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The Descent: A Jungian Exploration of the Underworld · This Jungian Life Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: At some point, if we've had sort of good enough parents,
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: childhood was a time of relative innocence. And there will
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: come a moment when each of us gets abducted into
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Hades and we understand the dark side of life. Our
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: innocence is sacrificed and we are no longer merely our
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: parents' child. but we take on a unique individual sense.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: But our life, like Persephone's, is forever split. We will
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: always have to reckon with what it means to have
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: spent time in the underworld.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst in Cape Cod.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: In every culture, in every religious system, there's some concept
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: of the underworld. Sometimes that's a place. Sometimes it is underground.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it's somewhere else. It's where the dead go. And
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: depending on the culture and the mythology, the rules around
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: it are really different. The kind of place it is
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: might vary a lot. What happens there may be different.
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  Speaker 1: But it's always very important and mysterious. And there are
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: some common themes in all of these mythologies. So today
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: we're going to circumambulate this notion of the underworld, paying
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: particular attention to what it might mean for us contemplating
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: it psychologically. What can we understand about ourselves as we
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: look at this mythology of the underworld?
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  Speaker 3: It's such a huge concept, and I'm always struck by
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: how unappealing the underworld is. Dark, it's usually cold. It
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  Speaker 3: feels like a void. There's no wind. There are no
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: signs of life.
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  Speaker 1: And yet....
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: The underworld is presided over by some kind of a
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  Speaker 3: deity or more than one deity. And there's some usual
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  Speaker 3: concept of some kind of afterlife, shades, human forms in
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: some way that are kind of alive but not really.
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  Speaker 3: And I was especially struck when I read children's version
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: of Greek myths by the fact that some figures down
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: there in Hades did retain some semblance of consciousness. Tiresias,
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  Speaker 3: who was a wisdom figure in his life on Earth,
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  Speaker 3: and there was somebody else whose name doesn't come right
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  Speaker 3: to mind. But What are we talking about here? A
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: place that kind of has life where something exists, but
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  Speaker 3: what's missing? And it's a mystery. And we're sort of
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: universally afraid to go there. For the most part, the
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: living cannot go there. We'll get to that. There are
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  Speaker 3: some heroes and mythical figures who literally go to hell
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  Speaker 3: and back. But for the most part, no. So I
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: know we're on the cusp of, what does this mean psychologically?
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, let's just sort of surface, no pun intended,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: some imagery from the underworld. I was really lucky last
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: summer to be able to go to these Etruscan tombs
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  Speaker 1: from the 4th century BC. They're known as, it's known
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  Speaker 1: as the Tomb of the Infernal Chariot. And the imagery
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  Speaker 1: from it is just incredible. There's this man with fiery
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: red hair driving this chariot. And he's been identified as
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  Speaker 1: sort of the Etruscan counterpart of Charon. who ferries the
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  Speaker 1: dead across the River Styx. And one of the parts
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  Speaker 1: that just moved me so much in that tomb, so
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: you go down into the tomb to see these drawings,
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  Speaker 1: there's this incredible image of a father, a son, newly dead,
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  Speaker 1: greeting his deceased father.
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  Speaker 3: It's so moving.
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  Speaker 1: They're reaching toward, I've got it up right now, I'm
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: looking at it, they're reaching toward one another, they're smiling,
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  Speaker 1: and it's an image of being reunited with your deceased
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  Speaker 1: father in the underworld. So part of what might happen
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  Speaker 1: in some underworld scenarios, and of course this is, you know,
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  Speaker 1: the sort of the Christian idea of the underworld, which
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  Speaker 1: we don't think of as being the underworld, but But
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  Speaker 1: there's this notion that we get to see our deceased
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  Speaker 1: loved ones. We reunite with people we've lost. It was
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  Speaker 1: so moving to see that expressed across the centuries, that
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  Speaker 1: hope that we would find again someone that we really loved.
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  Speaker 1: Then there is Norse mythology, where the underworld is known
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  Speaker 1: as Hel or sometimes Helheim. You'll recognize that word. According
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  Speaker 1: to some scholars, you know, Norse hell isn't that much different.
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  Speaker 1: You kind of go down there and you do all
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  Speaker 1: the things that you did up here. You eat and
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  Speaker 1: you sleep and you fight and all that stuff. It's
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  Speaker 1: just that you're down there now.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, no, the beat goes on.
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  Speaker 4: But it's over.
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  Speaker 1: It's ruled over by the goddess hell. And she is
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  Speaker 1: sometimes pictured as being half living and a half rotting corpse.
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  Speaker 1: There's no sense that this is a punishment to go there,
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  Speaker 1: by the way. I mean, in the Christian conception of hell,
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  Speaker 1: it's punishment.
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  Speaker 4: For poor behavior while you're alive.
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  Speaker 1: But in Norse mythology, it's just one of the places
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  Speaker 1: that you might wind up is hell. And it's not
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  Speaker 1: even so bad. It's kind of neutral to positive. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: And very much the same case with Greek mythology, which
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  Speaker 3: just lays out a landscape of That when you die,
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  Speaker 3: you have to be ferried across the river Styx by Charon.
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  Speaker 3: And then you face the gates of hell that are
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  Speaker 3: guarded by the three-headed dog Cerberus. So we have a
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  Speaker 3: lot of boundaries here. It's hard to get there. You
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  Speaker 3: have to pay the ferryman a coin to take you
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  Speaker 3: across the river. But it's simply what happens next, regardless
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  Speaker 3: of how supposedly virtuous a life you've had or not,
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  Speaker 3: except for Tiresias and one or two other people who
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  Speaker 3: I think were spared the fate of simply being shades
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  Speaker 3: a la zombies.
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  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
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  Speaker 3: Because they had attained such a level of consciousness in
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  Speaker 3: their time on the surface of the earth, that they
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  Speaker 3: were able to hold on to some part of ego
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  Speaker 3: and awareness.
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  Speaker 1: Right, because for the most part in Greek mythology, you
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  Speaker 1: do kind of lose your personhood when you become a shade,
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  Speaker 1: which is interesting. You're You're not what you used to be.
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  Speaker 1: You're sort of a pale version of it. And again,
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  Speaker 1: that varies from one mythology to another, where sometimes, you know,
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  Speaker 1: as with the Norse, you know, it's just you. You're
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  Speaker 1: just down somewhere else doing your thing. But one of
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  Speaker 1: the things, Deb, you mentioned these boundaries, and that is
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  Speaker 1: a consistent theme that occurs in most of these mythologies.
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  Speaker 1: And interestingly enough, in many mythologies, that borderland between the
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  Speaker 1: living and dead is guarded by a dog. As you said,
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  Speaker 1: it's Cerberus in Greek mythology and Norse mythology. That role
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  Speaker 1: is sometimes also played by a dog. And of course,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: we have Anubis in Egyptian mythology. I want to talk
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  Speaker 1: a little bit about Mayan mythology, where the underworld is
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  Speaker 1: known as Xibalba. And again, it is underground. And The
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  Speaker 1: entrance was sometimes believed to be a cave. There was
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  Speaker 1: a certain cave near Coba, which is, I think, in
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  Speaker 1: modern-day Guatemala. I think it's Guatemala. It's like, oh, that's
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  Speaker 1: the entrance to the underworld. And there are various places
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  Speaker 1: like that in the world that were believed to be
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  Speaker 1: the entrance to the underworld. The Milky Way was sometimes
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  Speaker 1: seen as the road to Xibalba. And one of the
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  Speaker 1: things in Mayan culture that was so interesting is the
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  Speaker 1: sacred ball game that they would play was seen as
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  Speaker 1: kind of a portal to the underworld. And it's a
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  Speaker 1: place where you might engage the forces of the underworld.
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  Speaker 1: And some of the important stories in the Popol Vuh
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  Speaker 1: involved playing of this game and the heroes have to
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  Speaker 1: go to the underworld and there they play the game
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  Speaker 1: with the underworld gods. When the Mayans play this game,
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  Speaker 1: In actuality, there's speculation that there was also human sacrifice.
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes you believe that the team that lost got sacrificed.
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes it's said also that the captain of the team
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  Speaker 1: who won was sacrificed, had chopped off, and that that
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  Speaker 1: was a great honor. And some of the iconography shows
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  Speaker 1: the players playing the ball with the head. Someone who's
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  Speaker 1: been sacrificed probably didn't happen like that. But very... very
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  Speaker 1: much right on the cusp of this borderland between life
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  Speaker 1: and death. The ballgame was an important part of that iconography.
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  Speaker 1: But to get to Xibalba, there were several barriers. First,
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  Speaker 1: there was a river of scorpions. Then there was a
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  Speaker 1: river of blood. Then there was a river of pus.
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  Speaker 1: And down there, there is this place which was It
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  Speaker 1: was a palace, and there was a ball court, and
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  Speaker 1: it was ruled over by multiple underworld gods.
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  Speaker 3: So here we have, you know, the themes, of course,
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  Speaker 3: of death and what happens next. But we also have
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  Speaker 3: the theme of descent. Yeah. You know, it's the underworld.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Even, you know, in Norse mythology, if it's just, it
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  Speaker 3: can be North, but it's also underground. So we are
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  Speaker 3: talking about a descent into the unconscious and like death
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  Speaker 3: and not knowing exactly what happens next. There are also
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  Speaker 3: psychological descents into the unconscious that can also introduce us
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  Speaker 3: to a very strange, dark, topsy-turvy world that can be
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  Speaker 3: scary and that does not operate according to the rules
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  Speaker 3: of consciousness.
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  Speaker 4: That's right. That's right.
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  Speaker 1: It is a distinct realm where values are reversed. In
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  Speaker 1: the underworld, psychologically speaking, what is valued in the upper
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  Speaker 1: world of consciousness is not the same thing that is
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  Speaker 1: valued in the lower world. And, you know, James Hellman
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  Speaker 1: has written this difficult, wonderfully chewy book called The Dream
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  Speaker 1: in the Underworld. And I was dipping back into it.
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  Speaker 1: But he makes the point that there is a reversal
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  Speaker 1: of values. And he talks about how the Egyptians believed
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  Speaker 1: that the world below was reversed and that people literally
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  Speaker 1: walked upside down. So what matters up here is not
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  Speaker 1: the same thing that matters down there. And that made
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  Speaker 1: me think of a sort of a small personal story
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  Speaker 1: that I think is right. And And I know this
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  Speaker 1: also from working with people on their dreams that, you know,
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  Speaker 1: a lot of times what we are worried about, what
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  Speaker 1: the ego is fretting over, is not what the unconscious
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  Speaker 1: cares about. So, you know, you might be very worried
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  Speaker 1: about a problem at work.
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  Speaker 4: You have a dream.
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  Speaker 1: You bring the dream into my office and you tell
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  Speaker 1: me the dream and you say, I think it means
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  Speaker 1: my boss is going to get fired. And I might say,
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  Speaker 1: I'm not sure that's what that dream says. If I
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: have a strong intimation that something else is going on
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: in the dream, it's sort of like, I think the
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  Speaker 1: dream is commenting on something completely different. That is not uncommon,
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  Speaker 1: that what the unconscious thinks or cares about, I shouldn't
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: say the unconscious thinks, what the unconscious, when it weighs in,
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  Speaker 1: that it has something really different to share, that it
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  Speaker 1: cares about. that it values something really different. So here's
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  Speaker 1: my small personal story about this, which is when I
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: was taking the exams in analytic training, I had passed
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: every exam, I had one more to take, and it
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  Speaker 1: was the dream exam. And I woke up and I
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: had this whole plan about, oh, I'm going to do
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  Speaker 1: yoga then, and then I'm going to study some more then,
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  Speaker 1: and then I'm going to take a shower then, and whatever.
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  Speaker 1: And I woke up and of course, like when you
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: wake up the morning to take the dream exam, you
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  Speaker 1: should definitely pay attention to your dreams. So I had
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: this dream and it was so simple. It was, there's
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: been a children's shoe sale at like a discount shoe place.
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  Speaker 1: And I've arrived too late and everything's a mess. It's
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  Speaker 1: all in disarray. And there basically are no more good
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: pairs of shoes to buy. You know, so this is
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: like a, like a sort of pay less shoe store
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  Speaker 1: kind of thing. And it's just, it's just, it's a mess.
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  Speaker 1: I got there too late. So I was like, God,
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  Speaker 1: what does that mean? And I thought, I got there
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  Speaker 1: too late. So I rechecked the exam schedule. And instead of,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: somehow I had it in my head that the exam
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: was at 2.30 and I was all prepped to get
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  Speaker 1: there at 2.30.
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  Speaker 4: The exam was at one.
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  Speaker 1: And if I hadn't rechecked the schedule, I would not
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: have gone to the exam on time and I would
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  Speaker 1: have failed. So I was very relieved that my dream
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  Speaker 1: maker kind of tapped me on the shoulder and said,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: you don't want to arrive too late. That would be
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: a mess. But I think that there's also some other
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: wisdom in the dream, which is my conscious ego was
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: focused on passing that exam with every ounce of attention
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: that I had. my unconscious was saying, eh, it's really
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: not that big a deal. It's just like a discount
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: shoe sale. It would be a shame to miss it,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: but it's hardly a matter of life and death. So
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: that for me is, it's just an image of that
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  Speaker 1: differentiation we're talking about between what the ego values in
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: the daylight world versus the What is.
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  Speaker 4: Valued in the underworld?
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  Speaker 1: What really matters to psyche, not just to ego?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, Jung says many times that the unconscious is autonomous.
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  Speaker 3: And that kind of relates to the underworld because we
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: can be a little bit abducted into some realm that
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: we can experience in a dream like you did that
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: has seemingly nothing to do with what I want and
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: what I'm interested in and what I need. And I
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: remember being in such a tough place in my first analysis,
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: the first of 10 or 11, I think. I've lost count,
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: just joking. But we'd moved and I was unhappy and
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: my job wasn't working out and my husband was distracted
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: and all caught up in his new job. And I
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: didn't like, I was just a mess. And boy, did
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: I ever want some help. And I went to therapy
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: with a Jungian-oriented therapist at that time. And I'm thinking, okay,
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: we're going to do dreams. And, and My dreams are
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: going to tell me, you know, I should, you know,
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: look for a different job or anything. Please. I'm having
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: a hard time here.
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  Speaker 4: Oh, no.
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  Speaker 3: I dreamt about sea turtles. I dreamt about strange animals.
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: I dreamt about looking down on the coast of South
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: America from a small plane piloted by one of our
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: seminar analysts. I dreamt about, you name it, I dreamt it,
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: but not anything that had to do with my actual
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: life situation because psyche wasn't interested in that. Couldn't have
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: cared less about my difficult boss and tough job and
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: a house I didn't especially like and.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: And, and.
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  Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
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  Speaker 3: So there it is, a way of... sort of elaborating
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: what you said before about in Egyptian mythology, things are
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: upside down from the viewpoint of waking consciousness and ego,
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: a whole different agenda.
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: Mm-hmm, yeah.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what's garbage above. And I love what Hillman talks about.
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  Speaker 1: He talks about day residue as kind of garbage. But
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: it gets consecrated in the underworld of dreaming and comes
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: forth as something really valuable. So I love that.
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: I'm thinking that I want to go to the harder,
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: harsher part of underworld and Just a quick word about,
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: you know, I'm going to turn to the myth of
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: the abduction of Corrie, the maiden, by Hades. But it's
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: often said that myths are the dreams of a culture
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: and individual dreams are personal myths. So they tap into
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: the same place in the unconscious, a different realm. where
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: different truths are portrayed. And I don't want to minimize
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: the power of the unconscious and the power of the
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: underworld to be scary as hell, the Norse name for
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: the underworld, as well as our own. So I'm just
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: going to read something from Hellman about this myth that
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: I think is sort of the Ur-myth about the... the
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: difficulties of the underworld. The intervention of Hades turns the
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: world upside down. The point of view of life ceases.
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: Now phenomena are not only seen through the eyes of
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: Eros and human life and love, but also through Thanatos,
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: their cold, unmoving depths, unconnected to life. By turning matters
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: upside down, In this way, we participate in Hades rape,
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: which is, let us remember, not just psychopathy, but a
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: central initiatory mystery in the Eleusis myths. This rape threatens
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: the intact psychological system that takes its strength from life,
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: holding to human relationships and the natural ways of Demeter's daughter.
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: Rape moves the Persephone soul from the being of Demeter's
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: daughter to the being of Hades' wife, from the natural
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: being of generation, what is given to a daughter by
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: mothering life, to the psychic being of marriage with what
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: is alien, different, and is not given. The experience of
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: the underworld is overwhelming and must be made. This style
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: of the underworld experience is overwhelming. It comes as violation,
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: dragging one out of life and into the kingdom of
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: the Orphic hymn that Pluto describes as void of day.
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: So it's often said on Greek epitaphs that entering Hades
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: is leaving the sweet sunlight. And aspects of the psychological
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: mystery of Eleusis still take place in the soul today.
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: And in the myth, Demeter's daughter, the goddess of growth
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: and growing things and grain, is just abducted. Hades comes
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: roaring up from the underworld, snatches her out of a
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: field of flowers, and takes her down to the underworld.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: Ugh.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: That myth is so complex, and there's so many different
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: ways to understand it, but I do want to lean
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: into one possible way of understanding it for one second.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: So Corrie is abducted when she's a very young woman,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: you know, and she doesn't have much specificity. The Homeric
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: hymn to Demeter just describes her as having slender ankles.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: That's about all we know of her, is that she
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: has slender ankles. But once she becomes the wife of Hades,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: she is Persephone, queen of the underworld. So she really...
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: develops gravitas and power, actually, in the course of that descent.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: But I want to say something else that I think
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: is probably true for all of us. At some point,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: if we've had sort of good enough parents, childhood was
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: a time of relative innocence. And there will come a
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: moment when each of us gets abducted into Hades and
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: and we understand the dark side of life. Our innocence
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: is sacrificed, and we are no longer pretty adornments or
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: merely our parents' child, but we take on a unique
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: individual sense. But our life, like Persephone's, is forever split.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: We will always have to reckon with what it means
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: to have spent time in the underworld. So I suppose
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: I'm really lifting up that one of the ways to
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: understand that myth is a kind of fundamental loss of
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: innocence that changes us And although there's a tragedy in that,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: it also gives us weight, authority, and individuality.
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: I'm thinking of everything you've just said and going back
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: to Hillman, who's one among many, is describing it as initiatory.
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: And it is a departure from innocence. And it's traumatic.
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's pretty awful to be abducted and then raped.
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: I mean, good heavens. And yet it is also the
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: source of her empowerment to be one of the most
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: powerful gods, queen of the underworld. People would plead and
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: visit and petition her for, you know, for favors or
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: gifts or things of that nature.
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: She was always spoken about with great reverence.
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: Yes. So I think one of these initiatory journeys that
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: we make is from childhood into adulthood, the protected realm,
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: if we've had good enough parents. But at least it's
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: the known world where things make sense.
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: There's an order.
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: This is how it is. And what do we do
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: when we are abducted like that by events that we
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: did not choose? And nobody would say it was a
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: great idea to be, everybody should be abducted and raped
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: in the underworld.
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: No, no, no, no, no.
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: But what do we make of it? And how do
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: we acknowledge and come to terms with that kind of darkness?
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: And the hope is we will come to a more
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: Persephone-like sense of self and empowerment, but we really don't
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: know what we're going to encounter in the underworld. And
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: many people get dragged under.
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, and, you know, that's one of the
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: kind of main points.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: You know, I think Heraclitus has this quote about, you know,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: you can't, you can't know what's going to happen in
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: the underworld. And you can't even imagine. He says something
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: like that. It is a very different thing. And, you know,
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Hillman spends some time differentiating between underground and underworld. That
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: the underground is maybe more familiar, but the underworld is
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: a totally different place, like we've been saying. And you
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: can't fathom it. But it is interesting, Deb, and you
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: referenced this before, that there are many mythologems of people traveling,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: doing the impossible, traveling to the underworld, and then somehow
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: coming back. And we can think of many, many different examples.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: Oh, there's a whole list. There is Orpheus, who was
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: a gifted musician. who lost his fiancée or new bride,
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: who was bitten by a little snake. And the gods
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: of the underworld revered him because of his special talent
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: for music. And they said, well, okay, it really matters
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: to you.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: So, okay.
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: Just for you, we will return Eurydice to the upper world.
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: You come down. And claim her and then go back
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: up and she will follow behind you. And you must
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: not turn around. This is the same as Lot and
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: his wife leaving Babylon. Am I right about that? The
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: Tower of Babel, sorry. And of course he turns around
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: and then she is returned immediately to the underworld. Hermes
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: is the only god. As a child, he was depicted
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: in my books as having wings on his wrists and
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: wings on his ankles or the heels of his feet.
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: And he is the only god who could traverse all
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: three realms. We've already talked about Cori, who became Persephone.
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: Odysseus went into the underworld. spoke with Tiresias and returned. Psyche,
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: in the myth of Psyche and Amor, at the very end,
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: does all of the ritual things to cross the river
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: and get through past the dogs guarding the gates in
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: order to get a beauty box from Persephone. Her last
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: task set to her by Aphrodite. And so she goes
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: to the underworld and gets the box and comes back.
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: And Inanna goes down to the underworld for three days,
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: hanging on a hook and returns. So what do we
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: make of all these stories of people who go down
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: to the depths and return? and those who can't.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, it is sort of the great taboo in
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: a way. By the way, Lot and his wife, that
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: was Sodom and Gomorrah. They were fleeing the destruction of
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: Sodom and Gomorrah.
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: Oh, thank you.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: And there are many others, too. There's examples from Hinduism.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: Just about every culture has these stories of katabasis, of
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: descent to the underworld and then return. It It's okay
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: to do it if you're a god. You can do
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: it if you're Hermes. At least some gods can.
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: Some gods, but it's forbidden to most of the gods.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. There's a story, and I don't know, Deb,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: maybe you know where it comes from, but of Christ
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: descending to the underworld, that it's not in the Gospels,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: But I know that that's part of the kind of mythology,
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: the kind of Christian mythology. I wish I knew more
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: about that.
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: Islam.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: Odin goes down to the underworld. Baldur goes down to
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: the underworld. Hercules goes down to the underworld. But many
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: of these trips end, or at least complicated, let's say.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: Orpheus is tragic because he does turn around and he
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: does not manage. to rescue Eurydice. But, you know, Psyche
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: does okay. She kind of falls, she breaks the rule,
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: she falls asleep down there, but then she gets rescued.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: So it kind of depends, but boy, it's one of
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: the ultimate taboos in mythology.
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: It seems to be, see if this adds up, that
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: there were individuals, whether gods or humans, who could make
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: the descent, And return. But what cannot happen is bringing
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: someone who is dead back to life. Mm-hmm. Sorry, team,
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: that that cannot be changed, although there are a few,
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: there are some exceptions. But what does it take, literally,
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: to go to hell and back that it's imaged in
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: all these ways that we just mentioned? But what about
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: psychological correlates to this? And, of course, I'm thinking about
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: mental illness.
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: It's awful.
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: Abducted absolutely into the underworld of depression or delusion or many,
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: many other things. And I was with a friend once.
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: who out of nowhere experienced a terrible depression. I can't
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: tell you how conscious, healthy, you know, all the rest
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: of it. And it arrived. And it did also, thank God, disappear.
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: But it is palpable to be with somebody going through that.
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: And It is an abduction. Here's somebody who, quote, knows better.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: And, I mean, being abducted, I mean, that's a very
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: poignant example, Deb. And I'm thinking of other times when
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: we've been abducted into the underworld, when maybe it's something
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: like a depression, but sometimes it's life circumstances, something terrible,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: a terrible tragedy befalls us. And our life, which was,
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: you know, happy and satisfying kind of overnight. You know,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: you think about, you know, the phone call, whether it's
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: a phone call from the doctor's office or you've been
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: married for 30 years and your spouse comes home and
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: this happens. This happens. Just happened to someone in my life.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: You know, the spouse comes home and says, I'm done.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: And you thought you had one life, and literally within
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: the space of an hour, you're living a different life.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: There are many different versions of the underworld, and I
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: think that what we know about them all is that
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: you are forever changed. which goes to the point I
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: made earlier about Persephone. You know, Inanna goes to the underworld.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: She spends some time with her terribly bitchy sister, Ereshkigal, who,
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: you know, kills her and hangs her in a meat bag.
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: I mean, you know. But when she comes back up,
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: she is not the same.
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: There's a book that I notice every week is on
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: the bestseller list, New York Times list, And it's written
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: by a woman named Belle Burden, and it's entitled Strangers.
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: And it's about that exact situation you just mentioned, Lisa.
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: Married for, I don't know, 20, 30 years, I'm not sure,
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: but a long-lived marriage. Three kids, very well-off, successful, professional
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: people living a fantastic life. with a wonderful condo in
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: New York City and a house on Martha's Vineyard. And
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: that's exactly what happened, that he came home one day
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: and said, this isn't the life I want. Yeah.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: I've been reading recently, there's a little controversy about that book,
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: but that does really happen.
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: It does really happen.
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: Yes, but that really happened. And You know, however reliable
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: you find any given narrator. And full confession here, I've
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: read the book and I found her reliable narrator. And
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: no one ever in any kind of memoir can ever
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: tell the whole story. The whole story is too big.
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: It has too many legs. You have to create a
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: narrative thread. And she does. But, or and, she learned
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: a lot from this awful, sudden, unexpected event that happened.
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: Went through all the feelings that you can imagine and
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: is not the same person. Maybe what we're stretching into
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: is when there is trauma, and there is trauma, There's
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: no way to gloss it over, you know, all those
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: nice things that God doesn't give you any more than
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: you can really handle. Oh, please. But the hope is
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: that we can make something of it.
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: And, you know, I just want to caution, and I
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: think I'm echoing here, you know, Hellman a little bit,
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: and also our colleague Stan Marlin, You know, it's a
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: both and, because when you go to hell, when you
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: go to the underworld, you have to submit to it.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: And you cannot say, well, it's a growth opportunity. I
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: wonder what I can learn. Because trying to turn it
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: into something that's positive in that moment risks covering over
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: just how awful it is. So I think that just
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: allowing yourself to feel what it's like to be in hell.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: And I mean, all of us will be in hell.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: at some point in our lives. And when you survive it,
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: when you come out the other side, you will be transformed.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: And you can't, like Heraclitus says, you can't even know
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: how you're going to be transformed. You have to be
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: willing to submit to it. I think I want to share...
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: a little bit of a personal story that has to
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: do with this, and it has some interesting imagery in it.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: I moved to New York City from Washington when I
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: was 28, and I had this whole game plan for
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: my life. I was starting graduate school. I was going
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: to do this certain career. I was going to get
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: these degrees. I was, you know, thought I was going
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: to marry this certain person, and we were moving toward that.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: And then it just.
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: All fell apart.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: And very, very quickly after I moved. And one of
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: the things that was fascinating to me is very soon
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: I started having dream after dream after dream taking place
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: in the subway. And I was like, what's that about?
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: But there is a way, and I hope the New
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: Yorkers will be feeling me right now, the subway is
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: kind of an incredible image of the underworld.
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: Oh, absolutely. It smells. It's hot. It's crowded.
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: There are rats.
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: And there are rats. So many rats.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: But and, you know, and it's kind of dimly lit.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: And I mean, listen, I do love this subway. I'm
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: trying to take anything away from it. It's pretty incredible.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: But it does feel like you have entered a different realm.
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: You have.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And some part of my psyche knew that I had,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: and it provided me with this underworld imagery of the subway.
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah. It takes me back to my years in New
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: York and that underworld experience. I was also fascinated by
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: the manhole covers as the markers. to the underworld. And
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: there are so many different designs of manhole covers. They're
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: round and as if they called for detail, for imagery,
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: for design. And they mark the entrance to the underworld.
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: And my favorite subway station in New York is on 60, Third, 62nd,
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: and Lexington, right near Bloomingdale. So that's why I knew
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: how to get to Bloomingdale. And you go way down.
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: The escalators go way down. Or if you're coming the
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: other way, they go way up. And you really know
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: you've been in the underworld. The lights can flicker and
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: they're all sort of fluorescent and there are dangers there.
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: But really, I think what we're talking about when I'm
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: going back to your word about submitting, when we are abducted,
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: we have to submit. The tornado came and destroyed your
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: house and half the town and friends and neighbors. You
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: have to go there. You've been abducted. And it's devastating.
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: What we're talking about is the lowering of the threshold
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: of consciousness in shock, in pain, in grief, in all
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: of those things that we've lost a lot of our
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: ego functions and a lot of, especially our sense of
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: agency and being able to affect the life we built.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: I think I want to just keep on playing there
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: for a second and kind of picking up on Hillman,
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: because what Hillman said is that the underworld is the
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: realm of psyche. It is the realm where psychological facts predominate.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: And I want to say about my own catabasis when
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: I was 28 was, I mean, it was.
• 44:15
  Speaker 4: Really? I mean, I was in.
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: Anguish. I don't want to downplay that. It was incredibly painful.
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: And it also started to get kind of interesting. Like,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: it was dark, and I mean, I look back on
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: it now, and I can say that I was certainly
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: clinically depressed. I can go through that little checklist and
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: be like, yep, You know, anhedonia, difficulty sleeping, like I
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: can just do the whole thing. You know, but it
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: was more than that, right? I don't want to flatten
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: it by just giving it this diagnosis. But I also
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: became aware that there was another realm in a way
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: that I hadn't really known before. So that's the thing
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: about the underworld is that you don't notice it's there anymore.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: until you get sent there, until you get abducted. And
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: then you're like, wow, I didn't know this was here.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: That's kind of interesting.
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: It's such a good point. And you're taking me back to,
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: it was so powerful for me to read the Greek
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: myths as a child. Our children's library started with these
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: cute little tales of Mother West Wind and something else
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: that I can't remember. And then you turn the corner,
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: and it was all the fairy tales. And then after that,
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: it was the myths. And yes, written for a child.
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: And I was shocked after the fairy tales and these
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: cute little stories, the Mother Westwyn stories, to come across
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: the Greek myths. Because the happily ever afters were over. Sorry,
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: that's done. And especially when I read about the abduction,
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: and of course there was no hint of rape in
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: a children's book, but the abduction of Corrie, the maiden,
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: into the underworld. And the way I got through it,
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: some of the seeming injustices like this, I used to
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: imagine where she was down there and what it looked like.
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: So did I. She had a bed that was like
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: one of those sort of cubbies in a train. And
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: I'd been on a train and had an overnight in
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: one of those cubbies. And I imagine she was cuddled
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: up in there. So she had her safe place, you know,
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: under some kind of a big fur blanket. And that
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: it was dimly lit. And that then she would go
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: explore the corridors. And talk to people. So I'm wondering
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: if what we're saying here is if you're there, if
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: you have been abducted into the underworld, look around. Take
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: it in. Don't shut it out. Little by little, look
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: around and what do you see? Because what I was
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: looking for as a child, I was a very literal kid.
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: I was looking for what exactly turned her into Persephone.
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: Who did she talk to or what did she do?
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: Were there some books that she read, some magic spells
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: that she learned? I was very much looking for operational tips.
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, how do you survive that?
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: The how-to of when you're in hell, but there it
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: is at least once. The submitting does not mean checking
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: out and denying. It means the recognizing that this is
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: what is. This is where I am. And what am
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: I feeling? What am I seeing? What is going on?
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: We can still observe that.
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you have to sacrifice the upper world
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: values and aims. So I had my whole list. I
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: was getting this degree from this place, and I was
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: going to do that, and then I was going to.
• 48:42
  Speaker 4: And I just had to let it go. I just
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: had to let it go, and I was pissed about it.
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: I didn't like it.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: But eventually, I think I did what you're talking about, Deb,
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: is I just sort of looked around... And I was like, well,
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, this isn't what I bargained for. This isn't
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: what I wanted.
• 49:05
  Speaker 4: But where am I? Where am I?
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And without minimizing the awfulness of all the things that, oh,
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: my goodness, happen to people, somehow it's a confrontation between
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: the ego and the unconscious. That my ego stance, what
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: I want, the plans I made, the stuff I worked for,
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: all of those things that are not fair, that's the
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: ego stance. And we are plunged into the underworld of
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: psyche where things are upside down and terrifying, grief-ridden, all
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: the rest of it. And no wonder nobody wants to
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: go there.
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: Really.
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: And yet, here's Hillman again, because we're definitely, we're all
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: reading this book today. According to Hillman, that is where
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: soul is. And part of me says, oh my God,
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: if I have to go through all that, thanks but
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: no thanks. And he uses the word penetrate and penetration
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: some number of times. He says that for Jung, you know,
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: sort of the ultimate guiding force was the self. with
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: a capital S. For Hillman, it is soul. Mm. And
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: it is not found in the upper world. I think
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: that's shocking, actually, now that I'm saying it out loud
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: after having read it in various iterations in the book. Yes.
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: That is the realm of soul. Going to the underworld...
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: is what introduces us to our soul.
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: So this leads into the very simple question of, what
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: is soul?
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: You know, I.
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: Think that that is going to be another episode.
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: But, you know, it's very different. We get different images,
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: different connotations. The word soul... as being deeply, deeply human.
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: You have a soul. I have a soul. There's soul music.
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: It is what resides in us versus spirit, which is
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: soaring and ethereal and kind of up there. And we
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: do find our souls in the underworld. Yeah. Not in
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: the upper world realm of ego where we want to
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: have a nice life and be in control. I certainly
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: want to be in control. I have my plan for
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: the day. And I'm planning a vacation. And I absolutely
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: want my way about that. And I've looked things up
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: and we've made the reservations. That's how things should be.
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: But that's not soul.
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: It is a difficult thing to define. And yet I
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: think we also kind of know it when we see it.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: Something that feels soulful. Something that feels really tethered to
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: our deepest essence and our values and our humanness.
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: So.
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: We don't necessarily come in contact with that, like you said, Deb,
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: when we're sort of planning a fabulous vacation or just
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: living our outer world life. It's something that we encounter
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: and we make conscious, I think, when we suffer. And
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: with that, I'm wondering if it would be a good
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: time to switch to a dream.
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: Today's dreamer is a woman who's 43 years old, and
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: she is a United Nations humanitarian worker who has entitled
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: her dream, My Mother's Death. And here's the dream. I
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: was somewhere in the old part of a town or
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: a bazaar. It was nighttime and very busy. My grandmother
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: was alive, but my mother wasn't, and when I realized
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't be able to speak to her again, full-on
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: anxiety hit me. Somehow, miraculously, I managed to speak to
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: her through someone else's phone, and my mother told me
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: she was waiting for a bus that would take her
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: to the other side. So I had just managed to
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: speak to her. In my dream, I could see she
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: was okay in a lone bus station with a brown backdrop,
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: and I was left wondering if I'd be able to
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: call her again once she crossed over. My grandmother was
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: sitting with me, and I also wondered how one survives
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: the death of the child. This loss was bigger than
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: life itself. It was a suffering that couldn't be contained
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: by the world. My need to speak to my mother
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: couldn't be held by the world either. The world was
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: too small for it. My body was too small for it.
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: I woke up wondering if one can prepare for the
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: death of a parent, if the world is still the
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: world when a parent, a mother, ceases to exist in it.
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: I realized how much I had identified as a daughter,
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: how much of my well-being hinged on my parents existing.
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: and how fragile their existence on this planet is, how
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: it's never a given, how I'd been caught up in
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: stress and routine, and I was overwhelmed with guilt at
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: not speaking every day with them. For context, she says,
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: I'm battling toxic perfectionism. I am constantly looking for self-improvement
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: courses across every area of my life, and I can't
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: keep up. I'm trying to figure out what to do
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: with my life, and I feel that I am holding
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: myself back professionally and creatively. I'm single-mothering my six- and
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: three-year-olds as the agency we work for has separated my
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: husband and me. His presence provided mental health, and without
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: him here, my controlled perfectionism is creating a lot of stress.
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: I also think I'm in early menopause. The main feelings
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: in the dream, she says, were grief and anxiety. And
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: then she adds some additional associations. The old bazaar could
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: be my busy, routine, stressful outer world or the deep
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: part of my psyche that is ancient and enduring. My
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: mother signified looking for security, safety, and validation externally. The
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: outer mother leaving equals me looking for the inner one.
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: The bus stop signified transition, the liminal place I am in.
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: The brown color, earth and mortality. The world feeling small?
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: My world would remain small if I didn't expand my
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: identity from the safety of daughter to the growth of individuation,
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: psychological adulthood, and living according to my true self. More conscious,
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: less anxious. My grandmother being alive may represent ancient wisdom
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: and an enduring part of my psyche that can pull
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: me through to the next stage. Me worrying about my grandmother,
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: maybe this meant taking things that were not mine, over-pleasing, over-analyzing, over-explaining,
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: making myself small, ruminating, feeling guilt, second-guessing, self-doubting, many accommodating
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: behaviors she had helped bring about through her psychological abuse.
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: not taking responsibility for myself, not resting in what I know,
• 57:49
  Speaker 3: and stretching out on endless and confusing self-improvement perfection control
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: has been a way to perpetuate this abuse, but it
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: has now been self-abuse.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah. Well, and a fitting dream given our topic today, too.
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: Yes. So.
• 58:10
  Speaker 4: There's a sense I get.
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, we can certainly kind of go through it
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: image by image, but I do, I think I want
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: to start top level with this dream because it's kind
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: of a big dream, right? Dreaming about the death of
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: your mother. And we actually don't know, is her mother alive?
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: I think her mother's alive. We don't know much about
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: the quality of her relationship with the mother. I think
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: she hints at what her grandmother was like, but I'm
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: not entirely clear. So I am wondering about the actual
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: kind of relationship with the individual. But I think what
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: I want to say is, and she gets there, there's
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: something about when your mother dies, you cease to become,
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: you cease to become a mother's daughter. And in a way, psychologically,
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: the death of the mother is the moment that you
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: stop being a daughter, in a sense. And I link
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: that with her identifying this perfectionism. She sounds very, she
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: sounds like she's really suffering right now. I link that with,
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: you know, perfectionism, this kind of quest to get everything
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: just right, is very much in the psychological position of
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: being a child. There's some metric we're supposed to hit
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: to know that we did it right. Perfectionism implies a
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: sense that there is a perfect and that it's someone
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: else's perfect.
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: It's someone else's perfect and it's also a stage of
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: development that kids go through. We're supposed to go through it.
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: Of developing a stable, strong... ego that can do things
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 3: and to accommodate in the world, especially if there's been,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 3: you know, abuse, and she does reference her grandmother's abuse,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: that I know I can master this. I know I
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: can be a really good kid. I can get everything right.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: And if I do that, people will love me. And
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 3: so the quest for ego, disciplines, constraints, fitting into society
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: can go overboard into the need to be perfect.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: Right. And it's also comforting to think that we could
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: be perfect because then we could be in control of everything.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: Like if I just do everything right, everything will be fine,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: which goes to me with that kind of existential sense
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: of how could I live without my parents in the world?
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: Because as long as you have your parents in the world,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: there is someone wiser, older, stronger who can hold you up.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: But what if there are no parents in the world?
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: That would be saying like, guess what? There's nothing that
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: you can do that's going to give you control, that's
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: going to ensure that something terrible won't happen to you.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 4: That's the truth.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: And that's psychologically the difference between being a child and
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: an adult. And so I think that the significance of
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: the mother dying is perhaps this task that she also
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: identifies when she talks about her associations of kind of
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: becoming a psychological adult.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: One of the encouraging parts of the dream is, okay,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: it's nighttime. So we're, you know, sort of already in
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: the underworld, as it were. And yet she is able
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: to speak to her on the phone. She's able to
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: say goodbye. So there's a sense of completion that it
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: didn't just happen out of the blue, but a finale.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: And the bus is going to take her to the
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: other side. And now she's back with the grandmother. My
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: grandmother was sitting with me. And she said, I wonder
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: how one survives the death of the child. So that's
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 3: the grandmother's child is our dream ego's mother. And then the,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 3: as we were talking about before, the abduction into the underworld,
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 3: the loss is bigger than life itself and can't be
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: contained by the world. My body is too small for it.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: And how does she survive? How does she cope with this?
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: So let's see the end of the dream.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: Is the world still the world when a parent, a
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: mother ceases to exist in it? I realized in the dream,
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 3: our dream ego realized how much she had identified as
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 3: a daughter.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 3: How much existed, her well-being hinged on her parents existing,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: how fragile existence is. And then how I'd been caught
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: up in stress and routine and was overwhelmed with guilt
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 3: at not speaking every day with them. So I think
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: implicit in this dream is her own crossing over. Her
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: mother crosses over and she crosses over from being a child,
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: the child of parent, to a self-reflective adult.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: And she's had her husband to kind of hold her
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: up and now they're separated. And so and I can
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: just feel the vulnerability. I mean, three and six, those
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: are young kids. And I think when we have kids
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: that age, you know, we really we need we need
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: our we need our spouse. We need we need our mothers.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: You know, it's very stressful to have kids that age.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: So I can really resonate with the vulnerability of being alone.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: But that is that moment of it's me.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 4: I am the authority.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: Right. I'm here.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. I am the authority. And it's a hugely
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 3: powerful place to go from that sort of Lexus of
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 3: control in ego of if I'm a super, super good
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: kid and I make my bed and I help mom
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: and I get all A's. then I can ensure as
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: a kind of magical thinking that everybody will love me
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 3: and things will work out okay.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: I don't have to worry about being unsafe and moving
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: out of that place, which perfectionism is a direct descendant
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 3: of that. I'll do everything just right. And it's apotropaic,
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 3: one of my 10 big vocabulary words.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 4: Love that word.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: You know, it's a kind of superstitious.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: I have appeased the God.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: And so I have my magic amulet of perfection. And
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: so nothing bad can happen. You know, my house is
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 3: always clean and my kids are always in good health
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 3: and I feed them in good food. No, sorry.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: Yes. So we, I think we both feel a lot
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: of feeling for this dreamer, and certainly we wish her well.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. To submit a dream, suggest an episode topic,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: or join our mailing list, visit our website, thisunionlife.com. If
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: you enjoyed this episode, give us five stars and a
• 1:05:56
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• 1:06:00
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