will carry on beyond us? Have we written that book?
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Speaker 3: Have we founded that organization? Have we contributed to the
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Speaker 3: world in a way that will go forward when we
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Speaker 3: are gone? So in the beginning, there's also this tension
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Speaker 3: around mortality and what will survive beyond us. And all
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Speaker 3: of those kinds of even existential tensions, as we sit
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Speaker 3: in the agony of them, can call something up from
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Speaker 3: the deep, which is much of what Jung promised us.
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Speaker 3: As if we sit in our suffering long enough, some
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Speaker 3: strange impulse of life will come up from the well.
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Speaker 4: Right. And I think you're saying it, Joseph, that it's
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Speaker 4: beyond ego. We can't think our way out of it. Somehow,
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Speaker 4: something has to be called up from the depths of
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Speaker 4: maybe the first step is the longing, that the king
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Speaker 4: and queen are longing for new life. They're longing for
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Speaker 4: the child, which is the symbol of new life. And
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Speaker 4: where does it come from, the slimy, primordial, reptilian depths?
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Speaker 4: It doesn't arrive all sparkling and silvery, surrounded by bright lights.
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Speaker 3: And that goes to something that's so central to all
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Speaker 3: psychoanalytic work, is that often new life comes to us
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Speaker 3: from the instinctive level.
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Speaker 4: Yes.
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Speaker 3: It's not that some kind of gold-clad, courtier jumps out
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Speaker 3: of the well and recites poetry or gives us a
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Speaker 3: wonderful abstract treatise or gives us some kind of transcendent
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Speaker 3: spiritual experience that often we feel dry because we're cut
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Speaker 3: off from the instinctive level of the psyche.
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Speaker 2: And I just want to say too that we can
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Speaker 2: think about this, Joseph, you were talking about it as
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Speaker 2: kind of a legacy, but we can also think about
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Speaker 2: it kind of what's our relationship with creativity. The desire
19:56
Speaker 2: that we have to create, whether it's to create a
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Speaker 2: child or to create something else, an organization, a new recipe,
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Speaker 2: a work of art, a piece of music. And we all,
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Speaker 2: I think, can relate to feeling creatively blocked at times.
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Speaker 2: We have a novel we want to write, but we
20:17
Speaker 2: just can't figure out how to get started. And I
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Speaker 2: think everything we've been saying so far applies to that
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Speaker 2: process too, that you have to sort of get in
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Speaker 2: touch with the instincts and maybe sit by the well
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Speaker 2: and see what slimy creature wants to crawl up.
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Speaker 4: And I think I want to take the idea of
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Speaker 4: creativity down to a generative feeling that it doesn't have
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Speaker 4: to be, you know, some concrete literal new project of,
20:47
Speaker 4: you know, should I learn how to play the guitar?
20:50
Speaker 4: Should I try to write poetry? You know, should I
20:53
Speaker 4: try to plant a garden? But that what we're really
20:57
Speaker 4: talking about is a new attitude internally toward life. Because
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Speaker 4: oftentimes I think people think, oh gosh, I should embrace
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Speaker 4: some new learning or some new project or go somewhere new.
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Speaker 4: And if it isn't fertilized from within, then it's just
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Speaker 4: another item on your to-do list.
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Speaker 3: And I think that is really important. As Jung has said,
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Speaker 3: there are times in midlife that the ego can just
21:28
Speaker 3: make a decision, as he says in that story about
21:31
Speaker 3: meeting an American entrepreneur. just decided after forming an empire
21:36
Speaker 3: at 40 he was going to retire and have a
21:39
Speaker 3: life of leisure and play tennis and ride his horses
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Speaker 3: and then became very psychologically unwell because the psyche has
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Speaker 3: its own river yeah that's going to make its own
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Speaker 3: independent decisions and as you were intimating deb that it's
21:57
Speaker 3: um it's very unlikely that we're going to wake up
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Speaker 3: at 45 for instance and just on an egoic level,
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Speaker 3: decide we're going to turn everything upside down and start
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Speaker 3: on a new path if it doesn't receive the blessings
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Speaker 3: of the frogs, so to speak. Blessings of that deep
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Speaker 3: part of the psyche.
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Speaker 2: Yes, in some sense, you know, I think the beginning
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Speaker 2: of the tale anyway kind of places us right squarely
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Speaker 2: in midlife. It's kind of a midlife tale. You know,
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Speaker 2: it's like things have gone stale.
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Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
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Speaker 2: And what do you do when things have gone stale?
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Speaker 2: And that is often a feature, a feature of a
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Speaker 2: midlife passage, let's say. So the baby arrives, there is
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Speaker 2: new life and, uh, they want to have a big,
22:46
Speaker 2: a big party. And so it's so interesting that in
22:49
Speaker 2: the original Grimm's it's wise women rather than fairies. And
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Speaker 2: what do we make of these 13 wise women? Let's
22:57
Speaker 2: talk about them and, uh, when being left out?
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Speaker 3: The first thing that strikes me is how ancient the
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Speaker 3: fairy tale is, because it seems very pre-Christian. Normally, very fast,
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Speaker 3: you'd have a christening, and everybody would have a different
23:17
Speaker 3: kind of process. So this is, we're back. It feels
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Speaker 3: like a couple of thousand years ago, and we're in
23:25
Speaker 3: the world of the blessings of the Great Mother.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great. And I will say that, not that
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Speaker 2: I'm completely up on this, but I do remember reading
23:36
Speaker 2: some recent research where they are tracing these tales back
23:39
Speaker 2: to be many thousands of years old.
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Speaker 3: So the fact that these supernatural, wise, ancient women with
23:46
Speaker 3: magical powers are the ones that are going to welcome
23:51
Speaker 3: and determine something about this new child.
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Speaker 4: I'm thinking about that there are 13 of them. You know, the,
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Speaker 4: the difference between 12 and 13, there were, uh, you know,
24:05
Speaker 4: 12 apostles, there are 12 months in the year. A
24:09
Speaker 4: lot of things in our, um, modern society are based
24:13
Speaker 4: on 12 Ness as a kind of completeness. 13 is
24:19
Speaker 4: a prime number. It's an odd number. Nobody buys a
24:23
Speaker 4: place settings of anything. Um, I'd like a place setting
24:27
Speaker 4: for 13. That doesn't happen. And 13 has long been
24:32
Speaker 4: associated with witches. So here's this number that isn't divisible
24:39
Speaker 4: by anything. It doesn't relate to the natural world. And
24:45
Speaker 4: so the king and queen reduce it to 12. More manageable,
24:53
Speaker 4: more equitable numbers. more balanced. It feels like the ego
24:59
Speaker 4: position is we can handle 12, but not 13. There's
25:04
Speaker 4: an artist named Judy Chicago, this is just a little sidebar,
25:09
Speaker 4: who had a show once upon a time that rocked
25:13
Speaker 4: me to my core. It was an installation and it
25:17
Speaker 4: was called The Dinner Party. And it was a triangular
25:21
Speaker 4: table set with 13 place settings, each one of which
25:26
Speaker 4: had been uniquely made. The placemat, the stemware, the silverware,
25:33
Speaker 4: all of it honoring the 13, honoring the lack of symmetry.
25:39
Speaker 4: But this king and queen want symmetry.
25:42
Speaker 2: Well, I want to say I was just looking something
25:44
Speaker 2: up because I wanted to make sure it was true
25:45
Speaker 2: before I launched in. But You know, I also wonder
25:49
Speaker 2: if there's something here about the kind of unruly nature
25:53
Speaker 2: of the archetypal feminine. Because ordinarily, you know, like why
25:57
Speaker 2: is 12 such an important number? And of course, the Sumerians,
26:02
Speaker 2: I think their number system was, was it base 12?
26:06
Speaker 2: It may have been base 12. I think so. So
26:09
Speaker 2: it is one of these kind of real archetypal numbers.
26:12
Speaker 2: And part of that is because there are usually 12
26:15
Speaker 2: moon cycles in a full year. But because the moon
26:19
Speaker 2: is not so easily regulated, there are sometimes 13 moons
26:24
Speaker 2: in a year. So, you know, the moon is as
26:29
Speaker 2: an image of the archetypal feminine, which is not exactly
26:32
Speaker 2: in sync with the solar calendar and sometimes goes rogue
26:38
Speaker 2: and gives us that 13. And it is, so there
26:42
Speaker 2: is something about, you know, it's a wise woman who
26:47
Speaker 2: pronounces death. And it's a woman who leads her to
26:52
Speaker 2: her encounter in the tower or who oversees it. I mean,
26:57
Speaker 2: I think the frog is important because in some ways,
26:59
Speaker 2: I think the frog is the precursor to the 13th fairy,
27:04
Speaker 2: that which consciousness wants to shut out, but which will
27:09
Speaker 2: have its way. Thank goodness, because it is that which
27:13
Speaker 2: brings life. Well, it's interesting too with my moon analogy
27:17
Speaker 2: that there are only 12 gold plates. And of course,
27:21
Speaker 2: gold is very solar.
27:23
Speaker 3: And if we think of a 28-day lunar cycle, if
27:26
Speaker 3: we divide 365 by 28, it goes in approximately 13 times.
27:32
Speaker 3: So if it's a solar cycle, it divides differently. But
27:38
Speaker 3: in terms of, just as you said, lunar cycles, the
27:41
Speaker 3: number of moons in a year You know, full moons
27:45
Speaker 3: goes to 13. So there's something about the golden plates
27:50
Speaker 3: being solar, and that puts us into the solar year
27:54
Speaker 3: of 12. If the plates were silver, for instance, there
27:58
Speaker 3: would have been 13 plates because there would have been
28:01
Speaker 3: 13 moons. So perhaps it has something to do with
28:04
Speaker 3: that preference of the solar. And again, the solar king,
28:08
Speaker 3: the conscious, the ego, the known, as you were suggesting,
28:12
Speaker 3: the orderly. not the uncanny. So maybe that's a very
28:18
Speaker 3: subtle kind of hat tip.
28:21
Speaker 4: So, of course, there really is something. It's all over
28:25
Speaker 4: the place about the feminine. Of course, it's the queen
28:30
Speaker 4: who is infertile. Well, of course, it takes two people
28:34
Speaker 4: to make a baby, but it will be the woman
28:36
Speaker 4: who carries the baby. The baby she has is a girl,
28:42
Speaker 4: a daughter. The wise women are the ones who are
28:48
Speaker 4: invited as the special guests to the celebration of the birth.
28:54
Speaker 4: And then there is an old woman up in this
28:57
Speaker 4: tower who is doing the spinning, which has always been
29:02
Speaker 4: women's work. And then you've introduced all the ideas about
29:08
Speaker 4: you know, moons and that they don't fit into this orderly,
29:11
Speaker 4: you know, 12 month man-made way of thinking about a year.
29:18
Speaker 4: So this is really a very big tale about the feminine.
29:23
Speaker 2: And how the feminine.
29:25
Speaker 4: How it works or doesn't work. Right.
29:27
Speaker 2: And what happens if you try to shut it out?
29:29
Speaker 3: Yeah.
29:31
Speaker 2: You're either infertile or then you, you know, you've kind
29:34
Speaker 2: of brought down the wrath of the goddess. You can't
29:39
Speaker 2: avoid the gospel. right that's the other thing about the
29:42
Speaker 2: encounter and the tower is um first of all it's
29:45
Speaker 2: interesting because 15 is always the age that i've heard
29:48
Speaker 2: in this fairy tale which which is an interesting age
29:52
Speaker 2: and i mean it used to be that um girls
29:56
Speaker 2: menstruated later than they do. And I think that maybe
29:59
Speaker 2: back when this fairy tale was extant, you know, 15
30:04
Speaker 2: may have been a pretty common age for first menses.
30:06
Speaker 2: You know, so this is a kind of, it's a
30:10
Speaker 2: first entry into womanhood.
30:12
Speaker 3: Yes.
30:12
Speaker 2: I mean, is that, it's the, it's, and in Latin cultures,
30:16
Speaker 2: there's the quinceanera, I'm probably saying that wrong.
30:20
Speaker 4: Yep. At age 15. And it's a big deal. It
30:25
Speaker 4: is the official entry into fertility as a woman and
30:31
Speaker 4: being recognized as a woman. Right.
30:36
Speaker 2: So this is the passage to womanhood. The one thing
30:40
Speaker 2: that always bugged me about this fairy tale when I
30:43
Speaker 2: was little was a spindle. I don't think I really
30:47
Speaker 2: knew what a spindle was, but I didn't think it
30:50
Speaker 2: was really sharp, right? And then I do have some
30:54
Speaker 2: experience with drop spindles, which I believe this one is.
30:58
Speaker 2: And there is kind of a point, but it's like,
31:01
Speaker 2: it's like, it's about the same pointiness as a chopstick. Maybe,
31:05
Speaker 2: maybe a little bit less, like, I'm sorry, maybe a
31:08
Speaker 2: little bit pointier than a chopstick, but not, um, not
31:12
Speaker 2: like prick your finger pointy. You know, it's a really,
31:15
Speaker 2: it's an odd image, I think, unless I've really misunderstood
31:19
Speaker 2: my spindle technology. So, so first of all, you know,
31:24
Speaker 2: we've got these parents who, what do they do? They
31:26
Speaker 2: get this. I mean, this is a great image, right?
31:28
Speaker 2: Your daughter's got a prick her finger on a spindle,
31:31
Speaker 2: burn every spindle in the kingdom. I mean, these were
31:34
Speaker 2: the first snowplow parents. I mean, and this is the
31:40
Speaker 2: context in which I, I talk about it in my
31:42
Speaker 2: book motherhood, because it's like, I mean, which I could
31:45
Speaker 2: totally relate to, right? You want to, you want to, um,
31:48
Speaker 2: You want to help your child avoid an evil fate.
31:52
Speaker 2: And whether or not that's you hire the very best,
31:56
Speaker 2: most expensive SAT tutor that you possibly can, or you
32:00
Speaker 2: burn all the spindles, to a certain extent, you're trying
32:05
Speaker 2: to help your child steer through a potentially evil fate.
32:11
Speaker 2: And of course, I mean, lots of us have hired
32:15
Speaker 2: SAT tutors. Yes, guilty. Um, but, but I mean, there
32:20
Speaker 2: are things that we do as parents that are even more, uh,
32:23
Speaker 2: you know, sort of akin to, to burning the spindles, right? We,
32:27
Speaker 2: we advocate for them, you know, when the teacher gives
32:31
Speaker 2: them a bad grade, we can't, you know, professors are
32:34
Speaker 2: having these stories of, you know, parents contacting professors and
32:37
Speaker 2: trying to renegotiate their child's grade in college or whatever, or,
32:40
Speaker 2: you know, we do all kinds of things that I
32:43
Speaker 2: am entirely, um, empathic with. Because we don't want our
32:47
Speaker 2: child to suffer. We want to help our child avoid
32:51
Speaker 2: their fate.
32:53
Speaker 4: It also speaks, I think, a lot to the wish
32:58
Speaker 4: for ego and order and control and management. That that's
33:05
Speaker 4: a good, practical, sensible thing to do. Just get rid
33:09
Speaker 4: of all the spindles in the kingdom.
33:11
Speaker 2: As if ego.
33:16
Speaker 4: is in charge as if, you know, and here's the
33:18
Speaker 4: king and queen. So they're the rulers of the kingdom.
33:21
Speaker 4: And we often think that our ego is the ruler
33:25
Speaker 4: of psyche. It reigns supreme. It runs the show. And
33:30
Speaker 4: whatever it dictates and deems will come about. And that,
33:36
Speaker 4: of course, that is not so. You know, of course,
33:39
Speaker 4: there's going to be an old woman with a spindle
33:43
Speaker 4: up some narrow staircase. That ego cannot do this job.
33:49
Speaker 2: Well, the other thing about spindles is obviously they're for spinning.
33:54
Speaker 2: And at least two of the mythological systems that I'm
33:59
Speaker 2: thinking of feature the fates as those who spin and weave.
34:06
Speaker 2: So one spins a fate in Greek as well as
34:11
Speaker 2: Norse mythology. The fates are spinners and weavers. So, you know,
34:18
Speaker 2: this is also where the Freudian imagery comes in is that,
34:22
Speaker 2: you know, Freudian interpretations of this tale will say, well,
34:24
Speaker 2: this spindle is an image of a phallus. And this
34:29
Speaker 2: is this young woman's first encounter with sexuality, which I
34:33
Speaker 2: actually think that holds. Like, I think that that's legitimate.
34:36
Speaker 2: And it goes to what we were talking about, about
34:38
Speaker 2: her being 15 and kind of a sexual awakening. And
34:42
Speaker 2: it's also an encounter with her fate that her parents
34:47
Speaker 2: have tried to keep her from.
34:49
Speaker 4: And the spinning of a creation. You spin a thread,
34:54
Speaker 4: you spin new life, you spin life. And it is
34:58
Speaker 4: also the instrument in this tale of her death, of
35:03
Speaker 4: being penetrated. So I agree, the sexual interpretation here and
35:10
Speaker 4: so does an analogy to menstruation that maybe it's not
35:16
Speaker 4: the finger that's really bleeding, but that polarity of making
35:22
Speaker 4: something and generating something and spinning something versus that is
35:27
Speaker 4: also the instrument of the wounding.
35:31
Speaker 3: That's what I'm sitting in as well, Deb. I'm just
35:34
Speaker 3: thinking about what is the spinning wheel do because it's,
35:39
Speaker 3: I mean, she's kept away from spindles, but by virtue
35:41
Speaker 3: of that, she's kept away from the whole craft of
35:45
Speaker 3: taking raw cotton or flax or wool, taking this raw
35:51
Speaker 3: material and then spinning it into thread, which is then
35:54
Speaker 3: used to make fabric or repairing fabric and all the
35:58
Speaker 3: other things. So the spinning wheel is this object of
36:03
Speaker 3: transformation in and of itself. It is slightly alchemical. I suppose, process,
36:10
Speaker 3: although it's not quite the same. But I'm wondering about
36:15
Speaker 3: keeping away from that particularly, of all things. So I'm
36:21
Speaker 3: wondering if this is also protecting the feminine, just as
36:25
Speaker 3: you were saying in terms of Snow Black parents, protecting
36:28
Speaker 3: the feminine from a certain level of agency. It's associated,
36:33
Speaker 3: as you said, traditionally with the women's work, but it
36:36
Speaker 3: was work. And it was this capacity to take some
36:40
Speaker 3: raw substance and turn it into something refined, something that
36:45
Speaker 3: then could be used in some kind of cultural way,
36:50
Speaker 3: could be used to good effect. And so she's also
36:53
Speaker 3: being kept away from work itself.
36:57
Speaker 4: She's being kept away from life with its possibilities and
37:03
Speaker 4: its pitfalls. Yes.
37:05
Speaker 3: An agency.
37:05
Speaker 4: Yes, all of it. And so we'll protect you. And
37:11
Speaker 4: you won't get hurt. But you also won't really get
37:15
Speaker 4: into your own life.
37:17
Speaker 3: Things will be done for you.
37:18
Speaker 2: Yes. And that is kind of that image of everyone
37:23
Speaker 2: falling asleep, right? I mean, we start off the tale
37:26
Speaker 2: with this kind of psycho-spiritual sterility. And then we lapse
37:31
Speaker 2: into the somnolence. I think they're kind of related states.
37:37
Speaker 2: Nothing changes, nothing grows. The fire doesn't even cook the meat.
37:43
Speaker 2: So it's a real image of stasis, which is a
37:47
Speaker 2: cousin of sterility for sure. It feels important that it's charming,
37:53
Speaker 2: and all these scenes of the horses fell asleep and
37:57
Speaker 2: the pigeons on the roof fell asleep. But there's something
38:00
Speaker 2: important there. It's not just Rosamund, who falls asleep. It's
38:06
Speaker 2: not just the princess. It's the whole environment. And, you know,
38:11
Speaker 2: I do wonder about, you know, you could almost look
38:14
Speaker 2: at it as like family systems, you know, that when
38:18
Speaker 2: one person stops growing, you know, the whole system kind
38:23
Speaker 2: of locks up.
38:24
Speaker 4: But you're right. It's a recurring of the original stasis
38:29
Speaker 4: that the tale started out with. that the king and
38:33
Speaker 4: queen cannot have a child. And now here it is
38:37
Speaker 4: writ large. Even the flies on the wall fall asleep. Stop.
38:44
Speaker 4: All systems halt.
38:47
Speaker 3: And as we said, it's in that state of suspension,
38:49
Speaker 3: which is quite different than death. There is capacity everywhere
38:55
Speaker 3: in the kingdom that is a psyche, but everything is suspended,
38:59
Speaker 3: is frozen. So all the life force is now secreted away,
39:05
Speaker 3: but they are kept in salt, so to speak, which
39:11
Speaker 3: is a great preserving agent that stops things from decaying.
39:16
Speaker 3: But of course, if you give most things too much salt,
39:18
Speaker 3: it'll stop them from growing as well. It has this
39:23
Speaker 3: locked-in stasis. But I also, for some reason, I just
39:28
Speaker 3: want to go back to the spinnings. just found myself
39:31
Speaker 3: thinking about spinning. It's night work because during the day,
39:39
Speaker 3: you're out doing other kinds of labor that require sunlight
39:42
Speaker 3: that are going on outside. It's also winter work. Spinning
39:48
Speaker 3: was not really done during the summer because the days
39:51
Speaker 3: were long and there was so much to do out
39:54
Speaker 3: in the farm, out in the day, out in the orchards.
39:57
Speaker 3: So it's something that's deeply private. It's quiet work. It's
40:03
Speaker 3: night work. It's winter work.
40:05
Speaker 2: It is solitary work.
40:06
Speaker 3: It's transformative work. Solitary work. And of course, the great
40:10
Speaker 3: spinners are the spiders as well. And she is, in
40:14
Speaker 3: a sense, caught in this spidering place where she is
40:18
Speaker 3: bitten by by a kind of spindle venom, and then
40:22
Speaker 3: cocooned in this slumber, waiting. One might even imagine that
40:30
Speaker 3: the venom of the piercing is being metabolized, which is
40:36
Speaker 3: something that you had talked about once, at least about
40:40
Speaker 3: the poisoned apple metaphor. Something has been injected into her
40:45
Speaker 3: through the bite of the spindle. which I think is just,
40:51
Speaker 3: there's a lot in there.
40:53
Speaker 2: You know, one of the differences between Sleeping Beauty and
40:57
Speaker 2: Snow White, and they both involve this somewhat frustrating image
41:01
Speaker 2: of a woman who just kind of swoons and falls
41:04
Speaker 2: asleep for extended periods of time, is that in Snow White,
41:09
Speaker 2: she's thought to be dead and her stasis is therefore
41:14
Speaker 2: has no end. In this story, there is a sense
41:17
Speaker 2: of in the right time, she will awaken. So, you know,
41:22
Speaker 2: it is amended to, you know, rather than she'll die,
41:25
Speaker 2: that she will sleep for 100 years. So there is
41:29
Speaker 2: a sense of like a process that just takes time,
41:34
Speaker 2: takes a lot of time. But we sort of know
41:37
Speaker 2: that she's going to wake up eventually. And of course,
41:41
Speaker 2: the common thing critique of this fairy tale is it's
41:46
Speaker 2: one of the fairy tales that many people assume shows
41:49
Speaker 2: a man rescuing a woman and therefore kind of promotes
41:56
Speaker 2: this antiquated idea that women are helpless, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
42:00
Speaker 2: And I admit with you, it's not as much fun
42:03
Speaker 2: as some other fairy tales where the heroine has a
42:06
Speaker 2: little more going on. But I do want to say
42:10
Speaker 2: that if we take it psychologically, It's that something princely
42:16
Speaker 2: in her rouses. And what that might look like in
42:22
Speaker 2: our life is we've gone through a long period of
42:25
Speaker 2: being asleep. And let's face it, a lot of us
42:29
Speaker 2: sleepwalk through a part of our lives. You may sleepwalk
42:35
Speaker 2: your way into a bad relationship and then just stay
42:39
Speaker 2: there too long because you haven't woken up. You might
42:43
Speaker 2: sleepwalk your way into the wrong career and then just
42:47
Speaker 2: stay there for a long time because you haven't woken up.
42:50
Speaker 2: And then one day something wakes up and you think,
42:56
Speaker 2: this isn't right. I need to make a change. And
42:59
Speaker 2: that's a moment of the kind of inner prince constellating.
43:05
Speaker 2: So I just want to caution us not to see
43:09
Speaker 2: the rescue from without, but to recognize that the The
43:13
Speaker 2: prince is an inner potential that we all have. And yes,
43:18
Speaker 2: we can all fall. I think every one of us
43:21
Speaker 2: probably falls asleep to something important in our lives. And
43:27
Speaker 2: then one day we wake up.
43:29
Speaker 3: So holding that idea, of course, the multiplicity of the psyche,
43:33
Speaker 3: that one part of our personality can be in a slumber,
43:40
Speaker 3: And other parts of our psyche are trying to fight
43:42
Speaker 3: their way towards the sleeping part to animate it, to
43:47
Speaker 3: vitalize it. Just as the frog helps to vitalize the
43:52
Speaker 3: queen and quickens life in her, the prince, like the frog,
43:57
Speaker 3: is trying to find its way to Briar Rose to
44:01
Speaker 3: quicken her in some fashion. But what do we make
44:05
Speaker 3: of the briars? The briars that will kill all the
44:11
Speaker 3: previous suitors or the animating forces trying to get in.
44:17
Speaker 4: What I've been thinking about is certainly what Jung says
44:23
Speaker 4: about the unconscious, that it has autonomy and it has
44:29
Speaker 4: its own timetable and it has direction. And that the briars...
44:39
Speaker 4: have their own autonomy, that when these other young men
44:42
Speaker 4: kind of try to fight their way through and say, hey,
44:45
Speaker 4: I'm getting in there, I'm going to go for it,
44:48
Speaker 4: they're held fast and they can't escape. It's the contrast
44:55
Speaker 4: between ego function and the unconscious and that you can't
44:59
Speaker 4: force the unconscious. Ego cannot just declare itself the ruler,
45:07
Speaker 4: the prince, use a sword, break in, and dictate. That
45:14
Speaker 4: the unconscious needs the time that it needs to have
45:19
Speaker 4: its own process. And that's analogous to what we had
45:23
Speaker 4: talked about before with Snow White, that while she was
45:26
Speaker 4: lying there, Something in her body was metabolizing the poisoned apple,
45:34
Speaker 4: and something is being metabolized in this somnolence of the kingdom.
45:41
Speaker 4: And it will take 100 years, and that's just the
45:47
Speaker 4: way it is.
45:47
Speaker 2: And by the way, I do talk about Snow White
45:52
Speaker 2: in my upcoming book, The Vital Spark. About which more later.
45:56
Speaker 4: Okay.
45:58
Speaker 2: Available for pre-order now.
46:00
Speaker 3: Absolutely. I've done it. There's also a parallel theme, because
46:07
Speaker 3: the spindle is a kind of thorn that pricks Raya
46:12
Speaker 3: Rose and then puts her into a slumber. And then
46:16
Speaker 3: this iteration of pricking thorns covers the entire kingdom and
46:23
Speaker 3: any of the princes who touch thorns. thorn are put
46:27
Speaker 3: into the slumber of death. So this iteration of the
46:32
Speaker 3: poisoned dart, the poisoned point that makes life inert, multiplies
46:41
Speaker 3: and multiplies and multiplies. So in one way it's turned
46:46
Speaker 3: in and in one way it's turned out. And so
46:49
Speaker 3: I want to think about this unconscious determination to slumber.
46:59
Speaker 3: And so sometimes this is thought of as a kind
47:01
Speaker 3: of Saturnine possession. And how many times have we either
47:06
Speaker 3: had an Alisands, or maybe we've been in this situation
47:10
Speaker 3: where when we go to somebody who is in a determined,
47:16
Speaker 3: almost rageful suspension of activity, that the influence around them
47:23
Speaker 3: also as a kind of poisoning of activity, that the
47:29
Speaker 3: entire field is anti-movement, anti-life, anti-change. I think of, I've
47:39
Speaker 3: had clients whose moms were very, very depressed for long periods.
47:45
Speaker 3: And now there was a tremendous negativity towards the children
47:49
Speaker 3: making any noise, being active, disturbing. the depressed mom. I
47:55
Speaker 3: don't want the TV on. I don't want you to
47:57
Speaker 3: be loud. Why are you guys always, you know, making noise?
48:03
Speaker 3: So it's as if the briar patch begins to permeate
48:06
Speaker 3: the entire house and all things must be silent and
48:11
Speaker 3: all things must not be disturbing. And there are other,
48:16
Speaker 3: even darker iterations, you know, this is the kind of
48:20
Speaker 3: Kafkaesque trap where someone gets involved in a bureaucracy that
48:26
Speaker 3: is a kind of slumbering unconscious machine. And if they
48:30
Speaker 3: try to interfere with the bureaucracy and press it to innovate,
48:34
Speaker 3: to change, challenge it in some way, the bureaucracy itself
48:40
Speaker 3: will start closing around the troublemaker, silence them because of
48:47
Speaker 3: this resistance to change, the resistance to the slumber. And
48:52
Speaker 3: we could find many, many examples of this field that
48:59
Speaker 3: will not be interfered with when the determination is to quiet,
49:08
Speaker 3: to sleep, to become inert.
49:12
Speaker 2: I had a couple of, I think, related thoughts about
49:15
Speaker 2: the thorns. I think that's all really great, what both
49:18
Speaker 2: of you have said. First of all, rereading it just now, again,
49:23
Speaker 2: I was really struck by the kind of sexual imagery. So,
49:27
Speaker 2: you know, something's trying to penetrate the thorns, but it's
49:31
Speaker 2: just not going to happen until the right moment when
49:34
Speaker 2: the thorns turn into blossoms and it sort of opens
49:38
Speaker 2: to receive him. A little bit of a sexual metaphor, perhaps.
49:44
Speaker 2: But also, I mean, I think the thorns, and Joseph,
49:46
Speaker 2: maybe this maps onto what you were saying. They're a
49:48
Speaker 2: real image of defense, you know, and we can build
49:53
Speaker 2: up thorny defenses. I mean, I'm thinking of a sort
49:55
Speaker 2: of hypothetical case, let's say, where a woman's in a marriage.
49:59
Speaker 2: It's pretty unhappy. It's pretty sterile. It's nothing.
50:02
Speaker 4: It's not.
50:03
Speaker 2: It's, you know... It's kind of good, you know, as
50:08
Speaker 2: often happens, right? We're in a marriage where things aren't great,
50:12
Speaker 2: but they're not terrible either. And we sort of soldier on.
50:16
Speaker 2: And part of how that happens is, as I was
50:19
Speaker 2: saying before, we fall asleep to it. We say, well,
50:23
Speaker 2: you know, I'll deal with my marriage later. after I
50:27
Speaker 2: get this promotion or when the kids leave home for college,
50:32
Speaker 2: we've got things to work out, but we don't have
50:34
Speaker 2: the time to do that right now. Or you tell yourself, well,
50:37
Speaker 2: you know, it's just, it's, it's just hard having kids
50:41
Speaker 2: in two careers or whatever you, you sort of rationalize it.
50:45
Speaker 2: You tuck away the feelings of unhappiness. You don't acknowledge
50:49
Speaker 2: to yourself how you feel. And, and that is both that,
50:53
Speaker 2: process of kind of falling asleep to something becoming unconscious
50:57
Speaker 2: of something that you really actually do know and then
51:00
Speaker 2: building up a lot of defenses around it and that's
51:03
Speaker 2: why in such marriages uh there can be very little
51:07
Speaker 2: feeling that passes between two people i mean it can
51:10
Speaker 2: be really even if it's not openly hostile it's almost
51:14
Speaker 2: like these are not marriages that are openly hostile these
51:18
Speaker 2: are marriages where there's just a sort of icy flow
51:21
Speaker 2: of air between two people where There's not a lot
51:24
Speaker 2: of warmth. There's not a lot of heat either, but
51:27
Speaker 2: there's not eye contact. There's not tenderness. And that's that
51:33
Speaker 2: process of kind of letting thorns grow around your heart.
51:37
Speaker 3: And the ambivalent situation that that creates, first of all,
51:43
Speaker 3: the thorns are organic in one sense, that untended areas
51:49
Speaker 3: of the forest will grow great briar patches because the
51:54
Speaker 3: deer are not nibbling it down, or it's undisturbed, or
51:58
Speaker 3: it's an ideal condition in some ways. But that, yes,
52:02
Speaker 3: it may seem necessary to protect us from painful interactions
52:09
Speaker 3: with spouses or other people that are antagonizing us, but
52:13
Speaker 3: it also leaves us asleep and unchallenged and uncontacted, even
52:21
Speaker 3: if the contact is antagonistic or frustrating. So that rejection
52:26
Speaker 3: of contact, for all the reasons that we do, all
52:29
Speaker 3: the frustrations that we may have, has this secondary effect
52:36
Speaker 3: of putting something to sleep inside of us. Now, the
52:40
Speaker 3: sleepiness may allow us to tolerate a marriage that we're
52:44
Speaker 3: very unhappy with. So our sexuality is just going to
52:48
Speaker 3: go to sleep because it's not active, or our creativity
52:53
Speaker 3: is going to go to sleep partnership doesn't welcome it
52:57
Speaker 3: any number of things but that barrier to vigorous engagement
53:04
Speaker 3: wherever that may lead creates problems on both sides of
53:10
Speaker 3: the briar.
53:11
Speaker 4: Wall I'm thinking about the hedge of thorns and the
53:20
Speaker 4: sleep as an image of dissociation just don't notice it.
53:28
Speaker 4: It's just not there. It's such an image of real
53:33
Speaker 4: splitting off of that rather than having to feel the
53:38
Speaker 4: feelings and using the example you've given of, you know,
53:43
Speaker 4: that marriages can go through dry spells, difficulties, you know,
53:50
Speaker 4: kind of soldiering on. And that it's painful to feel
53:54
Speaker 4: the feelings of lack of connection and lack of affection, tenderness, energy.
54:03
Speaker 4: So we just don't feel the feelings. We just, some
54:08
Speaker 4: part of us goes to sleep. And so we don't
54:13
Speaker 4: have to consciously experience it to the full extent that
54:18
Speaker 4: we might have. how disappointing this is that after X
54:23
Speaker 4: number of years of marriage and maybe a couple of
54:27
Speaker 4: kids and dual careers that it's just too hard to
54:31
Speaker 4: feel how hard this is. And so up goes the
54:35
Speaker 4: hedge of thorns, up goes a kind of psychic sleep.
54:42
Speaker 4: I just split that off. And it seems like there's
54:46
Speaker 4: no feeling there.
54:48
Speaker 3: The other thing I'd like to bring up is the
54:50
Speaker 3: possibility of a kind of multi-generational trauma. We don't understand
54:56
Speaker 3: why the queen is infertile. She suffers from this difficulty,
55:03
Speaker 3: this difficulty of receiving the masculine psychologically, spiritually, a relationship
55:09
Speaker 3: to the animus, some relationship to her own spirit. And
55:14
Speaker 3: then that same problem is transferred to the daughter. that
55:19
Speaker 3: she too is kept in a state of sterility. It
55:23
Speaker 3: passes down that she too cannot find the fertile spirit.
55:29
Speaker 3: And the briar or the spindle could very well be
55:33
Speaker 3: this repeating pattern that the mother, and perhaps even beyond that,
55:40
Speaker 3: carries some kind of a barrier, some kind of a
55:45
Speaker 3: trouble that then is reproduced in the teenage daughter and
55:51
Speaker 3: is finally overcome, even as it is in the mother,
55:55
Speaker 3: through an intervention of some kind. And I think that
55:59
Speaker 3: that is something that can also happen. The mother has
56:04
Speaker 3: a difficulty and that pattern is then passed to the daughter,
56:08
Speaker 3: even though it is perhaps not her own lived experience.
56:12
Speaker 3: And I've seen this both in sons and daughters, that the...
56:17
Speaker 3: Trauma of the parents comes to the child in these
56:20
Speaker 3: very frightened admonitions. You know, you must be very careful
56:24
Speaker 3: about this, or this kind of person is terribly dangerous.
56:27
Speaker 3: You mustn't ever be alone with this kind of person.
56:30
Speaker 3: And these prohibitions, these frightening prohibitions, tumble down through generations,
56:38
Speaker 3: often being housed in children, though they themselves haven't experienced
56:43
Speaker 3: these wounds or these dangers. They can become so vigilant,
56:49
Speaker 3: so thorn-bound by the fears of several generations back that
56:55
Speaker 3: they are then isolated.
56:58
Speaker 2: Well, in a way, that's kind of like burning the spindles, right?
57:01
Speaker 2: It's like the parents are always trying to protect the
57:04
Speaker 2: kids from the known difficulties. And in a way, that
57:10
Speaker 2: inevitably sets up an experience where the child is is
57:17
Speaker 2: going to encounter that fairy thing, just like in this
57:22
Speaker 2: fairy tale.
57:24
Speaker 3: So the frog comes up out of the well, gives
57:28
Speaker 3: a solution. The prince somehow finds his way through the briars.
57:34
Speaker 3: But interestingly, the briars in the story autonomously part, which
57:40
Speaker 3: is very interesting. So we have this intervention of the transpersonal.
57:47
Speaker 3: that something uncanny, magical, and strange occurs when the timing
57:54
Speaker 3: is right, which then gives us a sense of, or
57:59
Speaker 3: a question of, what are the hundred years? And what's
58:03
Speaker 3: being worked out at the end of the hundredth year,
58:08
Speaker 3: such that the entire field, the entire gestalt, the psychic
58:14
Speaker 3: atmosphere is now So ready, it just requires the presence
58:20
Speaker 3: of the new thing, and suddenly the defenses melt away.
58:27
Speaker 2: What I'm going to say to that, because I think
58:30
Speaker 2: it's really a lovely message that the fairy tale is
58:33
Speaker 2: sending us. I made up this little case about a
58:37
Speaker 2: woman being unhappy in a marriage, but of course it's
58:39
Speaker 2: kind of composite, and I've heard many similar stories. And
58:44
Speaker 2: even just this past couple of weeks, I've heard some
58:46
Speaker 2: version of this story. And what I'll say is that
58:50
Speaker 2: when we wake up, there's often a feeling of guilt. Like,
58:54
Speaker 2: look how long I stayed in it without saying something.
58:59
Speaker 2: You know, I stayed in the marriage too long. I
59:01
Speaker 2: should have said something earlier. If I'd been more assertive earlier,
59:05
Speaker 2: maybe everything would have been different. But in some sense,
59:09
Speaker 2: the fairy tale is saying, it takes the time it takes.
59:14
Speaker 2: It takes the time it takes to know that the
59:16
Speaker 2: marriage is not going to work. It takes the time
59:20
Speaker 2: it takes for you to be sure that it's really
59:23
Speaker 2: time to leave. It just takes the time it takes,
59:28
Speaker 2: and it invites us to be accepting of that.
59:32
Speaker 4: It takes a complete cycle somehow, and that it's beyond ego.
59:39
Speaker 4: Something deep within is working on it. And I agree
59:45
Speaker 4: with you. I don't think there are very many people
59:47
Speaker 4: who look back at something that they were kind of
59:51
Speaker 4: stuck in or didn't know and go, oh my gosh,
59:55
Speaker 4: you know, I wish I had known then what I
59:57
Speaker 4: know now. I wish I'd known then that I could
1:00:01
Speaker 4: have done this sooner, or I wish I had done that,
1:00:05
Speaker 4: or I didn't realize that. And it takes the time
1:00:11
Speaker 4: that it takes. You know, we look back and say, oh,
1:00:15
Speaker 4: I could have woken up to this so much sooner.
1:00:19
Speaker 4: And then I could have gotten on with that next
1:00:23
Speaker 4: stage of life. I didn't have to wait until my mid-40s.
1:00:26
Speaker 4: I could have done that when I was 30, but
1:00:28
Speaker 4: you couldn't have. And I think in a way this
1:00:32
Speaker 4: is such a hard tale because it goes against our
1:00:37
Speaker 4: belief that we could think our way through things, we
1:00:41
Speaker 4: can solve problems, we can take action, we can make plans,
1:00:44
Speaker 4: we can do things. Whereas It takes a long time
1:00:49
Speaker 4: for us to come to conscious realization of a great
1:00:56
Speaker 4: many things in life. And when the time is right,
1:01:02
Speaker 4: we realize it.
1:01:04
Speaker 2: And maybe that's a great place to stop and switch
1:01:08
Speaker 2: to a dream.
1:01:10
Speaker 4: Before we go to our dreams, Let me say, as
1:01:15
Speaker 4: we do every week, a few words about Dream School.
1:01:20
Speaker 4: We do this on the podcast. People really are interested
1:01:24
Speaker 4: in it. It's the life of the psyche. And you
1:01:28
Speaker 4: can learn more about that if you want to by
1:01:30
Speaker 4: going to thisunionlife.com. Take a look at Dream School. Hello. Hello.
1:01:41
Speaker 2: Sorry for the interruption. I have just a couple of
1:01:44
Speaker 2: quick important announcements. First of all, we're offering 10% off
1:01:49
Speaker 2: Dream School now through December 31st. So if you've been
1:01:54
Speaker 2: interested in trying Dream School, you can do it now
1:01:57
Speaker 2: for 10% off by using the code HOLIDAY2023 at checkout.
1:02:01
Speaker 2: That's HOLIDAY2023 as you check out and HOLIDAY as a
1:02:04
Speaker 2: capital H. Also, I want to let you know that
1:02:12
Speaker 2: I have recently launched an online community for women where
1:02:16
Speaker 2: we talk about fairy tales. So this is a community
1:02:19
Speaker 2: of women who are on a journey of growth and empowerment.
1:02:23
Speaker 2: And as one of our members said, it's a like-minded
1:02:25
Speaker 2: community of wild women. And so far, the people over
1:02:29
Speaker 2: there are just awesome. We interact every day on a
1:02:33
Speaker 2: private platform. There's a live event each month with me
1:02:37
Speaker 2: where I go through the fairy tale and And it
1:02:39
Speaker 2: will be timed so that it's reasonable for people to
1:02:44
Speaker 2: attend from both coasts of the US as well as
1:02:48
Speaker 2: Europe and the UK. There are prompts for group discussion.
1:02:52
Speaker 2: I do a guided meditation every month. And as well,
1:02:56
Speaker 2: there's an audio recording of the story read by me.
1:02:59
Speaker 2: This month, we're finishing up Rumpelstiltskin. There's still time to
1:03:03
Speaker 2: get involved and read all of the great stuff going
1:03:06
Speaker 2: on as we discussed that amazing fairy tale. And on
1:03:10
Speaker 2: December 1st, we will be starting with another fairy tale
1:03:13
Speaker 2: that I love. I think I love all fairy tales
1:03:17
Speaker 2: called Prince Lindworm. So I hope you'll check it out.
1:03:20
Speaker 2: That address is spinning straw.com. And again, that's spinning straw,
1:03:27
Speaker 2: one word.com. Thanks. Okay.
1:03:34
Speaker 4: Okay. Here's our dream for this week. Our dreamer is
1:03:37
Speaker 4: a woman. She's 59. She's a cook. And the title
1:03:41
Speaker 4: that she's given this dream is Loving Betrayal. And here's
1:03:46
Speaker 4: the dream. I am in a house in France. I
1:03:51
Speaker 4: am having an affair with one of my father's old friends,
1:03:55
Speaker 4: someone I loved deeply. He was funny and charismatic. His
1:04:00
Speaker 4: wife was nearby chatting to someone. He was being kind
1:04:05
Speaker 4: and attentive to her. I took Steve into the house
1:04:09
Speaker 4: and hugged him. I explained that I was grateful he
1:04:13
Speaker 4: was being kind to his wife. I wanted him to know.
1:04:16
Speaker 4: We got into a car. He may have turned into
1:04:20
Speaker 4: my husband, I'm not sure. He was driving really erratically,
1:04:24
Speaker 4: but in full control. We drove up to the village
1:04:28
Speaker 4: wildly and exhilaratingly. past the cemetery where my mother and
1:04:33
Speaker 4: father are buried. For content, she says, my husband of
1:04:39
Speaker 4: 30 years has had an affair and is now with
1:04:43
Speaker 4: the woman he has secretly been seeing for six years.
1:04:47
Speaker 4: My mother and father were never keen on him. He
1:04:50
Speaker 4: has left me because we lived too close to my family.
1:04:54
Speaker 4: and he could not build his castle with me. We
1:04:58
Speaker 4: had a deep love and his betrayal has devastated me.
1:05:02
Speaker 4: I'm anxious that he has hidden sides to him that
1:05:06
Speaker 4: I have stupidly been blind to. The main feelings in
1:05:11
Speaker 4: the dream, she says, were kindness, love and acceptance. And
1:05:18
Speaker 4: for additional context, she says, My father's old friend reminds
1:05:23
Speaker 4: me of my husband. One thing I forgot to say.
1:05:26
Speaker 4: In the morning, the first thing that appeared on Facebook
1:05:30
Speaker 4: minutes after waking was a post from my father's friend
1:05:34
Speaker 4: who died 25 years ago from his son. I have
1:05:38
Speaker 4: not seen a post from him in years.
1:05:43
Speaker 2: So this dream has a really poignant context, which is
1:05:47
Speaker 2: this woman has been devastated by this person deep, deep trail.
1:05:50
Speaker 2: And it is, yeah, and it's very, you know, we
1:05:56
Speaker 2: look to our dreams often, at least I do, in
1:05:58
Speaker 2: times of distress, and they often produce very cryptic messages
1:06:04
Speaker 2: for us. Sometimes they produce these kind of pearls of comfort,
1:06:11
Speaker 2: but sometimes they produce images like this, where we think, well,
1:06:15
Speaker 2: I know there's a message here, and I just What
1:06:19
Speaker 2: could it be? But the psyche has something to say
1:06:22
Speaker 2: about this betrayal. And let's see if we can discern
1:06:28
Speaker 2: maybe partly what it is.
1:06:32
Speaker 3: One of the things that can be very painful to hold,
1:06:36
Speaker 3: particularly in the beginning of a devastating process, is how
1:06:43
Speaker 3: our conscious experience immediately constellates its opposite in some nodal
1:06:49
Speaker 3: point in the unconscious. So even as we are devastated
1:06:56
Speaker 3: at learning that we have been betrayed, and that's a fact,
1:07:01
Speaker 3: and that requires this painful change of feeling and understanding
1:07:06
Speaker 3: and life circumstance, but somewhere in the unconscious, there is
1:07:12
Speaker 3: a nodal image of being the betrayer, even as we
1:07:16
Speaker 3: are betrayed. Jung talks about these pairs of opposites, that
1:07:23
Speaker 3: all sides of our lived experience vibrate, and they must.
1:07:28
Speaker 3: Every time we're victimized, there is a tiny image of
1:07:32
Speaker 3: a perpetrator in the unconscious. Every time we perpetrate, there
1:07:36
Speaker 3: is a tiny image of a victim in our own unconscious,
1:07:40
Speaker 3: as all possibilities do. We're greedy, and there's a bit
1:07:45
Speaker 3: of benevolence inside of us. We're charitable. There's a point
1:07:48
Speaker 3: of greed somewhere that's ignited in the unconscious. And so
1:07:55
Speaker 3: in this dream, the dreamer has an opportunity to experience
1:08:00
Speaker 3: herself as the dream ego, being the one who is
1:08:04
Speaker 3: participating in the betrayal. And to even conceive that such
1:08:10
Speaker 3: a betrayal is still carried out in this state of love.
1:08:15
Speaker 3: And she deeply loves this man who she's having an
1:08:19
Speaker 3: affair with, or she's facilitating this betrayal of his wife.
1:08:24
Speaker 3: Something that's very, very difficult to understand when we are
1:08:28
Speaker 3: being left, that perhaps our spouse is actually in some
1:08:33
Speaker 3: deep state of love of the other person that compels
1:08:37
Speaker 3: them to act in a way that is unimaginable to
1:08:40
Speaker 3: those of us who are being left behind.
1:08:42
Speaker 4: You know, um, You've sparked some of my thoughts, Joseph.
1:08:49
Speaker 4: And I'm also thinking how well this dream kind of
1:08:53
Speaker 4: maps on to, you know, the fairy tale that we
1:08:56
Speaker 4: were talking about. that you know there was a period
1:09:00
Speaker 4: of six years where this woman's husband was having an
1:09:03
Speaker 4: affair and there was a kind of somnolence a kind
1:09:08
Speaker 4: of innocence and not knowing and then her feelings and
1:09:12
Speaker 4: waking life understandably of a feeling just devastated but here's
1:09:18
Speaker 4: the dream where There's life. Dreamy goes in France. She's
1:09:24
Speaker 4: having an affair, someone she really loves deeply. Then maybe
1:09:30
Speaker 4: he turns into her husband. She's not sure. They're driving wildly, erratically.
1:09:37
Speaker 4: He's driving, but in full control. That part of her psyche.
1:09:43
Speaker 4: And then they go past the cemetery where the parental
1:09:47
Speaker 4: complexes are. mother and father are buried. But in this dream,
1:09:52
Speaker 4: there's life. The dream ego is in love and exhilarated
1:10:02
Speaker 4: in contrast to her waking state of betrayal and devastation.
1:10:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good point. They're both good points. I mean,
1:10:13
Speaker 2: so one of the questions that I have about this
1:10:15
Speaker 2: dream is there's something about the parents. That feels really important.
1:10:19
Speaker 2: So the animus, the inner masculine potential shows up as
1:10:25
Speaker 2: this image of her father's good friend. And then the
1:10:30
Speaker 2: end of the dream takes us past the cemetery where
1:10:32
Speaker 2: her parents are buried. And then in her associations, she says...
1:10:36
Speaker 2: And I thought this was really important. She says... Her
1:10:42
Speaker 2: parents never really liked her husband.
1:10:45
Speaker 4: Yes.
1:10:47
Speaker 2: And that he left because they lived too close to
1:10:51
Speaker 2: her family. So I don't know quite what to do
1:10:54
Speaker 2: about this, but there's some... I mean, I guess I
1:10:56
Speaker 2: could be of two minds about it. And I'm really
1:11:00
Speaker 2: just sort of thinking out loud here. But first of all,
1:11:03
Speaker 2: it struck me that her parents were never crazy about him.
1:11:05
Speaker 2: Because that could be either that her parents... you know,
1:11:11
Speaker 2: kind of had an intuition or an intimation that he
1:11:14
Speaker 2: might not be such a great guy. Or it could
1:11:19
Speaker 2: be that there was a way that she wasn't able
1:11:24
Speaker 2: to psychologically separate from her parents. And her parents may
1:11:29
Speaker 2: not have wanted her to psychologically separate, so they kind
1:11:32
Speaker 2: of whispered a little poison in her ear about the husband.
1:11:35
Speaker 2: I'm just making this up, absolutely making it up. And
1:11:39
Speaker 2: then it's interesting to me that the husband kind of said,
1:11:42
Speaker 2: we're too attached to your family. So somehow, I don't
1:11:49
Speaker 2: quite know which way to go with it, but I'm
1:11:51
Speaker 2: aware that there's something important here about is the libido
1:11:58
Speaker 2: attached to the father or to the husband? And has
1:12:02
Speaker 2: there been a kind of battle the whole marriage about that?
1:12:08
Speaker 2: And it would seem in a way that she's kind
1:12:12
Speaker 2: of giving allegiance maybe more to the parental complexes and
1:12:18
Speaker 2: their memory in choosing to have this affair with her
1:12:22
Speaker 2: father's friend. But I don't know.
1:12:25
Speaker 4: And that, I think, lifts up especially the father complex.
1:12:31
Speaker 4: That in the dream, the affair is with one of
1:12:35
Speaker 4: the father's old friends. It's somebody who's older and who
1:12:40
Speaker 4: is somehow associated with the father. And then, you know,
1:12:45
Speaker 4: the wild affair and driving and so on. But he
1:12:48
Speaker 4: could not build his castle with me is what she says.
1:12:53
Speaker 4: So I'm building on your idea, Lisa, of maybe there
1:12:57
Speaker 4: was an attachment there that was, you know, especially to
1:13:01
Speaker 4: the father that prevented the husband from forging an inner home,
1:13:09
Speaker 4: a separate dwelling, metaphorically speaking, with her. I don't think
1:13:15
Speaker 4: it's the geographic proximity that was the problem. It was
1:13:20
Speaker 4: the psychological attachment or inability to separate that was the problem.
1:13:27
Speaker 2: We don't know, obviously. We are just speculating. Yes, we are.
1:13:31
Speaker 4: That's exactly right.
1:13:34
Speaker 3: So I'm thinking, Lisa, about your.
1:13:38
Speaker 3: Idea that the dream ego could have been holding some
1:13:45
Speaker 3: ambivalence that her parents felt about her being married at all,
1:13:49
Speaker 3: or perhaps her being married to this fellow, and what
1:13:53
Speaker 3: potentially poisonous effect that may have had on the relationship.
1:13:58
Speaker 3: And then I'm looking at the dream and asking, well,
1:14:01
Speaker 3: where is the medicine for that in the dream symbolism?
1:14:05
Speaker 3: So One bit of medicine could be that she drives
1:14:12
Speaker 3: past the cemetery where her mother and father are buried.
1:14:16
Speaker 3: And so, in its subtle way, this is a dream
1:14:21
Speaker 3: maker trying to communicate that whatever power that the parents had,
1:14:29
Speaker 3: whatever attitudes that she may have consciously or unconsciously inherited
1:14:34
Speaker 3: from her parents, that they are long gone, that that
1:14:38
Speaker 3: they've lost their potency and that old things must pass away,
1:14:43
Speaker 3: old attitudes, old beliefs, the influences of past generations. And
1:14:51
Speaker 3: it's a subtle kind of signal, but it makes sense.
1:14:55
Speaker 2: I like it. And I think interestingly, you know, sort
1:14:58
Speaker 2: of spatially in the dream, the village, the place where
1:15:01
Speaker 2: they're going is beyond the cemetery. So, I mean, it's
1:15:06
Speaker 2: a little cryptic, this dream.
1:15:08
Speaker 3: It is, it's subtle. And the feelings in the dream
1:15:12
Speaker 3: are kindness, love, and acceptance. So if we even step
1:15:17
Speaker 3: away from the sequencing of the images, but we say,
1:15:21
Speaker 3: as she is grieving and still working through the loss
1:15:26
Speaker 3: and the betrayal, that part of the medicine of the
1:15:29
Speaker 3: self is to give her this dose of kindness, a
1:15:33
Speaker 3: dose of love, and a dose of acceptance. And isn't
1:15:37
Speaker 3: that so much of what we would pray for when
1:15:42
Speaker 3: we are moving through a devastating loss or a devastating change,
1:15:48
Speaker 3: that there is still kindness in the world, that she
1:15:51
Speaker 3: is still loved and capable of loving, and that she
1:15:54
Speaker 3: has the power to accept this kind of radical change
1:15:58
Speaker 3: of structure in herself and in her environment.
1:16:02
Speaker 2: Which is sort of further imaged, Joseph, with this thing
1:16:07
Speaker 2: that happens where she's really happy that Steve is being
1:16:13
Speaker 2: kind to his wife. She's grateful that there's kindness. And
1:16:17
Speaker 2: so there's a sense that there could be a kind
1:16:20
Speaker 2: of coming together of the opposites somehow, as painful as
1:16:24
Speaker 2: this territory is.
1:16:27
Speaker 4: And I love what you mentioned earlier, that they're actually
1:16:31
Speaker 4: going to the village to where there's life, where there's community, relationship, etc.
1:16:39
Speaker 4: They're going past the cemetery. So that is in the
1:16:44
Speaker 4: past as they go past and that the telos, the
1:16:48
Speaker 4: forward direction of the dream is to new life in
1:16:53
Speaker 4: the village.
1:16:54
Speaker 2: To the village, yeah.
1:16:56
Speaker 3: I would also introduce one extremely psychologically complicated piece that
1:17:03
Speaker 3: Over the years that I've worked with analysis, as have
1:17:07
Speaker 3: we all, and I've worked, of course, with individuals, male
1:17:12
Speaker 3: and female, who have either instigated or have been in
1:17:16
Speaker 3: an affair while they've been married. And the dream puts
1:17:20
Speaker 3: forward this very complicated dynamic that a spouse can love
1:17:27
Speaker 3: their spouse even as they love the person they're having
1:17:31
Speaker 3: an affair with. That is very complicated to understand. I'm
1:17:37
Speaker 3: not suggesting that that sanctions the betrayal, but it speaks
1:17:42
Speaker 3: to how complicated the human heart is. And so even
1:17:46
Speaker 3: as the dream ego is having an affair, she's with
1:17:50
Speaker 3: a man whom she loves and who loves her, and
1:17:54
Speaker 3: he seems to love his wife and treats her kindly
1:17:59
Speaker 3: in the context. That speaks to the very complicated realities
1:18:07
Speaker 3: of love and cultural expectations and what the norms are
1:18:14
Speaker 3: within cultures and the difficulty that we sometimes find ourselves
1:18:20
Speaker 3: in of funneling our love into a single primary relationship
1:18:27
Speaker 3: and how complicated that is, although we do expect that
1:18:30
Speaker 3: of our spouses, of course. And that she's being introduced
1:18:34
Speaker 3: to that larger, complicated dynamic.
1:18:38
Speaker 2: And maybe just to turn toward a slightly more kind
1:18:43
Speaker 2: of strictly psychological view of the dream, which I think
1:18:46
Speaker 2: picks up on something you said earlier, Deb, which I
1:18:49
Speaker 2: really like. These are all inner figures. If Steve is
1:18:55
Speaker 2: an inner figure, a figure of her unrealized potential, perhaps,
1:19:01
Speaker 2: that's part of what the animus is. She is exhilaratingly
1:19:06
Speaker 2: aligned with it. And she can also accept the shadow
1:19:11
Speaker 2: part of herself. And that would be Steve's wife. And
1:19:20
Speaker 2: all parts of the psyche are in harmony. And so
1:19:24
Speaker 2: that explains the positive feelings in the dream and the
1:19:28
Speaker 2: sense that there is more life.
1:19:33
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1:20:02
Speaker 2: Thank you.