JUNG THOUGHTS FROM A WISE OLD MAN

It's many years since I first encountered C.G. Jung's autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections. At the time, in my habitually over-eager way of demonstrating camaraderie with certain thinkers, I emphatically underlined many passages in this book. I have been re-reading it now and am amused to find that those passages are exactly the ones that I would underline now if I hadn't already done so. 

Here is Dr. Jung, after his trip to India, reflecting on the differences between his outlook and the Indian form of spirituality:

I, on the other hand, wish to persist in the state of lively contemplation of nature and of the psychic images. I do not want to be freed from human beings, nor from myself, nor from nature; for all these appear to me the greatest of miracles. Nature, the psyche, and life appear to me like divinity unfolded - and what more could I wish for?To me the supreme meaning of Being can consist only in the fact that it is , not that it is not or is no longer.

To me there is no liberation à tout prix. I cannot be liberated from anything that I do not possess, have not done, or experienced. Real liberation becomes possible for me only when I have done all that I was able to do, when I have completely devoted myself to a thing and participated in it to the utmost. 

Amen!


A new illustration has been added to EPISODE FIFTEEN of La Vie en Rosé. Go there to see it full size.

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BUILDING BLOCKS

Here they are, the things I saw in my studio out of which I composed the painting Frames of Reference.

Whether based on life or imagination, artists are always composing, assembling, organising selected fragments into something more than the sum of their parts. Not only artists - isn't everyone engaged in the same task, within the composition-factory that is the mind? Our memories, opinions, beliefs, the story of our lives - isn't all this a carefully constructed composition that we create and re-arrange daily, a work-in-progress? 

How about this for an experiment: 

Identify a number of things which you consider to be most significant in shaping your life, your self. Give them each a visual form - could be symbols, photos, cut-outs, whatever - doesn't have to be literal. Assemble these fragments into a composition of some kind. Publish it to your blog. Discuss! 

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