Queen Maeve of Ireland

I would like to write a bit more about Jungian analyst Joe MecNair’s presentation on Queen Maeve at Denver’s First Divine Science Church with the Jung Society.

Queen Maeve- She is relevant today in world where the archetypal feminine has been “disenfranchised.” A shadow issue is the violence in the collective unconscious, as exhibited by the explosions in Irish towns: discord between the north and the south manifest. Also it is notable that wonen’s rights is the issue of our times. In the nineteenth century it was slavery, in the twentieth, totalitarian regimes, in the 21st, it is injustice against women. Look at the crimes that are happening in other countries towards women. (It is just inconscionable, what goes on…) In countries where there are no women’s rights, there is great poverty, and then also “fundamentalist chaos.”

Queen Maeve then, stands for intoxication (mead was the drink of choice of the Celts, as it existed before wine was introduced by the Romans.) Mead is a fermented honey drink, which made by bees: a symbol of fertility. In the Celtic culture, which was strongly matriarchic, women have the prerogative to assert passion. Queen Maeve would choose the king by having sex with her chosen. She would choose who would be right for the people, she could also change her lover whenever she wanted.

“When the king and the land (a feminine principle) are one, the people are happy.” In Jungian terms: if the masculine and feminine parts are in union, the psyche is happy.

As a side– there are always two aspects of archetypes- a positive and a negative. The shadow side of masculine sexuality [libido] is domination, of feminine sexuality- possessiveness.

There was a conflict between Queen Maeve and King Ailill, of Connacht. The were comparing their respective riches, and Ailill had a majestic brown bull. Her messenger told her that there was a white bull, twice as great, in Ulster. She arranged with its owner that she would borrow it in exchange for some cows and its return at the end of the year. However, one of Maeve’s men boasted that if she had not been lent the bull, she would have taken it by force. Well if that’s the case, let her take it by force, then! Was the reply. And that is how the great Cattle Raid of Cooley took place, claims the website where I found the legend McNair spoke of.

McNair spoke less on the meaning of this myth than I would have wanted, but he did mention that the bull (and animals in general, in dreams) symbolizes libido. The bigger the libido, the bigger the animal. I see shadow forces in this legend such as myth, domination, and possessiveness. Also, the struggle between opposing forces: masculine and feminine, north and south, light and dark (symbolized by the white bull and the brown, or dark colored bull).

Another point made: When it comes to passion (the Celts emphasized passion, where the Romans emphasized reason) it is helpful to not dominate it, but the bridal and harness the energy.

I loved how McNair did not give an academic presentation. He brought to life his experience in Ireland studying the legend of Queen Maeve and distilling meaning from it using Jungian concepts. A theory is that some things about us and our being are best told through story and metaphor. The other side of this is academic style, which is a rigid linear structure with the clear logic of thesis, claims, warrants, and proofs, points A, B, C, and D, and their various sub-points. This is exactly not as his presentation went. He would begin with a story, follow a tangent, wind up somewhere off from where he left, and continue with the next thing that came to mind. A slide show, which his wife independently was perusing, provided something to reference in his loose, conversational style. It was an adjustment, but what rang for me is how appropriate this was.

The moral of the story seemed to be: “Let your imagination go, and watch it grow.”

Psychology | 14.09.2009 12:44 | 1 Comment

Mind/Body Sacred Feminine

Thinking of Jungian things, as they relate to my life–

Consciousness is moving, needing to recognize the sacred feminine.

Mother nature in the body~ Being present with the body/putting the mind in the body:
yoga~union of opposites

My activity was an answer to the question– What does my body want to do? It arose after altering my state of consciousness, there was a trance-y music present, it was Afro Celt Sound System, with african drums, and celtic melodies of wind and strings, very beautiful and driving. I began to dance and then do yoga.

Yoga,
and then my mind wandered off to dream analysis.

Mouse dream, baby suckled, but got changed into a mouse. A couple months back…

Gundestrup_cauldron_Ireland

The mouse in my dream, is a small, baby libido being nurtured by feminine life-giving principle, becomes timid and bites me. Mouse is in the negative …

Mice have intelligent, industrious and compassion traits. (Global Oneness dream dictionary) In the negative, what could this mean?

McNair said, according to Freud, in every dream there is a riddle. Let it be. According to Woodman (Conscious Femininity: Interviews with Marion Woodman) symbols may not mean anything, but mean something later, and they may mean different things at different times. I live in the question…

Snake dream:

Healing energy in the negative, attack of the birth/death archetype.

You don’t have to be afraid of the wicked old crone, because her appearance initiates a transformational process which is an opportunity to achieve a greater state of wholeness. (See the fairy tale The Nine Brothers Who Were Changed into Lambs, and their Sister. Talk by Kathryn Kuisle, Jung Institute, September 10, 2oo9.) Don’t be afraid of the Death of something, no matter how monstrous it feels, for in it is newness, it is part of the process of individuation, becoming whole.

Dreams, Psychology | 12.09.2009 12:39 | No Comments

Negative Animus in a Snake

This dream began as a tour of Soren and Steph’s house, and it was totally my dream house. Afterwards we were outside in the woods. A white and orange spider with long webby legs appeared in my hand, and it turned into a nasty, aggressive, orange snake, that shot at me from the river and then clamped on to my finger. I was squeezing its neck with my other hand so that it wouldn’t bite down any deeper. It was very intense!

I had been having no idea what this snake could possibly represent.

I was riding along Chris on our bikes, talking about how the school job that I thought I had so luckily got was not going to pan out (it was already supposed to have started several times. It’s already Thursday again, and I haven’t heard a thing about Monday.) I had started looking for other jobs. I am down to one night a week at the restaurant, and the sub job at Sheridan is by no means a regular source of income. No calls yet this week. Jefferson County requires a 5 year sub license; Denver is not hiring, neither is Littleton, except there are some paraprofessional positions that I have applied for. I haven’t heard anything from anyone with these yet. They barely pay enough for me to get by, anyway, and some don’t provide sufficient hours. Today I looked at Higher education jobs. Most require way more experience in fields than I have. However, a couple turned up that I think I may have a shot at, especially with my master degree candidacy! I just have my thesis to write… and they pay well! Who me, a sweet job at CU? Why not???? Everyone must start somewhere, and for this job, at least I’m not OVER-qualified! Maybe this job I “got” in July was just a place-holder, until a better job came up. I hope, pray, and dream…

The park with the trees began to look like the scenery from my snake-bite dream. What did this snake feel like? Woodman, the Jungian analyst of an author whose book I just read, is describing a shift of consciousness that asks us to embody our consciousness, to drop down into the gut, which is much like a second brain. This part of us operates on feeling and metaphor. When this feminine side of our nature is pushed aside, we may be overtaken with a negative sort of patriarchy, which is all about go, go, go, and get, get, get. It strives after perfection, rationality, pre-dominating an age which is un-balance, out-moded, according to Woodman. I see it, the materialism and physicalism in our culture, in individuals, and the sadness and disease it brings. I do believe that this type of thinking, that was imposed on me by my father, literally, and that I then imposed on myself, has caused my dis-ease, literally, again. Patriarchy, closely associated with the legacy of Cartesian dualism, which has allowed this practice of disembodied spirit, or as Dr. Gillian writes (how different is what he says, anyway?) disembodied intellect. I have been cut off at the head, not listening to the wisdom of my body, telling me to slow down, and smell the roses more often. Really, really, smell them. Is it surprising in this culture which has paved over and polluted much of the world? We are cut off from that nature, material Earth, our mother, whose language, in its positive form, is love.

I was cut off from my mother when she died.

Linda told me to slow down, warned me about burning it at both ends. I bet she read the wisdom of Woodman.

No, this snake in my dream was not negative femininity, dealing out death (from which comes new life.) It felt like the negative animus, or negative masculine principle within me, arising from an absent father (also something Linda discerned.) This time it was a snake, not a big black unseen, paralyzing force. The feminine is about being, and the masculine, about doing, I imagine. When this capacity is diminished, this portion of the human being is unable to execute projects successfully. The snake represented an inhibited animus in my professional life. I have not sought out a job like I found today at the university, because I didn’t even know a job like that existed, yet I’ve been training for a job like this during all my time at the university. I DO want to work at the college level, in a humanities field- social science, political science, psychology… my thesis reflects that. I can, nothing is stopping me but myself. (And negative archetypal constellations, as Woodman would say.)

It time I engage my creator function, create a form, and fill it out with my energy.

I’ve just been in charge of healing the little girl in me so I can move on, be an individual, creating my own prosperity and well-being.

Dreams, Psychology, The Human Condition | 27.08.2009 23:05 | No Comments

Mixed Culinary Results Create Emotional Havoc

I have been experimenting with baking with almond flour, with mixed results. I have had success with one type of bread (Lois Lang’s Luscious Bread mmmmm) and banana bread (a spontaneous happy accident) and pie-crust. However, carrot cake cup-cakes (with which I followed a recipe exactly), and this latest zucchini bread where disasters. I tried to be a little creative with it and it backfired. I put too much zucchini (I thought my zucchini muffins had too little) and I used an ingredient that makes the Lois Lang bread most delicious (dry curd cottage cheese) and even though it baked for almost two hours, is still all gooey inside. The blurry ugly picture even represents how I feel this turned out.

When I have success in the kitchen– when things turn out as I imagine them (as with the delicious creamed spinach from the other night) I am ecstatic. When things don’t turn out that way I nearly border on devastation. Then I try to eat whatever didn’t turn out just right as fast as possible to 1) get rid of the evidence of this symbol of blatant imperfection as quickly as possible and 2) to console myself by stuffing my face.

I am one emotionally twisted perfectionist food-lover.

Projects, Psychology | 2.05.2009 20:38 | No Comments

Phenomenology of Shamanism

Altering consciousness, and taking the mind to the place that is a place of cessation of discursive thought, and being completely in the body. Sensate experience sometimes evokes an emotional one, and to be with that feeling, entering a stillness of mind, and waiting to see what comes and going with it- this is a shamanic state. It is a quest of knowledge, or healing. It is a state much like dreaming. It is like a waking dream, a sort of daydream, however with certain intent. That is to transform energy.

I’m not sure whether what is termed “energy” here is positively scientific or whether it is still Freud’s metaphor. Hasn’t quantum physics proven Freud’s hypothesis that there is energy at play in psychic life? Regardless, shamans say that it is energy, and one takes a shamanic journey in order to transform energy. This is a healing technique that I have begun to study.

It is impossible to study this phenomenon unless I, perhaps in a phenomenological fashion, I study my self as a subject in hopes of discovering a technique that is something that every human being is able to perform in order to heal themselves. Unfortunately, this flies in the face of scientific tradition. However, in certain intellectual circles, “objectivity” is over-rated by scientists of mind who wish to dig deeper into the profundity of the human being. It is impotent in areas laden with questions of meaning and value of human experience. This is an endeavor which is suited to the study of humanity, of human subjects, unobjectified in any way. What kind of a human life is one without meaning?

German philosophers have named us body and spirit- or geist. This spirit that geist refers to is mental, it is completely “natural” and of this world. It is psyche, it is consciousness. My goal is to write about shamanism in a phenomenological way in an attempt to circumvent the lack of hard science as of now to describe the dreams and visions used to transform energy which one feels in their emotions, present in illness.

I am in agreement with Freud’s theory in the science of mind, that sometimes energy in one’s psyche is bound up in a way that is not serving to the subject. This is not unlike a tenet within shamanism. This an ancient technique that functions on a very primary process, primordial, mythical level. In my study, building off of the work of theories of Freud, Jung, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and others, perhaps this healing technique will gain wider audience and be of service to more of my fellow human beings.

We are all animated by energy. We all have minds, emotions, physical bodies. Evidently these components interact, causing various degrees of well-being/illness. It is known that all illness is not merely physical, there are psycho-somatic disturbances. If we are to get at the depth of the interplay of these components, we must be willing to go beyond strictly empirical, objectivist science, to study the human geist, or spirit. When we get into realms of meaning and value, we often find spiritual questions hovering in the shadows as well.

Despite the boundary between metaphysics and natural science since the Enlightenment, it seems that lately science is coming upon quite metaphysical discoveries in quantum physics. This is an area which I still must explore in order to be knowledgable as far as the hardcore science of all this is concerned.

I could be my own test subject.

I feel a certain energy in my gut and in my altered state. I invite the memory of the first experience to come. I feel those feelings. I think through the experience in an intellectual way, guided by knowledge as to how to make the situation better. Sometimes, it involves telling myself that it’s okay, that I am safe. Perhaps my body will be sacrificed, but I will be okay. Sometimes, I need to call on some help, and help arrives. I see entities, faces, places, and what I do there with them, it helps me transform the energy.

After my journeys, I have felt like something within me has shifted. I will continue with myself on the operating table, and I will work with others in the future to see if they too can heal themselves using shamanistic techniques. Objectivist skeptics will then be hard pressed to argue, but they will.

Psychology, The Human Condition | 20.03.2008 21:37 | 3 Comments