Our Nature

“All the mythologized processes of nature, such as summer and winter, the phases of the moon, the rainy seasons, and so forth, are in no sense allegories of these objective occurrences; rather they are symbolic expressions of the inner, unconscious drama of the psyche which becomes accessible to man’s consciousness by way of projection – that is, mirrored in the events of nature.” Carl Jung, The Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, CW IXi, par. 7.

It’s a bit of a cruel joke the rationalist predisposition of the last few centuries has played on us, essentially a con game that we are now seemingly programmed to fall for. In it’s first encounter… at least for me in 7th grade English class it took the form of writing book reports exploring the theme man vs. nature, and the implied war on Nature has emerged in our life times in the global warming meme.

“When our natural inheritance has been dissipated, then the spirit too, as Heraclitus says, has descended from its fiery heights. But when spirit becomes heavy it turns to water, and with Luciferian presumption the intellect usurps the seat where once the spirit was enthroned.” Ibid. par. 32.

And as we continue to stand up in the world, sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes not so subtlety, we are encouraged to renounce our natural selves. The pervasive loneliness in our culture is not so much a social problem as a soul problem. We are divorced from the fabric of our being, shut out from any rapture of solitude, slowly slouching along the byways of our crowded abodes exiled from our natural inheritance.

“For the artificial sundering of true and false wisdom creates a tension in the psyche, and from these arises a loneliness and a craving like that of the morphine addict, who always hopes to find companions in his vice.” Ibid. par. 31.

Shakespeare’s “We are the stuff that dreams are made of” is more accurate then we might at first suspect. Psyche resides in our natural state. It is we who have become artificial, or “plastic” if you will. Do we any longer have it in us to live in the flesh, in our nature?

Are your dreams rendering it differently?
(If the tone of the post surprises, consider this return flight reflection a compensation to a few days spent amongst the glam of Vegas.)