{"id":199,"date":"2020-12-17T21:33:27","date_gmt":"2020-12-17T21:33:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mesmarriahmiracle.com\/?p=199"},"modified":"2020-12-17T21:33:27","modified_gmt":"2020-12-17T21:33:27","slug":"9-landing-in-a-plane-backwards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mesmarriahmiracle.com\/index.php\/2020\/12\/17\/9-landing-in-a-plane-backwards\/","title":{"rendered":"9. Landing in a Plane Backwards."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Connecting the Dots (or a brief chronology). <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The encounter with The Catalyst<\/strong> and the feeling that I\u2019d just woken up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wandering and wondering, I lean into some inner leading via feelings mostly and active searching for an answer to what am I supposed to do\u2014is it the man, or something more?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Five years of that and I have a \u2018feeling\u2019 that dreams are important and start writing them down. Within weeks I find Carl Jung whose psychology incorporates the importance of dreams as a communicator for that inner leading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next synchronicity coming up\u2014I \u2018happen\u2019 upon a book that answers the persistent \u201cWhy?\u201d questions. (Remember, every answer to a \u201cWhy\u201d question can always solicit another, \u201cWhy?\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You may remember how I found Carl Jung synchronistically. My trip down the Natchez Trace for a day off, the intriguing mystery of Meriwether Lewis\u2019 death, and off to visit the library for a book to decide for myself if Lewis was murdered or committed suicide. Then seeing Carl Jung among all the other A to Z biographies in that section, and pulling his book off the shelf. The reading of his bio, \u201cMemories, Dreams and Reflections\u201d<\/em> bringing a feeling of \u2018elation\u2019 as I read what had been happening to me in the previous five floundering years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That fateful trip down the Trace was a Thursday, August 22. A note in my journal shows that I started reading the Jung bio on Friday, August 23, with the note, \u201cElation!\u201d On August 28, less than a week after my sojourn down the Trace, I had this dream:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(From my dream journal) “After starting to read Jung\u2019s autobiography: I had a remember-able dream about going to some foreign country, an \u201cS\u201d country\u2014I just remember it as \u201cS\u201d and cold\/white)–and landing in an airplane backward (the tail section first) and thinking it funny with the people I was traveling with\u2014or was sitting beside in the plane\u2014looking out the window and realizing the plane was tail first streaming down the runway. Seems like my travel or seat mates were an older man (Jung?) and an older woman. When I got into the airport\/customs area, I realized I had no passport\/credentials to enter a foreign country and started to feel dismayed until brightly I realized I would still be able to get into the foreign country. It would just take me 45 min to 1 hour longer to get cleared. A young girl, helpful, efficient, personable, tall, set about clearing me. I was never worried about it at all, just confident it would work out even though I was \u2018breaking the rules\u2019 and not doing it like everybody else. It would just take me longer.<\/em>“<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It would be the first of many directive, insightful, instructive, and encouraging dreams that I would have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Jung:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u201cTo me dreams are a part of nature, which harbors no intention to deceive, but expresses something as best it can, just as a plant grows or an animal seeks its food as best it can.\u201d …I regarded the unconscious and dreams, which are its direct exponents, as natural processes to which no arbitrariness can be attributed and above all no legerdemain. (trickery or sleight of hand)\u00a0 Carl Jung \u201cMemories, Dreams, Reflections\u201d (<\/em>MDR) p 161<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Apparently my subconscious works on getting me to understand while sleeping.  For the nights following the plane dream, it was like I would only feel about half asleep, the other half working subconsciously on figuring things out. I\u2019d sorta figure out parts of things, then semi-wake up to realize it, cement it in my memory. (I\u2019m thinking that probably the subconscious can work better with the rigid, objective mind when it is half asleep.) My interpretation became pretty clear on September 2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This from my journal:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was trying to be admitted to a \u201cforeign land\u201d without the proper \u201cofficial credentials.\u201d (In real life, I was trying to understand a foreign area\u2014the unconscious\u2026Jung\u2019s psychology) S-country could be Switzerland, Jung\u2019s country. Without the proper official papers\u2014a degree. I was happily confident I would be admitted: it would just require a very small, pleasant, (patient) unruffling delay. Is the foreign land the unconscious rather than just Jung\u2019s psychiatry? The unconscious feels to be the avenue I need to approach now\u2026to see \u201cwhere\u201d the really \u201cbig picture\u201d comes from.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I may have already mentioned that when you delve into the unknown, time warps, maybe elongates. So I wondered how long the \u201c45 min to 1 hour time\u201d depicted in the dream would take to be \u201cadmitted to the foreign country.\u201d Relatively speaking, 45 min to 1 hour delay in Customs didn\u2019t seem too unreasonable. I would later learn that the Unconscious was oft depicted as a \u2018foreign land.\u2019  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Unconscious, you may note, has now taken on a Capital \u201cU.\u201d Important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is it the Unconscious that is doing the leading here? How long would it take for me to be \u201cadmitted\u201d to an understanding of Jung\u2019s psychology? Or would it be the Unconscious itself that would take the time? What is the Unconscious and how does it affect me?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next synchronicity was just around the corner. I\u2019m driving home from work one day and on a last minute whim, I whip off the interstate to hit up a bookstore. (I remember slashing across two lanes of traffic to make the exit in time.)  Whims can be dangerous. This one was worth it. Once inside the store, just browsing, seeing what attracted my attention. I see a sale table. Nice. I like sales. Thumb. Thumb. Thumb through\u2026and there\u2026oh-oh, a big Jung book, \u201cMan and His Symbols.\u201d <\/em>Hmmm\u2026might as well\u2026if dreams are communicators of the psyche, best to start learning about their symbols, right? And at a sale price!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would learn that I was neither a singular, nor an anointed case.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

No specialty required to get synchronicities or dreams or books dropping breadcrumbs. Jung\u2019s Psychology of Individuation assures that these things happen to anyone who opens themselves up to something bigger than outward appearances.\u00a0 To the hero and heroine who enters the forest on his or her own path to search for the holy grail, their true Selves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Self can be defined as an inner guiding factor that is different from the conscious personality\u2026how far it develops depends on whether or not the ego is willing to listen to the messages of the Self.\u201d Carl Jung, <\/em>Man and His Symbols, <\/em>(MAHS) p. 162<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Jung\u2019s psychology came from his lifetime of having lived all that he writes about… understanding the human psyche, recognizing how the myths that mankind laid down are pathfinders, and following his own unknown leading,  In his bio, \u201cMemories, Dreams and Reflections,\u201d <\/em>Jung tells about his experiences as a doctor, psychiatrist, and scientist who submitted to the leading of his Unconscious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He writes, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2026my life has been singularly poor in outward happenings. I cannot tell much about them, for it would strike me as hollow and insubstantial. I can understand myself only in the light of inner happenings. It is these that make up the singularity of my life.\u201d\u201c\u2026my life has been in a sense the quintessence of what I have written, not the other way around. The way I am and the way I write are a unity.\u201d \u00a0Carl Jung, \u201c<\/em>MDR\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aniela Jaffe writes in the forward of the book:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI often asked Jung for specific data on outward happenings, but I asked in vain. Only the spiritual essence of his life\u2019s experience remained in his memory, and this alone seemed to him worth the effort of telling.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

He retained that which was pertinent to his survival.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jung\u2019s entire life and life\u2019s work was committed to understanding the human psyche. His early experience with schizophrenics and the mentally ill led him to recognize that many of their delusions were rooted in ancient symbols and myths which he then steeped himself in so that he could understand them. It was his own dreams that gave him answers and clues leading him all the way back to the Alchemists and the Gnostics. This commitment many times caused painful separation from his colleagues, including his break with Freud, but he felt a conviction to stay true to his internal leading. He persevered to provide an answer…that I needed to find many decades later. I particularly loved this line because it plucked a string of my heart and soul, and validated a thought I\u2019d already had in a poem, \u201cPhantom Questions.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI also think of the possibility that through the achievement of an individual a question enters the world, to which he must provide some kind of answer.\u201d Carl Jung, <\/em>MDR, p.318<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Be All That You Can Be<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jung\u2019s psychology: The Process of Individuation. I\u2019ve shorthanded it, \u201cthe process of becoming whole.\u201d The Army copped it and made a slogan out of it: Be All That You Can Be!\u00a0 (Who knew the US Army was Jungian.) Whole. Becoming Whole. That sorta intimates parts and pieces need to be put together to become whole. Parts and Pieces<\/strong> are next up, but first, here\u2019s why and what the process entails.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe actual process of individuation\u2014the conscious coming to terms with one\u2019s own inner center\u2026the Self\u2014generally begins with a wounding of the personality and the suffering that accompanies it. <\/strong>This initial shock amounts to a sort of \u201ccall,\u201d<\/strong> although it is not often recognized as such. On the contrary, the ego feels hampered in its will or its desire and usually projects the obstruction onto something external.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or perhaps everything seems outwardly all right, but beneath the surface a person is suffering from a deadly boredom<\/strong> that makes everything seem meaningless and empty<\/strong>. Many myths and fairy tales symbolically describe this initial state in the process of individuation by telling of a king who has fallen ill or grown old. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One is seeking something that is impossible to find or about which nothing is known<\/strong>. In such moments all well-meant, sensible advice is completely useless\u2014advice that urges one to try to be responsible, to take a holiday, not to work so hard (or to work harder), to have more (or less) human contact, or to take up a hobby. None of that helps, or at best only rarely. There is only one thing that seems to work; and that is to turn directly toward the approaching darkness without prejudice and totally naively, and to try to find out what its secret aim is and what it wants from you.\u201d \u00a0<\/strong>Carl Jung, <\/em>\u201cMAHS\u201d p. 166<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can you feel the excitement that I must have felt reading those words? The call. Breaking of the heart. Boredom. Turn directly into the approaching darkness. What does it want from me? This was me. This was my life. This was my answer!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d been bucking the \u2018good advice\u2019 of friends and family in an effort to find my answers. No one had understood my dilemma because it was un-understandable to anyone but me. It was my individual path, my path to find, my path to walk. I had started the Process of Individuation, to become the real me. My first step after \u2018awakening, I was learning about and incorporating the animus as one of the parts and pieces to become whole. Would I be led to find the other parts and pieces to becoming whole?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had lived some distant day into another answer. What amazed me was that, the universal description that Jung gave\u2026it couldn\u2019t have been more personalized exactly for me!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2026symbolically this points to the fact that often the urge toward individuation appears in a veiled form, hidden in the overwhelming passion one may feel for another person<\/strong>. (In fact, passion that goes beyond the natural measure of love ultimately aims at the mystery of becoming whole<\/strong>, and this is why one feels, when one has fallen passionately in love, that becoming one with the other person is the only worthwhile goal of one\u2019s life<\/strong>.\u201d) <\/em>Carl Jung, <\/em>\u201cMAHS\u201d p. 206<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jaw-dropping disbelief, that shaking of your head back and forth when you just can\u2019t fathom what you\u2019re seeing or reading! Universal. For the ages. For every human. My exact circumstances! Validation. Explanation. Exultation!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Synchronicity led me to the book, \u201cMan and His Symbols,\u201d<\/em> and it turned out to be underscore, underscore, underscore. The Dots were connecting so fast there was an audible clicking! Breadcrumbs? Listen to this (and I\u2019m going to go bold on the things that underscore what we\u2019ve been talking about):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe individuation process is more than a coming to terms between the inborn germ of wholeness<\/strong> and the outer acts of fate<\/strong>. Its subjective experience conveys the feeling that some suprapersonal force is<\/strong> actively interfering in a creative way<\/strong>. One sometimes feels that the unconscious is leading the way in accordance with a secret design<\/strong>.\u201d<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whew! And, yes, there\u2019s more:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2026in order to bring the individuation process into reality, one must surrender consciously to the power of the unconscious,<\/strong> instead of thinking in terms of what one should do, or what is generally thought right, or of what usually happens. One must simply listen, in order to learn what the inner totality \u2013 the Self \u2013 wants one to do here and now <\/strong>in a particular situation.” Carl Jung, <\/em>\u201cMAHS\u201d p. 163<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe ego must be able to listen attentively and to give itself, without any further design or purpose, to that inner urge toward growth.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had listened to that little inner voice that ran like a sentence through my head and heart. I chose to give my self, without any further design or purpose, to an inner urge that turned out to be growth. It may not be the easiest, quickest road or follow-through, but it is perhaps the most satisfying. Just look at the encouragement you tap into that comes to keep you reinforced, armored up, and excited to get the next clue! To find the next part of You\u2026to become all that You can be\u2026were intended to be\u2026that you planned for You to be!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parts and Pieces\u2014Getting to Know Me!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Connecting the Dots (or a brief chronology).  The encounter with The Catalyst and the feeling that I\u2019d just woken up. Wandering and wondering, I lean into some inner leading via feelings mostly and active searching for an answer to what am I supposed to do\u2014is it the man, or something more? Five years of that … Continue reading “9. Landing in a Plane Backwards.”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":197,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[11,20,3,23,21],"class_list":["post-199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-story","tag-carl-jung","tag-catalyst","tag-dreams","tag-self","tag-unconscious"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mesmarriahmiracle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mesmarriahmiracle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mesmarriahmiracle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mesmarriahmiracle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mesmarriahmiracle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mesmarriahmiracle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":202,"href":"https:\/\/mesmarriahmiracle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions\/202"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mesmarriahmiracle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mesmarriahmiracle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mesmarriahmiracle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mesmarriahmiracle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}