Tag: The Red Book

The Gift of Magic

No one can really possess a symbolic object since the prime function of symbolism is not accumulation and retention, but communication by way of exchange.

de Riencourt, Amaury. Woman and Power in History . Honeyglen Publishing Limited. Kindle Edition.

A journey after reading a random pick from Jung’s Black Books. During these disturbing times I often seek council with these living books of wonder.

While reaching for my Red Book a note fell to the ground and it said,

“The Gift of Magic.”

I was following through with Jung’s commentary after reading his Black Book. I was amazed by the depth of the commentary which is about Magic. I am surprised by the beauty of these living books. I started to read all the commentary pertaining to this random subject in his Red Book. It is a story which answered many things for me while also somehow including my life. Reading the references and commentary is the best.

Jung Black Books: Random pick of paragraph from [v.4]

S. Are you sending me away?

I. I’m sending you away. You must not be far from me. But give to me out of your fullness, not your longing. I cannot satisfy your poverty just as you cannot still my longing. If your harvest is rich, send me some fruit from your garden. If you suffer from abundance, I will drink from the brimming horn of your joy. I know that will be a balm for me. I can satisfy myself only at the table of the satisfied, not the meager crumbs of those who yearn and desire. I will not steal my payment. Pg. 253 [v.4] (126/127).

126.The subject of this sentence was replaced by “We fetched.” (ibid)

127. For Jung’s commentary on this entry, see LN {Red Book}, pg. 439-40.

Red Book.

“Well, all you will do is laugh anyway. So why should I tell you anything? It would be if everything were buried with me. It can always be rediscovered later. It will never be lost to humanity since magic is reborn with each and every one of us.” Pg. 313

“You know, the wisdom of things to come; there fore you are old, oh so very ancient, and just as you tower above me in years, so you tower above the present in futurity and the length of your past is immeasurable. You are legendary and unreachable. You were and will be, returning periodically. Your wisdom is invisible, your truth is unknowable, entirely untrue in any given age and yet true in all eternity, but you pour out living waters from which the flowers of your garden bloom, a starry water, a dew of the night. 148/149 pg. 316

“What do you need. You need men for the sake of small things, since everything greater and the greatest thing is in you. Christ spoiled men, since he taught them that they can be saved only by one, named him, the Son of God, and ever since men have been demanding the greater things from others, especially their salvation; and if a sheep gets lost somewhere, it accuses the shepherd.  You are a man, and you prove that men are not sheep, since you look after the greatest in yourself and hence fructifying water-flows into you garden from inexhaustibly jugs.”

I will continue to study this yet this is enough for now.

A feminine soul to be precise

3/10/2023

I have taken my pearl watercolor and moved the painting into the living room near to the right of my hearth. Today I was reading some interesting words that brought to life this image. It is amazing to me that sometimes one is inspired to create an image from a narrative and finds this image in another narrative. They built upon each other bringing both narratives together with even greater meaning because both are weaving together. Forming an alchemical experience in me. As well as all of us… a path to peace maybe?

This is a more ambiguous but possibly more productive way of looking at matter and may be applied to Taurus and the second house. Following this thread is unquestionably like plunging into a labyrinth for what eventually emerges is that the second house has nothing to do with objects at all. The “pearl of great price” appears to lie at the heart of the labyrinth, but the persistence of a Taurean is required to reach it. The placement to find this central and unalterable value whose definition cannot be properly articulated but whose reality, to the man who has subjectively experienced it, is not to be questioned.

Pg. 40 – 41. Saturn A New Look at an Old Devil / Liz Green.
Pearl watercolor by Hudley

The Pearl by Hudley

Original post.

Now having passed over this lake in this way, we first went through a narrow arm, into the right seas, where all the sirens, nymphs, and sea-goddesses were waiting for us; wherefore they immediately dispatched a sea nymph to us to deliver their present and offering of honor to the Wedding. It was a costly, great, set, round and oriental pearl, the like of which has never been seen, neither in our world nor yet in the new world.

~ Pg. 62 The Fifth Day the Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz

A watercolor inspired by a strange story. Haunting me in a symbolic world. As a woman I tend to go wandering for things to help my psyche. A feminine soul to be precise. So often in this world today everything is based on the male soul or male journey.

Even in my beloved Red Book by Carl Jung I always remember to participate as a stranger in his world; it is a journey of a male. I must hold the hand of my own animus too when I take these symbolic journeys. I feel it is important for women to know this and do this.

“Animus is the archetype of reason and spirit in women. This is the male aspect of the female psyche, as the anima is the female aspect of male psyche.”

While reading from The Red Book a few days ago I came across the Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis. I know the book and have studied it. Yes, I understand what Jung is saying but it does not appeal to my sensibility. So, I went looking, is there an Imitation of the Goddess?

I have come to see that the journey of Christ is a patriarchal one. I respect this yet have reached a point where I must refrain from this. What came to my mind today is this small watercolor I did years ago. The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz has a wonderful image that I grasped and is very friendly to my female sensibility,

“where all the sirens, nymphs, and sea-goddesses were waiting for us.”

Which is why I often capture art before I fully understand its meaning. Today I do. I hope I can inspire other females to take such a journey like mine and help their psyches!

A feminine soul to be precise. I know this story holds both something for the animus and anima. It indeed symbolically speaks of a wedding or bringing together of both the animus and anima within each of us. It is bringing together opposites.

The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz begins with a lovely image. A star above two figures; a male ~ the sun and a female ~ the moon. This may be uniting both together with the bird of peace, the place where one may find the Holy Grail. I believe to found within our heart. It is another lovely image to ponder.

Coniunctio

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Reflection/ Notes

Jung’s alchemical studies were derived, in part, from the works of Gerhard Dorn, a 16th-century alchemist. In “The Conjunction,” Jung Wrote, “Dorn’s caelum, which corresponds to the stone, was on the one hand a liquid (blue) that could be poured out of a bottle and on the other the Microcosm itself.

For the psychologist it is the self-man as he is, and the indescribable and superempirical totality of the same man.” (CW 14:765) In Jung’s same essay published in Mysterium Coniunctionis, Jung describes caelum  as a heavenly substance containing all distinct forms and simultaneously the ultimate universal form; it symbolized a prefiguration of the soul. Jung also associated caelum with the blue center of Eastern mandalas. (CW 14:757)

The caelum and its function in alchemy, as inviting as they are, provide an avenue for further study. Jung further contended in the same essay, “Man himself is partly empirical, partly transcendental; he too is a (stone that is no stone). A “stone that is not stone” reflects Jung’s earlier experience with active imagination (also called trancing), where he (Jung) is sitting on me (stone).

From this perspective the pearl held within the black stone as the archetypal equivalent of a “stone that is not stone.” The human parallel implies that consciousness lies within the human body and that ‘the human heart is more than a blood pump.’ Like the pearl encased in stone, the heart is at the center of consciousness, which emanates from the divine.

~ Unveiling Sophia/ Heart Wisdom In An Age Of Technology by Anne Elizabeth Taylor

Comrades who whisper from the dead. Tall Drinks!!

image
Holly ready to send her laser… by Shyane

Part one:


Reading a few introductory books before entering The Red Book by CG Jung is a wise thing for me to do. Current historians and psychologists with a depth psychology twist are a nice tall drink. Understanding that Jung had a hard time deciding, in his life, whether to publish the book or not makes me feel as if I am violating his soul in reading it at all….after his death too. Whispering in my ear my entire quasi adult life makes me feel differently about this.

Reading these pre books I am affirmed in my conclusion. That he wrote the book for others as well as for himself.

Jung even encouraged his patients and friends to make a Red Book of their own. Comrades who whisper from the dead. Alchemy personified…but why me, why know and why share? This is a personal insight form a lay person that just happens to have a soul like everyone else… even those with PHDs! As an artist, with insight, I can try to write!

This complements this journey before I enter his world…personal yes but collectively through our mutual histories; past, present and future dreams. I wonder if the computer and blogging were around, in Jung’s time, if he too would use it freely to creatively express himself. I think he would have loved to. How brave we have become in sharing who we are!!
Just as I know there is evil in the world I know there is also goodness.

I have witnesses both, experienced both and been both-and I will continue- yet one thing I have not altered is my innocence. Maybe this is the reason for suffering and sorrow. I think I need to blend a little of the two, evil and goodness, within my cauldron. Stirring it and truly becoming a real adult in the real world. Speaking symbols and watering my essence of insight. You can take it or leave it.

“The Sun its shadow complete the work.”

~ Michael Maier Atlanta Fugiens-279 Book Jungian Psychoanalysis.

When posting on Facebook or WordPress I find that the best responses received by others are the authentic ones I post. All the news, politics and other things just don’t get the same input. Ok maybe the punk rock stuff gives me an edged kick but I was very innocent and rebelliously aesthetic back in the 1980s!!

It is uncomfortable for me to share who I am now, yet when I post my mug, something I created, or some personal insight; I usually get a satisfactory response. Even if it is quick and intuitively posted?? I think we are all looking for authenticity in our lives. Communication!!

As Jim Morrison from the Doors said, “Something Sacred.”

When we see it in another we feel it, we know it. This is the best of human communications. Though it may be rough, vague and juicy… it is what we need. We may even crave it. Collectively and/or as an individual. The mind, heart and soul is part of this equation. It is art, magic and touches those hidden places in us.

It can fall into the formation of math and logic. As effervescent sparks of knowledge. It moves through pain and pleasure as emotional release. It jumps and dances with “look at me” and “I see you.” It is normal, natural but hidden sometimes within the shadow of our sun. We have to go looking for it. It is when we share our authentic self or our aesthetic self… we all respond to it.

Pre books: Lament of The Dead Psychology after Jung’s Red Book ~ James Hillman & Sonu Shamdasani,/ The Red Book Liber Novus A readers Edition CG Jung Edited with an Introduction by Sonu Shamdasani./ The Seven Sermons to the Dead.

Attribution to the Dead and their whispers of life !

Hudley color sketch of flowers
Hudley Art

 Having a romp with your man the night before, and driving on a foggy morning the next day while listening to Jazz; takes orgasm to a whole new level!!

Time can be very strategic!! Life more precious as loved ones fade into the dark unknown. Courting the underworld and also that dark place of the analytical mind, I have found insight into something more. This time of the year screams this depth, scratching at my emotions while confronting me with nothing, a non-caring pain. This time of the year as dusk approaches even the smile of my child, the purring of cats seem to fade into a realm existential of the unreal and profound.


I am about to read The Seven Sermons to the Dead by Carl Jung~ attribution to Basilides. I have prepared for my journey for months with complementary books. I recently received The Red Book as a gift and this will add to my reflective study.

The Apostle said, ‘I lived without a law once,’ that is, before I came into this body, I lived in such a form of body as was not under a law, that of a beast namely, or a bird.[15]

My parents never really looked at death though they are now dead. My best and longest time friend… she too is gone from this life. So as I start this reading I hope to reflect as sermons to them as well !!
The day I began this journey of The Seven Sermons I sat at the pool side where son was swimming with his swim team. Two trees about twelve feet tall were before me. I sat comfortably.

The noises were overwhelming. Children crying and water splashing as women next to me talked about their problems. I then looked at the two trees. On every branch was a small bird; golden and chirping. Singing together and jumping. Everything else faded away but what I was viewing. I thought to myself,
“How can this be?”
One bird jumped down dancing towards me. Slowly, systematically and very consciously the bird came close to my foot and then turned around back up the tree. I then looked down for a second, thinking to take a picture. When I looked back the trees were empty.
I thought,
“How did so many birds fly away without a movement or sound?”
I now ask a question,
“How can so many die without a movement or sound’?”