The Arc of Human History

The Long Arc of Human History

by Len Cruz

Allow me to paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The arc of history is long, but it bends toward the religious instinct.



Jung studied the symbols of religious traditions as a window into the nature of the psyche. His openness to different images of the Divine paralleled his openness to interior images that others might easily have relegated to the domain of psychosis.



The Jungian tradition emerged during a tremendously fertile period of scientific development in the late 19th and early 20th century. Remarkably, over a matter of a little more than six years of formal interactions between Jung and Freud, their professional collaboration ran its course. Jung departed from Freud, who had proposed in The Future of an Illusion that religious belief was an infantile defense against the ill-defined sense of an omnipotent deity. Jung recognized a universality in the religious instinct that made its appearance in myriad ways across vastly different cultures. Most importantly, Jung demonstrated that the journey of the spirit is unique to each and every person.



The streams that merge in any individual to find expression in matters of the spirit are limitless. Some of us are raised in an overbearing religious tradition while others arise with almost no instruction or outer structure. Something deep within us yearns and that yearning can become the cornerstone of faith or spiritual awakening. Psychology has the capacity to deepen the religious instinct and invigorate the spirit. According to Jung we are stamped with the imago Dei. Jung gave this stamp of God's image primacy:

“unity and totality stand at the highest point on the scale of objective values because their symbols can no longer be distinguished from the imago Dei.”(1)



"When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi troubles my sight"(2) ... Each of us must decide how we will respond to the encounter with the "vast image". When we become aware that deep calls unto deep seldom do we miss that the call appears to be unceasing. Martin Buber went so far as to claim that "Through the Thou a person becomes the I".



I thought about some of the steps I have taken in my own spiritual journey and it led me to frame it with a list of books that hold a special places in my formation. (Feel free to skip to the end of the list since the special quality of the list is that it is my list.)

A Wrinkle in Time (L'Engle)

Bhagavad Gita & Upanishads

The Teachings of Don Juan, A Journey to Ixtlan (Castaneda)

Stranger in a Strange Land (Heinlen)

Seven Story Mountain (Merton)

The Secret Sharer, Heart of Darkness (Conrad)

For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Old Man and the Sea (Hemingway)

The Practice of the Presence of God (Brother Lawerence)

A Wizard of Earthsea, The Left Hand of Darkness (Leguin)

El Aleph (Borges)

Holy Bible

The Interpretation of Dreams, The Ego and Id, The Future of an Illusion (Freud)

Flatland (Abbott)

Tres Tristes Tigres (Cabrera Infante)

The Dancing Wu Li Masters, The Hidden Connections (Capra)

The Dark Night of the Soul (St. John of the Cross)

Aspects of a Theory of Syntax, On Langugage (Chomsky)

The Fractal Geometry of Nature (Mandelbrot)

Between Metaphysics and Protoanalysis (Ichazo)

The Way of the Pilgrim

Man and His Symbols, The Undiscovered Self (Jung)

Karate-Do Kyohan: the Master Text (Funakoshi)

Karate is a Thing of the Spirit, Car (Crews)

The Myth of Sisyphus (Camus)

Selected Poems (Tennyson)

Steps to Freedom, The Alchemy of the Heart (Field)

Markings (Hammarskjold)

Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Mind and Nature (Bateson)

Gödel, Escher, Bach (Hofstadter)

A Bell for Adono (Hershey)

The Structure of Magic (Bandler & Grindler)

Revolt of the Massess (Ortega y Gasset)

The Death of Artemio Cruz (Vargas Llosa)

I and Thou (Buber)

Twilight of the Idols, The Anti-Christ (Nietzche)

The Screwtape Letters (Lewis)

Morphic Resonance (Sheldrake)

Collected Poems (Auden)

The Tales of the Dervishes (Shah)

Holy Quran

Buddhism: It's Essence and Development (Conze)

The Universe in a Single Atom (HH Dalai Lama)

Facets of Unity (Almaas)

The Crooked Tiumber of Humanity (Berlin)

The Shadow of the Wind (Ruiz Zafron)



The list disturbed me for three reasons. First, it could have been much longer. Next, it lacked coherence. Whatever illusion I maintain about some unseen hand guiding the unfolding passage of my life is not revealed in the list of books I've included. Each book calls to mind some remembrance that holds special significance for me but it would be difficult for anyone else to discern a thread that binds them together other than I encountered these books (or they encountered me). Finally, this assemblage, compiled in my fifth decade of life, captures something essential about who I am while simultaneously missing the mark in profound ways. How can this be?



This brings me to the real point of this blog entry. EVERY exploration of spirituality holds the promise of bringing us closer to the Divine while reminding us of our separation. Such inquiries can delivers us to a threshold between unity and alienation, between merger and isolation, between eros and thanatos, between clarity and confusion.



Whether we explore the theme of Jung & Spirituality, as we intend to do with Dr. Murray Stein on December 1, 2011, or if we explore the themes of our own spirituality, the result likely to be enriching and incomplete.



Each of us has narrative voice suited to the task of telling about our spiritual journey. The tools that hone that voice include therapy, contemplation, journaling, writing, work, and the accumulation of life experience.



I believe the long arc of history keeps bending toward the religious instinct in me and in the world.



This ineffable realm is the subject of our next our next exploration with Dr. Stein scheduled for Thursday, December 1, 2011.

Registration is still open at http://ashevillejungcenter.org/upcoming-events/spirituality/registration/



For those unable to join the conference on Thursday, it is also available over the internet.



I will close with a quote from Martin Buber on the power of a story well told.

A story must be told in such a way that it constitutes help in itself … My grandfather was lame. Once they asked him to tell a story about his teacher. And he related how (his teacher) used to hop and dance while he prayed. My grandfather rose as he spoke, and he was so swept away by his story that he began to hop and dance to show how the master had done. From that hour on he was cured of his lameness. That's how to tell a story! (3)



1 Jung, CG. Coll. Wks., 9/2, pars. 60.

2 Yeats, William B. "The Second Coming - Yeats." PotW.org - Poem of the Week. Poem of the Week. Web. 26 Nov. 2011. .

3 Buber,Martin. Tales of the Hasidism: Early Masters. New York: Schoken Books, 1974, pp.v-v1.

Ecopsychology: Revisioning Ourselves in the World

Revisioning Ourselves and the World

By Len Cruz, MD, ME

(Originally published at http://ashevillejungcenter.org/blog/ )

"...our present ego-feeling is only a shrunken residue of a much more inclusive, indeed, an all-embracing, feeling which corresponded to a more intimate bond between the ego and the world about it." (Sigmund Freud)

Ecopsychology is more than the conflation of two words, ecology and psychology.   This nascent field expands the horizon of the deep self beyond the frontiers of the individual. James Hillman said, "The deepest self cannot be confined to "in here" because we can't be sure it is not also or even entirely "out there"![i] The exaggerated emphasis on the personal, interior, individual psychology has contributed to a denial of the world "out there".  Several trajectories can be subsumed under the broad canopy of ecopsychology and the field is distinguishable from other related subjects[ii]. There is an arc that begins with the personal unconscious, traverses the collective unconscious, and leads to a planetary unconscious.  The near apotheosis of mankind that installed our species with a belief in our dominion over flora and fauna may be coming of age.  The Navi race depicted in the movie AVATAR is a pop culture reflection of an emerging archetype or at least a cultural complex.  As Thomas Singer points out, "Failure to consider cultural complexes as part of the work of individuation puts a tremendous burden on both the personal and archetypal realms of the psyche."[iii] Depth psychological influences have shaped out language appearing with phrases like Biophilia (Erich Fromm[iv], E.O. Wilson[v]), Ecosophy & Deep Ecology (Arne Naess)[vi], Terrapsychology (Chalquist)[vii] or Ecotherapy (Clineman)[viii].  There is an ecological imperative forcing itself on our consciousness through images environmental catastrophes, species and habitat destruction, and threats of irreversible climate change. Lifton's concept of psychic numbing regarding the threat of nuclear disaster applies to the ecological crisis upon us.  But this festering wound can no longer be located solely within nor strictly outside of ourselves.[ix] Ecopsychology attempts to restore the intimate connection between the ego and the world.  And with the added the richness of the archetypal strata a more inclusive psychology is emerging.[x]

If a planetary consciousness is developing and we should expect that there will be a planetaryunconscious developing alongside.  In the pioneering days of psychoanalysis, Janet, Freud, and others were cartographers of a vast inner landscape.  A centrifugal force developed in the generations following Freud.  Ego psychology pressed beyond the id, social psychiatry and later self psychology expanded into the interpersonal and social milieu, and Jung expanded the personal notion of the unconscious into vast territory of the collective  unconscious.  However, all these trends established human beings at the axis of the psychological world.  Ecopsychology revisions this singular focus upon man.  It is a restorative psychology, where place matters and the distinction between inhabitants of the earth is removed, hierarchical disappears.  Ecopsychology grounds our existence and psychology in a broader context of the ecosphere.

Let us agree that human activity is causing rapid and profound changes to the climate, to the water cycle, to the soil, and to species extinction.

Billions of people watched oil gush into the Gulf of Mexico for months. On a daily basis human beings grew more alarmed by the risks of massive radiation leakage from the Fukushima nuclear reactor.And though the ecological underpinnings of mass migration and starvation in sub-Saharan Africa are poorly understood, the images of starving human beings nevertheless etches itself into our psyches.  Such events remind us that there is an imperative imposing itself with ever-increasing urgency.  But the complexity of these issues exceed our capacities.

Robert Jay Lifton, coined the term psychic numbing to describe "a form of desensitization … an incapacity to feel or confront certain kinds of experience, due to the blocking or absence of inner forms or imagery that can connect with such experience".[xi] The intricate webs comprising our world are complex.  Ever increasing computing capacity permits us to model extremely complex systems and to detect elegant patterns.  Nonlinear systems (see also complexity, chaos, Madelbrot sets)possess some unique characteristics including inflection points (see also attractors, repellors, bifurcations) where sudden, large changes in behavior result from small changes in conditions of a a stable system.  Catastrophe theory, a branch of bifurcation mathematics, demonstrates that bifurcations are in fact part of a large well defined geometric structure.  Carl Freidrich Guass laid the foundation for these discoveries but the ability to model such complex systems had to wait for the invention of supercomputers.

Our ability to recognize patterns, create accurate models, and decipher complexity on our own has limits.[xii]Rebecca Costa suggests there are five common supermemes that we should understand because of their limiting effects upon our capacity to reason.  These include: irrational opposition, counterfeit correlation, personalization of blame, silo thinking, and extreme economics.[xiii] Time magazine recently suggested that people like Rebecca Costa might be able to solve the world's biggest problems (http://tinyurl.com/6fz6uuu).  The rest of us may need to acknowledge that the sheer complexity of the ecological crisis combined with our own psychological complexity often exceeds our capacity to understand.

There a practical ecopsychology developing that might equip us to navigate through the treacherous times with greater understanding.  Ultimately it may also preserve us.  First, we will need to acknowledge that the planet and many of its inhabitants are being placed at risk by the impact our species has upon the environment.  There is an ecopsychological unconscious, and like all unconscious material, it resists exposure and yields its fruits reluctantly.  Those of us who live in the technologically advanced first world must make sure that we keep contact with the wilderness.  An earlier blog (May 31, 2010) addressed the diminishing wilderness of childhood and readers may want to read an excerpt from Chabon's Manhood for Amateurs.[xiv] A practical ecopsychology will provide tools for working through the despair and psychic numbing that so easily overwhelms us.  Out of the fertile fields of ecopsychology will emerge ecotherapeutic techniques and understanding that can be expected to equip us to participate in the healing that we all need.[xv] In 1973, Our Bodies, Ourselves[xvi] became a feminist canon through its empowering, educational message.  The time has come for Our Planet, Ourselves that might collect the expanse of ideas that intersect with ecopsychology.

The confluence of many shaping influences unite many archetypal energies forming a bedrock for  further psychological explorations.  A river's delta provides a good metaphor for region where complexes, archetypes, and outer come together.  In the  delta fresh water and salt water meet and mix.  In the ecopsychological delta, conscious and unconscious, interior and exterior, introject and projection combine and create a limen realm where the participation mystique more easily is detected.  Jung wrote, "PARTICIPATION MYSTIQUE is a term derived from Lévy-Bruhl. It denotes a peculiar kind of psychological connection with objects, and consists in the fact that the subject cannot clearly distinguish himself from the object but is bound to it by a direct relationship which amounts to partial identity."[xvii] It is tempting to oscillate between extreme impressions of the world.  Between Cormac MacCarthy's The Road[xviii] and Fox's recent Fall series Terra Nova with a tagline of "There is no paradise without sacrifice" we encounter repeated apocalyptic scenarios alongside utopian ones.[xix][xx] [xxi].  KIA Motors produced a Superbowl commercial last year that exploited apocalyptic images of the Mayan Prophecy.  The appearance of such impressions in popular culture points toward the chthonic psychic regions, the places where archetypes reside.  Paul Ricouer observed that utopias function to develop "new, alternative perspectives".[xxii] And some of our most compelling utopian literature actually present dystopias (Brave New World, Nineteen eighty-four, Fahrenheit 451).These days anyone can turn on a computer and create their own utopia (SimCity).  IMDb, the movie database, has compiled a list of the top 50 Post-Apocalyptic movies (http://www.imdb.com/list/2WCgJcXeSEQ/).  The images and impressions of a global consciousness, of an ecopsychological dimension are everywhere.

A recent favorite of mine is AVATAR.  James Cameron's creation of the Navi, a large, lithe, colorful, and powerful race of humanoid creatures with tails.  These tails, symbolizes the Navi's sustained connection to their world and hints of a noble savage. From the opening minutes of the film the there are rumbles and rhythms of mechanization that contrasts with a perky newscaster announcing the comeback of the nearly extinct Bengal tiger we are presented with competing impressions of soulless exploitation of the planet's resources by an interplanetary corporation and the soulful natives and their planetary conscious ways.  By the end of the movie our sympathies are powerfully attached to the Navi.  Apart from the symbolism of the Navi's tail, it is the physical means by which they experience a deep empathic connection to their world, it is the vehicle for their participation mystiqeu. As if these images alone were not enough, Cameron chose for his protagonist a physically disabled man injured in battle.  He seems to be telling us of our woundedness, our disability, and our hope for restoration.  In the final scene of AVATAR, the viewer is left believing that the protagonist has made a final and complete transformation from man to Navi.  The movie's ability to arouse archetypal energies of both apocalypse and utopia is gripping.  But the promise that WE might experience such a deep connection to the biosphere as the protagonist is even more compelling.  

Ecopsychology is unlikely to deliver some well wrapped experiences of connectedness like we get in the movies but perhaps it can provide a guide for the journey.  This is journey that began in an idyllic garden to which it one day hopes to return.

INVITATION

Take a moment to reflect on the impressions that reside in your own psyche of this world, your place in it, and the planetary images and impressions that you have encountered.  Perhaps it is a dream, a piece of art, a moment of communion with nature.  As we share our stories, we may help one another to awaken to something deep within that also is suffused outside.  If we hope to develop a consciousness spacious enough for the biosphere it must include one another.  Share your stories here.

Len Cruz

---

[i] Roszak, Theodore, Mary E. Gomes, and Allen D. Kanner. Ecopsychology: Restoring the Earth, Healing the Mind. San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1995 (page xix).

[ii] Scull, John. "Ecopsychology: Where Does It Fit in Psychology in 2009?." The Trumpeter Fall 2008: 68-85. The Trumpeter. Web. 8 Oct. 2011.

[iii] Singer, Thomas. "The Cultural Complex and Archetypal Defenses of the Collective Spirit | Psyche-and-culture | Articles." IAAP. IAAP, 19 June 2005. Web. 08 Oct. 2011. <http://iaap.org/articles/psyche-and-culture/the-cultural-complex-and-archetypal-defenses-of-the-collective-spirit.html>.

[iv] Fromm, Erich (1964). The Heart of Man. Harper & Row.,

[v] Wilson, Edward O. (1984). Biophilia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-07442-4.

[vi] Næss, Arne (1973) 'The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement.' Inquiry 16: 95-100

[vii] Chalquist, Craig (2007) Terrapsychology, New Orleans, Spring  Journal Books.  ISBN-10: 1882670655

[viii] Clinebell, H. 1996. Ecotherapy: Healing ourselves, healing the earth. New York: Haworth Press.

[ix] Chalquist, Craig. "The Environmental Crisis is a Crisis of Consciousness." Terrapsych.com - serving the animate presence of place. Terrapsych.com, n.d. Web. 7 Oct. 2011. Terrapsychology: Re-engaging the Soul of Place. New Orleans: Spring Journal, 2007.)

[x] Watkins, Mary . "On Returning to the Soul of the World: Archetypal Psychology and Cultural/Ecological Work." Terrapsych.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Oct. 2011. <www.terrapsych.com/Watkins.

[xi] Lifton, Robert Jay (March 1968). "America in Vietnam—The circle of deception". Society 5 (4).

[xii] Costa, Rebecca D. The Watchman's Rattle: Thinking Our Way out of Extinction. New York: Vanguard, 2010.

[xiii] Costa, Rebecca D. The Watchman's Rattle: Thinking Our Way Out of Extinction. New York: Vanguard Press, 2010.

[xiv] Chabon, Michael. "Manhood for Amateurs: The Wilderness of Childhood by Michael Chabon | The New York Review of Books." New York Times Review of Books. New York Times, 16 July 2009. Web. 7 Oct. 2011. <http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/jul/16/manhood-for-amateurs-the-wilderness-of-childhood/>

[xv] Buzzell, Linda, and Craig Chalquist. Ecotherapy: Healing with Nature in Mind. San Francisco: Sierra Club, 2009.

[xvi] Our Bodies, Ourselves. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973.

[xvii] Jung, C.G. ([1921] 1971) Paragraph 781. Psychological Types, Collected Works, Volume 6, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

[xviii] McCarthy, Cormac. The Road. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.

[xix] Geus, Marius De. Ecological Utopias: Envisioning the Sustainable Society. Utrecht, the Netherlands: International, 1999.

[xx] Thiele, L. P. 2000. Book Review: de Geus, M. 1999. Ecological Utopias: Envisioning the sustainable society. International Books, Utrecht, The Netherlands. Conservation Ecology 4(1): 18. [online] URL:http://www.consecol.org/vol4/iss1/art18/

[xxi] Gues, Marius de. Ectopia, sustainability, and vision. Organization & Environment. Vol: 15:2, 187-201Jun 2002. Web. October 7, 2011.

[xxii] Ricoeur, Paul.  Lectures on Ideology and Utopia.  Ed. George H. Taylor. New York:

Columbia UP, 1986.

Additional Recommended Readings:

Bateson, Gregory. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. New York: Ballantine, 1972.

Buber, Martin, and Ronald Gregor. Smith. I and Thou. New York, NY: Scribner, 2000.

Capra, Fritjof. The Hidden Connections. London: Flamingo, 2003.

Capra, Fritjof. The Web of Life: a New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems. New York: Anchor, 1996.

Chivian, Eric, and Aaron Bernstein. Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008.

Matthiessen, Peter. Courage for the Earth: Writers, Scientists, and Activists Celebrate the Life and Writing of Rachel Carson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2007.

McKibben, Bill. Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age. New York: Times, 2003.

Singer, Thomas. Psyche & the City: A Soul's Guide to the Modern Metropolis. New Orleans: Spring Journal, 2010.

Suzuki, David, and Amanada McConnell. The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature. Vancouver, BC: Greystone, 2007.

Walljasper, Jay. All That We Share: How to save the Economy, the Environment, the Internet, Democracy, Our Communities, and Everything Else That Belongs to All of Us. New York: New, 2010.

Wilson, Edward O. Consilience: the Unity of Knowledge. New York: Knopf, 1998.

Architecture of the Soul: Inner & Outer Structures of C. G. Jung

On February 4, 2011, Dr. Murray Stein will present a conference together with Andreas Jung, in collaboration with the Asheville Jung Center titled “Architecture of the Soul: Inner and Outer Structures of C. G. Jung”. Andreas Jung is an architect whose father and great uncle were also architects.  He is a graduate of Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (ETHZ) and currently lives in the home on Seestrasse.

C. G. Jung was intimately involved in the design of this home and attended to such things as the cladding upon the walls that provided deeply niched windows and lovely inset glass cabinets in the dining room.  Andreas Jung authors two very personal chapters and serves as the co-editor of the book.

Arthur Rüegg, a professor of architecture at ETHZ, opens one of the chapter titled “Living in a Museum?” with the following rendering:

The house of Carl Gustav Jung is without a doubt the physical expression of a great mind.

In 1906, while still “an impecunious assistant medical director at the Burghölzi mental home in Zürich”, Jung wrote to his cousin, architect Ernst Fietcher, of his plans “… to build a house someday, in the country near Zürich, on the lake”.  It was the untimely death of Emma Jung’s father that allowed the couple to build the home.   The Jungs worked closely with the architect and landscape architects on the design. 

Three generations of Jung’s have lived in this home that is now owned by a foundation (Stiftung C. G. Jung Küsnacht).  Two of those generations of inhabitants were “…families who could read these traces and respectfully carry on the tradition.” (p 90). The history of the house and it’s renovations is crisply and artfully presented.

What emerges from the pages of  The House of C. G. Jung is a portrait of an intentional man who demonstrated an uncanny ability to move between the worlds of the mythopoetic interior life and the tangible, concrete realms.  It should be no surprise that the man who constructed the Tower at Bollingen would have built a home worthy of memorializing.   Jung gave attention to details such as wall hangings, tile selection and placement of the rooms where he conducted analysis so as not to displace Emma from the library and interfere with her work.

The chapter “Living in a museum?” reads like a patient’s anamnesis as it reviews the homes history and developmental influences.  The reader is reminded that homes, like organic things, change and adapt to their circumstances and their inhabitants.  Despite several major renovations through the last century, the respect and regard for the original home was preserved.  The home is a testament to what concentrated self-examination and openness to the individuation process can produce.  It is the biography of a house that is no less impressive for what it reveals or the man who built it.

Architecture and psychology are first cousins.  Consider a few quotes assembled from several renown architects:

“Space and light and order.  Those are the things that men need just as much as they need bread or a place to sleep.”  Le  Corbusier

“The home should be the treasure chest of living.”  Le Corbusier

“Buildings, too, are children of Earth and Sun.”  Frank Lloyd Wright

“Form follow function – that has been misunderstood.  Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union.”  Frank Lloyd Wright

“Freedom is from within.” Frank Lloyd  Wright

“The heart is the chief feature of a functioning mind.” Frank Lloyd Wright

“Architecture is the will of the epoch translated into structure.” Ludwig Miles van der Rohe

Invitation:  The house that “you” built

Take a moment to consider the space you inhabit, whether it is a home, office, apartment, or just a room.  Examine it for details that reflect aspects of your interior life.  Where do you see function pronouncing itself and where does aesthetic seem to announce itself?  Examine the space for signs and signifiers of your individuated self and for signs of where your individuation is ensnared in its effort to emerge.

Compose a work of your own that reflects the house you have built.  If you feel so moved, please share those reflections with others in our community by posting a comment on this blog. If you are planning to attend the seminar on February 4, “Architecture of the Soul: Inner and Outer Structures of C. G. Jung”. then this exercise might be a useful preparation, like tilling the soil before the planting.

Len Cruz, MD

Wilderness of Childhood

(1st Published @ www.ashevillejungcenter.org/blog/ )

I tore an essay by Michael Chabon out of the July 31, 2009 issue of The Week magazine nearly a year ago and retrieved it from a stack of magazines early this morning.  The essay first appeared in the New York Review of Books http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/jul/16/manhood-for-amateurs-the-wilderness-of-childhood/ under the title “Manhood for Amateurs: The Wilderness of Childhood”.  Chabon begins by describing the joy and wonder of explorations in the Wilderness of Childhood.  For some of us it was a real wilderness of varying degrees of tameness.  For me, it sometimes consisted of nothing more than riding my bicycle eight to ten miles to South Miami where my brother and I fished for gar along the banks of canals and hooked each other as often as the stolid fish. In the Wilderness of my youth, development hadn’t pushed large tracts of strawberries or sugar cane deeper into the Everglades.  

The Wilderness of a child is devoid of adults.  Children’s writers understand this.  There is a realm of childhood wherein adults have been expelled.  Children’s writers like C.S. Lewis, Charles Schultz, and Paul Pullman understand.  Apart from the watchful and too often stultifying view of adults a child encounters the Wilderness in which she engages the adventure of her life.

Contemporary urban or suburban, American children may miss the joy of  Wilderness.  They are victims of our collective fears of abductions, preventable injuries, drug abuse, and more.  Parents are more determined than ever to provide children every available opportunity to thrive, learn, and excel.  Given such vigilant attention, there is little room left for Wilderness.  The Wilderness of childhood hasn’t been civilized as much as it's been strained of nearly all traces of danger and unpredictability.  

According to Chabon, our children have become “...cult objects to us, to precious to be risked. At the same time, they have become fetishes, the objects of an unhealthy and diseased fixation.  And once something is fetishized, capitalism steps in and finds a way to sell it.”

Chabon wonders about the impact of closing down the Wilderness upon children's imagination.  Perhaps the answer is glimpsed when we see children dining with their parents at the Rain Forest Cafe or visiting Disney’s Animal Kingdom.  Those of us who never let our children out of our site, who schedule our children’s activities, who strive to enrich them, may unwittingly be extinguishing the sparks of adventure that can later ignite into flames of creative inspiration.  From Wilderness beginnings where dangers lurked in the shadows behind tree trunks and sticks became rifles come novels, films, inventions, and new business ventures.  

Jung’s Red Book created a stir among Jungians.  His inner explorations and his artistry are a torrent of illumination.  Below are two paragraphs from Frank McLynn’s book Carl Gustav Jung (St. Martin’s Press).

“At around the age of four Jung developed a morbid fascination with death and corpses: he was fascinated by the dead body of a four-year-old boy found near the Rhine Falls and, clearly -- Jungians would say -- at the unconscious level, wished he was that boy. Accident proneness was much in evidence. Firstly he fell downstairs, then he fell against the leg of a stove, scarring himself so badly that the wound was still visible in his senior year at Gymnasium. It is a familiar idea that accident-prone children tend to have problems with their mother and 'self-destruct' because of rage against the nurturer who has failed them. The preoccupation with the corpses also fits the scenario of rage against the mother.

"More serious than the falls was an accident on the Rhine bridge at Neuhausen when the child Carl Gustav had one leg under the railing and was about to slip through when the maid caught him. Jung himself attributed these untoward events to an unconscious suicidal urge or a kind of fatal resistance to life in this world. But while still alive and an international figure he explained his `corpse preoccupation' as simply a means of trying to accommodate to the idea of death."

This is not a childhood without a measure of Wilderness. And here are two more from the first chapter of McLynn’s book.

“It was just before he went to school that he had one of the most significant dreams of his life; although Jung claimed this occurred when he was aged three or four, clinical evidence points to five or six as the more likely time.

"In the dream Jung was in a meadow near Laufen castle and discovered an underground passageway. He descended and in a subterranean chamber found a kind of altar or king's throne on which stood what he thought at first was a tree trunk, some twelve to fifteen feet high and about two feet thick. The object was made of skin and naked flesh, with a rounded head and a single eye on the very top of the head. Later he would recognize the object as a ritual phallus. He was awoken by his mother's voice, as it were from outside, crying out, `That is the maneater!'”

Jung is not accompanied by adults on this subterranean adventure, and, perhaps this prepared him for the solitary explorations he would undertake in later years.   His mothers voice, an adult voice, retrieves him from the adventure.  

Let yourself recall the Wilderness realms of your own childhood, and if you can bring yourself to do so, release a child to have an encounter with their wilderness.  We can scarcely predict where this leads. Chabon closes his essay this way:

“Art is  form of exploration, of sailing off into the unknown alone, heading for those unmarked places on the map.  If children are not permitted--not taught--to be adventurers and explorers as children, what will become of the world of adventure, of stories, of literature itself?”