Cycle of Life: Themes and Tales of the Journey on You Tube

“The art of life is the most distinguished and rarest of all the arts.”   - C.G. Jung, CW 8, par. 789

Painting by Susan Bostrom-Wong
see more at http://www.susanbostromwong.com/ 

 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 ...” 

Painting by Benjamin Schiff
see more at http://www.shiffstudio.com/

Karol Domanski and Adam Kosciuk have prepared a beautiful video of The Cycle of Life, with a narrative from an interview by David van Nuys with Erel Shalit on Shrink Rap Radio.

Watch video on You Tube here (or by clicking on image above).

Listen to interview on Shrink Rap Radio.

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 
The Crossroads 
II. The Child 
The Child in the Mirror 
 Psychotherapy and Childhood 
 The Divine Child 
 From Divine to Human 
 Eros, Psyche and Pleasure 
III. The Puer and the Puella 
 Between Shame and Fear 
 Wine, Spirit and Fire 
 Prometheus—the Thoughtful Thief 
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 
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? 

Available at Amazon

Recommended in US Review of Books

The Cycle of Life
by Erel Shalit
Fisher King Press

reviewed by Peter M. Fitzpatrick

"The perspective of life as a cycle lived through its stages enables us to bring the archetypal and the personal dimensions together."

While Sigmund Freud mapped out the psychosexual development of children to puberty through the oral, anal, phallic latency and genital stages, Carl Jung expanded the study of human development through the second half of life. Jung also expanded Freud's somewhat materialistic focus on psychosexuality as the source of the unconscious to include a vaster world of archetypes that emanate from our undifferentiated Selves through symbolic forms. It is the child's slow separation from the Great Mother archetype that allows him to incorporate the powerful unconscious energies of this symbol into a developing ego. The next stage, the "puer," or troubled teenager, carries this process further, adding the "fire" of his or her growing awareness of Eros to the "dismemberment" of the "unconscious" contents of the archetypes so that the ego can use their energies. A successful transition to adulthood entails a completion of the ego's ascendancy. But the ego must learn to surrender its role as "king" once old age begins.

The author engagingly illustrates Jung's conceptions of the power of the archetypal forces that inhabit our unconscious Selves, showing how they are dual, with both grandiose and terrible aspects. In accessible language, he maps out how figures from the Bible, Greek mythology, and fairy tales contain eternal truths on the mythic level where the Self at the core of our being operates. He explicates the dangers of becoming stuck in a particular stage, and cites actual cases of individuals he has helped make the transitions in his clinical practice as Jungian analyst.

RECOMMENDED
US Review of Books

All the World’s a Stage, and a Stage of Life

Fisher King Press to publish 

The Cycle of Life 

by Erel Shalit

“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.

• We Ship Worldwide.
• Credit Cards Accepted.
• Phone Orders Welcomed. Toll free in the US & Canada: 1-800-228-9316 International +1-831-238-7799 skype: fisher_king_press

The Red Book Binder and the Craftsman’s Ego

I see the craftsman as a central image of the archetypally rooted adult ego. The hero, who serves as a bridge between the archetypal and the individual realms, has frequently both a divine and a personal father. The latter is often a craftsman. For the hero to set out on his journey into the depths and the vast lands of the unconscious, he or she needs to be ignited by the very sparks of the beyond, as they manifest in ego-consciousness.

Jung writes,
The hero’s father is often a master carpenter or some kind of artisan. According to an Arabian legend, Terah, the father of Abraham, was a master craftsman who could cut a shaft from any bit of wood, which means in Arabic usage that he was a begetter of excellent sons. … Joseph, the father of Jesus, was a carpenter, and so was Cinyras, the father of Adonis, who was supposed to have invented the hammer, the lever, roof-building and mining. …In fairytales, the hero’s father is, more modestly, the traditional woodcutter.[1]

The original Red Book of Jung's is a masterpiece not only of his, but of bookbinder craftsmanship as well. Sonu Shamdasani writes, “After completing the handwritten Draft, Jung had it typed, and edited. …The first section of the work …was composed on parchment. Jung then commissioned a large folio volume of over 600 pages, bound in red leather, from the bookbinders, Emil Stierli.”[2]

While Jung’s active imaginations, the fantasy material that forms the basis of his interpretations and elaborations, preceded their inscription in the Red Book, the ego’s sublime craftsmanship may be required for the heroic descent into the darkness of the unknown. The impressively bound pages of the red leather-covered tome hold and contain the inscription of Jung’s remarkable descent into the archetypal depths of the unconscious. The masterfully bound book is like the crafted ego that enables the hero’s journey. “It is the creation of the alchemical vessel that invites the soul into dialogue and union to bring forth the divine. This carefully crafted and beautiful Red Book honored the process and contents as a container for Jung's transformation.”[3]

The craftsman replicates the divine on earth by means of his skill, patience, carefulness and hard work. The first craftsman in the Bible was Bezalel. He built the Tabernacle, the tent set up by Moses, in which the Ark of the Covenant – a chest of acacia wood holding the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments – was carried through the wilderness. Thereby he replicated creation. Bezalel “knew the combinations of letters with which heaven and earth were made,” [that is, the letters of God’s name], and thus was able to build the Tabernacle, which was considered “a complete microcosm, a miraculous copy of everything that is in heaven and on earth.”[4]He thus created an imago mundi, a crafted replica of the universe, wherein, like in a temple, the divine can dwell on earth.

With wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, a soulful year during which concern for the world we live in will be at the top of the agenda of those that lead our world into the coming decade.

The above is excerpted from a forthcoming Fisher King Press publication by Erel Shalit on Archetypal Images of the Life Cycle.

[1]CW 5, par. 515.
[2]‘Introduction,’ The Red Book, p. 203.
[3]Nancy Furlotti, personal communication.
[4]Gershom Scholem, On the Kabbalah and its Symbolism, p. 166f.

We Ship Worldwide! PHONE ORDERS WELCOMED, CREDIT CARDS ACCEPTED, or VISIT US ONLINE AT http://www.fisherkingpress.com/ 1-800-228-9316 toll free in the US & Canada, International +1-831-238-7799. Fisher King Press / PO Box 222321 / Carmel, CA 93922 / Phone: 831-238-7799 / orders@fisherkingpress.com http://www.fisherkingpress.com/

Below are links to download the FKP newsletter, current catalog, and price list/order form:
Fisher King Press Newsletter Fisher King Press Catalog of Publications Fisher King Press Price List and Order Form