My dreamwork practice has not been consistent lately. When I write down what dream material I do remember, I'm often left feeling uncertain. In the moments I've had to reflect, I've been using tarot more to support dream interpretation. For example, selecting a particular dream image and drawing a tarot card on its meaning. This has been really fruitful!
On current practice: I continue with sandplay, making my own clay miniatures, using it to visualise where I’m at. Black sand was a game-changer, enabling depiction of underworld scenarios. Often, its months or years later that I see the significance of what emerged in the tray. E.g. I dreamed recently of a black horse in my garage. Garage far too small for the horse but I was told that if I let the horse it would run amok and get killed. Lo, a sandplay of a fenced in horse appeared the same month but two years ago. This enabled me to look in my journal to see what common events were happening. Sandplay, dreams and journalling is a fruitful therapeutic combo for me. Things currently reading: Jung on ‘night religion’ and how removing the spirits from streams, forests etc, leaves us with a de-animated nature and alienated selves. It has a lot of relevance to ecopsychology which I’m using in my current academic project. Topics of interest: negative mother complex, absent fathers in fairy stories, the importance of building one’s own tower for Jung, von Franz and Christiana Morgan and towers in fairy stories and tarot. Still not sure what Jung means by psychoid, but v interested in how it seems to involves a mind-body unity.
I'll leave a few separate comments for ease of response.
On the black horse, I'm very curious of your associations or interpretations - what a striking symbol! And to see it repeated via Sandplay and dreams is quite amazing.
Some thoughts (on the archetypal level at least) is the black horse ridden by Famine that also links to the Knight of Pentacles in the Rider Waite Smith tarot. Or the black rider and horse from the fairytale Vasilisa (representing night, nigredo, descent to darkness).
Here's a quote from Jung that has some really interesting elements as well:
“Horse” is an archetype that is widely current in mythology and folklore. As an animal it represents the non-human psyche, the subhuman, animal side, the unconscious. That is why horses in folklore sometimes see visions, hear voices, and speak. As a beast of burden it is closely related to the mother-archetype (witness the Valkyries that bear the dead hero to Valhalla, the Trojan horse, etc.). As an animal lower than man it represents the lower part of the body and the animal impulses that rise from there. The horse is dynamic and vehicular power: it carries one away like a surge of instinct. It is subject to panics like all instinctive creatures who lack higher consciousness. Also it has to do with sorcery and magical spells—especially the black night-horses which herald death."
I was aware that Jung had written about death, which alarmed me, but I associated the garaged horse with stunted libido, blocked energies, wildness frustrated. However, in a subsequent dream I was in a carriage pulled by several horses, going round and round in wide circles in a black underground place. And I thought (in the dream), oh, I am Persephone, but there is no Demeter to mourn (neg mother stuff). The child is left with Hades. Thanks for reminding me of Vasilisa. I think Clarissa Estes mentions that story in Running with Wolves - I will check it out. Also von Franz is bound to have written about it. Famine ... this resonates but I'll have to think more about that. Thank you.
Yes, Vasilisa is written about by Clarissa Estes in Women Who Run With the Wolves. von Franz talks about it in the Feminine in Fairy Tales and also Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales.
Where are the references on night religion found? Somewhere in Psychology and Religion, perhaps?
All the topics of interests are so rich and I've many thoughts...
-There's often (at least in fairytales) a coupling of the negative mother and the absent father. Is that where your interests originated?
-I was just thinking about the role of the tower in Psyche's mythology and plant to touch on that in the class about descents to the underworld. Essentially...what is the role of the tower in helping us access the underworld?
- Psychoid is a very complex and metaphysically challenging concept. It's a claim on what the structure of reality is...one that we can't verify (with at least scientific) certainty. I'd like to write more about it.
I've been reading the Mind and Earth essay in Civilization in Transition but it also crops up in Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious around para 288.
Interests in absent father/negative mother entirely coming up from childhood experiences and current reading of Susanne Schwartz's book on The Absent Fathers Effect on Daughters, which is v rich.
Love what you're saying about the Tower and access to the underworld - would much appreciate a class on this.
Ah, Susanne Schwartz's book! I've heard about it before but I've yet to pick it up. I wonder if there is some overlap or if its a nice complement to The Wounded Woman: Healing the Father-Daughter Relationship by Linda Schierse Leonard.
I have the Leonard book, Schwartz uses several biblical examples, which, given my career as a bib scholar, I appreciate, alongside her client-informed illustrations. I won't be able to measure the overlap until I've finished it.
From the archive:
My dreamwork practice has not been consistent lately. When I write down what dream material I do remember, I'm often left feeling uncertain. In the moments I've had to reflect, I've been using tarot more to support dream interpretation. For example, selecting a particular dream image and drawing a tarot card on its meaning. This has been really fruitful!
If you're curious about this approach, I have a workshop in the archive on blending the two modalities together: https://www.theartemisian.com/p/tarot-and-dreamwork
Happy to answer any questions on tarot and dreams, let me know :)
On current practice: I continue with sandplay, making my own clay miniatures, using it to visualise where I’m at. Black sand was a game-changer, enabling depiction of underworld scenarios. Often, its months or years later that I see the significance of what emerged in the tray. E.g. I dreamed recently of a black horse in my garage. Garage far too small for the horse but I was told that if I let the horse it would run amok and get killed. Lo, a sandplay of a fenced in horse appeared the same month but two years ago. This enabled me to look in my journal to see what common events were happening. Sandplay, dreams and journalling is a fruitful therapeutic combo for me. Things currently reading: Jung on ‘night religion’ and how removing the spirits from streams, forests etc, leaves us with a de-animated nature and alienated selves. It has a lot of relevance to ecopsychology which I’m using in my current academic project. Topics of interest: negative mother complex, absent fathers in fairy stories, the importance of building one’s own tower for Jung, von Franz and Christiana Morgan and towers in fairy stories and tarot. Still not sure what Jung means by psychoid, but v interested in how it seems to involves a mind-body unity.
I'll leave a few separate comments for ease of response.
On the black horse, I'm very curious of your associations or interpretations - what a striking symbol! And to see it repeated via Sandplay and dreams is quite amazing.
Some thoughts (on the archetypal level at least) is the black horse ridden by Famine that also links to the Knight of Pentacles in the Rider Waite Smith tarot. Or the black rider and horse from the fairytale Vasilisa (representing night, nigredo, descent to darkness).
Here's a quote from Jung that has some really interesting elements as well:
“Horse” is an archetype that is widely current in mythology and folklore. As an animal it represents the non-human psyche, the subhuman, animal side, the unconscious. That is why horses in folklore sometimes see visions, hear voices, and speak. As a beast of burden it is closely related to the mother-archetype (witness the Valkyries that bear the dead hero to Valhalla, the Trojan horse, etc.). As an animal lower than man it represents the lower part of the body and the animal impulses that rise from there. The horse is dynamic and vehicular power: it carries one away like a surge of instinct. It is subject to panics like all instinctive creatures who lack higher consciousness. Also it has to do with sorcery and magical spells—especially the black night-horses which herald death."
I was aware that Jung had written about death, which alarmed me, but I associated the garaged horse with stunted libido, blocked energies, wildness frustrated. However, in a subsequent dream I was in a carriage pulled by several horses, going round and round in wide circles in a black underground place. And I thought (in the dream), oh, I am Persephone, but there is no Demeter to mourn (neg mother stuff). The child is left with Hades. Thanks for reminding me of Vasilisa. I think Clarissa Estes mentions that story in Running with Wolves - I will check it out. Also von Franz is bound to have written about it. Famine ... this resonates but I'll have to think more about that. Thank you.
Yes, Vasilisa is written about by Clarissa Estes in Women Who Run With the Wolves. von Franz talks about it in the Feminine in Fairy Tales and also Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales.
I've a class on it as well here: https://www.theartemisian.com/p/vasilisa-the-beauitful
Ooh, yes, I remember that class now that you mention it. Time for me to watch it again.
There's some coverage on the mother archetype in both its positive, negative and Great manifestations. Maybe something relevant will jump out?
Where are the references on night religion found? Somewhere in Psychology and Religion, perhaps?
All the topics of interests are so rich and I've many thoughts...
-There's often (at least in fairytales) a coupling of the negative mother and the absent father. Is that where your interests originated?
-I was just thinking about the role of the tower in Psyche's mythology and plant to touch on that in the class about descents to the underworld. Essentially...what is the role of the tower in helping us access the underworld?
- Psychoid is a very complex and metaphysically challenging concept. It's a claim on what the structure of reality is...one that we can't verify (with at least scientific) certainty. I'd like to write more about it.
I've been reading the Mind and Earth essay in Civilization in Transition but it also crops up in Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious around para 288.
Interests in absent father/negative mother entirely coming up from childhood experiences and current reading of Susanne Schwartz's book on The Absent Fathers Effect on Daughters, which is v rich.
Love what you're saying about the Tower and access to the underworld - would much appreciate a class on this.
Ah, Susanne Schwartz's book! I've heard about it before but I've yet to pick it up. I wonder if there is some overlap or if its a nice complement to The Wounded Woman: Healing the Father-Daughter Relationship by Linda Schierse Leonard.
I have the Leonard book, Schwartz uses several biblical examples, which, given my career as a bib scholar, I appreciate, alongside her client-informed illustrations. I won't be able to measure the overlap until I've finished it.
Ohh interesting, I'm gonna make a note to pick up the book.
My friend Maria has an interview with Schwartz on the topic here: https://beginagain.substack.com/p/19-the-absent-father-a-conversation
great - thanks for this link