A popular parable that is a wonderful story about the nature of desire (I will comment on this below). “Once upon a time, there was a stonemason. Every day, he would go to the mountain to cut stones. While he worked, he sang to himself, for though he was a poor man, he did not […]
Below I share an excerpt from Liz Green’s book, “Astrological Neptune and the Quest for Redemption,” which I find particularly valuable because it shows some very important distinctions between the sick manifestations of masochism and the healthy forms of the quest for redemption. “Defining masochism solely as a pathology is a lopsided and simplistic approach […]
“The latent ego is in complete identification with the Self (the god, the archetype of the Whole personality). The Self is born, but the ego is made; and in the beginning all is Self. This condition is described by Neumann as uroboros (the tail-eating serpent). Since the Self is the center and totality of being, […]
“It so happened that Mullah Nasreddin approached a high official. Outraged by his insolence, Mullah Nasreddin did not hold back: – Where on earth, you kind, are you so arrogant? Who are you? – As if you didn’t know! I’m the manager! – Well, good, and what will you become then? – Governor! – And […]
“Jung says that women with a negative mother-complex often miss the first half of their lives, they walk past it in a dream. Life for them is a constant source of annoyance and irritation. But if they can overcome this negative mother complex, they have a good chance in the second half of life of […]
“Oh my!” cried the monk, who was on probation and had just broken his teacher’s favorite (and very precious) cup. The frightened youth went to the Zen master and asked, “Why must there be death?” The Master replied, “Death is natural. It comes to all people and things. It is not to be expected with […]
“Usually you can’t explain to others what has happened because the path of understanding is blocked by prejudice: ‘everyone is the same’, ‘such things don’t exist’, or if they do, they are ‘pathological’, and furthermore, highly irrelevant, ‘to think that such a thing could matter is monstrous hubris’, ‘it’s all just psychology’. The latter objection […]
Here are Marie Louise von Franz’s last comments on the end of the story of Amur and Psyche, from which we learn more important things about the development of the soul and the embodiment of love on Earth. “In this ultimate, tragic moment, Eros comes down from Olympus and wakes Psyche, and, with the help […]
And this is the fourth and final task Venus gives Psyche to atone for her sin – to fetch a box of beauty cream from Persephone, queen of the underworld. Unlike the previous three tasks (sorting a pile of seeds, fetching a golden wave from the wild sun rams, and fetching water from the icy […]
After Psyche’s first task, which is to sort through a large pile of seeds, and the second task, which is to bring a wave of wild sun rams, comes the third task, which is to bring water from the icy waterfall of the River Styx that separates the earth from the underworld. What our soul […]
Psyche’s first task was to sort through a huge pile of seeds, and she tackled this ordeal with the help of the ants. I recall that Marie Louise von Franz interpreted this as help from the unconscious that comes when we are true to ourselves. After the first task comes the second, which teaches our […]
