Carl Jung – Page 3 – Time is Art

Jung, Crop Circles & the Re-Emergence of the Archetypal Feminine

on April 26, 2015April 26, 2015 By Katy Walker Mejia

Excerpt of Jung, Crop Circles & the Re-Emergence of the Archetypal Feminine

From the Preface & Introduction by Gary S. Bobroff

Sparked by their curiosity, thousands of people have contributed to the study of Crop Circles around the world. Individuals throughout the United Kingdom, Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan, the United States and elsewhere have given their time freely to the documentation of this phenomenon. They have measured, marked, photographed and taken the samples that constitute an abundant archive of data from which we may now seek to draw our own conclusions. As a researcher, I have been delighted to discover the wealth of materials on the physical science and mythological context of the Crop Circle phenomenon that they have collected. This book is consequently built upon the product of their efforts.

Amongst the many who have contributed to the investigation of this phenomenon there are very few who claim to have found the answer to its mystery. I am proud to count myself among them, among those who continue to wonder and ask why. This work is an attempt to sketch a framework for deeper consideration of the question of Crop Circles. If you are looking for an answer or a solution to this phenomenon’s riddle, best look elsewhere. At best, I hope to offer a direction—a route by which to begin tracking something very elusive (yet that seemingly wants us to follow it). For those who have engaged with this phenomenon for some time, it is a source of deepening wonder and it is to that experience that you are invited.

In historical documents dating from 16th century England to 1970’s Saskatchewan, Canada, people have recorded their observations of Crop Circles. Throughout this time, prior to the explosion of this phenomenon in the last twenty-five years, people’s reports have chronicled their efforts to witness what they saw. Those who have encountered the phenomenon and followed their curiosity have chosen to study it, honoring their own inner compulsion they have become engaged with the phenomenon.

A particularly dedicated group of Crop Circle enthusiasts have produced a number of outstanding publications and on-line resources on this subject. Their efforts have made my attempt to come to grips with this phenomenon possible. It should be mentioned that, with only the rarest exceptions, even those who have produced the most brilliant and popular of these works have given more to the study of this subject than they are ever likely to recover financially.^[i] Nonetheless, they persist in their efforts of their own free choice. I would like to recommend your use of their media as an additional support for your own investigation of Crop Circles. A selection of recommended choices follows at the end of this chapter.

Keeping in mind the obligation that the study of this phenomenon has to the thousands of people whose spare time has been given to its research, this book has been written to be accessible to the general reader. It is meant to serve as an introduction to both Crop Circles and Jungian psychology, and no familiarity with the concepts or jargon of either subject is assumed. I strongly believe that the significance of this phenomenon is available to all of us, and that engagement with it should not be reserved for experts, academics or only those with the financial resources to travel abroad I believe that it’s meaning, whatever that may be, is as within reach or hard to grasp for the intellectual as it is for the farmer in whose fields these formations arrive. It challenges us all equally and its mystery is open to us all. However, this subject does introduce readers to ideas that may be new to them. It brings up wide categories of thought and poses broad questions—questions that stretch the imagination and our preconceptions. Answering these questions necessitates a labor on the part of the reader, but the argument made here is intended to appeal to common sense.

I believe that this subject asks of its investigators (of which you now are one) a more actively engaged participation—not a simple reading, but a ‘dance for two’. Each of us responds differently to new things and whether we bring to this topic a skeptical brow or a wide-eyed enthusiasm, we do not come to it empty-handed. It is in the nature of how we engage with our own first responses to this phenomenon that the burden of our work in response to it lays. Meeting this task involves a willingness to play with our own responses—to be in process with them, rather than attaching and identifying with our own initial reaction. I have yet to meet two people who feel exactly the same way about Crop Circles. I have also found that, over time, our engagement with the facts and theories that surround them changes and deepens. Given time, this labor yields its own fruit for each of us. Tending to this harvest begins by resisting identification with our first reactions to this material. This task is only possible, if you accompany your reading by observing and according value to your own thoughts in response to it. Write down your own responses as you read this book or look at Crop Circle images. Your first responses are often the most valuable here. Flashes of response, no matter how brief, offer the possibility of glimpsing something within us that is truly fresh and genuinely new. Participation in this engagement hosts what is evoked in us by the phenomenon and thereby brings a mirror to the new possibilities that are inherent within us.

Rather than place value upon what you find written here and look at this interpretation for answers, please place as much or greater, value upon your own curiosity, insight and questions—note your responses, your feelings and your thoughts. Make room for your own disagreement with what is written here. It was engagement with my own dissension that produced some of what I believe are the most valuable arguments presented here. In your own writing, try not to judge the process as it happens; simply record it as it comes. After some time, you may want to write past your initial responses and notice what else comes to mind. After following the open road of your own responses and writing down whatever comes up, watch throughout the rest of the day or night for new thoughts or feelings. Noting these responses encourages an inner dialogue and works a muscle that most of us have forgotten how to exercise.

As the products of a culture that prizes certainty, in the act of inner dialogue, we re-engage that part of ourselves that remembers how to wonder and values sometimes not knowing. Jung felt that following this voice led to the true growth of the personality, and that “the creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the thing it loves.”[ii] In pondering your own reactions as much as you ponder the text itself, you place yourself alongside the many individuals who chose to pursue their curiosity and lent their labor to engagement with this mystery. Treated in this way, the material presented here offers itself as a framework for deepening your participation with the mystery of this phenomenon.

Etchilhampton, UK July 25th, 2011 formation ~ photos © Andrew Pyrka. (Etchilhampton, UK July 25^th, 2011 formation ~ photos © Andrew Pyrka.)

Our modern awareness offers us the objectivity to participate with a symbol or symptom, without necessarily getting lost in our personal history, our society’s collective experience of it or losing it in other outside factors. Today, we possess the steely separation of awareness necessary to view the symbols of our lives plainly in their own truth. Benefiting both from the scientific method and from modern self-consciousness, today we can participate with the same living unconscious that was revered by our ancestors. Yet, we can do so with less danger of falling victim to it and with a greater possibility of engaging with it constructively. The strength of our modern self-awareness offers us the capability of relating to our unconscious contents objectively. However, such participation requires a voluntary sacrifice of our ego’s certainty and a willingness to proceed into the unknown inside of us–a chosen release of the illusion of that we know what we’ll find there. Through such voluntary ‘not-knowing,’ we make room for something new to pop up out of the fertile bed of the unconscious. Through such participation, today we are able to combine the first strand of human impetus–the drive to know consciously, accurately and objectively—with the second strand of human impetus—the need to participate with the unknown depths in the world and in ourselves, which we find in myth and in the presentations of unconscious.

Because a symbol, active in our psyche, reaches across the barrier from consciousness to unconsciousness; because it exists for us simultaneously cognitively and emotionally, abstractly and concretely; because it dominates our conscious will and intention and affects us in ways often beyond our control; in its process, we witness the living truth that “a symbol holds the tension of a lot of things that would otherwise be opposite.” Its paradoxical nature bridges across the entire plain of our psyche: rooted in the unconscious–in an archetypal base; budding in the “unspeakability” of the symptom and through our attendance to it; blooming forth as a new awareness. Here something almost inexplicable happens. What we once were completely unaware of becomes known to us and lived by us–a truth we once never knew, is suddenly a part of us. Like a quantum jump, when something clicks, awareness leaps across from unconsciousness into consciousness within us, and we are no longer the same.

The possibility of such growth has, for the mystics of many cultures, pointed towards the realization of the transpersonal and unifying ground of the psyche. In modern times, such questions are regarded philosophically and usually reduced to intellectual puzzles about the physical constitution of our world, or the relative merits of our perception of our relationship to it. However, in this witnessing of the stunning capacity of psyche for transformation (not just cumulative growth), we can begin to realize why the inner world has often been regarded as pointing us towards a mystery that exceeds the grasp of the rational strand of consciousness and ultimately directing us towards age-old philosophical, religious and moral questions.

Like a snowflake or a fingerprint, each one being unique, a dream occurs only once. Each night the world gives birth anew through us and our task begins with our attendance to its arrival. Hosting this process requires both our linear, scientific-minded conscious discrimination and also something more difficult for us today. If we are to allow the mythic amplification of a symbol to really impact us, we must allow ourselves to become subject to it. As the poet Rilke wrote, “the continuity becomes everywhere apparent, and where some obscurity remains it is of the sort that demands not clearing up but subjection.”

“None of us asks to be confronted in the night with mysteries, oracles and conundrums, to have something barge into our inner lives that we did not invite. …A dream will help us if we are willing to dwell for a time within its ambiguities without resolving them, to sink into its depths without always knowing when–or where–we shall surface…” (Barasch, Healing Dreams, p. 361)

Now–in this moment–we are presented with something new. Crop Circles are a mystery in our response to which we continue to be able to draw upon the strands of both science and mythology–their form and image seems to point us towards both. As is examined in Chapter One, the scientific study of its qualities enables us to feel grounded in the authenticity of its reality and genuine mystery. Yet, the phenomenon also speaks profoundly to the second strand of our impetus. By their very nature, Crop Circles speak to our imagination’s capacity for deepest wonder; their images and new appearance both delight us and bring us face-to-face with tremendous awe and perhaps even fear (or other challenging psychological states). As a Jungian interpretation, this book examines the symbols associated with Crop Circles both within the universality of their imagery and within the context of those images being set into our modern moment. It is only in this way that we can place their particular symbolic reference into a dynamic, meaningful arrangement. Attendance to this setting enables our placing the world ‘dream’ of Crop Circles in the context of world reality. In looking not only at the phenomenon but at its context too, we expand the framework of our consideration of its mystery to the appropriate scope, for Crop Circles do not arrive at some random time or place but before us now into our present moment. When we engage with the whole of its qualities, we must necessarily place ourselves into context with it and in doing so we begin the process of making its meaning real for us. In this way, in searching for its story, we may discover a story of our own that is not yet told.

Gary S. Bobroff, is featured in the film, Time is Art, and is an author, workshop leader and a Jungian and archetypal coach. He delivers the depth of Jungian approaches in a visual, accessible and engaging form. He is the developer and facilitator of Archetypal Nature and the founder of JungianOnline.com connecting clients with Jungian-oriented therapists worldwide (via phone or Skype). He has a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from the University of British Columbia, Canada and Master’s degree in Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. Andrew Harvey called his book, Crop Circles, Jung & the Reemergence of the Archetypal Feminine “an original masterpiece.“ – GSBobroff.com

Love Magic: Synchronicity & Romantic Fate

on April 18, 2015April 18, 2015 By Katy Walker Mejia 1 Comment

By Gary S. Bobroff

Romance: Fate or faux?

For those of us of the romantic disposition, imagining new love objects to be Ms. or Mr. Right is a chronic condition.

Such idealization is made even more irresistible when there are ‘fated‘ events, when we run into him or her coincidentally or when other synchronicities to do with them occur. When we meet them and, for example, after a lengthy chat, we reveal that we’ve been holding in our hand a black heart-shaped rock all this time and she opens her hand and shows us a white one just the same.
When a real out-of-the-ordinary meaningful coincidence happens, we fall immediately and blissfully into the presumption that ‘it’s fate’—that this person is ‘the One.’

However, while synchronistic events are known to occur at the beginning of life-long happy partnerships, they also occur as a part of less successful, or even tragic, relationships. Coming to understand the truth of this latter possibility involves a loss of naïveté, but if we are lucky often something else is gained too.

Jung observed that synchronicities arrive in relation to the emotional activation of an individual “we observe them relatively frequently at moments of heightened emotional tension, which need not however be conscious.”[i] In noticing such a pattern in our world however, Jung was not discovering something entirely new, such an understanding is found throughout the ancient world.

In the East, it was the basis of the Tao and I Ching and in the West we find one example of it in the writings of a teacher of St. Thomas Aquinas:

“A certain power to alter things indwells in the human soul and subordinates the other things to her, particularly when she is swept into great excesses of love or hate or the like. For a long time I did not believe it…[but] I found that the emotionality of the human soul is the chief cause of all these things.”

~ Albertus Magnus, 1200-1280

It is a profound revelation and deeply meaningful, that we live in an era in which we are becoming aware of the way in which feeling extends beyond the body in these special moments but conscious apprehension of the meaning of these events also requires discrimination on our part.
Synchronistic incidents are drawn into form by the presence of emotional conditions in us and they point toward something active and alive, but unconscious in ourselves; toward something that we can come to learn about ourselves.

Here, a special meaning is evident—the ancient person might say that it shows the presence of the Gods—but we cannot say whether it is a blessing or a curse. Seeing past romantic illusions allows us to begin to draw insight from such experiences and to start to uncovering the meaning behind the larger patterns of who we are attracting.

Justine & Mark | A Rustic Engagement In general, attributing to fate the role of bringing us our ‘right‘ or best romantic partners, gives away much of our power. “Faith is a disability insofar as it constrains you from self-interest,”[ii] says Solomon and having too much faith in the universe demonstrates an abandonment of the power to choose; a natural authority given up; an unwillingness to exercise conscious, mature choice.
And it is just this royal authority in us, the ability to consciously say no to some and yes to others, that is a necessity for entering into mature partnership, for choosing to say ‘I do.’
Part of the shadow of the romantic type is pointed to here. Archetypally, the inability to choose consciously reflects the absence of the inner King or Queen, the quality in us that blesses and places value appropriately. The King or Queen archetype represents the natural flow of libido and feeling toward those qualities that serve our interests.

The psyche of the romantic type is often dominated by the opposite archetype, that of the child—that in us that resists parenting ourselves and prefers play and following the dictates of feeling. Going with the flow has its place, but it also reflects a refusal to stand up when it is needed, and often this is an on-going and regressive life-pattern.

However, within all of us there is also a larger instinct toward wholeness, toward the integration of all the parts of who we can be, toward the discovery and conscious development of our inner King or Queen.
Sometimes we must struggle to recover this part of our natural inheritance.
Synchronicity in our romantic lives is often a signpost pointing us that direction. While it may not indicate the blessing of a relationship, it almost always directs us toward pieces of ourselves that we need to reclaim to become more whole. These pieces might be recovered through loving, but they may are also sometimes recovered through leaving the relationship.

Sometimes we gain what we need in ourselves by learning to say ‘no.’

In synchronicity, the world reveals its nearness to us. It is active and responding to our inner life producing meaning to help us grow, but can we drop our ego’s need to make that meaning fit into a pretty little heart-shaped box for us?

It is terribly difficult not to get swept up into assuming that a new relationship is fated and blessed when synchronicities abound. Tragically, however, not every synchronicity is a blessing from Aphrodite. And, in an era infused with New Age thinking and naïve romanticism that sees all synchronicity as a simple romantic blessing, it is especially important that we learn that there is more than one God alive in us and seeking redemption.

Can we drop our ego’s agenda and still feel the wonder of being alive in a world filled with such mysterious, mischievous and occasionally un-pretty, meaning-making magic?

Richard Tarnas on Synchronicity: Its History Before and After Carl Jung

on January 7, 2015January 7, 2015 By Katy Walker Mejia

This past September in Joshua Tree, California we raised money to send our crew out to the west coast to film what turned out to be 11 inspiring people. The film crew was not only tasked with shooting cinematic scenes for our feature film, Time is Art, but also documenting the presentations from the 2014 Synchronicity Symposium.

One of my favorite talks by Richard Tarnas was not the on the list to be documented but it was utterly fascinating so synchronistically (albeit a bit last minute) we were able to capture the audio. Enjoy the full 1 hour+ presentation. For more video presentations by Graham Hancock, Rupert Sheldrake and Toko-pa Turner visit Things Are Changing Productions website.

Richard Tarnas, Ph. D., is professor of philosophy and cultural history at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, where he founded the graduate program in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness. He is the author of The Passion of the Western Mind, a history of Western thought from the ancient Greek to the postmodern widely used in universities, and Cosmos and Psyche, which received the Book of the Year Prize from the Scientific and Medical Network in the UK.; Formerly president of the International Transpersonal Association, he is on the Board of Governors of the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco.

Richard is also featured in one of the most inspiring scenes in the documentary film, Time is Art: Synchronicity & the Collective Dream which we can’t wait to share with you! Please support our Indiegogo fundraising campaign so we can bring this epic documentary film to the world on 11/11/15 in 3 languages. Contribute & share with friends here>

Time is Art film crew & the Synchronicity Symposium

on September 17, 2014September 17, 2014 By Katy Walker Mejia

Thanks to a successful crowdfunding campaign, the crew flew out to California and has now returned from the amazing Synchronicity Symposium organized by author and speaker, Gary S. Bobroff, held at the Joshua Retreat Center! The land was magical and the mysterious Joshua Trees seemed to literally be talking to us (albeit through plant telepathy).

The Synchronicity Symposium was fascinating. It was a true meeting of the minds and hearts of authors and supporters of consciousness studies. We were also able to screen our 2014 trailer which helped spread the word about the film. It was a joy to share the film and meet new people in support of this important project. People not only purchased t-shirts but offered to host a screening when the film is completed!

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Synchronicity: Matter & Psyche Symposium

on September 3, 2014September 3, 2014 By Katy Walker Mejia

Sept. 12-14, 2014 • JOSHUA TREE, CA

We are thrilled to be the official film crew at the Joshua Tree in California for the first annual Synchronicity Symposium – an “Embodied Ideas Festival” which, alongside visionary leaders in their field including biologist and author, Rupert Sheldrake, writer on ancient civilizations Graham Hancock, sound healer and Family Constellation therapist, Jill Purce and many more, we will be exploring the elegant symmetry between Psyche and Matter; between our inner and outer lives.

At this time in history, we seem to be undergoing a collective passage into an era of conscious realization that psyche and matter are inseparable and that, far from being passive observers, we have a participatory relationship with the unfoldment of the world around us. Now the work ahead is in learning how to move in concert with these rhythms, developing a mastery in weaving between the worlds to come into a greater personal and collective harmony. It’s an honor to be working with such a roster of brilliant outcasts who have made a life out of studying consciousness, sound, somatic and Jungian psychology, quantum physics, synchronicity, and of course DREAMING.

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Carl Jung & Sync Awareness

on July 16, 2014July 16, 2014 By Katy Walker Mejia 1 Comment

Time is Art — Mural by Chris Sora & Groundswell

By Jennifer Palmer
Synchronicity has played a prominent role in my awakening to a reality beyond the one we can see with our eyes. By developing sync awareness, I’ve learned how to see the magic otherwise hidden in the everyday—a magic that we miss when we’re too busy to step outside of our routines. When the most important thing is getting from points A to B to C, whether on a journey through actual space or in accomplishing a task or learning a skill, we tend to miss or disregard the “accidents” that occur along the way as “distractions” from our “goal”. But when we open ourselves up these occurrences and become aware of them, we’re opening ourselves up to a non-linear way of being that may actually be more aligned with way the universe really functions. For instance, it might be while waiting on line to see the movie that we share a life changing conversation… or it may be while procrastinating on a project that we discover an entirely new passion.

Andy Warhol tells a great story about being invited to a grand European ball and getting more and more excited about it as the date grew closer. But, as it turned out, the planning and preparation and the actual cab ride to the Ball were all more exciting and fun then the event itself. In the same way that life’s big parties are not always the best part, the supposed set backs and endings are often the start of a whole new chapter. For instance if we lose a job it’s likely to feel terrible, but years later, we can look back at that time as a fortunate moment in which we were forced to find a new job that turned out to be far better than the old one. The act of being sync aware takes us away from thinking about life as a straight line moving through causally related events to an existence based on spiraling circles of meaning, in which there’s a bigger picture that we can only see if we step back from our mechanical based understanding of time, in which we move through quantifiable units like an object on a conveyor belt. Manmade time is something that’s measured and sold—we live our lives according to its gage, judging our productivity by what we’re able to accomplish—and not by what we’re able to feel.

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My Father the Cardinal

on June 26, 2014June 26, 2014 By Katy Walker Mejia

Do you have a story about a synchronicity? Send us your experience and we might publish it on our blog. Although they are typically hard to put into words, we recently received the amazing story from Sharon Catley from Vancouver.

Synchronicity – is it only, as skeptics suggest, selective perception and the law of averages playing itself out? Or is it, as Carl Jung believed, a glimpse into the underlying order of the universe? He coined the term synchronicity to describe what he called the “acausal connecting principle” that links mind and matter. He said this underlying connectedness manifests itself through meaningful coincidences that cannot be explained by cause and effect. Such synchronicities occur, he theorized, when a strong need arises in the psyche of an individual.

[Excerpt from “The Power Of Flow”]

Peppermint Patty, a dear friend of mine, thinks that if you listen to the Universe with an open heart it will talk to you.

My friend Karen was diagnosed with lung cancer about two years ago. She was feeling scared and lonely so asked her parents who were both deceased for a sign that everything would be okay. Several weeks later she was walking across the rug in her living room and stepped on something sharp. She looked in the rug and found the little silver faith, hope and charity charm that her parents had given her years ago.

She could not figure out how the charm got into the rug as the last time she saw it was in a box, within another box in her underwear drawer. She asked her partner Tim if he had brought it out but he did not know what she was talking about. She had not told him about her request for a sign from her parents. As it was a mystery how the charm they had given her was in the rug she took it as a sign to have hope and faith. She felt reassured.

Because I believe that things like this can happen she told me about it. My Father had just passed on. She knew I was missing him and encouraged me to ask for a sign that he was okay. That night as I was going to bed I made my request. “Dad, if you are okay let me know. Please send me a sign.”

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