Journeys of a Pregnant Virgin

The sun is shining and it promises to be a very warm early summer day in Zurich. I will be indoors for a six hour movement workshop today, but I'll enjoy the 45 minute walk down the hill and along the water's edge to get to the beautiful mansion where it takes place. Meanwhile I want to write a few lines here and say that I have completed the first four of my five Propideutikum (mid-training) exams and all is well. I am happy to report that I have enjoyed the process of preparing and then engaging in lively discussion of the four topics, although half an hour is a very short amount of time to delve into the material concerned.

I see more clearly now that the exams really are as much an initiation process as an objective assessment of one's knowledge of Jungian theory. Since the Ethnology and Comparative Religion exams consisted of short discussions of two essays I'd written beforehand - "The Role of Song in Contemporary European Roma/Gypsy Culture," and "Dark Sisters: Kali and the Black Madonna," respectively - these were not strictly "exams" as such, but still the ritual exam date and time were established and the formalities observed. All things considered it was not a stressful process but I am also glad it is now done. I have ten days to prepare for the last exam in this round and the reading, consisting mostly of Jung, will be stimulating.

Already I am seeing Zurich through the eyes of one preparing to leave again, and realizing what a bond I have developed with this beautiful city of lilacs and roses. As I return home to Vancouver with all I love there, I know Zurich is a soul-home for me, something I have not felt anywhere else except in Vancouver. My life is far simpler and easier here in many ways, but it is also Steve-less, which I can only take for so long. Still it's nice to know that while some of my friends dream of affording a pied a terre in Zurich, I can return anytime to my sweet little room on Hochstrasse at a more than reasonable rent and with good company to boot.

My reward after passing all four exams with flying colours was to begin reading another of James Hillman's books, THE THOUGHT OF THE HEART AND THE SOUL OF THE WORLD. No longer a "Christian" in the old sense that I grew up with, I have no desire to be any kind of "---ian" again; whether Jung-ian, Woodman-ian, or Hillman-ian. Indeed, to claim (other than with humour) identity with any of these is counter-intuitive altogether. But it doesn't mean I don't resonate passionately with their writing and soul-essences, and Hillman, newest to me, continues to delight and amaze me with the eros and poetry of his writing. Here are excerpts of my current reading, straight from my journal (minus the beautiful fuchsia and dark green shades of ink) as the Sunday churchbells chime in the distance...

"The whole endeavor of retrieving projections - that major enterprise of analytical practice - could become irrelevant once the theory of the heart were to shift from its personalistic basis. We would then recognize much of what we call projection to be an attempt by the psyche to experience things beyond ourselves as imaginal presences, an attempt to restore both heart and image to things."

"Confessional psychology misses the fact that I am already revealed in my 'Selbstdarstellung.' Revelation already given with existence - not a task. Every move we make, phrase we utter, is confession of our heart because it reveals our images. Heart is manifest in the fantasies displayed in my life, not only concealed in my depths."

"How is it possible that beauty has played such a central and obvious part in the history of the soul and its thoughts, and yet is absent in modern psychology? ... If beauty is not given full place in our work with psyche, then the soul's essential realization cannot occur.... If beauty is inherent and essential to soul, then beauty appears wherever soul appears. That revelation of soul's essence, the actual showing forth of Aphrodite in psyche, her smile, is called in mortal language 'beauty'."

And - I think the recognition and celebration of our own souls' essential beauty is a good place to close for now. Thank you for stopping by.
Marlene