Skip to main content

Mother Earth has Struck at the Temples of Transiency




Mother Earth has struck, and by means of her messenger, angry Hephaestus, the eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull, she reminds us how she can fasten Icarus's wings to the ground.
We have all become accustomed to the swift and structured passage through the airport, until we briefly breathe the disconnected sense of being duty-free, free of any duty. However, during the last several days, thousands of weary travelers have been stranded, making airports their inconvenient, temporary home.
The nonlocality and temporality of airports, as Temples of Transiency, sooth the restlessness of the Transient Personality, and suit him or her better than the temenos of the therapy room and the analytical relationship. For a moment, however, the airports have come to a standstill. Suddenly the swift transition between one non-place and another, has frozen.
I wonder if postmodern man will, indeed, stop for a moment, to reflect on Mother Nature's messages, one of which may be the need to stop for a moment to reflect, as we speedily resume our movement, and continue the journey toward our destination, which if we are lucky may be Eco, Home.

Read further in Destruction of the Image and the Worship of Transiency. Jung Journal: Culture and Psyche, Vol. 4, number 1, Feb. 2010, pp. 94-108.

All of Erel Shalit's publications can be purchased at http://www.fisherkingpress.com/ or by phoning Fisher King Press directly at 1-831-238-7799, Toll free in Canada & the US 1-800-228-9316

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Imitation and the Archetypal Adult

In  The Cycle of Life: Themes and Tales of the Journey , I mention five pathologies that I relate to the idea of the Archetypal Adult. In this brief presentation I mention an additional one, which Jung speaks about – imitation. In the Red Book he writes, “The new God laughs at imitation and discipleship.” In  Two Essays in Analytical Psychology  he writes, "The human being has one faculty which, though it is of the greatest utility from the collective point of view, is immeasurably detrimental from the standpoint of individuality; the faculty of imitation. Collective psychology can never dispense with imitation, for without it the organization of the masses, that of the state and of society, is quite simply impossible. Society is organized, indeed, less by law than by the propensity to imitation, implying equally suggestibility, suggestion, and moral contagion."              Imitation is a sh...
Dear friends and colleagues, My website, www.eshalit.com/ (also at www.eshalit.co.il/ ) has now been upgraded. I invite you to visit – and will be happy to receive any comment you may have. You will find details about my books, contents, reviews and excerpts. ____ One of the features is open ends , with access to excerpts from books, book chapters, published papers and journal articles. Most of the material can be accessed directly from the page, while some of it requires login. ____ At et ceteri (from Latin: 'and others'), you will find announcements of organizations, lectures, et cetera, pertaining to psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, such as the Jungian program scheduled to open at Bar Ilan University, and the upcoming exhibition of Jung's Red Book in Zurich, et cetera. I believe that much, perhaps most value, and great treasures, are to be found with the other (s). ____ Another feature is town square , a place where you can look at the stuff others bring to the ci...