Playful Resonance

“Time is a child-playing like a child-playing  board game-the kingdom of a child.  This is Telesphoros, who roams through the dark regions of the cosmos and glows like a star out of the depths.  He points the way to the gates of the sun and to the land of dreams.” Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, and Reflections, pg.227

This inscription, carved by Jung into a stone at his tower at Bollingen, was a spontaneous production, or as he says, “the words came to me – one after the other – while I worked on the stone.”  Yet the editor makes a note that each sentence has its source:  Heraclitus, the Mithras Liturgy, and Homer.   So was Jung lying?

We had a small gathering yesterday in Judith’s painting studio and this very topic came up.  Sid was noting compositional influences in the paintings throughout the space.  He shared that often while writing short stories he would get to “the end” only to realize that he had reproduced Joyce, or some other author he admired.

When this occurs it does not constitute plagiarism.  Instead, such a resonance with masterpieces can reveal the engaged psyche as it draws from the warehouse of relevancy and speaks through the lens of the specific artist.

Have you experienced such resonances?  It happens all the time in music.  Expression is an exercise in limitations.