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painterontheshore · 10 months ago

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The red book

[…].Rather, he saw that each person’s consciousness emerges like an island from the great sea in which all find their base, with the rim of wet sand encircling each island corresponding to the “personal unconscious.” But it is the collective unconscious—that sea—that is the birthplace of all consciousness, and from there the old ideas arise anew, and their connections with contemporary situations are initiated.

[…]

At times during this period, Jung was so overcome with emotion that he feared that he might be in danger of losing his psychic balance altogether. Writing down the material helped him to keep it under control, since once it was objectified he could then turn his mind to other things, secure in the knowledge that the unconscious material was safe from loss or distortion. During this strained and difficult period of his life he never withdrew from his routine of active work and related[1]ness to his family. Life with his wife and children proved to be a stabilizing influence, as also was his psychiatric practice. He forced himself to move back and forth from the conscious position with its distinct, if temporal, demands—to the unconscious one. Gradually he attained a capacity for granting each position its important role in his life and, when it was necessary, to allow the interpenetration of the one by the other.

[…]. He had the courage to state that psychotherapy cannot be defined altogether as a science. In making a science of her, he said, “the individual imagines that he has caught the psyche and holds her in the hollow of his hand. He is even making a science of her in the absurd supposition that the intellect, which is but a part and a function of the psyche, is sufficient to comprehend the much greater whole.”

The word “science” comes from the Latin scientia, which means knowledge, and therefore is identified with consciousness and with the intellectual effort to draw into consciousness as much knowledge as possible. But, with our psychological concept of the unconscious, and with all the evidence that has emerged to justify its reality, it is necessary to recognize that there is a very large area of human experience with which science cannot deal. It has to do with all that is neither finite nor measurable, with all that is neither distinct nor—potentially, at least—explicable. It is that which is not accessible to logic or to the “word.” It begins at the outermost edge of knowledge. Despite the continuing expansion or even explosion of information, there will forever be limits beyond which the devices of science cannot lead a man.

It becomes a matter of seeing the “created world” in terms of a “creating principle.” This is difficult when we conceive of ourselves as being among “the created” and hence being unable to comprehend that which was before we existed and which will continue after the ego-consciousness with which we identify ourselves no longer exists in the form in which we know it. We cannot, however much we strive, incorporate all of the unconscious into consciousness, because the first is illimitable and the second, limited. What is the way then, if there is a way, to gain some understanding of unconscious processes? It seemed to Jung, as it has to others who have set aside the ego to participate directly in the mystery, that if we cannot assimilate the whole of the unconscious, then the risk of entering into the unfathomable sphere of the unconscious must be taken.

It is not that Jung deliberately sought to dissolve the more or less permeable barrier between consciousness and the unconscious. It was, in effect, something that happened to him— sometimes in dreams, and sometimes in even more curious ways. Under the aegis of Philemon as guiding spirit, Jung submitted himself to the experience that was happening to him. He accepted the engagement as full participant; his ego remained to one side in a non-interfering role, a helper to the extent that observation and objectivity were required to record the phenomena that occurred. And what did occur shocked Jung profoundly. He realized that what he felt and saw resembled the hallucinations of his psychotic patients, with the difference only that he was able to move into that macabre half world at will and again out of it when external necessity demanded that he do so. This required a strong ego, and an equally strong determination to step away from it in the direction of that superordinate focus of the total personality, the self.

However, we must remember that it was with no such clearly formulated goal that Jung in those days took up the challenge of the mysterious. This was uncharted territory. He was experiencing and working out his fantasies as they came to him. Alternately, he was living a normal family life and carrying on his therapeutic work with patients, which gave him a sense of active productivity.

Meanwhile, the shape of his inner experience was becoming more definite, more demanding. One day he found himself besieged from within by a great restlessness. He felt that the entire atmosphere around him was highly charged, as one sometimes senses it before an electrical storm. The tension in the air seemed even to affect the other members of the house[1]hold; his children said and did odd things, which were most uncharacteristic of them. He himself was in a strange state, a mood of apprehension, as though he moved through the midst of a houseful of spirits. He had the sense of being surrounded by the clamor of voices—from without, from within—and there was no surcease for him until he took up his pen and began to write.

Then, during the course of three nights, there flowed out of him a mystifying and heretical document. It began: “The dead came back from Jerusalem, where they found not what they sought.” Written in an archaic and stilted style, the manuscript was signed with the pseudonym of Basilides, a famous gnostic teacher of the second century after Christ. Basilides had belonged to that group of early Christians which was declared heretical by the Church because of its pretensions to mystic and esoteric insights and its emphasis on direct knowledge rather than faith. It was as though the orthodox Christian doctrine had been examined and found too perfect, and therefore incomplete, since the answers were given in that doctrine, but many of the questions were missing. Jung raised crucial questions in his Seven Sermons of the Dead. The blackness of the nether sky was dredged up and the paradoxes of faith and disbelief were laid side by side. Traces of the dark matter of the Sermons may be found throughout the works of Jung which followed, especially those which deal with religion and its infernal counterpoint, alchemy. All through these later writings it is as if Jung were struggling with the issues raised in the dialogues with the “Dead,” who are the spokesmen for that dark realm beyond human understanding; but it is in Jung’s last great work, Mysterium Coniunctionis, on which he worked for ten years and completed only in his eightieth year, that the meaning of the Sermons finally finds its definition. Jung said that the voices of the Dead were the voices of the Unanswered, Unresolved and Unredeemed. Their true names became known to Jung only at the end of his life.

The words flow between the Dead, who are the questioners, and the archetypal wisdom which has its expression in the individual, who regards it as revelation. The Sermons deny that God spoke two thousand years ago and has been silent ever since, as is commonly supposed by many who call themselves religious. Paul, whose letters are sometimes referred to as “gnostic,” supported this view in his Epistle to the Hebrews (1:1), “God who at sundry times and in divers manner spake in time past unto the fathers by thy prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son .. .” Revelation occurs in every generation. When Jung spoke of a new way of understanding the hidden truths of the unconscious, his words were shaped by the same archetypes that in the past inspired the prophets and are operative in the present in the unconscious of modern man. Perhaps this is why he was able to say of the Sermons: “These conversations with the dead formed a kind of prelude to what I had to communicate to the world about the unconscious: a kind of pattern of order and interpretation of all its general contents.”

I will not attempt here to interpret or explain the Sermons. They must stand as they are, and whoever can find meaning in them is free to do so; whoever cannot may pass over them. They belong to Jung’s “initial experiences” from which derived all of his work, all of his creative activity. A few excerpts will offer some feeling for the “otherness” which Jung experienced at that time, and which was for him so germinal. The first Sermon, as he carefully lettered it in antique script in his Red Book, begins:

The dead came back from Jerusalem where they found not what they sought. They prayed me let them in and besought my word, and thus I began my teaching. Hearken: I begin with nothingness. Nothingness is the same as fullness. In infinity full is no better than empty. Nothingness is both empty and full. As well might ye say anything else of nothingness, as for instance, white it is, or black, or again, it is, not, or it is. A thing that is infinite and eternal hath no qualities, since it hath all qualities. This nothingness or fullness we name the pleroma.

All that I can say of the pleroma is that it goes beyond our capacity to conceive of it, for it is of another order than human consciousness. It is that infinite which can never be grasped, not even in imagination. But since we, as people, are not infinite, we are distinguished from the pleroma. The first Sermon continues:

Creatura is not in the pleroma, but in itself. The pleroma is, both beginning and end of created beings. It pervadeth them, as the light of the sun everywhere pervadeth the air. Although the pleroma pervadeth altogether, yet hath created body no share thereof, just as a wholly transparent body becometh neither light nor dark through the light which pervadeth it. We are, however, the pleroma itself, for we are a part of the eternal and the infinite. But we have no share thereof, as we are from the pleroma infinitely removed; not spiritually or temporally, but essentially, since we are distinguished from the pleroma in our essence as creatura, which is confined within time and space.

The quality of human life, according to this teaching, lies in the degree to which each person distinguishes herself or himself from the totality of the unconscious. The wresting of consciousness, of self-awareness, from the tendency to become submerged in the mass, is one of the most important tasks of the individuated person. This is the implication of a later passage from the Sermons:

What is the harm, ye ask, in not distinguishing oneself? If we do not distinguish, we get beyond our own nature, away from creatura. We fall into indistinctiveness . . . We fall into the pleroma itself and cease to be creatures. We are given over to dissolution in the nothingness. This is the death of the creature. Therefore we die in such measure as we do not dis[1]tinguish. Hence the natural striving of the creature goeth to[1]wards distinctiveness, fighteth against primeval, perilous sameness. This is called the principium individuationis. This principle is the essence of the creature.

In the pleroma all opposites are said to be balanced and therefore they cancel each other out; there is no tension in the unconscious. Only in man’s consciousness do these separations exist:

The Effective and the Ineffective. Fullness and Emptiness. Living and Dead. Difference and Sameness. Light and Darkness. The Hot and the Cold. Force and Matter. Time and Space. Good and Evil. Beauty and Ugliness. The One and the Many... These qualities are distinct and separate in us one from the other; therefore they are not balanced and void, but are effective. Thus are we the victims of the pairs of opposites. The pleroma is rent in us.

Dualism and monism are both products of consciousness. When consciousness begins to differentiate from the unconscious, its first step is to divide into dichotomies. It proceeds through all possible pairs until it arrives at the concept of the One and the Many. This implies a recognition that even the discriminating function of consciousness acknowledges that all opposites are contained within a whole, and that this whole contains both consciousness and that which is not conscious. Here lies the germ of the concept marking the necessity of ever looking to the unconscious for that compensating factor which can enable us to bring balance into the one-sided attitude of consciousness. Always, in the analytic process, we search the dreams, the fantasies, and the products of active imagination, for the elements that will balance: the shadow for persona-masked ego, the anima for the aggressively competitive man, the animus for the self-effacing woman, the old wise man for the puer aeternus, the deeply founded earthmother for the impulsive young woman. We need to recognize the importance of not confusing ourselves with our qualities. I am not good or bad, wise or foolish—I am my “own being” and, being a whole person, I am capable of all manner of actions, good and bad wise and foolish. The traditional Christian ideal of attempting to live out only the so-called higher values and eschewing the lower is proclaimed disastrous in this gnostic “heresy.” The traditional Christian ideal is antithetical to the very nature of consciousness or awareness:

When we strive after the good or the beautiful, we thereby forget our own nature, which is distinctiveness, and we are delivered over to the qualities of the; pleroma, which are pairs of opposites. We labour to attain to the good and the beautiful, yet at the same time we also lay hold of the evil and the ugly, since in the pleroma these are one with the good and the beautiful. When, however, we remain true to our own nature, which is distinctiveness, we distinguish ourselves from the good and the beautiful, and therefore, at the same time, from the evil and ugly. And thus we fall not into the pleroma, namely, into nothingness and dissolution.

Buried in these abstruse expressions is the very crux of Jung’s approach to religion. He is deeply religious in the sense of pursuing his life task under the overwhelming awareness of the magnitude of an infinite God, yet he knows and accepts his limitations as a human being. This makes him reluctant to say with certainty anything about this “Numinosum,” this totally “Other.” In a filmed interview Jung was asked, “Do you believe in God?” He replied with an enigmatic smile, “I know. I don't need to believe. I know.” Wherever the film has been shown an urgent debate inevitably follows as to what he meant by that statement. It seems to me that believing means to have a firm conviction about something that may or may not be debatable. It is an act of faith, that is, it requires some effort. Perhaps there is even the implication that faith is required because that which is believed in seems so preposterous. On the other hand, it is not necessary to acquire a conviction about something if you have experienced it. I do not believe I have just eaten dinner. If I have had the experience, I know it. And so with recognizing the difference between religious belief and religious experience. Whoever has experienced the divine presence has passed beyond the requirement of faith, and also of reason. Reasoning is a process of approximating truth. It leads to knowledge. But knowing is a direct recognition of truth, and it leads to wisdom. Thinking is a process of differentiation and discrimination. In our thoughts we make separations and enlist categories where in a wider view of reality they do not exist. The rainbow spectrum is not composed of six or seven colors; it is our thinking that determines how many colors there are and where red leaves off and orange begins. We need to make our differentiations in the finite world in order to deal expediently with the fragmented aspects of our temporal lives.

The Sermons remind us that our temporal lives, seen from the standpoint of eternity, may be illusory—as illusory as eternity seems when you are trying to catch a bus on a Monday morning. Either seems false when seen from the standpoint of the other. Addressed to the Dead, the words that follow are part of the dialogue with the unconscious, the pleroma, whose existence is not dependent on thinking or believing.

Ye must not forget that the pleroma hath no qualities. We create them through thinking. If, therefore, ye strive after difference or sameness, or any qualities whatsoever, ye pursue thoughts which flow to you out of the pleroma; thoughts, namely, concerning non-existing qualities of the pleroma. In as much as ye run after these thoughts, ye fall again into the pleroma, and reach difference and sameness at the same time. Not your thinking, but your being, is distinctiveness. Therefore, not after difference, as ye think it, must ye strive; but after your own being. At bottom, therefore, there is only one striving, namely, the striving after your own being. If ye had this striving ye would not need to know anything about the pleroma and its qualities, and yet would come to your right goal by virtue of your own being.

The passage propounds Jung’s insight about the fruitlessness of pursuing philosophizing and theorizing for its own sake. Perhaps it suggests why he never systematized his own theory of psychotherapy, why he never prescribed techniques or methods to be followed. Nor did he stress the categorization of patients into disease entities based on differences or samenesses, except perhaps as a convenience for purposes of describing appearances, or for communicating with other therapists. The distinctiveness of individual men or women is not in what has happened to them, in this view, nor is it in what has been thought about them. It is in their own being, their essence. This is why a man or woman as therapist has only one “tool” with which to work, and that is the person of the therapist. What happens in therapy depends not so much upon what the therapist does, as upon who the therapist is.

The last sentence of the first Sermon provides the key to that hidden chamber which is at once the goal of individuation, and the abiding place of the religious spirit which can guide us from within our own depths:

Since, however, thought estrangeth from being, that knowledge must I teach you wherewith ye may be able to hold your thought in leash.

Suddenly we know who the Dead are. We are the dead. We are psychologically dead if we live only in the world of consciousness, of science, of thought which “estrangeth from being.” Being is being alive to the potency of the creative principle, translucent to the lightness and the darkness of the pleroma, porous to the flux of the collective unconscious. The message does not decry “thought,” only a certain kind of thought, that which “estrangeth from being.” Thought—logical deductive reasoning, objective scientific discrimination— must not be permitted to become the only vehicle through which we may approach the problematic of nature. Science, and most of all the “science of human behavior,” must not be allowed to get away with saying “attitudes are not important, what is important is only the way in which we behave.” For if our behavior is to be enucleated from our attitudes we must be hopelessly split in two, and the psyche, which is largely spirit, must surely die within us.

That knowledge . . . wherewith ye may be able to hold your thought in leash must, I believe, refer to knowledge which comes from those functions other than thinking. It consists of the knowledge that comes from sensation, from intuition, and from feeling. The knowledge which comes from sensation is the immediate and direct perception which arrives via the senses and has its reality independently of anything that we may think about it. The knowledge which comes from intuition is that which precedes thinking and also which suggests where thinking may go; it is the star which determines the adjustment of the telescope, the hunch which leads to the hypothesis. And finally, the knowledge which comes from feeling is the indisputable evaluative judgment; the thing happens to me in a certain way and incorporates my response to it; I may be drawn toward it or I may recoil from it, I love or I hate, I laugh or I weep, all irrespective of any intervening process of thinking about it.

It is not enough, as some of the currently popular anti-intellectual approaches to psychotherapy would have it, merely to lay aside the intellectual function. The commonly heard cries, “I don’t care what you think about it, I want to know how you feel about it,” are shallow and pointless; they miss the kernel while clinging to the husk. Jo hold your thought in leash, that seems to me the key, for all the knowledge so hard-won in the laboratory and in the field is valuable only in proportion to the way it is directed to the service of consciousness as it addresses itself to the unconscious, to the service of the created as it addresses itself to the creative principle, to the service of human needs as we address ourselves to God.

Jung’s approach to religion is twofold, yet it is not dualistic. First, there is the approach of one person to God and, second, there is the approach of the scientist-psychologist to people’s idea-of-God. The latter is subsumed under the for[1]mer. Jung’s own religious nature pervades all of his writing about religion; even when he writes as a psychotherapist he does not forget that he is a limited human being standing in the shade of the mystery he can never understand.

Nor is he alone in this. Margaret Mead has written, “We need a religious system with science at its very core, in which the traditional opposition between science and religion . . . can again be resolved, but in terms of the future instead of the past ... Such a synthesis . . . would use the recognition that when man permitted himself to become alienated from part of himself, elevating rationality and often narrow purpose above those ancient intuitive properties of the mind that bind him to his biological past, he was in effect cutting himself off from the rest of the natural world.”

[…]

What Jung is attempting to understand and elucidate is, as the student quite correctly supposed, a psychology of religion. Jung puts the religious experience of the individual, which comes about often spontaneously and independently, into place with the religious systems that have been evolved and institutionalized in nearly every society throughout history.

In psychotherapy, the religious dimension of human experience often appears after the analytic process has proceeded to some depth. Initially, people come for help with some more or less specific problem. They may admit to a vague uneasiness that what is ailing may be a matter of personal issues, and that the “symptoms” or “problems” they face could be outcroppings of a deeper reality—the shape of which they do not comprehend. When, in analysis, they come face to face with the figurative representation of the self, they are often stunned and shocked by the recognition that the non-personal power, of which they have only the fuzziest conception, lives and manifests itself in them. Oh, yes, they have heard about this, and read about it, and have heard it preached from intricately carved pulpits, but now it is all different. It is the image in their own dreams, the voice in their own ears, the shivering in the night as the terror of all terrors bears down upon them, and the knowing that it is within them—arising there, finding its voice there, and being received there.

It is not in the least astonishing, [Jung tells us] that numinous experiences should occur in the course of psychological treatment, and that they. may even be expected with some regularity, for they also occur very frequently in exceptional psychic states that are not treated, and may even cause them. They do not belong exclusively to the domain of psychopathology but can be observed in normal people as well. Naturally, modern ignorance of and prejudice against intimate psychic experiences dismiss them as psychic anomalies and put them in psychiatric pigeonholes without making the least attempt to understand them. But that neither gets rid of the fact of the occurrence nor explains it.

[…]

Nor is there any more hope that the God-concept advanced by the various religions is any more demonstrable than that expressed by the individual as “my own idea.” The various expressions that have been given voice about the nature of transcendental reality are so many and diverse that there is no way of knowing absolutely who is right, even if there were a single, simple answer to the question. Therefore, as Jung saw it, the denominational religions long ago recognized that there was no way to defend the exclusivity of their “truth” so, instead, they took the offensive position and pro[1]claimed that their religion was the only true one, and the basis for this, they claimed, was that the truth had been directly revealed by God. “Every theologian speaks simply of ‘God,’ by which he intends it to be understood that his ‘god’ is the God. But one speaks of the paradoxical God of the Old Testament, another of the incarnate God of Love, a third of the God who has a heavenly bride, and so on, and each criticizes the other but never himself.”

[…]

A basic principle of Jung’s approach to religion is that the spiritual element is an organic part of the psyche. It is the source of the search for meaning, and it is that element which lifts us above our concern for merely keeping our species alive by feeding our hunger and protecting ourselves from attack and copulating to preserve the race. We could live well enough on the basis of the instincts alone; the naked ape does not need books or churches. The spiritual element which urges us on the quest for the unknown and the unknowable is the organic part of the psyche, and it is this which is responsible for both science and religion. The spiritual element is expressed in symbols, for symbols are the language of the unconscious. Through consideration of the symbol, much that is problematic or only vaguely understood can become real and vitally effective in our lives.

The symbol attracts, and therefore leads individuals on the way of becoming what they are capable of becoming. That goal is wholeness, which is integration of the parts of the personality into a functioning totality. Here consciousness and the unconscious are united around the symbols of the self. The ways in which the self manifests are numerous beyond any attempt to name or describe them. I choose the mandala symbol as a starting point because its circular characteristics suggest the qualities of the self (the pleroma that hath no qualities). It is “smaller than small and bigger than big.” In principle, the circle must have a center, but that point which we mark as a center is, of necessity, larger than the true center. However much we decrease the central point, the true center is at the center of that, and hence, smaller yet. The circumference is that line around the center which is at all points equidistant from it. But, since we do not know the length of the radius, it may be said of any circle we may imagine, that our mandala is larger than that. The mandala, then, as a symbol of the self, has the qualities of the circle, center and circumference, yet like the self of which it is an image, it has not these qualities.

Is it any wonder then, that the man who was not a man should be chosen as a symbol of the self and worshiped throughout the Christian world? Is it at all strange, when considered symbolically, that the belief arose that an infinite spirit which pervades the universe should have concentrated the omnipotence of his being into a speck so infinitesimal that it could enter the womb of a woman and be born as a divine child?

In his major writings on “Christ as a Symbol of the Self” Jung has stated it explicitly:

In the world of Christian ideas Christ undoubtedly represents the self. As the apotheosis of individuality, the self has the attributes of uniqueness and of occurring once only in time. But since the psychological self is a transcendent concept, expressing the totality of conscious and unconscious contents, it can only be described in antinomial terms; that is, the above attributes must be supplemented by their opposites if the transcendental situation is to be characterized correctly. We can do this most simply in the form of a quaternion of opposites:

This formula expresses not only the psychological self but also the dogmatic figure of Christ. As an historical personage Christ is unitemporal and unique; as God, universal and eternal... . Now if theology describes Christ as simply “good” and “spiritual,” something “evil” and “material” . . . is bound to arise on the other side . . . The resultant quaternion of opposites is united on the psychological plane by the fact that the self is not deemed exclusively “good” and “spiritual”; consequently its shadow turns out to be much less black. A further result is that the opposites of “good” and “spiritual” need no longer be separated from the whole:

[…]

The pre-form of this insight appeared in the first of the Seven Sermons of the Dead where it is said, “the striving of the creature goeth toward distinctiveness, fighteth against prime[1]val, perilous sameness. This is called the principium individua[1]tionis.”” We are caught in the struggle between the opposites; the stone is fixed and incorruptible. The individuation process is an opus contra naturam,; it is a struggle against the natural, haphazard way of living in which we simply respond first to the demands made upon us by the circumstances of our envi[1]ronment and then to those of inner necessity, paying the most attention to the side that is most insistent at any given time. Individuation leads through the confrontation of the opposites until a gradual integration of the personality comes about, a oneness with oneself, with one’s world, and with the divine presence as it makes itself known to us.

The beginning of the alchemical process parallels the leg[1]ends of creation, the consolidation of a world out of formless chaos. In alchemy the opus starts out with a massa confusa, a teeming, disordered conglomeration of what is called prima materia. It goes through a series of transformations, all described in the most abstruse language, in a lore that predated Christianity and extended forward into the seventeenth century. We seldom get much of an idea of how the work was actually done, what materials were used and what results were achieved. Jung says, “The alchemist is quite aware that he writes obscurely. He admits that he veils his meaning on purpose, but nowhere,—so far as I know—does he say that he cannot write in any other way. He makes a virtue of necessity by maintaining either that mystification is forced on him for one reason or another, or that he really wants to make the truth as plain as possible, but that he cannot proclaim aloud just what the prima materia or the lapis is.” This is in a tradition of refusing to make easily available material that has been acquired only with great difficulty, on the grounds that the quest is at least as important as the goal, or that the importance of the goal rests on the energy and commitment that has been involved in the quest.

Jung cites one of the oldest alchemical tests, written in Arabic style: “This stone is below thee, as to obedience; above thee, as to dominion; therefore from thee, as to knowledge; about thee, as to equals.” He comments on the passage:

[It] is somewhat obscure. Nevertheless, it can be elicited that the stone stands in an undoubted psychic relationship to man: the adept can expect obedience from it, but on the other hand the stone exercises dominion over him. Since the stone is a matter of “knowledge” or “science,” it springs from man. But it is outside him, in his surroundings, among his “equals,” i.e., those of like mind. This description fits the paradoxical situation of the self, as its symbolism shows. It is the smallest of the small, easily overlooked and pushed aside. Indeed, it is in need of help and must be perceived, protected, and as it were built up by the conscious mind, just as if it did not exist at all and were called into being only through man’s care and devotion. As against this, we know from experience that it had long been there and is older than the ego, and that it is actually the spiritus rector (guiding, or controlling spirit) of our fate.

[…]

Ever since Alan Watts exchanged his starched clerical collar for a Japanese silk kimono and found wisdom in insecurity —if not for life everlasting, then long enough to influence a younger generation—Americans have been turned on to the mysterious East. A rediscovery of ancient truth has led many of these people into fads and fantasies inspired by the pilgrims from the Orient, and a smaller number to the serious study of Hinduism, Taoism and Zen Buddhism. In their reading, they often discover that Jung had taken a similar path many years before, and had learned a great deal about Eastern religions and philosophy both through study and through his travels in India. If they have read his essays on Eastern religion in Psychology and Religion they have some feeling for the great respect Jung held for much of the sacred teaching of the Orient. Also, they will have some understanding of his views on the potential effects of certain traditional Eastern ways of thinking upon the Western mind. All too frequently, however, Jung’s writings have been misunderstood or only partially understood. His interest in Eastern religious thought and certain practices associated with it—like his interest in séances, in alchemy, or in astrology—have been incorrectly construed as a wholehearted and literal endorsement for use by Westerners today.

During the period of greatest fascination with psychedelic drugs among college students and college drop-outs in the late 1960s, Tibetan mysticism was seized upon as a model or ideal to be sought within the psychedelic experience. Cecelia, whose case was discussed in Chapter 2, was one of these. The Tibetan Book of the Dead had been available to the English-speaking reader since it was compiled and edited by W. Y. Evans-Wentz in 1927. It only became a best-seller on campuses from Harvard to Berkeley when Leary, Metzner and Alpert publicized it in their efforts to provide instant illumination for American youth through LSD. Their book, The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, contains in its introductory section, “A Tribute to Carl G. Jung.” Jung is presented, quite correctly, as one who understood that the unconscious could, and in extraordinary states did, manifest itself in hallucinations such as have been called “The Magic Theatre,” and “The Retinal Circus,” where energy is transformed into strangely frightening bodily sensations, “wrathful visions” of monsters and demons, visions of the earth-mother, boundless waters, or fertile earth, broad-breasted hills, visions of great beauty in which nature flowers with an intense brilliance that is not known to ordinary consciousness. Messrs. Leary et al. suggest that The Tibetan Book of the Dead—in which these images are described in exquisite detail so that the living may recite the text (or oral tradition) to the dying or newly dead person in order to guide him on his path into the realm of Spirit—is not a book of the dead after all. It is, they assert, “a book of the dying; which is to say a book of the living; it is a book of life and how to live. The concept of actual physical death was an exoteric facade adopted to fit the prejudices’ of the Bonist tradition in Tibet . . . the manual is a detailed account of how to lose the ego; how to break out of personality into new realms of consciousness; and how to avoid the involuntary limiting processes of the ego…” In this sense, they identify “personality” with the conscious ego state, a state which in their view must be put aside in order to break into new realms of consciousness. They suggest that Jung did not appreciate the necessity for this leap into the unknown, since, in their words, “He had nothing in his conceptual framework which could make practical sense out of the ego-loss experience.”

But here these purveyors of imitation psychosis by the microgram (which occasionally, unfortunately, turns into the real thing) are the ones who miss the point, who misread Jung completely. Jung did know what it was like to come to the edge of ego-loss experience. His commitment had long been to the inner vision, but however close he came to total immersion in it, he felt that it was important, for Westerners at least, to maintain some contact with the ego position. To lose this entirely, it seemed to Jung, would be unconsciousness, madness or death. For him it was impossible to conceive of that state, described in The Tibetan Book of the Dead as the attainment of the Clear Light of the Highest Wisdom, in which one is merged with the supreme spiritual power, without the paradoxical conclusion that there is something left outside to experience the “conceiving.” That something is ego-consciousness, which of course is not present in an unconscious state, in psychosis or after death, because ego-consciousness is by definition a term which describes our awareness of our nature and identity vis-a-vis that which “we” are not.

Jung explains his own difficulty, which is perhaps the difficulty of the Westerner, to realize what the Tibetan Buddhist calls One Mind. The realization of the One Mind (according to Jung’s reading of The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation) creates “at-one-ment” or complete union, psychologically, with the non-ego. In doing so, One Mind becomes for Jung an analogue of the collective unconscious or, more properly, it is the same as the collective unconscious. Jung writes:

The statement “Nor is one’s own mind separable from other minds,” is another way of expressing the fact of “all-contamination.” Since all distinctions vanish in the unconscious condition, it is only logical that the distinction between separate minds should disappear too . . . But we are unable to imagine how such a realization [“at-one-ment”] could ever be complete in any human individual. There must always be somebody or something left over to experience the realization, to say “I know at-one-ment, I know there is no distinction.” The very fact of the realization proves its inevitable incompleteness… . Even when I say “I know myself,” an infinitesimal ego—the knowing “I’—is still distinct from “myself.” In this as it were atomic ego, which is completely ignored by the essentially non-dualist standpoint of the East, there nevertheless lies hidden the whole unabolished pluralistic universe and its unconquered reality.

When Jung says of The Tibetan Book of the Dead “it is a book that will only open itself to spiritual understanding, and this is a capacity which no man is born with, but which he can only acquire through special training and experience,” his statement rests on an incomplete understanding of the spiritual teaching of the East, and most particularly of the deeper meaning and guidance in this profound book. During Jung’s lifetime there was little opportunity for Westerners to learn directly from leading exponents of Tibetan Buddhism, hidden away as they were in their mountain fastnesses. But today, many great spiritual teachers who were expelled from their native land have come to the West, and have helped to clarify their beliefs with respect to dualism and “at-one-ment.” As an example, I quote from Sogyal Rinpoche’s The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying:

There are many aspects of the mind, but two stand out. The first is ordinary mind, called by the Tibetans sem. One. master defines it: “That which possesses discriminating awareness, that which possesses a sense of duality—which grasps or recognizes something external;—that is mind. Fundamentally it is that which can associate with an ‘other’ —with any ‘something’ that is perceived as different from the perceiver.” Sem is the discursive, dualistic thinking mind, which can only function in relation to a projected and falsely perceived external reference point… Then there is the very nature of mind, its innermost essence, which is absolutely and always untouched by change or death. At present it is hidden within our own mind, our sem, enveloped and obscured by the mental scurry of our thoughts and emotions. Just as clouds can be shifted by a strong gust of wind to reveal the shining sun and wide-open sky, so, under special circumstances, some inspiration may uncover for us glimpses of this nature of mind... Do not make the mistake of imagining that the nature of mind is exclusive to our mind only. It is, in fact, the nature of everything. It can never be said too often that to realize the nature of mind is to realize the nature of all things.

We need to remember that Jung, for all his metaphysical speculations, was in the first place and the last essentially a psychotherapist, and his life was devoted to discovering the means through which he could help individuals to know their lives as rich in meaning in this world, namely, the world of consciousness. This world may be immeasurably deepened and enhanced as we have seen throughout our reading of Jung, by the data of the unconscious. Of utmost importance is it that the unconscious material flow into consciousness, and furthermore, that material from consciousness flow into the unconscious, adding new elements which dissolve, transform and renew what has been present all along. But the most important thing, from the Jungian point of view is that the ego may not fall into the unconscious and become completely submerged, overwhelmed. There must always be an “I” to observe what is occurring in the encounter with the “Not-I.”

This was why he favored the method of “active imagination” for his own patients, and why this method is widely used by analytical psychologists today. Admittedly, it is a slow process, this establishing of an ongoing dialogue with the unconscious, but we accept that. Confronting the unconscious for us is not an “event,” but rather a “condition” in which we live. It is serious business, it is play; it is art and it is science. We confront the unknown at every turn, except when we lose the sense of ourselves (ego) or the sense of the other (the unconscious).

In my work with analysands, questions often come up about the relationship of active imagination to the practices of yoga and Eastern meditation. Students and analysands come to recognize that the dialogue between the ego and the unconscious, through the agency of the transcendent function in all its symbolic expressions, bears a certain resemblance to the symbolism of Tantric yoga in India and Tibet, lamaism, and Taoistic yoga in China. Yet Jung, who had studied these traditions for over half a century, beginning when they were quite unknown in the West except to a few scholars, did not advocate the adoption of these methods as a whole in the West, nor even their adaptation to our occidental modes and culture. The reason for this, as I have come to believe through study of Jung’s writing, is that a psychotherapy based upon a psychology of the unconscious, a psychotherapy which is the “cure of souls” is, indeed, the “yoga” of the West.

Jung has pointed out that an uninterrupted tradition of four thousand years has created the necessary spiritual conditions for yoga in the East. There, he says, yoga is

the perfect and appropriate method of fusing body and mind together so that they form a unity . . . a psychological disposition . . . that transcends consciousness. The Indian mentality has no difficulty in operating intelligently with a concept like prana. The West, on the contrary, with its bad habit of wanting to believe on the one hand, and its highly developed scientific and philosophical critique on the other, finds itself in a real dilemma. Either it falls into the trap of faith and swallows concepts like prana, atman, chakra, samadhi, etc., without giving them a thought, or its scientific critique repudiates them one and all as “pure mysticism.” The split in the Western mind therefore makes it impossible at the outset for the intentions of yoga to be realized in any adequate way. It becomes either a strictly religious matter, or else a kind of training... and not a trace is to be found of the unity and wholeness of nature which is characteristic of yoga. The Indian can forget neither the body nor the mind, while the European is always forgetting either the one or the other...The Indian...not only knows his own nature, but he knows also how much he himself is nature. The European, on the other hand, has a science of nature and knows astonishingly little of his own nature, the nature within him. For the Indian, it comes as a blessing to know of a method which helps him to control the supreme power of nature within and without. For the European, it is sheer poison to suppress his nature, which is warped enough as it is, and to make out of it a willing robot...

He concludes his discussion with the warning:

Western man has no need of more superiority over nature, whether outside or inside. He has both in almost devilish perfection. What he lacks is conscious recognition of his inferiority to the nature around and within him. He must learn that he may not do exactly as he wills. If he does not learn this, his own nature will destroy him.

The reasonable question at this point would be, “How do we learn this?” Perhaps I can approach it by telling about a brilliant young psychotherapist. Hannah worked in a university setting, treating student-patients. She was also attending graduate school and expected to get her degree “some day,” but had never seemed in too much of a hurry about it. When Hannah came into analysis, she was immersed in some intense relationships with close men and women friends, in the Women’s Liberation movement, and more than one demanding campus activity. She was feeling increasingly fragmented, expending herself in every direction, attempting to bring her knowledge and will to bear, first on this problem, then on that. As she felt under more and more pressure, she became increasingly assiduous about seeking out various new ways of dealing with the situations and conflicts that arose in her per[1]sonal life and her work.

One “panacea” followed another. For a while there was yoga. But only by the hour, for there was always someplace to rush off to, someone who needed her, or some obligation she had promised to fulfill. The need she felt to socialize expressed itself in a round with encounter groups. Then she would feel too extraverted, so she would try meditation for a while. The passivity she came to in meditation turned her attention to her body—there was where the problems were impressed, encapsulated, she came to believe. A course of bio-energetics would follow, giving her an opportunity to attack physically each part of the body in which the impress of the psychic pain was being experienced, and to have it pounded or stretched or pushed or pulled into submission. Other techniques, ranging from attempts to control alpha waves in the brain through bio-feedback training, all the way to the scheduled rewards of behavior modification therapy, were attempted by Hannah in the attack on her own nature. In the race to gain control over herself she had failed to learn that she could not do exactly as she willed, and consequently her own nature was destroying her.

In the course of our analytic work, I did not tell her that her own nature, if she continued to heed it so little, would destroy her. I watched with her, the experiences she brought to the analytic sessions, and the effects that these experiences were having upon her. We talked about the high hopes with which she was accustomed to approach each new method or technique. She was interested in analyzing the results of her activities, but always impatient to go on to something else, always wanting to try a new way. For a while she was nearly hysterical between her enthusiasms and disappointments. It was just at this time that Hannah announced her desire to establish and organize a “crisis center” on campus where people who were suicidal, or in some other way desperate, could come for immediate help. The whole proposition was so untimely in view of her own tenuous situation, her own near desperation, that it was not difficult for me to help her come to the realization that the first “crisis patient” would be, or indeed, already was, herself. It was then that she began to become aware of the necessity to look at the crisis within herself, to see what was disturbed there.

But looking within was not so easy. That which was within was so cluttered by all the appurtenances, the many personas she was used to putting on for various occasions, that it was difficult to find out who the “who” was behind all its guises. This involved looking at her behavior, and also at her attitudes, not as something she initiated in order to create an effect, but in a different way. Strange to say, because she had never thought of it in just that way, she had to discover that her ego was not the center of the universe! But it was far more than a new way of thinking. Thinking, in fact, scarcely entered into it. Perhaps it came to her just because necessity made her shift her perspective, and perhaps a factor was the analytic transference itself, through which she observed and experienced the therapist as one who resisted using her own ego to enforce change upon the patient. It was a slow process, the process of change, and mostly it went on under the sur[1]face, below the matters that were actually discussed in the session. Occasionally hints of it emerged in dreams; sometimes they were acknowledged, sometimes that did not seem necessary.

Then there was a vacation for Hannah, a chance to get away from external pressures and to hike in the mountains and sleep under the open sky. Returning, at the beginning of the semester, Hannah announced that she was going to spend a little more time studying, that she was going to limit her other activities to those she could carry on without feeling overburdened. During the past two years, she admitted, she had coasted through graduate school without reflecting on her activities, without seeing what she was experiencing under the wider aspect of the history of human experience. Now she wanted to learn, and to do it at a relaxed and unhurried pace.

In the next weeks I noticed a growing calm in Hannah. At last the day came when it could be expressed. She came into my study, sat down, and was silent for a few moments, and she then told me: “Something important happened to me this week. I discovered what ‘the hubris of consciousness’ means. Oh, I had read many times that the intellectual answers are not necessarily the right answers, but this is not what it is. It is on a much different level than that. It means—one can hardly say it, for if I do I will spoil it, and I don’t want to do that. The striving after awareness—as though awareness were something you could ‘get’ or ‘have,’ and then ‘use’ is pointless. You don’t seek awareness, you simply are aware, you allow yourself to be—by not cluttering up your mind. To be arrogant about consciousness, to feel you are better than someone else because you are more conscious, means that in a similar degree you are unconscious about your unconsciousness.”

Hannah had dreamed that she was in a small boat, being carried down a canal, in which there were crossroads of concrete, which would have seemed like obstacles in her way. But the boat was amphibious, and when it came to the concrete portions it could navigate them by means of retractable wheels.

She took the dream to portray her situation—she was equipped for the journey on which she was embarked, and she was being guided along, within certain limitations, in a direction the end of which she did not foresee. It was not necessary for her to make the vehicle go; all she had to do was to be there and go with it, and she would have time to spare to observe the scenery and learn what she could from everything around her. She was a part of all that, and not any longer one young woman out to save the world, or even a part of it. She was a part of it, and she did not even have to save herself. As she became able to hear with her inner ear the harmony of nature, and to see it with her inner eye, she could begin participating with it and so cease fighting against nature.

She was now experiencing the sense of “flowing along” as a bodily experience, in a body that was not separate from the psychic processes that experienced it. But she would never have known the smoothness, the ease, the utter delight of “flowing along” unless she had come to it as she did, through the confrontation with its opposite, the futile exercise of beating herself against insuperable obstacles.

Obviously, this particular way of coming to a harmonious ego-self relationship is not appropriate or even possible for everyone. People must find their own individual ways, depending on many inner and outer circumstances. Hannah's case is important, however, in that it exemplifies a certain sickness of the Western world, which seems to affect the ambitious, the energetic, the aggressive, and the people who achieve “success,” in the popular sense of the word. These are also the people who, more frequently than not, become weary, depressed, frustrated, dependent on medications, alcohol and illicit drugs to handle their moods, sexually unfulfilled, and who sometimes even admit to being “neurotic.” Unlikely as it may seem, their problem is essentially a religious one; for it has to do with that “hubris of consciousness” which prevents us from looking beyond ourselves for the solution to our problems and for the meaning that lies hidden in all that we do, and see, and are.

Fortunately for us, in the years since Jung’s death, the world has grown smaller and the intellectual intercourse between East and West has increased manyfold. The stream of human beings emigrating from Asia to the West has brought with it the treasures of Taoism and Buddhism. Taoism teaches the joy that derives from blending with the natural forces in the universe, rather than contending with them. The most beautiful metaphor for the path of the Taoist is “the watercourse way, in which one flows, like water, over and under and through every obstacle, with a yielding softness that even wears away rock, on the way to the ultimate destination, the sea. No tortuous tension here, for the one who practices this way finds harmony within and without. Buddhist teachings, on the other hand, provide a complete and specific guide for the conduct of life. The Dalai Lama has expressed the essence of this philosophy as the active practice of compassion toward everything that lives.

Let us hope that the wisdom of the East may prove good medicine for the “sickness of the Western World.”

—June Singer en "Boundaries of the Soul"

#carl jung #Margaret Mead #June Singer #individuation #christ #christianism #boundaries of the soul #the red book #the tibetan book of the dead #the tibetan book of living and dying #sogyal rinpoche #taoism #buddhism #zen

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nimfeemos · 1 year ago

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Do To Be Able To Psychic Capacity?

There are quite a few ways to make Crystal Healing Elixirs as there are fashions to clean your healing crystals. I only subscribe to one method as for me personally it is automobiles one available. It's not necessary to need to focus on whether the crystal is toxic or if the crystal will dissolve in standard tap water. Based on belief, some crystals are focused on healing different energies. An individual are use the correct crystal concerning the chakra (which is the middle of our force of energy), will probably transfer a power that heals and improves your as well as wellness well being. Even if nobody else has handled your crystal, it may have picked up other energies from the atmosphere around you, especially whether or not it's been employed particularly intense or emotional work. Those used for crystal healing need cleansing often. As Quartz Crystal is both Piezoelectric and Pyroelectric, you can shift the polarity of the crystal if it's subjected either to pressure or heat. The end will turn from being normally substantial receiving to negative which means that emitting energy from the top. I have found our planet useful when working on the particular area, you can concentrate even now in a strong beam as well as thus maximise the healing setting. Elixirs can be used for numerous of things, they can be utilised to treat Stomach Ulcers in situation you would use healing crystals like, Peridot, Rhodonite, Sunstone and Siberian Blue Quarta movement. Placing their hands on your belly, spiritually reach inward and remain one with each other femaleness. Send healing love energy to and acknowledge the vulva. You might find yourself becoming poised and tremendous. Center yourself by holding your belly, humming your inner song. This easy daily ritual will assist you in your healing process.

Your crystals should be cleansed, purified and energized on consistently. This will keep them strong and able to help anyone you twice daily . reading for. You can either smudge it with sage or clean it with sea salt. They develop into your 'pet' and may do find the player are a great support a person.They do need to become cleansed regularly unless they hold balancing minerals like gold within them.

#luckycrystals

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wtfzodiacsigns · 5 years ago

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The Zodiac Signs Symbols

Aries: Symbolized by the Ram, Aries charges his opponents, unafraid of butting heads. While sheep are passive, rams can be dominant and even dangerous. Aries’ fearlessness is unparalleled, as he bounds into uncharted territories, the rest of us following suit. His energy can sometimes manifest as directness, as he speaks his mind without hesitation. While his brazen honesty can offend, it comes from a place of genuineness and innocence. He is often unaware of the feelings he has hurt. This simplicity and straightforwardness is part of Aries charm.

Taurus: Symbolized by the Bull, Taurus is slow and stubborn, her head facing downward, toward the earth. A large and sturdy animal, the Bull’s body is weighted to the ground through her enormity and the force of gravity. Moving slowly and steadily, Taurus takes her time to open up her heart to vulnerability. When she does, her power is evident. She awakens our senses, connecting us to our bodies and the virtues of earthly delight.

Gemini: Symbolized by the Twins, Gemini is notorious for having two sides or personalities, and for being two-faced. His dual nature lends to adaptability, as he’s able to explore all facets of ideas or situations. Accumulating many friends and acquaintances, exchange is important for the Twins, who love to teach others, while trading ideas and quips. They are inquisitive, but also restless, with active minds that seldom rest.

Cancer: Symbolized by the Crab, Cancer carries her home on her back. This gives her great strength on the exterior while sometimes preventing her from revealing her softer interior. Pinchers can come out, protecting her from the pain of deep sensitivity and vulnerability. With near psychic ability, she can feel what others are feelings. Her shell helps to form a barrier that delineates herself from others. Home is very important to the tender Crab, who needs a lot of alone time in coziness and comfort in order to regenerate. When she feels safe, no one is more caring than the Crab, who dances with loved ones in the sea of emotion, extending a visceral sense of home and sanctuary to anyone close to her.

Leo: Symbolized by the Lion, Leo is strong and confident, roaring freely as he displays the shock of his golden mane. Loving and lovable, the regal Lion prefers being kind or queen, ruling with immeasurable compassion. If his ego grows too large, the Lion can fall off – kilter, operating from pride, vanity, and conceit, rather than his innate kindness. Cuddly and affectionate, the Lion can be a loving partner and friend, delighted when others bask in his light.

Virgo: Represented by the Virgin, one of Virgo’s key traits is her love of purity. With loyalty and pure intentions, she devotes herself to caring for friends and even strangers, softening her sometimes-icy exterior once someone has earned her trust. At that point, Virgo can emerge as affectionate, gentle, magical, and warm. In Latin, the word Virgo means “self- contained,” which is perhaps more accurate in depicting this sign than the literal virgin. Self-sufficient, Virgo devotes herself to serving the earth and all beings by first taking care of herself. She will continue working hard to benefit others, as long as she receives proper respect and appreciation.

Libra: Symbolized by the Scales, Libra represents justice and equilibrium. Taking his time to make decisions, Libra can become stagnant as he weighs both sides of every issue. Libra’s opposite, Aries, is decisive but crude, while Libra is refined and polite, though often held back by hesitancy. Seeking to keep the Scales in balance, Libra demonstrates his diplomacy, elegance, and grace, enveloping friends and partners in magnanimity and appreciation. Despite his wishy-washy nature, Libra can be a crusader, possessing an unyielding sense of fairness. He can delicately stand up for what is right, balancing whatever is unjust or off – kilter.

Scorpio: The classic symbol for Scorpio is the Scorpion. However, two other symbols also represent Scorpio – the Eagle and the Phoenix. These three embody the various layers of Scorpio’s spiritual growth. When overwhelmed by challenging emotions, the Scorpion crawls on the ground, hiding away in dark corners of repression, ready to sting and destroy when threatened. The Eagle, too, can strike at any moment. But unlike the Scorpion, he glides through the sky—confident, visible, and free. The soaring bird has probing eyes, aware of the subtleties that others might miss. The Phoenix is the most evolved of the symbols, representing the transformational quality of Scorpio as a mythological bird who cyclically regenerates. Dying in flames, the Phoenix is reborn from the ashes – life forming from destruction. Similarly, Scorpio’s power comes from her willingness to open fully to fear, and to find spiritual rebirth from the little deaths of ego.

Sagittarius: Symbolized by the Centaur and Archer, Sagittarius points his arrow toward abstract truth and faraway lands, galloping into the distance to gather experiences and wisdom. Half horse, half man, the Centaur has animal strength and stamina, along with human ability to philosophize. A straight shooter, no sign has more candor, which can be both a gift and a curse. Sagittarius speaks his mind, sometimes pushing his own beliefs onto others. Keeping his ideologies in check, no sign is more inspiring, helping others to broaden their horizons by introducing them to expansive views and experiences.

Capricorn: Symbolized by the Sea – Goat, Capricorn has two sides – the mountain goat and the fish. She can climb the mountains of success and social prestige, while also diving deep into the ocean of wisdom. Harnessing practicality, she places one foot in front of the other, moving steadily, with strong sense of purpose and intention. Practical and retrained, she prioritizes achieving the task at hand, sometimes at any cost. Dedicated to reaching the highest peaks in all of her endeavors, the Goat does not lose sight of the ideals gleaned from Sagittarius. She applies determination to creating strong family units, as well as the systems and structures that form the basis of society. A mature Capricorn is more inclined to use her fishtail, diving deep into the wells of emotion before laying a foundation or beginning her steady rise to accomplishment.

Aquarius: Symbolized by the Water Bearer, Aquarius is one of the signs represented as a human – being along with Virgo the Virgin and Gemini the Twins. The Water Bearer offers water – the sustenance of life and spirituality – and he does so without sacrificing his individuality or independence. Water washes away the past and clear the way for a future more connected with purity and enlightenment. A visionary, the Water Bearer carries a vessel that symbolizes open – ended spirituality – available to all in equal measure. Water itself represents the collective unconscious, along with the sea of interconnection. As the second to the last sign, Aquarius is preparing us for Pisces, the last stop of the zodiac, which represents transcendence. In this way, Aquarius the Water Bearer Is the height of human possibility before dissolving into spirituality, nonconceptuality and oneness.

Pisces: Pisces is symbolized by two Fish who swim in opposite directions. The word Pisces means “fish” in Latin. Feelings pulled by the duality of being human, Pisces struggles to be both spiritual and human, tied to the material realm while floating in space. It is also said that one Fish is swimming upstream toward transcendence, while the other brings that wisdom downstream, back into the world. The two Fish embody receptivity, as Pisces possesses the capacity to understand opposing views and all facets of human nature and existence. Swimming effortlessly through any current, the Fish can blend with their surroundings, accommodating all that arises. Pisces is therefore the most compassionate of signs, embodying universal love, totality, forgiveness, and understanding.

Source: rose-oracles

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rose-oracles · 6 years ago

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The Zodiac Signs Symbols

- Where I go this information: The Stars Within You. A Modern Guide to Astrology. By Juliana McCarthy.

{Rose-Oracles}

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nayrusfountain · 6 years ago

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The Spirit of Mikau Lake

Cradle away in the shadows of Zora's Domain, a small peaceful lake lay huddle in the embrace of Lanayru. Its seemingly average title is Terminian in origin, for the Zora it is named after had not belong to any of Hyrule's Zoran clans at any point in its history. The character in question is simply a being with no knowledge of Hyrule's rich presence, and the same can be told about Hyrulian Zoras lacking awareness towards Termina's polarizing existence.

Why then, was this tiny stretch of water named in memory of a Zora who never once associated with the local tribes?

When one dives into the events of Termina's tragedy thousands of years prior, its suddenly not that difficult to understand why this unknown Zora may have gain traction in another realm. The Link of that time, the famed Hero of Time, had taken on Mikau as an avatar via magical mask to help aid in the salvation of a world condemn to die. As the story goes, Link's attempts to save Mikau were in vain, for the Zora had suffer fatal injuries at the hands of the Gerudo Pirates. The boy, without any other alternative, preform "The Song of Healing" to ease the restless spirit that so desperately wanted to right the wrong that plague the western seas. The warrior was put to rest, and his soul was transfer into a magical mask where his spirit will merge with Link's and transform into a Zoran Hero. Mikau's spirit granted Link his unique abilities and powers, and just as the masks before him, the two worked together to fulfill their mission. The mask became another one of Link's most vital assets to his perilous journey, alongside two other mask transformations the Son of the Deku Butler and the proud mountain warrior Darmani.

Upon returning to Hyrule, Link recounts his story to a select few who would listen. However, when diving into detail about the provinces outside of Clock Town, Link alter the details to instead paint the little Deku child, the great Goron warrior Darmani the Third and the Legendary Zoran Hero Mikau as the true heroes of their respective arch, essentially giving them all of the credit.

The story of Mikau's sacrifice and indomitable spirit likely gain traction among the Hyrulian Zora people, becoming something of a fable as Zoras recount the tale to their guppies or amongst each other. While not as famous as the sagely duties of Princess Ruto, his heroism had evoke inspiration for those who listens. The alternate adventure could have been retold countless times throughout history as a symbol of courage. It had even found use as a tale of inspiration for guards in training who look to the Terminian Zora as a role model of sorts. During times of warfare, Zoran generals would recite to their troops of the heroism demonstrated by the famous Zoran Hero who highhandedly fought off an elite army and a possessed beast to save the ocean, a symbol of a true warrior. And this will fuel the armies with the determination to fight and live up to the legend.

The lake of the domain sits by the wall of a cliff, seemingly insignificant at first glance. On certain bright nights, it becomes strikingly glossy and the surface seems to smooth over, like a sort of mirror, albeit a very specific one. On these nights, the world turns a misty, midnight hue, and Zoras will sense a strange presence as water vapor rise from the surface and cloaks the ground in a glittering haze.

Above all else, many have reported that the little lake will only reflect the image of a single large planet hovering above the Hyrulian realm as it rides along the moon's path with the other visible worlds. Once worshiped as Gods in the ancient past, the planets that appear on these star bursting nights are in fact the physical manifestations of other known realms; a vision to other dimensions and realities.

Lorule, The World of Twilight, Termina, Realm of the Ocean King, Surbosia, all worlds that are clearly visible on specific nights. Of coarse, the world the lake seems to favor is Termina, the home of Zoran Hero from the fairy tales. It would reflect back a picturesque imagery of the globe from the lake, as if a piece of the sky has fallen to earth. Star dust would sprinkle from the heavens and dust the liquid pane in shimmering sparkles, and an eerie breeze would rouse the flowers into a nightly bloom. Time seems to slow as the waterfall became a distant sonar in the veil laced evening.

It was thought that the surreal atmosphere of the area and its strange association with Termina's presence are what inspire the lake's Zoran name. Though another phenomenon seems to stem from the manifestations of the powdery stars that congregate the suddenly dead water. And this one was cause for superstitious beliefs that may hold merit.

In the midst of midnight when the full moon climb to its highest peak, if one were to remain within the vicinity of the small body of water, a Zora the color of snow and shadow will quietly rise from the deeper ends of the pool without so much as a disturbance to the still surface. They appear silently and without warning, while no such indication confirmed any Zora to have conceal themselves in the little lake beforehand.

This Zora was stated to be a handsome beauty in regards to his exotic appearance, for there is nothing like him in all of Hyrule. Claims reported that such a Zora had eyes the color of ocean sapphires, and his opalescent scales radiates with a wealth of rich amethyst arranged in royal spirals. Long slender fins looked to be a cross between scimitars and scythes, sharp and deadly looking. However, the Zora would be haloed in a ominous glow surrounded in a strange aurora of spiritual flames, and are generally semi-translucent. No reflection of the stranger were ever mirrored back.

Upon closer inspections, his species did not match any of the native specimens that dominated Hyrulian waters. Such a creature had not been seen patrolling the coastlines or reported in the marine habitats of Labyrnna or New Hyrule. Thus, several theories were at work as the tribes try to understand what exactly they were dealing with.

Was he a spirit? A holy messenger of sorts? A glitch in the universes which binds the people of Hyrule and Termina? It may appear that this character may fall a bit along the lines of these categories, for his presence is not one a mortal Zora. Moreso, the Zora was like a vision to the past, a time long since forgotten by the peoples of this holy land. Though he was young, he gives off an ancient vibe that signifies his existence in a distant, faraway time, as if he had been plucked from his own era and discarded in an alien time period.

The Zora was said to gaze silently from his spot on the misty lake in a calm demeanor. Never once do they audibly speak, instead beacon the onlooker with soft sparkle of their luminous lights. Those who approach the mysterious Zora have recalled the reality shifting around them, as if a they were being whisked into another plane of existence. They see shapes they never understand, the distortions of time and space that challenge their understanding of psychics as the world spins. And a monotonous rhythm of clocks as time reassemble itself, finding themselves peering into a Clock Tower that manifests onto the surface of the lake.

Despite these startling shifts in reality, many Zoras find themselves approaching the white spirit that patiently awaits them by the waterfall. However, the Zora would submerge once individuals are within reach of the vortex, vanishing in a veil of mist that are then dissolved within the grips of the watery wormhole. The portal remain open, and those bold enough to hang around would find themselves diving into the vortex in hopes of pursuing the creature. Zoras who'd cross over this dimensional bridge had been known to disappear for some time, but will always find themselves waking up back at the lake to retell their stories of what they experience before and during their absence.

Stories of the ancient worlds interlocking during these nights had become widespread, and many were drawn to the little lake in hopes of glimpsing the elusive Spirit Zora. Some recall the old fables of a Zoran Hero by the name of Mikau, pointing out that the description of the spirit matches how the Zora was described to looked in life. With the Zora suspiciously resembling the Zoran Hero of old and his ties to the parallel dimension when Termina's planet appears in the sky, many had started to become convince that they were among the presence of an ancient warrior.

However, not all who approaches the phantom are permitted access to the portal. Certain bandits have exclaim that when they try to close the distance between them and the white Zora, it suddenly became a snarling menace and lunge with an alarming screech. The Zora would get in between them and the Terminian portal, lashing out as he try to eradicate the threat. Yiga members have experience similar rejections, forbidden access to Termina as the raging spirit chases them off.

In short, the lake is later discover to have been settled on a tear in the fabric between dimensions, similar to the hollow once discovered by Link, and the Zora serve as a gate guardian of sorts to protect his home from fowl individuals who would evoke chaos. He will decide the worth of their presence, judging them quietly as they approach. This became evident when only certain individuals with good will are rewarded with a serine calm and permitted entry, whereas those with troubling hearts are met with immediate harassment. For that, criminals and low lives hoping to escape the Hyrulian justice through the dimensional boarder will be met with an displeased boarder police who will not hesitate to eradicate them at a moment's notice. So one must be of specific standards to avoid unpleasant situation.

And although the phantom didn't like straying too far his post, he had on more then one occasion guided Zoras through the mountains and leap into action when a Zora is under attacked by monsters or any other such dangers. Sometimes he could even be heard roaming the Domain itself hours after his official midnight entrance, up and down the bridges as he strolls along with a lonely expression, and looking out to the stars longingly before he silently disappears in a veil of stardusts. But he'll always end up back from whence he came, keeping a vigilant eye on his surroundings and secure the safety of those around him.

It became inevitable. With the evidence piling up, and eyewitness accounts coming to the same conclusions, the King of the Domain decided that the lake will be named after the Zoran Hero in his honor, just as his ancestor had done with Ruto Lake in her memory. The Zoras have become accustomed to the spirit's presence, sometimes leaving him small offerings or simply hanging by the pool during the evenings. They welcomed him, respected him, and came to visit him every time the planets were visible. Sighting him became a treat, especially now that the Domain knew that they were in the presence of the legendary warrior that once saved an entire ocean in a foreign world.

His acceptance for entry resulted in the Hyrulian Zoras to return with a wealth of foreign, historical knowledge in relations to his past and other Terminian heroes. Through these life changing experiences, the Zoras of Hyrule discovered the significance of Lulu, the love interest of the hero, and had requested their King to titled the pool next to Mikau Lake "Lulu Lake" in her memory so the lovers can always remain together. Many believe that by naming the pool after her, their spirits will reunite. It was beautiful tribute of their eternal love, and the Zoras of Hyrule felt honored to have pay their respects. The hero was said to retreat this pool now, as if awaiting for the soul of his beloved to manifest from the mist and jump into his arms.

Princess Mipha and her little brother Prince Sidon would occasionally find themselves sitting by the lake, feeling the spirit looming by. He would sometimes be seen swimming in playful loops as the Zoras approaches the pool. Though he never speaks, he seems to always communicate with the usage of his body lights, flashing them bedazzling patterns and colors before dissolving into the vortex. Sometimes one of the siblings would see a fleeting shadowy figure on their peripheral visions, darting to the rocks or rocketing up the falls. Other times his presence envelop the twilight pool in a display of lights, sparkling like stars dissolving into the dusky mist.

Rarely will he show himself at daylight, but he would sometimes appear ontop the waterfalls watching over the young Zoras from a respectable distant, acting as their guardian and looking as if he were brought back from the dead; his body appears physical only to royal eyes, looking very much alive as his fins blew in the breeze. The royal siblings never felt their lives were in danger, and if fact Mipha would bring her brother to these famous spots to educate him on the ancient Zoras the pools were named after; including the Zoran Hero. Whenever he obverses the monarchs from the top of the waterfalls, Mipha would have Sidon gaze up at the curious warrior, reminding him to show courage in the presence of noble Spirit Zoras.

Little Sidon had witness other Zoran spirits before, including the famous Malletila sage, Queen Ruto, and the Trejax King Ralis, as they manifest within their respective pools. And while they radiant with authority and wisdom, Mikau was his own category of importance; perhaps because he was born a champion of Nayru in a distant era, with knowledge unique among his realm. He and Lulu weren't royalty as far as he knew, but they were respected icons among their clans, with the Sylovaakien being the embodiment of a valiant protector ready to put his life on the line for the sake of his people.

Now, as little Sidon emits a staring contest with the ghostly solider perched at the top of the falls, he realize that he felt moved by the ancient Zora's sacrifices, understanding how important it is to have someone act as a beacon of hope in the face of danger. He vow to keep his promise to Mipha and train himself so he too can protect his people, just as Mikau once did. And thus, after the tragedy of his sister's downfall, the determine guppy would come in the evening hours, spear in hand, and train in the lake in hopes that the warrior would lend his wisdom. Mikau would keep his distance, calculating the pup's determination with a sense of pride for him. A ghost cannot be a mentor to the living, but encouraging flickers of his body lights were asserted for every time the prince perfects a move. To Sidon, these gentle glitters of praise from this honorable veteran and the imaginary smile of his now deceased sister were more then enough to achieve his goals. A tiny warrior in the making.

Today, the lake lays dormant in the dead of night, indifferent to the turnoil that befell Hyrule sometime ago. Mikau had seemingly vanish out of the blue one day, which came as an unexplained mystery to the Zoras. The spirit was reported to have been last sighted by King Dorphean and Prince Sidon, who took the path to etch a monument depicting the prince's heroic actions of saving Hateno's fisherman. Mikau remain where he was that night, hidden behind the waterfall in silent observation as they approach his tiny oasis.

The Zora permits them over to access the falls, although the monarchs never truly saw him that night, save for two orbs of blue light. The father-son duo had recounted that the orbs can be seen from behind the sheet of cascading water and felt a strong presence spying them. But in spite of the sudden chill of an ominous force before them, they did not sense any malicious intent on the phantom's behalf, and had felt confidant in pressing forward. The royal Zoras proceed without further incident, briefly catching the ghostly glow of eyes watching them as they speed up the rapids. The feeling of being watch never waned, but Dorphean and Sidon took this as good luck, because the spirit acted as a spiritual knight guarding the king and his heir as they set to work. Sidon felt his story should be place by the pools to let the spirit know that he will now be able to protect his people as he once did. He felt the spirit stirring next to him by the time the task was complete, and a sense of peace wash over the monarchs as the phantom quietly evaporates in the coming dawn, the breeze picking up the remaining stardusts as it whisk them away to the cosmos.

It was as if Mikau have acknowledge Sidon's strength as a successor and had entrusted his duties to him, declaring him a worthy warrior.

Since that night, no one have seen or heard of the ghostly Zora again, for it was his last night on Hyrule. The pressure of a Kingdom plagued with monsters may have turn the Zora off from giving away the location of the portal, which has all but ceased to exist from after the Calamity. With Termina no longer being opened and its planet aligning to a new orbit, the Zoran Hero have been relieved of his duties as its gate guardian, retiring to the heavens for eternal rest.

Now however, Zoras seems to have fallen in a state of gossip in regards to Mikau Lake's former occupant. Some claim to hear whispers breezing beyond the falls, despite the notion of the spirit never speaking. Others say that the Ploymus Mountain would blossom a weak flicker of colors from the backdrop of the night. And there have been debunked rumors of the Domain being haunted by the Ghost Zora, with "witnesses" describing the feeling of being watched and hearing the footfalls of someone pacing the dark halls every night. Many concluded that with the bridge cut off from his home, Mikau was stuck in Hyrule and now doom to wander these mountains forever.

Were these civilians trying to depict the Zoran Hero of old as a troubled spirit, ready to vent his misfortunes upon his former friends? One would almost find this an insult to say that a Zora who had been pleasant to them, protective even, would ever resort to slowly torment the Domain with supernatural forces.

Alas, we are here in the present day, sitting by the little lake that once held whimsical charm. Decades past since the end of the second Calamity, and it has become quite lonely. Link himself had been drawn to this spot, staring wordlessly at the quiver of the waterfall as he and Zelda would rest. The boy's not much with words, but his eyes held an inner self that seems to long to reunite with an old friend. Perhaps that is what his previous self wants; specifically, his Hero of Time self. He would absentmindly scan the rippling pool with a distant gaze that transcends eras, to a time when the Kingdom contained a youth destined for greatness. Link would often stop by when needing a moment to relax without interruptions, secretly longing to meet an old friend he wasn't aware existed.

But one night, as the boy walk back to join the Domain, he caught a shooting star blazing from the heavens. He watched as the icy streak soar across the sky, feeling a chill in its presence as he did.

The star ignored the lingering planets dotting the sky, save for one, as it steered in its direction. The star raced for Termina, penetrating its atmosphere and finally disappearing in the starlit waves as it submerge into the ocean with a spectacular flash. It was brilliant, and Link felt his other self shifting excitedly yet again, for the Hero of Time understood the implications of the shooting star, for he had underwent such phenomenon when returning to earth.

For it was no star.

It was a soul being released from the heavens and returning to relive a new mortal life, reincarnating. Which indicate one thing.

Mikau has return. The two ancient spirits, both who transcends time, space and unspoken friendship, are destined to finally reunite at long last. And Mikau shall await the Hero of Time's return, his world nestle behind the wall of stars.

Credits:

Mikau Lake digital art by yours truly, Nayru's Fountain. Created on the Colors! drawing app for the New 3DS xl. The water was a huge pain to pull off, but I manage it somehow and am satisfy with the final product.

Mikau Lake screenshot taken by me on my Switch and loaded to Twitter for easy usage. This tribute to my favorite character have moved me, and was an inspiration for this piece.

Mikau in-game image from my wiki with edited snapshot YouTube Clips of ZeldaMaster's Majora's Mask playthrough for improve picture quality.

Pictures: Google images of in-game screenshot and official concept art.

Thank you for reading. Please share any thoughts or critique on the drawing as it is my first serious digital artwork. It took me a week to perfect and polish this piece, and any advice is crucial for improvement. It was a fun experience and I shall craft more in this style. Also, please report any error within the text so I can address it.

The ending was based on a dream I once had in relations to the reincarnated heroes of Majora's Mask.

#legend of zelda #breath of the wild #majora's mask #mikau #mikau lake #zoras

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ascendingmoon · 7 years ago

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Neptune thru the Houses

1st house – these individuals experience confusing and blurriness when it comes to placing their identity. They are unsure of who they are and what their role is on this planet. These people tend to be hyper-sensitive to their environment, acting like a sponge, picking up and absorbing the energies and feelings of the people around them. Neptune here gives the first impression to others as being a compassionate, sensitive, and understanding soul, therefore you may find that many people feel as if they can confide in you and pour their heart out to you, even if you may not know them that well. It just comes with being a neptunian person. However, neptune in the 1st individuals will have boundary issues, specifically between yourself and other people. This placement can lead to mimicry, a poor sense of self, and taking the role as a “mirror” – just reflecting other people. It’s easy for these people to act as a martyr and for others to take advantage of their selflessness/compassion.

2nd house – those with neptune here desire a deeper understanding for the value of money and their possessions. Neptune dissolves and blurs, so this may take place when it comes to the individual’s income/money/possessions. The person may be obsessed with money, maybe not even obsessed with having it, but could be obsessed with other people who have it. They can see money has being the main root of solving all of their problems, as their savior in life that will heal them from all. They also may feel like the world owes them some kind of favor, leading to an unexplained feeling of self-entitlement. On the other hand, they can feel ashamed or guilty for having what they own, and undeserving of it. Individuals with neptune in the 2nd should re-evaluate their self worth, their self esteem tends to fluctuate often throughout their life as well. They also might be the type of person to always be dissatisfied with what they own and constantly want more.

3rd house – neptune in the house of the mind, communication, and short distance traveling can confuse and scatter the individual who has it. The positive attributes of neptune being linked with mercury/the house of thinking is the natural and innate intuition and ability to pick up on the undercurrents and vibes in their surrounding environment. What they lack is logical thinking/reasoning and practicality. Neptune, the planet of fantasy and rich imagination, blesses this person with these qualities as well. They tend to make great storytellers, making you feel like you’ve experienced just about everything right there with them. This person can develop a selective perception though – only seeing what they want to see. Neptune is a trickster; fooling us into what is beautiful or lovely constantly. We overlook the bad things and cover them up with neptune’s delusions and blindness. Individuals with this placement may be so open minded that they confuse other people’s thoughts for their own, because neptune is such a dissolving planet that completely diffuses boundaries and links us all together as one. 3rd house also rules siblings; maybe the native with this had to take care of a sibling, or was extra sensitive to them, or maybe they were an only child who longed so desperately for another sibling to have. Neptune here makes great poets, writers, and artists, having a mind full of beauty, it just comes naturally to them, causing them to lack in normal everyday verbal communication.

4th house – plenty of people with neptune in the 4th can either tell you that their childhood was spent playing with rose colored glasses, or that it was probably horrible. The 4th house rules a person’s roots; their upbringing, their background/where they came from, the mother (sometimes). Even if the individual experienced some kind of suffering as a child, or their childhood was the typical “perfect” upbringing, they can experience an almost painful feeling nostalgia and yearning to be back. This placement can be an indicator of emotional abuse from the father or the mother depending on what this house represents for you (mainly, the parent that provided the most nurturing). The mother may have been very mentally or physically ill, and the individual with neptune here may have spent much time in their childhood taking care of them. There may have been a case of infidelity – mother/father had an affair, marriage was ruined, etc. The person with this placement was usually called upon to make sacrifices in the home or for the home, pretty often, for whatever reason. The household may have been filled with delusion and/or lies, maybe ridden with drugs/drug addicts/alcoholics, maybe artists and inspirational individuals, visionaries and maybe the individual was raise with much spirituality. The mother might have been just as hyper sensitive. The family might have taken in strays; animals or people, and the individual now may continue to do this in their own home in the future. You may have lived by the sea/a body of water and desire to in the future.

5th house – with neptune in the house of pleasures, romance, children and creativity, it can be as good as it is bad. Neptune here brings the gift of beautiful creative expression and a knack for painting/the arts. Though, you may have felt guilty in your younger years for even just wanting to have fun, and this feeling may follow you around still. You may give up things for what you love often, like giving up a stable job to continue being involved in some area of the arts, or maybe drugs. Having an outlet to pour their emotions into is very important for these people because it comes to naturally to them. Romantically, they feel this on another level. Neptune is the higher octave of venus, enabling a limitless capacity to love and be loved. They can fall for people who are unavailable or abusive though so be careful. This placement could lead to issues in drugs, gambling or sex addictions as well. Neptune could get so lost and entranced by the house of pleasures that it can’t get out. These people can feel martyred by children, feeling that they stopped them from being able to do other things with their life, or that the child saved them from themselves or life itself.

6th house – neptune, ruling pisces, in it’s opposite ruler’s house, mercury/virgo, can lead to some obvious difficulties. For one, virgo/the 6th house rules order and organization. Neptune dissolves everything in touches and doesn’t understand this too much. Neptune here can result in neglecting organization in the everyday life and the body itself; this placement is notorious for strange illnesses and conditions. You’ll find that the person with neptune here could be labeled as “spontaneous” but more so in the sense that they just go with the flow of things because they’re incapable of organization/ordering their day to day life. Positively, they may seek jobs in healing or occult areas, enabling the proper use of their gifts in a way the 6th house approves of; putting it to work instead of letting it pile up and be ignored.

7th house – individuals with this placement are usually seeking a partner to save them or to save. The boundaries between them and other people are usually non-existent as well. They believe in unreachable levels of romance, they idealize relationships so much and romanticize things that should not be romanticized. They may be drawn to or attract those that are drug addicts, alcoholics, criminals, people with bad reputations/shady pasts, victim-types, or unstable/mentally ill people. They’re the most common to get wounded bird syndrome. The other side of them is being drawn to artists, musical geniuses, visionaries/inspirational types and gurus. These people experience relationships on an almost complete psychic level, and relationships are an awakening for them. Love is the key to fix all their problems, and nothing in life is worth it unless there is love for these people. They are very selfless in love, though sometimes they may spend so much of their time and energy saving another person that when they realize they are getting nothing back, or the relationship is really not what they thought it was at all, they can experience such profound and extreme hurt, disappointment and betrayal. There can also be a danger of scandal/problems with lawsuits if neptune is badly aspected. They may also be scapegoated by others because of their compassion and vulnerability to others. They may take jobs in social work, therapy, psychology, counseling or the arts.

8th house – besides the home of neptune (the 12th house), the 8th house is pretty much the next best thing for this planet. With neptune residing here, the individual’s intuition is very developed and very powerful. Sex is a very spiritual and important experience for these people, as to them it represents a complete spiritual act of merging with another soul to form one. By losing their own boundaries and self within another, they satisfy their spirit as well as their physical self. With the planet of dissolving and confusion in the house of sex, there can definitely be confusion with one’s sexual identity. There can also be a fear of letting go with some people with this placement, especially if neptune is poorly aspected or if saturn is involved somewhere with this. The 8th house rules joint finances and other people’s money, so neptune here can help someone else acquire money or their can be deception and delusion to shared money. They may fantasize frequently about unavailable people, or people they are not involved with currently too. These people can also have very poor coping mechanisms, they can lead to self destructive behavior when sad/depressed/angry. People with this placement usually do not fear death.

9th house – those with neptune in the 9th house of beliefs/higher education and traveling seek salvation and savior through what they believe in. These are the people that are most likely to be drawn towards joining a cult, philosophy, religion, etc. They are entranced by anything that will give them insight on what heaven is like, or what the other side holds in store for them. They usually believe in enlightenment. The problem with this is believing that one faith or belief will hold the answer to absolutely everything, and will solve every problem you have, which leads to severe disappointment and hurt, as neptune does pretty often. They may experience the greatest hurt of all: finding out what they believed in was a lie or fake. The psychic they may have been seeing all along was an alcoholic or mentally ill, or on drugs. The cult was all just made up or stolen from someone else. Their priest went against everything they believed in. These kinds of catastrophes will ruin a neptune in the 9th house’s soul. Travel can be used as method of escapism for these people. When life gets tough, they’re planning a road trip across country, or flying to another country to take a break from it all.

10th house – with neptune here, people look upon this person as a savior, or one that completely understands the struggles of everyone below them. They are drawn to healing professions and have an innate ability to comfort others. These people are usually those that hold a vision of how things should be, or something that no one has thought of before. To give you a better image, JFK had neptune in the 10th and so does bernie sanders. See how idolized they are? They “speak for the people” and want to do what’s right. They hold much compassion for the public and are recognized for this. The downside to having neptune here is the struggle of not knowing what career path you want to take, not knowing what role you have in the public/career’s eye, they may work for shady or corrupt businesses. The father may not have been seen clearly to the individual and may have exhibited some of neptune’s characteristics; addict, alcoholic, absent/abandoned them, hyper sensitive, etc.

11th house – these people believe in having compassion for all of mankind. They usually join spiritual awareness groups or are working for meals on wheels to help serve and give back to the world they live in. They have the tendency of losing themselves in their social life, or becoming too involved, or using it as a escapist method. They could promise too much to others and never follow through with it, but they usually do have good intentions. Their social circle of friends may have many neptunian types. Friends may not see the individual that clearly. They might be notorious/have a shady reputation amongst others socially. They could experience deception or hurt through friendships often and be blind to it. They believe in second chances and that the meaning of life is to help and serve all, because that is what everyone deserves in the end.

12th house – neptune is home in the house of pisces. This is the best house for neptune to be in, besides the fact that it’s home, it is the less dangerous place for neptune to be in. The 12th house works in the background of things; we don’t see it or understand it. Neptune here may give a person great intuition, but high sensitivity to the undercurrents and feelings of others. They may feel guilty for their own feelings at times and as if they have to sacrifice them a lot. Positively, with neptune here, the subconscious or unconscious mind of the individual can be the source of very rich imagination and be used as a source of inspiration for creative endeavors or to gain ideas. Neptune here can also become too involved with the lives of others because they want to escape their own. Anywhere neptune is, compassion is as well. The subconscious of the person may want to escape their own subconscious. They may feel that the world is out to get them and that they cannot escape failure or disappointment, while this may all not be true. They feel as if they have to suffer for other people because no one can match their expectations of a friend or a lover. The person with neptune in the 12th strongly values beauty and harmony, and it is important for them to be surrounded by this or positivity so they don’t try to escape themselves.

#mine #astrology #neptune

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