This Jungian Life Podcast
383 episodes - English - Latest episode: 8 days ago - ★★★★★ - 674 ratingsEavesdrop on three Jungian analysts as they engage in lively, sometimes irreverent conversations about a wide range of topics as they share what it’s like to see the world through the depth psychological lens provided by Carl Jung. Half of each episode is spent discussing a dream submitted by a listener.
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Episodes
Episode 150 - Facing Your Feelings: Avoidance or Encounter?
February 11, 2021 05:00 - 1 hour - 59.6 MBWhile we welcome “good” feelings, we often try to banish “bad” ones like sadness, fear, vulnerability and shame. We may deny them by trying to “think positive.” We may attribute them to political wrongs or even the barking dog next door. If emotions have nowhere else to go, they become symptoms, complexes, and even physical illnesses. Avoiding negative emotions simply causes them to go underground and express themselves in disguise. Jung says, “Our emotions happen to us; affect occurs at t...
Episode 149 - Self-Loathing: What’s Gnawing on Your Bones?
February 04, 2021 05:00 - 1 hour - 58.2 MBThe judgmental inner voice has volume, speed, pitch and range. It may appear as a perfectionistic critic, demanding taskmaster, or abusive bully. It also seeps in through the collective, with criteria for beauty, status, and wealth that are unrealistic and artificial. At its worst, this punitive, shaming complex incites self-destructive behavior, and has long been imaged by witches, warlocks, ogres and fiends. Most of us would never treat anyone as badly as we sometimes treat ourselves. Th...
Episode 148 - MYTH AS MEDICINE: An Interview with Kwame Scruggs, PhD
January 28, 2021 05:00 - 58 minutes - 54 MBKwame Scruggs inspires men through mythology, drumming and connection to community and culture. As a young man Kwame discovered his inner fire through African-based initiatory rites. He asked himself “What is it I really want to do? Not what could I do. What did I want to do?” His passion for myth and drumming led him to graduate studies and creating programs in which story is the catalyst for inspired manhood and realization of potential. Story, fellowship and rhythm create an alchemical ...
Episode 148 - Myth as Medicine: An Interview with Kwame Scruggs, PhD
January 28, 2021 05:00 - 58 minutes - 54 MBKwame Scruggs inspires men through mythology, drumming and connection to community and culture. As a young man Kwame discovered his inner fire through African-based initiatory rites. He asked himself “What is it I really want to do? Not what could I do. What did I want to do?” His passion for myth and drumming led him to graduate studies and creating programs in which story is the catalyst for inspired manhood and realization of potential. Story, fellowship and rhythm create an alchemical ...
Episode 147 - The Archetype of the Good King
January 21, 2021 05:00 - 1 hour - 53.9 MBThe king is figured prominently in myth, religion, and fairy tale. This compelling archetypal image has roots in our earliest human beginnings, when the king embodied his tribe’s earthly vitality and supra-human connection to spirit. Today, the king symbolizes universal psychic functions; each of us has an internal ruler. Like Solomon, the king presides over standards of ordering and lawgiving that undergird processes of discernment and decision. As warrior, the king protects and defends t...
Episode 146 - INFLATION: The Challenge of Archetypal Possession
January 14, 2021 16:43 - 1 hour - 67.9 MBInflation applies to balloons, economics--and psychology. Jung defined it as being seized by archetypal energy resulting in “a puffed up attitude, loss of free will, delusion, and enthusiasm for good and evil alike.” Inflation is more than a “swelled head” because the influx of unconscious contents leads to identification with god-like powers. In Greek myth Phaeton became inflated when the sun god, Helios, acknowledged him as his son. Phaeton then asked to drive his father’s chariot, pulli...
Episode 145 - Willpower: Choice, Energy & the Power to Achieve
January 07, 2021 05:00 - 1 hour - 72.7 MBThe ability to choose and exercise will is a defining characteristic of humans. Only humans have enough energy available to consciousness to escape the rule of instinct. Jung says, “the realm of will cannot coerce instinct nor has it power over spirit,” so ego shall not dictate to psyche but find alignment with instinct and spirit, values and volition, before springing into pursuit of a goal. We must first choose to attend to ourselves, consider the size, worth, and cost of the goal—and th...
Episode 144 - Fierce Female Initiations: Claiming Authority & Selfhood Through Trials
December 31, 2020 13:20 - 1 hour - 62.4 MBMythological Paths to Personal Potential Myths and fairy tales depict women’s initiation into authority and adulthood. Hades abducted Kore (maiden) into the underworld; Snow White choked on a poisoned apple and lay in stasis; Aphrodite punished forsaken Psyche with arduous tasks. As all were blossoming into the fullness of their beauty and fertility, all were also in thrall to innocence complexes that blinded them to realities of envy, aggression, and power, imaged as rapist, step-mother, ...
Episode 143 - Scrooge on the Couch: How the Numinous Transforms
December 24, 2020 05:00 - 1 hour - 70.1 MBSomething's going on in Scrooge's soul...and it's tired of waiting for an invitation. Charles Dickens’ novella, A Christmas Carol, vividly portrays the journey to healing and transcendence. It was written in a fever, released on December 19, 1843, and sold out before Christmas. Ebenezer Scrooge’s visitations by the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come are vivid depictions of the path from trauma to transformation. As in psychotherapy, Scrooge revisits his past; by reclaiming ...
Episode 142 - The Archetype of the Divine Child: Light Reborn
December 17, 2020 05:00 - 1 hour - 56.9 MBFear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be unto all people. Luke 2:10 The divine child appears when least expected, new potential born from the womb of the unconscious. Helpless and blessed and against all reason, the divine child represents the creative union of opposites that births a new beginning. Every new beginning is a divine child, and mythological revelations since ancient times greet new psychic potential with awe and adoration. Miraculous birth...
Episode 141 - FANTASY: Do We Have Fantasies or Do They Have Us?
December 10, 2020 05:00 - 1 hour - 43.8 MBIs fantasizing helpful or harmful? Fantasy is the process of engagement with unconscious processes, from the depths of the mythic unconscious to the make-believe worlds of online gaming. In passive fantasy we receive products of the unconscious as charged internal images: nighttime dreams, trance states and visions. Passive fantasy transgresses natural law, the limitations of waking life, and cultural restrictions, for in the subterranean realms of psychic experience all is permitted. Ac...
Episode 140 - Doubt: Facing Life’s Unknowns
December 03, 2020 05:00 - 1 hour - 58.2 MBDoubt disturbs us. Unlike the more defined polarities of ambivalence, doubt is pervasive, muddy, and ranges from crippling to constructive. We may doubt our capacity to meet a challenge, achieve a desired outcome, or make the right decision. At a deeper level, doubt can threaten our orientation to reality and erode our sense of self. Doubt can also help us prepare, increase our capacity to take risks and build confidence in our ability to prevail whether we win or lose. Doubt is about the ...
Episode 139 - Visionary Imagination: Jung’s Private Journals
November 26, 2020 05:00 - 53 minutes - 49.3 MBWe welcome Sonu Shamdasani, PhD, scholar and historian of depth psychology and Jung’s opus. His research and expertise were instrumental in bringing Jung’s Red Book to the public in 2009. Jung’s Black Books, the journals in which he recorded “my most difficult experiments,” have just been published. We discuss Jung’s encounters with figures and images from his psychic depths--experiences foundational to Jung’s subsequent work and which opened a portal to humankind’s imaginal mind and mythic ...
Episode 138 - Spider Parents: Finding Freedom from Dependence
November 19, 2020 05:00 - 1 hour - 61.1 MBThe spider is a symbol of generative and destructive capabilities. As creator, spider spins the sustaining web of life. As predator, spider’s sticky web is an inescapable trap. Parents weave webs of familial ties, cultural norms, and generational patterns that contain—or restrain--their children. Emotional strings of attachment or enmeshment affect how—or if—a young adult child is released into the world. A net of comfort and connection can become a web of entanglement and stultification. ...
Episode 137 - QAnon: Ancient Lies & Sexual Slanders
November 12, 2020 05:00 - 1 hour - 77 MBQAnon is a recent iteration of a historical pattern: Romans persecuted Christians, Christians libeled Jews, and citizenries hunted witches. When existing social structures break down, psychological splitting ensues in an effort to counteract fear and re-establish certainty. Collective projections demonize a selected ‘other’ and tend toward lurid attributions of badness: pedophilia, blood drinking, and devil worship. At the same time collectives project their need for leadership and unity o...
Episode 136 - REVIVING OUR CAPACITY TO FEEL: The Core of Jung’s Legacy
November 05, 2020 05:00 - 2 hours - 138 MBMarie-Louise von Franz, Jung’s close collaborator, capped her public work in a 1986 lecture that summarized Jung’s signal contributions to understanding the human experience. Jung was concerned that rationalism, quantitative methodologies, and the objectification of people and animals had become one-sided, resulting in ethical and empathic deficiencies. He felt the over-development of professional personas—even among physicians and psychotherapists—led to avoiding authentic encounters. Senti...
Episode 136 - REVIVING OUR CAPACITY TO FEEL: the core of Jung’s legacy
November 05, 2020 05:00 - 2 hours - 138 MBMarie-Louise von Franz, Jung’s close collaborator, capped her public work in a 1986 lecture that summarized Jung’s signal contributions to understanding the human experience. Jung was concerned that rationalism, quantitative methodologies, and the objectification of people and animals had become one-sided, resulting in ethical and empathic deficiencies. He felt the over-development of professional personas—even among physicians and psychotherapists—led to avoiding authentic encounters. Senti...
Episode 135 - Horror: Why Can’t We Look Away?
October 29, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 57.4 MBThe hair on the back of our necks bristles in response to the horrors of the uncanny. Transfixed by shock, awe, dread and fascination, we can neither dare the dangerous darkness nor turn away. The mysteries of the unknown take us into realms of transgression and taboo. Enthrallment and abhorrence mix in encounters with all that is alien and dispossessed. We face our own human monstrosities and the traumas that create them. We also meet the dark, nonhuman otherness of the collective unconsc...
Episode 134 - When Despair Prevails: Facing Suicidal Darkness
October 22, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 57.3 MBThere are few more painful thoughts or frightening events than suicide, a phenomenon unique to the human species. Depression, rage, and powerlessness can overwhelm ego functions, leading someone to believe that escaping life is the only option. Affects of archetypal proportions can act like tsunamis in the psyche. What can help? A supportive other can offer protection, options, and hope. Willingness to engage in mental health and medical treatment is critical, as is the development of a sy...
Episode 133 - Adaptation: Meeting Life’s Demands
October 15, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 69.2 MBThe world is the canvas on which we paint our lives. Through this lifelong work, we express personal vision, develop skills, and come to terms with the realities of our outer and inner worlds. The first major stage of adaptation, the transition from child to adult, requires readiness to separate from protective life structures in pursuit of outer world goals. It entails developing a strong, flexible ego devoid of overly negative or idealistic beliefs about self and world, a progressive orien...
Episode 132 - Neurosis: Befriending Our Broken Places
October 08, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 46.6 MBAlthough neurosis is no longer a clinical diagnosis, it is often used to describe anxious attitudes and behaviors that are maladaptive to life situations. Neurosis often entails a capacity to function well despite feeling bad; emotional suffering leeches ease and pleasure from life. A neurotic symptom—a phobia, compulsion, or addictive tendency—is no different from a dream. It is important to hear the unconscious story ego has disallowed, welcome fantasies, fears, and instinctual life, and...
Episode 131 - Curiosity: The Inner Engine of Change
October 01, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 53.2 MBWe celebrate curiosity’s role in discovery, and regret its potential for damage. Mature curiosity demands that we embrace the confusion, doubt and anxiety inherent in engaging new ideas and complex problems. Social curiosity requires discernment: are we genuinely and empathically interested in others, or simply indulging voyeurism via social media? Curiosity can lead us into thrill seeking, but lack of it dulls our libido for life. Is it grandiosity, ambition, or impulsive desire that is t...
Episode 130 - Sacred Symptoms: How the Numinous Heals
September 24, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 67.9 MBJung states “the main interest of my work is not concerned with the treatment of neurosis but rather with the approach to the numinous…the real therapy. In as much as you attain to the numinous experiences you are released from the curse of pathology.” Jung defines numinous as “a dynamic agency or effect not caused by an arbitrary act of will” that conveys a mysterious yet deeply meaningful message. Numinous experiences happen to us, yet we can approach the numinous by engaging in practice...
Episode 129 - At Home in Our Bodies: Incarnation & Individuation
September 17, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 72.5 MBJung teaches that soul and spirit have a home in a living body, the font of psyche’s images and means of their incarnation in the world. Embodiment is the ground of being, and engaging the tension between instinct and archetype shapes consciousness and character. Jung identified five instincts: creativity, movement, sexuality/eros, hunger in its many manifestations, and the ability to reflect and make meaning. If Pinocchio’s task was to humanize his instincts, much of modern man’s mission ...
Episode 128: Intuition: Non-Rational Knowing
September 10, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 68.1 MBWe all have intuitive experiences, from an occasional hunch to powerful gut feelings. Unconscious intelligence is a storehouse of instincts and wisdoms humankind has accumulated over millennia. We would be lost without intuition and give importance to warnings and inspirations that saved or made the day. We are also skeptical of intuition, which tends to become infused with emotion, superstition, and cultural bias. Altogether, intuition is about the future, from promising possibilities to ...
Episode 127 - Seeking Certainty: The Seduction of Conspiracy Theories
September 03, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 58.8 MBIn times of uncertainty truth is hard to discern, collective cohesion frays, and social factions become embattled. Unmediated shadow then seeks expression through the archetypal realm and takes on extra-ordinary attributes. Persecutory mythologies arise, for big psychic situations need big stories to compensate for big feelings of anxiety, powerlessness, and marginalization. Insecurities are projected onto the outer-world as clandestine enemies of mythic proportions: alien rulers, governme...
Episode 126 - The Money Complex: Incarnating Our Dreams
August 27, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 68.1 MBMoney reflects our shadows and strengths as much as our bank accounts. Like Hermes, money traverses the realms from Hades to Heaven--money can be a matter of survival, and money can turn dreams into realities. Because money represents value we can acquire, exchange, and store, it can become conflated with our value as persons. Material wealth can become equated with status and self worth—and the lack of it with inadequacy and anxiety. To come into right relationship with money we need to d...
Episode 125 - The Provisional Life: Redeeming the Real
August 20, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 60.3 MBThe provisional life might be defined as a vague malaise: current relationships, work, and lifestyle feel like placeholders until the ‘real thing’ arrives—someday. If early life circumstances made over-conforming to others’ needs and expectations necessary, persona can be over-developed and shadow denied. The person may orient to external sources for self-definition, acceptance and direction, because deep roots in shadow’s dark, fertile soil of authentic feeling and experience are lacking....
Episode 124 - Pets: A Lived Relationship with Soul
August 13, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 66 MBWhen far from life in the wild, relationships with animals are often through pets. We find kinship and difference in our friends of very foreign origin. Pets let us be tender, elicit nurturing, and help heal trauma through secure attachment. Our creatures keep our secrets. They accept our lapses and shadows. They invite us to play and appear in our dreams--and when they are gone, we mourn. Henry Beston said, “In a world older and more complete than ours [animals] move finished and complete...
Episode 123 - Every Hero’s Journey
August 06, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 84.7 MBThe hero’s journey has been the stuff of story from earliest times. Today’s popular heroes include Harry Potter, Frodo, Spiderman, Neo, and Luke Skywalker. They are all ordinary guys who suddenly receive the Call to Adventure, mythologist Joseph Campbell’s term for the beginning of the journey. The would-be hero first declines, then answers the call; he suffers tests and trials, succeeds with help from unexpected sources, and returns with the gifts of all he has learned. The hero’s journey...
Episode 122 - COVERED: An Archetypal Take on the COVID Mask
July 30, 2020 04:00 - 58 minutes - 54.3 MBMasks are the symbol of COVID life, and they have archetypal roots as old as humankind. We ward off evil microbial forces with bandanas, neck gaiters, patterned fabrics, and high filtration medical masks. Masks provide access to our shape-shifting potential, connect us to our instinctual depths, mediate our relationship to the spirits, and open a portal to the mythic realm of story and drama. Masks waft us into new identities: children become superheroes or face-painted animals; women appl...
Episode 122: COVERED: An Archetypal Take on the COVID Mask
July 30, 2020 04:00 - 59 minutes - 41 MBMasks are the symbol of COVID life, and they have archetypal roots as old as humankind. We ward off evil microbial forces with bandanas, neck gaiters, patterned fabrics, and high filtration medical masks. Masks provide access to our shape-shifting potential, connect us to our instinctual depths, mediate our relationship to the spirits, and open a portal to the mythic realm of story and drama. Masks waft us into new identities: children become superheroes or face-painted animals; women appl...
Episode 121 - Not Alone: Finding the Inner Companion
July 23, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 57.4 MBWhen you’re down, and in trouble, and you need some loving care... You just call out my name, and you know wherever I am, I’ll come running to see you again…you’ve got a friend. Carole King song The companion has a beloved place in our hearts. Famed modern-day teammates include Captain Kirk and Spock, Frodo and Samwise, Batman and Robin, and Sherlock Holmes and Watson. The companion serves and supports the hero, contributing quieter gifts of guidance, capability, and devotion. ...
Episode 120 - Creativity: Drawing from the Inner Well
July 16, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 64.4 MBThe root of create, “to bring something into being out of nothing,” echoes divine creation. Ideas arise from mysterious sources, yet creativity is such an intrinsically human function that Jung considered it one of five human instincts, together with hunger, sexuality, activity, and reflection (a function of consciousness). Positive circumstances foster creativity: the ability to engage imagination, seek novelty, hone competency, and pursue autonomous, intrinsically rewarding activities. S...
Episode 119 - The Religious Attitude: What Do You Worship?
July 09, 2020 04:00 - 53 minutes - 49.4 MBThe religious instinct is as basic as the need for food or shelter. Psyche seeks and selects a central, organizing life principle whether consciously or unconsciously chosen. Secular deities range from food, money, or even science, to the gods of addiction; false gods lie behind neuroses and pathology. Traditional religions and cosmologies offer connection to large, well-ordered frameworks of myth and meaning. Realizing one’s place in the context of larger realities has the potential to co...
Episode 118 - Dissociation: Encountering Our Inner Exile
July 02, 2020 04:00 - 52 minutes - 48.5 MBJung discovered the psyche’s dissociative nature through his Word Association Test. Subjects would delay or make nonsensical responses to ordinary words associated with troublesome personal memories or traumas. Dissociation, our autonomous psychic “circuit breaker,” exists on a spectrum from ”spacing out” to disorders that interfere with life functioning. Psychotherapy could be considered the practice of healing dissociations, as treatment entails bringing banished contents into consciousn...
Episode 117 - The Transcendent Function: Getting Unstuck
June 25, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 58.7 MBThe transcendent function comes in all sizes, from “aha” moments to epiphanies. A new orientation to a dilemma arrives unthought, recognized, and right. Perhaps there is a moment where loneliness gives way to solitude, or heartbreak yields to a larger sense of self. Apprehension of a new attitude--sunlight breaking through clouds--has overcome the impasse, bringing freshness, spaciousness and possibility. Engaging the tension of an emotional struggle without giving in to premature, one-sid...
Episode 116 - Finding Resilience: A Conversation with Jim Hollis
June 18, 2020 04:00 - 56 minutes - 52 MBJames Hollis, noted Jungian scholar, teacher and author, joined us to discuss resilience. His new book, Living Between Worlds: Finding Personal Resilience in Changing Times, will be available on Amazon in mid-June. When life rhythms and habits are suspended or upended, we may find ourselves adrift. What supports us then? For most of history institutional religion, tradition, and tribal mythology unified communities and connected members to the transcendent. Today, however, discovering ...
Episode 115 - We Can’t Breathe: Facing the Pain of Racism
June 11, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 66.1 MBRacial injustice takes one’s breath away. It reaches back to the psychic asphyxiations of the Middle Passage, slavery, and Jim Crow—cut-offs from home, family, freedom and justice. Racism persists in systemic inequities and ongoing instances of police violence. The death of George Floyd, handcuffed, pleading, and unable to breathe, has inspired a collective rising in protest against current brutality and historic inhumanity. Breath as essence, consciousness and soul gives voice to lamentat...
Bonus Episode - On Becoming a Jungian Analyst
June 08, 2020 12:51 - 45 minutes - 41.7 MBMany listeners have expressed interest in Jungian analytic training. We welcome those inquiries and outline the prerequisites, practicalities and processes which lead up to and constitute Jungian analytic training--a life path of ongoing growth, challenge and satisfaction. We encourage all who are interested in becoming a Jungian analyst to consult the major Jungian organizational and training resources below, and to research additional educational and Jungian institutes around the world. ...
Episode 114 - Riots: When the Collective Catches Fire
June 04, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 57.4 MBHow can we understand the psychological wild fire of rioting? Jung, who lived through two world wars, understood that mass movements had the power to manifest archetypal energy. The urge to unleash destructive chaos is depicted in mythologies around the world. Early Norse warriors attained battle-crazed states as "berserkers," and Cu Chulainn, a mythological Irish warrior, killed both friends and foe. Eris, the Greek goddess of discord and strife, started the Trojan War, and Kali, a Hindu ...
Episode 113 - Lockdown: Decoding the Covid Complex
May 28, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 57.3 MBOppressed, repressed and regressed, the forced restrictions of the Covid Complex have us in its grip. We may see friends and family more often than ever, but only on a screen. Work, school, home, weekdays, weekends—time and tasks slide around like Jello on a hot plate. Loss of structure, variety, movement and touch are destabilizing. Confined to tight physical and emotional spaces, we may collapse into ourselves or lash out at loved ones. We hear contradictory messages on the news and go o...
Episode 112 - Midlife Crisis: Renewal or Stagnation
May 21, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 59.1 MBJung was particularly interested in the second half of life, perhaps because after his own midlife crisis he found himself so surprisingly generative. We tend to spend the first half of life oriented to familial values and cultural norms for success. Education, work, partnering and child rearing are some of the mile markers for speed and distance on the road of life—until midlife strikes. We may then discover that worldly successes feel flat, or blame discontent on bad breaks. ...
Episode 111 - Jung, UFOs & Aliens: The Truth is Out There
May 14, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 63.1 MBThe Pentagon recently released a film of a UFO made by Navy pilots. Although such credible documentation is new, UFO sightings go back to ancient times and surged after World War II. Interstellar travel then seized the collective imagination, and the ongoing abundance of books, television shows and films signals the emergence of a new mythology. In his treatise “Flying Saucers,” Jung took a phenomenological stance, acknowledging experiences of sightings without concretizing them as ph...
Episode 110 - ZOOMing In: Is Psyche Alive Online?
May 07, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 59.9 MBWe have moved our lives online. But can we experience authentic human connection through virtual technology? Can we date, mourn, or have psychoanalysis on a screen? If screens offer some surprising intimacies—close-ups of wedding vows and eulogies—they also deprive us of embodied participation. Staying at home has made us newly eager to socialize—separately. Dating means conversation, not cuddling. We enter the homes of colleagues, clients, and even newscasters, but despite this implicit a...
Episode 110 - Zooming In: Is Psyche Alive Online?
May 07, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 44.2 MBWe have moved our lives online. But can we experience authentic human connection through virtual technology? Can we date, mourn, or have psychoanalysis on a screen? If screens offer some surprising intimacies—close-ups of wedding vows and eulogies—they also deprive us of embodied participation. Staying at home has made us newly eager to socialize—separately. Dating means conversation, not cuddling. We enter the homes of colleagues, clients, and even newscasters, but despite this implicit a...
Episode 109 - Jung & Astrology: Cosmos & Character
April 30, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 84.5 MBAstrology is a 4000-year-old discipline rooted in the mystery of man’s relationship to the universe. It is an archetypal frame for human experience that influenced Jung, depicts our connection to the heavens, and anticipates future trends. We are now beginning an approximately 38-year Pluto-Saturn cycle—and Covid-19 has appeared at its outset. Pluto is associated with the underworld; Saturn is a stern taskmaster and enforcer of boundaries. The virus is forcing us to face fear and death—and...
Episode 108 - Authority: Who’s in Charge Around Here?
April 23, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 62 MBThe dictionary defines authority as the power to “influence or command thought, opinion or behavior.” Authority’s Latin roots are master, leader, author—thus it lives next to its tough cousin, power. Families, organizations, and governing bodies influence and command us, whether slightly or mightily. Authority has legitimacy, from a traffic officer’s directives to a mentor’s wisdom. An authority may reward desired behavior or provide expert advice. We can rebel against authority, be coerce...
Episode 107 - Nigredo: Finding Light in Our Darkness
April 16, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 60.1 MBThe alchemical term nigredo means black or blackening, and is associated with decomposition and putrefaction. As a psychological state, nigredo is “the great suffering and grief” which the detached forces of nature inflict on the soul. We realize in sorrow that what we thought were truths were illusory. Individuals may have taken pride in their virtues, talents or good fortune; societies may have touted their cultural superiority, military prowess, or wealth. When we are stripped of easy b...
Episode 106 - When Everything Changes: Is There Opportunity in Crisis?
April 09, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 60.9 MBIn the Chinese language, the two characters representing crisis are danger and opportunity. Can that possibly be true of these days of pandemic crisis, with physical, economic, and psychological destabilization? Voices of experience and wisdom speak to us about finding potential in desperate situations. Victor Frankl, imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp, discovered he had the power to choose his attitude toward brutal circumstances. Erich Fromm felt that isolation and fear could lead...