Nature and Soul: Musings of a Jungian Psychologist
Of Mountains and Dreams: Where the Water Flows Free
Water flows free down the mountain. If you climb the mountain and look toward the valley below, you may see the river flowing down the mountain. Watch it twist and turn while it finds its path among the rocks and trees. The water flows gentle at times, forceful at...
The Mystery Duck: A Jungian Look at Circumambulating a Problem
There are many ways to solve the pressing problems that occur in everyday life. I received this photograph with the title “Mystery Duck” from a good friend. His brother, a waterfowl photographer, had taken the photograph. They wanted my opinion concerning the...
The Moral Center: A Second Response to Viktor Frankl’s Letter
I wrote a blog post in February, 2012, titled, An Ethical Viewpoint, Collective Guilt and an Unpublished Letter from Viktor Frankl. This post focused on an unpublished letter that I had in my possession from Viktor Frankl. Frankl’s letter to my friend and classmate,...
Knowing the Land, Knowing the Self
Once in his life a man ought to concentrate his mind upon the remembered earth, I believe. He ought to give himself up to a particular landscape in his experience, to look at it from as many angles as he can, to wonder about it, to dwell upon it. He ought to imagine...
The Egret at Dawn: Fishing for Dreams
I was out for an early morning walk just the other day with my camera in hand. I paused for awhile to observe this Great Egret at dawn. If you have ever watched an egret, or similar heron, you may notice their patience. While fishing, they stand silently,...
Jungian Psychology and the Razor’s Edge
He had made that last stride, he had stepped over the edge, while I had been permitted to draw back my hesitating foot. And perhaps in this is the whole difference; perhaps all the wisdom, and all truth, and all sincerity, are just compressed into that inappreciable...
An Ethical Viewpoint, Collective Guilt and an Unpublished Letter from Viktor Frankl
I came to receive a copy of this unpublished letter from Viktor Frankl while doing a psychology internship through a VA system outpatient clinic. At that time I worked primarily with Vietnam veterans suffering from PTSD. A university classmate of mine, who was a...
The Rose and the Seasons of Your Life
Even in winter the flower finds a way to bloom. In January, there was a winter-time lone rose in my backyard. Nature can surprise us like that. A rose is not necessarily rare to see where I live in coastal Central California in January. But a single, brilliant red...
Learning from Animals: Why it Matters
We share a deep emotional connection with the rest of the animal world whether we choose to acknowledge this or not. We have evolved from and with the other animals sharing this planet with us and this fact has not been forgotten by the deeper part of our souls....
The Funny Business of Change and Psychotherapy: The Tipping of the Scale
I saw a middle-aged man recently exercising vigorously with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He paused periodically to take deeper drags on his cigarette. There was a humorous side to this scene, but even more, it reminded me of the forces that hold us back in...
Waking Up Into the Night: Insomnia and Creativity
I borrowed the phrase “waking up into the night” from a James Hillman quote that I remembered from a column that I read some time ago. I liked it then, and I like it even more now as I was thinking about this quote recently during a mostly sleepless night. Hillman was...
Your Wall and the Impediments to the Unfolding of the Self
Walls come in many sizes and shapes; big and thick, concrete and hard, colorful and graffiti-filled. Walls stop things, quickly. They don’t give. There is no easy way through. Walls are solid and they mean business. I heard the following dream with an important image...
The Alchemy of Sea Glass: From Junk to Jewel
How is the archaic and symbolic process of alchemy demonstrated through human behavior in modern times? An excellent example is the more recent phenomenon of the coastal quest for sea glass. Living by the sea, I have been a regular observer and participant in the...
The River, the Story, and the Rescue: A Waking Dream
The river. The river was our life-line. The Missouri river, the longest river in North America, begins in Montana, flowing east into North Dakota and then south into South Dakota, where this story takes place. The Missouri runs straight through the center of South...
When the Fog Rolls In: A Symbolic Outlook
If you live in the San Francisco or Monterey Bay area, you know the fog very well. It is a constant part of life here, and you find different camps of people in respect to their relationship to the fog. You can find those who tolerate it, maybe even like it, and those...
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