when everything changes

[dragonyphoenix]

My usual weekend practice is to read a book related to depth psychology and see what thoughts rise. With libraries closed, I can’t get new books (the psych I’m interested in are all hard-copies) so I thought to listen to a podcast.

This Jungian Life Episode 106: When Everything Changes: Is There Opportunity in Crisis?

One of the first images Lisa Marchiano brought up was the Tower Tarot card. Joseph Lee mentioned two reactions to traumatic times (i.e. war or pandemic): first, taking this as a time of complete transformation so focusing on personal growth / transformation and second, taking this as a time of suspension which will end and have a return to normal. Thinking of The Hunger Games I had a third response which Joseph Campbell would refer to as denying the call which is similar to the time of suspension of way things are but the call keeps becoming deeper as the situation continues to spiral out of control and so eventually you do accept the change.

 

Another topic raised was personal vs. collective response. While I am looking at this as a time for personal introversion, I don’t see it as an opportunity to change the system. I have a strong streak of pragmatism that tells me fighting the system won’t work, but I do hope for change. I want a world that’s more fair and just. So if I were to be drawn into overturning the status quo it would fall into that third category I mentioned above: things would have to keep getting worse and worse until they were just so bad that I couldn’t stand by any longer.

Deborah Stewart brought up an image of the ocean: the tumult at the top of the sea compared to the calm of its depths. It’s a delightful image and I found myself relaxing as she described it. This was compared to the reactions of the ego vs those of the Self. The ego’s caught up in the tumult of the pandemic, possibly panicking, definitely upset. The Self doesn’t care about the pandemic. As Deborah put it, “The psyche is deeply interested in its own individuation process” despite external circumstances. There’s a deep part of us that wants to be whole and is completely disinterested in surface drama. This reminded me of a line of Leonard Cohen’s that has become deeply meaningful for me lately: “and even though it all went wrong, I’ll stand right here before the lord of song with nothing, nothing on my tongue but hallelujah.”

There was a repeated theme of how do you react to the crisis. Joseph has been seeing two types of responses. The first is creativity. I thought of people recreating images of masterpieces with whatever they have in the house and immediately resolved to do so. I already have a couple of ideas. The second response is a feeling of hopelessness, an unburdening yourself or shaking off anxiety by turning to authority. The image that brought up for me is a woman who was interviewed returning from a church meeting. She said she is safe from the coronavirus because she’s washed in the blood of Christ.

Lisa brought up the challenge: to accept what is. She discussed people who whine “it isn’t fair that this is happening to me.” Joseph replied that a concern with unfairness reflects a lack of hopelessness. He said if you can’t tell yourself “I’m in charge” then ask “If I were in charge, what could I do?” I immediately thought of a good half-dozen things I want to be doing: career search, writing, drawing, studying C#, interview practice.