Okay younguns-
Something happened yesterday at Poetic Outlaws, where I find truth, beauty and love still breathe pretty good, that got me to ruminating, and chess dreams last night about my queen and king working hard to overcome a serious opposition, which kept waking me up, got me to ruminating even more, and it came to be that I was reminded of something that came to me back in 1992 about how women could change the world all by their own selves, since men had no interest in changing themselves or the world, and why would they, if they were in charge?
This is gonna take a while to be told, and whether or not you, or anyone, like the punchline is beyond my pay gradeš.
Obey the Law Within
By Carl Jung
POETIC OUTLAWS
APR 01, 2024
"The fact that a man who goes his own way ends in ruin means nothing . . . He must obey his own law, as if it were a daemon whispering to him of new and wonderful paths."
- Carl Jung
What is it, in the end, that induces a man to go his own way and to rise out of unconscious identity with the mass as out of a swathing mist?
Not necessity, for necessity comes to many, and they all take refuge in convention. Not moral decision, for nine times out of ten we decide for convention likewise. What is it, then, that inexorably tips the scales in favor of the extra-ordinary?
It is what is commonly called vocation: an irrational factor that destines a man to emancipate himself from the herd and from it’s well-worn paths…
The fact that many a man who goes his own way ends in ruin means nothing to one who has a vocation. He must obey his own law, as if it were a daemon whispering to him of new and wonderful paths.
Anyone with a vocation hears the voice of the inner man: he is called. That is why the legends say that he possesses a private daemon who counsels him and whose mandates he must obey.
The best-known example of this is Faust, and a historical instance is provided by the daemon of Socrates…
There are not a few who are called awake by the summons of the voice, whereupon they are at once set apart from the others, feeling themselves confronted with a problem about which the others know nothing.
In most cases it is impossible to explain to the others what has happened, for any understanding is walled off by impenetrable prejudices.
The smaller the personality, the dimmer and more unconscious it becomes, until finally it merges indistinguishably with the surrounding society, thus surrendering its own wholeness and dissolving into the wholeness of the group.
In the place of the inner voice there is the voice of the group with its conventions, and vocation is replaced by collective necessities. But even in this unconscious social condition there are not a few who are called awake by the summons of the voice, whereupon they are at once set apart from the others, feeling themselves confronted with a problem about which the others know nothing.
In most cases it is impossible to explain to the others what has happened, for any understanding is walled off by impenetrable prejudices.
“You are no different from anybody else,” or, “there is no such thing,” and even if there is such a thing, it is immediately branded as “morbid” and “most unseemly.” For it is a “monstrous presumption to suppose anything of that sort could be of the slightest significance” – it is “purely psychological”…
He is at once set apart and isolated, as he has resolved to obey the law that commands him from within.
"His own law!" everybody will cry. But he knows better: it is the law...
The only meaningful life is a life that strives for the individual realization — absolute and unconditional— of its own particular law ... To the extent that a man is untrue to the law of his being ... he has failed to realize his own life's meaning.
Sloan Bashinsky
Sloan’s Newsletter
Once upon a time I was married to a woman who was a student of Dora Kalff, who had been a student of Carl Jung.
Dora then invented Sandplay therapy, based on the Jungian model, but it was symbolic work without talk therapy. It’s goal was to help people become who they really are, self-actualize.
In 1988, I spent 30 days in Zurich, while my wife attended a Sandplay training hosted by Dora.
I heard Dora tell her students that the Jung Institute in Zurich was offering Sandplay training, but had not consulted her.
Later, with my wife and a Jungian analyst present, I asked Dora why she thought the Jung Institute had not asked her to be involved in its Sandplay training, given the only way to become a Sandplay therapist was to do a Sandplay process with a Sandplay therapist who had done her/his won Sandplay process.
Dora said, “I think it is because they have not embraced the feminine.” My wife looked like she wanted to crawl under a rock.
Doctor Jung had a lot to say about the internal feminine, anima, and the internal masculine, animus, being out of balance and needing to beƧome balanced for a person to become who they really are, self-actualize, etc.
Jung relied heavily on his patients’ dreams to measure that yin/yang balance.
In Jung's autobiography published after his death, which I read in 1989, he reported going through a rough patch precipitated by a female voice saying to him in his sleep, “That’s art.’ He woke up very disturbed, because he knew she spoke of his work, which he very much wanted to be viewed as science.
Jung was developing his own brand of psychiatry, which he very much hoped the medical profession would accept, as it was accepting Sigmunf Freud’s brand of psychiatry.
Jung described his struggle with the female voice, which he finally concluded was his negative anima trying to upend him, and he defeated her and prevailed.
When I told my wife Jung blew it, because his work was both science and art, and he had rejected his feminine. She looked like she wanted to crawl under a rock.
When I told a good friend of hers the same thing, who was a Jungian analyst and also a Sandplay therapist trained by Dora Kaff, she said I could not say that about Dr. Jung!. I said, well, it was true, wasn’t it? She said, yes, but it wasn't respectful.
Some angels that got a hold of me in early 1987 were taking me on a tour of my and other people’s relationships with our internal feminine and masculine and how that played out in my and their lives.
The angels stood me in front of endless mirrors looking at me. It was no fun, and it’s still going on.
Maybe in 2016 this poem fell out of me, which I think still sums up the situation.
"Bi Polar”
the world's favorite mood disorder
the cause of all human ails,
including wars,
if the demons aren't counted
bi polar disorder,
the destruction of the
south pole,
the feminine,
the north pole,
he ain't been
right in the head
since she’s been gone
A year or so ago, I posted that poem in the Reddit r/spirituality forum and several people accused me of being very unkind to people suffering what psychiatry calls bipolar disorder, and the moderator took the post down.
Barbara Mars
Humans in Space
Fascinating story and life experience. So many things and viewpoints in life to ponder.
Sloan Bashinsky
Dreams this night reminded me there is more.
Several times I heard Dora tell her students, most of whom were women, “For any real change to happen on this world, the women will have to go first”, which really disturbed my wife, who was a licensed clinical social worker.
In my firstt novel, 1992, the mother of the hero wrote an anonymous weekly culture jamming column in a local newspaper, in which she poked local churches, and in one column she told her women readers that it was on them to bring about change, and the way they could do it was to cross their legs until men behaved differently. Kundalini, Alabama; A Strange Tale, can be read at the free internet library, archive.org. Type my name into the search space and click enter and icons for my books will come up and click on Kundalina’s icon and it will open. You may be asked if you wish to open this website, which is run and endowed by colleges in America.
Two later novels, Heavy Wait: A Strange Tale (2001) and its sequel Return of the Strange (2023) also are about the male-female internal and external dance. Not for the faint of heart, the last two.
Soon after I met a New Age woman in 1999, who was raised in a non-religious family, she was healed by Jesus and Archangel Michael of her father having sex with her from age 5 to age 18. There were 2-3 healing sessions per day for 2 weeks, which freaked her out, as I was talking her through each session. After which, she was able to have orgasms during sexual intercourse for the first time in her life. I had received similar healing the year prior. By then, I no longer belong to a religion.
Then, she reported Jesus and Michael telling telling her, “All women on this world are in a rabid war with God and that is the cause of all wars on this world including all man made wars”. I told her that women were second class citizens on this world, and the Adam and Eve story was one example. She was the model for the heroine in Heavy Wait and Return of the Strange.
In 2018, a poem about Eve’s sentiments wrote herself out of me:
"Eve's Answer”
Vexing Truth
Life is Poetry,
Poetry is Life,
There's no more to say,
but that would make God
a really dull boy,
now wouldn't it, Eve?
So, Eve,What say you?
After all,You have been,
still are,
blamed,for everything that went wrong
with hu - MAN - i - ty.
Well, do you really want to hear
what I gotta say?
Is this one of those
be careful what you ask for pregnancies?
Well, is it?
Probably, but say what you wish -
I s'pect you need to be heard.
Heard?
Funny you mention ears.
Yes, ears.
Such important receptacles.
Yet filled with concrete,
shit, propaganda, beliefs,certainties,
well, let's not leave out
SUPERSTITION and RELIGION,
now should we?
By the way,
where do ya suppose
God came from?
Or, out of?
And, why do ya s'pose
I made Eve
in my own IMAGE?’
'Cause Adam was
so bored and dull -
so ... predictable
He was BORING!!!
the shit outta me!!!
That's why.
Now
Shusssssh -
Don't go round quoting me
on any of that -
I've had quite enough of
the religious right
ta last me
the rest of forever!
When I look at America today, I see one huge mess, and the only way I can see for any real change to occur in America is for the women in America to cross their legs until the men in America behave differently :-) Same for everywhere else.
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