APHRODITE MYSTERIES
The Love of the Soul

Aphrodite is essentially psyche, or soul, expressed personally as anima and collectively as Anima Mundi, the Soul of the World. What appears to be outside of us is equally present within us, constantly arising as the creative passion that forces us into the unknown. The source enlivens our human potential.

Often dismissed as a "Greek goddess of love," Aphrodite was really much more than that. Like Kali, she was a Virgin-Mother-Crone trinity. She was once indistinguishable from the Fates (Moirai); her old name was Moira, and she was said to be older than Time. She governed the world by ius naturale, the natural law of the maternal clan. She was not only Greek. She was the Dea Syria, also known as Asherah or Astarte, Goddess of the oldest continuously-occupied temple in the world.2 She was the ancestral mother of the Romans, for she gave birth to their founding father, Aeneas.3 Under the name of Venus, she was the mother of the Venetii, whose capital city became Venice, called "Queen of the Sea" after the Goddess herself. One of Aphrodite's major centers of worship was the city of Paphos on Cyprus, the island named for its copper mines. Thus, she was called "the Cyprian" or "the Paphian," and her sacred metal was copper. She was also called Mari, the Sea. Egyptians referred to her island as Ay-Mari.
http://hobbithills.blogspot.com/2013/11/caduceushermesaphroditeserpentandrogyn.html

We could call sexuality the spokesman of the instincts, which is why from the spiritual standpoint sex is the chief antagonist, not because sexual indulgence is in itself more immoral than excessive eating and drinking, avarice, tyranny, and other extravagances, but because the spirit senses in sexuality a counterpart equal and indeed akin to itself.

For just as the spirit would press sexuality, like every other instinct, into its service, so sexuality has an ancient claim upon the spirit, which it once—in procreation, pregnancy, birth, and childhood—contained within itself, and whose passion the spirit can never dispense with in its creations. ~Carl Jung, CW 8, Para 107

ONE-HEARTED
The Naked Truth

“I must learn to love you.”
―C.G. Jung, The Red Book: A Reader's Edition

"Love has more than one thing in common with religious faith.
It demands unconditional trust and expects absolute surrender."
~Carl Jung, CW 10, Page 112

"Just as nobody but the believer who surrenders himself wholly to God can partake of divine grace, so love reveals its highest mysteries and its wonder only to those who are capable of unqualified devotion and loyalty of feeling."
~Carl Jung, CW 10, Page 112

“In everything regarding your salvation and the attainment of mercy, you are dependent on your soul. Thus no sacrifice can be too great for you. If your virtues hinder you from salvation, discard them, since they have become evil to you. The slave to virtue finds the way as little as the slave to vices.”
― C.G. Jung, The Red Book: A Reader's Edition

“Where love rules, there is no will to power, and where power predominates, love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.” ― C.G. Jung

“I swayed between fear, defiance, and nausea, and was wholly the prey of my passion. I could not and did not want to listen to the depths. But on the seventh night, the spirit of the depths spoke to me: “Look into your depths, pray to your depths, waken the dead.” ―C.G. Jung, The Red Book: A Reader's Edition

It will be good for your humility if you can accept the gifts of your
unconscious guide that dwells in yourself, and it is good for your pride
to humiliate itself to such an extent that you can accept what you receive.
~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Page 459

The world of the Gods is made manifest in spirituality and in sexuality. The celestial ones appear in spirituality, the earthly in sexuality. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 352.

Spirituality and sexuality are not your qualities, not things you possess and encompass. Rather, they possess and encompass you, since they are powerful daimons, Manifestations of the Gods, and hence reach beyond you, existing in themselves. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 353.

Man shall differentiate himself both from spirituality and sexuality. He shall call spirituality mother, and set her between Heaven and earth. He shall call sexuality Phallos, and set him between himself and earth. For the mother and the Phallos are superhuman daimons that reveal the world of the Gods. They affect us more than the Gods since they are closely akin to our essence. ~Carl Jung; The Red Book; Scrutinies; Page 352.

Who exhausts the mystery of love? … There are those who love men, and those who love the souls of men, and those who love their own soul. Such a one is Philemon, [Jung's daimon] the host of the Gods. ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 315.

If I am not conjoined through the uniting of the Below and the Above, I break down into three parts: the serpent, and in that or some other animal form I roam, living nature daimonically, arousing fear and longing. The human soul, living forever within you. The celestial soul, as such dwelling with the Gods, far from you and unknown to you, appearing in the form of a bird. ~Carl Jung’s Soul to him, Black Books, Appendix C., Page 370.

With the archetype of the anima, we enter the realm of the gods, or rather, the realm that metaphysics has reserved for itself. ~Carl Jung, CW 9, Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, Page 28

I honor the spaces, places, arts, and rituals that help me to remember the archaic, traditional and transitional nature of life -- the wisdom and beauty way of the Soul. I honor primordial consciousness. I honor the unmanifest and the manifest. I honor the sacred geometry and shape of all life and being. I honor my daemon as soul-guide. I honor the archetypes. I honor the Earth. I honor all life. I honor my ancestors in their struggles and wisdom. I honor my body which is made of them. I honor my own vision. I honor the divine, however it manifests. I honor the gaps in-between -- the primal stillpoint between breaths, thoughts, and images. I honor the states of mind that allow me to connect and detach from the outcome of things and flow. I honor my mistakes and misperceptions. I honor forgiveness. I honor all the ways in which I am afforded the ability to see more than just the physical, psychic, and spiritual aspects of life as multisensory or sensual experience. I remember that my agenda is a cosmic joke that life loves to laugh at secure in the knowledge it is all a dream. Breathing as One, I open myself to self-organizing chaos and Cosmos, trusting myself for the courage to live out those desires and the process of creation. I honor connection, beauty, and grace.

"Aphrodite women always stand out. Go to any public venue and wait for the moment of recognition: There she is—the "it" girl. Tall and slim, or short and slim, blond or raven or red-haired, it matters not. Whether she dresses like a princess or a prostitute, she has the unmistakable spark that is the touch of Aphrodite.

SEX, DEATH, & SPIRITS
MEETING IN IMAGINATION
Aphrodite is the golden goddess of love and beauty in Greek mythology. Women who embody the Aphrodite archetype have much less choice in how they behave or react than they, or others, imagine. The myths tell us that Aphrodite qualities are essential for the joy of life, but the shadow side of Aphrodite manifests when a woman is completely identified with Aphrodite's powers, when other archetypal qualities of the feminine are unimportant to her. The tragedies that result from this are the subject of numerous well-known novels and films and exemplified in the lives of certain actresses and other celebrities, all considered here.

The dark side of the pursuit of beauty is especially apparent with aging, when the Aphrodite woman must become something other than a source of beauty or dwindle to a bitter and lonely end. Those whose lives have been wounded by the shadow side of Aphrodite—or those who do not have enough of Aphrodite's joy in their personal makeup—may find understanding and rebirth through the consciousness gained in this real-life exploration of an ideal that has ballooned into a distortion. In these times, when the idolization of Aphrodite—and the tragedy that ensues—are perhaps more widespread than ever, the crucial key for women is consciousness."  --Arlene Diane Landau, Tragic Beauty:
The Dark Side of Venus Aphrodite and the Loss and Regeneration of Soul

"There is no place where those striving after consciousness could find absolute safety. Doubt and insecurity are indispensable components of a complete life. Only those who can lose this life really can gain it. A "complete" life does not consist in a theoretical completeness but in the fact that one accepts without reservation, the particular fatal tissue in which one finds oneself embedded, and that one tries to make sense of it or create a cosmos from the chaotic mess into which one is born. If one lives properly and completely, time and again one will be confronted with a situation of which one will say: "This is too much. I cannot bear it anymore". Then the question must be answered: "can one really not bear it?"" --C. G. Jung.

What does it really mean, to liberate the anima mundi? In our individual alchemical opus we experience the effects of freeing the light, energy, and creative potential that lie within us. We know how this liberation can radically change our vision and experience of life. We are taken into a different dimension of our self, and life begins to magically open doors that before were closed or hidden. Of course these changes are not always what we may want—they do not fulfill our surface desires, but they have a deeper meaning and purpose. Something within us awakens and the life of the spirit begins. The alchemists understood that the individual is a microcosm of the whole, and that what can happen to each of us can happen to the world.

When the light of the soul returns, a grey world of drudgery begins to sparkle; the multihued qualities of creation become visible. Instead of the endless pursuit of pleasure, life beckons us on a search for meaning: the colors of life speak to us, telling us their story, singing to us their song. The music of life returns, a music that is creation alive. A real dialogue between our inner self and our outer life begins to unfold as we directly participate in the hidden mystery of life coming alive: it comes alive within ourself and within the world. In the light of the soul the barriers between inner and outer dissolve, and we no longer have to dig beneath the surface for some semblance of purpose to our lives.
--Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

One can only say that somehow one has to reach the rim of the world or get to the end of one’s tether in order to partake of the terror or grace of such an [Primordial] experience at all. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 424.

“There is in every one of us, though varied in depth and strength, an eternal longing for ‘something’ which transcends a world of inequalities. … ‘To transcend’ suggests ‘going beyond,’ ‘being away from,’ that is, a separation, a dualism. I have, however, no desire to hint that the ‘something’ stands away from the world in which we find ourselves.” --Daisetz T. Suzuki, (1964). The awakening of a new consciousness in Zen (pp. 179-202). In J. Campbell (Ed.). Man and Transformation: Papers from the Eranos yearbooks. Bollingen Series XXX — 5. Princeton University Press. First published in Eranos-Jahrbücher XXIII, 1954.

The meaning of events is the way of salvation that you create. The meaning of events comes from the possibility of life in this world that you create. It is the mastery of this world and the assertion of your soul in this world. ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 239.

'The canvas, which is to say the unconscious, considers [the painter's] first stroke, and then it tells the painter's hand how to respond to it with a shape of a certain colour and texture at that point there. And then, if all is going well, the canvas ponders this addition and comes up with further recommendations. The canvas becomes a Ouija board.' --Kurt Vonnegut

"Gnosis is a knowledge whose modus operandi is not by means of discursive thought but through revelation disclosing hidden things, a saving light that in itself confers life and joy, a divine grace that brings about and ensures salvation. To know what one is, who one is, to know a higher world from which one has come, where our origins are—this already is to be “saved”, and this is gnosis. It is never a theoretical knowledge, but an effective knowledge; that is to say it brings about the transfiguration and rebirth of a created being." (Henry Corbin)

'The soul is born in beauty and feeds on beauty, requires beauty for life. If we read Plato the way Plotinus did, and understand Psyche the way Apulius did, and experience soul as...Dante did [when he first saw Beatrice], then psyche is the life of our aesthetic responses, the sense of taste in relation to things, that thrill or pain, disgust or expansion of breast, those primordial aesthetic reactions of the heart are soul itself speaking. Psyche's first trait and the way we know her first, is neither by her labors, the work of soul-making, nor by her sufferings for love, nor in her oppression in lostness, the absence and deprivation of soul — these... all come later. We know Psyche first by her primary characteristic given with her nature: Psyche is beautiful.' --Hillman, Thoughts of the Heart

The wound and the eye are one and the same. From the psyche’s viewpoint, pathology and insight are not opposites...Pathologizing is itself a way of seeing... Without psychopathology there is no wholeness; in fact, psychopathology is a differentiation of that wholeness. (Hillman, Re-Visioning Psychology, p. 107f).

"Living myths are not mistaken notions, and they do not spring from books. They are not to be judged as true or false but as effective or ineffective, maturative or pathogenic. They are rather like enzymes, products of the body in which they work; or in homogeneous social groups, products of a body social. They are not invented but occur, and are recognized by seers, and poets, to be then cultivated and employed as catalysts of spiritual (i.e., psychological) well-being. And so, finally, neither a stale and overdue nor a contrived, plastic mythology will serve; neither priest nor sociologist takes the place of the poet-seer – which, however, is what we all are in our dreams, though when we wake again we may render only prose." --Joseph Campbell, The Flight of the Wild Gander: Explorations in the Mythological Dimension

Because it is tied to the timeless, the inferior function never wants to affirm the world of the moment, the world of time, since it ·would rather cling on to timelessness. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 93-94

"Where one is identified with the collective unconscious, there is no recognition of the things which come from the unconscious, they cannot be distinguished from those of the self. Such a condition is a possession by the anima or animus. Possession by the animus or anima creates a certain psychological hermaphroditism. The principle of individuation demands a dissociation or differentiation of the male and the female in ourselves. We must dissociate our self from the unconscious." ~Carl Jung, Cornwall Seminar, Page 26.

"What I call ‘auditory imagination’ is the feeling for syllable and rhythm, penetrating far below the conscious levels of thought and feeling, invigorating every word; sinking to the most primitive and forgotten, returning to the origin and bringing something back, seeking the beginning and the end. It works through meanings, certainly, or not without meanings in the ordinary sense, and fuses the old and obliterated and the trite, the current, and the new and surprising, the most ancient and the most civilized mentality." --T.S. Eliot, “Matthew Arnold,” The Use of Poetry and The Use of Criticism (Faber and Faber, 1933)

Gnostic Anima
"The Gnostics already knew about the transformations of the anima.
In their writings we find a kind of development of the anima, from its most primitive stage up to wisdom.
The most primitive anima is Chawwa, the earth.
She is Eve, who represents the all-motherly and the receiving.
At this stage, the anima is still a purely sexual being, a kind of earth goddess in a nearly prehuman developmental form.
A further stage is Helen.
According to a Gnostic legend, Simon Magus discovered a girl in a brothel in Tyrus (Phoenicia), in whom he recognized a reincarnation of Helen of Troy, and whom he therefore named after her.
Helen of Troy was an adulteress and the lover of many a hero of those times.
She was actually the type of the “femme qui se fait suivre.”
The link between these two women is that both of them carry a light within them, regardless of their bad reputation.
Helen of Troy means beauty to the man, the Gnostic Helena ennoia (consciousness).
At this stage, man still experiences the anima as a collective figure, but a certain concentration on the one woman has already taken place.
This is a very human stage, partly conducive to cultural development.
The next stage of the anima is Mary, who was also an extraordinary person.
She was the lover of the Holy Spirit and so become the mother of God.
The humiliation by illegitimate motherhood is compensated by the symbolism of her being the mother of God.
Although this stage still bears human traits, it already points to the spiritual.

For the Gnostics, the highest developmental stage of the anima is Sophia.
She is one-half of the divine syzygy (Greek, “pair,” “yoked together”; conjunction and opposition of sun and moon).
She is the most spiritual form of the universal mother.
Any human or personal aspect has disappeared.
The anima as a friend or soror mystica has always played a great role in history.
In the cours d’amour of René d’Anjou she even takes precedence over the wife.
The term maîtresse actually means mistress or master.
In the Middle Ages, for example, the worship of the anima led to courtly love, in which the knight was committed to his lady and was at her service.
In later history we know of women such as Madame de Maintenon, Ninon de Lenclos, or Madame de Guyon.
The latter was a woman of the highest spiritual eroticism and of a strangely deep wisdom.
She deserved being called a saint.
It is no sign of culture if a woman is only a daughter, or only a pregnant mother, or only a whore.
The primitives and also the apes do act out this onesidedness.
But should she become the femme inspiratrice, oscillating between goddess and whore, representing all the doubtfulness and diversity of life, the highest skills and the highest Eros are called for.
Such women are manifestations of a much more developed culture, and this was known in the Middle Ages and also in Greece in its heyday." ~Carl Jung, Children’s Dreams Seminar, Pages 320-321.

Built upon Love: Architectural Longing after Ethics and Aesthetics By Alberto Pérez-Gómez

Sun, Munch

Man is a gateway, through which you pass from the outer world of Gods, daimons, and souls into the inner world, out of the greater into the smaller world. Small and inane is man, already he is behind you, and once again you find yourselves in endless space, in the smaller or inner infinity. ~Carl Jung; The Red Book; Page 354.

The world of the inner is as infinite as the world of the outer. Just as you become a part of the manifold essence of the world through your bodies, so you become a part of the manifold essence of the inner world through your soul. This inner world is truly infinite, in no way poorer than the outer one. Man lives in two worlds. ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 264.

PASSION TURNS TO ACTION
Noble Hearts
"...the Imagination (or love, or sympathy, or any other sentiment) induces knowledge, and knowledge of an 'object' which is proper to it..." --Henry Corbin

"Nothing is possible without love, not even the processes of alchemy, for love puts one in the mood to risk everything and not to withhold important elements."
~Carl Jung, Jung and Hesse: A Diary of Two Friendships

"Dr. Harding: They represent the dead past. The things that have been built up in the unconscious through the past ages are presented to us through the anima or the animus.

Dr. Jung: That is the collective past, but you can include the individual past as well, all our relations with people, what we have lived and what we have heard; all those are empty husks, carcasses which once were alive, which functioned for a while and then withered away.

And that is still truer for the collective past, which is like a nation of ghosts; it contains the thoughts and the lives of the ancestors down through the ages or what remains of those lives, the quintessence of experiences.

So these old men also represent the living storehouse of the tribal memories, as the Council of the Elders in a primitive tribe functions as their library, or the archives, because they preserve the secret traditions, the mystical teaching, as well as the history of the tribe.

The structure of the animus is the same; he represents the collective wisdom, one could say, as the anima represents the collective feeling, what has always been felt about certain things.

So a man can be remarkably free in his mental conceptions, he can fly to any place in the world, assume any kind of new life he likes, as long as he identifies himself with his intellect; but when it comes to his feeling, he feels exactly as everyone else has always felt, and then he collapses quite miserably." ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Pages 1145-1146

Thus the anima and life itself are meaningless in so far as they offer no interpretation.
Yet they have a nature that can be interpreted, for in all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order, in all caprice a fixed law, for everything that works is grounded on its opposite.
It takes man's discriminating understanding, which breaks everything down. into antinomial judgments, to recognize this.
Once he comes to grips with the anima, her chaotic capriciousness will give him cause to suspect a secret order, to sense a plan, a meaning, a purpose over and above her nature, or even-we might almost be tempted to say-to "postulate" such a thing, though this would not be in accord with the truth.
For in actual reality we do not have at our command any power of cool reflection, nor does any science or philosophy help us, and the traditional teachings of religion do so only to a limited degree.
We are caught and entangled in aimless experience, and the judging intellect with its categories proves itself powerless.
Human interpretation fails, for a turbulent life-situation has arisen that refuses to fit any of the traditional meanings assigned to it.
It is a moment of collapse.
We sink into a final depth-Apuleius calls it "a kind of voluntary death."
It is a surrender of our own powers, not artificially willed but forced upon us by nature; not a voluntary submission and humiliation decked in moral garb but an utter and unmistakable defeat crowned with the panic fear of demoralization.

Only when all props and crutches are broken, and no cover from the rear offers even the slightest hope of security, does it become possible for us to experience an archetype that up till then had lain hidden behind the meaningful nonsense played out by the anima.
This is the archetype of meaning) just as the anima is the archetype of life itself. ~Carl Jung, CW 9ii, Para 66.

www.darkknot.com

 The Physical Basis & Cosmology of Love
The Breath of the Soul
THE DYNAMIC FEMININE
by Iona Miller, (c)2016

Magic is a Way of Living.
--Carl Jung, The Red Book, Pages 314-315

“For the sorcerer it is always dawn.”
(Gilbert Durand, “The Image of Man in Occult Tradition,” pp. 81-103,
Spring 1976, p. 102)

"The ancients devised magic to compel fate. They needed it to determine outer fate. We need it to determine inner fate and to find the way that we are unable to conceive." --Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 311.

Why do we think love is a magician? Because the whole power of magic consists in love. The work of magic is the attraction of one thing by another because of a certain affinity of nature. --Marsilio Ficino

"It is also a plausible hypothesis that the archetype is produced by the original life urge and then gradually grows up into consciousness-with the qualification, however, that the innermost essence of the archetype can never become wholly conscious, since it is beyond the power of imagination and language to grasp and express its deepest nature." ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 313.
* * *
"Great hearts send forth secret forces
that incessantly draw forth great events."
--Thoreau

“My wish is that you may be loved to the point of madness.”
― André Breton, What is Surrealism?: Selected Writings
* * *
Psyche is in the world, not just in ourselves. It's in our loves, in our personal and collective lives, just as much as our culture and nature. The gods and ourselves are in the world, also present as in-scapes of our imaginations.

This subtle realm is an imaginal, numinous domain connecting nature’s outer appearance and its inner essence or soul. We can perceive this interworld in mystical or non-ordinary states of consciousness, intuitive awareness, and  heightened sensitivity to the world around us.

Poets, mystics, and artists are familiar with this realm as a unique way of experiencing the world through soul. They communicate their vision through their work. Intuitive perception of the physical world within an individual psyche opens the subtle realm. The unconscious is a coded field of originality, signification, redundancy, and cultural connotations originating beyond our personal concerns.

Soul's Yearning
Is the divine principle of the cosmos real or is it symbolic? Ontological revelation of the godforms occurs in mythical experience - numinous, transcendent, inconceivable. Love is the primary ontological revelation or cognitive access to divine qualities.

Divinity is a mystical perception but not religious justification. Obviously, the ultimate transcends human intelligence, so it appears as numinous presence. Imagination is the primordial power of the universe, so is real. Love is the ultimate reality from which all thoughts and dreams flow.

Sometimes a fragment of the world can shine transparently in its inherent light  and cosmic depth. It becomes a symbol or 'representative ' of the universe, where everything appears and shines in it. The luminosity of unconscious archetypal content has its own reality, so shines in its own light. So symbol, image, origin, ritual, form, light, and art mediate the life-giving soul of the world.

Subtle Embodiment
We can describe the ontology of godforms and soul as a primal category of existence. We only understand what god is like when divine qualities are revealed beyond projection of our own mental states. Beliefs don't constitute knowledge.

Our perceptual beliefs form whether or not gods are divine. What convinces us of a fantasy of divinity is overpowering immediate primordial experience. The separation of mind and body is an archetypal fiction. The phenomenological method is to turn directly to the images themselves. The aim is to transform soul, not explain or improve it.

Epistemologically, godforms are comprehensible forms of divine dynamic energy -- an image of god in a mirror. Metaphorically they describe styles of knowing, or how we know what we know and what its like. Functionally they affect our spirituality, ideas, emotions, and behavior.

We all contribute to the formation of the universe through our action and suffering. And often we defend against the experience itself, sometimes discarding it as worthless, failing to recognize the true essence of existence.

Because of the psychic value of myth, ritual, and symbolism, archetypes do matter to our body and soul . As representations, personifications, or projections, a variety of archetypal figures are beyond personal identity in the mirror of divine realities.

Anima Mundi is a transcendent source of all souls and the body of god in the existential world -- the self-revealing, self-disclosing manifestation of divine essence in bodily form. Our daemon, the guiding inner voice of the other, accompanies us in our experience of the world. The essence of it means we carry our fate within us. Our fulfillment is expressing and living out the true self, also called self-actualization and self-realization. The Anima Mundi unites with the Daemon Mundi.

In the Heart of the Mystery
Divine language creates, ordinary language contextualizes. We are embedded in the mythic field at both the personal and transpersonal level. These eternal redundancies create dynamic structure and complexity, including non-ordinary realities like synchronicities in which we participate. They share in our world and condition our reality as dynamic action, movement, and the process of what is happening right now, which is our living legacy.

Even the photonic web of our holographic existence radiates beauty reflected in aesthetic perception. Life literally 'makes sense' when we are not blinded by its opaque quality. A rhythmic sequence of symbols are images with deeper meaning, while metaphors are activity with a deeper meaning and meaningful coincidences. The Tree of Life means there is no duality.

When the symbolic turns physical, words become flesh and we live the life we love. It is only and always here and now.  Jung notes that "...every epoch of our biological life has a numinous character: birth, puberty, marriage, illness, death, etc." (Letters Vol. II, Pages 208-210.)

Our imaginative hearts stand for beauty. goodness, and aesthetic perception  against the dehumanizing slumber of indifference and oblivion. "As Pascal reminds us, “The heart has reasons that reason cannot know”. The reasons of the heart are most concerning, for they are born of the aesthetic domain.

Michelangelo wrote, “Beauteous art, brought with us from heaven, will conquer nature; so divine a power belongs to him who strives with every nerve. If I was made for art, from childhood given a prey for burning beauty to devour, I blame the mistress I was born to serve.” All of us bring an art from heaven. Each of us has a specific vocation or mission in life -- to fulfill  or realize our unique potential. 

We engage with the world of interactional possibility, leading to emergent forms of Poiesis. The parts define and refine the emerging whole, while the whole simultaneously informs and creates the boundary conditions that conform and inform the parts, that bring forth the world of our meaning. The cycle informs our evolving engagement.

Not limited to the visual field, beauty is a vital core element of our experience, associated with both pleasure and deception. Beauty extends to behavior and is relevant to all aspects of life. "The soul of our civilization depends on the civilization of our soul. The imagination of our culture requires a culture of imagination," claims James Hillman.

Love has no limit, shape, or condition and can elevate or drive us to the depths of hell. The ecstasy and pain of attachment can be accompanied by rage, shame, terror, and guilt that also inspire our eternal return. Passionate rebirth arises from the annihilation of the Dark Night, the extremes of life. The root of creativity is the paradoxical expression of the soul and its life in the world and our collective dreams.

Psychophysical pain migrates throughout our bodies. Consequential Trauma or hidden hurt may be way more subtle or low-key than war or domestic violence. Repetition of disappoints, small betrayals, discounting, and emotional unavailability or abandonment can take a toll on our well-being.

Trauma can remain unnoticed in high-functioning people, who are busy being somebody's boss, or somebody's parent or partner, etc. Leadership traits or success in certain areas confer no immunity to emotional pain. Developmental trauma is ubiquitous. Our self-care is inherently trauma-informed.

Trauma lives on as if it is happening right now. When we sense it and value it, we can learn from it. To develop a sense of soul we need to cultivate imagination. We need to learn to befriend, love, and feel safe in the body so we can partake of the living of life and the dying of death.

James Hillman notes how psyche, as well as the gods, are in the world. We are in the world, but we have banished the gods from consciousness so they appear as  diseases. The erotic, sensuality, poetry, the Dionysian and more are all banished to the shadow. "Poetry is made in bed like love. Its unmade sheets are the dawn of things," says André Breton.

How others behave affects who we are, especially our closest relationships, as much or more in terms of power as of sex. Jung's Red Book says, "Even your closest ones aren't the destination and the end of the search of love, but symbols of our soul."

The ravishing Aphrodite is soul and as the Soul of the World, the Anima Mundi represents a way of affirmation and fullness. She is the plenum, the panoply or pandemonium of psychic imagery. She is a soul-guide, a mediatrix of consciousness between the personal and collective. She balances the actualities of daily life with the demands of the Beyond.

Archetypes, as liminal entities are numinous or “spiritual,” if “magical” is too strong a word. They are living energies containing ideas, information, and specific instinctual patterns of behavior and life functions. Profoundly personal and universal, imaginal figures interpenetrate our everyday lives.

Psychodynamics formerly transformed in ritual, must now be lived through our own experience and woundedness. Enduring archetypes tangibly effect us throughout our life cycles. They are a matrix of imagery, sensations, symbols, percepts, emotions, etc. where matter and mind meet.

Symbols arise and take shape from every conflict. They seem to have a life of their own because the guiding transcendent function is mobilized by the conflict of opposites. Inexplicable, paradoxical images challenge what we think we know and feel as our boundaries dissolve.

Archetypes insinuate themselves into our motivations, preferences, and decisions. Uncertainty, non-linearity, dis-equilibrium, and unpredictability of change in systems is inherent in such self-organizing dynamics. Non-linearity means that participation changes the game of life.

Thus, we spontaneously move from chaos and disorder to a new order. This coherent system of forms without mass or energy guides imagination, perception, and thinking. Our struggles can be of mythic dimensions, not just personal though they exist in us all. The shapes change but the core remains the same. Archetypal images, symbols, and themes recur timelessly in our dreams and lives.

The regenerative secret is found in the blessed darkness of the soul. To heal the trauma vortex of the instinctual primitive complexes, the body unconscious, energy and information must awaken and flow between the archetypal core and the disorganized survival complex. Live embodied images are eidetic, vivid images not objectively present, yet restorative when consciously integrated.

Every spiritual tradition seeks to unite with transcendent reality, which has the symbolic and transformational meaning of rebirth, regenerative charge. It's in the heart. The heart wells up. We have to turn to it with our whole heart. Beauty convulses the heart with yearning.

"The dynamism of instinct is lodged as it were in the infra-red part of the spectrum, whereas the instinctual image lies in the ultra-violet part. . . . The realization and assimilation of instinct never take place at the red end, i.e., by absorption into the instinctual sphere, but only through integration of the image which signifies and at the same time evokes the instinct, although in a form quite different from the one we meet on the biological level."  [Jung, "On the Nature of the Psyche," CW 8, par. 414.]

"Psychologically . . . the archetype as an image of instinct is a spiritual goal toward which the whole nature of man strives; it is the sea to which all rivers wend their way, the prize which the hero wrests from the fight with the dragon." [Ibid., par. 415.]

As in physics, the basis of the material world is virtual or non-material. Meister Eckhart said, “The visible things are out of the oneness of the divine light”, and they exist in the empirical world as “actualization of their ‘virtual being.” (Kopper J., 1955, Die Metaphysik Meister Eckharts)

As potentials, we only become aware of archetypes through their manifest phenomena, their effects. As a cosmic organizing principle, information is equal to matter and energy. If consciousness is a primordial factor, everything else emerges from it. Jung says, “That the world inside and outside ourselves rests on a transcendent background is as certain as our own existence.” (Jaffé A., Was C. G. Jung a Mystic?, 1989, pg.4.)

Primordial consciousness points back to the center of creation, the ground of non-material form, the inner world, and depth dimension. It is a property of indivisible cosmic wholeness. We can think of this world as a mind-like ocean from which Aphrodite arises as radiant cosmic potentiality.

Archetypes interpenetrate our ordinary world, shaping the structure of our lives. Magic is inherent in our instinctual roots. The 'supernatural' or netherworld is the truly chaotic world of our primordial unconscious, an invisible and non-empirical world of forms not material things. But such non-personal potentials appear in and act in the ordinary world as the essence of life, archetypal concepts, and physical forms. Cosmic connections manifest the mystical mind.

Awareness of the realm of myth, poetry, image, dreams, and meaning is the realization of the imaginal. Living myths are not true or false, but effective or not. Imagination is the ground of becoming -- the basis of all subjective self-identity, cognitive and sensory activity.

We can imagine love as all co-evolutionary interaction. Transcendence seethes with immanence. Transcendence must remember its immanent context, and immanence must remember its transcendent implications.

Myths involve us in the world and our destiny. Deeper experience lies beyond our fear, panic, pain, and all previous personal reference points. Rebirth is immersion in the uncontrollable source. Reintegration suddenly releases the build up of tension, pain and anxiety. Automatized reflexivity of consciousness ceases.

Our self-image is the mirror of what we are. Ego death is complete boundary dissolution or Loss of subjective self-identity. A recurrent mythic theme and metaphor, psychic death is the fundamental transformation of psyche, a transition through self-surrender. 

The Tao Te Ching suggests, "Free from desire you realize the mystery. Caught in desire you see only the manifestations." Beyond words, beyond space−time, beyond self, there are no visions, no sense of self, no thoughts - just pure awareness and ecstatic freedom from roles, rules, rituals, goals, strategies, values, language.

Dan Merkur describes, "... an imageless experience in which there is no sense of personal identity. It is the experience that remains possible in a state of extremely deep trance when the ego-functions of reality-testing, sense-perception, memory, reason, fantasy and self-representation are repressed."

This personal unconscious is a substrate of phenomenal consciousness, the relative state of the mind, individual potential for subjective experience. Repressed or suppressed energies have the unconscious qualities of the level of darkness at which they exist. It leads to misperceptions and explanation out of context.

The creative substratum is everywhere this same human psyche and this same human brain, which, with relatively minor variations, functions everywhere in the same way. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Page xxix

This is the also the wellspring of creativity. The primal link with creativity is manifest in feeling states, connective spaces, carried forward by visions that allow us to go beyond words, and ordinary time toward healing potential and intuitive wisdom informed by creative source and the undercurrent realm.

Meaning is a connection at the level of semantic significance, old patterns interacting and reorganizing in new ways and higher order. An 'aha' or click makes an interpretation concrete. It stops the analogizing process in a single meaning, ending it with a symbolic literalism, rather than following the metaphorical process. We stop imagining prematurely. We don't need to solve a riddle, but live a mystery.

" ....interpretations are relative, that they are not absolutely true. But we interpret for the same reasons that for which fairy tales and myths were told: because it has a vivifying effect and gives a satisfactory reaction and brings one into peace with one's unconscious instinctive substratum..." ~ M.L. von Franz

Even deeper is the absolute groundstate of naked awareness, the heart of the matter -- the primordial field. In ancient times no one had decided what was 'real.' We say 'reality' is always observable. We still have no meaningful definitions of subjective or objective reality and consciousness.

We can't adopt any standpoint outside the psyche, yet we cannot even say what psyche is, as Jung notes.  Still, the soul faces the fundamental question of how to live on earth and chooses the image we live and holds our destiny in the heart.

Only the soul can penetrate the thickness of life. We are each the substrate of reality, inseparable from the surrounding reality. In primordial awareness the boundaries of real and unreal, outside and inside remain fluid.

"The term 'transcendent knowledge that knows things in their variety' refers to the fact that although one abides within the sphere of the essential nature of intrinsic awareness, unimpeded avenues of all-knowing, all-cognizing awareness occur in and of themselves." (Richard Barron, Dudjom Lingpa)

"Even while dwelling in the essential nature of pristine awareness, the self-emergence of unimpeded consciousness that is all-knowing and all-cognizing is the wisdom that perceives the full range of phenomena." (B. Alan Wallace, Dudjom Lingpa)

We can easily strip ourselves naked, but it is something else to bare our soul, and even more to stand in naked awareness, fresh and unadulterated. Primordial awareness shines forth as original wisdom, self-originated, eternal, and unborn clear light of absolute reality. Such light is more than a metaphor of the eternal.

Chuang Tzu says, "The Tao obscures when we only look at fragments of existence." The obscuring of the light, the very ground of being is felt as death or deprivation and annihilation. Intrinsic awareness is the true state that cannot die. It has been called the heart of the Buddhas of past, present, and future.

Jung found, "an extension or extensibility of consciousness into the subconscious mind." When the groundstate recognizes its own nature, self-arising uncreated wisdom instantaneously shines forth as manifest luminous brilliance -- unthought and unthinkable unconsciousness. Open nothingness is the nucleus of radiant light at the heart of all beings. Love is the ground of awareness, pure love as light.

Arising spontaneously, our essential nature shines inside our own minds, free of conceptual elaboration. Even grasping for embodiment is released into empty luminosity. Denuded awareness is unborn and undying naked reality shining through your own experience as self-realization.

Soul joins the physical and spiritual in the middle of nature, binding the infinite parts of the world. Giordano Bruno thought of all the elements of reality as sentient beings, and Goethe as a spiritual potential only realized in the human body. Our imaginal substance is made of the relationships we have in the world.

What 'signifies' is a significant influence. "The object becomes aesthetically significant when it becomes metaphysically significant," says Campbell. Science tells us that self-organization and information are properties of reality as matter and energy embodied in cosmos shared among infinite levels of nonlocal organization and meaning. But reality's heart is one envisioned by multiple perspectives in Jung's dual-aspect monism.

Fundamental oneness splits herself in two. Everywhere in the world people love. It is a mystery why we fall in love with one person rather than another beyond the biology of behavior. Are our projected images of our persona, shadow, anima/animus, or authentic core? How can we become more fully human?

In our animal self, we are grounded in anatomy. Our primitive animal brain reacts nonstop whether we want it to or not. Genes in the serotonin system are linked to religiosity and how we express that. Estrogen/oxytocin is a negotiator; testosterone is the director; serotonin is the builder, but dopamine is the explorer.

High dopamine is novelty seeking. Love at first sight is a very primal response linked to need, craving, focus, motivation, all triggered in an instant. Love is a feeling of self-expansion. For women, mental arousal leads to physical arousal.

We all combine all these temperaments and personality styles. Similarity attracts, high dopamine wants high dopamine, high serotonin wants high serotonin -- and opposites attract as folk wisdom suggests. How can we become more collaborative in a society where both men and women are valued?

Males are interested in rank, while women seek connection. The sex hormones determine who we are drawn to intimately with the anchoring gaze. There is web thinking or step thinking. Intuition is chunking patterns and ordering them into clusters in longterm memory to see entire patterns at once.

In that "in between" place, in the imaginal world, we can access who we are at the heart of it all, grasping symbols by the power of the heart. The wise heart and the aching heart are one in the same. Our life stories are written upon it. So we continue to burn until we accept our solitude and learn to love from the creative impulse that is god within us, the imminent object of worship that fills us with the divine breath of eternal spirit.

When we are loved the world feels new, refreshed by a translucent radiance, We  feel reborn with awe and wonder. When the heart breaks we descend into its realm even deeper; we are forced down to the simplest things. We can go through our difficulties in a conscious way, with clarity and self-understanding, breathing through thresholds, imagining and re-imagining possible worlds, seeking what is indestructible within.

Slivers of insight, fragments of a lively examined life, can coalesce in myriad ways. We submit ourselves again and again to the intrigue of a hall of mirrors where ideas and images bounce off one another. Divine light illuminates memory and faith stares down doubt and fear. We hear the siren songs of possibility, of creation.

“The creative process, so far as we are able to follow it at all, consists in the unconscious activation of an archetypal image, and in elaborating and shaping this image into the finished work. By giving it shape, the artist translates it into the language of the present, and so makes it possible for us to find our way back to the deepest springs of life...” (Jung, v. 15).

Ancestral Mother

Just as the father represents collective consciousness, the traditional spirit, so the mother stands for the collective unconscious, the source of the water of life.
~Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, Page 71.

The concept of soul embraces the essence of our particular individuality while spirit is universal. Spirit and soul are both sacred; they imbue life with meaning, beauty, and mystery. Spirit and soul are both spiritual or transpersonal—they exist beyond the personal, beyond the conventional mind or personality. They might each be referred to as the “sacred Other.” In the most primal form they personify Earth Mother and Sky Father.

Each of us, every living being, is a small earth, one could say, because we are in intimate connection with the earth, we are partially earth, we are conscious of our earthly body, for instance. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Pages 1158-1159

Earth is our primordial groundstate. Earth's generative powers include life, death, and rebirth. Earth is the womb of rebirth, as is the underworld. Rebirth occurs in deep states where ego is 'dead' or absent. The cyclic time of renewal shapes that experience.

The physicality and sexuality of embodiment evoke spontaneous affection when we are not sourced from survival, but from our accountable and sovereign queenly nature in which the new can arise. Early kings in Sumeria, Babylon, Egypt, Phoenicia and other ancient lands couldn’t rule unless they had a hieros gamos (“holy marriage”) with the Goddess incarnated in the queen.

Heiros gamos is a mystic marriage or union. Symbolized in alchemy by the coniunctio, it stands for conjunction of conscious and unconscious. Mysterium Coniunctionis ("mysterious conjunction") is the final alchemical synthesis. For Jung, ego and unconscious, matter and spirit, male and female brings forth the Philosopher's Stone (the Self). For alchemist Gerard Dorn,  its highest aspect was the unus mundus, a unification of the Stone with body, soul, and spirit.

Rebirth rites originated in shamanic practices of ascent and descent to the dark center, the fountain of vegetative and fight/flight animal  energy. The human animal became a human being with a vulnerable heart in love with what is yet unborn in us. We have to learn to know what is 'enough.'

Animism is the metaphorical thought that attributes animalistic and human characteristics to gods, spirits, and animals. It is a religious instinct about life and death, sleep and dreams, nature and the mystery of being.

Paleolithic Venus figures are embodiments of experience, life passages. Representations have been found ranging from slim youths, to pregnant, to matronly. Humans, animals, vegetation, and rain were bound in the death/rebirth cycle.

Interpreters speculate that the arousal and transmutation of sexual energy transcends the mundane and brings us back to the pure source of enlightenment. At the moment of death or transcendence, this energy rises again or sinks deeper into rebirth. A mythologized female figure could represent both Ancestral Mother and the spirit of ‘death’ as an aspect of rebirth. With a Paleolithic lifespan of 33 years, fertility and rebirth rites were a natural reaction to the immanence of death.

Jung noted, "On the primitive level the totemistic rite of renewal is always a reversion to the half animal, half human condition of prehistoric times. (Letters Vol. I, Pages 259-261)

Neolithic snake cults were universal. The serpent arouses fear and longing. The snake shedding its skin symbolizes renewal of primal life force energy: death and rebirth, healing, transformation, and immortality.

"Since the time of the old Gnostics, the serpent has been the symbol for the brain and its appendages; that is, for the lower centres of the brain and for the spinal cord, partly on account of its shape, but also from introspective reasons." ~Carl Jung, ETH, Alchemy, Page 216.

Jung identifies kundalini with anima, and likens the womb to the sexual chakra as "receptacle of the souls of the dead," and "the womb of rebirth, the "baptismal fount." The dark center is the kundalini root of all, where energy is inert and consciousness coiled asleep; potential life lies motionless. It ruthlessly destroys all that is not our true individuality or appropriate life path. 

Aphrodite has been associated with Inanna, Astarte, Ishtar, and the Minoan Snake Goddess. They are her precursors. As Astarte, she was the goddess of fertility and sexuality and her worship was orgiastic. Her temples had serpentine motifs, reflecting an original impulse to make a mark. Some myths of creation refer to snakes as the reborn dead.

Jung said, "Dionysian frenzy was a backwash of sexuality." (Letters, Vol I, 14) In the Dionysus cult the snake signified wisdom and was the symbol of fertility. The serpent swallowing its own tail is a symbol of eternity and wisdom expressed through healing which reorganizes our breakdowns. That influx of energy can be interpreted as a light, pure god, or union with the true self.

“Not until a person dissolves can he or she know what union is. There is a descent into emptiness,” says Rumi, and Inanna is first person who reported doing so.

Foundation Myths
Love gets the blood flowing in the veins again. It brings light to the internal darkness. As we get older, we may doubt our lives, yearning to become immortal like the mythic Gilgamesh, whose search is unsuccessful. A failure to eat of the tree of life, symbolizing inner sovereignty, leaves him mortal, yearning, and suffering.

Inanna, as Goddess of Love and the great serpent-dragon of heaven, generates the energy of the universe. Creativity, procreativity, raw sexual energy and passion are her powers.

"The dragon is a powerful mythic symbol that represents feminine principles. Often associated with mountains (breasts) and caves (vagina or womb), Sumer's dragons are said to dwell in the great abyss of depth and nothingness, the nether world. In that the word for the great dragon of the abyss in Sumerian myths is the same as the word for the underworld itself (kur), some of their attributes may be conflated and thereby become synonymous. "The serpent and the dragon reveal her [Inanna's] connection with the underworld aspect of the Neolithic goddess and with Nammu, the serpent goddess of the abyss" (Baring & Cashford 195).


This journey of descent prepares us to live in the world with its harsh need to change us. We fall toward the center of our longing into the unfamiliar spiritual realm. Like her we must approach the creation/destruction dark side of ourselves for experiential knowledge and transformation of self-identity. Such a dark night of the soul cannot be known or even imagined beforehand. The journey is dangerous, and you can lose yourself. The mythic moment is otherwise unexplainable, but one rises to the moment.

It is a conscious choice to change one's life forever. Such a descent is a calling, an initiatory pilgrimage. What we feel inside is what propels us. She has to go to reunite with the dark part of herself by surrendering her self-perception, arrogance, and personal agenda. She accepts being open, exposed, and vulnerable. She discovers the necessity of sacrifice and death for the cycles of life to continue. This increases her power, understanding, and beauty.

Abandoning heaven and earth, we yearn to give immortality to our mortal love. As mortals we are all hurt and suffer and find that death comes all too soon, but we all have the potential to love. “Death is our friend, precisely because it brings us into absolute and passionate presence with all that is here, that is natural, that is love,” as Rilke says.

When the fertility goddess descends she engenders something new in herself. She dies and loses her powers in her encounter with mortality. In times of life passage, we embody a liminal psychological state of ordinary and eternal perception, where the visible and invisible worlds intersect. Paradox beckons us to dissolve and merge with the formless, shapeless, unborn chaotic potential--to transform through repatterning by the whole--to reiterate the process of unfolding creation from nothingness.

In her active surrender, personality structure completely dissolves in the union of heart and consciousness in felt-experience. She surrenders her self-identity, what she thought made up herself: her divinity, her personal power, her magic, her authenticity, her emotional heart, her creativity, and finally, her life force.

Glorious progeny is as close as a mortal can come to immortality. Like Inanna, we find the secret of divinity in the immensity of worlds by placing ourselves in the hands of the eternal for primordial affirmation, hinted at by a sacred marriage, the gift of fertility, the refinement of rapture. Such penetration engenders transformation of self-image. It works because it is an authentic movement.

Her myths sustain us in our own descent each time we turn our attention from consciousness to the unconscious, the dark mirror of the soul. We seek the wisdom that unites the two, a passionate, beseeching urgency to care for soul.

In the marriage of heaven and earth we are engulfed by divine presence. The divine in us seeks union when we open to spirit completely engaged in what we are doing. Thus, meditation is a life-release process, wherein the mystic 'dies daily.'

Inanna is restored to life by the magic of wisdom and spiritual initiation, having voluntarily made the descent. The spiritual rebirth preserved in the ground myth is still fully alive in human consciousness with the wisdom of both life and death, and the regeneration of the natural world through the immortality of the soul. What is buried is bodily resurrected, having endured the trials of the depths. Only rebirth unites the tension of above and below.

This myth of Inanna's descent is the very first written story. The roles of men and women are imagined in more creative and fluid ways as spiritual and psychological liberation, or independent self-defining integrity.

Written by her serpent priestess, this earliest written portrayal of an ancient goddess represents the first existing account of an individual's consciousness of her inner life. Physical and perceived spaces become less absolute. Mappings become symbolical, multi-dimensional.

With no literal truth, reality becomes metaphor. In the mythic and epic scale humans are small. In intimacy we become very important and loom large to one another. Sometimes we state the obvious or merely suggest it. Aphrodite suggests that destiny is governed by the planetary powers, by destinies which cannot be conquered by will. We surrender to the experience. We have to confront the destructiveness that is one pole of the creative instinct.

The Rising Tide of Emotion
In great intimacy the beloved may mean freedom, something abandoned, truly physical. From the first touch we see our mind, body, and soul reflected through the eyes of another and call that divine, a bridge to the gods.

Cosmic overtones link anima and Anima Mundi, the soul of the world. The mystic becomes absorbed into the beloved object of desire. Moments of fullness are psychologically creative eros and surrender to the ineffable. When the Soul has become one with the Beloved, Sacred Union is immutable.
 
On the edge of life and experience we are looking down into the darkness and danger of it all. The circularity, fluidity and mirroring make us ask, "is it history or is it myth?" Our perception distorts history.

Jung says, "in going back into any state where there is no ego consciousness, there is regeneration." (Visions Seminar, Pg 1144) We have to let go of the ego structures that have kept our identity and self-image in place, and surrender to the greater awareness of our whole being. Soul surrenders to the immanent divine by giving up everything, including its own illusory existence.

Destiny is different from the reality we may be experiencing. Life's great lesson is that love and fate will lay you bare, strip you naked, and force you to surrender. We must die and surrender egoic control to love and trust it, in order to find and be transformed by our own unwanted, unclaimed, and denied aspects. Sometimes it takes surrendering our dreams and opportunities for self expression.

Destiny is larger than what goes on in the heart. Because everything is partially hidden, we start to imagine what is felt. The darkness comes to us in doubt, in our mortality. The contradictory world merges into another world, a timeless world, where desire becomes a crescendo or rising tide of emotion, integrating will and surrender. We act, but are also acted upon by transpersonal forces. We must embrace them willingly in our descent to experience the mysteries of transcending duality.

Our mythopoetic instinct arises to create myth, to see the patterns and the beauty, With it, we choose to decide, to act, and to give shape to spirit with the wisdom of experience. Our search for the divine is ultimately about transcendence and reconciling dichotomies. The sacrifice of surrender leads to acceptance. Creative and unifying forces exist within polarities.

We give our heart to nourish another. Thus I saw that the lover survives, and that he is the one who unwittingly grants hospitality to the Gods. ~Carl Jung to Philemon, Liber Novus, Page 315

In this aspirational process we have to divest our role-bound persona (the me), social mask, or self-image, and wrestle with personal and collective shadow of intolerable moral dilemmas. We undergo symbolic death (ego death), and form a passionate sacred union with the Beloved.

The divine darkness of uncreated light is uplifting or transcendent. Vision is perceived by intense concentration on the background of consciousness. Insights are transformed into dreams, to eventually manifest as reality.

The internal search begins with a passionate desire to know. Having named and witnessed her pain, Inanna returns with direct knowledge of pain and darkness, having experienced them for herself. She reclaims her perceptions, personal power, self-worth, voice, empathy, authority, creativity, life force, and divinity. Her meaning remains simply, herself.

"The meaning of events is the way of salvation that you create. The meaning of events comes from the possibility of life in this world that you create. It is the mastery of this world and the assertion of your soul in this world." ~Carl Jung,
The Red Book, Page 239.

Her authentic spirit is revealed in self-arising compassion and the splendor of naked awareness, reflecting both immanence and transcendence embodied in a new level of being. She is more authentic, more powerful, more knowing, more compassionate, more present. Compelled to abandon our accepted framework, we discover a new one and can never again see the world in that old way.

“When you surrender to what is, and so become fully present, the past ceases to
have any power. The realm of Being, which had been obscured by the mind, then opens up. Suddenly, a great stillness arises within you, an unfathomable sense of peace. And within that peace, there’s great joy. And within that joy, there’s love.
And at the innermost core, there’s the Sacred, the Immeasurable, that which cannot be named.” --Eckhart Tolle

THE HEART OF THE MATTER
Accepting the Mystery

"Mythology opens the world so that it becomes transparent to something that is beyond speech, beyond words––in short, what we call transcendence. Without that you don't have a mythology. Any system of thinking, ideologies of one kind or another, that does not open to transcendence cannot be understood or classified mythologically." --Joseph Campbell, "The Hero’s Journey"

The Great Mystery is transcendence, formless or primordial awareness -- our original abode, the unrevealed state, the instinctive unconscious, pure consciousness, a revelation of the essence of being.

Transcendence is an irrational experience, beyond our conceptual grasp. Alchemy, as a transcendental search or quest, seeks liberation from the world through the knowledge of immortality, through the union of opposites, which are united in our center healing polarized thinking.

To 'stop forgetting,' we can approach truth through reason, intuitive knowing, and living myth. Myths live when recognized in life as eternal mirrors of the soul. They give enduring significance and meaning to our human experience through the stirrings of imagination and archetypal patterns that illuminate our self-explorations.

"The "anima rationalis" is the reasonable mind of man, which is really the highest form of the human psyche, worthy of immortality." ~Carl Jung, ETH, Lecture XI, Page 96.

'Mythos' in Greek means to close the mouth or close the eyes. The root 'mu' means 'to close; or ;keep secret.' Myth deals with the phenomenon of the soul whose organ is the heart, the heart of the matter and the heart of myth.

Muo means to close the eyes or mouth, or mute the voice, as in contemplation -- the silence and intuitive insight that give meaning to life.. It also implies closing a wound, which could be psychic or physical, maybe psychophysical, and even the concept of mass.

Mystery and mysticism share a root, associated with a sense of darkness. We don't see very clearly in that obscure silent realm, the timeless dimension. The self-sustaining imaginal substrate underlies our world and the paradoxes of love.

"The darkness which clings to every personality is the door into the unconscious and the gateway of dreams, from which those two twilight figures, the shadow and the anima, step into our nightly visions or, remaining invisible, take possession of our ego-consciousness." ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 222.

We must approach the Holy Grail of the unconscious with love and devotion, as we do in art and creativity. We can only apprehend divine reality, authentic spiritual experiences of the divine Nous, in the elusive present of the ontological and metaphysical ground -- connective experiences to the innate powers of nature and our nature. Mythic distance is emotional, not spatial.

We have philosophical explanations for the phenomena of good and evil, religion and spirituality, and the union of natural and spiritual powers -- the influx of self- and cosmic-knowledge. Personal meaning becomes a way of life.

"We must have a psychic image of the body, in order to become conscious of it, we must translate the Physical fact of the body into a psychic experience." ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 26 Jan 1940

The nature of proto-consciousness is virtual and its character is intentional. Connecting beyond the body to the essence of consciousness  punctuates the fear, trauma, and emotional anguish in the gaps between each breath.

The nature of life is such that we can never be sure of taking another breath with the opportunity to question ourselves, to expose ourselves to life, death, madness, ecstasies, or wisdom. Instead we live between the desire for eternity and the wants and needs of temporality, which asks everything of us.

What we know is our phenomenal existence, one sensuous moment to the next, the transcendent and immanent power of self-discovery of one's own being. Self-transformation in the intensity and immediacy of inward reality spans ontology and phenomenology with living metaphor -- metaphysical transformation, integrated presence.

Rather than a being, the divine may be a direction to our own Being to fulfill our existential desires through grace. In longing for the lost other, we are caring for the soul of the world through both a cosmic and human approach, self-manifestation of the divine in human nature. Anima Mundi is our core nature.

"But there is something which can be proved from everyday experience, not body becoming spirit, but body becoming conscious, man becomes conscious of his body." ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture IX, Page 221

"The anima behaves exactly like a definite person, yet she is also a function, her true function being the connection between the conscious and the unconscious; there the anima is in her right place." ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Pages 204-205

We hide ourselves in the joys and horrors of experience, in the borderlands of time between the eternities, in pathos, obligations, and reverence, in the necessary polarity of opposites of paradoxical experience, in the deepest desires of our hearts. Our own transcendent mystery of human existence is solved or dissolved in naked awareness.

We question natural process itself about the underlying nature of ultimate reality. We are immersed in the sweetness and pleasure born of the soul beyond the suffering, even in self-transcending experience -- thrilled with the joy of life and death -- the seal of the promise of eternal love as the instantaneous transformation of One to None.

"If you do not differentiate yourselves from sexuality and from spirituality, and do not regard them as an essence both above and beyond you, you are delivered over to them as qualities of the Pleroma." ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 353.

"The numinous element appears in the process of becoming, in the process of manifesting, in the process of building, toward what is to us a future event of perfection. All that precedes that dawn is prologue, including the dream world in which we live, for this can be conceptualized as no more than the numinous element trying out different facets of its power and energy through the medium of our individualized lives, ...when housed in us, it is able, if but in the blink of a man's lifetime, to blend its awesome power with the personal element which it alone lacks: it is able in a finite life to become complete, and to pre-figure the "far-off Divine event" of the poet, when all having been brought to perfection, the All will fully cognize the All. Thus each individual life is part of an eternal prologue in which the numinous element is being perfected and completed to a new and more glorious dawn." ==John Gowan, Trance, Art, and Creativity

The rustic seer, Thoreau said of this revealing process: "Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star."

And that morning star is Aphrodite, heralding new life to come (both good and bad), desires, impulses, mutual fascination, and illumination that ultimately allows us to merge with the higher aspects of divine nature -- the mystery of existence. Soul forms the body and outer life. She is the center that unfolds the whole world and the universe of starry heavens.

"It is even very important that the anima is projected into the earth, that she descends very low, for otherwise her ascent to the heavenly condition in the form of Sophia has no meaning…She is the one that is rooted in the earth as well as in the heaven, both root and branch of the tree." Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, P.533.

Her symbol is a living body, the natural beauty or supernatural mystique of our world, the intelligence embodied in nature. "The symbols of the self arise in the depths of the body and they express its materiality every bit as much as the structure of the perceiving consciousness. The symbol is thus a living body, corpus et anima." (Jung; CW 9i; para 291.) The transcendent or integrative function arises from the tension between consciousness and unconscious and supports their union.


Aphrodite, the Mystery
Mythical figures, like our subject Aphrodite, are eternal metaphors of the imagination, the dynamics of psychic reality. She links our matter to our soul. We can approach her theistically, psychologically, anthropologically, and experientially. She may be peaceful and joyous or very exciting, intense, and otherworldly.

In her more exalted form, the anima is raised from a temptress to a psychopomp, a wisdom figure who inspires and leads us into experiences and awareness. We can catch the unconscious contents that well up from the depths of ourselves. Metaphors make connections in the mythical realm of all fantasies and desires. Myth has the power to revolutionize our vision with mythic reflection.

"The symbolic form of love (animus-anima) shrinks from nothing, least of all from sexual union." --Carl Jung, Letters Volume 1, Pages 213-214.

We all know the cliches: love is a journey, a flower, a fire, a garden, a tree, a pilgrimage, a light, a magician, a dream, a sickness, an addiction, an ocean, a time machine, a jewel, an art, or a game. But there is so much more than rising or falling in love in the depths of the mytheme, including forming a relationship with something greater than yourself.

We understand psyche as the main and unique condition of existence, as immediate knowledge and image. The subconscious shapes our reality. Jung approached soul as a living self-existing entity. Energy as form is subtle matter in continuous creation. Our internal model of perceived reality is rooted in the wonder of life and our soulful experience of love.

"The meaning of events is the way of salvation that you create. The meaning of events comes from the possibility of life in this world that you create. It is the mastery of this world and the assertion of your soul in this world." ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 239.

"Did you not see that when your creative force turned to the world, how the dead things moved under it and through it, how they grew and prospered, and how your thoughts flowed in rich rivers? If your creative force now turns to the place of the soul, you will see how your soul becomes green and how its field bears wonderful fruit." ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 236.

"My friends, it is wise to nourish the soul, otherwise you will breed dragons and devils in your heart." ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 232.

"Hence I had to speak to my soul as to something far off and unknown, which did not exist through me, but through whom I existed." ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 232.

"Thus your soul is your own self in the spiritual world. As the abode of the spirits, however, the spiritual world is also an outer world." ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 288.

"I am weary, my soul, my wandering has lasted too long, my search for myself outside of myself." ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 233.

Being With
Jung says, "The greater part of the soul is outside the body." But also, "He whose desire turns away from outer things, reaches the place of the soul." (The Red Book, Page 233). Campbell noted: "nature, as we know, is at once without and within us. Art is the mirror at the interface. So too is ritual; so also myth."

"Man is a gateway, through which you pass from the outer world of Gods, daimons, and souls into the inner world, out of the greater into the smaller world. Small and inane is man, already he is behind you, and once again you find yourselves in endless space, in the smaller or inner infinity." ~Carl Jung; The Red Book; Page 354.

"The world of the inner is as infinite as the world of the outer. Just as you become a part of the manifold essence of the world through your bodies, so you become a part of the manifold essence of the inner world through your soul. This inner world is truly infinite, in no way poorer than the outer one. Man lives in two worlds." ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 264.

French philosopher, Jean-Luc Nancy claims, "The real outside is 'at the heart' of the inside." In Being Singular Plural, Nancy argues that being is always “being with,” that “I” is not prior to “we,” that existence is essentially co-existence."

Our being is conditioned by relationships with archetypes, a process-oriented authenticity -- a conscious self-reflexive relationship to experience. The implicit ground requires interaction with symbols, attentions, words, and actions.

". . . we constantly use symbolic terms to represent concepts that we cannot define or fully comprehend. This is one of the reasons why all religions employ symbolic language or images." ~Carl Jung; Man and His symbols; P. 4

Our mundane and ethical imperative is to authentically engage in meaningful speech and action, to become "transparent to transcendence," as Campbell said. The  transcendent shows and shines through those archetypal deities, including the sublime presence of Aphrodite. Jung said, "Therefore the spirit of the depths forced me to speak to my soul, to call upon her as a living and self-existing being." (The Red Book, Page 232.)

"There is no meaning if meaning is not shared, and not because there would be an ultimate or first signification that all beings have in common, but because meaning is itself the sharing of Being,” Nancy alleges.

Nancy imagines “being-with” not as comfortable containment in a pre-existing group, but as a mutual abandonment and exposure to each other, one that preserves the “I” and its freedom in a mode of imagining community as neither a “society of spectacle” nor via some form of authenticity. We find meaning in a true experience captured or represented in an intuitive framework in which it can be appreciated.

Love is a poetics of depth -- a way of experiencing the ineffable through relationship. It is an experience of the mystery dimension in everyday reality that carries us through the course of life. A poetic revelation of the eternal mystery of our own being becomes luminous through self-revelation between the polarities of impenetrable objectivity and consuming subjectivity.

We realize our own identity with that light of eternity by shifting our focus between the phenomenal and the transcendent. Eternity is pictured as radiance. The radiance of the mythic world comes shining through. As we approach the soul we touch on the heart, again and again. We wander through the world with our human heart.

Longing, connectivity, and erotic charge lie at the heart of all our interactions -- the mysteries and shadow of love. Regression in love is often necessary for naive, receptive consciousness. Consciousness of what is happening is a redeeming principle. The mystic path is also love's compulsion.

Soul is a vehicle to the heart's destination. The heart glows. Vision becomes clear as we look into the heart, but our vision of the world isn't the truth of all things. We intuit our way along, groping and grasping. You can't argue with a fantasy, or belief, or even the cultural ideology of love. Even ideas and theories are prayers of the heart. Imagination is the heart's organ of knowledge.

James Hillman claims, “the imaginal, mythical transposition implies that all erotic phenomena whatsoever, including erotic symptoms, seek psychological consciousness and that all psychic phenomena, whatsoever, including neurotic and psychotic symptoms, seek erotic embrace."

Where is the Real Life in My Life?
We live both inwardly and outwardly. Dealing with the unconscious is a question of life. The juxtaposition of visible and invisible engenders and informs life and energetic awareness. Myth is embodied in godforms, indigenous inhabitants of psyche.

Aphrodite is prominent among them. Love, beyond romanticism, is an essential part of our essence -- the source of living waters. Love brings a train of amplified archetypal effects in its wake. Revelation of spiritual contact with the divine makes us carriers of living water.

The hidden mystery of life is always hidden between Two, and it is the true mystery which cannot be betrayed by words or depleted by arguments.
~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 581.

Myth is a revelation of the divine life in humanity, our unconscious grasp of the history of the world, the wild energies of creation, our sense of awe, and unconditioned life.

Myths live through our behaviors as we live through their stories. Are not both love and ignorance purported to be bliss? Should we then follow our ignorance? Love is also called blind.

Love can be a path for a consciously realized life. Service is a big component of love. Aphrodite's nature links us to all living beings with a bond of love and a heart-centered myth, rooted in embodied love, compassion, and passion. Heavenly and common Aphrodite share the goal of union. She unites the immanent and transcendent in a sacred marriage.

Spiritual transcendence is independent of matter and physical laws. Transcendent primordial consciousness is beyond self-awareness and sentience. It transcends everything material.

But the spiritual world permeates the transcendent and the mundane. There are interdependent unconscious neural, phenomenological, and cognitive levels of embodiment within our heightened sense of immanence of primordial originating energy.

We don't have to try to transcend, counteract, or even define eternal and immutable elements. Mind is not separate from lived bodily experience. It is naturally more than our conceptual or narrative experience, including transcendence narratives. Our sense of transcendence arises out of and is held in check by awareness of immanencc.

For Hillman, psychological creativity develops in immanencc. As much a work of art as a myth, the ambiguous mythic paradigm includes doubt and knowingness, We have optimistic faith to create illuminating reflections in time and space, new mythic systems of meaning with a relevant sense of aesthetics, greater depth and sublimity.

A sexualizing structure imposes polarity in pursuit of union. We are suspended in a web of polarities--form and matter, the one and the many, eternity and time, soul and spirit, freedom and fate, instinct and intellect, risk and safety, love and hate. Revisioned myths have their own narratives, liturgies, hymns, ceremonies, scriptures, and deities, deployed as an artist paints a scene or a poem.

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” --Rainer Maria Rilke

The spirit of life dwells in the secret chambers of the heart, It is irrational, nonlinear, and entangled. Literal time disappears inside the mind. When time stops, love is the only thing we feel.

Through the embodiment of archetypes, we participate in a timeless experience of  universal mythic motifs, such as the Mirror of Heaven, cosmo-eroticism, or the timeless moment. The Kabbalists characterize the cosmos as nothing but the infinite emanations of love. Everything exists only because of love. The soul and personal love descend from the supernal source. Devotion is yearning of the soul.

"Archetypes are complexes of experience that come upon us like fate, and their effects are felt in our most personal life. The anima no longer crosses our path as a goddess, but, it may be, as an intimately personal misadventure, or perhaps as our best venture." (Jung; CW 9, Part I: Pg, 62.)

There are no consistent level-independent truths. Natural, underlying divisions are based on distinctions in mental, emotional and behavioral states of different instinctive drives. Even embodied truth is not absolute, objective truth, nor does it need to be. But it allows us self-reflection, the reflexive aesthetic quality of any event.

Soul Matters
It is the heart that recognizes our core experiences and issues -- how we create ourselves, how we transform ourselves, how we become what we become. Our own healing can also heal the generations before and after.

The heart responds to the senses. The truths of the heart are elemental. Hillman says, "The heart in the breast is not your heart only: it is a microcosmic sun, a cosmos of all possible experiences that no one can own."

He suggests we assign the heart as the seat of divinity, "The emotions of the heart are taken for religious revelations." We collect such revelations along our path.  We interpret mythic narratives through our psychic projections.

We intuit universal principles. Cosmic myths mean universal forms of truth accessible to all. We know the truth of clarity without the senses in our bones. The heart awakens, trembles, pounds, and leaps.

We need to speak of embodiment not as buzzword, branded therapy practice, or empty cliche in our work with the psychophysical self, dreams, events, and memories. We need to know it outside of the therapeutic or quasi-spiritual context in the deeply lived reality -- purposeful meaningful living and the intimacy of each particular event.

"I must learn that the dregs of my thought, my dreams, are the speech of my soul. I must carry them in my heart, and go back and forth over them in my mind, like the words of the person dearest to me. Dreams are the guiding words of the soul." ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 232.

Shared Vision; Shared Bodies
The heart perceives the face of intimacy, breathing portraits in naked time. In a real sense, each breath is an inspiration and orgasm of life, and each exhalation mirrors the dissolution of death. Ecstatic exchange of breath with the beloved and world melts away all cares and falsities in profound communion between cosmic and human being.

Campbell says, 'nirvana' literally means "blown out," the extinguishing of egoic personality merging with the great light. Colloquially, we speak of being 'blown away' with the awesome or beautiful, and sometimes with sorrow, grief, or horror.

"Grief is one of the heart’s natural responses to loss. When we grieve we allow ourselves to feel the truth of our pain, the measure of betrayal or tragedy in our life. By our willingness to mourn, we slowly acknowledge, integrate, and accept the truth of our losses. Sometimes the best way to let go is to grieve."
(Jack Kornfield)

Our consciousness is an eye that sees. Ritual structures our healing and worldview. We develop an eye for the unseen. Beauty! The soul possesses it and has an aesthetic nature. Aesthetic beauty is self-evident, automatically drawing our interest and attention. Divine self-revelation evokes our rapt fascination. Plato called it, "the very sensibility of the cosmos."

We light up, captivated by desire, enthusiasm, and compulsive projections when we engage an image, person, or inner figure. Transcendent beauty -- the power of love and the wonders of natural environment -- lifts us and inspires us to heroic aspirations. Beauty pulls us toward it, toward life potential. Beauty is visual truth;  simple truth needs no explanation.

We are enthralled, spellbound, captivated, riveted, gripped, mesmerized, enchanted, entranced, bewitched. Beauty is a profound visual lift. If we lose the rhythm and beauty of the world we naturally seek lesser substitutes. Sometimes we don't even know what we've lost.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty worked on the premise that no bodily function was without intrinsic significance and no psychological phenomena happen without being embodied. Noticing is sustained subtle attention. As we reinvent and expand our notions of embodiment, we resurrect soul, our psychophysical capacity for change and renewal, for heart as psychic center.

Soul Movement
Soul is our spiritual body. Aphrodite is energetic awareness, embodied holistic psychophysical dynamic flow, an influx from above or experiential ascent to the source of beauty. She is an immediate experience of the divine in relationship with the generative psychic-emotional-physical wound, and the path of individuation. When we access the level of fuller potential, we are more creative, intelligent and aware in every aspect of life. We reoccupy the heart of the world.

Soul coalesces in the fountain of wisdom and process-driven art. Images are there whether we deny, reject or acknowledge their revelations. Psychic events have a telos or integral aspect. We sense their purpose is therapeutic. Imagination bridges body and soul -- the material beating heart and the imaginal heart.

"Just as you become a part of the manifold essence of the world through your bodies, so you become a part of the manifold essence of the inner world through your soul." ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 264.

"I had to recognize that I am only the expression and symbol of the soul."
~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 234.

What we perceive with all our senses leaves an impression on the body. Aesthetics is a way of perceiving, a way of seeing. Perception makes art as much as the object being looked at, a serious examination of the nature of existence and comprehension of compressed potentiality.

Since images are psyche, Hillman has called imagination the act of soul-making or the crafting of images -- perception and de-literalization of the imaginal world through imagining and mythical appreciation. Looking or seeing through events and things to their imaginal image is not a method, but a way of living. Subjective perspectives deepen vision, reflection, rhetoric, values, and ideas.

James Hillman claims we are always in the "embrace of an idea," that "our
wrestling with [them] is a sacred struggle," "that soul-making takes place as
much through ideation as in personal relationships or meditation" (1975, pp. 121,
115).

All psychic complexes are intrinsically embodied with or without perceptual projection. Theophany is the appearance of a god to a human in everyday experience. Hillman reminds us, "but my symptoms indicate my soul as well as my soul shows me through them." Psyche autonomously creates suffering, disease, morbidity, and disorder.

The unconscious expresses itself in the emergent mythopoetic function, a glimpse into the transcendent dimension. Libido, the generalized life instinct, is spiritualized by the numinous energy of the living myth, by intention, thought, and desire.

Naturally Arising Light
"The feminine mind is pictorial and symbolic and comes close to what the ancients called Sophia." ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Page 189

We have to bridge the gap between symbols and the tactile world, learn to speak the language of the depths and see the sights with clarity, with vision. We engage in silent conversation, merging with the field of symbols -- the naked mind of the uncreated emptiness-luminosity.

The 'dark light' of the Gnostics is the same as the 'black sun' in alchemy, in which dualisms (body-mind, matter-spirit, evil-good, dark-light), are abolished in the eclipse of consciousness, which resonates with mystical experiences of the void.

An ancient Akkadian temple inscription says, “There is a black sun which is not visible to the human eye. It is our beacon and its fire burns within us.”  In myth, when the Sun sets, it shines in Tartaros. This Central Fire is called the Dark Sun, the Black Sun, Invisible Sun, Subterranean Sun or Volcanic Sun, This is a paradoxical unity between the Sun and the Underworld.  This Black Sun is a primordial and powerful symbol of a “god-concept,” embodied spiritual power of one's own being and inner vitality.

A 'pregnant darkness' is the presence of the divine hand at work in our psyche. We cope with our darkest hours by fostering a connection with deeper currents of life. Those psyche-matter mysteries give life form and meaning that breaths new life into us through heart-felt openings. Reconciliation of our shadow darkness and conflicts of opposites ushers in a softer illumination and renewed shining.

In Splendor Solis, the black sun, illuminates the nigredo, the dissolution of the body, a blackening of matter, or putrefaction. When we acknowledge and open to our wounds we experience a shamanic death—the alchemical nigredo—and open to the heavens and hells of deep subjectivity and archetypal reality. 

The dark-adapted eye of the soul deconstructs or displaces our everyday modes with rich and sensuous ways of seeing and illuminates our blind spots. We must work with both paradoxical aspects of nature and of ourselves, symbolical and experiential, to accomplish true transformation.

In The Pregnant Darkness, Wikman writes: “The mental work and understanding feeds another mystery, the mystery of the heart, where the being of light resides” (p. 161). Our work changes the way we live with ourselves, with others, with the divine and the world around us. Process transformation brings up the ethical consideration of how to live from the perspective of the wisdom revealed from the deep psyche.

As the necessary death before transformation and rebirth, this is the dark heart of the entire process -- the black light of psyche. Marlan says the Black Sun (Sol Niger) was one of the best-kept secrets in alchemy and intrinsic to nature of the psyche and subtle-body experiences.

Considered a source of great transformational power, it is basically a symbol of unconscious energy. To realize our true selves, we traverse the depths of our souls, ensnared in darkness, and come back. The landscapes of the soul are the psycho-cosmic domains of imaginal geography. Creating helps us dissolve the hardened defenses we build into ourselves.

It illuminates the dark night of the soul, the most negative psychic experiences, and also the most sublime. It is a key to  understanding archetypal images, psychological depression, spiritual trauma, and the transformation of the soul. There is significance to embracing our wild urges to express ourselves, psychologically, biologically, and spiritually.

The Black Sun divides consciousness as an independently existing Self. It is our deepest expression of Mercury, an example of the greater archetypal imagination as distinguished from the lesser humanistic imagination rooted in Western metaphysics and associated with the solar thinking function. The Black Sun breaks up the logical life of the soul and represents the "crack" in our psychological armor through which the light of true understanding can get in. The Black Sun is an alchemical force that is impossible to classify or "fix" in rational terms, and thus offers a truly new level of change. Within the dark effulgence of the Black Sun, modern psychology stands at the threshold of powerful new tools for healing and transformation. (Marlan)

Rumi tells us, "You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop." Wisdom light, ocean light, arises from the plenum suffused with understanding and non-verbal wisdom emerges. Transmission and reception of such direct absorption in the concentrated mysteries of silence is distilled into gnosis. The resilient and creative impulse feeds soul, spirit, and body.

Visionary power forms beauty in the language of images, as if from our own hearts and the yearning of the soul. The imaginative capacity to observe ourselves lies in the medium of immediacy. We are always arrested on the edge of passing, of death and the beauty of the power of life.

In creative flow, the heart integrates body, mind, and soul  in coherent patterns. It calms your mind and opens your intuition, which is key to meeting life’s challenges with grace. What arises in the heart conditions our feelings and philosophy. Hillman says, "When we fall in love, we begin to imagine; and when we begin to imagine, we fall in love."

The Perceptive Heart
The beautiful image may not be pretty but is coherent and meaningful. Even then we often interpret them incorrectly and misstep to learn a tough love lesson. We may or may not recognize our thoughts of love concerning our real needs vs. fantasy-driven behaviors.

Symbols bridge our instinctual and spiritual nature. In their undifferentiated forms they are good/bad, salvation/doom, health/sickness. A symbol stands for a partially unknown psychological reality. They help us navigate the unconscious and unify our subjective experience.

Symbols are evoked potentials whose effects persist long after the perceptual event. The phenomenological level can be brought into consciousness with presence, but the unconscious cognitive remains below awareness in kinesthetic, sensory, motor, visceral, and mental processing.

There is no single unified metaphysics. The level of complexity determines the level of insight. We assume the task of ‘form-giver’ and careful observer of these images and impulses ‘from the deep.’ They are translated into the metaphorical terms of daily life. So we look toward our existential ground state, which is primordial awareness devoid of all archetypal and conceptual notions and experience.

Direct experience is being attentive to what is right now -- the heart of beauty. Hillman says, "But the heart's way of perceiving is both a sensing and an imagining: to sense penetratingly we must imagine, and to imagine accurately we must sense." Gibran urges, "Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights. But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart's knowledge."

Archetypes are "shared truths," fundamental conceptual categories containing numerous qualities and facets, but their autonomy makes them more than our formal symbol system. To be 'realistic' we conceptually imagine their reality on the imaginal level, inferring their presence through our conceptual metaphors, which may be magical, mythic, rational, or transcendent. The descent into nature is a regression to archaic modes of thought, morality, and behavior.

There is no final or rigid corresponding fit, but an on-going dialogue of developing understanding, even love and devotion. We see our self-conscious reflections in the categories we create or imagine. Theories and intentions abound so we have to look to the real-world effects. Consciousness intentionally transforms its own self-organization.

What we take to be true depends on our embodied understanding of the situation. It is efficacious to work with the cognitive unconscious, our psychophysical ground. It is known in the silence and by the light of the heart -- the wisdom light, a sheer, overwhelming spirit-lifting force. Meditational practice works toward realizing such unbound basic awareness. This existential ground is the ultimate in being 'down to earth.'

Hillman says, "We use metaphors of light--a little flicker, a slow dawning, and a lightning flash--as things become clarified. When the clarity itself has become obvious and transparent, there seems to grow within it a new darkness, a new question or doubt, requiring a new act of insight penetrating again toward the less apparent."

For the ancients, the divine did not reside in an unfathomable Paradise of faith but in primordial knowing. We stand in awe of anything that radiates a spiritual or numinous content. Nature was the awesome, all-powerful and ever-present countenance of divine reality.

Hillman notes, "Here begins phenomenology: in a world of ensouled phenomena.  Phenomena need not be saved by grace or faith or all-embracing theory, or by scientific objectiveness or transcendental subjectivity. They are saved by the anima mundi, by their own souls and our simple gasping at this imaginal loveliness. The ahh of wonder, of recognition..."

This is the direct relationship of minds to worlds or environments -- a philosophy of the flesh. When concretized or pathologized, the symptomatic heart may be dying to tell us something that imperils us if we fail to understand. The heart can be congested or hardened. It can bless us or make us miserable.

"Seeing through" is a continuous process, never done once and for all.  On some level we all mourn the desecration and catastrophic loss of much of the world's wilderness and wildlife, making it more crucial to notice the beauty and ugliness in our remaining world, like Blake's 'seeing the world in a grain of sand.'

Awe is rooted in people and nature. It's a precious value to be honored as how we learn about the world. We see someone die, we see a child being born, we see somebody saving a life or helping them out. Massive geophysical or cosmological features make us feel both humble and privileged to experience such grandeur. Some moments, sometimes days are full of grace and joy.

Ideas are not just counters used by the calculating mind; they are also golden vessels full of living feeling. ~Carl Jung, The Symbolic Life, Pages 310-311.

Awe is not just religious concepts, or scientific ideas and beautiful or elegant theories, or poetry or art. It is also grace, magnanimity, generosity, the sacred, and what matters -- a tactile, palpable personal life. We actively pursue awe through human passion, creativity, and nature.

Aphrodite is with us when our creative gifts shine. What is beautiful within us rises to the surface. Soul welcomes the penetration and fertilization of the spirit.

"When the woman experiences the mystery of creativeness in herself, in her own inner world, she is doing the right thing and then no longer demands it from the outside -- from her husband, her son, or anyone else close to her."
~Carl Jung, Conversations with C.G. Jung, Page 29.

Given or chosen, this is the resource at our disposal in reality. We come into being as observers only through our attention and complex metaphorical-conceptual systems. Daily thought is mostly metaphorical. We understand metaphor from our embodied experiences.

Enlivened metaphor is embodied. The body can be the source domain to describe other things, or it can be the target described by other things or processes. Body metaphors, concrete and abstract, can relate to feelings or emotions.

"Experiential gestalts are based on the nature or our bodies, our interactions with our physical environment and our interactions with other people within our culture. These experiential gestalts serve as the grounding of conceptual metaphors." (Lakoff & Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, 1980: 117).

We move from the known to the unknown through how this is like that and how we know what we know when we know it and what it is like. It deviates perceptually from literal reality, but is its own 'as if' reality.

Consciousness of archetypes extends the limitations of our observations and knowledge base. We can think of them as psychological templates which are amplified or suppressed by the contextual features of environment.

This is the looking-glass of the soul, our imaginal interface with the divine and the laws of form. We may find our soul in desire, but not in objects of desire. When we are in touch with soul we are in touch with spirit, sacred presence.

Conceptual metaphors can be restrictive. If we relate to archetypes in a known or cliche way as consciousness frames with pedestrian values, the results are also conceptually obvious and probably ineffective for transformation and healing.  It's like trying to read dream symbols by rote with a dream dictionary. We may 'get it' conceptually, but not experientially as creative expansion.

How do we conceive the world? That is our generative question. This dynamic representation reflects our worldview and conditions the appearance of the whole. We design our world to foster a certain sort of mind or consciousness and try to meet its archetypal and existential challenges. The transformation of mental states is the emergence of the symbol from the primary distinctions.

Archetypes represent potential adaptations from the collective wisdom of humanity, the wisdom only life can teach. Our personal relationship with them differentiates our specific response. Highly general, such certain kinds of intelligence are roughly equivalent in a wide variety of circumstances.

We cannot realize it all, all of the time, so certain autonomous and selected pathways emerge to help us solve existential problems -- breakthroughs in consciousness. Archetypes are bounded resource systems upon which we can call just as the ancients did for support.

We can only approach our authentic life of personality through dialogue in a process-oriented perspective -- a relationship between mind and body, grounded in flesh and our unique environment.

"Probably in absolute reality there is no such thing as body and mind, but body
and mind or soul are the same, the same life, subject to the same laws, and
what the body does is happening in the mind." (Jung, Dream Analysis, Page 20)

In mutual opening we develop living relationships with archetypes. We still remain blind to the iceberg that stays out of sight. Even such sight or insight is a conceptual metaphor, but that is the goddess or god, who conceals and reveals. Our vision is their vision. The carnal body develops in a cultural context.

Our nature is conditioned by archetypes, with their own autonomy and domains. We can develop the capacity to observe these universal forces interacting with our personality. 'I' is a construct of self-image we rarely match because we remain unconscious of those roots and ego can delude, misread, or flatter itself.

Likewise, categories of experience are constructed but can be observed phenomenologically. "Through active imagination the image is imprinted on the psychic essence of personality with the purpose of transformation." (Jung, ETH Lecture 3rd Nov 1939)

Archetypes relate our observed system to the divine system and/or environment. We do it unconsciously, or consciously. To remain unconscious is soul death. To become conscious through our attention is often a mythical rebirth and solution of problems. Operational meaning is more important than semantic meaning. They populate our minds, but are also the roots of being. It can come as a stab of grace in the heart.

For us, divine nature expresses as a mind-world correspondence system or principle. We work toward certain goals in certain worlds with the relevant means. Subject to real-world space and time constraints, we mythologize our lives to help us adapt. Symbols reside in and naturally transform our declarative, procedural and episodic memory systems. We are immortalized in memory.

"The meaning of events is the way of salvation that you create. The meaning of events comes from the possibility of life in this world that you create. It is the mastery of this world and the assertion of your soul in this world."
~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 239.

We experience the muse, daemon, or 'angels' of creativity in their divine autonomy. How often works of creative genius arrive in consciousness almost fully formed. Moreso, when we are consciously devoted to the soul-figure.

The English word ‘‘demon’’ derives from the Latin daemon, which itself came from the Greek daimon. ‘‘Demon’’ is technically a neutral word that refers to any spirit, whether good or evil, that is neither divine nor mortal but inhabits the intermediate realm between gods and humans. Thus, even angels belong to the general class of beings known as demons. (S. T. Joshi, Icons of Horror and the Supernatural)

As described by E. V. Walter in his essay ‘‘Demons and Disenchantment,’’ the Greek word deisidaimonia refers to ‘‘a certain dimension of sacro-magical, numinous experience’’ that formed an authentic religious tradition in the ancient world. In addition to playing an important part in ancient Greece ... It also appeared in ancient Egypt, which was cheerful, optimistic, and much less demon-ridden than the Mesopotamian civilization’’ (Walter 19, 20).

The Greeks understood their daimons had objective but also subjective existence. The daimon as inner influences upon human thoughts and emotions, and  controlled individual character and destiny. They were a mysterious force that felt like an autonomous influence in a person’s mind or soul.

The face of the beloved angel is our divinity -- our light that draws breath, our embodied nakedness. Existence emanates from and dissolves back into hat all-pervading breath that passes all through nature.

Aphrodite breathes in the world, taking it in to interiorize it into herself. She shows her heart as she reveals her soul. Time stops when you're with her. We gasp, recognizing wonder at the face of the world -- things as they are existing in and for themselves with tremendous emotional and mental pitch.

We breath as one. Pneumatic, (“relating to wind, air, breath, or spirit”; "to blow; breath"), means more than a well-formed corporeal body with breasts like airbags. The term pneumatic body applies to the spiritual or resurrection body. The soul can move downwards or upwards, or incarnate human passion.

Hillman claims, "Here is the Goddess who gives a sense to the world that is neither myth nor meaning; instead that immediate thing as image, its smile, a joy, a joy that makes ‘forever’."

Sophic Wisdom
Aphrodite animates and quickens matter with imagination -- the thought, the language, the sight, and the intelligence of the heart. All experiences act as symbols. Like Aphrodite, the feminine

Aphrodite is a soul figure, a soul guide, a breath spirit, "breathing room," between the conscious ego and the instinctual unconscious ground. Although the terms soul and spirit are sometimes used interchangeably, soul may denote a more worldly and less transcendent aspect of a person. But Aphrodite Urania is a transcendent goddess.

According to Hillman, soul has an affinity for negative thoughts and images, whereas spirit seeks to rise above the entanglements of life and death.  The words soul and psyche can also be treated synonymously, although psyche has more physical connotations, whereas soul is connected more closely to spirituality and religion.

Archangel, Spenta Armaiti (Isfandarmuz in Persian) represents both the mystery of the Earth (earth angel as body-spirit) and the woman of Light. Spenta Armaiti is closely related to Sophia and wisdom as the daughter of “Lord Wisdom,” “mistress of his house,” the “mother of his creatures,” and the "Dwelling place."

She represents a personal not a spatial relationship that substantiates and vivifies us with consummation in the imaginal. She is perfect thought, primordial awareness, or concept-free meditation -- the throb of absolute reality, universal consciousness, the depths of human spiritual potential.

Soul and the divine are united by the symbolic image in the imagination where the spiritual world has an objective reality. Imagination is a divine body that lives within us all in primordial images and the visionary events of the soul. It creates a sympathetic life, open to beauty, ecstasy, and transcendence.

Engaging in mythic tasks challenges us to discover and deepen self-understanding and reclaim the imaginal, not virtues but virtualities. Oppositional tendencies integrate in ambiguity and paradox. Integration includes co-existence with others, the world, and the archetypal world of metaphorical, rather than sensible or literal, reality.

We don't believe anything we haven't acquainted ourselves with, be it love of light or darkness. We only understand divine matters by assimilating ourselves to that order of being, through the spiritual body or celestial earth. The old link is a romance of the soil, soul, and society. Henry Corbin says, "soul tends to give a form to the celestial Earth and to actualize it, thus making possible the epiphany of the beings of light."

Ancestral order dwells in the deep subconscious, and Aphrodite is still listed as a primordial ancestor in standard genealogy. 'Immortality' is a part of a mighty, spiritual process of divine inspiration. We are immortalized in memory and in our own 'body of light,' which Aphrodite represents in potential.

The strength of our soul is our own mythological being, animating our own inner voice and transcendent potential. The mythical world of the old gods is not the product of poetry; mankind is the product of the gods, as shown in our lines of ancestral descent.

Love can be a path for a consciously realized life. Service is a big component of love. Aphrodite's nature links us to all living beings with a bond of love and a heart-centered myth, rooted in embodied love, compassion, and passion. Heavenly and common Aphrodite share the goal of union. She unites the immanent and transcendent in a sacred marriage.

"Imaginal love” can only be realized within us as an actual singular being. Paradoxically, such intensively lived singularity is an invitation to vision. It gives rise to unlimited multiplicity and visionary openness to union with the archetypes. We long to be seen when really there is no place that is not looking back at us.

This poetic vision of alchemical intensity, 'mad-love.' can only occur within the deepening process of life itself in a path of self-knowledge. Alchemy is the Art of Transformation. Poetic language is embodied nakedness. Material and spiritual aspects remain hidden under symbolism and images that precede all perception.

“It is not the literal return to alchemy that is necessary but a restoration of the alchemical mode of imagining. For in that mode we restore matter to our speech – and that is our aim: the restoration of imaginative matter, not of literal alchemy.” —James Hillman, Alchemical Psychology

Words, the inherent poeticizing of the word, accompany the structure of pictorial imagery as it appears in nature, the intimate anatomy of the imaginal realm. Our life provides the texts to be lived out as the key to mysteries revealed in us, not to us -- a transfiguration of the literal.

“Speech is not of the tongue, but of the heart. 
The tongue is merely the instrument with which one speaks. 
 He who is dumb is dumb in his heart, not in his tongue. 
As you speak, so is your heart.”
--Paracelsus, (Sudhoff-Matthiessen, ed.) Part I, 14:276-77, quoted by J. Jacobi,

Creative imagination lives within the interior consciousness of the heart, transforming the visible into the invisible. Artistic sensibility is symbolic. We can immerse ourselves in the living arts. Art even deepens spiritual traditions.

Meaning emanates from the real world as well as works of art if we listen to our calling, or vocation. Artistic sensibility reconciles us with love of the arts, supplying us with what we love. The arts feed us. It is a pleasure to create beauty and knowledge.

Artistic or symbolic sensitivity is the ability to feel empathy, the meanings emanating from the works of art and the real world. We can connect with it by listening, vision, attention, imagination, or 'soul making' -- trusting the transformative power of images.

Artistic sensibility is a deeply therapeutic process for artists and for the environment. Soul welcomes the mysterious if we immerse ourselves in that dark mystery. Images are apprehended by a deep intuitive sense of transcendent principles governing and emanating throughout creation.

Midlife is a symbolic death before rebirth -- a universal life passage and initiation. We experience the paradox of the dual identity of tomb and womb -- reintegration of meaning and fate. Love and its loss are a rite of passage that magnify even later in life.

Our wounds become openings to a deeper reality of true intimacy -- soulful connection. Healing is an epiphany. Hillman said, "...in the goblet of the wound, there is the soul. This means that it is the psyche, the purpose of our love, bleeding, and that the wound is a grail."

When people enter a relationship, there is a trans-FORM-ation of personality.  The old form of the ego must die to be reborn in service to the relationship.  Even the word 'transformation' contains images which intimate a knowledge of the fear of death.

Jung notes, "We have still to understand how very much wanting to live = wanting to die." ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Page 34. And, "Death is a faithful companion of life and follows it like its shadow." ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Page 34.

Morphe- (also in metamorphosis) means to gleam or sparkle with an appearance seen as beauty.  "Trans-" contains images of piercing, mutilation, or maiming.  These images of needs and distress produce relationship, but not idealism.

The life of the soul cannot emerge in merely finite relationships. Alchemical lovers have the same transforming powers as the phosphorescent fire that warms the alchemical athanor.

Dreams are a way to moisten the soul in the pools of images and feeling, dissolving problems, and changing moods. Spirits of the water and instinctive feminine magic can appear as daemonic archetypal energy, denizens of darkness: mermaids, melusines, woody nymphs, succubus or harlots.

Ritual, fusing desire and action for effective change, helps us connect with and transform inner polarities. The task of generativity after midlife is opening liminal space for personal and collective evolution and cosmic consciousness. Whatever soul touches becomes numinous -- what Gibran invites us to touch with our fingers as "the naked body of your dreams."

"The numinosum is either a quality belonging to a visible object or the influence of an invisible presence that causes a peculiar alteration of consciousness."
~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 6

Jung famously stated that the gods have become diseases and Hillman reiterated, "There is disease in the archetype." We recognize the Gods by our symptoms which are their symbols. The gods themselves can be quarrelsome, envious, deceive, and have sexual obsessions. They are vindictive, isolated, and vulnerable at the bottom. But we suffer the temporal consequences.

The wounding and suffering  itself is eternal and archetypal. The wound directs our existential development. Therefore, symptoms like dreams, are a road to the unconscious. We are never alone if we recognize archetypal dynamics in our lives.

Jung also noted it is death to the soul to remain unconscious and that soul death can occur long before physical death. Loss of soul, the wound and the eye are the same -- the point of view of the psyche and its suffering. Even limited options are a way of seeing through the complex with intuition or psychological vision.

Archetypes, as liminal entities are numinous or “spiritual,” if “magical” is too strong a word. Magic is inherent in our instinctual roots. The 'supernatural' is the truly chaotic world of collective unconscious. In that "in between" place we can access who we are at the heart of it all. Symbols are grasped by the power of the heart. Devotion to beauty awakens and challenges the heart.

Mythical figures, themes and images orient us as we learn to balance masculine strength and inner authority with feminine wisdom and inner power. We  transform identity, consciousness and patterned forms of attachment to the personal in the transpersonal.

Anima/animus is a bridge to emotional arousal and to the sacred, the imaginal field of the depths of the body, encounters with others, self, and eternity. The sensible transmutes into symbols.

"For a woman, the typical danger emanating from the unconscious comes from above, from the "spiritual" sphere personified by the animus, whereas for a man it comes from the chthonic realm of the "world and woman," i.e., the anima projected on to the world." --"A Study in the Process of Individuation" (1934) CW 9, Part I: The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. P. 559

"Through active imagination the image is imprinted on the psychic essence of personality with the purpose of transformation." ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 3rd Nov 1939

As in this world, we can expect positive, negative, and mundane experiences in the imaginal field. As well as happiness or intimacy there is also negative empathic identification, suffering, loss, anger, despair, tragedy, etc. Shame, vulnerability, and sexual objectification.

Ordinary experiences include focused concentration, meaningful memories, dreams, continuing inner dialogues, social/relational interactions, reflexive and reflective thought.

Strong religious or spiritual qualities (arousing, awe-inspiring, mysterious, dreadful) suggest the presence of a divinity which appeals to the higher emotions or aesthetic sense, the poetic basis of the soul, thereby altering ego-based consciousness. Experiencing awe can lower stress levels, expand our perception of time, and improve social well-being along the aesthetic-religious axis.

Uniting the opposites, resonant aesthetic structures of the numinal and phenomenal realms are held in tension, converging in “flowering light.” The angel allows us to see and to know, and encounter our spiritual essence. The demon lover results from failure to differentiate our anima or animus from the darkness of our shadow, of incarnation.

Archetypes are part of our common biological, cultural and personal heritage, rooted in matter and spirit. We grow from a magical, to mythic, to rational, and transcendent perspective over our lifetimes.

"Probably in absolute reality there is no such thing as body and mind, but body and mind or soul are the same, the same life, subject to the same laws, and what the body does is happening in the mind." ~Carl Jung, Dream Analysis, Page 20

The archetypal aspect of anima means everything she touches becomes numinous, unconditional, dangerous, taboo, magical. Anima desires both good and bad in life. We wrestle our demon at the hot edge of our transforming interior reality with active embodied participation, not religious sentimentality or spiritual grandiosity.

"The world of the Gods is made manifest in spirituality and in sexuality. The celestial ones appear in spirituality, the earthly in sexuality." (Jung, Liber Novus, Page 352.)

They are channels of energy and material, psychic and spiritual potential arising spontaneously from within. Our primary lesson may be 'belonging': that we live to learn to love and love to learn to live. We assimilate the other through innate sympathy, devout emotion.

The exalted power of the soul emerges from the numinous sea -- emerging consciousness. The universal source from which we all spring and in which we all meet comes from deep within our human organism. In The Prophet, Gibran describes it poetically:

The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea;
And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes.
But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure;
And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line.
For self is a sea boundless and measureless.

There may be hidden blessing in possession by the affects, habits, compulsions, cravings, and other ‘'god-' or beast-like phenomena and core issues which lurk in the sea of the unconscious. Beliefs, fears, and drives are often fueled by old wounds. Suffering is a challenge that forces our self-transformation, said Aniela Jaffe.

Death can come as a lover. Even death has been described as a wave upon waves of increasing size that eventually wash us back out to sea once more. In his senex work, Hillman points out that, "the French word for pregnant is gravid, or grave... So you see things that are serious are also pregnant, rich & full & so on.. That is, without it being tragic."

“My speech is imperfect. Not because I want to shine with words, but out of the impossibility of finding those words, I speak in images. With nothing else can I express the words from the depths.” (Jung, The Red Book: Reader's Edition)

The intriguing lover and the magician use the same techniques to manipulate images, concealed and revealed in symbols. They make things appear and disappear. Likewise the artist, who creates from unconscious memories, autonomous complexes, and participation mystique.

We tend to see ourselves in one another. We can unconsciously assimilate a model or role another provides. Both are a loss of self. This psychological connection is identification (empathy, rapport, relationship) with objects or people, seen as imaginal extensions of oneself. Internal qualities are required for real love.

Identification is an unconscious fantasy where split off aspects of self are attributed to an external object, or, we identify with the impulses being projected onto us. We subsume it. The need to withdraw projections is generally signaled by frustrated expectations in relationships, accompanied by strong affect.

The autonomous creative complex arises from the collective unconscious. Imagination is the main gateway of all magical processes. Only embodied consciousness can align personal deeds with the divine.

Divine Beauty is an ideal that does not lie in things. Form and content originate from unconscious drives. Art is a tireless obsession. A synchronistic phenomena, the autonomy of the creative drive, sparks the impulse of the creative spirit. Art is an essentially meditative process -- meaningful making.

It expresses our innermost thoughts and desires and transports us into new realities and electrifying emotions. It evokes and transmits the primordial -- more than the merely personal.

When we follow the archetypal impulse, the work imposes itself or emerges seemingly spontaneously. Imagistic dialogue renders relationship more fluid, even that of conscious and unconscious. We interact with our works.

Radiant Aphrodite is the hot, moist breath of the soul, the deep breath of life. Awareness rests in the sensations of breath, the rapture of being alive, transcending thought. In love, she is every breath we take (inhalation and exhalation and the gap between), every heartbeat, and the polarities of psyche.

Earthy and idealized love form a dichotomy. Jung envisioned energy flowing ceaselessly between the opposites, manifesting libido in every activity, including sexual activity. Fantasy draws attention to significant inner realities.

"[T]here is a knowledge of the heart that gives deeper insight. The knowledge of the heart is in no book and is not to be found in the mouth of any teacher, but grows out of you like the green seed from the dark earth.” (Jung, Liber Novus)

We can invoke Aphrodite privately, with friends, or a lover. We can be voyeurs or active participants. Love is a substantive soul to soul connection, passions, hopes, wishes, and dreams. Sex (animal urges), love, and romance are one of our main ways of mythologizing practical, emotional, mental, and spiritual life.

Love makes an average man feel beautiful and intelligent. We can understand our lives and instincts more deeply through archetypes and their phenomenology, including the love and suffering of eros and pathos -- "lovesickness."

Jung defined intuition as "perception via the unconscious": using sense-perception only as a starting point, to bring forth ideas, images, possibilities, ways out of a blocked situation, by a process that is mostly unconscious. In the divine act of reconnection, imagination conveys divine thoughts through images, penetrating deeper levels of insight with trans-sensory perception.

Jung said, “the daemonic is the not yet realized creative.” Perceptual diversity helps us access a variety of non-rational altered states of consciousness, including dreams, trance, imagination, divination, and meditation. Images are perceived by the heart as illumination of a wide range of presentational phenomena to explore for significance.

Vital Fluids
The churning ocean of the unfathomable unconscious eventually gave birth to the foam-born Aphrodite. The emergent goddess is the morning light rising from the seething sea -- the golden dawn of consciousness -- the Light of Glory.

Consciousness is symbolized as "water," but it is also mind stuff. This is the water of life. Cosmic Consciousness is inherent within you, since you and the universe are one. Emergence is a psychological property, not a metaphysical absolute. Complexity arises from primordial Chaos.

Psyche is an immense ocean of archaic consciousness, the mother of biological evolution. She is the light of the soul and mythological world who illuminates our personal world. She is the imperishable body of the eternal feminine. We 'know' one another.

Her gnosis, cxperienced-based knowledge and wisdom, is revelation of our origin, recognition of who and what we are through conscience, an inner voice, or gut feeling. Gnosis is considered a heart science -- conscious experience of the truth, experiential understanding or comprehension of the way existence works.

This the highest sort of knowledge and truth about first principles (ontology) and practical knowledge (epistemology; how we know what we know). Meditation is the heart practice revealing the truths taught in religions. Merely having theories, beliefs, or ideas is not gnosis, which is only acquired by meditation.

Many people believe when they study the works of Samael Aun Weor and the many teachings about Gnosis, that sexual Alchemy or transmutation is the heart practice of the Gnostics , yet this is not true. It is the foundational practice, yes, but merely practicing transmutation does not create a Gnostic. Practicing transmutation does create, but it can create either evil or good because transmutation is the science of Gnosis, knowledge, which in Hebrew is Daath, the Tree of Knowledge. . .Transmutation creates depending upon how our creative energy is polarized. (Gnostic Instructor)

A geyser of psychic life arises from the tumultuous ocean of the psyche -- the light of the free spirit's passion. Nothing makes us fantasize more and find pleasure in that incandescent life. The living myth pulsates and pumps through the throbbing heart of our existence, from the visceral drum-beat yet beyond the material world.

"Love, too," says Hillman, "can be a method of psychologizing, of seeing into and seeing through, of going ever deeper" (1975, p. 136).
Jung described being in love as obsessional complex, with mobility and fixation of affect (CW 104, pg. 912). It is a prolonged altered state of consciousness, punctuated by ecstatic trance, emotional and physical euphoria.

Ecstatic trance induction is a shamanic activity. Removing inhibitions and social constraints liberates the natural state. Contact with something or someone perceived as extremely beautiful or holy may spark an ecstatic experience. It can also happen without any known reason.

Love, deep connection, may be elusive. Many are disturbed by absence of a love partner, but soul is not bound by that. Looking deeper we can find Aphrodite ensouled and enlivened everywhere beauty abounds.

She is in our aesthetic perceptions, in our creative efforts and flow. She is in the re-enchanted world at large as Anima Mundi. She is the bare facts of sensory data and her expanded levels of reality. Love is also a philosopher, a lover of beauty and wisdom.

Living Nature

The nature of embodiment is light. World Soul is world-self and the intrinsic connection between all things, the immanent cause or principle of life, order, consciousness, and self-awareness in the physical world. It is the universal reservoir of experiential impressions.

In the Rosicrucian myth, anima mundi is the germ within the cosmic egg. Elemental universal soul arises from the unconditioned or unmanifest essence of the void, where only mirrors of pure light shine. At the Dawn of the Cosmic Day, she is like a dreamer freshly awakened from a deep sleep, striving to regain self-consciousness.

All individual souls are part of the world soul and mirror this process. We are a living mirror, a reflection by and of the Universe. Love itself is sort of a faith in the heavenly gift. The experience is knowing oneself as truth made flesh. Truth is nothing if it cannot live.

Sexual Spirituality

We seek Beloved Imagination. When we seek the Beloved, yearning to return to our spiritual source, we reawaken inner brilliance and wisdom. The divine-self within is an active archetype perceived as the beloved.

Spiritual yearning motivates our personal quest for the wondrous and tragic dimensions of the human psyche. "Thus your soul is your own self in the spiritual world. As the abode of the spirits, however, the spiritual world is also an outer world." (Jung, The Red Book, Page 288.)

"Any attempt to create a spiritual attitude by splitting off and suppressing the instincts is a falsification. Nothing is more repulsive than a furtively prurient spirituality; it is just as unsavory as gross sensuality. ... Both [spirituality and sensuality] must live, each drawing life from the other." ~Carl Jung; "Marriage as a Psychological Relationship", 1925.

"Spirituality and sexuality are not your qualities, not things you possess and encompass. Rather, they possess and encompass you, since they are powerful daimons, Manifestations of the Gods, and hence reach beyond you, existing in themselves." ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 353.

"No man has a spirituality unto himself or a sexuality unto himself Instead, he stands under the law of spirituality and of sexuality. Therefore no one escapes these daimons." ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 353.


Embodied Space

“If you think of your body as a musical instrument, the body scan is a way of tuning it. If you think of it as a universe, the body scan is a way to come to know it. If you think of your body as a house, the body scan is a way to throw open all the windows and doors and let the fresh air of awareness sweep it clean.”
–Jon Kabat-Zinn

The body is the inner landscape, the sacred landscape of the body -- sensations and metaphorical sensations, "as if" realities, symptoms, and deep tissue memories. In proprioception we sense or grasp the meaning of our own body, and the body of myths. Love and soul thrive in a deeply interior space.

We sense our interior landscape and the mechanics and processes of our own movement and posture. It is feeling inside-out. This is our somatic sense of the body in space, our awareness of our own body and its symptoms) is echoed in the physical landscape. As the Grail legend, the King and the land are one.

The autonomous goddess reveals her soulful self, for example, in the nature mystic experience. Aphrodite generates energy that augments our own. That timeless feeling of awe and wonder comes over us from a vast panorama of sacred space or nature's smallest miracle.

It's tremendous; it blows us away and fascinates us. In esthetic rapture, we gasp at breath-taking beauty, involuntarily with indrawn breath -- the rhythm of sympathetic inhalation of the world into oneself. Amazement dissolves boundaries between us and the object of attraction. We flush with excitement, attraction and exaltation.

We grasp the numinous element with the mind as well as with the body. We know what we are seeing but are overcome by its immensity. Time stands still in the unveiling of truth, expansion, and transcendence. We breath nature through us. Connecting to something greater than the ego is an intense oceanic feeling of merging or peak experience of limitlessness.

Metanoia is transmutation of consciousness, a change in the trend and action of the whole inner nature -- intellectual, affectional and moral. A mighty change in mind, heart, and life is wrought by the Spirit.

This baptism of life-change comes through an alchemical solutio, Other solutio dream images include bath, shower, sprinkling, swimming, immersion. Aphrodite's perfectly fluid form, new soul movements.  Erotic solutio images tell us that love and/or lust are agents of solutio. A psychic problem or stage of development remains arrested or stuck until love arises, dissolving it.

New complications may appear, but life is liquified and begins to flow again.
The king, or ego, is drown in the Fountain of Venus. This philosophical water unites beginning and end in the Philosophers' Stone. It unites the opposites: “This (divine) water makes the dead living and the living dead, it lights the darkness and darkens the light,” said Ostanes.

In short, a change of heart emerges through earnestly seeking the Beloved with insight, endurance, and action. "Metanoia" transfigures your brain and opens a new future. This is a breakthrough beyond discursive thinking and reflection. It is a continuous process of death and resurrection and a revaluing of self, others, and world.

The self-affirmation of eternal returning through creative intelligence and the power of the transcendent realizes itself through the absolute power of transformation. Mutual transformation, faith-in-practice, and self-consciousness is realized through this experience.

Philo of Alexandria (c.25-50 BCE) describes a heavenly power depicting metanoia: “in heaven, a beautiful and especially good daughter of the Most High.” This mirrors Aphrodite as the luminous daughter of Zeus and Dione, the mother goddess worshiped at Dodona, the oldest Hellenic oracle. Or, as Dudjom Lingpa says, "Lucid, luminous absolute space is the ground. Mind arises from its creative power."

We awaken from the dream of separation to the consuming force of the whole of nature in its beauty. Our self-awakening journey is an anabasis (Gr. ana = "upward", bainein = "to step or march"), an inner journey of ascent and descent.

This is an inner expedition from a coastline up into the interior of the unknown country. The way leads toward anastasis -- recovery, rebirth, resurrection of a Body of Awareness, the 'golden' or glorious body. In today's terms, the subtle body of the soul is a non-material field body, biophotons, and the true nature of our identity in the world. Jung describes this subtle body:

"A subtle body, breath or smoke resembling, which can also be correctly described as anima. Anima is the feminine of animus, which is identical with the Greek word anemos which means wind or breath." (ETH Lecture 24 Feb 1939)

The archetypal world is its own order of reality where response is aesthetic and immediate rather than analytical. Aphrodite personifies this central mediating function as living forms of the imagination that allow symbolization.

Each of us carries his own life-form—an indeterminable form
which cannot be superseded by any other.
~Carl Jung; Modern Man in Search of a Soul; Pages 60-61.

Archetypal Immersion

Only what is veiled from the eyes is known as the unseen world. Visions have a symbolic meaning, coming from our own unconscious. Cognition as well as emotions engulf us in direct 'knowing'. The affective aspect culminates in ecstasy and we relax into nature and our nature at a deep level quieting our interior.

Enchanted, lovers share breath and the same golden aura. If love is short-lived or transient, we long to reconnect with those sacred moments as a sustained reality of direct awakening from the ground up. This response experience is an oceanic, or peak experience -- unitive experience.

The psyche is nourished and self-heals in nature through our natural affinity for union with the object of perception, enhancing and enriching experience with recognition of the archetypal world.

Our worldview is renewed in such a perspective as a philosophy based on action, faith, and tranformative power. Panpsychism is a metaphysical concept that all matter is conscious. It is similar to ancient religions based on animism, the spirit that enlivens nature that pleases and attracts.

This belief was that an immaterial force animates the universe, or that spirits inhabit some or all classes of natural objects or phenomena. This is not literal; they are enlivened by imagination rooted in the collective memories and myths of humanity.

Through the archetypal lens of Aphrodite, magnetic attraction is more 'treat' than psychological treatment, but we all instinctively know it can be spontaneously healing and renewing, just like nature. The oceanic experience implies immersion. The ocean of soul saturates the cosmos.

Beliefs are spiritual remedies that imply the world of wholeness, but remain presumed truths -- an archaic religious attitude. Wholeness is not perfection. Our new attitude recognizes and re-animates her myth and illuminates our perceptions of phenomena with integration that forges a deep connection with soul, engaging with nature herself. Self-attachment falls away.

The call of the soul is seductively convincing. It persuades us to have faith in the images and thoughts of the heart. Our world becomes animated with meaningful connections. Soul makes us fall in love and creates attachments, and mutual attraction. Thus, Aphrodite was the "light-bringer" — through the body, through sexuality, sacred sexuality, and enlightening consciousness.

Aphrodite is the primordial longing of earth for heaven. Sex, even healing love, is her gift. We become immersed in the shared world of deeper meaning -- the reciprocal nature of consciousness and unconsciousness, the edge of the universe and reason. Either way we tend to follow our passions, desire, genuine attraction, and compatibility.

Psyche Encounters Matter

"And earth, anchored in the perfect harbors of Aphrodite, chanced to come together with them in almost equal quantities, with Hephaistos and rain and all-shining air, either a little more, or less where there was more. From these came blood and forms of other flesh." --Empedocles

Venus Aphrodite is a polarized goddess of both love and death. Life, love and death bound the cyclic female principle and blood mysteries. Isis is identified with Aphrodite. Her myths are the Genesis of genitalia. They include bisexual and male forms of divinity -- Aphrodite's phallic form. She is inherent in the bodies of men and their penetrating power and compulsions. The first plows of the earth  and lustrous mirrors were made of her metal copper.

Chris Bennett suggests potential early use of cannabis and its extracts as an aphrodisiac and vision-inducer in the cults of Aphrodite, Orpheus, Apollo, Hera, Dionysus and the Oracle of Delphi. There is archaeological evidence that opium is association with the Goddess Aphrodite. Combined with marijuana and datura in many love charms and love potions, the poppy was also a divinatory plant specific to matters of the heart.

Ancient Scythian shamans claimed Aphrodite taught them to twist hemp fibers in their fingers while reciting prophecies. Her temples in ancient Cypress burned hemp incense day and night to comprehend the significance of the stars and luminous ground of being.

Cannabis was also mixed with wine to increase sexual pleasure. Her wine or nectar was an aphrodisiac. Euripides notes in Bacchae 770 ff: "Without wine there is no longer Kypris [Aphrodite, as goddess joy and pleasure] or any other pleasant thing for men."

Herodotus notes, in Histories 3. 8 (trans. Godley):
"They [the Arabians] believe in no other gods except Dionysos [Arabian Orotalt] and Aphrodite Ourania [Arabian Alilat]."

Her many facets are core aspects of the Great Mother, the most ancient Earth Goddess -- the primordial mother also of mind and consciousness. She is the memory of ancient oaths at the beginning of time. Womb mysteries and wisdom of the body are rhythmic ways. She governs the alternating cycles of the cosmos.

Death makes life possible. Facing mortality inspires us to live more fully. Perhaps we learn to live from the dead and dying. Burial rites are among the oldest ceremonies of mankind. Consciousness arises at the beginning of life and sinks back into the cosmic maternal womb at death. Unconscious psyche and matter are one. Beauty, mystery, and healing potential are related.

Aphrodite Paphia's alabastron vase was a symbol that held psychoactive unguents -- sex drugs. Her priestesses used them in necromantic rites to resurrect the spirits of the dead and in orgiastic and ecstatic revels. She can make us as sick as any addict with longings and compulsions. We can be wounded or uplifted by divine desire. She can be deceptive, manipulative, and duplicitous. Fire can burn down the beautiful temple of love.

Kerenyi says Aphrodite was secretly the Queen of the Underworld, the deepest part of psyche or the collective unconscious. The archaic erotic shamanic goddess of uterine knowledge is rooted in the womb of the cosmos, in birth/death/rebirth mysteries. The same is true of the German Frigg or Freya, called "The Beloved" of heaven who is also Queen of the Dead, called Hel for the hidden horrors of her nature.

The fullness and emptiness of the generative organ was projected as knowledge of good and evil, of fear and deception woven into existence as erotic shadow. Hillman points out that war, love, battle, and beauty are entwined from the earliest times.

An ancient approach to the unknown, there was a cult of 'Aphrodite of the Tombs' at Delphi. Persephone can appear disguised as Aphrodite, and Aphrodite has her Persephone aspects. The Pythagoreans knew and worshiped her, as such. She is the mirror of natural laws.

As a human drive, the creative urge is inescapable, always there, whether we act on it in the world or not. If love drags us down into the depths of darkness, we should ask ourselves, "what's going on down there?" Even fantasies persuade and condition us. Moreso, for the romantics. She is the hidden stage manager of romance and enticement.

Material and intellectual realities are reflected in the mirror of imagination. Matter = Mater = Mother = Divine Feminine. Venus Genetrix is a sculptural style that shows the Roman version of Aphrodite as mother. In the visionary mode and interplay of the physical and imaginal, the world become transparent with transitional phenomena in potential space with its meaningful parallels between inner and outer experience.

The alchemical goddess, Aphrodite informs both spirit and nature, as salt permeates the ocean. She is the shining image of the celestial Aphrodite, who descends from a level of positively differentiated superconsciousness -- a supreme form of absolute Being and the face our god takes for us in personal encounter with the Divine Feminine. Sacrifice and surrender can mean addiction, possession, or initiation. Death/rebirth is initiatory.

There is No Sense like Renascence

Consciousness is essentially the psyche's organ of perception, it is the eye
and ear of the psyche. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lectures, Page 98.

We must seek our own character, both within and outside of ourselves -- an act directed toward ourselves. This is an expression of the existence and function of the unconscious and the raising of consciousness and aesthetic sense.

By becoming conscious things are raised from their materiality. Transcendent light that awakens life to meaning is hidden in matter -- the spirit within matter that makes life dance. The old ego or self-image dies and is reborn in relationship with the Self. Marrying the opposites we realize the timeless state.

"So we should talk to our animus or anima….So you listen to the inner mentor, you develop the inner ear; or you write automatically, and a word is formed by your hand, or your mouth speaks that which you have not thought." ~Carl Jung, The Cornwall Seminar, Page 26.

Over-Powering Aphrodite
Love is our main motive power and shapes our lives -- in dream, or vision, or passionate encounter. Nature and beauty have a divine origin beyond common love. The unmediated vision is instantaneous experience. As for psychic life, we join mystery to mystery to create a portrait of a Mystery and borrow and distort images from our actual experience.

We cannot live or love only when we can trust, when it is safe and accepted, when we can't be abandoned or injured, or embrace false promises. To be beyond evil is to be beyond real life.

No one can faithfully paint a dream, because felt-sense is perhaps the biggest part of it. The inner experience gives rise unconsciously to its expression. Beauty and soul run into fable and personification, the metaphorical and lyrical perspective.

The Unseen Partner
"Transitoriness is everywhere plunging into a profound Being. And therefore all the forms of the here and now are not merely to be used in a time limited way, but so far as we can, instated within those superior significances in which we share. ...in a purely terrestrial, deeply terrestrial, blissfully terrestrial consciousness, to instate what is here seen and touched within the wider, within the widest orbit—that is what is required. Not within a Beyond, whose shadow darkens the earth, but within a whole, within the whole . . . For our task is to stamp this provisional, perishing earth into ourselves so deeply, so painfully and passionately, that its being may rise again, “invisibly”, in us. We are the bees of the Invisible."
"The Angel of the Elegies is the being who vouches for the recognition in the invisible of a higher order of reality. – Hence “terrible” to us, because we, its lovers and transformers, do still cling to the visible. – All the worlds of the universe are plunging into the invisible as into their next deepest reality… We are these transformers of the earth; our entire existence, the flights and plunges of our love, everything qualifies us for this task (besides which there is, essentially, no other)." --Rainer Maria Rilke, Duinio Elegies (London: Hogarth, 1963), p. 157.

The body-spirit easily accomplishes everything, for it is already in everything from the beginning (Louis Cattiaux, The Message Rediscovered, 2, 74).

The body-spirit has neither a beginning nor an end. When it divides into two, universes are born in love; it is the time of movement. When it comes together, worlds disappear in knowledge; it is the time of repose. (Ibid, 4, 90).

The perception of the Earth Angel will come about in an intermediate universe which is neither that of the Essences of philosophy nor that of the sensory data on which the work of positive science is based, but which is a universe of archetype-Images, the mundus imaginalis, experienced as so many personal presences.

The postulate is that one and the same spiritual ‘energy of light’ is just as much the constituent of the essence of what is qualified as material as it is of the essence of what is qualified as spiritual. Briefly, how it should be expressed is by saying that Spirits are being-light in the fluid state, whereas bodies are being-light but in the solidified state. The difference between the two is like the difference between water and snow. Proof confirming the resurrection of the one is valid in respect of the resurrection of the other. (Corbin)

In love we unconsciously call one another a living 'angel', unconsciously referencing the daemonic qualities and angelic presence. The real angel, whose nature is light, exists in another timeless dimension with extension, colors, and form not perceptible to the outer senses.

Spiritual life in no way turns itself away from the world but on the contrary engages even more fully with it in order to penetrate to its depths. Cultivation of longing and desire reveals the angel, but not solely on the material level. It is revealed as the inherent knowledge and gratitude of the present magic moment.

Corbin called imagination the angelic mode of perception of gods, daemons, or angels in personal encounter. He claimed the world is perceived through sense, soul through imagination and the angel through intellect (pre-conceptual knowing). This guardian angel or daimon operates through imagination, revealed in a many ways, including dreams, visionary experiences, or passionate encounters with embodied human beings,

The angel can only be recognized in that other dimension as a giver of forms, a mirror of the previously unknown part of ourself, where our soul and the soul of cosmos interpenetrate. The brilliant dawn of consciousness is in that meeting that lights up our world in the process, animated by divine energy.

Imagination is an angelic mode of perception revealed through the unconscious perception of the psyche. It cannot be solely material as its essence is heavenly and earthly. The angel or daimon is a guide which helps us to truly see ourselves and our divine nature, what sees and is seen, reflecting the primordial light. "The eye was created by light to receive light," claims Goethe.

The power of the heart facilitates the presence of the angel which reveals itself in naked awareness. This unveiling is a spiritual event revealing the sacredness of matter in union with spirit. This is the path of self-realization that begins once we are awakened. Hillman also reminds us to, “recall the angel aspect of the word, recognizing words as independent carriers of soul between people.”

Poetry in Motion
Aphrodite, an effusive essence diffused through all nature, was originally an androgynous goddess, and applies equally to men and women as a psychic force of great dynamic power, initiation, and transformation. Transcendent celestial Self is a force of psychic and material imagination that makes us more real, more alive.

But if we become utterly materialistic, responding only to desires of the body's appetites, we lose our dignity and sense of meaning in life. Soul qualities are essential -- numerous distinct faculties. The imaginative world of the soul has an objective existence that governs physical desire and genuine love independent of our individual egos.

We can love human beings, but we can also love wisdom and the love of wisdom that unites us with our source, from perception to reflection. The beauty that arises awakens love, reflecting heavenly beauty. Aphrodite procreates such beauty through the sensory world of images in bodies human relations, and spiritual hermeneutics uncovering the hidden or naked side of reality.

Mental possessions are just as good as ghosts, demons, and gods. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 570-573

The Mirror of Venus
Self-reflection includes a shadow a drive toward becoming more consciously responsible, that also generates its opposite, abandon. No act of self-reflection or ritualistic appeasement can, since the nature of self-reflection is constitutionally
opposed to it. Hence, love is and remains 'blind.'

We meet 'the other' in the Magic Mirror: an infinite hall of mirrors reflected into one another with a variety of images -- the circulatirty of our own existence -- fragmentary and incomplete, images emerging from and being reabsorbed back into ourselves interwoven with an infinite network of meanings and relationships. The opposites are always embodied in 'the other', which we come "to know" by overcoming the resistance of opposites with playful merging.

Nature always reflects the archetype of death/rebirth. At any given time, some 75 trillion cells are working in your body. But they are constantly dying and being replaced, mostly beneath the threshold of our conscious awareness.

The fluid mirror in the temple is another way of expressing the maxim, "As Above, So Below." Henri Corbin uses the mirror metaphor to describe how our epiphanies with Aphrodite's animated imaginal function. He suggests “polishing the mirror of the heart” with active imagination.

Epiphanies take place in the mundus imaginalis, a transcendent 'place' of metaphysical principles (archetypes), transcendent ideas, forms, and archai. We undervalue them as "mere" instincts or overvalue them as gods.

The archetypal world is its own order of reality where response is aesthetic and immediate rather than analytical. Aphrodite personifies this central mediating function as living forms of the imagination that allows symbolization. Jung describes this subtle body:

"A subtle body, breath or smoke resembling, which can also be correctly described as anima. Anima is the feminine of animus, which is identical with the Greek word anemos which means wind or breath." (ETH Lecture 24 Feb 1939)

Active imagination becomes an epiphany when we pay 'religious' attention to it: "I profess no “belief.” I know that there are experiences one must pay “religious” attention to."
(Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 517). This analogical knowledge links higher and lower worlds in a single 'field' or 'spirit'. Thus, Corbin notes, active imagination roots us in both history and myth:

The comparison to which our authors regularly have recourse is the mode of appearance and subsistence of Images "in suspense" in a mirror. The material substance of the mirror, metal or mineral, is not the substance of the image, a substance whose image would be an accident. It is simply the "place of its appearance." . . .

The active Imagination is the preeminent mirror, the epiphanic place of the Images of the archetypal world; that is why the theory of the mundus imaginalis is bound up with a theory of imaginative knowledge and imaginative function--a function truly central and mediatory, because of the median and mediatory position of the mundus imaginalis. It is a function that permits all the universes to symbolize with one another (or exist in symbolic relationship with one another) and that leads us to represent to ourselves, experimentally, that the same substantial realities assume forms corresponding respectively to each universe . . . It is the cognitive function of the Imagination that permits the establishment of a rigorous analogical knowledge, escaping the dilemma of current rationalism, which leaves only a choice between the two terms of banal dualism: either "matter" or "spirit," a dilemma that the "socialization" of consciousness resolves by substituting a choice that is no less fatal: either "history" or "myth."

*
The only right and legitimate way to such an experience is that it happens to you in reality, and it can only happen to you when you walk on a path which leads you to higher understanding. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 624-625.

[The imagination] . . . inspires an audacious mental habit. We are as elastic as the gas of gunpowder, and . . . a word dropped in conversation, sets free our fancy, and instantly our heads are bathed with galaxies, and our feet tread the floor of the Pit. --Ficino

In her common form, Aphrodite is anima -- soul or psyche. Her heavenly form Aphrodite Urania is the Anima Mundi, the mirror of divine realities, the life of mortals and the nexus of both. The feminine principle or mode of Being is historically considered the "soul of the world," the fertility of human, animal and plant life.

Renaissance philosopher Giordano Bruno said the World Soul “illumines the universe and directs nature in producing her species in the right way.” She is the magical world of creative mystery. Even Mary Magdalene has been suggested as a priestess of Aphrodite in the Syrian tradition, elevated by the Gnostics as Christianity's "hidden Goddess."

Artists in each of the arts seek after and care for nothing but love. --Ficino

Marsillo Ficino, who shaped the Renaissance, imagined the human soul mysteriously linked to the World Soul, Anima Mundi, a microscopic matrix of the conscious forces of the macrocosm. Soul is a ladder of spiritual ascent worked with selfless spiritualized love and a personal relationship with divinity. In his view through conscious striving the ultimate goal was to be united with God. It is the artifice and fiction of human consciousness, suggests Ficino, that one must seek.

Our geocentric understanding of ourselves has expanded to the realization that we are an intrinsic part of Cosmos. The Universe is also literally within us. No longer limited merely to our planet, Anima Mundi is the personification of the whole natural world – the Universe, personified as Heavenly Aphrodite. Every atom is bound together by the power of attraction. Every photon is her radiance.

This light, the dynamic reality of the energy field, is within us as within everything. Embodied nature is the link between the archetypal and formative worlds, the hyperdimensional matrix of eternal patterns with sacred proportions and unique phenomena. Matter is a mirror of flesh and consciousness.

She is also infinite potential, the possibility of bringing creative ideas to birth, to manifestation. In the deepest sense, she is the universal wave function, the unmanifest ground of our being, spacetime and the radiant light of virtual photon fluctuation, which underlies all matter and manifestation. 

"I have not the faintest idea what "psyche" is in itself, yet, when I come to think and speak of it, I must speak of my abstractions, concepts, views, figures, knowing that they are our specific illusions. That is what I call "nonconcretization." And know that I am by no means the first and only man who speaks of anima, etc.

Science is the art of creating suitable illusions which the fool believes or argues against, but the wise man enjoys their beauty or their ingenuity, without being blind to the fact that they are human veils and curtains concealing the abysmal darkness of the Unknowable.

Don't you see that it is life too to paint the world with divine colours? You never will know more than you can know, and if you proudly refuse to go by the available "knowledge" (or whatever you like to call it) you are bound to produce a better "theory" or "truth," and if you should not succeed in doing so, you are left on the bank high and dry and life runs away from you.

You deny the living and creative God in man and you will be like the Wandering Jew. All things are as if they were Real things are effects of something unknown.
The same is true of anima, ego, etc. and moreover, there are no real things that are not relatively real. We have no idea of absolute reality, because "reality" is always something "observed." ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Pages 56-57

LIBER NOVUS
https://books.google.com/books?id=mdVAAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA267&lpg=PA267&dq=One+needs+death+to+be+able+to+harvest+the+fruit.++Without+death,+life+would+be+meaningless,+since+the+long-lasting+rises+again+and+denies+its+own+meaning.&source=bl&ots=nNfJzx5wFQ&sig=pwmC3GLtPrpfhdLxJCbAUisYE9Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjXyfjR_tLOAhWBRyYKHZ5LB4kQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=One%20needs%20death%20to%20be%20able%20to%20harvest%20the%20fruit.%20%20Without%20death%2C%20life%20would%20be%20meaningless%2C%20since%20the%20long-lasting%20rises%20again%20and%20denies%20its%20own%20meaning.&f=false

Where Logos is ordering and insistence, Eros is dissolution and movement. . . .
The old prophet expresses persistence, but the young maiden denotes movement. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 365.

"I don't make any difference between a book and a person, a sunset, a painting.
All that I love with the love of one love."
Marina Ivanova Cvetaeva, The Country of the Soul. Letters (1909-1925)

"There is a memory of nature that reveals events and symbols of centuries away. The Mystics from different countries, in different centuries have talked about this memory. [...] William Blake's called her images "the sculptures of the hall of los " and says that all the events, " all the stories of love, "from them Draw your renewal." --William Butler Yeats, Anima Mundi

"We are immortalized in memory....The soul has become immortal if we leave something behind for others. Psychology can affirm no other immortality."
~Carl Jung, JET, Page 7.


It seems to me to be the Holy Spirit’s task and charge to reconcile and unite the opposites in the human individual through a special development of the human soul. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1553

Desire without forethinking gains much but keeps nothing; therefore his desire is the source of constant disappointment. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 249, Footnote 190

The alchemists thought of their opus as a continuation and perfection of creation. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1631

He who can risk himself wholly to it finds himself directly in the hands of God, and is there confronted with a situation which makes “simple faith” a vital necessity; in other words, the situation becomes so full of risk or overtly dangerous that the deepest instincts are aroused. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1539

"Myths are true expressions of our inner selves, revealed cryptically in image, symbol, and metaphor. They are something like dreams: rationally they may not ring true, but in a psychological sense they express people’s inner processes through the use of ingenious devices that conceal what must be concealed and reveal what must be revealed."
— Dr. June Singer

May love be subject to torment, but not life. As long as love goes pregnant with life, it should be respected; but if it has given birth to life from itself it has turned into an empty sheath and expires into transience.
~Carl Jung to his Ego, Liber Novus, Page 327.

Good and evil unite in the growth of the tree. In their divinity life and love stand opposed. ~Philemon, Liber Novus, Page 351.

Nobody, as long as he moves among the chaotic currents of life, is without trouble. —Carl Jung

But to have soul is the whole venture of life, for soul is a life-giving daemon who plays his elfin game above and below human existence, for which reason-in the realm of dogma he is threatened and propitiated with superhuman punishments and blessings that go far beyond the possible deserts of human beings.
~Carl Jung, CW 9ii, Pages 26-27

Sexuality dished out as sexuality is brutish; but sexuality as an expression of love is hallowed. ~Carl Jung, CW 10, Para 234

The sexuality of man is more earthly, that of woman is more spiritual. ~Philemon, Liber Novus, Page 352.

We can only become real by accepting our sexuality and not denying it through saintliness. ~Carl Jung, Conversations with C.G. Jung, Page 25.

Sexuality and spirituality are pairs of opposites that need each other.
~Carl Jung, 1925 Seminar, Page 30

Man shall differentiate himself both from spirituality and sexuality. He shall call spirituality mother, and set her between Heaven and earth. He shall call sexuality Phallos, and set him between himself and earth. For the mother and the Phallos are superhuman daimons that reveal the world of the Gods. They affect us more than the Gods since they are closely akin to our essence. ~Carl Jung; The Red Book; Scrutinies; Page 352.

The world of the Gods is made manifest in spirituality and in sexuality. The celestial ones appear in spirituality, the earthly in sexuality. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 352.

Spirituality conceives and embraces. It is womanlike and therefore we call it MATER COELESTIS, the celestial mother. Sexuality engenders and creates. It is manlike, and therefore we call it PHALLOS, the earthly father. The sexuality of man is more earthly, that of woman is more spiritual. The spirituality of man is more heavenly, it moves toward the greater. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 353.

The sexuality of man goes toward the earthly, the sexuality of woman goes toward the spiritual. Man and woman become devils to each other if they do not distinguish their sexuality. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 353.

Man shall differentiate himself both from spirituality and sexuality. He shall call spirituality mother, and set her between Heaven and earth. He shall call sexuality Phallos, and set him between himself and earth. For the mother and the Phallos are superhuman daimons that reveal the world of the Gods. They affect us more than the Gods since they are closely akin to our essence. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 353.

If you do not differentiate yourselves from sexuality and from spirituality, and do not regard them as an essence both above and beyond you, you are delivered over to them as qualities of the Pleroma. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 353.

Spirituality and sexuality are not your qualities, not things you possess and encompass. Rather, they possess and encompass you, since they are powerful daimons, Manifestations of the Gods, and hence reach beyond you, existing in themselves. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 353.

No man has a spirituality unto himself or a sexuality unto himself Instead, he stands under the law of spirituality and of sexuality. Therefore no one escapes these daimons. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 353.

The daimon of sexuality approaches our soul as a serpent. She is half human soul and is called thought-desire. The daimon of spirituality descends into our soul as the white bird. He is half human soul and is called desire-thought. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 354.

The great problems of life — sexuality, of course, among others — are always related to the primordial images of the collective unconscious. These images are really balancing or compensating factors which correspond with the problems life presents in actuality. This is not to be marveled at, since these images are deposits representing the accumulated experience of thousands of years of struggle for adaptation and existence. ~Psychological Types Ch. 5, p. 271

Men are rarely split off from sexuality, because it is too evident for them, but what they lack is Eros, the relational function. ~Carl Jung, Children’s Dreams Seminar, Page 313.

I have an idea that the Dionysian frenzy was a backwash of sexuality, a backwash whose historical significance has been insufficiently appreciated, essential elements of which overflowed into Christianity but in another compromise formation. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Pages 14-16

Jung on Sex & Spirituality

Man shall differentiate himself both from spirituality and sexuality. He shall call spirituality mother, and set her between Heaven and earth. He shall call sexuality Phallos, and set him between himself and earth. For the mother and the Phallos are superhuman daimons that reveal the world of the Gods. They affect us more than the Gods since they are closely akin to our essence. ~Carl Jung; The Red Book; Scrutinies; Page 352.

Spirituality conceives and embraces. It is womanlike and therefore we call it MATER COELESTIS, the celestial mother. Sexuality engenders and creates. It is manlike, and therefore we call it PHALLOS, the earthly father. The sexuality of man is more earthly, that of woman is more spiritual. The spirituality of man is more heavenly, it moves toward the greater. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 353.

The sexuality of man goes toward the earthly, the sexuality of woman goes toward the spiritual. Man and woman become devils to each other if they do not distinguish their sexuality. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 353.

If you do not differentiate yourselves from sexuality and from spirituality, and do not regard them as an essence both above and beyond you, you are delivered over to them as qualities of the Pleroma. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 353.

The daimon of sexuality approaches our soul as a serpent. She is half human soul and is called thought-desire. The daimon of spirituality descends into our soul as the white bird. He is half human soul and is called desire-thought. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 354.

Nothing is more repulsive than a furtively prurient spirituality; it is just as unsavory as gross sensuality. ~Carl Jung; CW 17, Para. 336.

Sexuality and spirituality are pairs of opposites that need each other. ~Carl Jung, 1925 Seminar, Page 30

Sexuality dished out as sexuality is brutish; but sexuality as an expression of love is hallowed. ~Carl Jung, CW 10, Para 234

Men are rarely split off from sexuality, because it is too evident for them, but what they lack is Eros, the relational function. ~Carl Jung, Children’s Dreams, Page 313.

I have an idea that the Dionysian frenzy was a backwash of sexuality, a backwash whose historical significance has been insufficiently appreciated, essential elements of which overflowed into Christianity but in another compromise formation. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Pages 14-16

It is generally overlooked that the psyche cannot of necessity be based only on the instinct of sexuality, but rests on the totality of the instincts, and that this basis is only a biological foundation and not the whole edifice. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Pages 563-564

We should not rise above the earth with the aid of "spiritual" intuitions and run away from hard reality, as so often happens with people who have brilliant intuitions. ~Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, Page 114.

We must enter into our mind [mentem], which is the eternal spiritual image of God within us, and this is to enter into the truth of the Lord; we must pass beyond ourselves to the eternal and preeminently spiritual, and to that which is above us . . . this is the threefold illumination of the one day. ~St. Bonaventure; Cited in Carl Jung’s, Mysterium Coniunctionis, Page 505.

The Bardo Thodol began by being a "closed" book, and so it has remained, no matter what kind of commentaries may be written upon it. For it is a book that will only open itself to spiritual understanding, and this is a capacity which no man is born with, but which he can only acquire through special training and special experience. It is good that such to all intents and purposes "useless" books exist. They are meant for those "queer folk" who no longer set much store by the uses, aims, and meaning of present-day "civilization.” ~Carl Jung, Psychology and Religion, Page 525-526, Para 858.

The spiritual climax is reached at the moment when life ends. Human life, therefore, is the vehicle of the highest perfection it is possible to attain; it alone generates the karma that makes it possible for the dead man to abide in the perpetual light of the Voidness without clinging to any object, and thus to rest on the hub of the wheel of rebirth, freed from all illusion of genesis and decay. ~Carl Jung, Psychology and Religion, Page 524-525, Para 856.

Hermeticism is not something you choose, it is a destiny, just as the ecclesia spiritualis is not an organization but an electio. ~Carl Jung to Rudolf Bernuoelli, Letters Volume 1, Page 351.

Were not the autonomy of the individual the secret longing of many people, this hard-pressed phenomenon would scarcely be able to survive the collective suppression either morally or spiritually. ~Carl Jung, The Undiscovered Self, Page 34.

A concrete image is a manifestation requiring space in which the spirit clothes itself in the material in order to draw to man. Images and numbers are doors through which the spiritual can reach man. ~Carl Jung, Conversations with C.G. Jung, Page 60.

We would call the self a multiple consciousness in God, or a spiritual Olympus, or an inner firmament. Paracelsus already knew this and wrote it for us. ~Carl Jung, Conversations with C.G. Jung, Page 36.

Thus your soul is your own self in the spiritual world. As the abode of the spirits, however, the spiritual world is also an outer world. ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 288.

The daimon of sexuality approaches our soul as a serpent. She is half human soul and is called thought-desire. The daimon of spirituality descends into our soul as the white bird. He is half human soul and is called desire-thought. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 354.

Nothing is more repulsive than a furtively prurient spirituality; it is just as unsavory as gross sensuality. ~Carl Jung; CW 17, Para. 336.

Sexuality and spirituality are pairs of opposites that need each other. ~Carl Jung, 1925 Seminar, Page 30

Sexuality dished out as sexuality is brutish; but sexuality as an expression of love is hallowed. ~Carl Jung, CW 10, Para 234

Men are rarely split off from sexuality, because it is too evident for them, but what they lack is Eros, the relational function. ~Carl Jung, Children’s Dreams, Page 313.

I have an idea that the Dionysian frenzy was a backwash of sexuality, a backwash whose historical significance has been insufficiently appreciated, essential elements of which overflowed into Christianity but in another compromise formation. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Pages 14-16

It is generally overlooked that the psyche cannot of necessity be based only on the instinct of sexuality, but rests on the totality of the instincts, and that this basis is only a biological foundation and not the whole edifice. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Pages 563-564

We should not rise above the earth with the aid of "spiritual" intuitions and run away from hard reality, as so often happens with people who have brilliant intuitions. ~Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, Page 114.

We must enter into our mind [mentem], which is the eternal spiritual image of God within us, and this is to enter into the truth of the Lord; we must pass beyond ourselves to the eternal and preeminently spiritual, and to that which is above us . . . this is the threefold illumination of the one day. ~St. Bonaventure; Cited in Carl Jung’s, Mysterium Coniunctionis, Page 505.

The Bardo Thodol began by being a "closed" book, and so it has remained, no matter what kind of commentaries may be written upon it. For it is a book that will only open itself to spiritual understanding, and this is a capacity which no man is born with, but which he can only acquire through special training and special experience. It is good that such to all intents and purposes "useless" books exist. They are meant for those "queer folk" who no longer set much store by the uses, aims, and meaning of present-day "civilization.” ~Carl Jung, Psychology and Religion, Page 525-526, Para 858.

The spiritual climax is reached at the moment when life ends. Human life, therefore, is the vehicle of the highest perfection it is possible to attain; it alone generates the karma that makes it possible for the dead man to abide in the perpetual light of the Voidness without clinging to any object, and thus to rest on the hub of the wheel of rebirth, freed from all illusion of genesis and decay. ~Carl Jung, Psychology and Religion, Page 524-525, Para 856.

SACRED MEMORIES & FUTURE PROMISE

For the collective unconscious which sends you these dreams already possesses the solution: nothing has been lost from the whole immemorial experience of humanity, every imaginable situation and every solution seem to have been foreseen by the collective unconscious. ~Carl Jung, C.G. Jung Speaking, Page 231.

Religion appears to me to be a peculiar attitude of mind which could be formulated in accordance with the original use of the word religio, which means a careful consideration and observation of certain dynamic factors that are conceived as “powers”: spirits, daemons, gods, laws, ideas, ideals, or whatever name man has given to such factors in his world as he has found powerful, dangerous, or helpful enough to be taken into careful consideration, or grand, beautiful, and meaningful enough to be devoutly worshipped and loved.
~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 8.

Myth is not fiction: it consists of facts that are continually repeated and can be observed over and over again. It is something that happens to man, and men have mythical fates just as much as the Greek heroes do. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 648.

Yet unconsciousness at the end of the process is of a different kind from the unconsciousness at its beginning, just as a mountain seen from the valley looks different after one has climbed it.
With this “unconsciousness of consciousness” scientific observation reaches its bourn.
It is the beginning of the way – no longer definable by the intellect – to meaning and wisdom.
Those who have experienced the archetype of meaning, or have created a myth of meaning or made it their own, need no longer interpret.
They know: “It is”.
The ephemeral surface of life is no longer a veil hiding the transcendental reality, for both worlds now coalesce in a meaningful unity.
~Aniela Jaffe, The Meaning of Myth, Page 338.

We do not accede to the world, natural and spiritual, and to beings, except through the molds that structure our physical eye and our inner eye. But if our inner eye remains passive, routine, lazy, then it runs the risk of ‘degenerating into a doctrinaire blindness’, for example, in ideologies and reductive visions, totalitarian, or simply into a blurred mirror reflecting no more than lifeless forms. It is perhaps not given to everyone to partake of a theophanic vision. But between the Book of Nature, or an authentic work of art, and the imaginal world, there is perhaps not so much a gap as discrete degrees linking levels of reality. And while to most of us the imaginal world can appear too remote or inaccessible, the few stories, thoughts, and testimonies here brought together can at least serve as a horizon line that many orient us, spiritually or culturally, toward a spirit of openness to these levels of reality that are, perhaps, awaiting our seeing. (Antoine Faivre 2000, p. 163)

Joseph Campbell: The idea is to find your own pathway to bliss.
Finally, Gawain, Arthur's nephew, stood up and said, "I propose a vow to this company, that we all go in quest of that Grail to behold it unveiled."
Now we come to the text that interested me.
The text reads, "They thought it would be a disgrace to go forth in a group. Each entered the Forest Adventurous at that point which he himself had chosen, where it was darkest and there was no path."
You enter the forest at the darkest point, where there is no path.
Where there's a way or a path, it is someone else's path; each human being is a unique phenomenon.
The idea is to find your own pathway to bliss.
--Joseph Campbell, Pathways to Bliss, pp.xxv-xxvi

Libido
Libido can never be apprehended except in a definite form; that is to say, it is identical with fantasy-images. And we can only release it from the grip of the unconscious by bringing up the corresponding fantasy-images.["The Technique of Differentiation," CW 7, par. 345.]

Jung specifically distanced his concept of libido from that of Freud, for whom it had a predominantly sexual meaning.
All psychological phenomena can be considered as manifestations of energy, in the same way that all physical phenomena have been understood as energic manifestations ever since Robert Mayer discovered the law of the conservation of energy. Subjectively and psychologically, this energy is conceived as desire. I call it libido, using the word in its original sense, which is by no means only sexual.["Psychoanalysis and Neurosis," CW 4, par. 567.]

[Libido] denotes a desire or impulse which is unchecked by any kind of authority, moral or otherwise. Libido is appetite in its natural state. From the genetic point of view it is bodily needs like hunger, thirst, sleep, and sex, and emotional states or affects, which constitute the essence of libido.["The Concept of Libido," CW 5, par. 194.]

In line with his belief that the psyche is a self-regulating system, Jung associated libido with intentionality. It "knows" where it ought to go for the overall health of the psyche.
The libido has, as it were, a natural penchant: it is like water, which must have a gradient if it is to flow.["Symbols of the Mother and of Rebirth," ibid., par. 337.]

Where there is a lack of libido (depression), it has backed up (re-gressed) in order to stir up unconscious contents, the aim being to compensate the attitudes of consciousness. What little energy is left resists being applied in a consciously chosen direction.
It does not lie in our power to transfer "disposable" energy at will to a rationally chosen object. The same is true in general of the apparently disposable energy which is disengaged when we have destroyed its unserviceable forms through the corrosive of reductive analysis. [It] can at best be applied voluntarily for only a short time. But in most cases it refuses to seize hold, for any length of time, of the possibilities rationally presented to it. Psychic energy is a very fastidious thing which insists on fulfillment of its own conditions. However much energy may be present, we cannot make it serviceable until we have succeeded in finding the right gradient.["The Problem of the Attitude-Type," CW 7, par. 76]

The analytic task in such a situation is to discover the natural gradient of the person’s energy.
What is it, at this moment and in this individual, that represents the natural urge of life? That is the question.["The Structure of the Unconscious," ibid., par. 488.]

• APHRODITE:  goddess of love and beauty; her son is Eros, who arouses passion by shooting arrows at his victims. 
• The 3 Graces are associated with Aphrodite, whose qualities are grace, seductive desire, charm, and the power of the pleasure principle.
• There are many hazards in her realm.
• One should be in good relation with the Ares principle of aggression when encountering Aphrodite.
• Entanglement with her can be dangerous, but so too can scorning her. Love's just like that!
• Hippolytus, who was a devotee of Artemis, so valued chastity that he refused Love.  For this slight, Aphrodite cast a spell over his stepmother Phaedra and caused her to fall passionately in love with him.  Phaedra tried to seduce him, but when he rejected her, she told her husband, Theseus, that Hippolytus had raped her.  Theseus prayed to Poseidon for revenge, and Hippolytus was dragged to his death by his own horses when Poseidon’s bull from the sea frightened them.
• Aphrodite takes her vengeance against anyone who has rejected her by involving him in some perverse erotic situation.
• It can also be dangerous to pick her over other goddesses as Paris did when he declared Aphrodite more beautiful than either Hera or Athena, which led to the Trojan War.
• This dissention between the gods and goddesses demonstrates that there is no easy way to negotiate the process of psychological development.
• As long as the archetypal powers themselves are divided, the ego is cast in a tragic role, split by the conflict that exists in the "divine realm."
• As long as there are multiple principles that have not achieved a decisive unity, life is essentially tragic. Arrogance or foolishness or recklessness will all lead to downfall and are generally the by-product of overly identifying with one principle to the exclusion of all others, thereby upending the natural balance. (Whatever is rejected/suppressed will eventually bubble up with a vengeance.)
• It is only with the unification symbolized by monotheism and psychologically represented by the Self that there is a chance to overcome this essential tragedy.
• It is extremely dangerous to equate a woman’s beauty with Aphrodite’s because some heinous fate awaits those who fall prey to all-consuming pride (hubris).
• Psychologically, this means that beauty and its capacity to engender desire must not be identified with but must be recognized as a divine dynamism.  To presume that beauty belongs to oneself is to identify with Aphrodite or to challenge her divinity.
• Pygmalion myth: 
• A sculptor who fell in love with the ivory statue he'd carved prayed to Aphrodite to bring the statue of this beautiful woman to life. Aphrodite answered the prayer (Aphrodite is identifiable here as the ultimate life-giving principle,) and reveals what can happen to the imagery of the inner world if one pours enough energy into it and bathes it in Love’s light. Love as the ultimate life engendering/affirming principle.
• Aphrodite is sometimes hailed as the basic cosmogonic principle, the very source of life itself. (In Greek "cosmos" means "order")
• The symbolism of Aphrodite overlaps with that of the Holy Ghost.  They share the symbol of the dove.
• In alchemical symbolism, there is a term, “blessed greenness,” which refers to Aphrodite and her life-giving capacities on the one hand, and on the other, the spiritually conceiving power of the Holy Ghost which was thought of as the color green and can be equated with the vegetation spirit belonging to the life principle of Aphrodite.  (Green in Islam also symbolizes Allah’s life giving properties.)
• The Aphrodite woman is easily recognizable in today’s culture. She functions through the properties of charm, appeal, and the ability and willingness to give pleasure to convey subtle, flattering attention.
  
• For women who identify too strongly with the Aphrodite function, it is as if the archetypal function lives through her and she becomes its helpless slave.
• The independent Artemis function can be balanced by some of Aphrodite’s warmth and charm, and the Aphrodite function can be buffered by a bit of Artemis’ self-sufficiency.
• The subjective or inner component of Aphrodite can be seen in an introverted or an extraverted way: Internally, it could mean the ability to relate to beauty.  Externally, it would encompass the whole principle of Eros, the willingness to connect with and to be considerate of the other.
• The Aphrodite principle provides us with the ability to make life-enhancing connections with others.

http://iws.collin.edu/mbailey/jungianarchetypes.htm

But who can withstand fear when the divine intoxication and madness
comes to him? Love, soul, and God are beautiful and terrible.
~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 238.

'Cherchez la femme' is sometimes mistakenly thought to refer to men's attempts to pursue romantic liaisons with women. In fact, the phrase, which is occasionally used in its loose English translation 'look for the woman', expresses the idea that the source of any given problem involving a man is liable to be a woman. That isn't to say that the woman herself was necessarily the direct cause of the problem, as in Shakespeare's Macbeth for instance, but that a man has behaved stupidly or out of character in order to impress a woman or gain her favor. The expression was coined by Alexandre Dumas (père) in the novel The Mohicans of Paris, 1864,

"Animus is the soul in women, just as the anima is the soul in man. Animus usually personifies himself as a masculine force and appears in a woman's dreams as a masculine figure. Women relate to their animus side differently then men relate to anima, but there is one thing that men and women have in common; romantic love always consists in the projection of the soul image. When a woman falls in love it is animus that she sees projected onto the mortal man before her. When a man drinks of the love potion, it is anima, his soul, that he sees superimposed on a woman." --Robert A. Johnson

To live what is right and to let what is false die, that is the art of life.
~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 274, Footnote 75.

It has yet to be understood that the Mysterium magnum [the great mystery] is not only an actuality but is first and foremost rooted in the human psyche.
~Carl Jung, CW 12, Para 13.

Gods are unavoidable. The more you flee from the God, the more surely you fall into his hand. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 242.

You should always ask yourself what you desire, since all too many do not know what they want. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 249, Footnote 190.

Consciousness is becoming aware of, making an image or concept of something, and intellect is the ability to think. Neither of these things is spirit.
~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 26 Jan 1940.

These phenomena can to a large extent be "overheard."
As soon as one's attitude becomes autoerotic in any way, the symptoms increase.
An autoerotic attitude necessarily results if, for instance, the function of relationship (Eros) is not sufficiently attended to; that is, if something that ought to be put outside oneself is left inside.
That is one possibility.
The other possibility is a reluctance to go along with fate, with the result that the importance of the body is abnormally enhanced.
--C.G. Jung ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Page 274

"The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living." --Henri Poincare

When you observe the world you see people, you see houses, you see the sky, you see tangible objects. But when you observe yourself within, you see moving images, a world of images, generally known as fantasies. Yet these fantasies are facts. ~Carl Jung, C.G. Jung Speaking, Page 302

The teaching of the past, for example of St. Paul or of Jesus, can be edifying, but in itself does nothing; Paul himself had a sudden revelation. Unless there is a personal religious experience – realising from the inside what it means – nothing happens. Such an experience can take many forms, for instance falling in love; anything which is really lived. ~E.A. Bennet, Meetings with Jung, Pages 230-267

"A lake is the landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is the earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature."
--Henry David Thoreau

“The feminine is the instrument of recognition of the masculine, as the masculine is the instrument of recognition of the feminine. The one is present in the other,
as the instrument of consciousness itself.” -- Marion Woodman, 1993 (p. 11).

You are not responsible for your constitution but you are stuck with it, and so it is with the anima, which is likewise a constitutional factor one is stuck with. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Page 193

"One is the beginning, the Sun God.
"Two is Eros, for he binds two together and spreads himself out in brightness.
"Three is the Tree of Life, for it fills space with bodies.
"Four is the devil, for he opens all that is closed. He dissolves everything formed and physical; he is the destroyer in whom everything becomes nothing." ~Philemon, Liber Novus, 351.

“Whoever speaks in primordial images speaks with a thousand voices; he enthrals and overpowers...he transmutes our personal destiny into the destiny of mankind, and evokes in us all those beneficent forces that ever and anon have enabled humanity to find refuge from every peril and to outlive the longest night.” ― C.G. Jung, The Red Book: Liber Novus

"Let every soul recall then, at the outset the truth that soul is the author of all living things, that it has breathed the life into them all, whatever is nourished by earth and sea, all the creatures of the air, the divine stars in the sky; it is the maker of the sun; itself formed and ordered this vast heaven and conducts all that rhythmic motion; and is a principal distinct from all these to which it gives law and movement and life, and it must of necessity be more honorable than they, for they gather or dissolve as soul brings them life or abandons them, but soul, since it never can abandon itself, is of eternal being." --Plotinus / Enneads:Tractate One

"It will be good for your humility if you can accept the gifts of your unconscious guide that dwells in yourself, and it is good for your pride to humiliate itself to such an extent that you can accept what you receive." ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Page 459

I love the refinement: the love of the sun
He gave me in fate splendor and beauty.
--Sappho

APHRODITE:
Rising Above the Darkness
Biological, Conscious & Unconscious Coupling
 
By Iona Miller, 2016
 
“Surely it must have been on one of these shores so filled with grace and frolicsomeness that the miraculous transformation of beast into man took place. It must have been on such a Greek strand that Astarte of the multitudinous sowlike breasts cast anchor from Asia Minor and the Greeks, receiving the barbaric and coarsely carved wooden statue, cleansed it of its bestiality, left it with only the human breasts, and gave it a human body full of nobility. From Asia Minor, the Greeks took the primitive instinct, orgiastic intoxication, the bestial shout--Astarte.  They transubstantiated the instinct into love, the bite into kisses, the orgy into religious worship, the shout into the lover's endearment. Astarte they transformed into Aphrodite.” --Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Grcco
 
“You have captivated me; let me stand tremblingly before you.
Bridegroom, I would be taken by you to the bedchamber,
You have captivated me; let me stand tremblingly before you.
Lion, I would be taken by you to the bedchamber.
Bridegroom, let me caress you,
My precious caress is more savory than honey,
In the bedchamber, honey-filled,
Let me enjoy your goodly beauty,
Lion, let me caress you,
My precious caress is more savory than honey.”
--Samuel Noah Kramer, History Begins at Sumer, “The Love Song of Shu-Sin”

Beauty evokes affection and at times even pity. Anything that is beautiful is cherished for the very reason that it is subject to decay. In a world without beauty, there would not be ugliness but apathy. If objects are not prized for their unnecessary existence there would be a distorted concept of time. One that rests on utility rather than attachment. By making time more meaningful, beauty fills it with a sense of longingness. --Saqib Fazal

Someday there will be girls and women whose name will no longer mean the mere opposite of the male, but something in itself, something that makes one think not of any complement and limit, but only of life and reality: the female human being." --Rilke

I can say nothing,
my tongue is broken. A delicate fire
runs under my skin, my eyes
see nothing, my ears roar,
cold sweat
rushes down me, trembling seizes me,
I am greener than grass.
To myself I seem
needing but little to die. --Sappho

"But if we can reconcile ourselves with the mysterious truth that spirit is the living body seen from within, and the body the outer manifestation of the living spirit --the two being really one -- then we can understand why it is that the attempt to transcend the present level of consciousness must give its due to the body." ~Carl Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul, Page 220

"Psychic and somatic symptoms express the soul's painful wounds and obstructions. The rational mind is incapable of deciding what is best for the soul. The mind can discover what is needed only by listening to and reflecting upon the subtle movement of the soul as it expresses itself in bodily sensations, feelings, emotions, images, ideas, and dreams." --Robert M. Stein, "Body and Psyche"

This is equally true of the concept of matter or body. We must say here that the body has nothing to do with matter. Matter is an abstraction, nowadays it has become a philosophical and scientific concept, whereas body is the direct psychic experience of the body. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 26 Jan 1940.

Soul and body are not two things. They are one.
~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 355  

Aphrodite's Romantic Aesthetic
A sense of meeting in the imagination arises, revealing the dual structure of individuality, otherwise unknowable. This mighty source of psychic energy fuels imagination to create a field of inner freedom and curatorial narrative.

As with each archetypal meeting, we are subjected to it, consumed by it, or integrate it to the limited extent we can. We are each a primal body-self vulnerable to the shocks and enticements of the world and our needs. Being mostly body, the self remains just as vulnerable to the world -- spontaneous and visceral.

Wild hunger impairs reason and choice. In obsession life may not be perfect, but it remains vital and lively. We overestimate our autonomy. In our 'bright awareness' we oversimplify ourselves as coherent, solid, and articulate in our self-reports.

What sounds grand may be hubristic, immature, uprooted, or willful. We can be enthralled or bound by our own self-image, manipulating or forcing gratification. Beauty devastates or elevates, ravages or ravishes, engulfs in psychological addiction or enlightens.

Aphrodite enraptures and is captivating, filled with life and grace. The personifications of Aphrodite are a many-headed sexual infinity sign expressing the essence of her divine nature. They aesthetically objectify our life's changes.

Love has permanent poetic value and marks our passages. Recognizing and mirroring one another takes place in the dim regions of the body's self-consciousness. We unconsciously mimic and orchestrate muscular, glandular, and vascular changes in one another.

Narratives, both personal and collective, arise from the desire to have life display temporal representatives of nature's constants in the imagistic world. High and low narrative situations are rooted in archetypal, imagistic, and symbolic field coherence, integrity, fullness, disclosure, and closure. Things fit in a natural story line. Self-arising images have stable configurations and issues with specific properties. It helps us better appreciate our discreteness and wholeness.

Can we be kind, generous, and loving without being foolish? Our human heart, mind, spirit, and soul emerge through the same process that created all of life, encouraging us to supersede our limitations.

Unknown to ourselves, love can consume us in vortices of unconscious repetitions of earlier trauma, competition, or jealousy and other patterns in psyche, or holes in the heart from loss and decay. This may always be part of our lives, consistencies in behavior and involuntary moments. Body flows with the motion of the world. Creative excitement dissolves boundaries.

Like unashamed, unabashed Aphrodite, this essay seeks to titillate, to provoke, to promise even more than it may deliver of the mysteries and hidden charms of existence. Soul includes our nonphysical aspects: consciousness, wisdom mind, clairvoyance, thought, feeling, and will, seemingly distinct from the physical body. It is our feelings: our emotional and moral nature, our hidden most private thoughts and feelings. Aphrodite is a soul-guide and her myth is therapeutic.

We imagine the heart as the basis of emotional life. This source and center is where the deepest and sincerest feelings are located and we are most vulnerable to pain, momentary unbalance, and divine frenzy.

We won't cover all of her aspects, exploits, or relationships, nor means of apprehending soul. The eternal mother and source of all creation is the root and ground of every soul and fountain of heaven and earth. Yet this is a transdisciplinary approach involving scientific and non-scientific sources -- a way of self-transformation oriented toward the knowledge of self, unity of all knowledge, and creation.

We may even skip promiscuously from subject to subject like a dreamer. She is with us on the threshold of life's greatest decisions. In The Red Book, Philemon tells Jung, "Joy comes from fulfillment, but not from longing." (Pg. 341). Certain primordial human desires are not mainly concerned with possibility, but with desirability, and energy beyond striving.

Each reader -- anyone who has had or lost a love -- finds their own revelations arising within from the unconscious. It isn't what you look at, but what you see with the Art of Seeing -- a perceptual framework. Jung notes, "The unconscious mind sees correctly even when conscious reason is blind." And Goethe, "everyone sees what he carries in his heart."

Conceptual analysis of romantic love can be rather dry, cliche, or predictable tropes -- beyond sex as a 'hot commodity.' They've all been played out time and again in Hollywood films. This character is regarded as a deity of love and sexual lust as well. A deity from a ruling pantheon or a mortal can be considered a goddess of love. It is called "Love Goddess" rather than "Love Deity" because the females are much more common.

Male love gods are included in this trope. Aphroditus was a male Aphrodite originating  on the island of Cyprus and celebrated in Athens in a transvestite rite. Aphroditus is the same as the later god Hermaphroditus, whose name means "Aphroditus in the form of a herm." Of course, hermaphrodite was also code for the couple in sexual union.

We all have a keen grasp of the obvious when it comes to love goddess myths and basic psychology. Culture is part of our nature. Hopefully, we will introduce dormant associations from the depths to restore the bond with cosmos that enfolds humanity with a universal sense of meaning. Aphrodite is born of the primal serpent of the oceans that spans time and space.

We apply abstract associations between patterns to create meaningful connections.
Amplification of ordered pattern-recognition functions include:

1) Enhanced pattern recognition, or a new awareness of "hidden" patterns in nature, matter, and body that are not normally sensed;

2) Synchronicities, or the perception of meaningful connections between similar patterns that occur in close temporal proximity; unconscious, uninhibited cross-talk; attributions of constructed connections;

3) Morphology, elaborate "hidden" or "buried" similarities between previously unrelated patterns; mimetic imitation, sameness, similarity of process or structure, morphic resonance theory, self-organizing systems inherit a memory from previous similar systems; so-called laws of nature may be more like habits;

4) Singular Consciousness, a state of mind where all patterns seem to merge into one harmonious "Universal Pattern" from which all other smaller patterns flow.

Interiorizing means to internalize or cause feelings and values, for example, to become an interior or internal part of one's mental or spiritual being; to make them a part of one's own inner being, mental structure, or inner life.

Interiorization is penetration into the interior of an event,  with a clear value and sanctity. Interiorizing also has to do with a process of pilgrimage, the archetypal journey.

Interpersonal Synchronization

Universe and consciousness are inseparably linked. The cosmos is mirrored in our physicality and the psyche, soul, or unconscious. The subconscious creates, always there, always functioning as the foundation of our being. Memories are the ancestors of our creativity. The creative impulse is rooted deep in the psyche beyond our conscious reach.

A cosmic principle, Love is the ultimate symbol of a continuous process of participatory transformation, which can be glorious, painful, irreversible, and essential. Energies associated with the deity change our outlook, perceptions and feelings  through communion with intimate otherness of the world.

It ranges from heartfulness, to heartache, and heartbreak. It begins in dissolution -- loss of the centrality of the ego and sacrifice that frees us to be more alive and vital. It is an initiation and deep renewal. Archetypes, as patterns of perception,  are rooted in or emerge from our biology. Their forms are culturally transmitted.

We seek the Beloved as the Beloved seeks us, in the unconscious roots of creativity, in generative properties, relative knowing in detail, affective ways of knowing, and the truth of essential knowing -- meaning of richness and depth. The ontological presence of substantive existence is the self-existing quality of being and love of the presence of true nature. Earth molds us physically, rhythmically within herself.

The Universal Medicine

Love is a psychedelic state, effecting rebirth -- a new form, rejuvenation, immersion in the creative energy flow. Instinctual attraction dissolves the ego and liquifies consciousness in a new incarnation of spirit. Something in us dies if we don't periodically resonate with wild rejuvenating nature and meaningful ecstatic involvement.

Rebirth typically opens us to the transpersonal domain with its virtually infinite creativity, but not without the implied dissolution, death itself from which that rebirth is coming. Being in the physical-symbolic means internally and externally hearing the breath of the spirit in dialogue with the soul, with the anima mundi.

This powerful archetypal theme is initiatory in character. The process of rebirth is the mythic enactment of "the one story," whose pattern is found in every narrative.  Beneath the differences, the meaning -- having to do with the loss and recovery of identity -- does not change.

The descent, including 'falling in love' and subsequent ascent, means going deep into the consciousness journey and emerging transformed. if anima and self are not differentiated and remain unconscious, they are mixed heavily with shadow, that is self-defeating and even self-destructive.

Falling in love is stimulating like amphetamines and adrenaline. Lovers feed off of the excitement. Bonding oxytocin is like opioids. Dopamine is love, lust, adultery, motivation, attention, sensation-seeking, and addiction. When we kiss someone for the first time we get a massive release of dopamine making us crave more. Dopamine is released by pleasurable sensations but also by stress, pain or loss. So love modulates as well as creates experiences.

The loss of love is also universally paradigmatic. Love transcends loss. The process continues in dreamlife. Union with the object of love is not an end in itself, but an archetypal instrument, a numinosum [any phenomenon experienced as a manifestation of tremendous power felt to be objective], that ushers in a new condition with a new sense and meaning.

But there are real consequences. The love deity has a wrathful side which we experience in divine suffering. Non-human powers can leave us split and even break us. What occurs in this area of life affects others, as well, by shifting our thoughts and releasing helpful and unhelpful stored emotions, synchronizing heart and mind, and grounding soul.

“It’s easy to be a naive idealist. It’s easy to be a cynical realist.
It’s quite another thing to have no illusions and still hold the inner flame.” —Marie-Louise von Franz.

In our culture, the body and our fantasies about it, have come to represent the lost Feminine element. We have lost touch with our primal femininity, the animating principle (nature, body, instinct). We have become estranged from the body through the mind/body split fostered by non-relativistic Cartesian thinking.

Body is made complete, not by perfecting it, but by spiritualizing it. It becomes the vehicle of the "incarnating Self." Spirit is attracted to matter and matter to spirit. Matter gets purpose and meaning from spirit. An "immortal body" now means grounding of the spirit. The uniting of soul, body, and spirit was called the Unus Mundus, or One World in alchemy.

The soul lives on images and metaphor. These images form the basis for our consciousness. All we can know comes through images, through our multi-sensory perceptions. So this soul always stays close to the body, close to corporeality, to what "matters." Let the images come into your body. Embrace the image. To heal the mind/body split we need a view of reality that eliminates the dichotomy of "in here" in this separate body vs. "out there" in the alien, external world.

There is a way that joins spirit and body through the spontaneous imagery of soul. It seeks neither to solve our troubles (pathologies) nor "save" our souls. It suggests direct engagement with images for soul-making or deepening through personal experience. We can see through the nature of apparent reality for ourselves, if we but try.

Then we develop our own philosophy, apart from consensus. When it comes to questions of speculation on the unknown, we can either accept what others have said, or look for ourselves.

We seek the lost soul primarily because of the intense degree of wounding in our modern consciousness. This wounding has "opened" us to transformation. We can embody soul by seeing-through appearances to an acute awareness of the archetypal, subjective perception of our experience.

We can find soul in the body. It speaks metaphorically in body language (how closed or open one is to life and experience), body talk ("he's a pain in the neck;" "I can't stomach that"), symptoms, and displacements. Conversion reactions change psychological dis-ease into concrete ailments.

Jung said the gods have become diseases and there is a god within every disease. Noticing that psychic element and giving it voice is psychological soul-making. We can also look at our behavior, emotions, thoughts, and styles of consciousness psychologically.

Perhaps life's great challenge is to develop an integration of spirit and body, including our shadow side, the dark part of ourselves. We must first descend into the unconscious in order to ascend to transpersonal states. Things that are not supposed to exist, like synchronicities, spark the imagination.

The essential thing about these [Synchronistic] phenomena is that an objective event coincides meaningfully with a psychic process; that is to say, a physical event and an endopsychic one have a common meaning. ~Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 27.

A new integrated consciousness emerges from this "divine tension," "divine fire" -- a dynamic equilibrium with an open heart and a spirit of exploration. Psychoactivation mobilizes the psyche, inspires imagination, and synchronistically dissolves the boundary between mind and matter.

Jung speaks of the direct psychic experience of the body, head, heart and gut: "If you contemplate the body from the point of view of the psyche, you will be able to locate a mental sphere of consciousness in the head, another centre of consciousness in the heart and one in the abdomen." ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 26 Jan 1940.

So when we say body, we really mean our psychic experience of the body. This has only a distant Relationship to the anatomical and physiological structure of the body and nothing whatever to do with matter. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 26 Jan 1940.

The body is the past, our earth, the world of heretofore, but out of it rises a new light which is not identical with the body. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Page 374

The spirit can easily be anything, but the earth can only be something definite. So remaining true to the earth would mean maintaining your conscious relationship to the body. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 66

We cannot say the side of the spirit is twice as good as the other side; we must bring the pairs of opposites together in an altogether different way, where the rights of the body are just as much recognized as the rights of the spirit. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 235.

Whatever you experience outside of the body, in a dream for instance, is not experienced unless you take it into the body, because the body means the here and now. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Page 1316

Love originates in immediate experiences. Emotions and will interact with spirit and body. We receive love differently. The couple is a reciprocal body and neurological feedback system. 'Knowledge' is visceral awareness and awareness of the nervous system. Sexual and relational synchronization increases with cooperative interaction in a unified field. Healthy love and attachment are described in research on attachment disorders.

"Attachment Disorder is defined as the condition in which individuals have difficulty forming lasting relationships. They often show nearly a complete lack of ability to be genuinely affectionate with others. They typically fail to develop a conscience and do not learn to trust."

Jung notes, "When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside of you as fate." We must simply accept a destiny which does not come from our conscious will. Even when love pulls us back and forth, we always hope love wins. As primordial light arises with her form, so does radiant insight in all directions.

A symbol without love, sympathy, and participation is not a symbol. It must 'touch' us. It is only there when we are at the same time in its 'lived' aspect. We want to do one thing, but are bound to do something else. Things hurt us that we know shouldn't. Though we know better, we take certain things for granted. Love engenders a hyper-associative state, synchronicities, and universal patterns.

A cascade of associations and semantic networks of subconscious thoughts rising to the surface permits quicker access to remote concepts stored in the mind. It facilitates ordered pattern emergence: rhythms, interpretive patterns, hormonal pulses, metabolic patterns, circadian rhythm, memory, recall and pattern recognition of organic function from the genetic level on up the scale. When we are heartful, we are hardier.

When balanced, serotinin produces immense spiritual feelings. It is the well-being hormone and neurotransmitter than makes us feel spiritual bliss, and governs our capacity for transcendence, to apprehend phenomena that cannot be explained objectively and reach a higher state of consciousness, joy, and happiness. Dopamine controls the spotlight of attention and rewards.

Aphrodite is a liminal goddess. The beginning and end of each love is a crossroads. Boundaries are thin at cross roads, where the unlikely occurs and the unworldly cross over. The crossroads is the nexus of approach/avoidance. "Every relationship has its optimal distance, which of course has to be found by trial and error." ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 53-54

Magic has more power in liminal spaces, thresholds and gateways to other worlds. Liminality occurs at boundary times, where two opposing ideals meet, such as sunrise or sunset, "magic hour," where day turns into night, or when "opposites attract."

We only know creative force through direct experience. We feel empty without the dynamic of opposites that love engenders and perpetuates. It brings grace to ourselves and everything that surrounds us -- a paradigm of implicit social interaction.

"The elimination of the psychic factor (the feminine) from consciousness necessarily leads to exteriorization and collectivization, for the psyche/soul is the inner life and the basis of individuality. In medieval mysticism the soul is the organ for the experience of God and the ‘birth of God’; man thus reaches the center in himself and at the same time in the ‘primal ground’. The modern ‘mystical’ urge does not strive for ‘soul’ but for ‘gnosis’, for ‘superior knowledge’, and thus imitations of ‘eastern wisdom’ of all kinds are consequently in sway." --Toni Wolff

We can therefore assume, psychologically speaking, that the object which is to be transformed in alchemy is connected with the human body: it is a mystery of the body. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Page 177.

There is another possibility, that of the subtle body, a fine material veil of the soul, which cannot exist so to speak without a body. This is the "corpus glorificationis" (glorified body), the transfigured body, which is our future portion. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Lecture XIV, Page 115.

The earth, in the alchemistic sense, means the body and in a double sense: chemical bodies (substances), minerals etc., and the human body. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lectures, Page 101.

And this being has body, soul and spirit, and is, therefore, the principle of life itself, as well as the principle of individuation. Its nature is spiritual, it cannot be seen, and it contains an invisible image. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Alchemy, Page 221.

~The Essence of Love is Understanding~

"The essence of love and compassion is understanding, the ability to recognize the physical, material, and psychological suffering of others, to put ourselves "inside the skin" of the other. We "go inside" their body, feelings, and mental formations, and witness for ourselves their suffering.

Shallow observation as an outsider is not enough to see their suffering. We must become one with the subject of our observation. When we are in contact with another's suffering, a feeling of compassion is born in us. Compassion means, literally, "to suffer with.

So if we love someone, we should train in being able to listen. By listening with calm and understanding, we can ease the suffering of another person.
Training is needed in order to love properly; and to be able to give happiness and joy, you must practice DEEP LOOKING directed toward the other person you love. Because if you do not understand this person, you cannot love properly. Understanding is the essence of love. If you cannot understand, you cannot love. That is the message of the Buddha."
--Thich Nhat Hanh

FIFTY SHADES OF APHRODITE
The Enigma of Love
by Iona Miller, 2016

What hurts the soul?
To live without tasting
The water of its own essence.
--Rumi, “What Hurts The Soul”

"Love is the dynamism that most infallibly brings the unconscious to light."
--C.G. Jung

"Secret analogies tie together the remotest parts of Nature, as the atmosphere of a summer morning is filled with innumerable gossamer threads running in every direction, revealed by the beams of the rising sun." --Ralph Waldo Emerson

When I think of nourishing the soul, I think of nurturing the ability to respond positively to life—that is, the ability to sustain passion for our interests, values, and projects. I believe that the worst of all spiritual defeats is to lose enthusiasm for life’s possibilities. --Nathaniel Branden, Ph.D., Passion and Soulfulness

Emptiness and luminosity are not two separate things, but rather the nature of emptiness is luminosity, and the nature of luminosity is emptiness. This indivisible emptiness-luminosity, the naked mind, free of everything, dwells in the uncreated state. ~Guru Rinpoche

Wagner's Parsifal asks the question, "Who is the Grail?"
Not "What is the Grail?" but "Who?" 
The Self is the Grail, which holds the divine soul, life energy:
a desire to participate in living, or fuel for the psyche.

“For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror which we are barely able to endure, and we are so awestruck because it serenely disdains to annihilate us. Every angel is terrifying.” - R.M. Rilke

In giving and receiving are the forces of life multiplied.

Even fifty shades of Golden Aphrodite are not enough to describe her sparkling  facets, perceptual shifts, and revelatory access to meaning others ignore. Body reveals her essence which is Love. She is an enigma of unbound life and love, universal patterns and symbols, unconscious desires and instincts for physical passion.

Physical: In love we may feel like an infinite being, charged with a virtually infinite potential. Power can be obtained from nature. Contact is made with the divine through the body -- through sexual bliss, opening a window on the divine and the nectar of immortality. She is the primal truth of erotic connection -- felt connection to the reality of our being and toward the world.

Psychic: She is concerned with tending images - her own, those of dreams, and waking life. Anima mundi is the field of infinite meanings, created from metaphors of different places, points of view, and narratives. New understandings arrive with new images at the surprising edge of things, new expressive forms that arise of their own accord.

Body & Soul

Real love is not so much just feelings, but Presence -- the luminosity of the natural mind that dawns before us. Her truth is embodied, despite social constructions, identity theories, and hidebound roles. She is the foundation of the perceptual world. The truth is the truth of the imagination.

The soul is the principle of relatedness. Soul needs meaning, belonging, community. Visible and invisible 'vision' joins us with her carnal embrace. Vision 'sees through' literal appearances to the organic and symbolic understanding of life. There is hope in meaning -- how we imagine our world.

We must have a psychic image of the body, in order to become conscious of it, we must translate the physical fact of the body into a psychic experience.
~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture IX, Page 221

Her autonomous archetypal field is full of nonlinear and synchronous phenomena.
Synchronicities are attributions and notions about relational phenomena, patterns of connection, spectrum phenomena of coincidence and dissociation. She is the enchanting connector, the persistent pursuer, the charismatic persuader.

Aphrodite is soul. Spontaneous imagery soulfully joins spirit and body. It doesn’t solve our troubles (pathologies) nor "save" our souls. Direct engagement, meditatio, with images for soul-making deepens us through personal experience.

We have lost touch with our primal femininity, the animating principle (nature, body, instinct). We have become estranged from the body through the mechanistic mind/body split, which is also non-relativistic. We talk a good game about 'wholeness' but don't really connect as much as nostalgically yearn for it.

James Hillman (1975) observes that soul, “refers to the deepening of events into experiences; second the significance of soul, whether in love or religious concern, derives from its special relationship with death. And third…the imaginative possibility in our natures, the experiencing through reflective speculation, dream, image, fantasy—that mode which recognizes all realities as primarily symbolic or metaphorical.”

Light of the Soul

The soul generates images unceasingly, purposefully ordering our lives. Artists are able to capture and express some of that ceaseless flow. The soul lives on images and metaphor, especially epistemological metaphors--how we know what we know. These images form the basis of our consciousness. All we can know comes through images, through our multi-sensory perceptions. So, this soul always stays close to the body, close to corporeality, to what "matters."

Physical reality becomes psychic and psyche becomes real. It "matters." The difference between soul and external things no longer matters. Inner and Outer worlds are real. They are One World. Image, metaphor and symbol bridge the abyss between matter and spirit. They are integrated with feeling, mind, and imagination through wonder and awe. We can see soul in all natural objects. We can notice our fantasies constantly conditioning our experience of reality.

When spirit as energy and matter as form are in balance, the body becomes the living "Temple of the Spirit." A sense of immortality deepens the sacred dimension of life. Soul’s immortality is sensed in direct experience of non-spatial, non-temporal, nonlocal, four-dimensional reality. Real alchemical work is for the sake of the whole of which we are a microcosm.

Golden & Black-Hearted

Both her spotlight brightness and darkness are beyond us and may or may not serve us. Her initial shiny demeanor can tarnish when she doesn't live up to the ideal. Relations can be a dank swamp rather than a generative ocean. We can drown in the other. Some relationships can be shrouded in unconscious darkness and pathology: guile, manipulation, bad temper, frenzy, anonymity, jealousy, vanity, infidelity, even lies and deliberate misrepresentation.

Socrates' heavenly Aphrodite contrasts with the neuroses, power games, and treachery. Hence, she was know as 'the killer of men,' and 'the unholy.' Breakthrough, emergence from the unconscious sea of instincts, is never far from the breakdown of loss, death, betrayal, unrequited love, disappointment, devastation, and abandonment. Knowing our own darkness well is the best defense.

Dyads are co-constituted by the couple. Relationships, especially conscious partners, are a primal way of changing self and world. Emotions and feelings develop through interaction. For a true union, each must have a union of body and spirit within themselves. Deep sexuality is heart-based sacred sexuality.

Aphrodite's luminous quality is radiant Presence, unsuppressed Being here and now, neither in the past or future, living out the deep possibilities of who we are. The body holds the feeling, the archaic identity. Lucid meaning lies in the inherent psychological value of form itself. The divine is present in the earthy, the material.

Alchemically, earth means the body. Our physicality includes various traits, skills and abilities, such as gut reactions, body posture, tone of voice, awareness of senses (e.g., smell, taste, touch), psychosomatic connections.

Through illumined senses we can see through the nature of apparent reality for ourselves, if we but try. Things become transparent, shine and speak. Signs echo within us. Then we develop our own philosophy, apart from consensus. When it comes to questions of speculation on the unknown, we can either accept what others have said, or look for ourselves, perhaps even into delusional lunacy.

The body is influenced by emotions and thinking patterns. We can detect automatic movements of the body, the bio-energy of the body, and a connection with our physical surroundings.

Divinity is revealed in the form that shapes itself, making the world perceptible through display, exhibition, and presentation of self. We no longer see it as exclusively out there, but as processes of psychic reality within ourselves -- a comprehensive but less defined consciousness. We are shaped for reaching deeper, where soul gives birth to spirit.

Like life, love has its rewards -- the euphoria of peak experiences, exaltation, or rebirth. Dangers real and imagined include heartbreaking disappointment, disillusionment, wounding, fragmentation, dissociation, and loss. People do what they can. When we see it we know it.

Aphrodite is emotionally complex, social, outgoing, kind, yet paradoxical. She embodies mythic imagination. Coming and going, she persistently raises the imaginal question, "What if...?" These are the animated possibilities of each moment.

What if...such multiple fantasies could be realizable? The actual skills and abilities related to the emotional world that back up such realization include:  empathy, emotional validation, openness, vulnerability, recognizing emotions of others, detecting automatic patterns in emotional life. It means mirroring others, emotional acceptance, emotional intelligence, selecting among emotions, sustaining positive emotions, and adapting emotional responses to various social contexts.

Aphrodite is the capacity for awareness of deep connections with our social relations. These traits, skills and abilities relate to parental relationships, close relationships, social interactions, perceiving communications styles of others. Theyinclude detecting social deception, cognitive empathy, social intuition, and flexibility in social behaviors. We get to know ourselves by developing relationships, empathetic thinking, and cognitive openness when discussing matters with others. Conversational skills help us detect hidden agendas of others.

Jung suggests we are steeped in a world created by psyche, the all-pervasive meaning and flower-like nature of natural spiritual development. "The materialistic premise is that the physical process causally determines the psychic process. The spiritualistic premise is the reverse of this." (Jung, Letters Vol. I, Page 366).

Were it not for the leaping and twinkling of the soul, man would rot away in his greatest passion, idleness. ~Carl Jung, CW 9ii, Pages 26-27

The natural light of the soul is illumination, embodied in the pineal light of the “spirit molecule,” DMT. Likewise, alchemists seek the divine spark, the light hidden in matter. To work creatively in the world, the Light of Nature needs to be released through inner alchemy. Our own light or divine spark is part of the light of the World Soul, so we can understand the mysteries of creation and the secrets of nature. The tools of inner transformation help Anima Mundi reveal her divine light.

Whether called Isis, Hathor, Shakti, Maya, Shekinah, Sophia, Aphrodite, Demeter/Persephone, Mary, Great Mother, White Goddess or any cultural variant, Anima Mundi is the universal animating principle, the upwelling spring of the creative Imagination, the dynamic flow of imagery, pattern, and form. She is personified internally as a soul guide or Initiatrix and externally embodied as the Soror Mystica. Glimpsing inspiring inner workings of our soul helps us realign our lives, our hopes and our dreams.

We are partly empirical and partly transcendental -- a glorious body with natural instincts, appropriate reactions, realistic insights, creative impulses, etc. Our bodies are filled with energy that streams through us with the warmth that flows in our veins.

Just like banal reality can be a redeemer, so can ordinary healthy relationships. The exaggerated highs and lows of high-octane but toxic relationships deepen in trauma-bonds, emotional oscillation, and wounding, as in the narcissist/empath match. In a letter, Charlie Chaplin told his daughter Geraldine," Your naked body should only belong to those who fall in love with your naked soul.”

The unconscious is the living psyche and remains archaic. We tend to convert physical events into psychic processes in unconscious fantasies and metaphors such as 'desire springs up from the depths'. Lovers find the beauty in one another and an enlightened sex life with transparency and presence. We have immediate knowledge only of psychic existence, psychic images of instincts. We are 'touched' in the deepest emotional sense, connecting through the heart.

"Switch off your noisy consciousness and listen quietly inwards and look at the images that appear before your inner eye, or hearken to the words which the muscles of your speech apparatus are trying to form." ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 82

"All the difficulties you overcome in such a fantasy are symbolic expressions of psychological difficulties in yourself, and inasmuch as you overcome them in your imagination you also overcome them in your psyche." ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Page 109.

"I am indeed convinced that creative imagination is the only primordial phenomenon accessible to us, the real Ground of the psyche, the only immediate reality." ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Page 60

Feminine wisdom is a soulful understanding of life. Jung calls imagination a psychic process. He claims (Psychological Reflections, 98:889 ), "it is completely irrelevant whether the enlightenment is 'real' or imaginary." So, whether you think you are enlightened or not is a psychic fact, even when illusory or lying.

According to Jung, "Events signify nothing, they signify only in us. We create the meaning of events. The meaning is and always was artificial. We make it." (The Red Book, Page 239). Does an event open your heart in compassion or close it in judgment? Is there pleasure, joy, courage?

In love, we can interpret things correctly or incorrectly. Projections, fantasy, and delusion are psychic actualities, psychic truth. But in the meanwhile, we attribute our internal ideals to a normally fallible individual.

No one can exhaust psychic Being's mysteries of love. Jung says, "Your destiny is the result of the collaboration between the conscious and the unconscious." (Letters Vol. I, Page 283.) He implies that there are those who love others, those who love the souls of others, and those who love their own souls.

Soul images can be the ground of artistic inspiration, philosophical speculation, quasi-religious idiosyncratic beliefs, or squandered in licentiousness. Jung links anima to our philosophical potential. Anima is synonymous with Aphrodite.

Aphrodite is an autonomous relater. Independent but open, she carries our story as body language, shared feelings, and sensations. Relationships can be incandescent and joyfully fated or tragic and torturous. She ignites a tremendous amount of libidinous energy in us. 

The greater the tension, the greater is the potential. Great energy springs from a correspondingly great tension between opposites. To unite the opposites we first have to find the questions we are trying to reconcile. No experience is lived in vain. She makes it a richer experience -- a transformation that is not an identity from social institutions or civilizations but from a deeper realm.

"Far from being a material world, this is a psychic world, which allows us to make only indirect and hypothetical inferences about the real nature of matter. The psychic, alone has immediate reality, and this includes all forms of the psychic, even the 'unreal' ideas and thoughts which refer to nothing 'external'. We may call them 'imagination' or 'delusion,' but that does detract in any way from their effectiveness..."  (Jung, CW, 81:Para 747)

Aphrodite Urania is the "heavenly," wisdom, or spiritual facet of the goddess. Aphrodite Genatrix is the goddess of marriage; and Aphrodite Pandemos the goddess of lust. The mediatrix has numerous other epithets and qualities.

Her glories, follies, and pathology have paradoxical internal and external effects on our cosmos (worldview), environment and being in conscious and unconscious personal, social, and spiritual dimensions. Everything 'out there' is us; the whole body is psyche -- what it does, how it moves, how we feel.

Love is elemental. If we truly loved mother earth, we would be deeply listening. We feel it in the water; we sense it in the earth; we smell it in the air; we refine it in the fire. "Air" thinkers prioritizes communication; "Earth" types are practical and grounded; "Water" tends toward emotion and intuition; while "Fire" is creative and enthusiastic. Jung describes the elements of the body:

"The Earth element is “She who causes fall'; the water element is 'She who
kills'; the fire element' She who summons ';the air element 'The Lady of Dances' and the ether element is 'She who has the net of Lotuses'." (ETH Lecture, 20 Jan. 1059)

Thus, the alchemical process also begins with such a division into the four elements, by which the body is put back into its primordial state and so can undergo transformation. ~Carl Jung, Children’s Dreams, Page 367.

Men are attracted to women who reflect their anima, and women are attracted to men that exemplify her animus. In “The Process of Individuation,” Marie-Louise von Franz describes how a man’s anima attraction moves from the erotically attractive woman, to the romantic beauty, then the mature woman, and finally to the woman of wisdom. Animus images likewise morph from the physically attractive man, to the romantic man, the man of action, and the man of wisdom.

But such "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" stereotypes fail in more complex gender issues. We all have male and female elements, male and female hormones, etc. LGBT individuals are helping us understand the distortions and distinctions between gender and sexuality in less polarized terms with new ways of discovering the hidden side of the psyche.

Unmet childhood needs are transferred to the romantic arena, often recreating that earlier situation, roles, and traumas echoing the past. The romantic search for our missing half can take on religious proportions. The search for Aphrodite is part of all out lives. Spiritual yearning can be misplaced onto concrete objects or charismatic people. We can even use beloved pets compulsively and addictively.

Cultures are relative, not some kind of metaphysical superspace.
We live in an ecology of internal and external influences, including the presence or absence of love. "The beginning of all things is love, but the being of things is life," Carl Jung says. (The Red Book; Page 327.)

The first stage of love is psychic. Aphrodite mirrors all experiences, including our potential immortality, back to our own consciousness. But a glimpse of the deeper self of another does not insure longterm compatibility in lifestyle, values, or personality. We may let them carry our unlived life potential and avoid that self-development. The world is a waiting lover. The romantic search for the beloved is spiritual longing for divine communion.

In Plato's Phaedrus, Socrates says: “Every lover is fain that his beloved should be of a nature like to his own god...his every act is aimed at bringing the beloved to be like unto himself and unto the god of their worship."

Aphrodite represents the soul of beauty -- luminous, incorruptible, and radiant -- the holy grail of life. Love itself is a kind of "knowing," soulful engagement with the world. Consciousness proceeds from symbiotic, to magical, to mythical, to rational, to transpersonal growth. Adult relationship only emerges at the rational, not archaic stages.

"Nature is not matter only, she is also spirit"
C.G.Jung,C.W.13,par.229


Psyche fosters the deliteralization of life. Animism informed all life as the worldview that animals, plants, and inanimate objects—possess a soul or spiritual essence. As Plotinus said, "The stars are like letters which inscribe themselves at every moment on the sky. Everything in the world is full of signs. All events are coordinated. All things depend on each other; as has been said: "Everything breathes together."

Are we part of the inherent fabric of the universe or just an accidental by-product? One answer may lie in the nature of our consciousness. Some conscious contents disappear into the unconscious while others arise from it, an outgrowth of the depths.

Animism is mirrored in modern scientific theory as panpsychism, the doctrine or belief that everything material, however small, has an element of individual consciousness. Emergent panpsychism denies that macroexperience is grounded
in microexperience.

Panprotopsychism is the view that fundamental entities are proto-conscious: they have certain special properties that are precursors to consciousness and that can collectively constitute consciousness in larger systems. If it is the ground of macroexperience, all phenomenal truths are grounded in protophenomenal truths concerning these entities -- for example, fundamentals of mass and charge.

This ground for both physical and phenomenal properties may be mixed -- some  phenomenal and some protophenomenal or unrelated to the phenomenal. Panprotopsychism does not need subjects at the bottom level. (Chalmers)

The idea that some fundamental physical entities have protophenomenal properties is a modern retrievals of archaic thought. It's all ensouled psychic being with phenomenal properties, as personified by the beauty of Aphrodite.

Myth can collide or synchronize with personal history. Beyond mythic escapades, her archetype describes how psyche experiences physical facts, including distorted body image, emotional flooding (sudden reaction syndrome), addiction to sexual trauma and relationships. When we are dominated by our anima or animus, we uncritically believe everything the autonomous inner figures suggest.

Mystical knowledge effects a transformation. Mind penetrates the center of being, void of images and conceptual thinking, and we begin to see differently, informed by perceptual solitude discovered in descent. We "polish the mirror of the heart" with daily practice. Existential 'nakedness' is emptying the mind of all concepts and imagery.

Aphrodite's yoga is bhakti, the highest function of the soul -- union through love, devotion, and adoration of the divine as a path of self-realization. Bhakti -- the force of attraction -- is the most direct method to experience the unity of mind, body and spirit. But we must use discernment when we choose to devote ourselves. Devotion to the divine, in whatever form or non-form you care to imagine, is the unveiling of soul.

It is a matter of psychic transformation of subjective lived experience, transmuting compulsive (addictive) desire into more refined energy. "You shall love your crooked neighbor with your crooked heart," W.H. Auden wrote. We can become toxically enmeshed, romancing our own or another's shadow.

The common lover's fantasy of devotion remains questionable, riddled with projections and personal issues. If we need healing, the lover is the healer; if we need rescuing they are savior, or priest, or guru, etc., or so it seems until it flips to the reverse.

The teacher-student archetype presents an aspiration and a burden of desire for spiritual power, disillusionment, and spiritual shadow. The beloved can also appear as an autonomous soul-sibling. Instead of projection, the beloved ideal can become an inner guide. "At any rate we can never treat the anima with moral reprimands; instead of this we have, or there is, wisdom, which in our days seems to have passed into oblivion." ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Page 193

Psychological understanding fills us with the breath of life. In his ETH lectures, Jung calls alchemy "a curious sort of initiation, a sort of practical yoga." Aphrodite's alchemy --  a projection of cosmic and spiritual drama -- is refinement. Transformed emotions increase our capacity to contain and express life with conscious femininity. The great work rescues soul and redeems cosmos. Withdrawing spiritual projections, we regain our own radiance.

The coniunctio in alchemy is a union of the masculine and feminine, of the spiritual and material principles, from which a perfect body arises, the glorified body after the Last Judgement, the resurrection body. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lectures, Page 159.

This means an eternal body, or the subtle body, which is designated in alchemy as the philosopher's stone, the lapis aethereus or invisibilis. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lectures, Pages 159.

"But there is something which can be proved from everyday experience, not body becoming spirit, but body becoming conscious, man becomes conscious of his body." (Jung, ETH Lecture 26 Jan 1940)

Nature shapes existence. A cosmology of love is revealed in the radiance of light from the macrocosm to the microcosm -- a soul of light. An ancient Pyramid Text (Morrow) says, "Pure energy, the nature of light, underlies all. We emerge from and dissolve back into this radiant ground. Not only can you know this—you are this." Aphrodite is this ocean of light -- the holographic ocean of energy.

Hillman says, "Aphrodite is what makes something light up so you want it.” Light is seductive and tempts us toward disembodied transcendence -- a death wish toward matter, toward our disowned substance and darkness. There's no real awareness without death. Even death is a sensuous experience to be embraced.

Life behaves as if it were going on, and so I think it is better for an old person to live on, to look forward to the next day, as if he had to spend centuries, and then he lives properly. ~Carl Jung, C.G. Jung Speaking, Page 438

One needs death to be able to harvest the fruit. Without death, life would be meaningless, since the long-lasting rises again and denies its own meaning. To be, and to enjoy your being, you need death, and limitation enables you to fulfill your being. (Jung, Liber Novus, pg. 267)

Embodied psyche is experiential integration and natural instinctive psyche -- wild vitality, rapture, primordial revelation, and body wisdom. “The universes which are amenable to the intellect can never satisfy the instincts of the heart.”
(Anon, The Cloud of Unknowing). 

We experience primordial wholeness through primordial images in the ancient dynamics in all kinds of love; we enter an enchanted realm. As Jung reminds, "The soul demands your folly; not your wisdom." (The Red Book, Page 264.)

In identification, the beloved "captivates" us and becomes a component in our own self-image. Falling in love is an altered state. Unformed psyche takes on form. We begin thinking in primordial images of our transgenerational ground – in symbols older than historical mankind.

Our deepest ground is the primordial experience of archaic gods and goddesses -- their lived meaning. Myth is one form of knowledge of the primordial psyche. Archaic remnants rise into consciousness and embodiment.

It is for this reason that the alchemists believed in the truth of “matter,”
because “matter” was actually their own psychic life.
~Carl Jung, C.G. Jung Speaking, Page 228

Love of Form for Its Own Sake
Psyche mirrors matter. What is Above mirrors that which is down Below. Anima is the primordial carrier of psyche, or the archetype of psyche itself, according to Hillman.

Her meaning is form itself, here and now. Essence shines through appearance -- the divinity of form in shape itself. It may well be that primordial psyche plays a role as primal as matter, energy, and space-time.

We must have a psychic image of the body, in order to become conscious of it, we must translate the physical fact of the body into a psychic experience.
~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture IX, Page 221.

Being that has soul is living being. Soul is the living thing in man, that which lives of itself and causes life…. With her cunning  play of illusions the soul lures into life the inertness of matter that does not want to live. She makes us believe incredible things, that life may be lived. She is full of snares, and traps, in order that man should fall, should reach the earth, entangle himself there, and stay caught….  
--Jung, CW 9, i, 56

She projects herself into consciousness through expression; expression is her art, whether in the extraordinary artfulness of symptom formation and clinical ‘picture’ or the artifices of anima bewitchments. And the wisdom that Sophia imparts is seeing sophically into these expressions, seeing the art in the symptoms. --James Hillman

The anima makes possible a ‘purely human relationship independent of the maternal element of procreation.’ (CW 10, 76)…. The movement from mother to anima represents this shift in perspective from naturalistic to psychological understanding. In alchemy the relationship corresponding with the psychological perspective was exemplified in the adept’s relationship with the anima-soror. --James Hillman

The anima makes possible a ‘purely human relationship independent of the maternal element of procreation.’ (CW 10, 76)…. The movement from mother to anima represents this shift in perspective from naturalistic to psychological understanding. In alchemy the relationship corresponding with the psychological perspective was exemplified in the adept’s relationship with the anima-soror. --James Hillman

Reconnection with Soma

Soul and body are not two things. They are one.
~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 355

First: these qualities are differentiated and separate in us; therefore they do not cancel each other out, but are effective. Thus we are the victims of the pairs of opposites. The Pleroma is rent within us. ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 348.

Not the power of the flesh, but of love, should be broken for the sake of life, since life stands above love. ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 326.

After all, if you should still get stuck, there is always the enantiodromia from the unconscious, whichopens new avenues when conscious will and vision are failing. ~Carl Jung, C.G. Jung Speaking, Pages 158-159.

The transcendent function is not something one does oneself; it comes rather from experiencing the conflict of opposites. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Page 269

Integration unites the opposites of spirit and body, light and dark. In Holding the Tension of the Opposites, Marion Woodman tells us, "By uniting both sides of the unconscious, we attune to those around us and to the energy within the earth itself."

Soul unites the visible and invisible. This coniunctio implies the birth of
new possibilities. As Aphrodite is born from the sea, consciousness is born from oceanic feeling that promises to lead to conscious, ecstatic union with the divine, and feeling limitless in love or religious sentiment. It relates to the oceanic waves of pleasure and paradoxical suspension in ecstasy or synesthesia. It is mirrored in intuitive poetic sensibilities.

Ancient philosophers proclaimed the world soul, a pure ethereal spirit, is diffused throughout all nature. The notion of soul as imaginative possibility, in relation to the archai or root metaphors, is what Hillman has termed the “poetic basis of mind.” Whitening into psychic reality is embodiment of spirit and inspiriting of body, eliminating oppositional tension.

Michael Malone models Pychetypes (1978): "Thinking and feeling types are always continuous; sensation types and intuitives are always discontinuous. "Various types perceive space as either volcanic (concrete), ethereal (abstract), territorial (structured), or without boundaries (oceanic)." This includes intuitive and feeling oceanic types and oceanic spiritual experiences.

Oceanic feeling can be a regression to undifferentiated feeling and loosening of ego boundaries, dissolution of sensory boundaries, the amniotic state of unconscious fusion. The original chaos of infantile wholeness which is regressive, amorphous, and sentimental, is differentiated in a higher state of differentiated consciousness, governed by the Self, not Mother archetype.

In aesthetics, oceanic changes in existential feeling can lead to a wider process of artistic self-transformation and to a restructuring of fundamental relations with oneself, others, and the world. Mystics speak of the 'drop' merging in the ocean of bliss -- the ocean of universal mind. It also relates to the imagery of alchemical 'solutio.'

Conversely, we can find ourselves adrift in the ocean of emotion, emotional flooding. Drowning in such emotions, being overwhelmed, can be triggered by a partner, stress, or memories. When the Self is activated romantically, we feel special and exalted. The Self is projected onto the idealized Other, as soul mate, hero, savior, goddess, etc.

“Soul-making is allowing the eternal essence to enter and experience the outer world through all the orifices of the body … so that the soul grows during its time on Earth.  It grows like an embryo in the womb. Soul-making is constantly confronting the paradox that an eternal being is dwelling in a temporal body. That’s why it suffers, and learns by heart.” (Woodman, Leaving My Father's House)

Aphrodite impacts us personally, intimately, in her heavenly, common, and chthonic forms. Her "common love" seeks fulfillment in the human sphere. She is the hidden meaning in our suffering.

This is the way of élan vital, biological truth, and embodied awareness or body awareness -- the psychophysical basis of love, psychic integration of symbolism, and spiritual union. The coniunctio, or hieros gamos is the central component of the mystery of the Tao or unus mundus -- the lost secret of enlightenment.

Spirit and body meet in the movement of soul. Sexual energy is symbolized by fire, water, and light. The great light casts a dark shadow -- the driving strength of our own soul to make life, dissolving the boundary between our psyche and the psyche of the earth.

Sex & Death
The way that leads to Aphrodite is also the way of the life-death dichotomy, the Art of Death, including the intimations of the petit mort, or "little death." Taoism suggests that to die is not to perish but to be eternally present.

Mirroring the Sumerian sky goddess Inanna, Aphrodite Persephaessa has chthonic associations with the underworld of psyche, which is an immortal realm. "Black Aphrodite" was also called "the dark one."  She brings life to death in rebirth for nature and humanity -- for the foresaken body.

Religion is the art of death. We protect ourselves with rituals and taboos from our ancestral worlds that protect us from Mystery and the unknown. We descend into the redeeming darkness, making that walk, not because we want to, but because we must.

Initiatory descent signifies the removal of illusion, denial, and repression, through experiential death and rebirth, so soul and spirit can resonate together. This is intense bottom-up processing which is then brought back to daily life in the return.

The Romantics used the metaphor and images of descent. Their whole-hearted quest is inward and downward, into the hidden regions of the underworld. It is natural to descend in the inner world into more profound depths of consciousness. Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell describes a "descent" into the "subterranean void" of the unconscious, where salvation lies -- a reconciliation with the heart of cosmos.

“All descents provide entry into different levels of consciousness and can enhance life creatively.  All of them imply suffering.  All of them can serve as initiations.  Meditation and dreaming and active imaginations are modes of descent.  So too are depressions, anxiety attacks, and experiences with hallucinogenic drugs.” (Perera, Descent to the Goddess, 1981)

In many ancient myths, descent is an integral part of the Great Feminine Round of Life and Death. "You cannot be redeemed without having undergone the transformation in the initiation process." (Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 502.)

We are mortal and vulnerable. We live in a world of catastrophe and chaos, personal loss and social threat. We are thrown down by chaotic defensive furies, such as desire, rage, and greed. We are helped up by the dynamics of rebirth. Miraculously, we find our way to life again.

Hathor was an Egyptian sky deity of fertility and erotic love. She was called "Lady of the West," as a euphemism for the afterlife. The same chthonic archetype appears as witches and sirens, the seductress, or hierodule, who possess or exploit. They derive their energy from the untransformed primordial psyche.

"I saw how we live toward death, how the swaying golden wheat sinks together under the scythe of the reaper, like a smooth wave on the sea-beach."
(Jung, The Red Book, Page 268.)

Sex & Life
Aphrodite is air become rising breath -- the very "breath of life."
And words are made of nothing but breath -- living psyche.
The Word is the creative act, including the language of our instincts.
Only that living breath connects us to the fact of all existence.

However, Taoism says,The truth is not always beautiful
Nor are beautiful words, always the truth
~Tao teh Ching~ Ch 81

You see, life wants to be real; if you love life you want to live really, not as a mere promise hovering above things. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 508

Mistress of the Labyrinth, Aphrodite-Ariadne, (goddess of paths, wine, snakes, passion, and fertility) symbolizes vast convoluted mazes of entangled memories and transgenerational relationships. The monster at the center of the maze is a symbol of animal desire, carnal needs, and fleshly pursuits. The hero conquers and transcends it.

Traumas, fixations, phobias and anxieties are potential trans-generational memories. We are each a living story influenced by the unhealed burdens of past generations and historical trauma: unresolved conflicts, beliefs, individual roles. Family of origin unconsciously continues to influence our current relationships and level of functioning. Emotional shocks can create psychophysical disorders or recreate the emotional conditions of original trauma.

The goddess behind our primordial images and symbols remains otherwise inaccessible as the imagistic potential of Nature. Our destiny and our myth are found in the images of our psyche -- what is lost and what is redeemed. We weigh our lives in the balance of love and loss. Our loves write the story of our own impermanence.

We embody time with temporal and spatial metaphors. The fleetingness of time and unbridgeable distance profoundly affect our loves. Every inevitable loss evokes all loss. Emotional arousal, attention, fluency, reverie, and motivations can reduce psychological distance.

We live out our own vision of life with its necessary errors and misperceptions. Transformations are losses, too, which require mourning or grief to complete transitions of the heart. Even lost love continues to radiate light and inform our lives in which we continue to want what we cannot have.

Post-modernists, like Debord, caution that the proliferation of images and desires alienates us, not only from ourselves, but from each other. The path of discovery is full of sharp and dull pains. Our most personal experiences are the most universal -- the pursuit of the Beloved.

This serpentine path represents a soul journey to our own center and back again to the world with that sacred connection. On our individual path we overcome our own obstacles and expose our own illusions. As Joseph Campbell suggests,
The idea is to find your own pathway to bliss."

Aphrodite informs the heart of the journey. Participatory wisdom suggests bringing the sacred back into the material realm. The aspirant balances the four psychic elements of instinctual awareness -- earth, air, fire, and water.

Others may help us avoid false paths, but sometimes we veer off on necessary detours from our planned roadmap. Our participation in the whole gives it meaning. Psyche initiates. Because the serpent sheds its skin as it grows, it represents cyclic life and is associated with the Tree of Life.

"The growing one is the Tree of Life. It greens by heaping up growing living matter." ~Philemon, Liber Novus, Page 351

"The serpent represents magical power, which also appears where animal drives are aroused imperceptibly in us." (Jung, Liber Novus, Page 366).

"The serpent shows the way to hidden things and expresses the introverting libido, which leads man to go beyond the point of safety, and beyond the limits of consciousness, as expressed by the deep crater." (Jung, 1925 Seminar, Page 102)

Nothing makes this effect clearer than the serpent. It signifies everything dangerous and everything bad, everything nocturnal and uncanny, which adheres to Logos as well as to Eros, so long as they can work as the dark and unrecognized principles of the unconscious spirit. ~Jung, Liber Novus, Page 365.

This suggests that Eros does not tend toward the right, the side of consciousness, conscious will and conscious choice, but toward the side of the heart, which is less subject to our conscious will. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 366.

Aphrodite's symbol is the ankh-cross, symbol of the millions of years of life to come. The inexhaustible essence of the life force is a key of life that represents physical and immortal life and death, male and female balance, art knowledge wisdom, reproduction and sexual union. Her cosmology is that all life is connected with an interwoven animating energy, naked fullness, and loving receptivity.

Tradition says the possessor of the geometric key to the hidden mysteries is able to open the gates of the Kingdom of the Dead and penetrate the hidden meaning of eternal life. The ankh is identified with the Tree of Life, its trunk and foliage -- the nervous, glandular, and endocrine systems.

The ankh-like symbol from ancient Mycenae and Cyprus became the symbol for both copper and the goddess Aphrodite, and for the feminine -- carnal and creative fertility, and the sacredness of procreation. Coptic Christians used it instead of the Latin cross.

Interiorization
Conceptual analysis of common, romantic or ideal love can be rather dry or predictable. We all have a keen grasp of the obvious when it comes to love goddess myths and basic psychology. Two people fall in love and build their romantic world. Hopefully, we will introduce dormant associations from the unconscious to restore the bond with cosmos that enfolds humanity with a universal sense of meaning.

Interiorizing means to internalize or cause feelings and values, for example, to become an interior or internal part of one's mental or spiritual being. We make them a part of our own inner being, mental structure, or inner life -- an impression full of grace.

It is a change in the center of gravity of our consciousness. We give unreserved attention to the unfolding core or essence of the process -- the soul of the concept. An inner dynamic or metaphor cannot be reduced to a biological substrate. The core metaphor unfolds hermeneutically on its own terms.

Ancient rituals were internalized to discover the inward universe. The tantric interiorization of Buddhist ritual did not reject ritual. Nor did it psychologize. It did not reduce ritual, to 'the spiritual state of the faithful,' but a commitment to the independent manifestations of phenomenology. Like ritual, we can interiorize sacred space, even sacrifice.

Consciousness speaking about itself is devoted attention to the phenomenon as it unfolds itself revealing its inner truth or essence -- a mental or noetic perception. Phenomena retains its own independence, its own essential truth, its own "truth" and “subjectivity.”

The mode of apprehension becomes an object which is itself transformed through its own act of knowing the independent phenomenon of dreams, emotions, ideas, and feelings. It is a receptive rather than intentional approach to emotions, images, ideas, etc., which are understood as expressing underlying structures or “thought.”

When we are smitten, it is like the French expression le coup de foudre, literally, a "bolt of lightning" or "thunderbolt." Figuratively, it is "love at first sight." It can be  a huge a shock to the system that washes away boundaries, exaggerating panic about deflation. Devotion abd love itself can be extreme -- a transformative madness or healing balm that eases our emotional pain.

Identification with the numinous also leads to dangerous ego inflation, overidentification, or 'possession' --  seizure of the psyche by a seductive archetype and overexpansion. Inflation is the misuse of transcendental energy. In extreme states the nonpersonal unconscious can form a vortex that pulls us under a stormy sea.

We value our moments of emotional love as highly as any human experience. We find the meaning of life in love -- as caretaker and care receiver -- compassionate response and love for self, others, life itself, and beauty. The soul can rest in love.

Suffering is not an illness; it is the normal counterpole to happiness.
~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 179

When a loving healing presence or self-care is missing we suffer from wounds of omission or lack of love (numbing, emotional unavailability, approach/avoidance, grief, depression, stroke deficiency, denial, instability, abandonment) in the immediate environment and larger world.

An ensouled world mirrors our own love, death, sorrow, happiness and much more. We see-through the surface of a world that needs mirroring. We don't need to burden images with too many meaningful ideas as much as let them live and breath through us.

Soul reveal itself spontaneously and irrationally. It amplifies our understanding of observed phenomena. A flow of ideas arises from the image. We develop a dark-adapted eye for the unexpected or less apparent. A narrative emerges from finding hidden value in the depths.

Each reader -- anyone who has had or lost a love -- finds their own revelations arising within. It isn't what you look at, but what you see with the Art of Seeing --
a perceptual framework. Jung notes, "The unconscious mind sees correctly even when conscious reason is blind." And Goethe, "everyone sees what he carries in his heart."

And, Jung, again, "What the heart hears are the great, all-embracing things of life, the experiences which we do not arrange ourselves but which happen to us." (CW 18, Para 1719). "The heartstrings sing like an Aeolian harp only under the gentle breath of a mood, an intuition, which does not drown the song but listens." (Jung, CW 18, Para 1719) "The utterances of the heart— unlike those of the discriminating intellect—always relate to the whole." (Jung, CW 18, Para 1719)

James Hillman suggests a process of "seeing through" phenomena to the archetypal basis of being, mythologizing, and deliteralizing -- transparence rather than transcendence. The beauty of images, their architecture, and the frames of our consciousness are foundational to soul and its image making. We see through the concrete givens, our language, and our metaphors to psyche. Psyche finds itself and is enlightened by seeing through the hidden yet revealed illusion of separation.

An act of imagination, active imagination means engaging perception with desire. Hillman (1976) said, “love, too, can be a method of psychologizing, of seeing into and seeing-through, of going ever deeper” (Revisioning Psychology, p. 136). In that magical world symbols are alive. The Tibetan Book of the Dead defines both our experience in this world and in the supernatural realm as desire and temptation. Even things that seem like they aren't connected, suddenly are.

The Heart of Soul Work
We can imagine Aphrodite much more broadly as the relativity of all psychological phenomena and symbolic imagination. Psyche and soma are joined by the bridge of imagination. In the phenomenological view, symbols emerge from human engagement with the social and material environment just as psychic life emerges from embodied action in the world.

Soulwork is the art of living soulfully and fully embodied, consciously aware of the depth dimension and its interaction with our body, emotions, mind, and spirituality. Through myth we participate in our own transcendence. Aphrodite's way is a soul-centered, open-hearted way of being. The dreamy nature of love is symbolically retained in her fluidity, meter, and rhyme.

The imaginal world of the spirit is not separate from the material world. It is active participation within a world enlivened with meaning as well as respect for dreams. Our psychosocial and physical aspects are part of one symbolic world. In a colloquial sense, it just boils down to who you want to be 'in bed' with, physically, symbolically, and collectively.

Anatomical knowledge does not tell us how we fill our own bodies but psychic experience does give us information on this point. We fill our bodies as if through inner streams. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 26 Jan 1940.

Our perception of reality differs from reality itself. Cognitive neuroscience suggests that body awareness is a complex and multifaceted structure. It can be dissociated in several subcomponents, possibly underpinned by different brain circuits.

One example is ideomotor responses during hypnosis when the body can answer questions the rational mind cannot. The body produces unconscious signals or physical manifestations of mental events. Suggestion or expectation has an influence on involuntary and unconscious motor behavior. This involuntary movement of the body is a subconsciously produced response to a thought, feeling, or idea.

A sense of meeting in the imagination arises, revealing the dual structure of individuality, otherwise unknowable. This mighty source of psychic energy fuels imagination to create a field of inner freedom and curatorial narrative. Narratives, both personal and collective, arise from the desire to have life display coherence, integrity, fullness, disclosure, and closure.

Like Aphrodite, this essay seeks to titillate, to provoke, to promise even more than it may deliver of the mysteries and hidden charms of existence. No vacuous nymphomaniacs here. It won't cover all of her aspects, exploits, or relationships, nor means of apprehending it.

We may even skip promiscuously from subject to subject like a dreamer. She is with us on threshold of life's greatest decisions. In The Red Book, Philemon tells Jung, "Joy comes from fulfillment, but not from longing." (Pg. 341). Certain primordial human desires are not mainly concerned with possibility, but with desirability.

Sensing the Body

It is absolutely necessary to grasp every psychic process with all the four functions, otherwise we only grasp a quarter of it. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 10th Feb 1939

Imagination is a deep and inexhaustible archetypal field. When we cultivate deep imagination we cultivate soul in the world -- anima mundi. We continue to move and expand our depth in the vast energy field of personal, interpersonal, and transpersonal love, softening and opening our hearts.

The ego "takes the plunge," it lets go and dissolves its old matrix, its old boundaries. When its boundaries melt, ego-consciousness dissolves into deep consciousness. The "wave merges with the ocean," and experiences its own deep transpersonal nature. It moves swiftly through the fear and pain, awakening to an infinitely wider reality of universal energy waves. In the ocean of creativity, "your own consciousness, shining, void and inseparable from the great body of radiance, has no birth, nor death." (Leary, 1964).

Jung associated universal mind, as the transpersonal source of being, with the Collective Unconscious, which contains all information in subtle form. All things in the universe have a connection with the universal mind. Nothing can exist without that unmanifest connection to everything else. Separation is an illusion for we are all one. In her relation with the world, Aphrodite is both the Universal Cause, Universal Soul. and Universal Mind -- matter, energy, spirit.

Soulful love is a spiritual path. Most of us have suffered the pathos, confusion and pain, trust and betrayal, jealousy, need for power, loss of identity, erotic fantasy, and even co-dependence. They are born from both our dysfunction and deep longing for authenticity. "Creative life always stands outside convention." (Jung, CW 17, Para 305).

As the goddess does in her own affairs, we may take flight from subject to subject, all in her honorable name. Imagine Cleopatra amplifying her own majesty taking on the aspect of Isis.

Komarius teaches Cleopatra that the dead who stay in Hades [that is in chaos) are transformed into Spring flowers by the miraculous dew. This is the idea of the living elements in chaos or Shunyata waking and uniting through being contained in the lotus. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 3Mar1939, Page 101.

The mystical rose, like the lotus in India, grows for the salvation of man.
~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 3, Mar1939, Page 101.

The red rose is a symbol of the heart; her symbol of bees is like the humming sound of the primordial OM -- a singing sound and a humming sound -- the magnetic voice of the silence. "The western rose is wholly parallel to the eastern lotus." (Jung, Modern Psychology, Page 21). As for the 'rose' attribution, she is the bud which contains the becoming being that undergoes transformation through entrainment with the fundamental rhythms of arousal and relaxation.

Love ignites at least twelve convoluted brain regions in love, releasing hormones and neurotransmitters. The reward circuit activates the limbic system, hippocampus (memory), frontal lobes, vision, and more. They create sensations of attraction, arousal, pleasure, and obsession. As in social life, it's all about how they interact -- eros (feeling life) and pathos -- the original of archetypal wound in the heart of the gods.

Mythic Retrieval

Myths encapsulate and personify universal instinctual experience. Retrieving the myth is a contemporary form of spirituality, helping us revision the erotic encounter and amorous exchange. It differs from religion in the sense Jung explains: "There is religious sentimentality instead of the numinosum of divine experience. This is the well-known characteristic of a religion that has lost its living mystery." (CW 11, Para 52)

Just enough religious scruples inform us of the proper performance of rites to venerate the gods and touch our existential core. We need only enough religio, to reconnect, bind us back or bind us to the god/goddess. She arouses us -- physically, psychically, spiritually -- which elevates simple biological acts to the sublime. 'Divine Lady' is a priestly office.

Sexual alchemy perpetuates the universal Mystery -- to fuse with the highest, or God. The joining of deified spouses makes them a divine macrocosmic domain. Rather than fulfillment through the other, it means fulfillment of self and other through reciprocal enhancement if desire and mutual concern.

Aphrodite's myth remains contemporary and aspirational -- a psychosexual satori. The eternal nature of the divine reminds us that transcendence cannot be put on a timeline of temporal concreteness. Nor does a romantic desire to reify one's sex life or secular relations make one a tantric. 

There is a difference between balancing heaven and earth, and a primary desire to transcend the material human condition. Jung notes, "What is the power of the individual against the voice of the whole people in him?" (Liber Novus, Page 365.)

Erotically Fixated
Hypersexuality arises from trauma-bonding over sex or sexuality. Fawning is a trauma response, as is excessive passion, self-surrender, and fusion with the beloved. Complex PTSD is often related to prolonged childhood trauma and responses: Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn. Self-abandonment and escape are not the healthiest motivators.

Most religions don't make sex part of their path beyond  cultural sacraments of marriage and taboos. The heart-mind-body connection may be ritually honored as within the Jewish tradition of Friday night sex. Shekinah is now imagined as the Shabbat Bride. The Hebrew word Shekinah literally means “dwelling” or “resting”, or “Divine Presence.”

The kabbalists revisioned Shabbat as a marriage festival. Earthly union between man and woman symbolically mirrors the heavenly marriage -- mystical marriage -- unification through the mystery of oneness. She is the radiance of God. Originally, Shekinah as Ashera, was the God-Wife if El or YHVH, rejected after the Babylonian captivity. No union  is compete without a separation.
http://www.rabbimaller.com/hassidic-wisdom/spiritual-sexuality 
http://www.abigailsarah.co.za/myart/Festivals/sabbathqueen.html

Other creeds or spiritual paths that transcend religions, like Sant Mat, claim that those bound to anyone never reach 'salvation.'  Jung said, "But if you know what the dead demand, temptation will become the wellspring of your best work, indeed of the work of salvation. (Liber Novus, Page 278, Footnote 188).

The united personality will never quite lose the painful sense of innate discord. Complete redemption from the sufferings of this world is and must remain an illusion. ~Carl Jung, CW 16, Para 400

But love and devotion by which we are affected needs a face; for some it is that of the living teacher, guru, or master. That smile and soothing presence fulfills the devotee, enraptured by the physical presence, amplifying love, hope, and comfort for the personal and collective. The brilliance, beauty, and radiance of Light are utterly transcendent qualities of the divine related to ecstatic awakening of the third eye. Real love without separation is union with the radiant form.

The theologian, the only person besides the psychotherapist to declare himself responsible for the cura animarum, is afraid of having to think psychologically about the objects of his belief. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 628-630

Aphrodite is that numinosum (novelty), or evocative experience, even holy dread -- a quality of her visible and invisible presence that creates a peculiar alteration of consciousness. It is the induction and maintenance of a complex trance state, describable only in gems of poetry and song. Creativity is the primal spiritual impulse, a madness that floods intellect, intuition, and vision. It promises to transform the ordinary into the valuable.

Speaking of intuitive people, he [Jung] said it was important for them to get down to some task and make it real, ‘Otherwise they are like someone looking at that mountain over there through a telescope, and the next thing is they feel they have been there. But they haven’t, they must do the work.’ ~E.A. Bennet, Conversations with Jung, Page 74

Reminiscence
At the heart of existence, Aphrodite is all about the embrace of our sensual side, relationships -- to ourselves, to others, and to the sacred. These are the waters of relationship in which, under the jeweled sky, we can swim shallow or dive deep.

Her sensuality is an irresistible blend of image, imagination, and happy or painful memory of the senses -- the lapse of memory or precise memory of a smell, a touch, a look, a feeling. Under the spell of temptation we tend to 'forget who we are.' Even 'misery loves company,' we say. In committed relationships, we conspire to build a single mutual body with mutual memories and mutual field of perception.

But sometimes that 'body' falls apart, whether by destiny, archetypes, or typology. Perhaps we idolize or idealize the lover. Idolizing the object of affection, the lover is actuated by ideals. Even in the context of sacred sex this is projection taken way too literally, burdening the partner with unrealistic qualities of the divine out of the ritual space.

To be perfect or have a perfect relationship is unrealistic and imposes a role, whether it comes from romantic notions, fantasies, or religious zeal. It encourages 'fixing' the beloved to conform to one's vision. This obsession is disguised possession and control to ensure continuance of the romantic - a vain attempt to solve personal issues.

Avoidant behavior is really self-preoccupation. Ultimately, it devalues the personal sovereignty of both. Fusion is regressive dissociation, not merger. It ends the self-transformation of both lovers in an impasse. Fulfillment through private relationship can be a substitute for self-actualization in the outer world. Passionate love comes from integral selfhood when we truly value the other person. In our autonomy we mutually enhance one another. Self-knowledge includes knowledge of the soul.

There are other pitfalls. Maybe we are a door-slammer, desire to run, or want to live by 'the rules.' We may need to 'be right', or control, or avoid commitment. Some may have difficulty expressing feelings, or slowing down and 'making room,' getting priorities straight, or taking care of oneself instead of serving others. We may be unreliable, or need to be needed, be impulsive, check out, or unable to accept the worldview of others.

We re-member myths to remember and integrate the powerful majesty of concepts like psyche. In Till We Have Faces, C.S. Lewis remarks, "It was when I was happiest that I longed most...The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing...to find the place where all the beauty came from.” Whether we speak of the gods, significant others, or ourselves, his words apply: "How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?" [personification]

Beauty is transporting. Aphrodite is the mysterious, awe-inspiring something that comes over us when we are overcome. Lust incites intoxication, chaos, and destruction beyond that of love. To be, we must be perceived, mirrored back to ourselves by the immediate intimacy of others. All relationships are subsequent to our primordial, symbiotic union with our mother. At birth we die as aquatic beings to become autonomous air-breathers.

*
Thomistic philosophy includes four inner senses:

Common Sense

1. To know all the sensations of the external senses which are known separately by the external senses.
2. To compare and distinguish these qualities, e.g., color and taste.
3. To be aware of the operations of the external senses.
4. To distinguish the real objects from the images of the fantasy, e.g., to know whether we are dreaming, and to realize that our dreams are not reality.

Imagination 

1. To preserve the impressed species that it receives from the common sense--not only the impressed species related to sight, but any impressed species (e.g., that of a melody).
2. To combine images or phantasms to form unreal images (artistic ability).
3. To know quantity. (Thus the imagination plays an important role in mathematics.)

Cogitative Sense

1. To retain the perceptions of the estimative sense, namely, to remember what is harmful and beneficial for the animal.
2. To recognize the experiences of the past as concretely past.
3. In man, to help the recollection of memories by way of a sort of syllogism, or by way of a spontaneous recollection, like association. This is called reminiscence in man:

Memorative Sense

1. To retain the perceptions of the estimative sense, namely, to remember what is harmful and beneficial for the animal.
2. To recognize the experiences of the past as concretely past.
3. In man, to help the recollection of memories by way of a sort of syllogism, or by way of a spontaneous recollection, like association. This is called reminiscence in man:

http://www.aquinasonline.com/Topics/intsense.html
*

Whole Body & Soul
In A Sense of Cosmos, Jacob Needleman reminds us, "Whenever we have looked to a part for the sake of understanding the whole, we have eventually found that the part is a living component of the whole. In a universe without a visible center, biology presents a reality in which the existence of a center is everywhere implied."

Aphrodite [Ishtar, Inanna] is the well-known goddess of love, beauty and seductive power. She is the pure erotic impulse, creative fire, pure libido, pure imagination, fertility, fruitfulness. The Hollywood love-goddess is a modern icon of her eternal power.  She inherently possesses the qualities of grace, charm, and desire. The Kama Sutra includes the forehead, eyelids, cheeks, throat, breasts, lips, mouth, thighs, arms and navel as areas ideal for protective kissing in sacred sex.

She is a goddess of passion as well as pleasure, sensuality, affection and sensitivity. She can manifest as artistic and aesthetic inspiration, the desire to give birth to something remarkable by concept or conception. We have to mobilize our imagination to deal with conflicts of all nature from a point of view beyond the literalism of "I." Jung noted that for the artist there is a striking distance between ordinary ego-consciousness and the creative personality.

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect, creative mind plays with the object it loves. ~Carl Jung, Psychological Types, Page 123, Para 197.

So doing, our efforts will follow nature’s own striving to bring life to the fullest possible fruition in each individual, for only in the individual can life fulfil its meaning—not in the bird that sits in a gilded cage. ~Carl Jung, CW 16, Para 229.

The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purposes through him. ~Carl Jung, CW 15, Para 157

There are disarming pleasures and dangers in her enchanting attentions.
Aphrodite can be conflated with the uncontrollable urges of the shadow. As Lewis says, “the Divine Nature wounds and perhaps destroys us merely by being what it is.” (Lewis, Till We Have Faces)

Assimilation of the shadow gives a man body, so to speak; the animal sphere of instinct, as well as the primitive or archaic psyche, emerge into the zone of consciousness and can no longer be repressed by fictions and illusions.
~Carl Jung, CW 16, Para 452

There is a long list of obvious attributions backed by great literature as well as personal and collective experience. Aphrodite inspires a compelling, subjective state. Euripides called love the "breathes (or blasts) of Aphrodite." She seeks intimacy, touching the most private aspects of our lives. Aphrodite is linked with many lovers in different myths. 

In one version of her life, Aphrodite was married to Ares. So we see that when we are well acquainted with the Ares principle of physicality, we have an encounter with the sensuous energy she represents. You own evoked embodied experience with your nervous system and your soul. 

In another myth, Aphrodite is said to be the wife of the lame smith Hephaistos.  In this story of adultery, Ares is her paramour of choice. Aphrodite derives her warmth from a golden, sunlit type of sexuality.  She has the greatest degree of solar qualities in her personality; whereas the other goddesses have greater lunar consciousness. This solar affinity does not, however, mean that she possesses a superior style of consciousness where self-awareness is concerned.  In fact, she can tend to drift into situations with an aplomb only possible through reckless disregard for the future. 

Aphrodite can be the source of envy arising from a pulsating desire for life and love. Paraphrasing Jung in a letter, "In a state of participation mystique one always projects emotion, but that emotional condition is brought about...by desire and by desire you are bound to things, and when they become chaotic you are drawn into the chaos." (Visions Seminar, Pages 1045-1046)

The origin of Aphrodite is a peculiar image for the Goddess of Love, since she stems from the violent castration of Uranus by Cronos. Stan Grof has described the uterine experience as an archaic matrix. Aphrodite reminds us our life on Earth in physical form is the sacred space of our soul and our psychic life.

The four Basic Perinatal Matrices (BPM) , the stages of the birth process
and the archetypal character of the four outer planets include:
Neptune/Poseidon (BPM I: The Amniotic Universe),
Saturn/Cronos (BPM II: Cosmic Engulfment and No Exit),
Pluto (BPM III:The Death-Rebirth Struggle), and
Uranus (BPM IV: The Death-Rebirth Experience).

Her birth from the severed genitals of Uranus symbolizes genetically the relationship of this goddess to the birth matrix, to her father, and by extension with all men.  She is the embodiment of both his cynicism and his phallic sexual imperative.  She is the drive personified in an alluring image.

Paradox
Sexual desire and amorous pleasure function as aphrodisiacs which lead to fulfillment through union of male and female. Psychological quandry makes us unable to decide between two options, not knowing which path to take. Transformative solutions arise from the tension of opposites.

We are that pair of Dioscuri, one of whom is mortal and the other immortal, and who, though always together, can never be made completely one. --Jung, ‘
The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious’, CW.I §235.

The Ghostly Lover is a man or woman who does not exist, or only exists in your imagination, or one who blocks a move on to another by making us emotionally unavailable. Hillman said this archetype means avoidance of an ordinary human relationship for an enchanting, seductive relationship with a dangerous ephemeral lover.

Imaginal fantasies of the ghostly lover archetype can distort the transformative process. Psychological development means entering a dialogue between ego and anima/animus. Romantic longing, engulfment, or emotional fusion is stimulated by separation, death, abandonement, or emotional unavilability.

The animus may be pathologically dominated by identification with the ghostly lover archetype, a constant invisible companion relegated to 'soul mate' status but never realizable. We become possessed by a celebrated, fictional or deceased character to whom we misattribute numinous effects.

A ghostly figure elevated in imagination to the sovereign point of the spirit usurps it. Thoughtforms can take on certain autonomous behaviors. This form of 'spirit possession' is the shadow side of spiritual longing conferring illusory 'specialness' on both parties in the self-narrative. But it is a confabulation and conflation of trickster, bright or dark shadow, and animus or anima, with which one is unconsciously bound and cut off from maturing.

Archetypal images of yearning for unavailable lovers include the bewitched prince, the romantic poet, the ghostly lover, or the marauding pirate -- celebrity or pop star. Another form is extreme father fixation, obsessing on the parent's pursuits and standards.

These are not sacred partners, but 'demonic' forms mixed with shadow and self. The demonic lover may be a psychopath, narcissist, vampire, or corpse. Projections on the idealized dead or unavailable fantasy figures are literalizations of one's own fantasies -- a "head trip" that sucks away the energy for real life.

The best protection against abandonment to demons is a conscious relationship to a close, living human being. ~Carl Jung, Conversations with C.G. Jung, Page 25.

So if you speak of individuation at all, it necessarily means the individuation of beings who are in the flesh, in the living body. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 202

The union of anima and animus is a major step in individuation, a preliminary form of mystical union -- union of the spirit and body, spirit and matter (Mater). We learn to live at the stillpoint in a world of paradoxes: inner/outer, masculine/feminine, light/dark, visceral/cerebral, fight/flight, likes/dislikes, gain/loss, happiness/despair.

Opposites of being are a defining characteristic in mystical thought -- the synthesis of all the desires and thoughts. Kabbalists say opposites arise from and are united in the primordial Ether and that union of opposites is the purpose of the world, a vehicle for reaching primal unity by undoing the bifurcating tendencies of mind in the unity of all things.

Polarities are complimentary. They signify the essence of wholeness, union of the conscious and unconscious elements of the psyche -- the Self, the whole Self, and nothing but the Self, completeness at least in that divine instant -- creation and negation, concealment and revelation. Rather than wildly oscillating back and forth we learn to hold the dynamic tension of opposites. Emotional management needs healthy boundaries for deeper connections.

Aphrodite is an embodiment of the non-rational and psychological union of opposites wherein the lovers are annihilated. Her form is ecstatic, reconciling. Opposite principles are brought together by desire. A similar union of opposites, the alchemist and soror mystica, is the goal of alchemy -- deep union with the divine and feminine principle that opens our senses and reconnects us with the body. This is the spirituality of earth, life, and the present moment.

Pairs of opposites have a natural tendency to meet on the middle line, but the middle line is never a compromise thought out by the intellect and forced upon the fighting parties.
It is rather a result of the conflict one has to suffer.
Such conflicts are never solved by a clever trick or by an intelligent invention but by enduring them.
As a matter of fact, you have to heat up such conflicts until they rage in full swing so that the opposites slowly melt together.
It is a sort of alchemistic procedure rather than a rational choice and decision.
The suffering is an indispensable part of it.
Every real solution is only reached by intense suffering.
The suffering shows the degree in which we are intolerable to ourselves.
--C.G. Jung ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Pages 233-235

Venus is a binding force, which may appear as a voluntary involvement or with the strength and dynamism of possession. The paradox of Aphrodite is that she is a loving and passionate wife, yet always leaves open the possibility of exploring numerous relationships with gods and mortals.  She is always friendly and intimate, except to those who would usurp her position.  In her, both love and power drives are embodied in a single goddess. Conflicts of opposites arise between duty and what we really want.

It's All Chemistry

The physical chemistry of love modulates our attitudes and desire through three stages: Lust, Attraction, and Bonding. Each deploys different hormones and neurotransmitters to accomplish its alchemy. They act like addictive drugs shaping our behavior -- in the beginning like stimulating cocaine, and in bonding like heroin. Love changes how we think, feel, and act with Aphrodite's rose-tinted glasses.

Stage 1 is governed in both sexes by testosterone and estrogen. Pheromones are unconscious scent attractors and sex signals which draw us toward biologically suitable partners and change the hormone levels of others.

The love-struck attraction of Stage 2 is modulated by adrenaline (stress response), dopamine (rush of desire and reward; decreased sleep and eating; hyper-focus; idealization) and serotonin (fixation; obsession-compulsion), dopamine.

Stage 3 involves oxytocin (released in orgasm), the cuddle and bonding hormone, and vasopressin (devotion; pair-bonding).

It changes the fabric of our being. Ernest Rossi suggests this “novelty-numinosum-neurogenesis-effect” implies that gene expression is related to natural healing. He links it to arousal and the very nature of consciousness itself. Ecstasy, as the breakthrough moment of creative consciousness has been described as the activating emotive force of a daemon that drives our human experience, whether we want it or not. Peak experiences provide insight, inspiration, and transformation.

Air, Light & Fragrance

She is the extroverted world of sense and sensuality and the immanent world of imagination. Stimulating the imagination is erotic. We carefully take hold of our experiences with enough passion and loyalty to hang onto and continue them through the multidimensional layers of meaning Aphrodite imposes on reality.

Reality emerges with symbolism and imagination as its companions, manifesting as symbols, dreams, and language. Jung says, "If the word is a sign, it means nothing. But if the word is a symbol, it means everything." (Red Book, p. 310).

One creates inner freedom only through the symbol. ~Carl Jung, The Red Book , Page. 311

Some meanings are too deep to grasp except in symbols. The dream’s obscurity is really only a projection of our own lack of understanding.

Poetry reveals the essence of Nature. Giovanni Boccaccio suggests that the poem is the voice of the anima mundi, the voice of the wind, the sea, the tears. It is not the voice of this or that thing, but the voice of the soul. An integral approach to reality unites the opposites of animal and psychic beauty to re-enchant the world.

In The Poet (1844) Ralph Waldo Emerson perhaps alludes to Aphrodite when he  says: "Doubt not, O poet, but persist. Say, 'It is in me, and shall out.' Stand there, baulked and dumb, stuttering and stammering, hissed and hooted, stand and strive, until, at last, rage draw out of thee that dream-power which every night shows thee is thine own; a power transcending all limit and privacy, and by virtue of which a man is the conductor of the whole river of electricity. Nothing walks, or creeps, or grows, or exists, which must not in turn arise and walk before him as exponent of his meaning. Comes he to that power, his genius is no longer exhaustible. All the creatures, by pairs and by tribes, pour into his mind as into a Noah's ark, to come forth again to people a new world. This is like the stock of air for our respiration, or for the combustion of our fireplace, not a measure of gallons, but the entire atmosphere if wanted. And therefore the rich poets, as Homer, Chaucer, Shakspeare, and Raphael, have obviously no limits to their works, except the limits of their lifetime, and resemble a mirror carried through the street, ready to render an image of every created thing."
http://www.emersoncentral.com/poet.htm

Art expresses feelings and understanding.  It is the fulfillment of sensation in an audible or visual form.  It is an expression of an archetypal process in relationship with life.  Art is philosophy expressed in symbols and imagery.  or the sensation function, art serves the same purpose that science does for thinking.  Other analogies for art include philosophy and psychology for the intuitive function, and the emotions of human society for feelings.

THE OCEAN OF EXISTENCE

The Unconscious Mother
As Jung says, "To be that which you are is the bath of rebirth." (Red Book, Page 266) Soul is at the heart of being. Beyond personifications and the confusion of dreams, W.B. Yeats said, "Our daily thought was certainly but the line of foam at the shallow edge of a vast luminous sea: Henry More's Anima Mundi, Wordsworth's "immortal sea which brought us hither . . ."

The groundstate of our being is a Fierce Luminosity emanating from the vast roiling ocean of the creative vacuum – the endless sea of creation. What IS is, and the primal matrix is the eternal shimmering, full vacuum of space -- IS-ness.
Light is an excitation of empty space -- "she who shines from the foam (ocean)."

The metaphor of navigation, the night sea journey, appears in Boccaccio's On the Genealogy of the Gods of the Gentiles. It is a cipher of hermeneutic experiences related to poetry. Such movement anchors us to ourselves. Sailing on the sea of genealogies of the pagan gods is a metaphor for the existential journey of a modern person reflecting on antiquity in a sort of poetic anthropology with the promise of finding personal interpretations of meaning in unevidenced beliefs.

The most intimate place of the image is our heart. The heart of the image is the most vulnerable and requires our care. It is the you that goes on of itself, breathing without thinking of it, blood circulating and nerves tingling, not the symbolism the persona or distanced self. It is the place of all suffering and pain but also the container of constant transformation.

Fascination, Fixation, Arousal
When we look out at Nature happening, it is us -- no longer left outside, but embodied self-reflexivity -- embodying the symbolic mirror of Aphrodite. A reflexive relationship is bidirectional with both the cause and effect affecting one another in a circular relationship where neither are cause or effect. As Joseph Campbell put it, "The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature."

Internal dialogue is on-going conversation with what you are experiencing as you are experiencing it. Tuning into one's own state of being is meta-communication -- self-realization. Hyper-awareness of the body includes both self-knowledge and self-monitoring. Aleister Crowley admonishes, "look closely into the heart of the seeker and lead him by the path which is best suited to his nature unto the ultimate end of all things, the supreme realization, the Life which abideth in Light, yea, the Life which abideth in Light.” (Liber Porta Lucis Sub Figurâ X)

Of images Yeats said, "I came to believe in a great memory passing on from generation to generation. But that was not enough, for these images showed intention and choice. They had a relation to what one knew and yet were an extension of one's knowledge. If no mind was there, why should I suddenly come upon salt and antimony, upon the liquefaction of the gold, as they were understood by the alchemists, or upon some detail of cabalistic symbolism..." (Per Amiga Silentia Lunae, p. 55)

After extensive research on color, Rudolph Steiner developed the lazure style of painting, a subtle wash of hues that allows light to pass through it, reflecting back an amazing depth of color. His theory describes the “language” of color related to light and darkness. He calls such “activity” between light and darkness  "the language of the soul," suggesting colors speak a language more universal and archetypal than any spoken word. https://beduwen.com/2015/03/13/spiritual-painting-art-therapy/

Art for Art's Sake
Whether in awe of Nature or in aesthetic arrest, we gasp in wonder that takes our breath away. Jung promises, "By giving it shape, the artist translates it into the language of the present, and so makes it possible for us to find our way back to the deepest springs of life." (CW 15, Para 130) And, "Thus, just as the one-sidedness of the individual’s conscious attitude is corrected by reactions from the unconscious, so art represents a process of self-regulation in the life of nations and epochs." (Jung, CW 15, Para 131)

"As a human being he may have moods and a will and personal aims, but as an artist he is “man” in a higher sense—he is “collective man,” a vehicle and moulder of the unconscious psychic life of mankind." ~Carl Jung, CW 15, Para 157

Like any archetype, Jung warns, "Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him his instrument." ~Carl Jung, CW 15, Para 157

"The artist seizes on this image, and in raising it from deepest unconsciousness he brings it into relation with conscious values, thereby transforming it until it can be accepted by the minds of his contemporaries according to their powers."
~Carl Jung, CW 15, Para 130

"The unsatisfied yearning of the artist reaches back to the primordial image in the unconscious which is best fitted to compensate the inadequacy and one-sidedness of the present." ~Carl Jung, CW 15, Para 130

"By giving it shape, the artist translates it into the language of the present, and so makes it possible for us to find our way back to the deepest springs of life."
~Carl Jung, CW 15, Para 130

Deleuze (2003) implies, "Art aims not at reproducing the sensed model, but at reproducing sensation." Seeing and being seen are the essence of Aphrodite's divinity and essential to her sensuous autonomy. Yet, how often we take our touch, taste, smell, vision, and proprioception for granted. Our legitimate and socially illegitimate sensations are primordial.

In primordial consciousness there is no supernatural world, only the natural world with its visible and its invisible domains. As the part connects with invisible wholeness, moment, transcendence, and visceral awareness merge in the invisible inherent meaning of direct experience. Clarity and understanding deepen the moment of Mystery beyond the sensory when unconscious thoughts synchronize in a conscious thought.

Visible and invisible unite in comprehension. Our task is to engage that domain, to look from outside to inside, to embrace the unseen, not simply describe it, but engage it. Like a shaman we establish a dialogue and interaction around ‘what do they want?’ and ‘what do they bring?’ Concept and conception share a connotation.

Whoever speaks in primordial images speaks with a thousand voices; he enthrals and overpowers, while at the same time he lifts the idea he is seeking to express out of the occasional and the transitory into the realm of the ever-enduring.
~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 129

Maurice Merleau-Ponty  notes, "the meaning is invisible, but the unseen is not in contradiction with the visible: of the rest, the visible has an internal structure invisible and the visible in-equivalent is the secret of the visible."

These are non-hierarchical worlds interpenetrating and permeating one another with intimate communications, engaging the invisible world with the significant implications of phenomena. Myths are relics of the time when fervid human imagination could catch hidden meanings and signs of life in mysteriously divine divine presences in every aspect of the world represented by words and rhythms.

Arts of Love

The sixty-four arts of making love all had to be mastered, and would define a cultured courtesan . These arts are described in the various versions of Kamasutra, and in The Perfumed Garden Sir Richard Burton gives a rare glimpse into this culture. The courtesans also mastered many other artistic disciplines including tailoring, fine carpentry, rules of architecture, chemistry, mineralogy, laws of society, how to pay respect and make compliments, singing, playing a musical instrument, dancing, writing, reading the thoughts of others, the art of attracting and captivating the mind of others, magic, manufacturing scents and garlands, drawing, sculpturing and painting.  They were often more artists and teachers than we tend to believe. It is within this context we can understand the courtesans of ancient India.
http://levekunst.com/courtesans-of-ancient-india/

Anima & Animal

Images can ignite angelic and carnal pleasure in us as much or more than any mortal human. A 'Venus in Fur' evokes the paradox of refined animality, perhaps dangerous, sly, even deranged. Ideally, we see Aphrodite's beauty in every thing, person and event in the world. It's there, whether we refine our perceptions to see it or not, or if we cannot blind ourselves to her continuous revelation -- nature's unfurling dance of the seven veils.

Through the mystique of the non-rational, we cultivate life through acts of love. She renews awareness of the importance of a certain kind of sexual ritual and liminal transformative space where the unconscious manifests and opposites reconcile. With cooperation and mutuality between the sexes, each act becomes one of gender reunion, rather than power and domination from either side.

Instead of obsessing on dichotomy and oppositionalism or phallic-narcissism, ritual practice deliteralizes both sword and chalice. This frees their symbolic, balancing, and transpersonal power. A metaphoric intensification of our life energies and libido is a rhythmic phenomenon that wells up from the depths as the emergent, incarnate goddess. Jung reminds us that, "To live what is right and to let what is false die, that is the art of life." (Liber Novus, Page 274, Footnote 75).

Art narratively relates the invisible, shaping ideas and modulating feelings. The arts from Homer forward are represent the spiritual quest of rebirth rituals. ‘Rebirth’ in pagan ritual amounts to retracing the stages of descent of the soul in the existential hell of matter and chaos. As such, art and ritual reveal the process of abstraction, or spectrum of human apprehension.

Few arts are more emotionally evocative than music and its key characteristics. Musicologist Rita Steblin calls G major “every calm and satisfied passion, every tender gratitude for true friendship and faithful love.” C major has the air of “innocence, simplicity.” Meanwhile, G minor sounds like “discontent,” and C minor is the “sighing of the love sick soul.” Aesthetic deprivation kills the soul. Art and spirituality deepen our meaningful contact with reality.

Such loyalty is the strength of the bond to Aphrodite -- respect for what is sacred in our relationships with the gods, a feminine gnosis, and eroticism. James Hillman said Marsilio Ficino equated anima mundi and Aphrodite, calling her the mirror of divine realities, the life of mortals and the nexus of both. And that body is a sacred alchemical vessel. To be present with the whole body rearranges us from the center of being. But bodies also mean illness, accidents, ageing, and death.

When we go into our room of mirrors, the gaze of the other who lives there gets more penetrating and at the same time more welcoming. Each time we touch the perception we have of ourselves, we are reminded we are our memories, which make us the person we are. Borges describes how we belong to that "imaginary museum of changing forms" that is eternal. The gestalt remains constant, though the forms change like a kaleidoscope.

Anima Mundi embodies the pandemonium of all forms in external and internal perceptions. She bridges our perceptions of the world by stimulating the imaginative faculty. Yet, being attached to materialistic images is not the same as being attached to Mater, matter and earth.

The Sea of Dreams
Within certain limits, image, imagination and metaphor can heal. Imagination can be employed therapeutically for catharsis as images reveal what is hidden in the unconscious and manifests in symptoms and image. Aphrodite is the liquid "sap of life."

Memory is the sum total of what we remember from the atomic to organismic level. Our whole body is our long memory, subconsciously incorporating all our experience in structure, dynamics and symptoms. Enriching symbolic language can guide us along an inner path with a wordless dialogue.

Liquid symbols flood the collective psyche ("mother liquid" of the unconscious 'womb' - the experience of humanity) with the overwhelming force of nature itself. In waves of contemplation, they morph constantly in dreams and daydreams calling us within to the source of what wants to be transformed. Their effect is decidedly osmotic, passing through the semipermeable conscious/unconscious membrane like some unacknowledged solvent, recalling the alchemical maxim "Solve et Coagula."

Rising to conscious images are irradiated by the dawning light, in constant recreation of the miraculous birth of Aphrodite from the eternal sea. As Jung notes, "Consciousness, no matter how extensive it may be, must always remain the smaller circle within the greater circle of the unconscious, an island surrounded by the sea; and, like the sea itself, the unconscious yields an endless and self-replenishing abundance of living creatures, a wealth beyond our fathoming." (CW 16, Para 366.)

You cannot get conscious of these unconscious facts without giving yourself to them. If you can overcome your fear of the unconscious and can let yourself go down, then these facts take on a life of their own. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 253. Footnote 211.

In this deification mystery you make yourself into the vessel, and are a vessel of creation in which the opposites reconcile. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 253. Footnote 211.

ART & MAGIC
There is some confusion as to what magic actually is. I think this can be cleared up if you just look at the very earliest descriptions of magic. Magic in its earliest form is often referred to as “the art”. I believe this is completely literal. I believe that magic is art and that art, whether it be writing, music, sculpture, or any other form is literally magic.

Art is, like magic, the science of manipulating symbols, words, or images, to achieve changes in consciousness. The very language about magic seems to be talking as much about writing or art as it is about supernatural events. A grimmoir for example, the book of spells is simply a fancy way of saying grammar. Indeed, to cast a spell, is simply to spell, to manipulate words, to change people's consciousness. And I believe that this is why an artist or writer is the closest thing in the contemporary world that you are likely to see to a Shaman.

I believe that all culture must have arisen from cult. Originally, all of the faucets of our culture, whether they be in the arts or sciences were the province of the Shaman. The fact that in present times, this magical power has degenerated to the level of cheap entertainment and manipulation, is, I think a tragedy. At the moment the people who are using Shamanism and magic to shape our culture are advertisers. Rather than try to wake people up, their Shamanism is used as an opiate to tranquilize people, to make people more manipulable. Their magic box of television, and by their magic words, their jingles can cause everyone in the country to be thinking the same words and have the same banal thoughts all at exactly the same moment.

In all of magic there is an incredibly large linguistic component. The Bardic tradition of magic would place a bard as being much higher and more fearsome than a magician. A magician might curse you. That might make your hands lay funny or you might have a child born with a club foot. If a Bard were to place not a curse upon you, but a satire, then that could destroy you. If it was a clever satire, it might not just destroy you in the eyes of your associates; it would destroy you in the eyes of your family. It would destroy you in your own eyes. And if it was a finely worded and clever satire that might survive and be remembered for decades, even centuries. Then years after you were dead people still might be reading it and laughing at you and your wretchedness and your absurdity.

Writers and people who had command of words were respected and feared as people who manipulated magic. In latter times I think that artists and writers have allowed themselves to be sold down the river. They have accepted the prevailing belief that art and writing are merely forms of entertainment. They’re not seen as transformative forces that can change a human being; that can change a society. They are seen as simple entertainment; things with which we can fill 20 minutes, half an hour, while we’re waiting to die. It’s not the job of the artist to give the audience what the audience wants. If the audience knew what they needed, then they wouldn’t be the audience. They would be the artists. It is the job of artists to give the audience what they need.
-Alan Moore

The Beauty of Soul

The self-presenting reality, Aphrodite is soul and the beauty of soul. Soul is beauty and beauty is soul. She is self-presentation -- the sensate qualities of things just as they are, the bare facts in all their lustre, clarity and perceptual aesthetics -- a panoply of shapes, colors, atmospheres, and textures animating and ensouling the world. As mirror, self-reflection is its self-display, its radiance, interiority, subjectivity, psychic depth, even psychopathology.

Beauty is fundamental to life and the sensibility of the cosmos. Natural beauty often exceeds the limits of art. Aesthetics is a necessary aspect of our perception of the world, the effulgence and brilliance of her consciousness, all the way down into the microcosm of the luminous absolute space of reality beyond the mere absence of energy/matter. Our perceptions of ourselves and cosmos come through the interplay of figure (ourselves) and ground (cosmos).

Navajo principles of life feature balance and harmony, manifested through honoring the four directions: East (Spiritual), where our thoughts originate; South (Physical), where we set our plans; West (Emotional), where our thoughts and plans are set into motion; and North (Mental/Environmental), where we consider our thoughts and actions to determine if we have remained on the correct path. Working with this energy, one easily learns to walk "the middle way". Echoed in the Hermetic Qabalah, this "Middle Way" is a path of devotion. Art is prayer. 

The Navajo "Beauty Way" ceremony embodies beauty, harmony, goodness, normality, success, well-being, blessedness, and happiness -- as a living ideal. During the ceremony, someone wishes to re-establish balance and beauty in their life. Sense of beauty, or balance and harmony may be lost for many reasons. But for the Navajos, the singular cure is to find the way back to Beauty. If you wander off the Beauty Way, then your link to the natural world must be re-established in order to regain it.  To Walk in Beauty means being in harmony with all things, people, and events. You connect with inner peace and serenity when polarities are neutralized. One with everything, you walk in Beauty.

Navajo Beauty Way Prayer
In beauty may I walk.
All day long may I walk.
Through the returning seasons may I walk.
On the trail marked with pollen may I walk.
With grasshoppers about my feet may I walk.
With dew about my feet may I walk.
With beauty may I walk.
With beauty before me, may I walk.
With beauty behind me, may I walk.
With beauty above me, may I walk.
With beauty below me, may I walk.
With beauty all around me, may I walk.
In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, lively, may I walk.
In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, living again, may I walk.
It is finished in beauty.
It is finished in beauty.

Lumin-Ids
Environments can be notoriously invisible, below our perceptual threshold, and they have their own “ground rules”. The primordial ground is invisible, immeasurable, unmanifest, in fact metaphysical, by definition. How can we attune to the nature of the ground, ground our meditation? Can we perceive reality as an unbroken wholeness more than conceptually? Where is our “common ground”? What is that something we are searching for in an another human being?

Hillman notes, "…psyche is the life of our aesthetic responses, that sense of taste in relation with things, that thrill or pain, disgust or expansion of breast: these primordial aesthetic reactions of the heart are soul itself speaking" (The Thought of the Heart and the Soul of the World, p. 39). In he oldest writing by a a male or female, "The Exaltation of Inanna," Princess Enheduanna celebrates the Sumerian love goddess -- "the supreme one in Heaven and Earth."

William Blake says, "Man has no Body distinct from his Soul; for that called Body is a portion of Soul discerned by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age." Thus, she is the soul in natural and healthy sex, the "bare facts" of body as "erotic landscape." The nonordinary states of love and desire expand that landscape. Love and soul thrive in a deeply interior space.

The Stella Matutina (Morning Star)

Just as evening gives birth to morning, so from the darkness arises a new light, the stella matutina, which is at once the evening and the morning star— Lucifer, the light-bringer. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 299

Sexual arousal is an altered state of consciousness. If sex is juicy, radiantky visceral, and wildly uncontrollable, it is also full of paradox. For example, projection and enchantment can block relatedness or call it forth. The most adventurous yet least meaningful love affairs often end in disaster, estrangement, isolation, and alienation -- the bête noire of fatal attraction.

Aphrodite is primordial allure and divine impact is her modus operandi. She is a soul-guide, never far from darkness as the Morning and Evening Star. Love is a poison and a cure. Epicurus suggests living nature is our principal Guide through pleasure and pain, sweetness and bitterness, through overt, liberated sexuality.

Her grace, ineffable mysteries, and wisdom tradition is past on in art, music, imagery, and oral teachings. If reality can only be experienced directly through the senses, the arts make that sensuality tangible. Divine imagery feeds the soul, like sweet honey. More than an alluring physical form, she is a form of thought,  a
tradition of inner enlightenment. This revelatory experience of knowledge is true self in dynamic encounter with the ground of being.

Deep Knowing

Hillman evokes a perception of the heart, recalling beauty as manifesting anima mundi: "World must be flowing through soul if soul is to shine forth in the world." He says we must stand in the temple of Aphrodite, "recognizing that each thing smiles, has allure, calls forth aesthesis. "Calling forth," provoking, kaleo, was Ficino's depiction of Aphrodite's main characteristic, kallos, beauty. (Griffin, 1989)

In every meaningful way, the body is the subconscious mind, with the heart as its 'brain.' We honor the captivating Aphrodite when we imagine the world as our lover, with naked awareness, rapt attention, and self-revelation. Such a living inquiry with a sense of immediacy that brings contact is a mind-body-spirit approach to personal transformation. We honor her when we honor the World Soul.

Imagination uses belief, thought, and visualization to impact the physical or biological root. We are hers when we devotedly pursue  the inner images, thoughts, feelings, impulses, urges. William Blake tells us, "Imagination, the real and eternal world, of which this vegetable universe is but a faint shadow, and in which we shall live in our eternal or imaginative bodies when these vegetable, mortal bodies are no more. The Imagination is not a State: it is the Human Existence itself."

Jean Shinoda Bolen calls the golden Aphrodite an 'alchemical goddess.' But in what sense is alchemy an 'Aphroditic' art? Practical and spiritual alchemy has always been concerned with the perfection of metals and mortals -- mining the soul from the inside out. Her special operation in alchemy is the albedo, a union of Hermes and Aphrodite, where the morning star plays a special role in the Great Work -- the elevation of he lower passions to purified energies. His unitive view includes hermeneutics, the art of reading symbolic things, including symptoms.

The transmutation of gold-making is a symbol for the creation of the philosopher's stone and completion of the Great Work, and the apotheosis of god-making. So, it is not surprising to find her married to Hephaistos, the god of the forge.

Divine beauty comes into this world -- a fulfillment of the spirit of the times. The supreme meaning is not in events nor the soul, but in the mediatrix of life that functions as a bridge to connect them. If you are not conscious of more than yourself how can you heal, and what are you conscious of?

While the man who despairs marches towards nothingness, the one who has placed his faith in the archetype follows the tracks of life and lives right into his death. Both, to be sure, remain in uncertainty, but the one lives against his instincts, the other with them. ~Carl Jung; MDR; Page 306. Our localized instinct, firmly rooted in our earth (matter), is securely fixed in its body.

"Divinity of the individual" is the core-idea of apotheosis -- liberation or freedom from a metaphorical prison. Love and strife, like 'solve et coagula' combine and separate. Alchemy is as goal-oriented as sex, related to souls, metals, stars and planets, and sympathy between objects, living and dead. Aphrodite and alchemy share the parameters including correspondence, living nature, imagination as mediation of what cannot be said in words, and transmutation.

The whole affair is best approached with contact and closeness, without expectations, with a ‘beginner’s mind,’ or simply by responding authentically to what comes up. And it all 'comes up' from the unconscious. The gods may reside in Olympian heights, but they also come up from Hades and the sea.

We have to go through the darknesses of our own souls and "set aside everything in order to become that which every individual bears in himself as his individual task, and that no one can take this burden from him," Jung says.

We cannot tell whether God and the unconscious are two different entities. Both are border-line concepts for transcendental contents. (Jung, CW 11, Para 757). Heraclitus told us the way up and the way down are the same, and that change determines the birth of the world.

In Sumeria, she was called "she who shows the way to the stars." Jung suggested an analogy between the starry sky and the unconscious has existed from very early times, at least as a symbol. Of this naked brilliance of the voluptuous night-sky, Hillman says, "...the sky is so clear that the stars seem to form a network, Aphrodite is this too. She lives in the cosmos, not only in the morning and evening star, but also in the zodiac signs. ...Soul is an Aphrodite." Her spiritual title is Aphrodite-Urania -- the openness of space is also vastness of mind.
 
Great Brightness

She may be the great brightness of the dawning light -- inner gold. Only the awakened are truly immortal. But she is also the material opaqueness of darkness, instincts, feelings, and raw emotions. Emotions are repetitive thoughts packed with intensity. She symbolizes the spiritual and physical duality of humanity, and all the frightening prospects of love gone wrong -- devastation, disconsolation, and despondency, even revenge of the raging heart. She can be as repulsive as beautiful. Spiritual love counters the unbridled power of attraction.

Jung says the body lays claim to recognition equal to the psyche. When both exert a fascination, the antithesis between mind and matter disappears. He says spirit is the living body seen from within, so to transcend our present level of consciousness, we must give the body its due. The bafflement, shattered illusions, disheveled hair and walk of shame are hers. Desire can be unholy or divine.

Sex is one of the ways we do give. As anima Aphrodite is both animal or of the created world and subtle body. Both carnal (Aphrodite Pandemos) and sacred sex are an immersion in the unconscious. Aphrodite's genitals are special because they are magic and cast a spell of enchantment that allows us into her temple experience, screwing the ego out of us and embedding enlightenment of her special sort of 'yoga' in.

"The body is the original animal condition; in the body we're all animals and therefore we should have an animal psychology to be able to live in it. ...But, since we have a body, it is indispensable that we also live like an animal, and every time we come up with a new expansion of consciousness, we need to add another link in the chain that binds us to the animal..." --C.G.Jung Seminars, Nietzsche's Zarathustra

Looking at the last 3.8 billion years, scientists say our last common ancestor is a planet-wide “mega-organism,” as old, huge and deep as the sea itself. Last universal common ancestor (LUCA) grew where hydrothermal vents of hot water rich in hydrogen, carbon dioxide and minerals emerged from the sea floor. Two kinds of simple cells (bacteria and archaea) emerged.. Previous studies identified around 100 genes almost certainly present in LUCA and common to almost all cells living today.

The possibility of a vast living mother ocean as our Last Universal Common Ancestor blurs the lines between ancestor and deity reverence. All life was interdependent in Grandmother LUCA, when life was whole. This is the foam from which Aphrodite arises.

We instinctively invoke her to arise from the foamy depths ("aphro" means foam) -- the Cosmic Waters of our unconscious and reveal herself to us so we can bask in her golden glow, the color of copper and honey. Conversely, She can provoke us to enter the roiling ocean of our subconscious to swim with her in that primordial element.

We may surf the waves of phenomenological symbolism that crash to the shores of ordinary existence. In such an act we sanctify ourselves and make ourselves a vehicle for her energy. Or, we may be swept away by a riptide of primal forces and powerful unconscious currents of what we don't know, unconscious behavioral systems.

However we perceive it, we are drawn to the Light. Aphrodite's realizations, enlightenment, and meaning "dawn upon us," much like the brilliant flash of light recently (2016) said to accompany the incredible moment of conception when life begins. It seems, sparks fly between male and female elements from the very beginning. Stunning news, like stunning Beauty can stop us dead in our tracks because it brings esoteric Mystery to our mundane attention.

Is this unconscious notion the flip-side of the fluorescent flash of light seen at death, reported in near-death experiences? We have to separate the phenomenal experience from our premature interpretations, no matter how psychologically appealing they may be. Unconsciously, we may be equating a flash of light at the beginning and end of life; yet, scientifically we could be wrong about both, much less the appealing symmetry of such tacit thoughts.

Conceptions & Misconceptions

But that florescence has been overstated and mythologized since its discovery, demonstrating how the distorting effects of such a 'fiat lux' react in our psyche. This conception of life in light is an alluring concept. It is not human egg activation but human psyche activation that spurs such misconceptions.

Researchers reported their results as a “stunning explosion of zinc fireworks” when a human egg is “activated” by sperm enzyme, but their detailed explanations were ignored in favor of a fantasy image of soul brought forth in light that recapitulates our creation myths. Biophotons are light emitted by biological cells, but this is not that. The truth is a far less romantic idea. No matter how attractive the notion, there are actually no sparks of light that actually fly out of zygotes at conception. http://www.ncregister.com/blog/trasancos/pro-lifers-there-is-no-flash-of-light-at-conception/#ixzz4Egoy0xWH

Yet it remains a good metaphor for the way psyche and Aphrodite 'work' on our consciousness, though there are no biophotonic fireworks at conception except those created in the lab. We would like to idealize that physical process and inorganic signature of zinc emission into a personal 'Big Bang,' with our own conception at the center of our personal universe.

Wish Fulfillment or Wishful Thinking?

People were excited to “see” what they "know" to be true about the awesome moment of conception. But the zinc detecting experiment and conception are not the same biochemical event. The public simply 'married' two ideas in their minds creating a folie or delusional idea that became implanted in the collective imagination. The 'mything link' in this tale is the revelation about Psyche.

The viral meme spreads and persists because no one bothers to check the facts because we cannot trust popular science sources that parrot such nonsense disconnected from the research itself. If we are going to use science to elevate our archaic beliefs or even to create poetic metaphors, we had better get the science right, or we merely conjure up false conclusions and errors of category. This process is repeated over and over, especially in the hot media environment of the information age.

I see that many of my pupils indulge in a superstitious belief in our so-called " free will" and pay little attention to the fact that the archetypes are, as a rule, autonomous entities, and not only material subject to our choice. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 625-626

…the fact is that free will only exists within the limits of consciousness. Beyond those limits there is mere compulsion. ~Carl Jung; Letters Volume 1, Page 227

Free will is doing gladly and freely that which one must do. ~Carl Jung; “C. G.Jung, Emma Jung and Toni Wolff: A Collection of Remembrances" edited by Ferne Jensen.

The psyche is also the scene of conflicts between instinct and free will, for instincts are without order and collide with the organised consciousness. ~Carl Jung, Jung-Ostrowski, Page 10.

Coming Attractions

This how the Aphrodite's mythologizing process works. The metaphor is taken as literal, and spread like wildfire as justification for a variety of spiritual notions. The misconception about the flash of conception continues to spread. None of that means that biophotons in the human body cannot also be metaphorically related to the traditional domain of Aphrodite and specific qualities of light.

However, this meme of a 'flash' at conception is nothing more than an illusion spread by media, a bait-and-switch lie, even though biophotons may be equated with vital force at some level. While biophotonic light never mentioned related to this experiment, we have unconscious ideas about it that float around in collective consciousness.

Stored in the DNA in the nuclei of each cell, biophotons are ultraweak photon emissions of biological systems. They are weak electromagnetic waves in the optical range of the spectrum and are indeed light. Living cells of plants, animals and human beings emit biophotons. An expression of the function state of the living organism, they cannot be seen by the naked eye but can be measured by special equipment. (Bischoff, 1995)

Now, a similar sort of confusion happens when we meet a potential lover and elevate them to a semi-divine state with our romantic projections of idealiation and specialness, surrounding them with the glow of our distortions and possessiveness. We get excited when we imagine we see the “fireworks” we were hoping to see.

Answering Aphrodite's siren call, we unleash the unfolding of her love, fertility, and sexual mysteries in our own lives through the riches of myth, natural magic and the biological alchemy of love. As a  cosmic factor, she is the very essence of existence. But as a complex and paradoxical goddess, she also wounds the heart and soul with a Bellica pax, vulnus dulce, suave malum, a warring peace, a sweet wound, a mild evil.
 
The unconscios nucleus of meaning of the eternal archetype remains “unborn” but her specific meaning and form, imagery and affects permeate us. If Aphrodite is eternal, eros is an event of specific temporality. Perhaps in a faithless world, the transitory and temporal hold the only redemptive power possible.

The spectacular ‘birth of Venus’ in the ordinary world predates the Upper Paleolithic fertility goddesses found in the ancient caves and art of southern France. She shared her dawn with that of modern humanity 30-40,000 years ago. A continuous creation is consummated in her embodied exaltation in each of us. We can seek Aphrodite's spiritual insight through ritual ways of enhancing and resacralizing it.
 
We consciously worship her when we adore our beloved, making the conjugal bed an altar. In fact, it alters everything. The wisdom of the Tree of Knowledge is that sexuality isn’t just in the gonads, but permeates every cell and atom of our bodies. Aphrodite is an attitude or style of consciousness and behavior through which we fulfill legitimate psychophysical needs. She not only engenders but enlarges life with the mystical splendor of love. In some poetic sense, our very atoms and molecules, as well as the galaxies, are held together by the attractive force of love.
 
Provocateur
We can experience our own imaginal essence through the power of love. When it overwhelms us, desire feels like a supernatural force. Sexual passion has been deified, divinized, or even feared as evil and demonic because of its overwhelming nature – the instinct overtakes the personality. The awe-inspiring force of desire and sex has played a role in religion, magic, mysticism, occultism, symbolism, and the whole spectrum of human psychobiological interaction with the transpersonal – the timeless world of the seemingly eternal.

Soul is a gift from Aphrodite, who shines within the psyche as morning and evening star. She teaches the cultivation and significance of beauty and pleasure as links between earthly and spiritual mysteries, as well as cautioning us about the troubles Beauty can trail in its wake. The glory of love may be its transience. As Goethe reminds, Love is eternal but its object keep changing.
 
Nature of the Gods
 
Carl Jung argued that "gods" exist, but only metaphorically (not literally) and only in the natural dimension of the psyche. He said all we can ever know is the phenomenological god-image. Image is metaphor with a powerful internal cohesion and coherence with intense energy and affect. He called them archetypes, symbols of transformation of the psyche, facets of am indivisible deeper underlying unity.
 
Archetypes help us redefine human identity as a connective multiplicity in a continuous process of integration (holy union) embedded in a cosmic matrix of consciousness, polarity, and life. We are entangled with them, so they affect our lives physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

In her complications and tragic conflicts, Aphrodite can even undermine the meaning of blood and family. She also takes her revenge on those who stubbornly refuse to obey her desire, hence her archetypal description in the Victorian novel as "She-who-must-be-obeyed." (Haggard, 1886)
 
Jung said, "Nothing happens in which you are not entangled in a secret manner; for everything has ordered itself around you and plays your innermost. Nothing in you is hidden to things, no matter how remote, how precious, how secret it is. It inheres in things."
 
All life is bound to individual carriers who realize it, and it is simply inconceivable without them. But every carrier is charged with an individual destiny and destination, and the realization of these alone makes sense of life. ~Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, Page 222.

Aphrodite's Inner Chamber
In the mysteries of embodiment, death and renewal, union with the creative source is a "death marriage", a return to the womb, and union with God. All these forms and imagery arise from a cosmic holographic field that contains all of existence in potential. Like a fractal, each part contains the whole only in lower resolution. This holographic plenum is the ultimate source of existence, our cradle of being, and the matrix of the phenomenal world.
 
Archetypes are the elements of the soul, showing up as numinous images with sacred powers, including numinous enchantment, fascination, and wonderment. Jung recommended we engage them consciously with active imagination to develop insight and growth. They are exemplary forms or prototypes -- an informational code -- the original schema or dynamic patterns that model all things of the same kind. For Plato, they were the primordial forms of the universal mind. We recognize the world within us through their patterns. Being universal, archetypal forms can be found everywhere. They are the essence that sustains life.
 
Dynamically, archetypal forms are underlying instinctual patterns of behavior which reflect how the unconscious “imagines” reality into being by giving it form. Psyche, our "larger self", reveals itself in symbolic form through manifestations of the archetypes. They organize our instinctive and transpersonal experience giving it collective meaning. Their dreams are our realities. Each has its agenda and characteristic mode of appearance.
 
This plenum is the energetic ocean from which Aphrodite, "the foam-born goddess," arises. In physics this ground of existence is called the Dirac Sea, the fluctuation of the seething subquantal vacuum potential, the empty space in our bodies between the particles that binds matter and primordial consciousness. In psychology it is the Collective Unconscious.
 
Physics and psyche are complementary aspects of the same reality at the cosmic and personal level, uniting mind and matter in psychophysical being. We can develop a metaphoric or symbolic sensibility, attending to unconscious myths in our daily lives and dreams. Aphrodite is the supreme metaphor of all relationship dynamics.
 
Siren & Symbol
 
Since the psychological condition of any unconscious content is one of potential reality, characterized by the polar opposites of “being” and “non-being,” it follows that the union of opposites must play a decisive role in the alchemical process. ~Carl Jung, CW 12, Para 557

Without the experience of the opposites there is no experience of wholeness and hence no inner approach to the sacred figures. ~Carl Jung, CW 12, Para 24.

Depth psychology is an alternative to the literalness and concretizing of religious thinking, the idiosyncrasy of self-delusions, or the dryness of cynical rationalism. Symbols are psychic realities that dramatize the union of opposites and integration of dissociated projections or identifications. In the symbolic life, we re-experience the death-and-rebirth process, over and over again, just as we experience the ‘petit mort’ (“little death”) of orgasm and renewal in our sexual lives.
 
"All deities," William Blake says, "reside in the human breast." The literal is dead, but the metaphorical is alive and well. The "gods" are metaphors --personifications or deifications in the psyche. We recognize archetypal dynamics through their real-time effects and imagery. Aphrodite, wellspring of our creative and erotic potential, remains close to our hearts, as Blake suggests.
 
Blended Paths

“As above; so below.” The yin-yang of universal opposites is mirrored in the microcosm at the human scale, symbolized as male and female, sun and moon, king and queen, immanent/transcendent, conscious and unconscious. Creation stories often begin with an exemplary cosmic couple (Shiva-Shakti, Isis-Osiris, Adam and Eve, El-Eloah).

Aphrodite is a numinous hypnotic reality that can spontaneously influence us consciously and unconsciously at the physical, emotional, mental and mythic level. It is a fusion -- mouth to mouth, heart to heart, body in body and soul in soul. It is primordial wisdom that mankind can participate in the sacred during physical sexual union.

The way of the couple, mutual affection, unites not only physical and material lives in partnership, but sensation, emotional intimacy, and aesthetic tastes. Sharing intellectual interests, enrichment, and spiritual discoveries unite the lovers who grow together with one another on all planes of aspiration.
 
An individual's personal myth or mytheme can be conceived as a magnetic vortex drawing life to itself. In another phase of life, the focus and narrative could change to other patterns. Sometimes these transitions are fairly smooth, sometimes competitive, other times catastrophic, sweeping the old structure away in an avalanche of uncontrollable consequences that result in new self-organization.
 
How have your attitudes toward sexuality changed over different periods in your life? Consider your first time, love at first sight, addictive, illicit and forbidden love, rejection and lost love, vanities, romantic idealism and follies, sexual fantasies, inner partners, devotional and exploitive relationships. Escapism, inspiration, and all forms of artistic creativity can all be associated with the generative power of Aphrodite.
 
Passion Personified
 
Call her what you will – Venus, Aphrodite, Cybele, Inanna, Ishtar, Asherah, Shekinah, Astarte, Hathor, Bhavani, Shakti, Freya, Erzuli, Ochun (Black Aphrodite) or any other European, Asian, African, or indigenous First World goddesses of the mysteries of love. Her nature and stories are so paradoxical, it is a challenge to believe them all at once.

Aphrodite easily captures our devotion with her allure and delightful boons. Love transports our souls into the mythic dimension where it renews or destroys depending on our fate. The mythic enters daily life as our experience. We can interact with it in ritual and experiential process therapies.
 
The sensational realm of the Love Goddess is the immediate experience that veils our subconscious relationship to our own unconscious sexuality and power motives. Some use wiles and tricks to attract another's attention, gifts, and strokes.

They deliberately exploit the anima/animus projections of another onto themselves, using it for personal advantage. This is the motivation of the flirt. In an egotistical identification with Aphrodite, a person becomes a lady-killer or man-eater, the stud, sex kitten, gigolo, whore, “sexual vampire,” or other role-bound image that feeds off others. 
 
There is beauty in the rhythms of nature and our erotic nature. It begins with sensory giveness - paying attention our sensory phenomena and sensual feelings. Essentially anyone can enjoy the practice of imagining the indwelling divinity of their sexual partner, in or out of an intimate or committed relationship. We fill up our senses creating voluptuousness through poetry, imagination, eroticism, sexuality, trance, vision, and exaltation.
 
By honoring the sensual self, the metaphysical nature of surrender to the erotic impulse is experientially revealed as a glimpse of nondual reality The non-dual Heart is radiating as all creation, and blessing all creation, and singing this embrace through eternity: God and Goddess, Emptiness and Form, Wisdom and Compassion, Agape and Eros, Ascent and Descent -- perfectly and blissfully united.
 
On the positive side Aphrodite is romantic or mutual love; on the negative side narcissism, addictive love or co-dependence. A sophisticated manipulator can use sex to get what they want. Addictive lovers use others as objects of their gratification. They desire to possess people only to fulfill their neurotic needs and rarely remain friends once they split up when the enchantment is lifted. Love is the opposite of this misuse of attachment. It is based on the desire to grow and expand and for the beloved to do the same.
 
These are not only patterns of behavior, but concepts rooted in our belief systems and their mythic backgrounds. You might think romantic love is emotional, not an intellectual idea. Nevertheless, romantic love is a notion which builds certain expectations and follows certain patterns.  Some relationships reinforce neurotic patterns in one another through forming a consensus of two, "just us against the world."  Mutual brainwashing, or folie a deux, is a shared delusion which reinforces fantasy, while inner fortitude remains unchallenged.
 
The mind is the primary sex organ, stimulating imagination as well as the genitals. Aphrodite is an erotic and enchanting sexual fantasy. She embodies the dual capacity to delight and lead astray. No respecter of roles, an urgent search for affairs may seek unity, but creates disruption. In her myths, more than once Aphrodite herself has been “caught in the act” of her infidelities.
 
Queen of Sheba, Delilah, Cleopatra, and Helen of Troy as well as today’s celebrity icons embody many of Aphrodite's charismatic qualities.  Helen made the egotistical error of feeling superior to the divine Queen who made her pay for her vanity. Aphrodite's energy should be recognized as a dynamism and domain that is not to be challenged competitively. She brings life's mystery with her, so mortals can never possess her fully.

Sexual Appetite

All libido is sexual energy to some extent, according to Jung. Libido is psychic energy in general and relates to the natural urges of life at any given moment. Jung associated libido with self-regulating intentionality. It “knows” where it ought to go for the overall health of the psyche. Libido is an energy arising from the Eros or "life" drive as the urge to create. It includes physiological or psychic energy associated with sexual urges as well as fantasy images which arise from the depths of the unconscious in definite forms. Such urges and affect emerge unchecked by moral authority, being a natural appetite and need, like hunger, thirst, and sleep. (Jung, CW7; CW5)

Sensual and constantly creative, Aphrodite still rises up fully blown in her majesty out of the great sea of our Unconscious to have her way with us -- the very image and icon of natural love and attraction. She is associated with nakedness, special costumes, the artful use of cosmetics -- all "the arts of love" including courtship and lovemaking. She is both the carnal and soulful aspects of romantic love.

Aphrodite conveys a sense of immortality through the oceanic bliss of love and the sensation of timelessness when we are swept away in the thundering surf of desire and orgasm. "The union of man and woman is like the mating of Heaven and Earth. It is because of their correct mating that Heaven and Earth lust forever. Humans have lost this secret and have therefore become mortal. By knowing it the Path to Immortality is opened" said Shang-Ku-San-Tai.
 
At the metabolic and molecular level, she functions through the glands on an instinctual level, producing pulsating physical desire. Biochemistry is fundamental, primordial. It drives our attitudes and actions towards the object of attraction. The irresistible energy breaks through our ossified routines with powerful desires, impulses, and fantasies in spite of our rational objections.
 
Friendly Persuasion

Sex is the single strongest intensive, euphoric, even hallucinatory natural emotion alterant available.  The sex act itself creates a twilight state, including the dramatic paradoxical shift from sympathetic arousal to the afterglow of parasympathetic tranquility. Natural cycles of hyperarousal and hypoarousal balance the hemispheres of the brain, mediate fight-flight responses, and pain-pleasure cycles. 
 
From the attractant of pheromones to the excitation of adrenaline and the release of dopamine, it is a chemical imperative – the Aphrodite cocktail. Aphrodisiacs have been sought for producing erection in the male, stimulation of the genitals or nervous system, relaxing inhibitions, augmenting physical energy, strengthening the sex glands, or preventing premature ejaculation. Along with traditional love potions, shamans and healers have long used nerve stimulants and placebos to instill love, stir up lust, and increase sexual appetite or ability in the user.
 
Some traditional botanical aphrodisiacs include yohimbe, kava kava root, saw palmetto, ginseng, fo-ti-tieng, black American willow bark, cactus flowers, damiana, and guarana seeds. There are no anaphrodisiacs, dampeners, or desexualizers worse than ignorance, fear, or anxiety regarding the quality and effectiveness of one's sexual performance.

The greatest sexual tonic is physical and psychological health so that we can spontaneously respond with depth. Sex is not mere lust, even if lust is sex. It transcends the animal functions and enters the realm of the cultural and spiritual, promoting feelings of mutual love, consideration, and solicitude.

Rapport is the ability to communicate and bond instantly and instinctively with others. In rapport like attracts like in a shared state of awareness. Through our mirror neurons we are paired in the biological depth of empathy, at the level of passive association of living bodies, of self and other in embodied action. We immerse fully in the process through intentionality, conscious mood-matching, emulation, and participation mystique. Emotions anchor us to the here and now with meaning and feeling values.
 
When we’re out of synch, relationship wanes. If our partner sees things differently, we must relearn our communications strategies to relate in a way that fits their map of the world. That is what rapport is all about. ‘Sensual empathy’, the empathic grasping of another as animated by his or her own fields of sensation, has been called 'sensing in.' It is a natural ability in all great lovers.
 
Both Are Changed
 
This is the Way of Devotion, with all of its illusions, projections, hopes, and dreams. It is the same feeling that strikes lovers and spiritual devotees (Bhakti yoga). In intimate relations, both parties are utterly changed by such encounters. The nature of Beauty is an immediate revelation of things as they are: unity, line, rhythm, tension, elegance. Aesthetic arrest stops us in our tracks in communion of the soul with the inner and outer mysteries.
 
The felt-sense of form and beauty is instinctual. In the union of body, soul, and spirit, the lead of the psychosexual self is transmuted or transubstantiated into the gold of a life lived from the higher Self. In modern terms, we might call it self-actualization or an intentional life.
 
A famous Jung quote says, “The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.”
 
Irresistible attraction can drive us far beyond the real needs of our personality. We become fixated. Compulsions can disrupt, derail, and detour rational life. The archetype blindly executes its own agenda, regardless of the human toll. Aphrodite crosses personal, social, and spiritual boundaries in the service of biology and transcendence.
 
Her vision becomes our vision -- a way of “seeing through” the veneer of everyday reality to deeper driving forces in a conscious way. We notice nature at work, stirring up our life like the waves of some vast ocean and casting us wet and naked on the beach of a Terra Incognita, an unknown world in which we have lost our bearings. Love can break over us like a tsunami, with wave upon wave of uncontrollable emotions.
 
Soul Symptoms
 
Soul enters via symptoms, and Aphrodite is soul. Jung said the gods have become diseases, and with Aphrodite rising we find ourselves ‘love-sick’ with obsession, longing and yearning. She is linked with death through longing for the departed lover. She can also inspire hate, rivalry, vanity, and jealousy. Her impulsive pathology shows in the depression and desperation of borderline personality disorder. These perils of Aphrodite, the results of unfulfilled desires, reveal the ambiguity of her gifts.
 
The instinctual pressure can make us deceitful and manipulative. The predatory love sorceress compels or manipulates others into loving her for her own selfish ends. In a direct, balanced love encounter, both power and love are balanced. Balance is disturbed by arousing love through power, rather than the spontaneous awakening of love which has power over both of the pair. 
 
Another obvious example of finding this divine force as a disease is the aptly named venereal maladies, sexually transmitted afflictions, each with its own sources and consequences. There are all manner of psychobiological sexual disorders that perturb our natural sexual behaviors in a variety of ways, consciously and unconsciously. They all metaphorically draw us into the realm of Aphrodite and cause us to focus our attention on them. This is true for both the problems and blessings, as all archetypes have this paradoxical good/bad quality.
 
Male or female Don Juans are typically high flyers. They are impulsive, energetic, enthusiastic, and suggestible. They seem to lead an exciting, free life, spontaneously realizing their whims. Changing from partner to partner, these people play a terrible price by eternal role-playing to the companion of the moment. They can't form real relationships of any duration because they are in love with conquest of their own shape-shifting projections and fantasies. Sex addiction, with its shame and guilt, is one result of thrill-seeking behavior. “Fatal attraction” is an extreme manifestation of compulsive response, linking life and death.
 
Enactment: Caught in the act
 
Myth is actually a dynamic expression of the motivational power of the archetype at its core. The main value of ritual is for the poetic soul. If ritual is merely symbolic enactment of a myth, every sexual act is essentially an unconscious ritual. Partaking in its performance is an end in itself as it has been from the golden dawn of humanity.
 
The purpose of ritual lies in its expression as an art form. The spiritual import lies in the quality with which the ritual is conducted. Symbolic enactment of mythic patterns is for the sheer joy of the relationship with the archetypal dimension. Conscious awareness of such archetypal dynamics adds a depth dimension to experience. We have a biological, relational, and philosophical approach to dating and mating, all of which must be satisfied for fulfillment.
 
The lover seduces the beloved by instinctively making them feel special. Such attention is magic. Paradoxically in this specialness we live out one of the most common patterns from the repertoire of mankind. She embodies a goddess with that charismatic kind of grace and graciousness. Her charms remain relevant throughout the ages and constantly inspire the search for the Beloved.
 
When Aphrodite decrees, we are compelled to follow. Love trances are induced or triggered by archetypes or complexes, memories of places, social roles, etc. Reactions are spontaneous trance states when they happen to us. Being ‘smitten’ is one such trance – often beginning with love at first sight. Fated )Besert) or ‘star-crossed lovers’ (Heloise and Abelard, Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Iseult) are examples. What fate decrees cannot help but come to pass, despite our protests or cooperation.
 
Sexual trance-formation can be applied to awakening or re-awakening the sensual self, overcoming dysfunctions, fears and anxieties, increasing desire and relaxation, building rapport and mutual resonance with your partner. Hypnotic suggestions can facilitate communication (sexual attraction, mirroring, congruency, mood matching), creating sexual suggestions, post-hypnotic suggestions, and response on demand. Often beginning with direct gaze and the mirroring of rapport, mutual trance induction is spontaneous and instinctual rather than predatory or contrived.
 
The goddess within provocatively reflects our amorous aspirations back to us in a multitude of forms. Something touches a deep chord and soul takes flight, like her symbol, the Dove. Engrossed in excited stimulation, we yearn for the birth of something new, to renew mind, body, and spirit, invigorated by energetic exchange.
 
The Aphroditic woman can be a physical, intellectual, or spiritual companion simultaneously. With little or no regard for the future, her perception of time is discontinuous. As lovers under her influence we feel "suspended in time." Therefore, each moment must be experienced anew, irrespective of past commitments or consequences. Intensity of immediate experience and gratification is valued over duration.
 
The erotic companion can also be a muse, helping to shape and guide one’s dream to fruition through the nourishment of belief. The beloved fosters dreams and encourages achievement of potential. She is alchemical, because in this sense she transmutes lead into gold. She is the epitome of the idealized “Golden Girl.”
 
But her myths show, that as much as we’d like to identify with her powers, she can be a jealous and vindictive force for those who might out-shine her. This trait is illustrated in the story of Eros and Psyche with its trials and tribulations. As archetype, Aphrodite retaliates when she sees her glory co-opted by a mortal personality. There is a price to pay, a ‘sacrifice.’ It reminds us that in courtship the ‘love-test’ can be a dance of approach/avoidance. We tend to lose our objectivity in love, like an artist with their works.

Involvement makes us all paradoxically vulnerable to risk/reward. Inanna's creative descent to the netherworld and return to the heavens reminds us that we need to make ourselves vulnerable to be reborn -- to make our own experiential journey and mythic retrieval and ignite the spark of transformation within ourselves.

Initiatory rebirth demands we let go of the grasping human aspects of the mundane human world, our roles and values. She abandoned both heaven and earth for this creative descent experience. Through her journey, Inanna acquires knowledge of death and the underworld to be complete in her wisdom.
 
The heart wants what it wants and actively and spontaneously initiates interaction. We do it and may objectively watch ourselves in that flow of passion at the same time, in awe and wonder at its power over our rational being. It makes us think and do things we never would otherwise. It is not without reason, we call it ‘falling’ in love. Whatever gods have been in charge of our attitudes and lives are toppled when Aphrodite is in ascendance.
 
Aphrodite makes advances and supports the advancement of dreams and visions. Aphrodite comes alive in our creative processes as well as our seductive liasons. Like a geisha she offers emotional and aesthetic succor. This isn’t just attention, but loving attention. All relational modes that are intimate in nature and affect both people spontaneously evoke Aphrodite.
 
We become focused and receptive, even imaginative and visionary. At the threshold of life changing experiences, in that liminal glow we can’t resist dreaming the rosy story forward. Our beloved carries a special relationship to potential realization of this dream whether it fits in with our ‘real’ life, or not. Conversely, when we split, we lose not only that special person, whether they are still valued or devalued, but our dream. The reconstitution of a new dream can be as compelling as finding a new partner.
 
We are drawn effortlessly by the magnetic presence of fascinating beauty. Our minds may be active but in a focused or absorbed way. Interactive energy facilitates change and growth in both parties. We can explore the exotic mystery and phenomenon of love and relationships on earth by combining sexual energy and imagination. The esoteric practice and ancient healing technique is for understanding yourself and another. The effects are healing, completing, harmonizing, and liberating. But you are generating this narrative and imagery within yourself for connecting and transcending.
 
When the irresistible desire for union takes precedence, Aphrodite is there. The drive – the living Presence -- may be sexual, but the impulses and non-rational urges can be psychological and even spiritual. Intercourse is her epiphany, and the more planes of mind, heart, and spirit that are penetrated, the fuller the ravishment of union. Such feelings can exalt even mundane sex. Like the Holy Spirit, her symbol is the dove.
 
Separation Trauma

We all suffer from the devastating crisis and wound separating culture from nature and oneself. We need to work on sustainable relationships to self, others, and the natural world as much as sustainable ecologies. A wounded heart makes it impossible to let love all the way in. We will repeat negative cycles until we learn to heal the heart, clear the pain and find our new way, individually and collectively -- healing the wounds of betrayal, convincing our hearts and mind that it is safe to trust again, to surrender, to let go.

Our core wound is a wound of the heart. All wounds of the psyche mean we are disconnected from love, cut off from the heart, cut off from other people, cut off from our true nature, thus emulating the primordial castration of Uranus, cut off from life by repressed and tormented love -- cut off from Redemptive Love. Core pain and a false self give us a negative approach that takes us down into an unbearable dark hole of pain: "I am suffering and separate from love because..." 

Hiding and denying the wound of abandonment keeps it unconscious as a negative and fragmenting self-concept. We feel imperfect, worthless, inadequate, non-existent, alone, incomplete, loveless, powerless, and that we can't do enough to compensate for such short-comings. We need to believe in the body, feel and face the fear, experience the vulnerability, and invite in unconditional love, building conscious relationships. Consciousness of what is happening is a redemptive principle.

Though the effects of anima and animus can be made conscious, they themselves are factors transcending consciousness and beyond the reach of perception and volition.

Hence they remain autonomous despite the integration of their contents, and for this reason they should be borne constantly in mind.

This is extremely important from the therapeutic standpoint, because constant observation pays the unconscious a tribute that more or less guarantees its co-operation.

The unconscious as we know can never be “done with” once and for all.

It is, in fact, one of the most important tasks of psychic hygiene to pay continual attention to the symptomatology of unconscious contents and processes, for the good reason that the conscious mind is always in danger of becoming one-sided, of keeping to well-worn paths and getting stuck in blind alleys.

The complementary and compensating function of the unconscious ensures that these dangers, which are especially great in neurosis, can in some measure be avoided.

It is only under ideal conditions, when life is still simple and unconscious enough to follow the serpentine path of instinct without hesitation or misgiving, that the compensation works with entire success.

The more civilized, the more unconscious and complicated a man is, the less he is able to follow his instincts.

His complicated living conditions and the influence of his environment are so strong that they drown the quiet voice of nature.

Opinions, beliefs, theories, and collective tendencies appear in its stead and back up all the aberrations of the conscious mind. Deliberate attention should then be given to the unconscious so that the compensation can set to work.

Hence it is especially important to picture the archetypes of the unconscious not as a rushing phantasmagoria of fugitive images but as constant, autonomous factors, which indeed they are. ~Carl Jung; Aion, Page 20

Resacralization of Sensuality

We all worship Aphrodite informally and devote ourselves to her arts in an effort to attract and thrive with the love we all naturally need. She is the goddess of mutual desire and emotional experience with others (friendship, understanding, soul connection, rapport, empathy), and consummation of relationships. Beyond our intentions and desires, synchronicity, fate, or destiny also play their role in our encounters – stolen, fulfilled, or denied.
 
We can reclaim the divinity of our bodies that may have been lost in a profane world that criticizes, abuses, represses, or thwarts our sexual expression. We can heal any shame-based attitudes, romantic assumptions, obsolete programming, and dissociations, or the wounds and trauma inflicted on us by the toxic behaviors of others. We can banish sexual ‘ghosts’ and learn to bring our whole selves into the sexual experience. Wounding opens us to compassion. Part of Aphrodite’s tremendous appeal is her vulnerability which mimics our own tortured hearts.

The Empress

The initiatory tale of Inanna is world’s oldest love poem of courtship. The poem was not just a love poem, however, but a part of the sacred rite, performed each year, known as the "sacred marriage". As The Empress, the venusian archetype in the Tarot, the king would symbolically marry the goddess Inanna, mate with her, and ensure fertility and prosperity in the land for the coming year.

Her classical symbols and qualities echo down through the aeons, exemplified in the symbolism of the venusian Tarot Trump, ‘The Empress.’ These trumps are associated with pathways on the qabalistic Tree of Life. In that system, Venus corresponds with the imaginal sphere Netzach (deathless Splendor) and is paired with the mental sphere of Hermes, Hod.

Netzach represents the dawning light of consciousness, and symbolizes the victory of light over the darkness of ignorance and understanding of the inner meaning of physical processes (the sexual instinct, in particular). Together they give birth to the sun child of Tiphareth.

Netzach means clarity or brightness, such as sincerity and truth, or perfection and glory, characteristic of our desire nature. Whatever we strongly and consistently desire is always victorious--it dominates our attention. Clarity helps us become more effective at thinking things clear through. Satiety with material desires makes them no longer attractive to us.

Detachment goads us into a search for something less transitory and more meaningful. Desire (or bhakti) can be cultivated and focused into full creativity (Tiphareth). This yoga of devotion links us back to the source. Netzach is a compassionate way of being in the world. 

The imaginal qualities of the trump give rise to artistry and creativity in inner and outer life. Aphrodite can even take over the behavior patterns of other Olympian gods, most of whom aren't immune to her charms. The Empress card is attributed to Hera, as well as Venus – committed and uncommitted love.
 
As Hera, her goal is legally-sanctioned marital and societal life and she may sacrifice part of her needs in order to achieve it. Aphrodite has a place in Hera's realm of marriage as the highest moment for husband and wife--the pleasure of love. Aphrodite is also the passion in committed love, and also represents mature love. 
 
She herself can become possessed by the passion she arouses in others. This assertive goddess can even take over the behavior patterns of other Olympian gods, most of whom aren't immune to her charms. But in her desire and longing she can be persuasive, deceitful, or conniving.  She is always the potential lover of anyone she befriends. 
 
 
Hot & Wet
 
But, self-possessed Aphrodite is the unfettered Queen of Hearts and orgasmic ecstasy-- the undisputed goddess of love – a primary facet of the Divine Feminine. As a blood mystery, she offers ordeals, sacrifice, and transformation. From robbing rituals to disrobing we are preceded by eons of human sexual practice of presentation, and gifting or offering.

We should also not lose sight of the fact that a big part of our sexuality takes place in our dreams, from which we can draw inspiration and self-knowledge otherwise hidden. We don’t have to act out all facets of our sexuality. Our dreams and imagination inform us as much as real life.

Psychic or psychological space is a different sort of freedom where anima and animus interact much more freely. New models of gender reunion have placed an emphasis on conscious relations with and awareness of these inner dynamics. We may be projecting, but at least we can reflectively catch ourselves in the act.

The Greeks realized that no single partner could contain the power of anima or animus indefinitely. That is why they distinguished the divine archetypal power of love as a goddess of great force and beauty. No partner can live up to the lofty conception of the projected anima or animus.  This higher aspect of the soul should be given due consideration and attention for itself.

Each godform or archetype has its own style of sexuality and relating that comes into play in the compulsions of the mating drive. We may experience many varieties of attraction throughout our lifetime, depending on our situation, opportunities, and inclinations. Some archetypes distance lovers while others draw them closer toward intimate interaction.

The sensuous Aphrodite, a primordial form of the Great Mother, is magnetic, drawing others in, rather than distancing in relationship. She can be electric, stimulating our nerve endings with delightful sensations. The creative compulsion, sexual and otherwise, has its own natural inhibitions which should be heeded.
 
We both conceal and reveal ourselves in love, both actively and passively. In love our experiences are dramatized and magnified. Our physical exchange doesn’t have to follow any social or ritual script or prescription to produce depth and transcendence.
 
With a depth dimension, mutual attraction is a poetic and aesthetic act, a celebratory rite, and a marriage of matter and spirit in an experience of wholeness. Aesthetic response is an essential emotional aspect of alchemy. This flowstate is lyrical, epic and dramatic. Aesthetic signification is one thing, but the deep emotional impact of aesthetic arrest -- being suspended for a thrilling radiant moment in the eternal -- stops us in our tracks in a moment of self-realization.
 
We don’t need to support that phenomenon with any theory, jargon or interpretation. Sex is an inherently healing practice that promotes well-being. It’s about rapport, reverie, and rebirth. But like any archetypes its effects can be both positive and negative, arousing shadow behaviors and unconscious machinations.
 
Aesthetic response is an essential emotional aspect that lends flow and harmony to the process of balance, rhythm and synthesis of immediate perception. Aesthetics is an artistic philosophy. It makes us permeable to the image, mobilizes us internally and enables imaginative activity through a form of observance. Imagery evokes a perceptual response -- an aesthetic response, a participatory way of knowing, remembering, and reconnecting with soul and identity.
 
Syzygy
 
Syzygy is a poetic term Jung used for the union of opposites -- coupling driven by the love maps, rhythms, and desires of our inner male and female counterparts. Jung called those opposites anima and animus, our internal contrasexual partners, template of our romantic ideals, wholeness and completion and the divine couple. The pattern repeats endlessly. Pulsating life is the substrate of our existence. Anima/soul and Animus/spirit merge in psychological and spiritual androgyny.
 
We need to be related to another individual, according to Jung, to experience the full depth of our own psyche. From an internal perspective, spiritual marriage is an inner experience which is not projected onto another living individual. In the royal marriage of the soul with the Self, the projections of anima and animus have been returned to their proper level in the personal unconscious. Our partner no longer carries an essentially religious function for us. The King and Queen are united, or conjoined, synthesizing the opposites. 
 
One is never separated from the other, its antithesis. The syzygy has three components: a man's femininity and woman's masculinity; the experience man has of woman and vice versa; and the masculine and feminine archetypal image. Archetypal symbolic pairings are 'yoked together' by this term.
 
The perfect partnership includes physical and psychic compatibility of anima and animus, which fire the quest for love and myths of the soulmate. The syzygy yokes the dynamic and magnetic animus and anima. It is coupling driven by the love maps, rhythms, and desires of our inner male and female counterparts. Like the conjoined yin/yang opposites, they inspire us with a repertoire of identifications and desirable qualities for ourselves and others.
 
Biology is not gender, so the same nuances of yin and yang energy apply to all varieties of relationships. It isn’t so crucial to notice or define when we express male or female energies or behaviors as to know that such opposites have their own rhythms within us and in our love lives.
 
Jung said that the splitting into opposites makes consciousness possible, but the ‘gender binary’ cannot hold everyone. We share our minds as well as our bodies. Psychic ‘gender’ or identification is beyond physical gender, and such dynamics play out in relationships in couples of all descriptions. Both real and symbolic effects are consequential in the “neosexual revolution” that dismantles and reassembles old patterns of sexuality and diversifies intimate relationships.
 
Sexual Sacraments
 
There is a sacred intimacy between the polarities of the Divine expression within and without the Bridal Chamber. The model of human sexuality refers in one dimension to this transcendental keynote. The superficial and materialistic reduction of this ineffable mystery as human intercourse, is at best a misplaced projection and worst profaning of the sacrament. --Petros Regulum

Sacred sex is about freely expressing your emotional core. Like any myth or worldview, it has cosmological, metaphysical, sociological, and psychological aspects. If your approach to life is infused with spirit and meaning, it will be likewise in sex, with or without esoteric props, scripts, and pretenses. Passion and a merger of minds as well as bodies are more important than protocols.
 
When you can fully imagine your lover as God/Goddess, their transcendent embodiment of the essence of male/femaleness, you’re there. “Knowing” in the “biblical” sense is direct, undeniable experience -- a gnosis. It is ravishment, beyond rapture; complete transport to the sacred world which is beyond time, beyond decay. It conveys a sense of the eternal, the fated. It fascinates us because transformation is our biological imperative.
 
Can you fuse as alchemical opposites? Can you hold the multisensory vision of the lover as a divine archetypal force? Will you simply fully surrender to the sensuality, to the moment, letting the mind go blissfully blank? Do you want to transcend your psychosexual boundaries? Can you surrender completely by trusting your partner and trusting the process?
 
When you are generating this transcendent dramatization and imagery within yourself, Aphrodite is there. This is not just about sacred sex, but a sacred rather than profane body. So sex is an energetic merging of subtle bodies. It’s an augmented reality using spiritual technology that heightens sensual experience. It opens the couple to Cosmos, to the psychic reservoir of humanity.
 
 
Partnered Spiritual Sex

Jung linked the rites of the “royal marriage,” hieros gamos, or mysterium coniunctionis to the broader concept of the union of opposites. Erotic and religious impulses converge in the hieros gamos, an ecstatic transformation of ordinary life. Ritual practice is dated to at least 7000 BCE in the Sumerian cult of Dumuzi-Inanna, Tammuz-Ishtar, and Astarte with thematic continuity.

The desire to consciously amplify the numinous or divine aspect of encounter led to the development of sacred sex practices (inexorably linked with death) found throughout the world. The symbolic meaning of sex changes over time. Our models of sexuality are in flux.

We may experiment with sexual rituals once reserved for royals that symbolically mated to insure the fertility of the land. Our motivations today may be different but generally we seek greater well-being and range of experience. It is about feeling connected to and awed by the spiritual essence of the universe. It is merging and emerging. We can experience a rebirth or rejuvenation using a sacred sex approach during which the couple becomes an altar of worship.

Coupling can also have spiritual qualities which have echoed down through history in Courtly Love, Gnostic, Taoist, and Kabbalistic practices within or without marriage. The Celts had the practice of a ritual Morganatic marriage that only lasts for the ceremonial night, but was recognized for both its personal and collective transformative effects. The participants, in effect, become the god and goddess in one another’s eyes and that of the community.
 
Some methods require both parties to share the psychophysical process while others can be done quietly on the inner planes. All depend on establishing rapport and resonance with oneself, the known or unknown partner, and the cosmos. Each method has its own symbolism, practices, and goals. We can awaken and free the potential genius for love that lies within us all. We can develop compassion and empathy for self, others and cosmos.
 
Coupling can also have spiritual qualities when the goddess is animated as Soror Mystica, living embodiment of the Feminine, becoming a full partner in alchemical transmutation. She is considered essential to the Great Work. The sacred marriage, or coniunctio, creates a bond by which opposites are united in an image which transcends both original potentials.
 
The whole art of alchemy is contained within the image of a magical or divine child. This process creates a cellular, alchemical, energetic rebirth into a higher order of being, symbolically called a spiritual androgyne – a symbol of psychological and spiritual wholeness. In her myth, Aphrodite gave birth to Hermaphroditus, the child of Hermes, another boundary crosser. The mother is the unconscious, the son is the conscious. Aphrodite can exhibit a bisexual aspect as a god-goddess.  She embodies the golden purity of male-female wholeness emerging from the union of opposite but complementary halves. 
 
Ordinarily, spirit, soul and body are separated from each other, even while in dynamic interaction. But when the Great Work is complete, the divine spirit is brought ‘down’ to shine through the soul and body and unifies itself with them, so they all form one and the same ‘body’
 
Alchemical symbolism sometimes refers to this union as the marriage of the Sun (spirit) and the Moon (soul), solar and lunar ways of knowing. Jung tells us that the queen symbolizes the body, the king stands for the spirit, and the soul unites the two in the royal marriage.  Therefore, our psyche is a half bodily and half spiritual substance. When king and queen (animus/anima) unite, they form a magical hermaphroditic being which is a union of opposite energies. Their union is a hieros gamos, or sacred marriage which results in the manifestation of all things.
 
When the goddess is animated as Soror Mystica, she become a full partner in alchemical transmutation. Nothing else can catalyze new potential for life and even a sense of immortality quite like Aphrodite. Orgasm is practical and eternal, earthy and divine. If you have a spiritual approach to your sex life, then it will be so physically and psychically, here and now.
 
Love and desire change our attitudes and attitudes change our biochemistry, which reciprocally remolds us accept the overtures of others. There is magic in the persuasive power of transformation. We speak of “having chemistry” with those to whom we are attracted energetically. If we have been estranged or dissociated from our bodies through trauma, Aphrodite helps us reclaim the intimate relationship with our own physicality.
 
Chemistry & Coupling
 
We live, life moves, at the confluence of these polarities of spirit and matter, body and soul have the capacity to hold contradiction and paradox so we can become whole. Such is the Chemical Marriage, Courtly Love and tantric secrets that conceive a magical child.
 
We speak of “having chemistry” with those to whom we are attracted energetically. If we have been estranged or dissociated from our bodies through trauma, Aphrodite helps us reclaim the intimate relationship with our own physicality. It may be gentle or it may be irrepressible.
 
The sex hormones are estrogen, testosterone, and the ‘cuddle hormone’ oxytocin. Biological chemistry plays an important unconscious role in love, romance, and bonding, releasing the “feel good” chemistry of dopamine, serotonin, and adrenaline. Chemistry can also crash our mood when we feel unloved, experience loss, or life events impact us as mood swings.
 
The endorphin haze is a liminal or spacey, even luminous consciousness that others notice as a ‘glow.’ It produces a cascade of endocrine secretions that support and sustain the state of transport. We like to bask in that glow, feeling attractive and interesting.
 
Eros can inflate or wound us, making the heart sink in despair through chemical modulations we experience as reactions to internal or external events and conscious or unconscious cues. The throes of new love as well as the bonds of mature love are modulated by our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system as it continues striving to merge the opposites and maintain dynamic tension.
 
We all know the saying that “Love is blind,” and indeed it blinds us chemically and neurologically to the shortcomings of our potential partners. We see what we want to see and show the other the best of ourselves and our behavior. But even with that intention, our complexes intrude on the process throwing a monkey wrench at nature’s prime directive to be fruitful and multiply.
 
Under such diminished capacity we may be sure we have met the person of our dreams, unless the unconscious intervenes and disrupts the process. We may ignore all rational warning signs of rough roads ahead. Such states persist until the honeymoon is over and power struggle begins, which in the natural cycle leads to a calmer but deeper, more mature love.
 
Conventional & Transgressive Love
 
The power of Magic is rooted in Eros. When the connection between the erotic and the occult is unconscious, repressed or hidden, the mystery of uniting the esoteric and the erotic becomes the ultimate arcane secret. It penetrates into the depths where all life is one, all boundaries broken down, body and mind fused in one. A deep and abiding awareness of the intimate interrelationship unites the opposites through the realization of imaginal workings.

We embody the myth. As in Tantra, occult ritual involves the transgression of social mores, locating and enacting cultural taboos in order to transcend constrictive boundaries. The erotic and the sexual then become a tool to experience the breaking of mundane bonds and something 'other.'

Sex can also be enhanced by a variety of aesthetic and therapeutic means, including the 64 sexual arts, described in ancient Indian literature. As ever, sex can be a double-edged sword, hurting, healing, or initiating, and that choice remains ours. It remains a challenge throughout our life-span. Unbridled or utterly wild sex is probably better represented by phallic gods, such as Pan or Priapus, whereas, we tend to associate Venus with romantic love, even though she is so much more.

Everyone has their own love style. We are fundamentally psychophysical beings, and the mind is the biggest sexual organ. Sacred sex is just part of a more integral worldview and a joyous expression of nature in the language of gesture, action, and communication. It is the feeling of eros, the relational function, and the harmony of drama. Eros is the passionate joy not only for another or a sexual lover, but even for things and animals.

We don’t need to control or transform our sexual urges if we trust in the meaningful goals of love. Nevertheless, the physical and emotional risks remain. Excitations and inhibitions remind us that the goal of Eros is always Psyche or, as the ancient myth of the Lovers shows. Passion is revealed in the urgency of the process, inward reflection of fantasies, the blinding and glorious inflations of falling in love and the descent of dejection.
 
There is possible and impossible love, with its own torture and suffering, regression and enthrallment. Triangles, jealousies, erotic entanglements.
 
Soul, Lived & Loved
The great decisions of human life have as a rule far more to do with the instincts and other mysterious unconscious factors than with conscious will and well-meaning reasonableness.

The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases. Each of us carries his own life-form—an indeterminable form which cannot be superseded by any other.
~Carl Jung; Modern Man in Search of a Soul; Pages 60-61.

THE TEMPLE OF LIVING LIGHT
(Lyrics)
James Eastman and Iona Miller, c1999

Show me your mysteries, I'll show you mine,
As we embark outside this space and time.
Clasping hands we'll join the dance divine,
Flowing gently toward eternal rhyme.

Tell me your fantasies, I'll tell you mine,
Show me your ecstasies that flow as wine.
Together we'll reach the highest peak sublime,
Drinking deeply from the spring of time.

[Chorus] Try as we might...
    So many chambers in which to dwell.
To reach the heights...
    From the bottom of a wishing well.
With second sight...
    How we ascend only time will tell.
To the temple of living Light...
    Far beyond heaven and hell.

Bare your heart to me, I'll give you mine,
Though all alone we might be flying blind.
Through embrace, fire and ice entwine,
Surging and merging as the ocean tide.

"In this universe there is one continuous substance on every plane of existence. Physically this universe is one: there is no difference between the sun and you. The scientist will tell you it is only a fiction to say the contrary. There is no real difference between the table and me; the table is one point in the mass of matter, and I another point. Each form represents, as it were, one whirlpool in the infinite ocean of matter, of which not one is constant.

Just as in a rushing stream there may be millions of whirlpools, the water in each of which is different every moment, turning round and round for a few seconds, and then passing out, replaced by a fresh quantity, so the whole universe is one constantly changing mass of matter, in which all forms of existence are so many whirlpools. A mass of matter enters into one whirlpool, say a human body, stays there for a period, becomes changed, and goes out into another, say an animal body this time, from which again after a few years, it enters into another whirlpool, called a lump of mineral. It is a constant change.

Not one body is constant. There is no such thing as my body, or your body, except in words. Of the one huge mass of matter, one point is called a moon, another a sun, another a man, another the earth, another a plant, another a mineral. Not one is constant, but everything is changing, matter eternally concreting and disintegrating. So it is with the mind.

Matter is represented by the ether; when the action of Prana is most subtle, this very ether, in the finer state of vibration, will represent the mind and there it will be still one unbroken mass. If you can simply get to that subtle vibration, you will see and feel that the whole universe is composed of subtle vibrations. Sometimes certain drugs have the power to take us, while as yet in the senses, to that condition. Many of you may remember the celebrated experiment of Sir Humphrey Davy, when the laughing gas overpowered him — how, during the lecture, he remained motionless, stupefied and after that, he said that the whole universe was made up of ideas. For, the time being, as it were, the gross vibrations had ceased, and only the subtle vibrations which he called ideas, were present to him. He could only see the subtle vibrations round him; everything had become thought; the whole universe was an ocean of thought, he and everyone else had become little thought whirlpools. ...The Yogis claim that...powers can be gained by chemical means.

All of you know that chemistry originally began as alchemy; men went in search of the philosopher's stone and elixirs of life, and so forth. In India there was a sect called the Râsâyanas. Their idea was that ideality, knowledge, spirituality, and religion were all very right, but that the body was the only instrument by which to attain to all these. If the body came to an end every now and again, it would take so much more time to attain to the goal. For instance, a man wants to practice Yoga, or wants to become spiritual. Before he has advanced very far he dies. Then he takes another body and begins again, then dies, and so on. In this way much time will be lost in dying and being born again. If the body could be made strong and perfect, so that it would get rid of birth and death, we should have so much more time to become spiritual. So these Rasayanas say, first make the body very strong. They claim that this body can be made immortal. Their idea is that if the mind manufactures the body, and if it be true that each mind is only one outlet to the infinite energy, there should be no limit to each outlet getting any amount of power from outside.

Why is it impossible to keep our bodies all the time? We have to manufacture all the bodies that we ever have. As soon as this body dies, we shall have to manufacture another. If we can do that, why cannot we do it just here and now, without getting out of the present body? The theory is perfectly correct. If it is possible that we live after death, and make other bodies, why is it impossible that we should have the power of making bodies here, without entirely dissolving this body, simply changing it continually? They also thought that in mercury and in sulphur was hidden the most wonderful power, and that by certain preparations of these a man could keep the body as long as he liked. Others believed that certain drugs could bring powers, such as flying through the air. Many of the most wonderful medicines of the present day we owe to the Rasayanas, notably the use of metals in medicine. Certain sects of Yogis claim that many of their principal teachers are still living in their old bodies. Patanjali, the great authority on Yoga, does not deny this." -- Bro:. Swami Vivekananda

REFERENCES
 
Bolen, Jean Shinoda, (1984) Goddesses in Every Woman, Harper & Row; San Francisco.
 
Carotenuto, Aldo, (1989) Eros and Pathos: Shades of Love and Suffering (Studies in Jungian Psychology by Jungian Analysts), Inner City Books; First Paperback Edition (11-1-89).

Deleuze, Gilles [2003] (2004) Francis Bacon, The Logic of Sensation, trans. Daniel W. Smith, New York: Continuum.

Downing, Christine, (1981, 2007), The Goddess, Author's Choice Press.
 
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. The Complete Writings, Vol. II. New York: William H. Wise, 1929, p. 949.

Friedrich, Paul, (1978), The Meaning of Aphrodite, Univ of Chicago Press; First Edition edition (January 1, 1978)
 
Gregerson, Edgar, Sexual Practices, Franklin Watts; 1St Edition edition (September 1983).
 
Griffin, David, (1989), The Archetypal Process: Self and Divine and Whitehead, Jung, and Hillman, p. 154, 1989, Northwestern U. Press, Evanston; Illinois, "Psychocosmetics & the Underworld Connection," Catherine Keller.

Grof, Stanisla, Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death and Transcendence in Psychotherapy (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1985), 96-97.

Hillman, James, (1976) Revisioning Psychology. Harper and Row: NY.

Jung, C.G., “The Technique of Differentiation,” CW 7, par. 345.
 
Hall, Nor, The Moon and the Virgin, The Women's Press Ltd (October 1, 1980)
 
Harding, M. Esther, The Way of All Women, Shambhala (May 1, 2001)
 
Johnson, Robert, The Invisible Partners, Paulist Press (January 1, 1979).
 
Kerenyi, Karl, Goddesses of the Sun and Moon, Spring Publications (June 4, 1999).
 
Kramer, Samuel Noah, History Begins at Sumer, The Love Song of Shu-Sin, pp 246-247
 
Arlene Diane Landau, Tragic Beauty: The Dark Side of Venus Aphrodite and the Loss and Regeneration of Soul, Spring Books

C S Lewis, “Till We Hace Faces”

Liebowitz, Michael, The Chemistry of Love, Berkley (June 1, 1984).
 
Miller, Iona, Holographic Godforms: Holographic Archetypes, Scientific God Journal, Jan. 2013, Vol. 4; Issue 1.
 
Neumann, Erich, Amour and Psyche, Princeton University Press (April 1, 1971).
 
Peele, Stanton, Love and Addiction, Broadrow Publications (April 28, 2015).
 
Rossi, Ernest, The Psychobiology of Gene Expression: Neuroscience and Neurogenesis in

Rossi, Ernest, Creativity and the Nature of the Numinosum: The Psychological Genomics of Jung's Transcendent Function in Art, Science, Spirit and Psychotherapy, http://www.ernestrossi.com/ernestrossi/keypapers/JS%20Creativity%20Nature%20of%20Numinosumd.pdf

Ronald Schenk, The Soul of Beauty: A Psychological Investigation of Appearance
https://books.google.com/books?id=FTe0koDzooMC&pg=PA38&lpg=PA38&dq=james+hillman,+aphrodite&source=bl&ots=D2HxiDk2Cf&sig=AIyLnInfMwy__to2vOzgjVRIYrk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiQtomsqcLOAhWFRCYKHZKvBHE4ChDoAQgyMAQ#v=onepage&q=james%20hillman%2C%20aphrodite&f=false

von Franz, Marie-Louise, The Golden Ass of Apuleus, Shambhala; Revised ed. edition (May 1, 2001).

von Franz, Golden Ass of Apuleius: The Liberation of the Feminine in Man (C. G. Jung Foundation Books), Shambhala; Revised ed. edition (May 1, 2001)

 
 Re-enchanting Aphrodite: The feminine and erotic wisdom in myth by Dragin, Alexandra, Ph.D., Pacifica Graduate Institute, 2016, 248 pages; 10107668
 http://gradworks.umi.com/10/10/10107668.html

John Clammer. Vision and Society: Towards a Sociology and Anthropology from Art

White, Richard John, Love's Philosophy,

Woodman, Marion, Leaving My Father’s House: A Journey to Conscious Femininity (co-authored with Kate Danson, Mary Hamilton, Rita Greer Allen), Shambhala, Boston 1992, 354.

Zweig, Connie, The Holy Longing: Spiritual Yearning and Its Shadow Side
https://books.google.com/books?id=sWNApIafB2gC&pg=PA55&lpg=PA55&dq=archetype,+ghostly+lover&source=bl&ots=hxJf0M-l1T&sig=QxGNi1_mC2nL_nZ28IMPzZOn5nY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjdkNrXlcTOAhVEeSYKHaC4DVM4ChDoAQgsMAM#v=onepage&q=archetype%2C%20ghostly%20lover&f=false

George Lakoff, Mark Johnson. Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought

James Hillman, Thoughts of the Heart, Eranos Lecture 2 Spring Publications, 1981
http://www.compilerpress.ca/Competitiveness/Anno/Anno%20Hillman%20Thoughts.htm

Ronald Schenk, The Soul of Beauty: A Psychological Investigation of Appearance

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4217602/
Carl Gustav Jung, Quantum Physics and the Spiritual Mind: A Mystical Vision of the Twenty-First CenturyDiogo Valadas Ponte,* and Lothar Schäfer,

We also find four colours in the Bardo Thodol as the lights of the four wisdoms, they form four "light-paths" to Buddhahood or redemption. These are clearly the four functions expressed as four paths of orientation. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 10th Feb 1939

http://www.crossdreamers.com/2012/05/transgender-psychology-4-animus-and.html

Are fantasies of devotion the same as true devotion? Do we keep digging below our assumed truths to find higher ones? Do we substitute or mistake fantasies or religiosity for actual service? What works better, a passive self-serving piousness or actually serving others compassionately? It is not a literal or geographical pilgrimage that is called for but a deepening of the inner journey. We have to be careful not to devote ourselves to a fantasy, even of devotion for that is beguilement and false glamor. What excites or even satisfies us may be no more than hubris and a mask of persona. A self-deceptive loss of soul is a projection only reclaimed by unveiling the soul.

It is common for very infantile people to have a mystical, religious feeling, they enjoy this atmosphere in which they can admire their beautiful feelings, but they are simply indulging their auto-eroticism. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 11 - Jan 1935, Pages 171.


activhttps://neosalexandria.org/bibliotheca-alexandrina/calls-for-submissions/untitled-aphrodite-devotional/


http://www.patheos.com/blogs/naturespath/2016/07/scientists-discover-lifes-common-ancestor-an-ancient-living-ocean/Scientists Discover Life’s Common Ancestor, An Ancient Living OceanJuly 8, 2016 by Alison Leigh Lilly 5 Comments
Ocean Spray – Dirk Dallas (cc) 2015.
Almost every religious tradition has a creation mythology or genesis story about the triumph of order, light and civilization over the powers of confusion, darkness and wilderness. Though details differ from culture to culture and era to era, many of the themes are remarkably similar:

• the churning waters of chaos in which all substances are intermingled and indistinguishable;
• the first divine act (a breath, a coupling, a hatching, a birth) that begins the process of separation;
• the death or dismemberment of a deity to create the very stuff of the universe.

As people living in a modern society informed by the discoveries of science, we have a tendency to think of these cosmogonic (literally, “order-begetting”) myths as made-up stories that our ancestors turned to for explanation in their ignorance of the facts. Particular creation myths might be moving, beautiful or meaningful for us, and so true in some deeply metaphorical way, but most of us shy away from claiming that these stories must therefore be factual accounts of what actually happened. Instead, science offers us evidence in support of theories like evolution and the Big Bang to explain how the world came into existence and life evolved into the myriad species we see today.
But what if science uncovered evidence that these ancient creation stories might just have gotten some of the facts right after all? That’s looking more and more likely, according to geneticists seeking clues to the origin of life on this planet in the shared genetic traits of plants, animals, bacteria and the microorganisms known as archaea. Piecing together the puzzle of evolution over the past several billion years, scientists now believe that our last common ancestor may have been a planet-wide “mega-organism” so huge that it was the size of the sea itself.
Scientists Meet Mother Ocean
Ocean Sunset. photo by John Hilliard (cc) 2016.
From the beginning, evolutionary biologists have postulated that all of the organisms currently living on the planet must have originated from a single shared ancestor — a theory that recent statistical analysis now confirms is more probable than there being multiple ancestors by a factor of 10^2860. Scientists call this great-great-grandparent organism from which all current life descends LUCA, or the Last Universal Common Ancestor, and estimate that it lived between 2.9 and 3.8 billion years ago.
Since very little evidence remains to show what kind of beings lived in the ancient seas of our young planet, genetic researchers have had to piece together the lingering traces of similarities in molecular structure shared among the three domains of life: single-celled archaea, bacteria and multicellular eukaryotes (plants, animals, fungi and the rest). The details get pretty technical (if you want to know more, check out this article in Science Daily), but the long and short of it is that scientists now have a pretty clear picture of what LUCA might have looked like.
What does that picture show? Something pretty startling. Billions of years ago, life existed as a primordial living soup that used the oceans as its medium, spanning the entire planet in what scientists are calling a “mega-organism.” (Think: the leviathan from the Illuminatus! trilogy or, better still, the living ocean of the planet Solaris in the novel of the same name.)
The latest research suggests LUCA was the result of early life’s fight to survive, attempts at which turned the ocean into a global genetic swap shop for hundreds of millions of years. Cells struggling to survive on their own exchanged useful parts with each other without competition – effectively creating a global mega-organism.
LUCA’s cells lacked the specialized molecular structures of cells today which allow them to efficiently and precisely control the production of the proteins they need for survival. However, those ancient cells did have primitive organelles and the basic enzymes necessary to break down and process nutrients, as well as the ability to build proteins in a clumsy, hit-or-miss kind of way. They also had “leaky” membranes that made the exchange of genetic material much easier, encouraging cooperation and coexistence rather than competition among cells.
That’s why LUCA had to be cooperative, with any cells that produced useful proteins able to pass them on throughout the world without competition. This was a weird variation on what we know as natural selection — helpful proteins could go from a single cell to global distribution, while harmful or useless proteins were quickly weeded out and discarded. The result was the equivalent of a planet-spanning organism.
This latest research puts a new twist on evolutionary biologists’ assumptions about “survival of the fittest” among primitive life on the planet. Rather than a single-celled organism that slowly evolved into a multicellular structure in order to gain the competitive edge over other early forms of life, it now seems likely that LUCA began as a vast, multicellular organism that thrived through cooperation and interdependence, breaking up into different entities as its parts became increasingly self-sufficient. Today’s bacteria are not more complex or sophisticated than LUCA’s cells; they are actually simpler and more streamlined.
Ancient Myth Meets Modern Science
So what did the old creation myths get right? Almost every culture in the world has a cosmogonic story that shares one or more of these themes: the primordial waters of chaos, the separation of substances into their complimentary (and competing) opposites, and the dismemberment of a god or other being from which the world itself is made. Each of these three themes can serve as a pretty accurate metaphor for what scientists now believe to be the factual history of how life evolved on earth.
Chaotic Waters
Venus Virated. by Village9991 (cc) 2009.
The dark waters and murky depths of the ocean have long held sway over the human imagination as the realm of confusion, disintegration and mystery as well as the source of creation and life. The ancient Babylonian creation myth describes a primordial goddess of chaos named Tiamat, who held the other gods — as well as the yet-unnamed sky and earth — within her body where “their waters were mingled together.” In the Judeo-Christian genesis story, the creator god Yahweh moves across the face of the roiling waters before speaking the single word that will part them to create heaven and earth. Similarly in ancient Egyptian mythology, life is said to have arisen out of the lifeless, watery abyss (deified as Nu), and in both Greek and Norse mythology the wellspring of creation exists within a dark void of nothingness from which the first waters of life spring.
In Japanese mythology, the story is told of how the two spouse-sibling deities Izanagi and Izanami plunged a jeweled spear into the thick soup of the ocean and stirred until the briny substance congealed into islands, forming the archipelago of Japan. Nearby in China, it is said the primordial giant P’an-ku formed inside a cosmic egg in which all the stuff of the universe was mixed up together, and that as he grew, he cracked the egg open and divided its shell and inner mixture into the opposites of yin and yang, earth and sky, male and female, and so on. In their own way, each of these myths evoke the sense of life appearing from the dark, chaotic depths of undifferentiated form where all substances mix and mingle together. One could hardly find a better description for what life must have been like in the earth’s oceans some 3 billion years ago.
Separation and Competition
Venus. by Alice Popkorn. (cc) 2008.
In several of these myths, we can also see the recurring theme of the separation of these chaotic, intermingling waters into distinct elements that both compliment and compete with each other. Gods like Yahweh, P’an-ku and Atum are said to have divided this basic formless stuff of the world into opposites like heaven and earth, land and sky, male and female, light and dark, day and night, sun and moon. In Greek mythology, out of the void of Chaos comes Gaia (earth), along with Tartarus (abyss) and Eros (love) — or in other words, both separation and space, and the potential for attraction and relationship between distinct beings.
Sometimes this separation is an act of masturbation, while other stories describe it as a birth. In some cases — such as in the Chinese story of P’an-ku, the Hiraṇyagarbha (“Golden Egg”) of Brahma in Hindu cosmology, and in some versions of the Egyptian creation story — the birth takes the form of hatching from the cosmic egg. In Polynesian mythology, the earth-goddess Papa creates the oceans when her belly swells so full of water that they suddenly burst forth, giving birth to the sea god Tangaroa, who proceeds to separate his mother earth from her lover, the sky (Rangi). Besides being a separation of the offspring from the mother, such a divine birth often results in the separation of primordial gods into male and female pairs. Egyptian mythology holds that Geb (earth) was joined in eternal sexual union with Nut (sky) until their offspring Shu (air, or emptiness) came between them and forced them apart. In Greek mythology, the machinations and betrayals of the father by a son who sides with his mother is a theme that recurs through several generations of deities.
These stories of separation, division and distinction strongly echo what scientists think might have been the reality of LUCA’s fate, as this planet-sized, oceanic mega-organism broke apart into individuated, self-sufficient entities capable of surviving on their own. With this new independence came an end to the playground of free genetic exchange, and in its place arose competition and the more familiar process of natural selection as we know it today. Ancient myths of divine sibling rivalry and conflict seem especially poignant in light of such scientific theories.
Dismembered Gods
Finally, another common element in many creation stories is the dismemberment and scattering of a divine being’s body to create the very stuff of the universe. In Norse mythology, the frost giant Ymir and the giant cow Auðumbla are both born of the commingling of opposite elements in the life-giving moisture called eitr, which formed when the congealed rime of the icy realm of Niflheim fell through the void into the fiery realm of Muspelheim where it melted and joined with sparks of flame. The sons of Auðumbla’s offspring eventually rise up to kill Ymir and dismember his body to create the world. His blood becomes the sea, his bones make the mountains and his skull becomes the sky. In a similar story in Babylonian myth, the primordial sea-goddess and mother of creation Tiamat plots to kill her own descendants, but they discover her plans and eventually her great-great-grandson, Marduk, defeats her in battle, cutting her body in half. He uses one half to create the earth and the other to make the sky, while her tears became the source of the Tigris and Euphratus rivers. From the blood of her consort, Kingu, Marduk created the first human beings. Both of these creation myths are arguably further examples of the male and female separating from a single undifferentiated substance, with their divine offspring or descendants eventually rising up to set against the parents.
kali goddess by clod (cc) 2013.
Another example of the dismembered god can be found in Hindu cosmology, which tells the story of Purusha, a primeval giant chosen by the gods as a sacrifice from whom they make the world. His feet become the earth and his head the sky, his breath is the wind, his eyes are the sun and his mind becomes the moon. The four castes of Indian society were also said to have been made from Purusha’s body. And last but not least — in ancient Chinese mythology, after being born in the nourishing soup of the cosmic egg and separating the elements into their opposites, our old friend P’an-ku finishes his act of creation by bursting apart his own body to create the ten thousand things: his eyes become the sun and moon, his head the sacred mountains, his blood makes the rivers, his hair becomes the grass, his breath the wind and his voice the thunder.
In these tales — and in particular stories about how new living creatures and the very existence of human beings themselves are formed from the corpse of a god or giant — we can see clear parallels with the literal “dis-membering” of LUCA from a single mega-organism into disparate creatures of specialized and competing interests. From the ancient unity of this great mother ocean was born, quite literally, the ten thousand (and more!) things.
Ancestor Worship Just Got Nerdy
Mara, Goddess of the Sea by Prairie Kittin (cc) 2012.
Many modern Pagans and polytheists honor the ancestors of their bloodlines and homelands alongside the gods and goddesses of pre-Christian peoples. With the genetic theory of LUCA evolving (no pun intended!) in new and exciting directions, we can see how scientifically viable facts can sometimes support the poetry and insight of the old stories. The possibility of a living mother ocean as our Last Universal Common Ancestor not only blurs the lines between ancestor and deity reverence, but also challenges us to keep a more open mind about the ways in which science and religion can shape and inform each other.
So next time you’re relaxing to the soothing sounds of the ocean’s tides, or marveling at the amazing diversity and interdependence of life on this planet, take a moment to say a prayer for our vast and clumsy Grandmother LUCA, as old and deep as the sea.

For Giegerich, mythological amplification is not only a nostalgic, sentimental exercise but also an abusive method. In this respect, he criticizes Jungians who attempt, for example, "to reclaim Aphrodite for modern life experience." He says that this reclamation project is "a terrible abuse of poor Aphrodite, who, being dead, has no way to defend herself against this abuse." How, he wonders, can Jungians "seriously want to recognize Aphrodite in, or find her relevant to," the sense of the beautiful, erotic, or sexual in modern fantasy and behavior, when the modern situation has so moralistically distorted and so commercially appropriated and exploited that sense (1999: 181)?

Giegerich does not mention Ginette Paris, but she, more eloquently than any other Jungian, reclaims Aphrodite for modern life experience and, like Woody Allen, demonstrates just how mighty Aphrodite still is. Paris is not naïve. She, too, notes how the moralistic distortion and commercial appropriation and exploitation of the beautiful, erotic, or sexual in the modern situation abuse Aphrodite, but when Paris practices mythological amplification, she does not abuse Aphrodite. She describes how Aphrodite is alive and well in the modern psyche and is still relevant to the modern situation (1986).

For example, she recounts an anecdote in which Aphrodite manifests to a modern young woman. On a spring day, the young woman sees a pair of sexy sandals in a store window, and, although the sandals are extremely expensive, she impulsively buys them. The young woman calls the impulse "spring fever." What impels her, she remarks, is "the season for love." Paris says that if the young woman had been a Jungian, "she would probably have said: 'Here comes Aphrodite.'" The young woman, Paris notes, "didn't know Greek mythology and didn't identify Aphrodite by her Greek name." As Paris says, the young woman did not call her "Aphrodite" but called her, equivalently, "the season for love" (1997: 88).

Many modern people are not at all psychological. They remain mythological. That is, like ancient people, they still believe that gods exist, or at least that God with a capital "G" exists, quite literally, in a supernatural dimension — in spite of the fact that, as Harris says, "there is no more evidence to justify a belief in the literal existence of Yahweh" than, for example, "Zeus" (2004: 16). Giegerich says that in the modern situation it is no longer feasible for people to have what he calls "truly mythic experience." On the contrary, many modern people have the same experience of myth as ancient people. These people are "modern" only in the sense that they are in the modern situation. They do not have modern consciousness. They are "ancient" people in the modern situation. Like ancient people, they have truly mythic experience. Of course, these ancient people in the modern situation are, as Harris notes, quite selective in what qualifies as truly mythic experience. For example, they arbitrarily believe in "God," or Yahweh, but not in Zeus.

"Imagine," Harris says, "President Bush addressing the National Prayer Breakfast in these terms: 'Behind all of life and all history there is a dedication and a purpose set by the hand of a just and faithful Zeus'" (2004: 46-7).

It is the genius of Jung to argue that "gods" exist, but only metaphorically and only in a natural dimension. That natural dimension is the psyche. "All deities," William Blake says, "reside in the human breast" (1976: 153) — or, as Jung says, in the psyche. From this perspective, the gods are dead, but the "gods" are alive and well — or, I would say, the literal is dead, but the metaphorical is alive and well. As Hillman says, "Nothing is literal; all is metaphor" (1975: 175). The "gods" continue to "exist," as they always have, in the psyche. In this respect, to be psychological is to be metaphorical. It is to realize, once and for all, that the "gods" are metaphors — personifications (or deifications) in the psyche.

. http://www.jungnewyork.com/myth_function.shtml

This is equally true of the concept of matter or body. We must say here that the body has nothing to do with matter.
Matter is an abstraction, nowadays it has become a philosophical and scientific concept, whereas body is
the direct psychic experience of the body. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 26 Jan 1940.

If you contemplate the body from the point of view of the psyche, you will be able to locate a mental sphere
of consciousness in the head, another centre of consciousness in the heart and one in the abdomen.
~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 26 Jan 1940.

Anatomical knowledge does not tell us how we fill our own bodies but psychic experience does give us
information on this point. We fill our bodies as if through inner streams. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 26 Jan 1940.

Your dream unquestionably refers to the archetypal problem of the extrusion of the soul from the body. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Pages 306-307

One is forced to conclude 'that in your case the soul is only loosely seated in your body. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Pages 306-307

However, the friendly lion in the dream seems to indicate that the looseness of the soul is
not exactly desirable, since the lion compensates your condition in a very obvious way: the Zurich lion
represents your localized instinct, firmly rooted in your earth, just as the lion's soul-as with all animals
-is securely fixed in its body. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Pages 306-307

Moreover you seem prone to eczema, which not infrequently indicates that one is not properly
inside one's body. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Pages 306-307

If you devote yourself, intentionally and intellectually, to dangerous problems such as the squaring of the
circle, this is yet another indication of a tendency to get away from the body, because this problem
symbolizes an irrational state of wholeness which cannot be contrived but can only be experienced. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Pages 306-307

You notice that the meditation is not on the spirit of the Buddha, but on the Body of the Buddha; the highest truth grows
from the deepest roots of the body and not from the spirit. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Page 28

So when we say body, we really mean our psychic experience of the body. This has only a distant
Relationship to the anatomical and physiological structure of the body and nothing whatever to do with
matter. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 26 Jan 1940.

But when Przywara says that man is a "medium formale materiale", that is, a mediator between a formal
and a material nature, we can again assent. Man is a peculiar psychic unity of experience of body and
spirit, torn in two pieces by the intellect. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 26 Jan 1940.

It is death to the soul to become unconscious. People die before there is death of the body, because there is death in the soul. ~Carl Jung, Dream Analysis, Page 90.

When you see that a certain spark of life has gone from the eye, the physical functioning of the body somewhere has gone wrong. ~Carl Jung, Dream Analysis, Page 91.

It is clear enough from this material what the ultimate aim of alchemy really was: it was trying to produce a corpus subtile, a transfigured and resurrected body, i.e., a body that was at the same time spirit. ~Carl Jung, CW 12, Para 511

There the main concern is the “diamond body,” in other words, the attainment of immortality through the transformation of the body. ~Carl Jung, CW 12, Para 511

Just as there is a relationship of mind to body, so there is a relationship of body to earth. ~Carl Jung, CW 10, Para 19

Dreams throw very interesting sidelights on the inter-functioning of body and psyche. ~Carl Jung, CW 8, Para 502

The deposit of man’s whole ancestral experience—so rich in emotional imagery—of father, mother, child, husband and wife, of the magic personality, of dangers to body and soul, has exalted this group of archetypes into the supreme regulating
principles of religious and even of political life, in unconscious recognition of their tremendous psychic power. ~Carl Jung, CW 8, Para 337

Thus, the alchemical process also begins with such a division into the four elements, by which the body is put back into its primordial state and so can undergo transformation. ~Carl Jung, Children’s Dreams, Page 367.

Man knows only a small part of his psyche, just as he has only a very limited knowledge of the physiology of his body. ~Carl Jung, Aion, Para 253

Only if you first return to the body, to your earth, can individuation take place, only then does the thing become true. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Page 1314

If you just have a dream and let it pass by you, nothing has happened at all, even if it is the most amazing dream; but if you look at it with
the purpose of trying to understand it, and succeed in understanding it, then you have taken it into the here and now,
the body being a visible expression of the here and now. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Page 1316

The body is the past, our earth, the world of heretofore, but out of it rises a new light which is not identical with the body. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Page 374

Whatever you experience outside of the body, in a dream for instance, is not experienced unless you take it into the body, because the body means the here and now. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Page 1316

We suffer very much from the fact that we consist of mind and have lost the body. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 251.

So "I" is as if it were something abstract, yet in a vague way it coincides with your body; when you say "I" you beat your chest for instance, to emphasize the "I." ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 361.

The extension [of the body] in space, therefore, creates a pluralistic quality in the mind. That is probably the reason why consciousness is possible. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 360.

Inasmuch as the living body contains the secret of life, it is an intelligence. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 360.

If your life has not three dimensions, if you don’t live in the body, if you live on the two-dimensional plane in the paper world that is flat and printed, as if you were only living your biography, then you are nowhere. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 1343.

The spirit can easily be anything, but the earth can only be something definite. So remaining true to the earth would mean maintaining your conscious relationship to the body. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 66

All people who claim to be spiritual try to get away from the fact of the body; they want to destroy it in order to be something imaginary, but they never will be that, because the body denies them; the body says otherwise. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 64.

We cannot say the side of the spirit is twice as good as the other side; we must bring the pairs of opposites together in an altogether different way, where the rights of the body are just as much recognized as the rights of the spirit. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 235.

You cannot individuate if you are a spirit; moreover, you don’t even know how spirit feels because you are in the body. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 202

So if you speak of individuation at all, it necessarily means the individuation of beings who are in the flesh, in the living body. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 202

Even a ghost, if he wants to make an effect on this earth, always needs a body, a medium; otherwise he cannot ring bells or lift tables or anything that ghosts are supposed to do. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 168

Nobody has ever known what this primal matter is. The alchemists did not know, and nobody has found out what is really meant by it, because it is a substance in the unconscious which is needed for the incarnation of the god. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 886

Soul and body are not two things. They are one. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 355

In reply to your question about levitation I myself have never observed the levitation of a living body. But apparently such things do happen. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 627-628

Up to this time we have spoken of the subject as though it were unchanging in time, but as we know, the body is a four-dimensional
entity, the fourth dimension being time. ~Carl Jung, 1925 Seminar, Page 136

But in these days we live by our brains alone and ignore the very definite laws of our body and the instinctive world. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 567

We are still in the body and thus under the rule of heavy matter. Also it is equally true that matter not moved by the spirit is dead and empty. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 459-460

Since archetypes are instinctual forms, they follow a universal pattern, as do the functions of the body. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 450-451

But he [Rilke] doesn't have what it takes to make a man complete: body, weight, shadow. His high ethos, his capacity for abnegation, and perhaps also his physical frailty naturally led him towards a goal of completeness, but not of perfection. Perfection, it seems to me, would have broken him. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 381-382.

We can only project a conception of him that corresponds to our own constitution: a body perceived by the senses and a spirit (= psyche) directly conscious of itself. After this model we build our God-image. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 341-343.

But if we can reconcile ourselves with the mysterious truth that spirit is the living body seen from within, and the body the outer manifestation of the living spirit --the two being really one-then we can understand why it is that the attempt to transcend the present level of consciousness must give its due to the body. ~Carl Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul, Page 220

I am personally convinced that our mind corresponds with the physiological life of the body, but the way in which it is connected with the body is for obvious reasons unintelligible. To speculate about such unknowable things is mere waste of time. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 159-161.

If you want to be quite accurate, both statements, viz. that the psyche is founded upon an organic process of the body, or that the psyche is independent of the body, are unanswerable. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 159-161.

To give body to one's thoughts means that one can speak them, paint them, show them, make them appear clearly before the eyes of everybody.… ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Pages 193-194.

One might assume the psyche gradually rising from minute extensity to infinite intensity, transcending for instance the velocity of light and thus irrealizing the body. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 43-47.

Energy is mass and mass is extended. At all events, a body with a speed higher than that of light vanishes from sight and one may have all sorts of doubts about what would happen to such a body otherwise. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 43-47.

It might be that psyche should be understood as unextended intensity and not as a body moving with time. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 43-47.

Your view is rather confirmed, as it seems to me, by the peculiar fact that on the one hand consciousness has so exceedingly little direct information of the body from within, and that on the other hand the unconscious ( i.e., dreams and other products of the "unconscious") refers very rarely to the body and, if it does, it is always in the most roundabout way, i.e., through highly "symbolized" images. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 43-47.

At all events the assumption of a perceptual body postulates a corresponding perceptual space that separates the mind from physical space in the same way as the subtle body causes the gap between the mind and the physical body. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 43-47

They belong to you, and you have painted them as a support for your own individuation process. They shouldn't be here, and nowhere else but with yourself, as they represent the approximation of the two worlds of spirit and body or of ego and self. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 179.

So the identity with the body is one of the first things which makes an ego; it is the spatial separateness that induces, apparently, the concept of an ego. ~Carl Jung, Evans Conversations, Page 15.

Time in itself consists of nothing. It is only a modus cogitandi that is used to express and formulate the flux of things and events, just as space is nothing but a way of describing the existence of a body. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 176.

We are a part of this totality, we flow in a certain sense in the blood of Christ, we have our part in his body, which penetrates us, we breathe with his breath, and are therefore so to speak Christ himself, in spite of being parts. ~ Carl Jung, Modern Psychology, Page 28.

The psyche is a self-regulating system that maintains its equilibrium just as the body does. Every process that goes too far immediately and inevitably calls forth compensations, and without these there would be neither a normal metabolism nor a normal psyche. ~Carl Jung, CW 16, Par. 330.

So the identity with the body is one of the first things which makes an ego; it is the spatial separateness that induces, apparently, the concept of an ego. ~Carl Jung, Evans Conversations, Page 15.

An alchemical text says: "The mind should learn compassionate love for the body." ~Carl Jung, Jung-Ostrowski, Page 25.

The body as a whole, so it seems to me, is a pattern of behavior, and man as a whole is an Archetype. ~Carl Jung, Letter to Medard Boss, 27June1947.

It was, indeed, a great problem to the Middle Ages, this problem of the Trinity and the exclusion, or the very qualified recognition, of the feminine element, of the earth, the body, and matter in general, which were yet, in the form of Mary's womb, the sacred abode of the Deity and the indispensable instrument for the divine work of redemption. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Page 72.

After all, the essential thing is not the shadow but the body which casts it. ~Carl Jung, CW 16, Page 64.

The levitation of St. Francis is a typical example. You can see yourself from a foot above, from the ceiling or from the ground. The Yogin himself levitates because he is so identified with his contemplation that he loses the weight of his body. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture III, 17May 1935, Pages 210.

If we seek our connection with the snake we come to the spinal cord and that points to the animal soul of man which leads him down into the darkness of the body, into the instinct which one meets in animal form in the outer world. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 8March1935, Pages 199-200.

The ancestral part is given to us by our body, we take over the life of our ancestors in that way. It is the terrace of life because it is here that life renews itself. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 12July1935, Pages 240.

The age of the body is something we often swindle ourselves about, but this swindle does not help the psyche. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture IV 24 May 1935, Pages 213.

Disintegration is consciously undertaken in our text with the purpose of emptying the ego consciousness and integrating a central consciousness, the totality of the personality; it is undertaken because the problem of the body has come up. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 20Jan1939, Page62.

The text tells us that the body of the sleeper is imagined to be the body of the Buddha, we should understand that as the diamond body. So it is the transformation of the ordinary body into the eternally durable body that is meant. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 9Dec38, Page 43.

a) The Dharma Kaya = the world of absolute truth.
b) The Sambhoga Kaya = the world of subtle bodies.
c) The Nirmana Kaya = the world of created things.
One could also call these three: Self, anima and body. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 2Dec1938, Page 35.

So when we say body, we really mean our psychic experience of the body. This has only a distant relationship to the anatomical and physiological structure of the body and nothing whatever to do with matter. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture X, Page 226.

The body, therefore, is also a psychological condition, a peculiar form of consciousness. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture X, Page 226.

So we see that what we call spirit and body are psychic conditions, limited psychic functions, and the body tells us as little about what matter really is, as the spirit about the thing in itself which is behind the spiritual condition. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture X, Page 226.

We can experience the body psychically, a prana-body, a subtle body, and there are certain exalted and ecstatic conditions in which we can experience spirit. So what we experience of spirit and body are really psychic modalities. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture X, Page 226.

Body and spirit, thought of as two poles, combine correctly with each other if man depends correctly upon God, because they are reconciled through His unity. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture X, Page 227.

Prana conceives of the body as a sort of system of pipes, going into the limbs and connecting the centres. These centres are not mystical but psychical centres of experience. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture X, Page 225.

We must say here that the body has nothing to do with matter. Matter is an abstraction, nowadays it has become a philosophical and scientific concept, whereas body is the direct psychic experience of the body. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture X, Page 225.

How I experience the body from within is a totally different question. I am inside the body as a psyche. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture X, Page 225.

If you want to know how the body can be experienced psychically you must turn to eastern Yoga; medieval philosophy also knew something of the matter. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture X, Page 225.

But there is something which can be proved from everyday experience, not body becoming spirit, but body becoming conscious, man becomes conscious of his body. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture IX, Page 221.

We must have a psychic image of the body, in order to become conscious of it, we must translate the physical fact of the body into a psychic experience. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture IX, Page 221.

Man is a peculiar psychic unity of experience of body and spirit, torn in two pieces by the intellect. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lectures, Page 226.

The coniunctio in alchemy is a union of the masculine and feminine, of the spiritual and material principles, from which a perfect body arises, the glorified body after the Last Judgement, the resurrection body. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lectures, Page 159.

This means an eternal body, or the subtle body, which is designated in alchemy as the philosopher's stone, the lapis aethereus or invisibilis. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lectures, Pages 159.

The Chinese philosophy of yoga is based upon the fact of this instinctive preparation for death as a goal, and, following the analogy with the goal of the first half of life, namely, begetting and reproduction, the means towards perpetuation of physical life, it takes as the purpose of spiritual existence the symbolic begetting and bringing to birth of a psychic spirit body ('subtle body'), which ensures the continuity of the detached consciousness. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 124.

The creation and birth of this superior personality is what is meant by our text when it speaks of the 'holy fruit', the 'diamond body', or refers in other ways to an indestructible body. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 123.

And this being has body, soul and spirit, and is, therefore, the principle of life itself, as well as the principle of individuation. Its nature is spiritual, it cannot be seen, and it contains an invisible image. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Alchemy, Page 221.

If thou wouldst complete the diamond body with no outflowing, Diligently heat the roots of consciousness and life. ~Hui Ming Ching, Cited Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 95.

According to the Hui Ming Ching, the ancient sages knew how to bridge the gap between consciousness and life because they cultivated both. In this way the shelf, the immortal body, is 'melted out', and in this way 'the great Tao is completed'. ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 95.

…it must be pointed out that just as the human body shows a common anatomy over and above all racial differences, so, too, the psyche possesses a common substratum transcending all differences in culture and consciousness. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 84.

We can therefore assume, psychologically speaking, that the object which is to be transformed in alchemy is connected with the human body: it is a mystery of the body. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Page 177.

There is another possibility, that of the subtle body, a fine material veil of the soul, which cannot exist so to speak without a body. This is the "corpus glorificationis" (glorified body), the transfigured body, which is our future portion. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Lecture XIV, Page 115.

The earth, in the alchemistic sense, means the body and in a double sense: chemical bodies (substances), minerals etc., and the human body. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lectures, Page 101.

There must be a psychical equivalent of matter preformed in man, and this is our own matter, our physical world: the body, for the body is matter. ~Carl Jung, Modern Psychology, Alchemy, Lecture VII, Page 67.

We are a part of this totality, we flow in a certain sense in the blood of Christ, we have our part in his body, which penetrates us, we breathe with his breath, and are therefore so to speak Christ himself, in spite of being parts. ~ Carl Jung, Modern Psychology, Page 28.

It is in our own body that we must search, not outside, but today everyone is convinced that it is outside. ~ Carl Jung, Modern Psychology, Page 21.

The body seems to be understood as a materialization of the life principle, which latter is an abstraction of the sum total of bodily existence. ~Carl Jung, Modern Psychology, Page 21.

The East tries to avoid abstraction, so that the enormously valuable body shall not be lost. The whole meditation originates in the body, not in the spirit. ~Carl Jung, Modern Psychology, Page 21.

Such a thing is possible only when there is a detachment of the soul from the body. When that takes place and the patient lives on, one can almost with certainty expect a certain deterioration of the character inasmuch as the superior and most essential part of the soul has already left. Such an experience denotes a partial death. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 435-437.

But it is the lower man that keeps on living with the body and who is nothing else but the life of the body. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 435-437.

In spite of the fact that the majority of people do not know why the body needs salt, everyone demands it nonetheless because of an instinctive need. It is the same with the things of the psyche. That is the working of the intellect. ~Carl Jung, CW 8, Pages 399-403.

The soul and the body are indeed one, so, at any rate theoretically, any illness can be approached from either side; for even if an illness has not a psychic cause it still has a psychic side. ~Carl Jung, Modern Psychology, Page 235.

What affects the body has its influence on the soul, and vice versa. In a very difficult case of illness psycho-therapy is always called in. ~Carl Jung, Modern Psychology, Page 236.

Psychology did not exist in earlier days, people thought naively, and when they sank into themselves they saw the inside of their own body. ~Carl Jung, Modern Psychology, Page 224.

The psychic seems to me to be in actual fact partly extra-spatial and extra-temporal. “Subtle body" may be a fitting expression for this part of the psyche. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 522-523.

It is only possible to live as we should if we live according to our own nature. But in these days we live by our brains alone and ignore the very definite laws of our body and the instinctive world. We damage ourselves severely when we offend against these, and this is what our patient has done in her efforts to live rationally. ~Carl Jung, Modern Psychology, Page 219.

The age of the body is something we often swindle ourselves about, but this swindle does not help the psyche. ~Carl Jung, Modern Psychology, Page 213.

If we seek our connection with the snake we come to the spinal cord and that points to the animal soul of man which leads him down into the darkness of the body, into the instinct which one meets in animal form in the outer world. ~Carl Jung, Modern Psychology, Page 200.

If we seek our connection with the snake we come to the spinal cord and that points to the animal soul of man which leads him down into the darkness of the body, into the instinct which one meets in animal form in the outer world. ~Carl Jung, Modern Psychology, Page 200.

If we seek our connection with the snake we come to the spinal cord and that points to the animal soul of man which leads him down into the darkness of the body, into the instinct which one meets in animal form in the outer world. ~Carl Jung, Modern Psychology, Page 200.The crab belongs to the motif of the helpful animal. ~Carl Jung, Modern Psychology, Vol. 1, Pages 136-139.

The position of the body produces some dreams, and a real noise can work itself into a dream in a most peculiar way. ~Carl Jung, Modern Psychology, Vol. 1, Page 134.

When the field of consciousness is narrow, the body plays an important role. ~ Carl Jung, Modern Psychology, Vol. 1, Page 58.

Anybody who is conscious of a complex knows what a disobedient animal it is… Carl Jung, Modern Psychology, Vol. 1, Page 58.

Seeing visions is another of these phenomena; for instance, during three days she saw continually a mass of flames which ran through her whole body. Such visions can sometimes be observed in ordinary neuroses and have a symbolic meaning. ~Carl Jung, Modern Psychology, Vol. 1, Page 32.

Frau Hauffe also had the faculty of exteriorization, - she could see herself outside her own body, as if she were another person. The first time this occurred, she saw herself sitting at her own bedside; this phenomenon is not only experienced by neurotics but also by people who are very ill or dying. ~Carl Jung, Modern Psychology, Vol. 1, Page 32.

Occasionally we must also inquire whether something that wants to go upwards has not taken a false route downwards into the body. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 403.

It is a fact that the body very often apparently survives the soul, often even without a disease. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 437-438.

Sport represents an exceptional valuation of the human body, as does also modern dancing. ~Carl Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul, Pages 218-220.

We shall also see that belief in the body cannot tolerate an outlook that denies the body in the name of the spirit. ~Carl Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul, Pages 218-220.

The psyche is distinctly more complicated and inaccessible than the body. It is, so to speak, the half of the world which comes into existence only when we become conscious of it. ~Carl Jung, Memories Dreams and Reflection, Page 132.

Body and spirit are to me mere aspects of the reality of the psyche. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 198-200.

Body is as metaphysical as spirit. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 198-200.

Ask the modern physicist what body is, they are coming fast across to the recognition of the reality of the psyche. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 198-200.

And just as the material of the body that is ready for life has need of the psyche in order to be capable of life, so the psyche presupposes the living body in order that its images may live. ~Carl Jung, CW 8, Page 325, Para 618.

This living being appears outwardly as the material body, but inwardly as a series of images of the vital activities taking place within it. ~Carl Jung, CW 8, Page 325, Para 619.

We have become participants in the divine nature. We are the vessel…of the deity suffering in the body of the “slave”(Phil. 2:5). ~ ~Carl Jung, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, 336, 409, Letters II, 314ff.

The earthly fate of the Church as the body of Christ is modelled on the earthly fate of Christ himself. That is to say the Church, in the course of her history, moves towards a death. ~Carl Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, CW 14, par. 28, note 194.

Analysis should release an experience that grips us or falls upon us as from above, an experience that has substance and body such as those things which occurred to the ancients. If I were going to symbolize it I would choose the Annunciation. ~Carl Jung, Seminar 1925, p. 111.

You see, somewhere our unconscious becomes material, because the body is the living unit, and our conscious and our unconscious are embedded in it: the contact the body. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 441.

We cannot say the side of the spirit is twice as good as the other side; we must bring the pairs of opposites together in an altogether different way, where the rights of the body are just as much recognized as the rights of the spirit. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 235.

Instinct is anything but a blind and indefinite impulse, since it proves to be attuned and adapted to a definite external situation. This latter circumstance gives it its specific and irreducible form. Just as instinct is original and hereditary, so too, its form is age-old, that is to say, archetypal. It is even older and more conservative than the body's form. ~Carl Jung; The Undiscovered Self; Page 49.

Just as the body bears the traces of its phylogenetic development, so also does the human mind. Hence there is nothing surprising about the possibility that the figurative language of dreams is a survival from an archaic mode of thought. ~Carl Jung; General Aspects of Dream Psychology; and CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche; Page 475.

Every civilized human being, whatever his conscious development, is still an archaic man at the deeper levels of his psyche. Just as the human body connects us with the mammals and displays numerous relics of earlier evolutionary stages going back to even the reptilian age, so the human psyche is likewise a product of evolution which, when followed up to its origins, show countless archaic traits. ~Carl Jung; Modern Man in Search of a Soul; Page 126

If thou wouldst complete the diamond body with no out-flowing. Diligently heat the roots of consciousness and life. Kindle light in the blessed country ever close at hand, And there hidden, let thy true self always dwell. ~Carl Jung; The Secret of the Golden Flower.

For what is the body? The body is merely the visibility of the soul, the psyche; and the soul is the psychological experience of the body. So it is really one and the same thing. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 355.

Because a child is . . . small and its conscious thoughts scarce and simple, we do not realize the far-reaching complications of the infantile mind that are based on its original identity with the prehistoric psyche. That original mind is just as much present and still functioning in the child as the evolutionary stages of mankind are in its embryonic body. ~Carl Jung; Man and His symbols; Page 89.

The distinction between mind and body is an artificial dichotomy, a discrimination which is unquestionably based far more on the peculiarity of intellectual understanding than on the nature of things. ~Carl Jung; Modern Man in Search of a Soul

The deeper 'layers' of the psyche lose their individual uniqueness as they retreat further and further into darkness. . . . they become increasingly collective until they are universalized and extinguished in the body's materiality. . . . Hence 'at bottom' the psyche is simply 'world. ~Carl Jung; The Special Phenomenology of the Child Archetype.

. . . the spirit is the life of the body seen from within, and the body the outward manifestation of the life of the spirit - the two being really one. ~Carl Jung; The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man; CW 10: 195.

Just as the body bears the traces of its phylogenetic development, so also does the human mind. ~Carl Jung; General Aspects of Dream Psychology; CW 8: 475.


The symbols of the self arise in the depths of the body and they express its materiality every bit as much as the structure of the perceiving consciousness. The symbol is thus a living body, corpus et anima. ~Carl Jung; CW 9i; para 291.

[The soul] is of divine nature and therefore immortal; that there is a power inherent within it which builds up the body, sustains its life, heals its ills. ~Carl Jung; CW 8.

The part of the unconscious which is designated as the subtle body becomes more and more identical with the functioning of the body, and therefore it grows darker and darker and ends in the utter darkness of matter. . . . Somewhere our unconscious becomes material, because the body is the living unit, and our conscious and our unconscious are embedded in it: they contact the body. Somewhere there is a place where the two ends meet and become interlocked. And that is the [subtle body] where one cannot say whether it is matter, or what one calls "psyche." ~Carl Jung; Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, vol. 1, p. 441.

[The alchemist Gerhard] Dorn . . . says, "In the body of man there is hidden a certain substance of heavenly nature known to very few ~Carl Jung; "Psychology and Religion" in CW 11, page 93, note 47.

It seems to me that we are at the end of an era. The splitting of the atom and the nuclear bomb bring us a new view of matter. As physical man cannot develop any further, it would seem that this particular evolution ends with man. Like the caterpillar dissolves and turns into a butterfly, it is conceivable that the physical body of man could change into a more subtle body. It might not be necessary for him to die to be clothed afresh and be transformed. ? ~Carl Jung, Conversations with C.G. Jung, Page 63.

We cannot say the side of the spirit is twice as good as the other side; we must bring the pairs of opposites together in an altogether different way, where the rights of the body are just as much recognized as the rights of the spirit. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 235.

On the whole my illness proved to be a most valuable experience which gave me the inestimable opportunity of a glimpse behind the veil. The only difficulty is to get rid of the body, to get quite naked and void of the world and the ego-will. ~Carl Jung, Letters Volume 1, Pages 355-357

You see, somewhere our unconscious becomes material, because the body is the living unit, and our conscious and our unconscious are embedded in it: the contact the body. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 441.

Our unconscious is surely located in the body, and you mustn't think this a contradiction to the statement I usually make, that the collective unconscious is everywhere; for if you could put yourself into your sympathetic system, you would know what sympathy is-you would understand why the nervous system is called sympathetic. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Pages 749-751.

If your life has not three dimensions, if you don't live in the body, if you live on the two-dimensional plane in the paper world that is flat and printed, as if you were only living your biography, then you are nowhere. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 972.

Therefore intuitives develop all sorts of physical trouble, intestinal disturbances for instance, ulcers of the stomach or other really grave physical troubles. Because they overleap the body, it reacts against them. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Pages 1391-1392.

Such things can happen: a projection is a very tangible thing, a sort of semi-substantial thing which forms a load as if it had real weight. It is exactly as the primitives understand it, a subtle body. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 1495.

Since the soul animates the body, just as the soul is animated by the spirit, she tends to favour the body and everything bodily, sensuous, and emotional. She lies caught in "the chains" of Physis, and she desires "beyond physical necessity." She must be called back by the "counsel of the spirit" from her lostness in matter and the world. ~Carl Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, Page 472.

If we now recall to what a degree the soul has humanized and realized itself, we can judge how very much it today expresses the body also, with which it is coexistent. ~Carl Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, Page 544.

What does power avail us? We do not want to rule. We want to live, we want light and warmth, and hence we need yours. Just as the greening earth and every living body needs the sun, so we as spirits need your light and your warmth. A sunless spirit becomes the parasite of the body. But the God feeds the spirit.
~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 286.

Yet we cannot remain in this state, since all the powers of our body are consumed like fat in the flames. Hence we must strive to free the self from the God, so that we can live. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 339.

But when the mother, my soul, was pregnant with the God, I did not know it. It even seemed to me as if my soul herself was the God, although he lived only in her body. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 244.


(c)2015-2017; All Rights Reserved, Iona Miller, Sangreality Trust
iona_m@yahoo.com
Fair Use Notice
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Carl Jung on “Feminine” – Anthology
Emptiness is a great feminine secret. It is something absolutely alien to man; the chasm, the unplumbed depths, the yin. The pitifulness of this vacuous nonentity goes to his heart (I speak here as a man), and one is tempted to say that this constitutes the whole "mystery" of woman. Such a female is fate itself. A man may say what he likes about it; be for it or against it, or both at once; in the end he falls, absurdly happy, into this pit, or, if he does not, he has missed and bungled his only chance of making a man of himself. In the first case one cannot disprove his foolish good luck to him, and in the second one cannot make his misfortune seem plausible. "The Mothers, the Mothers, how eerily it sounds!"
~Carl Jung; "Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype" (1939); CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. P.183

On a low level the animus is an inferior Logos, a caricature of the differentiated masculine mind, just as on a low level the anima is a caricature of the feminine Eros. ~Carl Jung, Commentary Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 41.

There is no position without its negation. In or just because of their extreme opposition, neither can exist without the other. It is exactly as formulated in classical Chinese philosophy: yang (the light, warm, dry, masculine principle) contains within it the seed of yin (the dark, cold, moist, feminine principle), and vice versa. Matter therefore would contain the seed of spirit and spirit the seed of matter…. Nevertheless, the symbol has the great advantage of being able to unite heterogeneous or even incommensurable factors in a single image.
~Carl Jung; CW 9i; para. 197.

It has just struck me that in my commentary I have suggested using “logos” for “hun” instead of “animus,” because “animus” is a natural term for the “mind” of a woman, corresponding to the “anima” of a man. European philosophy must take into account the existence of feminine psychology. The “anima” of a woman might suitably be designated “Eros.” ~Carl Jung to Richard Wilhelm, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 67-68.

European philosophy must take into account the existence of feminine psychology. ~Carl Jung to Richard Wilhelm, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 67-68.

The feminine mind is the earth waiting for the seed. That is the meaning of the transference. Always the more unconscious person gets spiritually fecundated by the more conscious one. Hence the guru in India. This is an age old truth. As soon as certain patients come to me for treatment, the type of dream changes. In the deepest sense we all dream not out of ourselves but out of what lies between us and the other. ~Carl Jung to James Kirsch, Letters Vol. 1, Page 170.

The projection upon the feminine partner contains the anima and sometimes the self. ~Carl Jung, CW 16, Page 244, Footnote 15.

'Anima', called p'o, and written with the characters for 'white' and for 'demon', that is, 'white ghost', belongs to the lower, earth-bound, bodily soul, the yin principle, and is therefore feminine. After death, it sinks downward and becomes kuei (demon), often explained as the 'one who returns' (i.e. to earth), a revenant, a ghost. ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 114.

As we are considering man's psyche, the ego in the conscious and the shadow in the unconscious are both masculine but on the lower floor it is different. There man meets his other side which is feminine. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Page 114.

It is a primeval fact that the psyche consists of both sexes.
~Carl Jung, ETH, Page 114.

Yet we know that every embryo is formed of masculine and feminine genes, the sex is determined by the majority. Where then is the minority?
--Carl Jung, ETH, Page 115.

Marriage is no help in this, one does not reach it in that way, for we have deceived ourselves when we find our own feminine in a real woman.
--Carl Jung, ETH, Page 115.

If I have a beam in my own eye I shall see a mote in someone else’s eye and call it a beam. This exactly describes the way I necessarily first see my own feminine psyche. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Page 116.

The alchemists returned in matter to the mother, the first carrier of the feminine unconscious. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Page 117.

The coniunctio in alchemy is a union of the masculine and feminine, of the spiritual and material principles, from which a perfect body arises, the glorified body after the Last Judgement, the resurrection body. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lectures, Page 159.

Christian iconography represents Christ as a very feminine man. This is not just a matter of taste, but because he could not be the redeemer if he were not woman as well as man: all the opposites had to unite in him. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture, Page 110.

We know for psychological reasons that when the outer attitude to the world is feminine and passive, the inward attitude will be masculine and active. And of course vice versa, a belligerent outer attitude means a feminine inner attitude, characterised by a peculiar receptiveness and surrender. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lectures, Page 192.

If we want to draw the psychological conclusion we must go further and say that the West has an anima, that is, a feminine unconscious, and that the East has an animus, that is, a masculine unconscious. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lectures, Page 204.

This round motif should be kept clearly in your mind, for it is an exceedingly important symbol in the West as well as in the East. It is especially women who produce such symbols in the West. This is not the case in the East, the mandalas are made by men, the feminine has remained unconscious. We find an exception to this rule in the matriarchal South of India. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture XI., 3Feb1939, Page 70.

As the Yogin is a man his conscious is masculine, so the male Devatas represent his conscious thoughts , religious, philosophical and personal. He has already been freed from his masculine conscious, but to be really freed he must also externalize his feminine unconscious. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture XI, 3Feb1939, Page 72

It was, indeed, a great problem to the Middle Ages, this problem of the Trinity and the exclusion, or the very qualified recognition, of the feminine element, of the earth, the body, and matter in general, which were yet, in the form of Mary's womb, the sacred abode of the Deity and the indispensable instrument for the divine work of redemption. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Page 72.

The “Soul” which accrues to ego-consciousness during the Opus has a feminine character in the man and a masculine character in a woman. His anima wants to reconcile and unite; her animus tries to discern and discriminate. ~Carl Jung, CW 16, Par. 522.

So, too, man will be forced to develop his feminine side, to open his eyes to the psyche and to Eros, It is a task he can' not avoid. ~Carl Jung, CW 10, Page 125.
The anima is an archetypal form, expressing the fact that a man has a minority of feminine or female genes. ~Carl Jung, Evans Conversations, Page 18.

As in Goethe's Faust, here too it is the feminine element (Eve) that knows about the secret which can work against the total destruction of mankind, or man's despair in the face of such a development. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 386-387

The feminine mind is the earth waiting for the seed. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, 22March 1935.

But humankind is masculine and feminine, not just man or woman. You can hardly say of your soul what sex it is. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 263.

But if you pay close attention, you will see that the most masculine man has a feminine soul, and the most feminine woman has a masculine soul. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 263.

The more manly you are, the more remote from you is what woman really is, since the feminine in yourself is alien and contemptuous. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 263.

Just as a man brings forth his work as a complete creation out of his inner feminine nature, so the inner masculine side of a woman brings forth creative seeds which have the power to fertilize the feminine side of the man. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 336.

A woman possessed by the animus is always in danger of losing her femininity, her adapted feminine persona, just as a man in like circumstances runs the risk of effeminacy. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 336

Just as a man brings forth his work as a complete creation out of his inner feminine nature, so the inner masculine side of a woman brings forth creative seeds which have the power to fertilize the feminine side of the man. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 336.

The feminine side of Christ is much emphasized in Christian iconology, he is usually represented as a very feminine man. The same characteristic was apparently attributed to his cousin, Mithras. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 8th Dec 1939

If we want to draw the psychological conclusion we must go further and say that the West has an anima, that is, a feminine unconscious, and that the East has an animus, that is, a masculine unconscious. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 8th Dec 1939

A subtle body, breath or smoke resembling, which can also be correctly described as anima. Anima is the feminine of animus, which is identical with the Greek word anemos which means wind or breath. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 24 Feb 1939

All this is explained by the fact that the so-called unity of consciousness is an illusion. It is really a wish-dream. We like to think that we are one; but we are not, most decidedly not. We are not really masters in our house. We like to believe in our will-power and in our energy and in what we can do; but when it comes to a real show-down we find that we can do it only to a certain extent, because we are hampered by those little devils the complexes. Complexes are autonomous groups of associations that have a tendency to move by themselves, to live their own life apart from our intentions. I hold that our personal unconscious, as well as the collective unconscious, consists of an indefinite, because unknown, number of complexes or fragmentary personalities CW18 ¶ 151

Here is what Alan Wallace says in 'Stilling the Mind' (p 62) - I think this speaks to your question:
"Visualizations are fine. The stage of generation is important. Yet you must still confront your mind; you have to go right through it. That is taking the mind as your path. You need to go to the very ground of the ordinary mind. This requires shamatha. You don't need vipashyana for that nor Dzogchen, nor bodhichitta. But you do need to go right to the ground of your ordinary mind and let the mind settle, unforced. When the mind is quiescent — no turbulent thoughts or emotions arising — it is relaxed, still, luminous, and free from effort. That is shamatha."
The "ground of the ordinary mind" is the substrate consciousness; and shamatha is the essential practice for realizing this ground. Of course we don't want to stop there. I understand the visualizations of the stage of generation practice as a way to keep our eyes on the real prize: 'piercing through' the substrate to realize rigpa (pristine awareness) for the sake of all mother sentient beings. This is important to cultivate from the outset, considering how attractive and seemingly ultimate the experience of shamatha will be. But we must keep going to realize our deepest aspirations. Dudjom Lingpa teaches that stopping in the substrate "does not bring you even a hair's breadth closer to the paths of liberation and omniscience."