In Pursuit
of the Whale........Conclusion of Diploma.
I dream on
the day I complete the Diploma. I am looking at a fast map. It is made of
velum. I see the continents of South America, Africa and Antarctica. On the map
I see the scale of it and the key to its features. On the map are the words “In
Pursuit of the Whale2, Below it I see pictures of Scott, Shackleton and
Amundsen. A male figure says to me “This is Amazing”
As I look
at the map I see the coastlines and I see cities , yet the inner part of the
continents are unknown exciting to be explored, mapped and understood. I am
partly excited, partly anxious, and partly reflective.
The dream
is about exploring , the unknown. The course has given me new references, new
models and new experiences. The dream journal has begun an exploration of the
inferior functions. It has begun a process of individuation of the non western,
post rational and irrational aspects of myself. Long ago Shackleton, Amundsen
and Scott fascinated me. I had forgotten all about the books I had of their
lives, How strange that they should return in the way about six months before
my sixtieth birthday, I probably read the books last when I was ten.
At that age
I was at my lowest in my Prep School and now they return some fifty years taker
to discoverer their value, to explore my dreams and to begin the next stage.
The course has taken me through my dreams, through my awareness and on to the
acceptance of aging and discovering the wounded child within.
I included
the dream diary to give a sense of the process of individuation. I have
confronted fears, seen aspects of myself that I both liked and disliked. I have
moved in with my partner Hayley and have undergone a meeting both with my
shadow and with the darker aspects of my anima. In many ways this process has
been dialectical, gestalt like and confronting in essence. I have felt great
elation and great fear.
Yet in the
process of the course and its mentoring there has always been a compilation to
continue. The process has been mirrored in the world, synchronicites have
multiplied and I look forward to the next stage of growth The continents of the
South are encountered. Explored and discovered. The challenge us to ensure I am
the Anthropologist of my inferior functions that are these Southern Continents.
It would be too easy to be Cortes and the Conquistadors. Call me Ishmael
perhaps......... rather than Ahab
We have all been swallowed into the belly of the whale at some
stage in our lives. For some of us it has been a repeat journey.
We may have been tossed into the dark sea by our fellow travelers,
as in the biblical story of Jonah and the whale, or we may have just slipped on
the pathway of life and fallen into the dark depths of the unconscious.
It is an uncomfortable feeling to recall the dark despair of
being in the belly of the whale. . None of us enjoys the memory.
What does it mean to be in the belly of the whale?
The idea is frequently linked to two central notions in
Jungian psychology. The first comes from the writings of St. John of the Cross.
He wrote about the dark night of the soul. A German anthropologist, Frobenius,
wrote about the dark night sea journey. It is to this second idea that we
direct our attention. Frobenius of course did not come up with the idea of the
dark night sea journey, rather wrote about it in his research as an
anthropologist. The dark night sea journey is a mythical idea, hence has been
in our language and thoughts since our early history as humans.
In this mythical story, an individual is tossed into the
ocean, or falls into the ocean, whereupon he or she is swallowed up by a
Leviathan, a sea monster, or more commonly a whale. The journey takes an
enormous amount of time, with the individual losing any track of how long the
journey actually takes. Inside the belly of the whale the individual is in
darkness, and is constantly washed by the contents of the whale’s stomach. They
cannot see, they lose their hair, and the clothes melt from their body.
Finally, the whale coughs them up onto a distant shore. They
are in the land they do not recognize, in which they are a stranger, do not
speak the language, have no sense of purpose, and are essentially as if
newborn. And they are naked!
From that last idea we can view the journey of being in the
belly off the whale as a death-rebirth cycle. We could also view the cycle as
having the three stages that the Belgian anthropologist, van Gennep, used.
These three stages are separation, liminal, and incorporation. One is swallowed
by the whale, thus being separated from everything we know and we take for
granted. While in the belly of the whale we are in the liminal stage. Finally,
when we are coughed up on dry land, we are in the final stage, of
incorporation, however this final process may take an extended period of time.
Some may argue that the liminal stage actually extends from being in the belly
of the whale to being coughed up on strange land. It is when we finally
recognize ourselves and develop a new connection with the world, that the stage
of incorporation has begun. Liminal means between phases or stages.
How do we relate these ideas to our lives in the 21st century?
We can answer this question by using a variety of states we may find ourselves
in. Examples of these states are changes to the ego, changes to the persona,
changes to our sense of identity, changes to our connection to our soul. But
very useful in this idea is the belly of the whale so often is associated with
a state of depression.
Let’s start with the idea of depression and the belly of the
whale. Many people that I work with will describe the depression as creeping up
on them. It is as if they’re walking down a dark country lane in the middle of
the night and they know that someone is following, however, whenever they stop
and turn around there’s no one there. We hear the gentle footsteps of someone following
us, but when our feet stand still, so do theirs. Over time the footsteps get
closer and we begin to run. Finally depression grabs us by the shoulders and
pushes us into the earth.
We all know how this feels. Now think of it as wading into the
ocean, going deeper and deeper into this unconscious state, until suddenly we
have swallowed by the whale. Once we are in the belly of the whale everything
we know, believe in, expect, ceases to be. We find the simplest of tasks almost
impossible. We cannot concentrate, remember, sleep, work, or attend to so many
of the everyday tasks of life. Worst of all is that we feel we have lost all
control and will hope. This is being in the belly up the whale.
If we take up the idea of the persona we can also develop the
belly of the whale concept. So often we identify with the persona, in that we
become what we do, rather than being who we are. This is that common difference
between being what I do versus simply being myself. At some point this
over-identification with the persona, usually professional occupation,
irritates the psyche to the point that it precipitates the descent into the
belly of the whale.
This is that painful but necessary capacity of the psyche at
self-regulation and self correction. As we all know it is not as if we haven’t
been warned by the psyche, usually through symptoms of anxiety and depression,
or a general malaise about our purposeless life. Once in the belly of the whale
my persona has no value, because there is nothing I can do with it, but more
importantly, there are no longer any witnesses to my persona. I am lost, alone,
and without any distraction. This is being in the belly of the whale.
When I am coughed up on strange land I walk amongst people
with no clear sign of my persona. Who am I, what do I stand for, what is my
social identity? It is at this point that one of two things may happen. If I
panic, I may have what Jung referred to as a regressive restoration of the
Persona. By this is meant that I go back to the persona that wasn’t working
before in a desperate attempt to establish some meaning. I’m sure you can or
recognize the next stage in this unfortunate process. After some time, I will
be swallowed into the belly of the whale all over again.
The other outcome when I finally reach land Is that I am able
to defend a new persona that is more in keeping with a balanced lifestyle. A
persona that I don’t identify with, rather use for its intended purpose.
The real question we should be concerned with is not just what
happens at the end of the journey but what we do while journeying in the belly
off the whale.
Within the Restaurant Library. Dream
This dream began a few months before the completion of the
course. I dream I was given the keys to a restaurant by one of my
students. Izzy. As I took ownership from here I saw both the restaurant and
rows and rows of books that climbed on and on upwards.. In a a practical sense
the inner world of my dreams and my individuation had given a role in the outer
world. I was |I felt to manage and feed knowledge, teachings and understanding
to my clients, my friends and my my students. Izzy was the mother figure
passing on the knowledge of the inner feminine to me, to make it manifest in the
world and to make it real.
I have often wished that I had a mother like Izzy and I was
fascinated that she should appear and give me the keys. To this end I have so
far established the Asclepius Training begin training in Jungian
Psychotherapy. The course has given me both the knowledge and model to use for
this purpose. I began the course at Imbolc 2016 and complete it on the Autumn
Equinox in 2017 when light and dark are in balance and that the quaternity of
the year is complete,
Epilogue
"AND I ONLY AM ESCAPED ALONE TO TELL THEE" Job.
The drama's done. Why then here does
any one step forth?- Because one did survive the wreck.
It so chanced, that after the
Parsee's disappearance, I was he whom the Fates ordained to take the place of
Ahab's bowsman, when that bowsman assumed the vacant post; the same, who, when
on the last day the three men were tossed from out of the rocking boat, was
dropped astern. So, floating on the margin of the ensuing scene, and in full
sight of it, when the halfspent suction of the sunk ship reached me, I was
then, but slowly, drawn towards the closing vortex. When I reached it, it had
subsided to a creamy pool. Round and round, then, and ever contracting towards
the button-like black bubble at the axis of that slowly wheeling circle, like
another Ixion I did revolve. Till, gaining that vital centre, the black bubble
upward burst; and now, liberated by reason of its cunning spring, and, owing to
its great buoyancy, rising with great force, the coffin life-buoy shot lengthwise
from the sea, fell over, and floated by my side. Buoyed up by that coffin, for
almost one whole day and night, I floated on a soft and dirgelike main. The
unharming sharks, they glided by as if with padlocks on their mouths; the
savage sea-hawks sailed with sheathed beaks. On the second day, a sail drew
near, nearer, and picked me up at last. It was the devious-cruising Rachel,
that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another
orphan. FINIS
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