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Conventional boundaries or protective temenos
Art Psychotherapy,
Vol. 1, pp. 91-99.
Pergamon Press. 1973. Printed in the U.S.A.
CONVENTIONAL
BOUNDARIES
OR PROTECTIVE TEMENOS’
EDITH WALLACE Jungian Analyst, New York, New York This does not mean that everything that is “conventional” must be discarded at all times, far from it - we cannot live without conventions altogether. However, as far as health and ~di~du~ growth is concerned, we may come to a place of choice: this moment in time, in our lives, the Kaios, when we are confronted with the choice between continuing with restricting convention or venturing the individual and the creative way. As Robert Frost puts it: “the road less travelled by, . . . and that has made all the difference!” The temptations of the “conventional”’ the “collective” way, the “safe” way, within known ‘“boundor boundaries the ego likes to establish are aries,” not to be underestimated. This deep inner problem, being equally apparent in. the outer world, becomes a most urgent one for our examination. It was Jung’s contention that the only way open to mankind to be saved from total destruction is the inner way. As Erich Neumann (1969) puts it: “The individual (and his fate) is the prototype for the collective; he is the retort in which the poisons and antidotes of the collective are distilled.” It is apparent that the search for an effective inner way has become the concern of more and more people today. And today, not only mental health and the “creative way” is at stake, but the survival of the world as we’ know it and we the people in it. “Every creative act overpasses the established order in some way and in some degree” (Ghiselin, 1952), and just that may be difficult, seemingly too difficult for some, and they may need help at such a moment. And so that we may give help with conviction we must know how important it may be to go beyond the conventional boundaries.
WHAT is our background knowledge when we use and apply “art therapy”? We need to know and understand in depth as much as is possible about the “creative process” and also something about the application of this knowledge. I have described the process - as f see it - elsewhere and called it, “From Chaos to Wholeness” (Wallace, 1972). Here I want to present a different aspect of creativity: What is it that helps the flow and what holds us back? Brewster Ghiselin (1952), in his introduction to the anthology, The Creative Process, says the following: the creative process “defines itself as no more than a sense of self-surrender to an inward necessity inherent in something larger than the ego and taking precedence over the established order.” 1 want to show the difficulties we encounter in this “self-surrender,” the difficulties the ego has in taking second place and also how it is connected with our clinging to “established order.” The approach to this “something larger than the ego” which Jung has called “the self’ has been frequently described by him, and he has named this road to wholeness the “individuation process.” 1 have called this “self’ “the creative source”’ and since individuation which entails integration means health, reaching the creative source or making contact with it and keeping the channel open means health - aside from fuller development because of richer fulfillment of potential. And we can achieve all this by “creative activity.” Here 1 want to take a closer look at this situation: the “conventional,” that is, what is familiar, what we have always known, the conditioned, the routinized can be an obstacle to creative healthy living and further development.
*Rquests for reprints should be sent to Edith Wallace M.D., Ph.D., 80 Central Park West, New York, New York, 91
EDITH WALLACE
For the artist who has found his way it is a different story. For him “The opposition between the new and the old persists, for the unrealized continues to draw him.” “The schematic consciousness is safe, more or less manageable - the tidy reassuring world of our familiar psychic life. What lies outside is popularly regarded as the concern of alienists, to be noticed only as it becomes disturbing. Out of fear and misunderst~~ng we incline to minimize it or to disregard it altogether, when we can. . . . “Every new and good thing is liable to seem eccentric and perhaps dangerous at first glimpse, perhaps more than what is really eccentric, realIy irrelevant to life. And therefore we must always listen to the voice of eccentricity, within ourselves and in the world. The alien, the dangerous, like the negligible near thing, may seem irrelevant to purpose and yet the call to our own fruitful development. . . . Because life is larger than any of its expressions, it must sometimes do violence to the forms it has created, continually conscious of the eminence of change” (Ghiselin, 1952). As a demonstration of how strong the apprehensions can be, I present a few dream images from a series dreamt by a woman who was well on her way into this “in~~duation process.” Last episode of a dream, end of February: “I am lying on my stomach on the prow of a boat. The boat is moving, and I am trying to cast myself off into the water or to free myself so I can lead the boat. I try to move but feel bound and tied down. 1 struggle and struggle every which way, but only exhaust myself. I feel worn out and have to give up.” These dream images really speak for themselves, but since I am giving only excerpts, I wiI1 offer the following as a short commentary: taking the plunge here would mean throwing herself into “the process,” into the world of the water, the unconscious, a world full of fish, of different rules and a different “order.” (I will come back to that subject later.) She wants to but is at this point inexorably tied down. About a week later, again the iast episode of the dream, the last act of the drama which represents the “lysis”: “I am on a quay or odd boat and there are some
people in a small tourist boat leaving to go to an island or peninsula not very far away. I am encouraged to get on, but don’t quite make it, but then either swim to the boat and cross or swim to the island. At any rate, I’m there. I look over at the land directly across the way, and it is beautifully pastoral.” Another three and a half weeks later - and here is the whole dream: “There is a big room in which I am stilI lounging in a bathrobe. It must still be morning. There are some other people present, including a contemporary poet. There is some talk among them alI but it is all pretty inconsequential. I detect a relationship between him and his wife where he looks up to her and is somewhat dependent on her, or‘ at any rate needs her, but where sometimes she taunts him. His wife and I are on a small dock jutting out in the water. It is early morning and would seem to be coid. She jumps into rhe water, however, and encourages me to do likewise. I am prepared to do so. ” About 8 months later things look a little different, and yet: “The end is the only part of the dream that I could recall. I have come up a high hill. I see a full, green tree and go up to it. Hidden behind leaves are many white blossoms, like roses. I try to break a branch, but it doesn’t break easily. I suddenly feel guilty because I now know what I am doing, and in the sense that the tree may belong to someone, I perhaps should not be taking a branch. I furtively try to get a branch anyway.” Here we need some associations. As she expressed it: “My feeling is: I have done this before and this time I shouldn’t.” It is interesting that in the dream the injunction comes from a “conventional” thought. I paraphrase - “This tree must belong to someone, and I should not steal; it is not mine.” This, however, has a deeper significance. Her association to the tree, the branch: “Like the apple - it means knowledge.” And to her, at this point, it is knowledge acquired through reading, going to lectures and courses, like “stealing” other people’s knowledge instead of acquiring her own through her experience. About the roses: “There ia a secret about them” - and as we know from the song, we do not learn
CONVENTIONAL
BOUNDARIES
the secret by breaking the rose. At most we get stung! Sometimes Christ is compared to the rose; they are white roses and we may assume that it is a question of the spirit which she can approach and learn about only through her own experience - in view of the previous dream images, by taking the plunge - not by theft or even by taking the branch home. What does it take to get beyond such, apprehensions and continue on the desirable road? It needs some kind of protection while the process is going on. To be quite specific: io open up the creative source may mean “playing” for instance with colors and paper, or with one’s voice, or with words. or through movement. One may have to become a child again. or a fool, and dare to be so. This, however, has to happen in a protective environment, where no one laughs at the fool but gives things a chance to develop, until they may be strong enough to face the world, if that should be the case, or they may never face the world but be used as tools to make the necessary contact with the inner source. This protective “environment” can be outer or inner. It may be the analytical consulting room or the room of the art therapist, or any quiet place that ensures privacy or an inner protective precinct. It must give a feeling of being protected or being protective of work in progress: a writer talking about his wife, who herself had just conceived a story, said that she sat down in his presence either writing or just sitting “surrounded,” as he says, “by the invisible, impenetrable walls of her most private retreat.” This is a “temenos” like the circle of chalk drawn around a person which has such magic power that nobody can enter into the circle nor can the encircled one move out, or be pulled out. When such a “temenos” appears in a dream, the feeling of protection can be very strong, as illustrated in the following dream:
“I stood in an open place and from above there descended a square. The strange thing about the square was that it descended at an angle - not parallel to the earth’s surface - but tipped at about 30” with one corner pointing earthward. The square was linear and without mass - and as I reflect upon it, I believe that it was exceedingly delicate in structure. The square descended gently and enveloped me, touching first one corner to the earth and
OR PROTECTIVE
TEMENOS
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then settling to the ground. I seemed outside of this action as the dream continued, and I said aloud, ‘This can’t be true I’ve cooked the whole thing up.’ Still within the dream I reflected on this idea and concluded that it couldn’t be true because I’d wished so hard for something like this to happen - It just couldn’t be true. I must have made it all up.” Mark the delicacy of the actual square in contradistinction to the power it exerts. This dream had a powerful effect on the dreamer. Not only did it release tension and anxiety, but it also legitimized his strong wish for privacy where his creative work was concerned and enabled him to make demands for privacy. Prior to the dream this had been almost too formidable a task. The danger, of course, is not only the break-in from the outside, but also the breakthrough - of archetypal contents - from the inside. In the deepest sense and in the creative act we wish for just that, but we need to be protected there also. The “temenos” is originally a sacred precinct, a sacred enclosure, a temple precinct, a space enclosed by walls or other boundaries of a place or building, especially a place of worship. The largest temenos is that of the Kore in Alexandria, an immense temple, the Koreion. The ceremonies performed in this temple. cart have interesting implications in our context here. The participants of the ceremonies at the Koreion have an all-night vigil. Then, at cockcrow, after watching all night, singing and playing the flute in honor of the sacred image, they go down into an underground crypt, carrying a carved wooden idol. Carrying the carved wooden idol says to me that every participant is in this way connected with the sacred image of the Kore; with this and with their music and “watching” they estabiish a contact for which we have to find ways and means that are appropriate for us. Our language says different things, but maybe the symbolic language of the ritual has more to teach us. Let me try it both ways: We talk about “channelling;” we talk about contacting a “center.” We become “centered” and we have to find this center within. We can start with the body and try to locate a center there. We can use movement Yrd dance. We can use “circumambulatio,” maybe in an
active ima~nation,~
if that
is what happens
spon-
taneously . Naw the other language: The participants of the ritual of the night of the Kore are watching all night - a watch, an alertness through the dark hours of the night, getting in tune with the sacred image by singing and playing the flute. After all this they descend with the first ray of light and still they carry the “carved wooden idol,” which connects them with the sacred image of the Kore and protects them in their descent. The contact is established. They are now ready to face what the underground crypt holds. How does this relate to us today? What can we learn from this ancient ritual that we can apply when we are faced with our own descent? It says we have to watch through the night; we cannot go to sleep in the darkness; we must be watchful and prepare for the encounter with music (emotionally “honoring”‘), that is. respecting what there is to be encountered. The night watch is familiar to us through the neat-sea-journey. But anyone who has been seriousIy engaged in creative work knows about the darkness of the night, the vigif and also - and this seems to me par~~uIarIy appropriate and quite beautiful - that at the first rays of light one can begin ta descend, something has become clear. even if it is only that we must descend. The carrying of the idol in this connection may mean that one has created some kind of image that can help one to face, to contact what is in the depth. Jung (1968) says about the descent: “The descent into the depths wiff bring healing. It is the way to the total being, to the treasure which suffering mankind is forever seeking, which is hidden in the place guarded by terrible danger. This is the place of primordial unconsciousness and at the same time the place of healing and redemption, because it contains the jewel of wholeness. It is the cave where the dragon of chaos lives and it is also the indestructible city, the magic circle or ternenos, the sacred precinct where aII the slit aff parts of the personality are united.” That is why we could say the temenos
is also a
stage setting, the piace where a drama is taking place (e.g.. The Circle of Chaik). In fairy tales the temenos appears, as for instance in Grimm’s “The Water of Life.” It is said the water of life “springs from a fountain in the courtyard of an enchanted castle.” This image of the garden with the fountain has been compared by Jung with the “self,” the life-giving source. This central place is the place where conflict seems to cease, the opposites united. At the same time from this central place comes the “Voice” that guides us and exhorts us to rake the perilous journey. the descent, the inner way, from which we want to run away because at times it seems all too difficult and unrewarding And yet there are those moments - and often they happen jusir before we are ready to do creative work - that first ray of light, maybe - a moment of quiet, ~or~~entration, peace, when we could say we are “centered,“ and that in this center conflict seems to cease. ‘“Svmbols of the process of individuation ,” says Jung, -<‘are images, usuaIIy of ar~hetypa~ nature, that appear in dreams and portray the CBMr~~~~~~~~~ pr~eess or the produ~tiun of a new center of the personality.” And: “The centering process is, in my experience. the never.to-be surpassed climax of the whole development and is characterised as such by the fact that it brings with it the greatest possible effect.” (Jung, 1960). Psychotherapists today find it more and more necessary to include the body in the process of psychotherapy. One of the exercises is finding the “center” in the body, or getting yourself centered Once you have found the right place from which you UPI get yourself centered you may even get yourself in “Tao,” in the kind of “balance” that brings with it emotional and mental stability, peace, a state of greater quiet and some kind of order. This is an exercise that one can do: Ask, “Where do I experience my center?” and then remember and try to contact that center. if one can, at a moment of upset, excitement or pain and see what happens, The temenos and its related form. the mandala, can, of course, happen spontaneously in dreams and visions. When they happen, it is important to understand what the deeper significance of it is, and if
CONVENTIONAL
BOUNDARIES
they do not happen, we may use what we know and stimulate the process. This has to be done s~lfully and cautiously lest we achieve the opposite of the desired effect. It has been described in this fashion : “Though the tension of conscious striving tends to overdetermine psychic activity, to narrow and fur it, such tension gives’ stimulation and direction to the unconscious activity which goes on after the tension is released. The desired developments are usually delayed for some time, during which presumably something like incubation is going on and attention may be profitably turned to something else. Then without warning the solution or the germinal insight may appear.” (Ghiselin, 1952). We may also be encouraged to stimulate activity by Jung’s (1966) statement: “The work in process becomes the poet’s fate and determines his psychic development. It is not Goethe who creates Faust, but Faust which creates Goethe.” If this is so, then helping the process along by encouraging creative activity, by getting it going, may help along a more general process of growth and development, and with it an unfolding of hitherto untapped potential, helping along integration and in~viduation. And here belongs another statement of Jung’s (1960): “The unconscious functions satisfactorily only when the conscious mind fulfills its task to the very limit.” So far what I have presented concerns the aim, the need to be in touch, or get in touch with the creative source and the need for the protective environment. Now, how about the conventional boundaries that hold us back? Joseph Conrad (1899) has his narrator, Marlow, say in Lord Jim: “It is respectable to have no illusions - and safe - and profrtable - and dull.” This same Marlow was the reason for the title of this paper. It was the following passage, also in Lord Jim. Marlow is talking of a “scene of horror”: “It had the power to drive me out of my conception of existence, out of that shelter each of us makes for himself to creep under in moments of danger, as a tortoise withdraws within its shell. For a moment 1 had a view of a world that seemed to wear a vast and dismal aspect of disorder, while in
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TEMENOS
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truth, thanks to our unwearied efforts, it is as sunny an arr~gement of small conveniences as the mind of man can conceive. But still - it was only a moment: I went back into my shell directly. One must - don’t you know? - though I seemed to have lost all my words in the chaos of dark thoughts I had contemplated for a second or two beyond the pale. These came back, too, very soon, for words also belong to the sheltering conception of light and order which is our refuge.” This “shelter” is not a protective temenos, but all the things we are bound by, the conventions that make for boundaries but do not protect us in our inne~ost core in the end. It is as Marlow says: “as sunny an arrangement of small c~nvenie?lces as the mind of man can conceive.” Marlow is a typical example of the kind of person who has that ever ready “shelter” of the commonplace, which is no real, no safe shelter in the end. However, being “typical” means that we all have it in us in one way or another, and that makes it worth taking a second look at him. We may learn something valuable and it behooves us to ask: “Where is this man alive in us?“. Where are we doing the same thing in smaller or larger ways, and if we are motivated to look inside, or do creative work from the right source or stimulate others to do so, where does he trip us up? So, knowing Marlow may help us to get to know the inner adversary also. “For a moment I had a view of a world that seemed to wear a vast and dismal aspect of disorder . . . .” He is tempted and fascinated, and according to the tales of Conrad in which Marlow appears as the narrator, he is confronted with the “disordered,” chaotic world of primitive jungle life where all the known laws of order and rationality do not hold true, time and again. And invariably he fmds an excuse not to enter this world which psychologically speaking can be compared to the world of the unconscious with its confrontations - with the shadow, for instance. He does not say “nay” without a certain amount of conflict. He excuses himself, as for instance in the Heart ofDarkness where his adventure is referred to as “one of Marlow’s inconclusive experiences.” The interesting aspect of Marlow is that he is always the fascinated onlooker of events that concern the confrontation with the dark powers; he is
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EDITH WALLACE
attracted, but he cannot make it himself. The ambiguity, which I think we may safely assume is Conrad’s own, is expressed by Marlow. Or he speaks “There came upon me, as about his “dread”: though I felt myself losing my footing in the midst of waters, a sudden dread, the dread of the unknown depths.” (Conrad, 1899). I am not saying lightly that we should not pay attention to these feelings. But there is also an interesting imp~cation in all this. We know that Conrad suffered from “agonizing stoppages” of work. One wonders whether today a deeper knowledge of the creative process might not help such stoppages, and Conrad, himself, contributes to the understanding. One might say that the Marlow in him kept the upper hand. Ghiselin (1952) speaks of a “management” required by the “mind in creation and in preparation for it.” And he continues to say: “Most creative workers pick up what they know about this by trial and error, by casual observation of themselves and others, and from such comment as they may chance upon. The consequences of learning so haph~r~y are hard to estimate, but obviousiy they are not always good.” ‘Management” is a good word for what we can and need to know about; creation per se will always hold a secret and a mystery that we may safely leave untouched. Further: “Every creative act overpasses the es&blished order in some way and in some degree.” in Heart of Darkness Once more Marlow, (Conrad, 1952), says: “The broadening waters flowed through a mob of wooded islands; you lost your way on that river as you wouid in a desert, and butted ali day long against shoals, trying to find the channel, till you thought yourself bewitched and cut off forever from everything you had known once - somewhere - far away - in another existence perhaps. . . . “Who’s that grunting? You wonder, I didn’t go ashore for a howl and a dance? Well, no - I didn’t. Fine sentiments, you say? Fine sentiments, be hanged! I had no time. I had to mess about with white lead and strips of woolen blanket helping to put bandages on these leaky steam pipes. I tell you. I had to watch the steering, and circumvent those snags, and get the tin-pot along by hook or by crook. There was surface rmth enough in these
things to save a wiser man.” And, of course, he is quite right: We do not have to attend to the things of this world, but at this point he seems to “protest too much.” I guess we are all familiar with such protestations in one form or another. And yet here is both the excuse and the realization on the part of Marlow of his own limits, which makes him an endearing figure in the end, dour often exasperating. And that is a good way of meeting this particular adversary when we come across him in our own psyche. Often, however, he is not so clearly constellated and all we can observe - rather frustratingly - is that things don’t move or that we find ourselves once again on that enchanted Glass Mountain where we take one step forward and two steps back. The conventional boundaries are all the safeguards that we have put up, the known things we cling to, the unbreakable habits, the inability to sacrifice and to risk. This sacrificing and risking, however, we can do only if the innermost, sacred precinct is protected, when we can know and feel that there is a rock of bronze somewhere inside us. And this is something, I believe, we all have, no matter how afflicted we may be, how shaken and disintegrated. In the simplest terms the “conventional” can show up, as when a thank you or bread and butter letter needs to be written and we may hear the parental injunction that it should be done at once. Whereas waiting for the right moment, and after having first reached in, the moment of inner contact may produce a meaningful letter with a true reaching out to the other person. A young man had to choose between going to an academic institution or an art school. He had to tell his father, who was himself an academician, that he prefered the art school to the academic career. That was hard enough. Then he had a dream which clearly indicated to him that the art school was not the right choice for him either because it was stultifying his talent. He got the message, and then he had to confront his father again to tell him that he was going to get a job and pursue his art on his own, which he had already been doing for some time. The second confrontation was much harder and much more crucial - that real moment of “choice” I spoke about in the beginning. Yet another example is more ambiguous and comes from a young woman’s dream:
CONVENTIONAL 3OUNDARIES OR PROTECTIVE TEMENOS The setting is on an island, in a house where a tent was erected. (One might say: a temenos within a temenos within a temenos). A party with much merriment, women drinking. The dreamer started to take her drink, but spit it back into the glass. It was dark in the tent so she felt in the dream nobody would know that she was not drinking. She also felt that since it was getting dark she wanted to see that she would catch the last boat to return to the mainland. She did not want to get stuck there, but return to her boyfriend. The captain of the boat arrived, telling her that the boat was ready to leave. End of dream. It was left open whether she caught the boat or not. Here the choice seems to be: Partake of the wine, the spirit of the women in the tent, the female Bacchanalia, or return to the male partner. Neither can take place. With the refusal to drink the wine, the initiatim cannot take place. Unless and until she is initiated into her feminine self, the coniunctio oppositorum, here the joining the male partner, cannot take place either. This innermost process needs to be “protected” to ensure its transformative success, and we need to be protected also from both inner and outer disturbances. One of the inner disturbances is the Marlow in us. The outer disturbances may be the temptations, the promises the outer world may hold, the securities for the ego, the things which we have always known, which make up conventional boundaries, They mean: I do not want to reach further (out or in); I cannot risk; 1 fear. We are then unprotected, while the moment we say “yes” to the next step we may have provoked an inner protection to appear. And the appearance of the temenos can mean: now things are beginning to happen; now something is really cooking. For “where the danger is greatest, God is nearest.” Or as Hoelderlin says: Near and hard to grasp is the God Yet, where peril Iies, Grows the remedy too. So, not risking, not choosing the peril, not choosing the apparently dangerous path is no real road to safety. It only appears so. We deprive ourselves of a necessary assistance and overwork the ego in this fashion. This “safe” road may even make us much more anxious. In the last analysis it is the “center” which
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chooses an~ay, and it chooses to bring us closer to it, to be the ruler in our house and dethrone the ego. Can we accept this, and should we accept it at all costs? Not at all costs, and not even unquestioningly. Sometimes we must know that we do live in two worlds and act in the outer world according to its rules, while keeping contact with the innermost core of our being. I will illustrate this presently. First: What if these boundaries do not hold any promises anymore? What is there left? More and more young people today seek an inner way, but often this “inner way” is not really an inner one. To seek methods from the East without knowing that the answer lies within ourselves is not an inner way even if it has all the appearances of one. The inner way means risk and commitment. It often means as much going against as going for, and sometimes when the “for” has not been revealed yet. Let me clarify with an image: It is as if we had come to a crossroads like in the fairytale. If you take the road to the right, you will find gold; if you take the road to the left, you will find silver, and if you take the middle road, you will find your way. We know what gold and silver is, and we may even know that they are not our choice. But what have we got when we go our way? What do we know about that? Of course, this is the test. Are we willing to risk and to trust? And this is the test in the fairy tales, too, where the one who can stand this test is the winner in the end. Interestin~y, very often the two brothers (or sisters) who have chosen the wrong road trip up the youngest brother and come home as the winners at first, until in the end they are shown up, after more tests for the young est brother. Translated: if we do not watch out, the shadow figures who choose gold and silver, or in our context the “known” values of this world ~‘convention~“), can always trip us up if we are not careful. We must be ever watchful, and we cannot be naive and gullible. These are shadow figures who are familiar with the ways of the world - and at times we may even need them and their knowledge. They are willing to use the ways of the world, and it seems that if we do not understand their language, when we are naive about it, we may be the losers. They are, of course, the challengers also and lead us to new tests until we have learnt our lesson. What is this lesson? Maybe to learn where and when to trust and in which world, and where to be on guard, and that this being on guard concerns human
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nature, including and maybe first and foremost our own. This does not mean judging,,but knowing and understanding so that we can learn to handle. We are afraid of what could be legitimately ours, and ironically the being out of touch with the the “creative source,” the “self’ is the “center,” cause of fear. The “conventional” is the known, the familiar, and, because it is known, it promises predictability and puts us in control. But who does it put in control? The anxious ego. According to the fairytales again, when we choose it, we do not win the princess, for instance (the treasure hard to attain, the self) - and in the end we are doomed. Yes, it is greed that makes the clever brothers choose gold and silver, but often they ridicule the “stupid” youngest one because he chooses what seems foolish by logical standards but is the “irrational” value of the inner world where a different kind of “logic” reigns. As long as we go by the “known” logic we cannot trust it because it is different. We need order, but what kind of order are we establishing? - an order that disregards the unconscious because irs kind of order is so different from the one we have learned to live by? What is it going to be: a superimposed order or an organic one, one in which the self has its say, and that means that we do not always understand it, or an ego order which is “perfectly comprehensible” but dead? I must admit here that for some people superimposed order is an absolute necessity, and at some time in everybody’s life it may be necessary until the time comes when we begin to hear what Neumann calls “the Voice,” which is a compelling inner one, demanding and creating a new ethic in place of the old one. He recognized that our time is not only clamoring for it, but also sorely in need of it. So the “conventional” can be necessary, but it will always be a “boundary” not a protection. It is a defense system for the ego, and that fortress cannot and should not be taken by storm. We are looking for protection and create boundaries and lock ourselves into prisons and struggle to get free. To achieve freedom we need to establish contact with the center. This center is also a temenos and in order to touch the creative source we need the protective temenos. We can lead convention bound lives and be bound, or creative ones with the knowledge of the
need for the temenos. And it works both ways: being engaged in creative work brings one closer to the center, the self, the source. I have shown something about choices of greater or lesser importance. If we ask ourselves how often we choose originality, making the effort it takes to achieve it, or whether we act or think in a routine way, we will know how often this choice does happen. If we want to call up our resources, we need that moment it takes to draw a line around us, to create our own temenos. This sitting alone with yourself, this concentrated private moment of the temenos is the absolute essential for all creative activity. We desperately need to find new ways, and the inspiration for them has to be coaxed. It is always hard won and it may mean “descent.” What can we do to reach this central core, the creative source? That is yet another subject on which I have only touched by talking about the temenos, and by talking about the conventional boundaries that may stand in our way. Here I can add only this: we cannot will the contact with the creative source, but we can be willing. This “willingness” can be expressed in many different ways, sometimes in paying attention to the many small things that may be for or against the aim of the center, “self,” “source.” We can have an aim but not a goal; in other words, we must work for the aim without expectations and let ourselves be surprised. Expectation is ego, which is surprised by what the center, the self, the source has to say - and it is convincing at times! The “prelogical” order in the unconscious cannot be understood with the logic of our intellect. We can experience it to be akin to revealed truth, but it is difficult for us to grasp it. I contend, if we could be less hampered by “conventional” approaches, and that includes ordinary logic, we would come closer to the source. If we cannot understand this different kind of “logic” and “order” of the unconscious, how are we to live by it? Yet we sense that it is connected with revealed truth and as such we yearn for it. On the other hand, being the totally other we are not only in awe of it, we are frightened of the moment where there seems to be nothing that is known and familiar to us that we could hold onto, and yet, in a timeless sense it is the only true “safety” we can have. This other - order, logic, truth - is hard to
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REFERENCES
JUNG, C. G. (1968) Analytical Psychology, Its 7%eory and Practice, Pantheon Books, New York. JUNG, C. G. (1966) Psychology and literature, The Spirit in Man. Art and Literature. Collected Works, 15, Pantheon, New York. JUNG, C. G. (1960) On the nature of dreams, The Struc-
CONRAD, J. (1952) Heart of Darkness, Signet Books, New York. CONRAD, J. (1899) Lord Jim, Random House, New York. CHISELIN, B. Ed. (1952) The Creafive process, Mentor, New York.
Pantheon, New York. NEUMANN, E. (1969) Depth Psychology and a New Ethic, G. P. Putnam, New York. WALLACE, E. (1972-1973) CREATIVITY: from chaos to wholeness, Inward Light, No. 82, No. 83.
express in words, maybe even impossible, which is why we seek and need “non-verbal” ways. So, at this point I will stop using words.
ture and Dynamics
of the Psyche,
Collected
Works, 8,
Vol. 1, pp. 91-99.
Pergamon Press. 1973. Printed in the U.S.A.
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OR PROTECTIVE TEMENOS’
EDITH WALLACE Jungian Analyst, New York, New York This does not mean that everything that is “conventional” must be discarded at all times, far from it - we cannot live without conventions altogether. However, as far as health and ~di~du~ growth is concerned, we may come to a place of choice: this moment in time, in our lives, the Kaios, when we are confronted with the choice between continuing with restricting convention or venturing the individual and the creative way. As Robert Frost puts it: “the road less travelled by, . . . and that has made all the difference!” The temptations of the “conventional”’ the “collective” way, the “safe” way, within known ‘“boundor boundaries the ego likes to establish are aries,” not to be underestimated. This deep inner problem, being equally apparent in. the outer world, becomes a most urgent one for our examination. It was Jung’s contention that the only way open to mankind to be saved from total destruction is the inner way. As Erich Neumann (1969) puts it: “The individual (and his fate) is the prototype for the collective; he is the retort in which the poisons and antidotes of the collective are distilled.” It is apparent that the search for an effective inner way has become the concern of more and more people today. And today, not only mental health and the “creative way” is at stake, but the survival of the world as we’ know it and we the people in it. “Every creative act overpasses the established order in some way and in some degree” (Ghiselin, 1952), and just that may be difficult, seemingly too difficult for some, and they may need help at such a moment. And so that we may give help with conviction we must know how important it may be to go beyond the conventional boundaries.
WHAT is our background knowledge when we use and apply “art therapy”? We need to know and understand in depth as much as is possible about the “creative process” and also something about the application of this knowledge. I have described the process - as f see it - elsewhere and called it, “From Chaos to Wholeness” (Wallace, 1972). Here I want to present a different aspect of creativity: What is it that helps the flow and what holds us back? Brewster Ghiselin (1952), in his introduction to the anthology, The Creative Process, says the following: the creative process “defines itself as no more than a sense of self-surrender to an inward necessity inherent in something larger than the ego and taking precedence over the established order.” 1 want to show the difficulties we encounter in this “self-surrender,” the difficulties the ego has in taking second place and also how it is connected with our clinging to “established order.” The approach to this “something larger than the ego” which Jung has called “the self’ has been frequently described by him, and he has named this road to wholeness the “individuation process.” 1 have called this “self’ “the creative source”’ and since individuation which entails integration means health, reaching the creative source or making contact with it and keeping the channel open means health - aside from fuller development because of richer fulfillment of potential. And we can achieve all this by “creative activity.” Here 1 want to take a closer look at this situation: the “conventional,” that is, what is familiar, what we have always known, the conditioned, the routinized can be an obstacle to creative healthy living and further development.
*Rquests for reprints should be sent to Edith Wallace M.D., Ph.D., 80 Central Park West, New York, New York, 91
EDITH WALLACE
For the artist who has found his way it is a different story. For him “The opposition between the new and the old persists, for the unrealized continues to draw him.” “The schematic consciousness is safe, more or less manageable - the tidy reassuring world of our familiar psychic life. What lies outside is popularly regarded as the concern of alienists, to be noticed only as it becomes disturbing. Out of fear and misunderst~~ng we incline to minimize it or to disregard it altogether, when we can. . . . “Every new and good thing is liable to seem eccentric and perhaps dangerous at first glimpse, perhaps more than what is really eccentric, realIy irrelevant to life. And therefore we must always listen to the voice of eccentricity, within ourselves and in the world. The alien, the dangerous, like the negligible near thing, may seem irrelevant to purpose and yet the call to our own fruitful development. . . . Because life is larger than any of its expressions, it must sometimes do violence to the forms it has created, continually conscious of the eminence of change” (Ghiselin, 1952). As a demonstration of how strong the apprehensions can be, I present a few dream images from a series dreamt by a woman who was well on her way into this “in~~duation process.” Last episode of a dream, end of February: “I am lying on my stomach on the prow of a boat. The boat is moving, and I am trying to cast myself off into the water or to free myself so I can lead the boat. I try to move but feel bound and tied down. 1 struggle and struggle every which way, but only exhaust myself. I feel worn out and have to give up.” These dream images really speak for themselves, but since I am giving only excerpts, I wiI1 offer the following as a short commentary: taking the plunge here would mean throwing herself into “the process,” into the world of the water, the unconscious, a world full of fish, of different rules and a different “order.” (I will come back to that subject later.) She wants to but is at this point inexorably tied down. About a week later, again the iast episode of the dream, the last act of the drama which represents the “lysis”: “I am on a quay or odd boat and there are some
people in a small tourist boat leaving to go to an island or peninsula not very far away. I am encouraged to get on, but don’t quite make it, but then either swim to the boat and cross or swim to the island. At any rate, I’m there. I look over at the land directly across the way, and it is beautifully pastoral.” Another three and a half weeks later - and here is the whole dream: “There is a big room in which I am stilI lounging in a bathrobe. It must still be morning. There are some other people present, including a contemporary poet. There is some talk among them alI but it is all pretty inconsequential. I detect a relationship between him and his wife where he looks up to her and is somewhat dependent on her, or‘ at any rate needs her, but where sometimes she taunts him. His wife and I are on a small dock jutting out in the water. It is early morning and would seem to be coid. She jumps into rhe water, however, and encourages me to do likewise. I am prepared to do so. ” About 8 months later things look a little different, and yet: “The end is the only part of the dream that I could recall. I have come up a high hill. I see a full, green tree and go up to it. Hidden behind leaves are many white blossoms, like roses. I try to break a branch, but it doesn’t break easily. I suddenly feel guilty because I now know what I am doing, and in the sense that the tree may belong to someone, I perhaps should not be taking a branch. I furtively try to get a branch anyway.” Here we need some associations. As she expressed it: “My feeling is: I have done this before and this time I shouldn’t.” It is interesting that in the dream the injunction comes from a “conventional” thought. I paraphrase - “This tree must belong to someone, and I should not steal; it is not mine.” This, however, has a deeper significance. Her association to the tree, the branch: “Like the apple - it means knowledge.” And to her, at this point, it is knowledge acquired through reading, going to lectures and courses, like “stealing” other people’s knowledge instead of acquiring her own through her experience. About the roses: “There ia a secret about them” - and as we know from the song, we do not learn
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the secret by breaking the rose. At most we get stung! Sometimes Christ is compared to the rose; they are white roses and we may assume that it is a question of the spirit which she can approach and learn about only through her own experience - in view of the previous dream images, by taking the plunge - not by theft or even by taking the branch home. What does it take to get beyond such, apprehensions and continue on the desirable road? It needs some kind of protection while the process is going on. To be quite specific: io open up the creative source may mean “playing” for instance with colors and paper, or with one’s voice, or with words. or through movement. One may have to become a child again. or a fool, and dare to be so. This, however, has to happen in a protective environment, where no one laughs at the fool but gives things a chance to develop, until they may be strong enough to face the world, if that should be the case, or they may never face the world but be used as tools to make the necessary contact with the inner source. This protective “environment” can be outer or inner. It may be the analytical consulting room or the room of the art therapist, or any quiet place that ensures privacy or an inner protective precinct. It must give a feeling of being protected or being protective of work in progress: a writer talking about his wife, who herself had just conceived a story, said that she sat down in his presence either writing or just sitting “surrounded,” as he says, “by the invisible, impenetrable walls of her most private retreat.” This is a “temenos” like the circle of chalk drawn around a person which has such magic power that nobody can enter into the circle nor can the encircled one move out, or be pulled out. When such a “temenos” appears in a dream, the feeling of protection can be very strong, as illustrated in the following dream:
“I stood in an open place and from above there descended a square. The strange thing about the square was that it descended at an angle - not parallel to the earth’s surface - but tipped at about 30” with one corner pointing earthward. The square was linear and without mass - and as I reflect upon it, I believe that it was exceedingly delicate in structure. The square descended gently and enveloped me, touching first one corner to the earth and
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then settling to the ground. I seemed outside of this action as the dream continued, and I said aloud, ‘This can’t be true I’ve cooked the whole thing up.’ Still within the dream I reflected on this idea and concluded that it couldn’t be true because I’d wished so hard for something like this to happen - It just couldn’t be true. I must have made it all up.” Mark the delicacy of the actual square in contradistinction to the power it exerts. This dream had a powerful effect on the dreamer. Not only did it release tension and anxiety, but it also legitimized his strong wish for privacy where his creative work was concerned and enabled him to make demands for privacy. Prior to the dream this had been almost too formidable a task. The danger, of course, is not only the break-in from the outside, but also the breakthrough - of archetypal contents - from the inside. In the deepest sense and in the creative act we wish for just that, but we need to be protected there also. The “temenos” is originally a sacred precinct, a sacred enclosure, a temple precinct, a space enclosed by walls or other boundaries of a place or building, especially a place of worship. The largest temenos is that of the Kore in Alexandria, an immense temple, the Koreion. The ceremonies performed in this temple. cart have interesting implications in our context here. The participants of the ceremonies at the Koreion have an all-night vigil. Then, at cockcrow, after watching all night, singing and playing the flute in honor of the sacred image, they go down into an underground crypt, carrying a carved wooden idol. Carrying the carved wooden idol says to me that every participant is in this way connected with the sacred image of the Kore; with this and with their music and “watching” they estabiish a contact for which we have to find ways and means that are appropriate for us. Our language says different things, but maybe the symbolic language of the ritual has more to teach us. Let me try it both ways: We talk about “channelling;” we talk about contacting a “center.” We become “centered” and we have to find this center within. We can start with the body and try to locate a center there. We can use movement Yrd dance. We can use “circumambulatio,” maybe in an
active ima~nation,~
if that
is what happens
spon-
taneously . Naw the other language: The participants of the ritual of the night of the Kore are watching all night - a watch, an alertness through the dark hours of the night, getting in tune with the sacred image by singing and playing the flute. After all this they descend with the first ray of light and still they carry the “carved wooden idol,” which connects them with the sacred image of the Kore and protects them in their descent. The contact is established. They are now ready to face what the underground crypt holds. How does this relate to us today? What can we learn from this ancient ritual that we can apply when we are faced with our own descent? It says we have to watch through the night; we cannot go to sleep in the darkness; we must be watchful and prepare for the encounter with music (emotionally “honoring”‘), that is. respecting what there is to be encountered. The night watch is familiar to us through the neat-sea-journey. But anyone who has been seriousIy engaged in creative work knows about the darkness of the night, the vigif and also - and this seems to me par~~uIarIy appropriate and quite beautiful - that at the first rays of light one can begin ta descend, something has become clear. even if it is only that we must descend. The carrying of the idol in this connection may mean that one has created some kind of image that can help one to face, to contact what is in the depth. Jung (1968) says about the descent: “The descent into the depths wiff bring healing. It is the way to the total being, to the treasure which suffering mankind is forever seeking, which is hidden in the place guarded by terrible danger. This is the place of primordial unconsciousness and at the same time the place of healing and redemption, because it contains the jewel of wholeness. It is the cave where the dragon of chaos lives and it is also the indestructible city, the magic circle or ternenos, the sacred precinct where aII the slit aff parts of the personality are united.” That is why we could say the temenos
is also a
stage setting, the piace where a drama is taking place (e.g.. The Circle of Chaik). In fairy tales the temenos appears, as for instance in Grimm’s “The Water of Life.” It is said the water of life “springs from a fountain in the courtyard of an enchanted castle.” This image of the garden with the fountain has been compared by Jung with the “self,” the life-giving source. This central place is the place where conflict seems to cease, the opposites united. At the same time from this central place comes the “Voice” that guides us and exhorts us to rake the perilous journey. the descent, the inner way, from which we want to run away because at times it seems all too difficult and unrewarding And yet there are those moments - and often they happen jusir before we are ready to do creative work - that first ray of light, maybe - a moment of quiet, ~or~~entration, peace, when we could say we are “centered,“ and that in this center conflict seems to cease. ‘“Svmbols of the process of individuation ,” says Jung, -<‘are images, usuaIIy of ar~hetypa~ nature, that appear in dreams and portray the CBMr~~~~~~~~~ pr~eess or the produ~tiun of a new center of the personality.” And: “The centering process is, in my experience. the never.to-be surpassed climax of the whole development and is characterised as such by the fact that it brings with it the greatest possible effect.” (Jung, 1960). Psychotherapists today find it more and more necessary to include the body in the process of psychotherapy. One of the exercises is finding the “center” in the body, or getting yourself centered Once you have found the right place from which you UPI get yourself centered you may even get yourself in “Tao,” in the kind of “balance” that brings with it emotional and mental stability, peace, a state of greater quiet and some kind of order. This is an exercise that one can do: Ask, “Where do I experience my center?” and then remember and try to contact that center. if one can, at a moment of upset, excitement or pain and see what happens, The temenos and its related form. the mandala, can, of course, happen spontaneously in dreams and visions. When they happen, it is important to understand what the deeper significance of it is, and if
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they do not happen, we may use what we know and stimulate the process. This has to be done s~lfully and cautiously lest we achieve the opposite of the desired effect. It has been described in this fashion : “Though the tension of conscious striving tends to overdetermine psychic activity, to narrow and fur it, such tension gives’ stimulation and direction to the unconscious activity which goes on after the tension is released. The desired developments are usually delayed for some time, during which presumably something like incubation is going on and attention may be profitably turned to something else. Then without warning the solution or the germinal insight may appear.” (Ghiselin, 1952). We may also be encouraged to stimulate activity by Jung’s (1966) statement: “The work in process becomes the poet’s fate and determines his psychic development. It is not Goethe who creates Faust, but Faust which creates Goethe.” If this is so, then helping the process along by encouraging creative activity, by getting it going, may help along a more general process of growth and development, and with it an unfolding of hitherto untapped potential, helping along integration and in~viduation. And here belongs another statement of Jung’s (1960): “The unconscious functions satisfactorily only when the conscious mind fulfills its task to the very limit.” So far what I have presented concerns the aim, the need to be in touch, or get in touch with the creative source and the need for the protective environment. Now, how about the conventional boundaries that hold us back? Joseph Conrad (1899) has his narrator, Marlow, say in Lord Jim: “It is respectable to have no illusions - and safe - and profrtable - and dull.” This same Marlow was the reason for the title of this paper. It was the following passage, also in Lord Jim. Marlow is talking of a “scene of horror”: “It had the power to drive me out of my conception of existence, out of that shelter each of us makes for himself to creep under in moments of danger, as a tortoise withdraws within its shell. For a moment 1 had a view of a world that seemed to wear a vast and dismal aspect of disorder, while in
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truth, thanks to our unwearied efforts, it is as sunny an arr~gement of small conveniences as the mind of man can conceive. But still - it was only a moment: I went back into my shell directly. One must - don’t you know? - though I seemed to have lost all my words in the chaos of dark thoughts I had contemplated for a second or two beyond the pale. These came back, too, very soon, for words also belong to the sheltering conception of light and order which is our refuge.” This “shelter” is not a protective temenos, but all the things we are bound by, the conventions that make for boundaries but do not protect us in our inne~ost core in the end. It is as Marlow says: “as sunny an arrangement of small c~nvenie?lces as the mind of man can conceive.” Marlow is a typical example of the kind of person who has that ever ready “shelter” of the commonplace, which is no real, no safe shelter in the end. However, being “typical” means that we all have it in us in one way or another, and that makes it worth taking a second look at him. We may learn something valuable and it behooves us to ask: “Where is this man alive in us?“. Where are we doing the same thing in smaller or larger ways, and if we are motivated to look inside, or do creative work from the right source or stimulate others to do so, where does he trip us up? So, knowing Marlow may help us to get to know the inner adversary also. “For a moment I had a view of a world that seemed to wear a vast and dismal aspect of disorder . . . .” He is tempted and fascinated, and according to the tales of Conrad in which Marlow appears as the narrator, he is confronted with the “disordered,” chaotic world of primitive jungle life where all the known laws of order and rationality do not hold true, time and again. And invariably he fmds an excuse not to enter this world which psychologically speaking can be compared to the world of the unconscious with its confrontations - with the shadow, for instance. He does not say “nay” without a certain amount of conflict. He excuses himself, as for instance in the Heart ofDarkness where his adventure is referred to as “one of Marlow’s inconclusive experiences.” The interesting aspect of Marlow is that he is always the fascinated onlooker of events that concern the confrontation with the dark powers; he is
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attracted, but he cannot make it himself. The ambiguity, which I think we may safely assume is Conrad’s own, is expressed by Marlow. Or he speaks “There came upon me, as about his “dread”: though I felt myself losing my footing in the midst of waters, a sudden dread, the dread of the unknown depths.” (Conrad, 1899). I am not saying lightly that we should not pay attention to these feelings. But there is also an interesting imp~cation in all this. We know that Conrad suffered from “agonizing stoppages” of work. One wonders whether today a deeper knowledge of the creative process might not help such stoppages, and Conrad, himself, contributes to the understanding. One might say that the Marlow in him kept the upper hand. Ghiselin (1952) speaks of a “management” required by the “mind in creation and in preparation for it.” And he continues to say: “Most creative workers pick up what they know about this by trial and error, by casual observation of themselves and others, and from such comment as they may chance upon. The consequences of learning so haph~r~y are hard to estimate, but obviousiy they are not always good.” ‘Management” is a good word for what we can and need to know about; creation per se will always hold a secret and a mystery that we may safely leave untouched. Further: “Every creative act overpasses the es&blished order in some way and in some degree.” in Heart of Darkness Once more Marlow, (Conrad, 1952), says: “The broadening waters flowed through a mob of wooded islands; you lost your way on that river as you wouid in a desert, and butted ali day long against shoals, trying to find the channel, till you thought yourself bewitched and cut off forever from everything you had known once - somewhere - far away - in another existence perhaps. . . . “Who’s that grunting? You wonder, I didn’t go ashore for a howl and a dance? Well, no - I didn’t. Fine sentiments, you say? Fine sentiments, be hanged! I had no time. I had to mess about with white lead and strips of woolen blanket helping to put bandages on these leaky steam pipes. I tell you. I had to watch the steering, and circumvent those snags, and get the tin-pot along by hook or by crook. There was surface rmth enough in these
things to save a wiser man.” And, of course, he is quite right: We do not have to attend to the things of this world, but at this point he seems to “protest too much.” I guess we are all familiar with such protestations in one form or another. And yet here is both the excuse and the realization on the part of Marlow of his own limits, which makes him an endearing figure in the end, dour often exasperating. And that is a good way of meeting this particular adversary when we come across him in our own psyche. Often, however, he is not so clearly constellated and all we can observe - rather frustratingly - is that things don’t move or that we find ourselves once again on that enchanted Glass Mountain where we take one step forward and two steps back. The conventional boundaries are all the safeguards that we have put up, the known things we cling to, the unbreakable habits, the inability to sacrifice and to risk. This sacrificing and risking, however, we can do only if the innermost, sacred precinct is protected, when we can know and feel that there is a rock of bronze somewhere inside us. And this is something, I believe, we all have, no matter how afflicted we may be, how shaken and disintegrated. In the simplest terms the “conventional” can show up, as when a thank you or bread and butter letter needs to be written and we may hear the parental injunction that it should be done at once. Whereas waiting for the right moment, and after having first reached in, the moment of inner contact may produce a meaningful letter with a true reaching out to the other person. A young man had to choose between going to an academic institution or an art school. He had to tell his father, who was himself an academician, that he prefered the art school to the academic career. That was hard enough. Then he had a dream which clearly indicated to him that the art school was not the right choice for him either because it was stultifying his talent. He got the message, and then he had to confront his father again to tell him that he was going to get a job and pursue his art on his own, which he had already been doing for some time. The second confrontation was much harder and much more crucial - that real moment of “choice” I spoke about in the beginning. Yet another example is more ambiguous and comes from a young woman’s dream:
CONVENTIONAL 3OUNDARIES OR PROTECTIVE TEMENOS The setting is on an island, in a house where a tent was erected. (One might say: a temenos within a temenos within a temenos). A party with much merriment, women drinking. The dreamer started to take her drink, but spit it back into the glass. It was dark in the tent so she felt in the dream nobody would know that she was not drinking. She also felt that since it was getting dark she wanted to see that she would catch the last boat to return to the mainland. She did not want to get stuck there, but return to her boyfriend. The captain of the boat arrived, telling her that the boat was ready to leave. End of dream. It was left open whether she caught the boat or not. Here the choice seems to be: Partake of the wine, the spirit of the women in the tent, the female Bacchanalia, or return to the male partner. Neither can take place. With the refusal to drink the wine, the initiatim cannot take place. Unless and until she is initiated into her feminine self, the coniunctio oppositorum, here the joining the male partner, cannot take place either. This innermost process needs to be “protected” to ensure its transformative success, and we need to be protected also from both inner and outer disturbances. One of the inner disturbances is the Marlow in us. The outer disturbances may be the temptations, the promises the outer world may hold, the securities for the ego, the things which we have always known, which make up conventional boundaries, They mean: I do not want to reach further (out or in); I cannot risk; 1 fear. We are then unprotected, while the moment we say “yes” to the next step we may have provoked an inner protection to appear. And the appearance of the temenos can mean: now things are beginning to happen; now something is really cooking. For “where the danger is greatest, God is nearest.” Or as Hoelderlin says: Near and hard to grasp is the God Yet, where peril Iies, Grows the remedy too. So, not risking, not choosing the peril, not choosing the apparently dangerous path is no real road to safety. It only appears so. We deprive ourselves of a necessary assistance and overwork the ego in this fashion. This “safe” road may even make us much more anxious. In the last analysis it is the “center” which
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chooses an~ay, and it chooses to bring us closer to it, to be the ruler in our house and dethrone the ego. Can we accept this, and should we accept it at all costs? Not at all costs, and not even unquestioningly. Sometimes we must know that we do live in two worlds and act in the outer world according to its rules, while keeping contact with the innermost core of our being. I will illustrate this presently. First: What if these boundaries do not hold any promises anymore? What is there left? More and more young people today seek an inner way, but often this “inner way” is not really an inner one. To seek methods from the East without knowing that the answer lies within ourselves is not an inner way even if it has all the appearances of one. The inner way means risk and commitment. It often means as much going against as going for, and sometimes when the “for” has not been revealed yet. Let me clarify with an image: It is as if we had come to a crossroads like in the fairytale. If you take the road to the right, you will find gold; if you take the road to the left, you will find silver, and if you take the middle road, you will find your way. We know what gold and silver is, and we may even know that they are not our choice. But what have we got when we go our way? What do we know about that? Of course, this is the test. Are we willing to risk and to trust? And this is the test in the fairy tales, too, where the one who can stand this test is the winner in the end. Interestin~y, very often the two brothers (or sisters) who have chosen the wrong road trip up the youngest brother and come home as the winners at first, until in the end they are shown up, after more tests for the young est brother. Translated: if we do not watch out, the shadow figures who choose gold and silver, or in our context the “known” values of this world ~‘convention~“), can always trip us up if we are not careful. We must be ever watchful, and we cannot be naive and gullible. These are shadow figures who are familiar with the ways of the world - and at times we may even need them and their knowledge. They are willing to use the ways of the world, and it seems that if we do not understand their language, when we are naive about it, we may be the losers. They are, of course, the challengers also and lead us to new tests until we have learnt our lesson. What is this lesson? Maybe to learn where and when to trust and in which world, and where to be on guard, and that this being on guard concerns human
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nature, including and maybe first and foremost our own. This does not mean judging,,but knowing and understanding so that we can learn to handle. We are afraid of what could be legitimately ours, and ironically the being out of touch with the the “creative source,” the “self’ is the “center,” cause of fear. The “conventional” is the known, the familiar, and, because it is known, it promises predictability and puts us in control. But who does it put in control? The anxious ego. According to the fairytales again, when we choose it, we do not win the princess, for instance (the treasure hard to attain, the self) - and in the end we are doomed. Yes, it is greed that makes the clever brothers choose gold and silver, but often they ridicule the “stupid” youngest one because he chooses what seems foolish by logical standards but is the “irrational” value of the inner world where a different kind of “logic” reigns. As long as we go by the “known” logic we cannot trust it because it is different. We need order, but what kind of order are we establishing? - an order that disregards the unconscious because irs kind of order is so different from the one we have learned to live by? What is it going to be: a superimposed order or an organic one, one in which the self has its say, and that means that we do not always understand it, or an ego order which is “perfectly comprehensible” but dead? I must admit here that for some people superimposed order is an absolute necessity, and at some time in everybody’s life it may be necessary until the time comes when we begin to hear what Neumann calls “the Voice,” which is a compelling inner one, demanding and creating a new ethic in place of the old one. He recognized that our time is not only clamoring for it, but also sorely in need of it. So the “conventional” can be necessary, but it will always be a “boundary” not a protection. It is a defense system for the ego, and that fortress cannot and should not be taken by storm. We are looking for protection and create boundaries and lock ourselves into prisons and struggle to get free. To achieve freedom we need to establish contact with the center. This center is also a temenos and in order to touch the creative source we need the protective temenos. We can lead convention bound lives and be bound, or creative ones with the knowledge of the
need for the temenos. And it works both ways: being engaged in creative work brings one closer to the center, the self, the source. I have shown something about choices of greater or lesser importance. If we ask ourselves how often we choose originality, making the effort it takes to achieve it, or whether we act or think in a routine way, we will know how often this choice does happen. If we want to call up our resources, we need that moment it takes to draw a line around us, to create our own temenos. This sitting alone with yourself, this concentrated private moment of the temenos is the absolute essential for all creative activity. We desperately need to find new ways, and the inspiration for them has to be coaxed. It is always hard won and it may mean “descent.” What can we do to reach this central core, the creative source? That is yet another subject on which I have only touched by talking about the temenos, and by talking about the conventional boundaries that may stand in our way. Here I can add only this: we cannot will the contact with the creative source, but we can be willing. This “willingness” can be expressed in many different ways, sometimes in paying attention to the many small things that may be for or against the aim of the center, “self,” “source.” We can have an aim but not a goal; in other words, we must work for the aim without expectations and let ourselves be surprised. Expectation is ego, which is surprised by what the center, the self, the source has to say - and it is convincing at times! The “prelogical” order in the unconscious cannot be understood with the logic of our intellect. We can experience it to be akin to revealed truth, but it is difficult for us to grasp it. I contend, if we could be less hampered by “conventional” approaches, and that includes ordinary logic, we would come closer to the source. If we cannot understand this different kind of “logic” and “order” of the unconscious, how are we to live by it? Yet we sense that it is connected with revealed truth and as such we yearn for it. On the other hand, being the totally other we are not only in awe of it, we are frightened of the moment where there seems to be nothing that is known and familiar to us that we could hold onto, and yet, in a timeless sense it is the only true “safety” we can have. This other - order, logic, truth - is hard to
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REFERENCES
JUNG, C. G. (1968) Analytical Psychology, Its 7%eory and Practice, Pantheon Books, New York. JUNG, C. G. (1966) Psychology and literature, The Spirit in Man. Art and Literature. Collected Works, 15, Pantheon, New York. JUNG, C. G. (1960) On the nature of dreams, The Struc-
CONRAD, J. (1952) Heart of Darkness, Signet Books, New York. CONRAD, J. (1899) Lord Jim, Random House, New York. CHISELIN, B. Ed. (1952) The Creafive process, Mentor, New York.
Pantheon, New York. NEUMANN, E. (1969) Depth Psychology and a New Ethic, G. P. Putnam, New York. WALLACE, E. (1972-1973) CREATIVITY: from chaos to wholeness, Inward Light, No. 82, No. 83.
express in words, maybe even impossible, which is why we seek and need “non-verbal” ways. So, at this point I will stop using words.
ture and Dynamics
of the Psyche,
Collected
Works, 8,