Category: The Way of Art and the Creative Life

This paper, which includes color pictures of some thirty-one [31] of my paintings, grew out of an exhibition of some of my art, held in Victoria BC in July and August, 2009. Following Jung, my art is a kind of active imagination, a meditative process meant for the sake of gaining consciousness for the sake of the Self, one’s totality. This is art as alchemy. Since my art is symbolic, the meaning of the images is not evident, particularly to viewers not used to the significance of symbolism.

Continue reading “Art and the Individuation Process: Art as Alchemy”

In this paper I summarize and then reflect upon a video interview with Edward Edinger on a Jungian perspective on the science of the soul. Edinger not only makes a lucid presentation on seminal Jungian ideas, but he also presents his own valuable insights and worldview. Although I appreciate Edinger’s presentation, along with its clarity, what I find missing is any allusion to the mystery involved in the individuation process itself.

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In this paper I tentatively examine an ongoing analysis where the therapeutic process is coming closer to home and becoming more emotionally real to both the analysand and the therapist. The situation involves an unconscious erotic transference on the part of the analysand and an unconscious counter-transference response by the therapist. The analysand’s recent numinous dream, however, seems to have unveiled the archetypal pattern being played out in the inter-subjective imaginal field between them.

Continue reading “Talking Head”

I first discuss the nature of the aesthetic perspective and its relationship to beauty. Following that, I interweave a description of my art, my therapy room and my way of doing therapy from the aesthetic perspective. I add a felt-sense of the subjective time and season of my room. I then indicate that my therapeutic message is “esse in anima” or “being in soul” and care of the Self.

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In this paper I discuss the nature of art or the aesthetic view of life, by examining the thoughts on this subject of several respected authorities in different branches of the humanities. First, I survey those who recommend an aesthetic attitude to life as a guide to conduct. These writers all tend to subsume the ethical attitude to the aesthetic. By and large they argue that it not only leads towards experience of beauty, but also to wholeness. I then take up Jung’s argument, which I support with that of Sri Aurobindo’s, that the aesthetic way is not enough, but that a strong moral effort is required to give sustaining power to life.

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