Inner Companion

AziMuth

In “Man and His Symbols” Carl Jung and Marie Louise von Franz share the spiritual approach of the Naskapi who lived in isolated family groups across the Labrador peninsula.

In his lifelong solitude the Naskapi hunter has to rely on his own inner voices and unconscious revelations; he has no religious teachers who tell him what he should believe, no rituals, festivals, or cults to help him along.  In his basic view of life, the soul of man is simply an “inner companion,” whom he calls “my friend” or Mista’peo, meaning “Great Man.”

Reliance on the intuitions of this voice a matter of life and death for the hunter the braving expanses of the tundra and arctic.  I do not think things have changed with us, but that in our extreme cultural extroversion, we have obscured the voice.  In a discussion yesterday, a young man told me he never remembers his dreams.  It’s a common attitude I encounter often.  I would go so far as to say it’s a common prejudice.  The point that needs to be made: if our inner companion keeps sending out messages, and we keep forgetting them, where is that relationship heading?

(image cc via Wikipedia)