Journeys of a Pregnant Virgin

Although I hoped to write again last Sunday, I returned from Geneva later than expected that evening and then plunged into another busy week. Suddenly it's Friday afternoon and it occurs to me that this weekend is also shaping up to be quite full so I will write at least a few lines now, lest another week pass by without comment.

It was great to be in Geneva with David and Jana, Jonas and Hannah. I can also see the early promise of their little brother or sister in Jana's gently rounding outline (Jana and I say it's a girl). Both children informed me repeatedly that there is a baby growing in Mama's belly, and Hannah asks her Mama regularly, "How is your baby doing?" They are lovely kids, wide-eyed and alert, full of curiousity and mischief, and very affectionate. Hannah looks like a little gypsy with her soft brown curls and huge dark eyes. Although they speak German and English, their English is sometimes a literal translation from German and makes for some wonderfully amusing conversations. But I can also sense how utterly all-consuming and exhausting their care must be, and Jana and David are both working outside the home as well.

Highlight of the week was - no question about it - a four hour afternoon and evening expressive arts seminar in which we drew, coloured, wrote animal stories, painted some more, and finished off by writing haiku. After a particularly dense and theoretical lecture in the morning (also interesting but my brain hurt by the end) it was absolutely delightful to feel like a kid in a kindergarten class (I never went to kindergarten but they say it's never too late...) and to look around and see several seventy year old classmates equally engrossed. No one having to say anything insightful or intelligent - just lost in play. We could use a few more seminars like that around here!

Meanwhile, my inner work with dreams and movement is proceeding richly. It is so fascinating to explore different ways of working with dreams and observe what each brings by way of experience and insight. My respect for dreams continues to grow. What fascinating worlds we carry within us!

Perhaps I'll wrap up with three haiku, my first ever. These are a response to the second drawing I did, in which we were asked to compose a scene depicting our birth family as animals.

1.
Colour vibrates here
Around the creatures softly
One green field of peace.

2.
Water, mountains, trees
At home in this green heaven
You can move with joy.

3.
Trees on the skyline
Restore the weary creatures
No one feels alone.

I'm not sure about the sequence but this is the order in which they came to me - so be it.

Enough for now. It's time to run upstairs and help Marianne with the salad for a family dinner here before she and Nic (her boyfriend) leave for India in the morning, and I get the house to myself for the next two weeks. Until next time, peace and all good things to you who enter here.

Here I am, back in Zurich, on a dark, wet, November Sunday morning. I have been back almost two weeks. Last Sunday I began to write an entry but realized that I wasn't ready to take up this blog again, so I let it be. I'm still not sure I'm ready to go public, but I'm writing anyway, to see how it feels.

I think my reluctance has to do with the fact that what is most important to me right now is going on in the soul realm and has to be contained. But since a number of you, my dear friends, have expressed disappointment at checking this blogspot in vain, and I do find this a good way to keep in touch, I will give it a go, after these many months.

Perhaps a brief update is in order. My dear Mum had open heart surgery (quintupple bypass and aortic valve replacement) on June 6th and has been recovering ever since. Although her recovery continues, she was stable enough that I felt comfortable picking up my Jungian studies in Zurich again. Thankfully, I was able to return to my cozy little room next to the Institute, where I can run across the path to class without a coat or umbrella, even in the rain. I'm amazed again by my good fortune in finding this room in a city of high housing costs and low vacancy rates! It could hardly be more ideal for my purposes and it was lovely to be welcomed back warmly by Marianne, my landlady, who certainly could have rented it out to someone else in my absence. We have resumed our habit of enjoying a glass of red wine together and making enormous shared salads for supper most evenings.

The lectures and seminars at ISAP have been interesting and engaging thus far this semester. I have decided to be more selective, after attending almost everything on offer during my previous two terms, because I want to begin researching and reading for the required "Symbol paper" and also for the "Propideutikum" (midway) exams that I may be taking next summer - if I continue. That is still the big unknown. I have been doing this one semester at a time, always open to the possibility that at any point I may decide not to carry on.

There are more students this semester than last year at this time and I Iike this very much - especially since many of the new ones are mature (meaning my age or older!) and provide a welcome gentle balance to the sparkling younger folk with their goal oriented fervour and intensity. I appreciate the variety of ages and cultural backgrounds and not least, the fact that there are now a few men in the lectures and seminars, five out of twenty five in Judith Harris' Reading Seminar last week, to be exact. Still not a balance, but much better than last semester when there were often six or eight women and no men at all.

So far I have not been out in Zurich much, other than for my usual hour long walk through the city most mornings or afternoons. But yesterday Wendy and I went to a beautiful Egyptian movie called "Dunia," about a young woman searching for her authentic identity in modern Egypt (a lyrical meditation on the Virgin archetype), and then had an early supper and wonderful conversation in a nearby restaurant. There is so much rich cultural life on offer here and I do want to take advantage of some concerts, in particular. This afternoon Vicki and I may go to the Kunsthaus (which I have not visited yet because it was undergoing renovations last semester) and plan a few other outings for the next month or two. I can't imagine ever feeling bored in Zurich (not that I do in Vancouver either, for that matter)!

The coming week also looks full. In addition to the usual lectures and seminars, I'm hoping to get out to the Kusnacht Institute library to do some preliminary reasearch, and I will be visiting my feisty retired Jungian analyst friend, Sonja, on Thursday. Then I may jump on a train to Geneva on the weekend to visit my stepson David and his family, if it suits them. It's hard to believe they are only a few hours away now, since their move from Leipzig earlier this year. With Zurich, Geneva, and Vancouver consistently ranked as the top three cities in the world for quality of life, I like to remind Steve that we have all three bases covered, at the moment!

Enough. I would like to close with a quote, and here is one that struck me in the Reading Seminar, from CGJ himself.

"It is immediately clear to the psychologist what cathartic and at the same time rejuvenating effects must flow from the Demeter cult into the feminine psyche, and what a lack of psychic hygiene characterizes our culture, which no longer knows the kind of wholesome experience afforded by Eleusinian emotions."

In particular this passage struck me in terms of the Body Soul Rhythms work I have been doing over the past six years, and also as inspiration for my own teaching and for the workshops Ursula and I have been creating together.

Until next time, all the best to you who read these lines! Have a good week.