Bluebird

 

there's a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I'm too tough for him,

I say, stay in there, I'm not going

to let anybody see

you.

there's a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I pur whiskey on him and inhale

cigarette smoke

and the whores and the bartenders

and the grocery clerks

never know that

he's

in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I'm too tough for him,

I say,

stay down, do you want to mess

me up?

you want to screw up the

works?

you want to blow my book sales in

Europe?

there's a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I'm too clever, I only let him out

at night sometimes

when everybody's asleep.

I say, I know that you're there,

so don't be

sad.

then I put him back,

but he's singing a little

in there, I haven't quite let him

die

and we sleep together like

that

with our

secret pact

and it's nice enough to

make a man

weep, but I don't

weep, do

you?

Charles Bukowski

in, Love is a Dog From Hell  

The Second Look

 

Annie Spratt

The art of seeing what is already here.

When something is ours, when it has been ours for a while, it slowly becomes invisible. 

Because our attention has moved on to what we do not yet have.

This is the strange blindness that comes with having.

The cup we drink from every morning was once chosen with care. The person sitting across the table was once someone we longed to know. The body carrying us through the day was once something we promised ourselves we would never take for granted.

And yet.

The cup becomes a cup. The person becomes a habit. The body becomes a vehicle we only notice when it fails.

This is how our attention works. It moves toward what is new, what is missing, what is next. It scans for problems, for gaps, for what could be better.

This scanning keeps us alive and it still does, in many ways.

But it comes at a cost.

And the cost is that we can spend an entire life surrounded by abundance and never once feel rich.

The eyes that do not see

There is an old Zen teaching about a fish that swims through the ocean asking every creature it meets: Where is this great water I keep hearing about?

The story describes, with painful accuracy, the way most of us live.

We look for happiness in the distance while standing in the middle of it.

Not because we are foolish, but because our culture has trained us to associate happiness with arrival.

With getting somewhere we are not yet.

With acquiring something we do not yet have.

With becoming someone we are not yet.

This training runs deep. It shapes the way we see a morning, a meal, a walk, a conversation.

It shapes the way we see our own lives.

A woman I knew had spent years building a life she genuinely loved. 

A warm home, work that mattered to her, a handful of friendships she trusted completely. 

But when asked if she was happy, she hesitated. 

She could list everything she had. She could not feel it.

There was a gap between knowing and sensing, between the inventory of her blessings and the lived experience of being blessed.

Because she had never been taught how to let what she already had actually reach her.

This is the problem that appreciation addresses: 

Not a lack of good things, but a lack of contact with them.

What appreciation is not

It is important to say what appreciation is not, because the word has been so overused that it has nearly lost its weight.

Appreciation is not forcing yourself to feel thankful when you do not. 

It is not the hollow optimism that insists everything is wonderful when clearly some things are not.

It is not a performance. 

It is not only positive thinking. 

It is surely not pretending.

Appreciation, at its root, is much simpler than any of this.

It is a way of seeing.

More precisely, it is a way of slowing down enough to actually see what is in front of you, beneath the film of habit, beneath the restlessness of wanting, beneath the constant pull toward what is next.

The Tao Te Ching, in Chapter 12, warns that too much stimulation blinds us. 

But the reverse is also true. 

When we slow down, when the noise dims, things begin to appear again.

The same things, seen as if for the first time.

I wrote about this return of contact in an essay on simplicity, where I described how owning fewer things brings us into a deeper relationship with each of them. 

The same principle applies far beyond possessions.

Fewer distractions, and a friendship becomes vivid again.

Fewer plans, and an afternoon recovers its spaciousness. 

 

Fewer words, but so meaningful that any conversation becomes something you actually remember.

The second look

The first look is automatic. It classifies, labels, moves on. Coffee. Morning. Tuesday. The first look is efficient.

The second look is slower. It notices. The warmth of the cup against the palm. The way the steam rises and disappears. The particular quality of the light at this hour, in this room, in this season of your life.

The second receives what was already there.

A friend once told me he had walked the same path to work for nine years. 

One morning, for no reason he could name, he looked up. There was a tree he had never noticed, an old magnolia, its branches so wide they nearly touched the buildings on either side of the street.

He stood there, briefcase in hand, genuinely stunned by the realization that it had been there, every single day, offering exactly what it was offering now, and he had never once looked.

He told me that moment changed something in him. Not dramatically. But he began to understand that beauty was not something he needed to seek. It was something he needed to stop walking past.

The Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh called this kind of attention “washing the dishes to wash the dishes.” Not to get them done, not to move on to the next task, but to be fully present with water, soap, warmth, the feeling of something becoming clean.

It sounds trivial. It is anything but.

The cost to living without appreciation

The cost is not unhappiness, exactly. It is something more subtle and more corrosive.

It is the slow hollowing of experience.

Days begin to feel the same. 

Meals become fuel. 

Conversations become transactions. 

The people we love become familiar shapes moving through familiar rooms. 

Nothing is wrong, exactly.

But nothing quite lands, either.

This is what the Taoists might call living out of alignment.

Zhuangzi tells of a man who lost his ability to appreciate a pearl because he could only think of its market value. The pearl had not changed. But the man could no longer see it as anything other than a price.

We do this constantly: 

We reduce our relationships to what they give us. 

We reduce our health to a checklist. 

We reduce a walk in the forest to exercise, to steps counted, to calories burned.

And each reduction strips away a layer of aliveness.

Appreciating what is difficult

There is a harder form of appreciation that must be mentioned.

It is easy to appreciate a sunset. 

It is much harder to appreciate a difficult conversation, an illness, a loss, a season of uncertainty.

And yet, some of the deepest appreciation I have witnessed has come not from abundance but from its absence.

• Recovering from illness and feel, with overwhelming clarity, the miracle of a body that works.
• Losing someone and suddenly understand, too late and yet not too late, what presence actually means.
• Going through a long winter and stand in the first warmth of spring with something close to reverence.

These are not lessons anyone would choose. 

And it would be cruel to suggest that suffering exists to teach us appreciation.

But there is something honest in acknowledging that difficulty often strips away the film of habit more effectively than any practice ever could.

When everything is taken away, what remains becomes luminous.

The Tao Te Ching says:

He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.

This knowing does not come from counting our blessings. It comes from something deeper.

It comes from contact with what is here. Real, unfiltered, unmediated contact. 

The kind that makes a glass of water after a long walk feel like the most important thing in the world.

Because in that moment, it is.

With Gratitude.

Chen Li

in, Words of Taoism

Let It Enfold You

Bongeka Ngcobo

 

Either peace or happiness,

let it enfold you

when I was a young man

I felt these things were

dumb, unsophisticated.

I had bad blood, a twisted

mind, a precarious

upbringing.

I was hard as granite, I

leered at the

sun.

I trusted no man and

especially no

woman.

I was living a hell in

small rooms, I broke

things, smashed things,

walked through glass,

cursed.

I challenged everything,

was continually being

evicted, jailed, in and

out of fights, in and out

of my mind.

women were something

to screw and rail

at, I had no male

friends,

I changed jobs and

cities, I hated holidays,

babies, history,

newspapers, museums,

grandmothers,

marriage, movies,

spiders, garbagemen,

english accents,spain,

france,italy,walnuts and

the color

orange.

algebra angred me,

opera sickened me,

charlie chaplin was a

fake

and flowers were for

pansies.

peace and happiness to me

were signs of

inferiority,

tenants of the weak

and

addled

mind.

but as I went on with

my alley fights,

my suicidal years,

my passage through

any number of

women-it gradually

began to occur to

me

that I wasn't different

from the

others, I was the same,

they were all fulsome

with hatred,

glossed over with petty

grievances,

the men I fought in

alleys had hearts of stone.

everybody was nudging,

inching, cheating for

some insignificant

advantage,

the lie was the

weapon and the

plot was

empty,

darkness was the

dictator.

cautiously, I allowed

myself to feel good

at times.

I found moments of

peace in cheap

rooms

just staring at the

knobs of some

dresser

or listening to the

rain in the

dark.

the less I needed

the better I

felt.

maybe the other life had worn me

down.

I no longer found

glamour

in topping somebody

in conversation.

or in mounting the

body of some poor

drunken female

whose life had

slipped away into

sorrow.

I could never accept

life as it was,

i could never gobble

down all its

poisons

but there were parts,

tenuous magic parts

open for the

asking.

I re formulated

I don't know when,

date, time, all

that

but the change

occurred.

something in me

relaxed, smoothed

out.

i no longer had to

prove that I was a

man,

I didn't have to prove

anything.

I began to see things:

coffee cups lined up

behind a counter in a

cafe.

or a dog walking along

a sidewalk.

or the way the mouse

on my dresser top

stopped there

with its body,

its ears,

its nose,

it was fixed,

a bit of life

caught within itself

and its eyes looked

at me

and they were

beautiful.

then- it was

gone.

I began to feel good,

I began to feel good

in the worst situations

and there were plenty

of those.

like say, the boss

behind his desk,

he is going to have

to fire me.

I've missed too many

days.

he is dressed in a

suit, necktie, glasses,

he says, 'I am going

to have to let you go'

'it's all right' I tell

him.

He must do what he

must do, he has a

wife, a house, children,

expenses, most probably

a girlfriend.

I am sorry for him

he is caught.

I walk onto the blazing

sunshine.

the whole day is

mine

temporarily,

anyhow.

(the whole world is at the

throat of the world,

everybody feels angry,

short-changed, cheated,

everybody is despondent,

disillusioned)

I welcomed shots of

peace, tattered shards of

happiness.

I embraced that stuff

like the hottest number,

like high heels, breasts,

singing,the

works.

(don't get me wrong,

there is such a thing as cockeyed optimism

that overlooks all

basic problems just for

the sake of

itself-

this is a shield and a

sickness.)

The knife got near my

throat again,

I almost turned on the

gas

again

but when the good

moments arrived

again

I didn't fight them off

like an alley

adversary.

I let them take me,

I luxuriated in them,

I made them welcome

home.

I even looked into

the mirror

once having thought

myself to be

ugly,

I now liked what

I saw, almost

handsome, yes,

a bit ripped and

ragged,

scares, lumps,

odd turns,

but all in all,

not too bad,

almost handsome,

better at least than

some of those movie

star faces

like the cheeks of

a baby's

butt.

and finally I discovered

real feelings of

others,

unheralded,

like lately,

like this morning,

as I was leaving,

for the track,

i saw my wife in bed,

just the

shape of

her head there

(not forgetting

centuries of the living

and the dead and

the dying,

the pyramids,

Mozart dead

but his music still

there in the

room, weeds growing,

the earth turning,

the tote board waiting for

me)

I saw the shape of my

wife's head,

she so still,

I ached for her life,

just being there

under the

covers.

I kissed her in the

forehead,

got down the stairway,

got outside,

got into my marvelous

car,

fixed the seatbelt,

backed out the

drive.

feeling warm to

the fingertips,

down to my

foot on the gas

pedal,

I entered the world

once

more,

drove down the

hill

past the houses

full and empty

of

people,

I saw the mailman,

honked,

he waved

back

at me.

Charles Bukowski

in, Love is a Dog From Hell  

Orphan Archetype

1. Have you ever felt like a motherless or fatherless child? 
2. Have you experienced abuse, betrayal, abandonment, or neglect at the hands of your family members? 
3. Do you often feel powerless or overwhelmed by life?

All these are signs that you may be operating from the Orphan archetype – something that many lone wolves and sensitive souls experience.

Of all the shadowy and unconscious inner dynamics we can operate from, this is probably one of the most painful. I should know because I’ve been there, and sometimes, I return there in my darkest moments.

Pain. Emptiness. Aloneness. Fear.

These are all the emotional ‘flavors’ of this desolate inner landscape.

Since I’ve become a parent, I’ve again entered this underworld shadow work journey of exploring even deeper layers of my own inner child.

What I’ve realized, in ever more extreme degrees, is that true emotional healing begins when you stop abandoning the orphaned child you once were.

True heart-centered healing begins when you learn to become the parent the orphaned child within you never had.

Signs the Orphan Archetype is Ruling Your Life

“The Outcast/Orphan archetype appears in hundreds of folk tales, books of fiction, and even films. Literary characters like Cinderella, the Little Match Girl, Jane Eyre, Frodo Baggins, and Harry Potter are well-known Outcasts … He is the uncomfortable Other, unique and alone in the world, who reminds us how close we all are to being cut loose, to being without support.” 

– Toko-pa Turner

Before working with the inner Orphan, it’s helpful to know whether this part is dominating your life. Here are some signs to look out for:

• You often feel helpless, powerless, or like a victim (in relationships, work, or life as a whole).

• You have a destructive, cold, or otherwise dysfunctional relationship with your caretakers or family of origin.

• You mistrust others easily and prefer to do things alone.

• You feel like you’re surviving but rarely thriving in life.

• You have a scarcity mindset where you try to hoard resources (money, possessions, food, affection) for fear they will run out.

• You’re self-alienated and struggle to feel a solid sense of identity.

• You tend to adopt the role of martyr or people-pleaser around others.

• You often struggle with feelings of loneliness and emptiness.

• You have a tendency towards addiction (perfectionism, workaholism, drugs, alcohol, social media, etc.) to fill the void.

• You tend to be naive/idealistic and see the world in black or white.

• You struggle to ask for help.

• You are extremely sensitive to any signs of rejection from others.

Healing Begins When You Stop Abandoning the Orphaned Child You Once Were

It’s no coincidence that my favorite books as a child were A Series of Unfortunate Events (a book about three orphans), the Harry Potter series (another orphan), and Jane Eyre (yep, you guessed it, another orphan).

Something about these books soothed my soul and gave me the cozy comfort I needed to get through a childhood that felt lonely, scary at times, and imprisoning.

What about you? If you think back to what brought you comfort as a child, do you see any Orphan archetype patterns (e.g., doing things alone, reading about fellow Orphans, or maybe even seeking out all-loving mother or father figures)?

One of the reasons why continuing to operate from this archetype is so destructive is that it keeps us in a state of perceived powerlessness, denial, and victimhood.

Without shifting this energy, we find ourselves stuck in (and in some cases unconsciously seeking out) the same patterns of pain and suffering over and over again.

The first step to healing is to stop abandoning your inner Orphan, to welcome its gifts, and to release its curses.

Where to Start the Healing and Finding More Peace

In the words of Carol S. Pearson, PhD., in her book The Hero Within,

“The archetype of the Orphan is a tricky place to be. The Orphan’s task is to move out of innocence and denial and learn that suffering, pain, scarcity, and death are an inevitable part of life. The anger and pain this engenders will be proportional to one’s initial illusions. This Fall leads to realism, because the job of the Orphan is to develop realistic expectations about life.”

As we can see, becoming free from the Orphan archetype and finding more peace first requires us to go through a period of mourning.

We must consciously decide to move out of the innocence, denial, and idealism that haunts our inner Orphans and internally mature by learning to:

1. Name and bring loving awareness to how we feel.
2. Accept the harder realities of life without collapsing into denial or escapism.
3. Practice grief work by facing, mourning, and processing how we feel in the present and what we went through in the past.

One of my favorite ways to do this is through journaling - develops more internal safety, love, and understanding within the journal, which are essential for reparenting the Orphaned inner child.

Simple questions I recommend starting with are:

“How can I become the parent my inner Orphan never had?”

“What boundaries in life can I create to help my inner Orphan feel safer?”

“Deep down, how do I know when it’s time to ask for help?”

As for other methods of grief work, I recommend doing therapeutic art. 

Drawing, painting, scribbling, and crafting are all powerful ways of channeling and transforming intense and suppressed emotions such as rage, fear, and shame. 

Mindful meditation is also another way of helping you to stay grounded and present.

In the words of writer Alice Walker, 

“Healing begins where the wound was made.” 

If the wound started as a child, that’s where the healing begins. 

Learning how to become the parent your Orphaned inner child never had is how to start. 

May you become that person.

Tell me, were you an ‘orphaned child’ physically, emotionally, or mentally? 

How has this impacted your life, and what healing path do you plan on taking?

Aletheia

The Orphan archetype, in Jungian psychology, represents the inner experience of abandonment, loneliness, and, paradoxically, resilience. It embodies the "wounded child" who must navigate a hostile world, fostering self-reliance and the individuation process. This archetype often appears during significant life transitions, moving from victimization towards finding inner strength.

The archetype of the orphan, evokes powerful issues of abandonment, deprivation, and hope. 

Many of us have inner orphans. 

The unloved parts of us shipped off to the unconscious exert a powerful influence over our moods. Our adult selves may feel resilient and resourceful most of the time, but a cruel tone of voice as we’re dismissed from work or a cold shoulder from a lover can awaken our inner child ren putting us in a tailspin. When threatened by abandonment, they can trigger profound feelings of dread and even panic.

In the grip of our inner orphan, we may find ourselves pining to rewrite our childhood, including a cast of perfect parents. Some of us may even question whether we’re adopted because the feeling of belonging somewhere better haunts us. We can suddenly feel desperate and likely to starve even though we have substantial assets in our accounts. Finally, and most painfully, we can feel unloved and unlovable.

The fear of abandonment may send us scrambling to find reassurance from outside sources – asking our family if they really do love us or fawning over a new acquaintance in hopes they’ll stick around. We might hoard food or money, reassuring ourselves that we won’t need to rely on anyone, which is best because no one stays with us anyway. In the grip of this complex, our bodies ache, and we may even feel invisible or unreal.

Working with these feelings seems daunting at first because a moat of distress surrounds the inner child. But if we persevere, we may find an inner treasure. On the far side of our remembered suffering is a part of us that recalls how to love and be loved. And when they return, we will wonder how we ever forgot.

~ Joseph R. Lee

Key Aspects of the Orphan Archetype:

Core Theme: 

The experience of being cast out, abandoned, or neglected, often resulting from personal trauma or collective, societal displacement.

Orphans are characterized by trauma, neglect, abandonment , abuse and rejection. 

Having lost their own family (or never having had one to begin with), they’re driven by a need to belong and will go to great lengths to find acceptance. This makes orphans especially susceptible to manipulation and abuse which, over time, can result in them becoming withdrawn and further isolated.

The Shadow (Negative Side): 

The Orphan can become cynical, fatalistic, and manipulative, believing the world is inherently dangerous and, therefore, they must take whatever they can to survive. 

They may refuse to own their pain, leading to a "victim" mentality.

Abrasive, Apathetic, Childish, Cynical, Defensive, Dishonest, Evasive, Impulsive, Insecure, Irresponsible, Oversensitive, Paranoid, Rebellious, Reckless, Resentful, Rowdy

The Light (Positive Side): 

Through facing suffering, the Orphan develops profound empathy, realism, and resilience. 

They are able to build, and find, their own community ("tribe").

Alert, Cautious, Discreet, Empathetic, Humble, Independent, Intelligent, Loyal, Observant, Perceptive, Persistent, Private, Proactive, Resourceful, Spunky

The Goal: 

The ultimate goal of the Orphan is to move from a state of abandonment to wholeness, often transforming into the "Divine Child"—an archetype of, and for, new beginnings and personal healing.

ASSOCIATED ACTIONS, BEHAVIORS, AND TENDENCIES

1. Being highly observant
2. Sticking like glue to the trustworthy people in their life
3. Being highly attuned to injustice, manipulation, and other forms of abuse
4. Fighting for justice and equality
5. Resiliency
6. Having just a few close friends
7. Being unable to see the faults of the people they’re loyal to
8. Getting involved in toxic relationships (because it’s what the character is used to)
9. Adopting a victim mentality
10. Being highly independent (because they’ve had to be)

SITUATIONS THAT WILL CHALLENGE THEM

• Suspecting that a trusted friend is being dishonest
• A friend questioning the motives of someone close to the character
• Being forced to face their unresolved past trauma

TWIST THIS TROPE WITH A CHARACTER WHO…

• Has been orphaned but maintains their optimism and hope in humanity
• Has learned a valuable skill or ability because of their abandonment
• Has an atypical trait: obedient, respectful, diplomatic, confident, fussy, scatterbrained, etc.

 

Motivations

Acceptance

Connection

Security

Survival

Justice

Fear

Abandonment

Positive Qualities

Perceptive

Empathetic, especially towards the underdog

Champions justice and equality

Inclined to do good when they find acceptance and stability

Resourceful

Resilient

Hard-working

Shortcomings

• Can be too eager to please
• Can be manipulated due to their desire to fit in
• May turn to the dark side
• May use trauma as an excuse for being the worst

Qualities That Can Be Good or Bad

1. Likely to rebel
2. Trusts peers above authority
3. Lands somewhere on the spectrum between realist and cynic

Healing the Inner Child: 

The Orphan archetype is often the target of "inner child" work, helping individuals to acknowledge and care for the part of themselves that feels neglected.

Moving Beyond Victimhood: 

The journey of the Orphan is to stop looking for external saviors and instead find "home" within themselves. 

The Orphan is thus a vital stage in the psychological journey, encouraging us to "befriend" our own losses and turn them into strength.

Becca Puglisi

Sob escombros

 Anatolii Savitskii

Um tempo houve em que,

de tão próximo, quase podias ouvir

o silêncio do mundo pulsando

onde também tu eras mundo, coisa pulsante.

Extinguiu-se esse canto

não na morte

mas na vida excluída

da clarividência da infância

e de tudo o que pulsa,

fins e começos,

e corrompida pela estridência

e pela heterogeneidade.

Agora respondes por nomes supostos,

habitante de países hábeis e reais,

e precisas de ajuda para as coisas mais simples,

o pensamento, o sofrimento, a solidão.

A música, só voltarás a escutá-la

numa noite lívida,

uma noite mais vulnerável do que todas

(o presente desvanecendo-se, o passado cada vez mais lento)

um pouco antes de adormece

sob escombros.

Manuel António Pina 

in, "Todas as palavras - poesia reunida 1974-2011"

Express What You Repress

Turning Our Repressions 

into Alchemical Gold

There is a special passage in the visions of the Alchemist Zosimos, analyzed by Carl Jung, which will be useful for us to understand on the path of our psychological development. 

This passage has to do with the expression of repressed contents of our unconscious.

Zosimos narrates the following fragment of his vision:

“I saw a man of copper who had in his hand a tablet of lead. He shouted while looking at the tablet: ‘I order those who are under punishment to stop and that each one take a tablet of lead and write with one hand, with eyes lifted up and mouth open until his tongue grows thick.’”

This apparently meaningless fragment contains one of the keys to Jungian therapy and has to do with the expression of our repressed unconscious content.

We will explain it shortly; first let us be clear that what Zosimos sees and what he calls a dream (and his predecessors a “vision”) seems to be a state of active imagination, that is, the interaction and participation of consciousness with contents coming from our unconscious. In such a state, although we are not asleep, we can visualize our unconscious in a lucid and visible way; this would be the explanation for the visions of the prophets.

Jung explains the meaning of the fragment of this vision of Zosimos:

“It could refer to a particularly convulsive opening of the mouth that is linked to a strong contraction of the pharynx. This contraction has the meaning of a choking movement that must represent the act of vomiting contents from within. The latter must be written on the tablets. They are inspirations coming from above which, in a certain sense, are received by the eyes lifted upward. It is presumably a procedure that can be compared with modern active imagination.”

What was Zosimos observing and why is it so important?

The visions of Zosimos are images of the process of psychological transformation expressed in the alchemical language of the late third and early fourth centuries.

The man of copper represents affectivity, eros, the equivalent of Mars and of relationship. 

Meanwhile, lead is associated with the unconscious, with what is heavy, dark, and with our shadow. 

The people who are under punishment are different psychological elements such as complexes, affectivities, non-integrated parts, unlived emotions, etc., which we usually see in dreams as crowds, and here they are under punishment because they have not been integrated.

The part that concerns us and from which we can extract true “alchemical gold” is Carl Jung’s interpretation, who refers to what happens in the vision as a movement of vomiting and choking. Psychologically, this would mean that there is something inside that must come out and become visible, and it comes out with difficulty, in a convulsive way like vomit.

 

The throat has to do with expression, while the lifted eyes are a kind of receptive attitude toward the divine/collective unconscious, which we must experience in order to materialize unconscious content—and this is what Carl Jung was doing in the manuscripts that make up his Red Books:

Mortificatio, the inevitable suffering on the path to transformation

No new life can arise, say the alchemists, without the death of the old one. 

They compare the art with the work of the sower, who buries the grain in the earth: it dies only to awaken to a new life. 

It is worth noting that Zosimos of Panopolis was a Greek-Egyptian alchemist who lived between the 3rd and 4th centuries A.D. He is considered one of the first important authors of the alchemical tradition. He wrote numerous treatises in which he combined primitive chemical practices with a profound spiritual and symbolic vision. Jung placed special emphasis on him.

Today Zosimos will help us understand an inevitable and painful stage on our path to psychological realization that we all experience: the mortificatio. 

That moment when everything collapses, when the path becomes truly painful, but which precedes transformation.

The Vision of Zosimos

Mortificatio is experienced as defeat and failure. Needless to say, such an experience is rarely chosen. It is usually imposed by life, whether from within or from without… Jung, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche

But before entering into the subject, it is necessary to know what the alchemist saw that so greatly interested Carl Jung. So I will present a rather condensed summary of the visions of Zosimos that Carl Jung selected on this occasion:

While asleep, Zosimos saw an altar in the shape of a patera (a type of dish used in antiquity to make sacred offerings) with several steps, upon which stood a priest who said his name was Ion, and who confessed to having been violently torn apart, flayed, and burned until he was transformed into spirit. Then Zosimos saw the altar filled with boiling water and a multitude of men who burned without dying, subjected to a maceration that also turned them into spirits. A man of copper appeared, who was at once sacrificer and sacrificed, who governed the process, ordering the punished to write while they were purified by fire. The alchemist is also asked to build a temple and sacrifice a serpent. In further visions, Zosimos attempted to ascend by steps, but lost his way and saw figures throwing themselves into the fire and being consumed: a man with a razor, a white old man called Agathodemon, and another led to sacrifice.

It is worth noting that while he was seeing these visions, Zosimos reflected on the alchemical process and tried to understand it. Carl Jung believed that the alchemist was trying to resolve the problem of psychological realization projected onto the alchemical work, and that this unfolded within the characteristic worldview of that era.

The visions of Zosimos are, in fact, revealing for the alchemist, for he reaches conclusions that are important for him and that help him understand the process. 

For example, the following:

“For everything is done according to a method, according to a measure and according to an act of weighing the four elements. Without method the combination and the decomposition of all things and the connection of the whole do not occur. The method is natural (fusikhv), giving and taking away the breath and preserving its rules, increasing them and bringing them to their end. And all things agreeing through separation and union; if the method is respected, in a word, they transmute nature. For nature turned upside down turns upon itself. This is the nature of the art of the universe and its connection.” 

Zosimos

In this way the alchemist understands the process of psychological realization projected onto the alchemical process. He understands the individuating forces (the natural method) and how to carry out the work. In other articles it would be worthwhile to delve deeper into these reflections because they are truly pure gold and are revealing; however, today the subject that concerns us is mortificatio.

Mortificatio, the painful dying in order to be reborn

“The vision of Zosimos symbolically describes the alchemical work as a violent sacrifice in which the matter (and the operator) must die, dissolve, and be dismembered in order to be spiritually reborn and transmuted from copper into gold”.  

 Carl Jung in his commentary on the Visions of Zosimos

Mortificatio is not necessarily a phase of the alchemical work, as would be the nigredo, the albedo, and the rubedo. Rather, it is an inevitable consequence that occurs when the alchemist begins to work with the matter, that is, in the stage of nigredo, primarily. In psychological terms, when the person begins to confront his unconscious.

The elements can react in unpredictable and chaotic ways when the alchemist begins to work and experiment upon them. The same happens when we begin to work on our psychological realization, when we concern ourselves with confronting our complexes, fears, hatreds, defects, or the dark sides of life. Although, as Jung says, life will most likely place us in such a situation, often in the most tragic way.

The same happens to the alchemist, since he does not seek chaos in the laboratory, but it occurs unexpectedly. In the same way, life places us before the situations we feared most for ourselves. However tragic it may seem to us, this process is not only inevitable, but also necessary. For as Jung would say in this same essay:

“Either the substances to be transmuted are tormented, or that which transmutes is tormented.”

This is how the theme of sacrifice probably arises in Zosimos’ vision, which shows a terrible and inevitable process, but from which a man of gold will be reborn, that is, the integrated Self.

The Importance of Mortificatio

“Everything is bound and everything is unbound. Everything is composed and everything is decomposed. Everything is mixed and everything is separated.”  

Zosimos

Since Mortificatio has to do with death, the alchemist must inevitably “bring to completion” or at least experience the end of different states of the matter he works with, in order to transmute the elements into new ones. This inevitably leads to chaos.

In psychological terms, it means the death of the ego. 

Our egos, together with the elements upon which they are sustained, must die in order to give life to new elements.

Jung says in this same essay, regarding the theme of Zosimos’ vision:

“The dramatization shows how the divine process is revealed in the realm of human understanding and how man experiences divine transformation as punishment, torment, death, and transmutation.”

Apparently human consciousness cannot integrate the divine without suffering, but it is not because suffering is a quality of the divine. What happens is that we constitute our egos in ways incompatible with wholeness, and in this way it is inevitable that the irruption of the divine / collective unconscious is experienced as punishment.

Jung later explains:

“The motif is, in a broader spectrum, that of the sacrifice of God, which has developed not only in the West, but also in the East and especially in ancient Mexico. There, the one who personifies Tezcatlipocâ (fire mirror) is sacrificed at the feast of Toxcatl”.

The psychoanalyst points out that Zosimos’ vision describes what the Aztecs already knew and brutally experienced in their sacrifices:

At the feast of Toxcatl, a man was chosen to personify Tezcatlipoca, the “smoking mirror” or “fire mirror,” that is, a divinity that reflects consciousness and destiny. For a year he lived as a god; then, at the culminating moment, he was sacrificed.

Thus we learn that the god who dies, is torn apart and transformed, is not an isolated case, but an archetypal image. It is the same symbolic structure that appears again and again when a culture attempts to think about how the divine is renewed and made effective in the world.

Jung places emphasis on this despite the little importance given to alchemy and the fact that in his time many dismissed it as nonsense. For this reason the psychoanalyst says the following phrase, with which we conclude this article:

“A ‘nonsense’ that captivated minds for almost two thousand years — and not minor minds (I refer, for example, to Goethe and Newton) — must contain something that will be of some use for the psychologist to know.”

What We Repress Possesses Us

“But if in consciousness there is no willingness to admit unconscious contents, then the energy of these contents is diverted to the sphere of affectivity, namely to the sphere of the instincts. From there arise emotional outbursts, irritability, moods, and sexual excitations by virtue of which consciousness usually suffers a profound disorientation. If the state becomes chronic, then a dissociation occurs, described by Freud as repression, with its well-known consequences.”

This explains why emotions can possess us, why harmful ideas become dictators of our behavior (even though deep down we logically know they are not correct), why the shadow can take control. It truly explains various psychological disorders and problems that can go far beyond a neurosis and reach madness.

What we repress, deny, or ignore does not disappear, but rather arises within us in an instinctive way, that is, in an automatic and uncontrolled manner. That is why Carl Jung explains that it goes to the sphere of our instincts. This is related to much of what Freud said about repressed sexuality.

In fact, going much further, for Jungian psychology one of the causes of schizophrenia is the inability of the individual’s ego to admit certain unconscious contents, and these then emerge into consciousness in an uncontrollable way.

Admitting unconscious contents is not simply a matter of knowing about them and taking them into account intellectually; it is having the willingness and disposition to live through everything that happens to us psychically, whether pleasurable or painful. That is, being with our emotions, fears, complexes, weaknesses, etc., without ignoring, avoiding, or denying them. 

It is a kind of momentary renunciation of ego control.

How to Express in Order to Integrate Unconscious Contents?

Later Carl Jung says:

“Dorn calls the vessel the vas pellicanicum (pelican vessel) through which the essentia quinta (fifth essence) is extracted from the prima materia (prime matter). The same is stated by the anonymous author of the scholia on the Tractatus aureus: ‘This vessel, indeed, is the true philosophical pelican, and no other is to be sought in the whole world.”

The theme of the Vas hermeticum, the alchemical instrument in which the alchemist works with substances and obtains the fifth essence, is relevant here, since it symbolizes the capacity of consciousness to be receptive and to contain everything, even the strong polarity of opposites.

Symbolically, the Vas Pellican is an interesting version of this instrument. Its symbol is due to the belief that the pelican wounded its own breast and fed its young with its own blood. Alchemically, it symbolizes matter giving birth to itself.

The true challenge for modern men and women, whose lives are overwhelmed by problems of all kinds (not only psychological), is undoubtedly to achieve this hermetic vessel—to give priority to oneself in the realm of psychological as well as personal development. That is, to succeed day by day in seriously working on one’s psychological/spiritual development and obtaining from the unconscious the fifth essence (which I understand as union with the Self).

However, to achieve something as ambitious as that, the right path is to take ourselves very seriously, to take a courageous step, and to consider ourselves the most important project of our lives. In this way, our psychological realization moves to the forefront and we can truly begin to work on ourselves.

By the way, I confess that this proposal may be somewhat selfish, but such is individuation (Carl Jung acknowledged it in the Zarathustra seminars). However, the best gift we can give to others is to do the best for ourselves; it is to present ourselves as whole individuals.

From such devotion to our realization, we can begin to work with these contents through spiritual practices such as meditation and active imagination. 

Also, why not? 

By creating our own Red Book where the unconscious finds expression through writing and drawing.  

Juan Duran