Dream a little dream!

I dreamed a dream last night of one of my parishioner's mothers who died in December. It was decidedly comforting...but what am I to make of it. M was at the former Diocesan Retreat House...and I was relieved to see her there. In life she had always been a great supporter; at times when (inevitably) I felt under siege there was always a certain type of parishioner who would remain loyal. M was one such.
I have had wild dreams during the last couple of weeks some have been bizarre and filled with fear, last night M reassured me with the prayer of Mother Julian...all shall be well and all shallk be well and all manner of things shall be well

Capital time

The strange tale is told of Dr Jung advising someone who was in deep poo to spend an hour a day just doing nothing. They reluctantly agreed to do this.
When Jung talked to them about it next, it appeared to have had no effect. If anything thing were rather worse.
"What have you been doing?" asks Jung, and the client says, "Well I really looked forward to this hour off each day, and I chose half a dozen of my favourite CDs and went through them methodically. And I decided not to read, but got a couple of good art books out the library and just looked carefully at some of the pictures."
Of course (we can see where this is going) Jung said
"But I told you to do NOTHING!"
Inactivity frightens the pants off us. Mostly because it is one of the most significant things we can do.

The other day a colleague told us how a 'coach' had advised him to spend some time each day as 'capital time'. By this he meant that it was important to allocate time in intellectual and spiritual capital. Thinking about issues, life, and processing the important stuff.
Not quite the absolute 'nothing' that Herr Docktor Jung was on about, but in the same ball park.
I have also been convinced in the last few weeks of the primacy of another 'nothing'...prayer...and of making sure that I do that particular form of nothing. At times it is hard. Always it is essential, improving, and 'value adding'.
I can but commend it. We neglect it at our peril

Trouble posting

I have tried to be considerate this week and have known that if I posted either about the current round of Jungian analysis (which appears to be going well), or the debacles of the Federal Parliament (which have just been beeezaaaar) that I would have carped on and on and on.
So suffice to just make a couple of observations (without much comment) about things that have hit me this week:

• I have been interested that looking at dreams doesn't just appear to have been a fruitcake type of activity, but (as predicted by reputable authority) it does indeed begin to shed constructive light on the unconscious
• I have noted that the Treasurer said he didn't make comments to three journalists, and then admitted he did; but he declined to name the former comment as alie.
• I have noted that senior ministers, Abbott and Downer, and even the Prime Minister have made the observation that what you say doesn't matter as long as you deliver results.

As you can see there is plenty of opportunity for carping!

Dream a little dream

I had a conversation last week with a colleague about CG Jung (the psychoanlayst some would say the PSYCHO analyst). In his refreshingly blunt way W said...."The trouble with Jung it's all crap isn't it?" [Does one expect more of a PhD than "it's all crap"] I tend to respect his point of view as it's likely that even in areas where I am quite well read he is likely to be better and more extensively read and to have synthesised it better (in fact Yes! I hate him for being so smart!).
But I think he is probably wrong.
The trouble with Jung, I suggest, is that he has been picked up by so many New Age wierdos that it looks like Jung is whacko himself. In fact I think he is more seriously scientific than that.
His writing and life's work extend well into the modern era, which makes him rather different than Freud who died just as the Second War was breaking out. So while Freud seems like psychology (rather like Darwin is foundational biology) from which we have moved on, we are still enaging with Jung as someone who continued to adapt and change, and that change has continued for good and ill as the work of others, some of whom have hung their whacko work on Jung's shingle to give themselves a respectability which they otherwise would not have.
Maybe I am one such!

My present round of reading and study is about Jung's understanding of personality and the process of the maturing psyche, about self-awareness and the process of growth that he calls individuation.
Part of his way of looking at things focusses on dreams. Not so much the interpretation of dreams (as the whackos want to have us believe) as the understanding of our dreaming.
He has certain key principles (which I won't bore you with here) and there is an encouragement to record your dreams and review them, in order to try and discern what they reflect about our lives.
As people we are fascinated by dreams, they just have that mystery about them which is enough to suck us in to believing that they may be bigger than they are.
This is where we might be invited to get (as W puts it) sucked in by the crap. Not all dreams are of the calibre of the sort Joseph and Daniel interpret in Holy Writ.
But as with life maybe our ordinary dreams are as important as the extraordinary, if not more important because they are ordinary.
Any way, I finding it helpful at the moment to try and record the dreams I have.
I struggle a bit with how far I create dreams so that I have dreams to record...Catch 22...but I am like that.
The question for me as I encounter Self (Jung suggests that Self with a capital S is not God, but that part of us which knows God...that seems to me a tantalising idea) is how does this invite me to be more free....which is what individuation is about

Closer to reality

I do apologise, dear reader, if in my enthusiasm to re-establish my blog on a regular basis that this week's entries have been unduly long and serious. Part of the art must be in trying to work out what is appreciated by you and having been away for six weeks I have to get back into the rhythm. So, hopefully, I am getting there.

This week I am slipping back into it slowly...at times this process is easy and at times it is not so easy.

• I have begun intensive reading for the course on Jungian analysis I am doing this semester, and in reality during normal times most of the reading tends to get done in one intensive  rather than evenly spread out over the 50 or so days. The great disadvantage of doing it very rapidly (and PTL I can read fairly rapidly) is what to do when your head starts to spin because the neurones are firing with joy at all the new information you are absorbing. And of course it takes a while to assimilate it. So this has disturbed my sleeping a bit.
• I have tried not to begin work before I actually go back next week. This temptation is difficult, but I have succeeded. Yesterday  I met with my friend and colleague, who has also been on extended leave, to chat but also to discuss how we were feeling about getting back into it. Both of us had been very tired before we left and we knew that things would need to be different when we returned. Will they be?

  When J asked me about this I said we would need to see what happened next week! I think this is a good thing, as I was actually quite anxious about coming back before I went away...if that makes sense. It would seem to suggest that I am a little less anxious about it. 

• This time last week we were in Kuala Lumpur  and a week before that in England. It came as something of a shock yesterday to realise how quickly it all slips away.
• I was brave enough yesterday to look at the credit card bill.  Verdict: a little bit worse than I had hoped but not as bad as it could have been! So that would seem to be as it should be!
• And this weekend  another birthday. I delight, in a way, about getting older; but also wonder where the fifty four years have gone. If you know perhaps you could tell me!

All you ever do

A previous post would have revealed to you that I am undertaking a course for my Master's degree in Jungian psychology. Jung's major focus on being in touch with the unconscious is an interesting idea and fruitful (I find) for personal growth and development.
But I did find when I started to look at this last year and to note my dreams that I became much more aware of the dreaming that I do. Indeed one thing I was concerned about was that in providing this framework of the revelatory dream: was I beginning to exaggerate this whole process.
Seeing, as it were, dreams everywhere;was I seeing too much?
Well it's started to happen again!
One interesting thing to note is that when dreams are viewed (albeit as sources of rich treasure) rather matter of factly, or routinely as the unfolding of the unconscious they lose some of their terror. One can well understand why the ancients did indeed find dreams o'erwhelming, though I was struck (as I often am about him) when thinking about Joseph yesterday (St Joseph's Day) how remarkably measured a man he presents himself to be . And he was a prolific dreamer. There is a real sense in the narrative that dreaming kept him in touch with himself. When we first encounter him(Matt 1:18-21) he is in deep poo! This happens to him over and over again, (we all have periods like that I suppose...I certainly have).
It is the dreaming that seems to release him to act freely and creatively.
I feel aghast that I have tended to dismiss or ignore this point for most of my life.
So I am trying to be a little more in touch. Try noting your dreams down for a week. See if you find it illuminating, alarming...godly, human.