You can now listen to David van Nuys from Shrink Rap Radio interviewing Erel Shalit about
The Cycle of Life
The Cycle of Life
You find the audio interview on the Shrink Rap Radio website.
A transcription of the interview has now also been uploaded, here.
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| Painting by Benjamin Shiff |
A Magnificent Book for All Interested in the Journey of Life
by Lori Goldrich, Ph.D., Jungian Analyst and Clinical Psychologist
It is with great pleasure that I review Erel Shalit’s
marvelous book. To begin, I feel so moved by the synchronous events that led to
his finding of the book’s cover, or “face.” Benjamin Shiff’s painting “Life”
and the meaning he gives for this marriage of book and painting are quite
exquisite. “The candle’s soft light of life is poised against the painful
inevitability of burning out. Yet, as long as they burn, there are shades and colors;
there are the distinct faces of transient existence, and there are those of
obscurity, hidden in distant nature; there is a lyrical melancholy, as well as
a tense harmony…Only an unlit candle will never burn out. A fully lived life
extracts the awareness of its finality.” These words are like pearls for the
journey he takes us on in The Cycle of Life.
I also appreciate the ground he creates by discussing fate
and destiny as a “primary tenet,” or underpinning of his book. When we let the
tides of our fate and our destiny flow together into a union of opposites,
meaning can be found. What begins as our fate can so often become a part of our
destiny, which he so aptly discusses in his book. I have found this to be an
important foundational principle, both personally and in my analytic work with
patients. “On our journey through life, an incessant tension prevails between
predetermined fate and free will, between archetypal patterns as opposed to
individual distinctiveness.” So well stated!
Erel Shalit truly succeeds in describing the different
stages of life in a way that keeps the reader interested and engaged. The
weaving of psychological and theoretical perspectives from Freud to Klein to
Winnicott to Neumann to Jung, and others, along with the wisdom from various
disciplines including philosophy, literature, religion, and myth, is presented
in such a way that both clinician and layperson can deepen in experience and
knowledge. I especially appreciate his discussion of how the focus on
archetypal images and experience can release the energy that lives in the
deeper stratas of the psyche to assist in the transformation of psyche, body
and spirit.
I also want to share a personal delight while reading Erel’s
book. I always enjoy exploring the precise meaning of Hebrew words, and I so
enjoyed his inclusion of this for select words and names. It “makes the
connection between word and image comparatively close.” It is also reflective
of the depth of attention he brings to his writing.
Erel Shalit has written a truly magnificent piece of work.
It is a book for all those interested in the Journey. At the beginning of his
book, he offers us the image of the “river” and writes from Plato, “While the
river preserves its identity, it is incessantly moving and changing,
simultaneously being and becoming.” As I read his book, I can truly experience
the being and becoming on the journey of life.
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| 'Life' by Benjamin Schiff |
