How To Feel Better...

http://www.namqkang.com/

The Present Moment

“We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time, in which the so-called present moment is felt as nothing but an infinitesimal hairline between an all-powerfully causative past and an absorbingly important future. We have no present. Our consciousness is almost completely preoccupied with memory and expectation. We do not realize that there never was, is, nor will be any other experience than present experience. We are therefore out of touch with reality. We confuse the world as talked about, described, and measured with the world which actually is. We are sick with a fascination for the useful tools of names and numbers, of symbols, signs, conceptions and ideas.”
--Alan Watts

http://alanwatts.com/

Trauma

http://personalmessageblog.blogspot.com/

There Is No Other Room

http://www.lizzlizz.com/

BEAUTY: Art--Chris Sedgwick

Mystical symbols abound in the dense, allegorical work of Chris Sedgwick. These absorbing paintings are crammed full of ideas and concepts from astrology, alchemy, Jungian psychology, science, and genetic biology. He has even created his own code using colored dots to represent the letters of the alphabet and hidden messages are spelled out on banners above or around, and on cloaks and robes on characters in the tableux.

Top to bottom: title unknown; The Geometer; The Passing of the Ages; The Sunset Ritual; The Alchemical Divination of Soul Synthesis

For fascinating and detailed explanations about the symbology, visit his website and click on CONCEPTS.
http://www.crsedgwick.com/

Ensō

The Japanese word ensō may mean "circle" but the Zen Buddhist concept it represents is far larger than a single word. It contains the ideas of enlightenment, cycles, unity, time, nature, the void, infinity, and the totality of the universe itself.

Imagine for a moment that you are man primeval, on a plane, looking out around you, with little or no linguistic skills, and certainly no scientific or objective knowledge of what you are seeing. Above you is a flaming circle, giving light and warmth. When that goes away, quite regularly as it turns out, it is replaced by a great white, glowing circle that inflates and deflates over a short period of time. The two of these things chase each other in a circle as they go from side to side in the sky. At night, the sky is peppered with tiny twinkling circles. On the plane around you, berries and fruits and flowers are circular. You turn in a circle, surveying the reality around you, as your body describes the shape of a circle, and you stand as the still point, the center of this circular universe. You are in the center of the circle. The still point of the circle is where ever you are. Plants grow, are harvested, it grows colder, tiny white cold circles fall from the sky, and then soon, the warmth comes back and the plants once again begin to grow. The circle of time. And reality is an endless circle which allows that to happen.

The circle is the first, original shape, the primary form, the sound of the universe...

"Everything comes around

Bringing us back again

Here is where we start

And where we end"

--Alison Goldfrapp

Just watched...

...David Cronenberg's 2011 film "A Dangerous Method."

Freud and Jung. It seems like the men and their difficult relationship were and still are examples of how different we as human beings can be. Only Freud with his personality type and experiences could have created psychoanalysis, and only Jung, with his own personality type and experiences could have created analytical psychology.

Adapted from the 2002 stage play "The Talking Cure," which was in turn adapted from the non-fiction book A MOST DANGEROUS METHOD: THE STORY OF JUNG, FREUD, AND SABINA SPIELRIEN by John Kerr, Cronenberg's film captures a sort of short-of-breath tightness that creates anxiety and tension. As a film device, it works quite well. Of course Cronenberg started out as a gore director, then horror, then horror psychology, and now he is delving into a kind of dark psychology that clearly descends from his past films. This tightness could have something to do with the fact that this film adaptation comes not only from a stage play, but that the screenwriter, Christopher Hammond, is also the playwright. On a stage, there is no luxury of expansive locales, no enormous cast of featured actors and extras (generally speaking), and no sweeping sense of story. We are focused on a few places and a few individuals.

In this case, we are focused on Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Jung's first patient, Sabina Spielrien. The basis of the film is rooted firmly in fact. After treating Sabina for a while, Jung wrote to Freud in order to consult about Sabina and the psychoanalytical techniques Jung was using. They corresponded about Sabina's case and struck up a friendship. Freud considered Jung to be the heir apparent to psychoanalysis. But as the two continued to correspond and eventually meet, their differences in their personalities and experiences became more apparent to each of them, ultimately resulting in a contentious split. During this time, Jung "cured" Sabina of her emotional issues. She wished to be a psychologist, and with Jung's encouragement, she became his student and eventually his colleague.

But this is where things get a little dicey. It is now widely held that Jung and Spielrien had a sexual relationship. Her letters, discovered in 1977, mention such an affair. Letters between Jung and Freud also mention Jung's "indiscretion." But Hampton and Cronenberg do what Peter Schaffer did in "Amadeus." Did Salieri poison Mozart? There is no evidence to support or deny such a claim, but the play puts forth intriguing suppositions. As does "A Dangerous Method." Did Jung take advantage of an unbalanced young woman? Did he have a sado-masochistic affair with a patient? These are details we do not know. And I must say that although I understand the dramatic and artistic license that is being taken here, and do appreciate it on an artistic level, I regret that it colors the life, work, and legacy of Carl Jung. I will confess that I am a Jungian at heart; Jungian beliefs most closely match my own. And the fantastic work that Jung did not only in the realm of psychology, but in the realm of literature, the arts, of the study of global cultures and religions, and human development itself is a little overshadowed by this dark--and at times, lurid--fiction. The film leaves off at the beginning of Jung's personal breakdown and the start of his greatest work into the world of the unconscious. I am aware that this film is not a straight biography of Jung, but it leaves me wishing it were.

Having said that, the film itself, for what it is, works well. The period sets, costumes, and details are correct. As I mentioned earlier, this is a tale of anxiety and tension and Cronenberg directs it with an appropriate sense of anxiety and tension. He also gets the best out of his actors. Michael Fassbender plays Jung with a restrained subtlety and Viggo Mortensen plays Freud with a quiet prickliness. Here are images of the originals and their film counterparts:

But special mention goes to the talented Keira Knightley for her intense, agonizing portrayal of Sabina Spielrien: agonizing for viewers and for Knightley since she had to occupy a very dark, exhausting place for the duration of this project. Knightley had the unenviable task of being mentally unstable but all the while making complete sense. Her storyline and performance touch on issues of child abuse, sexual abuse, and the belittlement of women during that period. Spielrien became a psychologist despite--or perhaps because of--her mental instabilities. But more than that, she became a psychologist at a time when women were not thought to have the brain power to do much than play a pretty tune on the piano or to do some embroidery. Spielrien might deserve a film of her own.

Recommend? Yes, it is worth seeing for the performances and for a bit of historical background on the birth of psychology. But if you are not familiar with him, please do yourself a favor and discover the rich legacy of Carl Jung.

http://adangerousmethod-themovie.com/

The Sound of a Circle

The original shape, the primary form, the sound of the universe...

"The circle (or sphere) is a symbol of the Self. It expresses the totality of the psyche in all its aspects, including the relationship between man and the whole of nature. Whether the symbol of the circle appears in primitive sun worship or modern religion, in myths or dreams, in the mandalas drawn by Tibetan monks, in the ground plans of cities, or in the spherical concepts of early astronomers, it always points to the single most vital aspect of life – its ultimate wholeness." Aniela Jaffé, in "Symbolism in the Visual Arts" from MAN AND HIS SYMBOLS by Carl Jung