Imagination as Portal to the Unconscious

As I read James Hollis' book, Mythologems, I am finding it a very comfortable read.  One of the things that this reading is doing for me is the fact that it is providing me a bit more structure in my posts here.  In the past, there was less flow, in my opinion.

As well as flow, Hollis' words are encouraging me to look closer at my images, to see what is to be found in these images besides a copy of the objective world.  Photography allows me to do both, record visual data as well as portray something "more."

Tucked between modern high rises that line one of the many canals in Changzhou, are little homes that have been cobbled together.  These canal-side dwellings evoke a different time and place, one that finds its way into many of the folk art expressions in China, a scene that is both nostalgic and poetic. - Or, is this scene just another set of dilapidated residences housing those who can't pay for a better place while hoping the authorities don't tear down their squatter quarters that can be viewed as a blight on the edges of a modern city?  It's all imagination regardless of which version of the image you hold.

"The German word for imagination is Einbildungskraft, the power of creating a picture. The picture may come as an intentional act of mind, as these sentences are, or a gasp of aesthetic or horrified phenomenological experience which is embodied as image.  The phenomenological appearance of such an utterance, such as image, is a de facto manifestation of something powerful about our nature.  We are imaginal creatures; through images the world is embodied for us, and we can in turn embody the world and make it conscious.  Such an act seems, in its generative, nominative and constitutive power - all godlike to me."  (Hollis, Mythologems, p. 31)

 Powerful words, "we ... embody the world and make it conscious."  For me, this is the key as I try to bring more light into the process of self-discovery.

Red-Crowned Crane - The Fairy Crane

This is the Red-Crowned Crane which is a rare bird that makes its home nearby in the Yancheng area.  I took the photo in the Yancheng area not knowing that the bird is on the protected species list as the second rarest crane in the world.  I took the photo because the Red-Crowned Crane is featured in the mythology of China in a significant manner.  In Chinese, the bird is called Xian He (仙鹤), or fairy crane.

In trying to do a search for the myths that surround this large bird, I kept coming up short with only a few lines that were repeated and repeated endlessly about how this bird was "a symbol of longevity and immortality" and of "nobility." The myths themselves eluded my search.  Perhaps they are yet to be translated into English and so I am left with all the images that are abundant here in China, images that feature the crane.   

"While the world as it is is infinitely more complex than we can imagine, we are provided with the helpful tools of metaphor and symbol to move from the knowable world to the unknowable.  If the poet compares the beloved to a flower, or analogizes the human life cycle with the seasons, we know full well what is intended.  From this capacity for metaphor, symbol, analogy, we have the possibility through imagination of creating a partnership with mystery."  (Hollis, Mythologems, p. 31)

I am learning something here.  I wonder about how there are things that are knowable - known - to some, such as the myths surrounding this crane, and those things that are a mystery to all.  We sense/intuit something numinous but we can't move from the fuzzy edges of contact into conscious awareness.  What comes after death is the best analogy that I can think of - do we become immortal?  The crane suggests that we do, a noble immortality that demands a transcendence from a corporal form.  There is not "truths" to be had here, just the fuzzy edges of mystery.

In Search of Answers

Looking out a window at the world passing by, this young Chinese girl is enjoying late fall sunshine in Changzhou.  There is something comforting about being in the sun's warmth and looking at out at the world while being safely contained.

One looks out with real curiosity at the world and wonders.  All those passing people, all the stories untold are mysteries that feed an inner curiosity.  One wants to know, but one doesn't know.

"The problem always comes back to the fact that we do not know what we do not know.  We are not conscious of that which we are unconscious.  We do not apprehend that which lies beyond our instruments of apprehension.  The wise from Socrates to the present, know that they do not know, so all of life remains a mystery, a curiosity, which gets, as British astronomer J.B.S. Haldane once concluded, ever curiouser and curiouser." (Hollis, Mythologems, p. 29)

Children, like this girl are also wise, an instinctual wisdom, as they know that they don't know.  So many adults, in fear of the unknown, proclaim truths and hold to the "hard facts" of science or the "word" of their religions.  Curiosity is a danger as it questions and doubts.

Did our world emerge out of a big bang or was it created by some deity or . . . ?  So many answers claiming the "truth," the ultimate answer.  Yet, the truth is that we don't know, that we can never be conscious of the unconscious.  And coming to realise that I don't know any of the answers, I allow myself to become curious, especially about the questions themselves and where the questions come.  What is it within the human psyche that probes into the unknown in search of beginnings, that searches for the roots of self?

Mythopoetic Imagination in China

This is obviously a photo that is about China - a China that is now mythical, a place that is represented symbolically through architecture, colour and words.  All work together to create an image that points to something that is bigger than China's past, bigger than it's future.  Rather, the image is more about soul and psyche.

Living in China and spending a lot of time with the young adults who will be the future of the country, I can see how the images become more about myths and poetry than about history.  The songs being sung, the movies being watched, the serial television shows that feature heroes and villains of the past show a story that is anything but the messiness of real life.  All of the modern images of the past paint a story that is bigger and fuller than the prosaic stuff of everyday living, especially the simpleness of that living in times when living was a basic affair that often was focused simply on surviving and not great colourful epics.  Like in this photo, what is taken forward is a mythopoetic story that lies beneath the surface of today's Chinese people, a story that isn't really about the past at all, but about today with a hint about what is to come tomorrow.

". . . the mythopoetic imagination has never gone away; it is no further from us than tonight's dream, tomorrow's projection of symbolic material onto another person, or the affective energy of the next day's headlines in our local newspaper." (Hollis, Mythologems, p. 25)

Translating Emotions Into Images

"To the extent that I managed to translate the emotions into images - that is to say, to find the images which were concealed in the emotions - I was inwardly calmed and reassured.  Had I left those images hidden in the emotions, I might have been torn to pieces by them.  There is a chance that I might have succeeded in splitting them off, but in that case I would inexorably have fallen into a neurosis and so been ultimately destroyed by them anyhow." (Jung, Memories, Dreams. Reflections, p. 177)

Powerful words by Jung near the end of his life.  Images allow me to get out of my head and into those aspects of self I have otherwise bolted behind solid walls.  I know that I am often seen as "cold" and "distant" by others.  My penchant for wanting the facts, for looking at the evidence before me makes others feel uncomfortable.  I often hear, "Show some emotion, for Christ's sake!"  Unfortunately, these words don't seem to make a dent in my dispassionate way of being.

It was only through images, be the images contained in music, art or photographs, that I came alive.  The magic lies within myself and not in the music or the images or the materials.  The camera, the brushes, the guitar are simply tools in which I have allowed my hidden self to emerge.  Without these tools and the permission, I would have self-destructed.  The images that emerged, were voices and images of my repressed emotions.  They needed release or else, like a bomb, they would have exploded with lethal force with no thought to the damage that would have been wrought on others, especially those closest to me.  And so it remains even now, Via images, I continue to flow with life.

The Capacity to Ask Why

This photo was taken almost two weeks ago.  It has been sitting on my desktop waiting patiently for me to finally place it here on the blog site.  To tell the truth, when I took the photo, I took it expressly for the purpose of using it here and so placed it on the desktop.  Then, I ignored it as if it wasn't even there.  Well, like all things that get shoved into the background, it eventually finds a way of making its presence felt with a demand to be brought into the light of day, into consciousness.  So, here it is.

So, what does this image mean?  Why this image?  Why did I even take it?  Obviously, something about Chinese architecture must be at play, something about an opening in a solid wall that is neither a door nor a window.  The wall is not within so both sides of the wall are "outside.  The wall isn't even a barrier as one can easily go past the wall as if it wasn't even there.

"The nature of the mythic sensibility is found most in our curiosity, our capacity to ask "why"? and "what does this mean"? and "how do I respond"?  (Hollis, Mythologems, p. 23)

So that is why, mythic sensibility is active.  This curiosity isn't the same curiosity one uses in search of solutions to math equations or for technical problems.  Rather, this is the original curiosity that one sees in a child that views the world with awe and with not just a little fear of the unknown.

Myth as Tribal Value System

"Cultures as well as individuals live in service to values, not simply values that are conscious and rationally apprehended, but values which operate unconsciously as well."  (Hollis, Mythologems, p. 11)

 Today's photo was taken at the YanCheng Safari park here in Changzhou.  I had already chosen the topic for the day and was in search of a photo to "fit."  I had o  riginally thought to use a group photo of one of my classes that I took yesterday, but opted for this photo as soon as it scrolled past my eyes.  The image does evoke tribe, it does evoke instinct as well as awareness.  And whether or not one sits alone or with others, one is part of a tribe - contained.

I commented yesterday about being the "lone wolf" as part of my personal myth.  I have no doubt that I also must include a thread of being part of a tribe,  Living in China is proof to me that I operate both consciously and unconsciously on a tribal level.  Each day is confusing in its own way, a good confusing to tell the truth.  As I walk the streets, it appears as though much that happens in front of my eyes is chaotic and that all have lost "common sense."  I don't understand how there aren't a hundred traffic accidents a day in front of my apartment building.  That, forces me to look at "common sense" or at how I define common sense.  Everything I take for granted about community is based on my home culture.

Of course, this is worrying for me.  What values do I bring with me as I interact with my Chinese hosts?  I consciously work hard to be a good visitor, one that respects the host community.  But, I "know" that I still act out of unconscious values as much as I act consciously.  Being in a foreign environment becomes even more of a blessing as when I act unconsciously.  It becomes hard to pin it on others and forces me to own and to weigh the unconscious tribal value that got acted out.

I learned a long time ago that when one is a teacher, one doesn't really teach a course, or teach students; one teaches one's self to others while thinking one is teaching Math or History or whatever, to a group of students.

Tension Between Meaninglessness and Meaningfulness

These two birds that I came across in the YanCheng Safari Park looked a bit bedraggled from their journey together.  They remind me a lot of my experience of China so far.  Looking at them, I see how couples here cling together for survival, carving out a small space simply in order to continue the process of life.  They don't know the "why" for their life.  All they know is that they live and that they will do their part for the continuation of life to follow - all practical stuff, instinctual stuff.

This instinctual stuff that lies within our unconscious is not only invested in life, it is invested in death.  As Hollis puts it,

"We hunger for meaning, for God, for love, for connection.  Simultaneously we hurtle toward extinction in seeking sleep, death, the arms of the beloved - all through the great darkness in which we walk."  (Hollis, Mythologems, p. 8)

This is heavy stuff.  As I read these words, I heard echoes in myself and I also wondered about how this plays out on the collective level.  Almost as soon as I wondered, I knew that there is no difference between the individual and the collective.

I know as an individual I want my life to have meaning.  Without meaning, for me, life is pointless.  If there was no meaning other than to be born, to reproduce and then fertilize the earth with my body, then there is no point in being good, in producing art, in music and song.  On the collective level, it seems that all cultures invest in life having meaning.  The rise of religions, the founding of universities, the protection of the arts through wars and all manner of catastrophes speak loudly of the knowledge at an unconscious level that there is meaning.

Yet for all of this desire for meaning, I spend much, if not most of my life in meaningless activity.  I simply fill hours in the day.  It is as though I resist as much as I am pulled to meaningfulness.

Journey of Soul

At the north end of YanCheng, in the southern part of Changzhou, a series of three open arches alert one to the fact that one is about to enter a different world, perhaps a different time.  I have yet to enter into this area of YanCheng as I am saving it for a Friday or Saturday in the not too distant future when sunlight promises good photography conditions.

Perhaps that is not the only reason that I delay the trip to the inner world of YanCheng.  I will only know when I finally make this journey.  If the open arches have any relation to the the journey, it will be one that is challenging, psychologically.  When is one ever ready for the next stage?  Always there is a fear of the creatures one will find that threaten the world as one knows it.  What will result from meeting these demons of the inner world?  How will I change?  Will the change disrupt my life as I know it, the patterns that have now become comfortable?

Perhaps that is the key - life has become comfortable.  I have been resting and gathering strength and courage for the next stage of the journey.  The words of Hollis find resonance within me:

"Clearly, we live in a culture of great spiritual impoverishment: addictive materialism makes us slaves to surfaces; fundamentalist clamor makes us fearful and anxious; and distracting, banal ideologies diminish rather than enlarge the journey of the soul." (Hollis, Mythologems, p. 8)

Ouch! Banality is where I have been finding myself lately.  In between teaching and preparing lessons, I fill in as many of the spaces playing cards against the computer with little ambition to do much more than that.  I have been thinking of buying another guitar and investing time with a return to playing music.  Why?  Perhaps as a diversion, as a way to fill in time and avoid doing some real work.  I am not sure.  And because of this, I sit and wait, holding the tension of waiting, for the pull back into the journey of soul.

Metaphor and Symbol

Water and reflections on the edges of YanCheng in Changzhou create a soft autumn scene.  When I look into the water, I sense an invitation to enter into a different world, one in which everything is turned on its head, a place where the impossible becomes possible.

I would imagine that it is because of the depths behind the reflections, especially the reflection of self and the world as we know it, that water has become symbolic of the unconscious - or at least one of the reasons for the symbolism.

". . . myth is perhaps the most important psychological and cultural construct of our time.  It is not only that the concept of myth has degenerated in popular parlance into something synonymous with falsehood.  Or that myth, as it has been said, is someone else's religion.  It is that, in a culture committed to the world of matter, access to the invisible world - which myth makes possible, along with its two chief instruments, metaphor and symbol - has never been more critical in allowing some balance of the spirit."  (Hollis, Mythologems, p. 8)

 As I teach here in Changzhou, I make sure that one of my first lessons include the topic of metaphor.  In cross-cultural situations when learning/teaching a second language, the images that words evoke are vital to successful communication.  It only makes sense then that images, both verbal and symbolic, are just as vital when trying to enter into the realm of the unconscious, the realm of the spirit and the soul.  The language of metaphor and symbol are my tools for the work I do in trying to uncover the hidden and buried aspects of myself.  The work is not much different that peeling away the layers of an onion wherein after the peeling of a layer, the onion is still an onion, but one is closer to the essence of the onion.

As I descend, layer upon layer, a bit more of myself is exposed to both myself and others around me.  It is as if I am being stripped of artifice and masks.  When the last layer is peeled away, one could conceivably say that nothing is left - or, one could say that the self has somehow expanded to include everything.  In Jungian terms, this is close to what one means when we say that the self morphs into the SELF - where there is no separation, where there is only the ONE - all that is and isn't held together - some would say this is God.

The Numinous World of Myth

Yesterday, it was a beautiful fall day here in Changzhou, China.  Taking advantage of pleasant temperatures and the sunshine, I spent about five hours walking around the zoo in the southern part of the city, in the YanCheng area.  I hope to use more photos from this excursion in the next while.  I am looking forward to a return in order to capture other parts of the YanCheng area, especially the old water city area and the ruins that date Changzhou to more than 2,500 years.

But for this walk, I simply enjoyed nature and the colours of fall.  This grass was especially captivating for me.  I loved seeing the white feathery presence in contrast to the darker shades in the background.  The image gives me a fairy-tale feeling, about a time and place that is just at the edge of my reality.  It is scenes such as this that pull me into a readiness for seeing beyond the limits of my senses.

Today's post, and those that follow for the next while, will draw on thoughts, words and ideas from another James Hollis book called Mythologems: Incarnations of the Invisible World.  As I have pointed out before, Hollis is one Jungian analyst and author that I have come to respect.  That said, I want to turn to a few of his words in the introduction:

". . . myth carries from its origin, shrouded in mystery, and through a glass dimly, the intimation, respect, awe, frustration and longing for something larger, much larger.  That numinosity (from the metaphor, "to nod," as something which bows toward us, acknowledges us, summons us) is our source, our home away from home, and our journey's end. (Hollis, Mythologems, 2004, p. 7)

The numinous - this is what lets me know that I have entered the realm of the almost impossible, the land of myths and legends which are projections of the personal and collective unconscious, where archetypes take on faces and character.  As I come to "nod" in awareness, to resonate with an "ah-ha," I have begun the process of making the unconscious, conscious.  For me, the invisible begins to take shape allowing me to follow the inner stories and discover a fuller sense of who I am.  For it is only here that I will ever be able to answer the ultimate question - Who am I?

Gods and Goddesses Within

This small church, St. Antoine de Padoue Church, is located in Saskatchewan, in what is now a National Park called Batoche.  There is a history lesson in the story of this church, but that story is not for this blog.  Just an aside, the church is still in use for occasional services for the Métis community that lives in the area.  I took my brother here for a visit in order to see if there was any connections to be made.  Though we are Métis, the tiny rural community and church didn't provide any threads of connection.  I should have known that quest was doomed to fail as I was again looking outward for connection, for validation, for salvation.  To be honest, I must own my story and my own quest and not place it on a community or a "faith."

"By identifying the unconscious as the source of every God or Goddess who ever, in whatever guise, addressed mankind, Jung challenges humanity to take heed of this side of itself, to gain a heightened awareness of the direction from which it is approached by the deities and to enhance its appreciation of the continued power.  Put briefly, Jung is saying that since mankind cannot divest itself of its relation to Gods and Goddesses, it wold therefore be in its best interests to face that side of itself from which they come, in the hope of teasing from them a myth which would be safe for its collective survival and enrichment." (Dourley, The Illness That We Are, pp 75-76)

It's tempting to cling to one of the new and revised holistic "faiths" as it would mean that I could have a rest from owning the roots of my own spiritualism.  But, for whatever reason, each of these new containers of "hope" leave me resisting.  I am left saddened and worried.  I ache for the loss that is lived by all those who migrate to new faiths, loosing their old faiths as much as I ache for those still unconscious of their own worth as they worship a God that is more and more distant, Gods who promise a holocaust for the human race.  I ache for those who almost gleefully grab the latest books proclaiming the end of the world.  If only they could discover the beauty within themselves, the gods and goddesses within themselves.