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Jung on Alchemy (1): The Moist and Earthly Foundation
Frame capture from the movie “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, … and Spring” My upcoming series of posts is going to be based on three works of C.G. Jung: 1) Psychology and Alchemy, volume 12 of the...
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The Secrets of the Odyssey (13): Journeying on Snakelike Wet Paths
While reading Hermes Guide of Souls: The Mythologem of the Masculine Source of Life by Karl Kerènyi I came across the following passage describing the nature of Odysseus’s journeying and the special...
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Soaring High on the Wings of Ambition
“As Caesar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honour him: but, as he was ambitious, I slew him. There is tears for his love; joy for his fortune;...
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The Light that Shines in Darkness
The New Age movement has given women more significance and more power of expression than art, science or politics of the last century. It is said to have been originated by Madame Blavatsky, who was a...
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Jung on Alchemy (2): The Mandala
The Zodiac, San Miniato al Monte, Florence “People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls. They will practice Indian yoga and all its exercises, observe a strict...
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Nemesis: the Restorer of Cosmic Order
Bertel Thorvaldsen, “Nemesis” I. ”Nemesis, winged tilter of scales and lives, Justice-spawned Goddess with steel-blue eyes! Thou bridlest vain men who roil in vain Against Thy harsh adamantine rein....
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The Birch and Biopoesis
After his wife’s death, a broken man lives in an isolated forest with his little daughter: “Nothing had been able to call him out of the fog that had enveloped him ever since his wife’s death; he saw...
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The Flames of Passion in Bellini’s “Norma”
While learning Latin in high school, we were supposed to memorize parts of Julius Ceasar’s Commentaries on the Gallic War. The first sentence has been forever etched in my memory: “Gallia est omnis...
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Two Different Kinds of Soul
I. “The dual fate of Heracles after death, dwelling simultaneously on high with the gods and below in Hades, reflects the Greek notion that we have two different kinds of soul. Thymos is warm,...
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Jung on Alchemy (3): Meditation and Imagination
Brigid Marlin, “Meditation on Emptiness” Alchemy speaks a secret language, which, provided there is a basic soul readiness, can be learnt through a slow and arduous process, yet abounding in moments of...
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Vesta: Devoted Guardian of the Sacred Flame
Georges de la Tour, “Mary Magdalene with a Night Light” I.“The chaos of the ancients; the Zoroastrian sacred fire, …; the Hermes-fire; …the lightning of Cybele; the burning torch of Apollo; the flame...
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The Lake of Dreams, the Sea of Rains, the Gulf of Dews, the Ocean of Fecundity
Susan Seddon Boulet, “Moon Cup” “What special affinities appeared to him to exist between the moon and woman? Her antiquity in preceding and surviving successive tellurian generations: her nocturnal...
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Color Symbolism: Purple
Claude Monet, “Water Lillies” In Woody Allen’s movie “The Purple Rose of Cairo,” Mia Farrow’s character, frustrated by her marital woes, falls in love with a character in a movie. The movie character...
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Reflections on Don Quixote (1): The Universe of Fiction
Giuseppe Arcimboldo, “The Librarian” “Idle Reader: Without my swearing to it, you can believe that I would like this book, the child of my understanding, to be the most beautiful, the most brilliant,...
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Jung on Alchemy (4): Prima Materia – The One, Who Art All
The Library and the Laboratory (From Michael Maier, Tripus Aureus, Frankfurt, 1677) In this vignette found in Michael’s Maier’s Tripus Aureus Jung saw “the double face of alchemy.“ On the right hand...
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Salammbô
Illustration by Georges Rochegrosse I.“Her hair, which was powdered with violet sand, and combined into the form of a tower, after the fashion of the Chanaanite maidens, added to her height. Tresses of...
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Insects: Smaller-Than-Small in Appearance, Bigger-Than-Big in Effect
Jainism, an Indian religion prescribing a path of nonviolence towards all living beings, professes a doctrine of Ahimsa (non-injury, absence of desire to harm), one expression of which is sweeping the...
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Drawing with Light: on Photography
Camera obscura, image via Wikipedia It is easy to romanticize the dawn of photography (literally “drawing with light”). I am not pretending I understand the technical intricacies of the entire process...
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Symbolism of Lakes
“And near him stood the Lady of the Lake, Who knows a subtler magic than his own– Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful. She gave the King his huge cross-hilted sword, Whereby to drive the heathen...
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In Praise of Witches
Jacques de Gheyn II, “Witches in a Cellar” 1. “We are an evolving, dynamic tradition and proudly call ourselves Witches. Honoring both Goddess and God, we work with female and male images of divinity,...
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