by Erel Shalit
Available July 2011
Available July 2011
“The art of life is the most distinguished and rarest of all the arts.”
- C.G. Jung, CW 8, par. 789.
In the first half of life, the task of the young traveler is to depart from home, to step out into the world in search for his or her adventure, to find his or her own individual path. However, in the second half, we find ourselves on what often amounts to a very long journey in search of Home. In many a tale, the hero, for instance Gilgamesh, sets off on his road to find life’s elixir, while other stories, such as the Odyssey, revolve around the hero’s long and arduous journey home.
This archetypal journey of life is constantly repeated along the never-ending process of individuation. We find ourselves returning to this venture repeatedly, every night, as we set out on our nightly voyage into the landscape of our unconscious. Many dreams begin by being on the way, for instance, “I am on my way to …,” I am driving on a road that leads into the desert …,” I am walking through one room after the other in a long corridor-like building …,” “I am walking towards my office, but it looks different than in reality,” “I walk on the pavement and on the opposite side of the street someone seems to follow me …,” “I go down into an underground parking…,” “I am in my car, but someone I don’t know is driving,” or, “I have to go to the place from where I came ...”
Prominently, we are familiar with the journey of Dante, who at the very beginning of his Divine Comedy finds himself “Midway along the journey of our life.”
A partial list of topics explored in The Cycle of Life include:
I. The Journey
Stages and Seasons
Jung’s Stages of Life
All the World’s a Stage, and a Stage of Life
Being on the Way—A Way of Being
Hermes and the Journey: Being on the Way
Backward and Forward
The Crossroads
+ more
II. The Child
The Child in the Mirror
Psychotherapy and Childhood
The Divine Child
From Divine to Human
Eros, Psyche and Pleasure
+ more
III. The Puer and the Puella
Between Shame and Fear
Wine, Spirit and Fire
Prometheus—the Thoughtful Thief
+ more
IV. The Adult
King on Earth
Boundaries of Reality
Celestial Jerusalem—Terrestrial Jerusalem
The King who Refuses to Die
The Dried-up Earth
The Limping Ego
The Empty Shell
+ more
V. i. The Senex
V. ii. Homage to Sophocles
V. iii. The Last Chapter: Self and Meaning
Ancestral Roots
An Oak and an Acorn
We Are All Beggars, Are We Not?
+ more
Fisher King Press publishes an eclectic mix of worthy books including Jungian Psychological Perspectives, Cutting Edge Fiction, and a growing list of alternative titles.
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