Journeys of a Pregnant Virgin

It is a cold, silent early Sunday morning in wintery Zurich. My ongoing jetlag had me up at 4:30 which is better than my 2:20 am rising yesterday morning, but five nights of this have left me with a background headache and a veil of fatigue that feels thickest just when I most want to concentrate during an interesting seminar.

Nevertheless, despite my complaint, I am in good spirits. So far this has a more comfortable pace and feeling-tone than my six weeks here before Christmas. I arrived at 1 pm on Tuesday and as I walked into my 4 pm fairy tale seminar with an instructor I already know and like and a group of students who already feel like friends and colleagues, I felt yes, this is where I belong right now. And felt again that sense of deep quiet gratitude that outer circumstances, synchronicity, and the loving support of family and friends have all come together to allow me to follow my deepest bliss.

Now that the Admissions process has been completed, I can sink more deeply into the training process itself, which once again feels full of endless possibility. Even at this early stage (or perhaps not so early since everything precious in my life seems related to this work), I have more ideas for the two required "Symbol papers" and dissertation than I can ever use, and beyond that, lots of inspiration for seminars that I would like to teach here myself one day. But with "process" being the most important dimension of this training, I'm sure that the journey I have undertaken will take me in many unexpected directions, and I want to open myself to all of the unforseen possibilities ahead.

Reflecting back on my sleeplessness for a moment, I think it's not only jetlag, to be honest. My psyche simply cannot make an instantaneous switch from my Vancouver life and identity to my life here in Zurich. Add to that the fact that several seminars this week were more experiential than usual - which I love - and left my emotions churning afterward. It is all good, but intense, and would have left me tossing at night, even without jetlag.

Today will be a slow day. I've already made my enormous pot of soup for the coming week which is my heaviest, with 28 hours of lectures and seminars ahead! This afternoon I am meeting Vicki for a walk (assuming our ears and noses don't get frostbitten) and coffee - hello Spruengli Cafe! Suddenly I seem to have a very busy overseas telephone visit schedule as well. Part of me is sure I should be making "better" use of my time to read and immerse myself in Jungian theory, and then there is another (pretty insistent) part that reads for about twenty minutes and then balks. Over the last decade or so I have observed that I simply cannot read the way I used to, and I think it has been part of my "midlife" change in direction. I'm sure there is a more graceful way to express it, but Jung is not the only one to suggest that at midlife we find ourselves exploring unlived life and potential. Heaven knows I have read thousands and thousands of books in my life so far and will always love reading, but other passions demand my attention now and I take this resistance to booklearning as significant and not mere mental laziness! At the same time, I know that my precious five remaining weeks will fly by and, in accordance with my Libra nature, am always seeking a good balance and wise use of time.

And with that I will end this first reflection of 2006, with Happy New Year wishes to all.