Bindi

After a few days I am thinking that the tree trunk is the central channel, it disappears because my consciousness doesn’t need to travel downwards again once it’s arrived here, like that path no longer even exists so there’s not even an option to descend. I recall a dream someone told me where they were driving and crashed into the trunk of a tree and died. I think his dream was showing him that his method of entering the central channel was doomed to failure, as he was ‘playing’ with energy at the time. I honestly think the fruit was “fruit of the tree of knowledge”, and only one piece because too much new knowledge would overwhelm a person. I imagine sitting at the dining table the fruit will drop onto the table at the right time, in the right amount. I’m thinking today that the dining table might be the chakra below the crown. Yes all persons were parts of myself, in the koshas model one identifies with various levels of the self over time, progressively identifying with a deeper part of the self until one arrives at the final layer, the true self. In my dream I believe I am identifying with kundalini consciousness and how that consciousness relates to the mundane mental level. Whether kundalini consciousness is the true self or the true self is deeper than that I will have to wait and see, as there is a lot to digest still at the kundalini consciousness level. I think there is an objectively true subtle energy system that operates to a greater or lesser degree in everyone. I do aim to understand that system, for now my dreams give me some information, I can only hope that when my dream gets played out in real time within myself that information about the subtle energy system, it’s setup and operation, will become more direct.

Interesting, is this a scenario you have consciously created or did the scene just happen?

So, I had a dream about this topic which I’d like to share. “I” was driving along, and there was a bit of water on the road so I started to fishtail from left to right repeatedly, always just managing to stay in control. I was then sitting in a University lecture hall and I noticed on the stage where the lecturer was that there was a tree. In the next scene I was barging through a couple to get somewhere, and then I was under the tree and taking a piece of fruit and eating it. The fruit looked like a baby squash and had the texture of dates and tasted a bit like a fig, and it had a small bunch of spinach leaves growing downwards from its underside. I felt a bit ashamed that I had barged through the couple so I offered a piece of fruit to the man and he accepted it and ate it. Then the trunk of the tree disappeared and only the branches and leaves and fruit remained, suspended in the air. I sat at a dining table under the suspended crown of the tree thinking I would like to get more fruit, but that it would be too uncouth to stand up on the table, so I just sat there waiting and the dream ended. I do think this dream refers to kundalini by the action of my driving, the constant fishtailing which is the same motion as a snake, and the fact that I was driving the car suggests to me that “i” was in the role of kundalini consciousness. The couple that I barged through to me were the subtle energy channels on the side of the central channel where they cross, and my offering the fruit to the man because I was a bit ashamed (immense overtones of the Adam Eve story here) in my interpretation was offering the fruit of the tree of knowledge to the masculine subtle energy channel which I equate with the mental plane - this image is where I get the idea that the mundane mental level is brought along on the ‘spiritual’ journey. I found it interesting that I only had one piece of fruit and the man only had one also, I also found it interesting that the trunk disappeared and that I was left waiting at the dining table underneath “the crown” for more. A fundamental question must be am I mapping my experience onto a Christian format, or is this the reality of the subtle energy system. I strongly think the latter myself. Bums thoughts welcome.

Another post from me about the shadow self. I liked the article below, I looked up shadow self today because that’s what I’m engaged in a lot of the time. Last night I was being drenched in unpleasant feelings and I reminded myself after an hour or so to just feel the feeling, accept it, stop trying to quell it or hope it will just let up, and I thought of rumi’s guesthouse poem. All of that was enough for me to open to the feeling, and after another half hour or so I was able to go to sleep. Before sleeping, maybe half asleep, I saw a very large black slug crossing a road, this morning I was thinking surely this was my shadow self, in all its fearsome reality, a great big slimy black slug, and today I have to process the idea that this too is me. Reading a good article like the one below helps me to do that, and I thought I’d share its succinct advice with the bums. ARTICLES, CARL JUNG, PSYCHOLOGY Carl Jung and the Shadow: The Hidden Power of Our Dark Side December 17, 2015 Carl Jung is famous for formulating the concept of the shadow, the portion of our personality which, through the course of our life, is relegated to the darkness of the unconscious. The Nature of the Shadow While Jung is known for bringing the concept of the shadow to public awareness in the modern day, this aspect of ourselves has long been recognized as a ubiquitous feature of human beings. In 1886, before Jung made his mark, Robert Louis Stevenson created the now famous story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In his story Dr. Jekyll represents the respectable part of one’s personality, but when he transforms into Mr. Hyde, his shadow personality gains dominance over him and wrecks havoc on his life. Although the shadow is an innate part of the human being, the vast majority of us are willfully blind regarding its existence. We hide our negative qualities, not only from others but from ourselves. To do this we often criticize and condemn others to ensure our focus does not fall on our own faults and destructive tendencies. We go through life with a false air of moral superiority and a belief that while others act immorally and destructively, we ourselves are wholly virtuous and always in the right. Making the Shadow Conscious Some aspects of our shadow are the product of our evolution. We contain, like all animals, instincts for sex and aggression that we tend to repress in order to adapt to the social mores of the day. Some aspects of our shadow are the product of our upbringing. Personality traits and impulses that elicited fear or anxiety in our parents or teachers, for example, caused them to punish or criticize us; and so we reacted by repressing these characteristics. We put up psychological defenses to ensure they were not allowed expression, and thus these characteristics were repressed into the unconscious. As all humans have a shadow, what differentiates us from others is the degree to which we are conscious of it. When our shadow remains unconscious, it wrecks havoc in our life. Repressed contents do not merely disappear, but rather they function independently of our conscious awareness. In other words, the shadow has the capacity to override our conscious ego and take possession of our being, exerting control over our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. When this happens we can be unconsciously driven into hard times, all the while remaining ignorant that these troubled periods were self-imposed, and not the product of bad luck or fate. The unconscious control which our shadow can exert upon us also accounts for the self destructive behaviors so many individuals struggle with and are unable to control despite consciously knowing they would be better off not engaging in such actions. Many addicts are driven by their shadow, which accounts for the internal “war” which exists within them. One moment they tell themselves they are going to give up their addiction and live a clean life, and the next moment their shadow overrides their conscious ego and they enthusiastically seek out the next drink, “hit”, or sexual release. As Robert Louis Stevenson notes in his book The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, man is not one, but truly two; he has a conscious personality and a shadow, each of which often battle for supremacy within his mind. In order to avoid being the victim of “shadow-possession”, we must become conscious of our shadow qualities and integrate them into our conscious personality; accepting them with open arms not as abhorrent aspects of our self, but as necessary and vital parts of our being. Toward this end it is useful to realize that the task in life is not to become perfect, but to become whole. And as wholeness entails both good and evil, light and darkness, the achievement of wholeness in personality development requires we assimilate our shadow into our conscious personality. However, as Jung alludes to in the above quote, this is extremely difficult. Most cannot and will not admit that deep down they are not wholly virtuous, selfless, and good human beings, but instead contain selfish, destructive, amoral and immoral impulses and capacities. Most would rather deceive themselves with a blind optimism about the “goodness” of their nature, which is why most remain fragmented individuals who are ignorant of their inner depths. The Hidden Power of the Shadow What is especially interesting is the idea that the shadow contains not just destructive aspects of the personality, but also potent, creative, and powerful capabilities. During our development certain traits and impulses were condemned by our family, peers, and educators, not out of care but out of envy, fear, ignorance or jealousy. Our proclivity to abide by social expectations also caused us to repress talents, innate abilities, and impulses which if cultivated and developed had the potential to make us more effective beings in the world. For example, it is becoming more prevalent today for psychologists to diagnose individuals who question authority and show signs of extreme self reliance as being pathological, suffering from a condition they call “anti-authoritarian” (see an article by Bruce Levine here). Individuals who are too self-reliant in our increasingly collective and dependent society are viewed by many as a threat. They are lone wolves amidst a flock of sheep, and they are attacked and ridiculed by the herd because of it. This is just one example of many regarding how our socialization into modern society handicaps our development. The bottom line is that with our higher energies trapped, labeled by others and our conscious ego as negative and bad, our growth can become blocked, and life, a wasteland. For the sake of our personal development, we must, therefore, become more aware of our shadow and open our mind to the possibility that maybe we are not so friendly, righteous, and moral as we think. We must consider that perhaps there are unconscious aspects of ourselves driving our behavior “behind the scenes”. We must look down into our depths and realize that our conscious ego is not always in control, but is often overtaken by the power of our shadow. Once we become more aware of these dark aspects of ourselves, we must honor them and find a way to integrate them into our life. In failing to do so, one will become weak and scattered. One cannot serve two inner drives without dissipating his strength and energies. The shadow must become a part of one’s conscious personality. Is there a “Technique” to Integrate the Shadow? As Jung notes in the passage above, there is no general technique to integrate the shadow. Our shadow is unique, and thus, to integrate it requires we adopt our own unique approach. No matter the approach we adopt, to properly integrate our shadow it is necessary to behave in ways which run counter to the mores of society and our own conscious moral compass. Most of our shadow qualities, after all, were repressed into our unconscious because we believed they were unacceptable, either socially or according to our family or peers. A common technique in shadow integration is to find a healthy, productive, or at the very least, controlled outlet for either repressed aggression or sexual urges. Another is to ignore customs one thought to be superficial or pointless, but previously conformed to in order to fit in. Another is to pursue a passion despite all those around you pressuring you otherwise. These tactics can help us separate ourselves from the expectations and “conforming-eye” of others, and allow us to look within, without judgment or condemnation, to discover who and what we really are. If we can find a way to negotiate with our shadow, and allow it to “live” in our conscious personality rather than repressing it, we will not only attain a more secure sense of selfhood, but also more knowledge about what it is we really want in life. We will be more capable of ignoring what others think we should be doing, more able to deviate from the masses, and thus more prepared to commence on a path to fulfill our own personal destiny. The shadow, as Jung mentioned, is the doorway to our Self. The many dare not descend into their depths, but this is exactly what we must do if we are to become who we really are. Visit our curated Bookstore RECOMMENDED BOOKS

With inexplicable tendencies like this I often wonder if a past life is at play, where some ‘power’ was gained but not the full circuit so to speak. Perhaps you sat holed up in a dark cave, or unclothed in a graveyard eating human flesh, etc etc, but this is not what I mean by the shadow self. In your case I agree this is not the way to go, and I see (I think) what you might mean about the enchantment of an illusory power. To me the shadow self holds pain and it is hard to approach, it holds no allure as pain is not alluring generally speaking, but it must be grappled with. Thanks for explaining what you meant 🙂

“There is a risk of over identifying with it because it seems powerful in a way - but you have to realise that its power is just part of the general mirage of power itself (if that makes sense).” This sentence made me think you were trying to keep it at arms length, because a. you don’t want to over-identify with it, and b. you included it in the general ‘mirage of power.’ I agree with what you say above. I fully agree that completely yin would be a mistake, but, I think initially yin needs to be overemphasised because it is overly subjected to repression in our society, while Yang is overemphasised. The interesting question for me right now is what fully integrated looks like.

How can the shadow self whatever it is be integrated if you’re deliberately holding it at arms length? But perhaps it also depends on the status you give to the shadow self, ranging from it’s just a block to it’s a negative aspect and the polar opposite it’s a powerful consciousness within us related to the Yin aspect that needs to be integrated but remains as a “potent and creative force”. It sounds like a Buddhist perspective to me, everything is a mirage so this too must be a mirage. What if the shadow self is an aspect of the true self though, then it would be pretty weird to think it was a mirage. Would you deliberately ignore and neutralise a potent creative force? What would you gain from that?

parallels between the shadow self and kundalini: “What is especially interesting is the idea that the shadow contains not just destructive aspects of the personality, but also potent, creative, and powerful capabilities.” What is kundalini if not potent, creative and powerful, albeit forgotten in most people? “For the sake of our personal development, we must, therefore, become more aware of our shadow and open our mind to the possibility that maybe we are not so friendly, righteous, and moral as we think. We must consider that perhaps there are unconscious aspects of ourselves driving our behavior “behind the scenes”. We must look down into our depths and realize that our conscious ego is not always in control, but is often overtaken by the power of our shadow.” What is this unconscious aspect of ourself? It’s named the shadow self here, but it may have a different name in different cultures, surely Jung isn’t the only one to have ever noticed an unconscious aspect within ourselves. What is the nature of kundalini? IME her nature isn’t kind but selfish. On her own she has the moral compass of a two year old, in partnership with shiva she may be directed more appropriately. What if it’s a catch 22, I want to be a nice kind person, so I can’t acknowledge the selfish 2 year old (kundalini) energy within, so it gets locked away and forgotten, unnourished and unable to complete her part of the circuit which would ultimately lead to her maturing? BTW and perhaps irrelevantly this was never my problem, I’ve never cultivated kindness as an end in itself. Whether the shadow self is kundalini or not, it is the right place to be looking, and whatever the shadow self is it needs to be accepted exactly as it is, not strangled by our moral codes.

My best bet would be “Clair” knowledge, clairvoyance, clairaudience etc. Things we might be aware of subconsciously but not yet consciously, this seems the most likely path for human evolution to me. My mother had these abilities, on demand for her last few years, and she told me a lot of what she saw (and occasionally heard and very occasionally smelt) but she herself didn’t really have a clue about what her visions meant, she had no ability to place it in the context of this world. Seeing stuff is one thing, but the ability to make sense of what you see is also required for it to be useful information. At best I have occasionally dreamt useful information about other people’s health, for example a lack of calcium in my mothers body, and a gall bladder issue in a friends body, but my mother could see physical issues in other people and in herself whenever she felt like it. But say she saw someone’s gall bladder as mushy and unwell, she wouldn’t be able to recognise that it was a gall bladder in the first place, you need the basic skills of a good researcher to figure out what it is that you’re seeing, and this is the role of regular thinking, so it’s a joint activity between a higher comprehension and the normal mind to establish a complete picture. What she saw wasn’t limited to the physical body, in fact what she mostly saw was information about the state of the subtle energy body, which not surprisingly I found fascinating to say the least, especially when I could find similar descriptions in various ‘spiritual’ literature. But I was always aware that she was unable to make sense of any of this information. Evolution hasn’t stopped in human beings, it remains in process, and increased sensory information is the most likely direction it will go in, and that increased sensory information needs to be processed appropriately.

I see something cyclical, a small part of the highest knowledge is gained and cycled back into the standard mental plane, and this is repeated many times over time, in subtle energy terms the highest knowledge at the crown in the central channel is cycled back into the lesser channels beside it over time, primarily into the mental channel, so the system as I see it is ultimately practical and is aimed at evolution of consciousness here and now, in that I can comprehend higher knowledge by bringing it into the conscious sphere. In this sense it becomes the time for the mental side to shine, whereas before the emotional side was the priority.

I am proposing that the shadow self is actually a fully creative and powerful consciousness within ourselves that is denied because it carries so much pain, equivalent to the power of kundalini, just by a different name.

To allow the unconscious to become conscious, we need to allow the language of the unconscious to be given a voice. That language is primarily emotions, if I’m looking anywhere else, I’m not looking in the right place. The language of the unconscious isn’t rational, and it can’t be accessed rationally, or suppressed rationally. Say you have an unconscious proclivity developed at an early age, and your only awareness of it is the emotion and action it promotes in you. Just stopping the action requires endless willpower, but looking squarely at the underlying emotion and consequent action allows the entire issue to dissolve. To be honest, I think think Suzuki is too worried about suffering, I would rather embrace the suffering and in the fullness of time see it dissipate, rather than skirting around it and trying to find the thin line between attending to it and not being caught by it. Far too much work IMO.

We could only speak authoritatively if we had achieved a final outcome of course, but I’m not convinced philosophically that 1. Shakti comes from shiva or 2. That they are not still two in the end. Re Shakti coming from shiva, in daoism yin doesn’t come from yang, yin just is and so is yang, and they unite to their mutual benefit, yin doesn’t disappear. Then there’s true yin and true yang, a more refined iteration of yin and Yang, neidanists are convinced that true yang is the ultimate achievement, but I personally think that is an androcentric view. I do believe that there is Shakti and shiva, and that they are drawn to each other, but when they unite instead of shiva subsuming Shakti there could instead be the product of their union as seen with Ganesh. Who knows?

Perhaps the shadow self is more abiding than just the devious side of ego, for example what if the shadow self was the shadow face of kundalini, a potentially powerful and creative aspect that is not accepted by us on a conscious level. I see the shadow self as the equivalent of the unlovable female side within that needs to be embraced to reveal her true vital and powerful nature, associated with emotions and black and female and water. Just following this possibility, the potential coexistence becomes Shakti and shiva. From the article above “What is especially interesting is the idea that the shadow contains not just destructive aspects of the personality, but also potent, creative, and powerful capabilities.”

Radical Nondualists (aka Neo-Advaitans) do indeed propose that all that is needed is an understanding that there is no “I”, but all nondualists have that tendency to a degree, IMO because it is an intellectual position. Why is there so much intellectualising and headiness when talking about Buddhism? Because Buddhism is just a theory, and that theory can be debated on the mundane level on which it was created. It’s similar to the theory of God, billions of people live and die believing that there is a God, but it too is just a theory that someone made up. The God delusion, the Buddha delusion, the Islamic delusion, they are all just creations of the mind. Meditation might work, stripped of all belief directives, but that isn’t how it is taught in a particular school, in Buddhism isn’t the dharma taught alongside meditation? Quiet time to get in touch with what is within would be valuable, but it would likely lead to awareness of internal emotional and mental turmoil which Buddhism seems to contain by promoting nonattachment, perhaps to contain the unendurable emotional pain that we reject throughout our lives. What was Gotama’s big problem? Suffering. “In the past, monks, and also now, I teach suffering and the cessation of suffering.” And his solution for how to not suffer seems to me to be by a variety of psychological tricks to reduce the pain - I’m not attached to this suffering, it doesn’t really exist, it’s as empty as everything else. The alternative, accepting the suffering and pain as absolutely real and feeling it fully, is like filling a dry stony riverbed with cool clear water. Without water life feels sterile, it’s a parched desert, allowing oneself to feel brings green growth to a stunted tree trunk. Emotions are real and should be embraced, both the pleasant and the unpleasant ones, that isn’t clinging to them or being overly attached, that’s just accepting that they’re a wonderful and vibrant part of life, and we don’t need Buddhism to interfere with that. A question remains though, and that is how does accepting emotional suffering as real lead to letting go of the “I”?

The main thing that needs to be let go of is the idea that “I” am in charge and that “I” know anything. Installing someone else’s ideas only compounds the problem because the mind can then justify itself in thinking it now has the keys to know something, so a secondary mundane “I” has been created, and if that secondary mundane “I” is socially validated, then it may be impossible to ever go beyond it. Deliberately trying to let go of attachments and aversions is actually adding to the psyche’s baggage as it’s a contrived philosophy that can only ever deliver a shadow of the real thing, and apparently cannot deliver the ultimate state that some people seem to subconsciously sense. Actually letting go of the notion that “I” am in charge will lead to the true “I” taking charge, a very defined “I” with expanded awareness and understanding, energetically speaking the union of Siva and Shakti in the central channel and their freedom of movement there. Letting go of the “I” artificially, ie. because someone said this is what you have to do, will not lead to the true “I” taking charge because it is a step further away from living the actual process. “Absolute emptiness” is a philosophical view, not reality, instead of absolute emptiness in reality absolute completeness should be the ideal, all levels of the human being functioning and integrated. There is a Self, there is a doer which may be called Shakti/Siva.

More or less at this point in time I perceive the subtle energy body operating fully as the true Self. This means the subtle channels up to and including the central channel being cultivated, and Siva and Shakti being fully operational. Someone can voice a multitude of wise sounding conclusions and perspectives on life, but without their subtle energy body being operational their words can only be created on the mundane plane. The subtle energy body was recognised by the spiritual system Gotama was born into, but it seems he didn’t meet a teacher who understood this system because he was left less than convinced by those that did teach him. I would contend that if he had met a teacher who knew the nature of the subtle energy body and how to cultivate it and who was able to share that knowledge with Gotama, then Gotama’s realisation would have been much more in line with previous Indian knowledge, perhaps extending it at best. The Tibetans seem to have come full circle and reinjected this fundamental knowledge into their version of Buddhism, IMO at least they’re looking in the right place.

Buddhism is not a complete path IMO because it negates the mundane mind as Self (correctly) but it fails to comprehend the True Self beyond the mundane mind.

What’s fundamentally wrong with feeling? Why is having an emotion referred to negatively as clinging, or rebranded as sluggish qi? Emotion is a *legitimate tool to help us make appropriate decisions. The beauty of they system goes wrong IMO because of stored emotions and the isolation of our emotions from our logical thought processes, but this common error can be fixed, and the first step is releasing stored ie. unexpressed emotions. But how to do that? If you’re trying to force any sort of prejudice on an emotion, that you don’t want to cling, that it can just be observed, that you don’t want to become lost in emotion, that it’s not a legitimate emotion, then you’re limiting the simplicity of emotions. A feeling is felt, end of story. Stored emotions have to be felt, they were created in the language of feeling, and they have to be expressed in the language of feeling, there is no alternative. Granted it’s a rocky road, and people thrown into the deep end are being damaged, but then the method for clearing stored emotions needs to be blamed as inappropriate. I propose that a primary purpose of dreams is to clear stored emotions as a self-cleaning self-fixing system, much like our bodies self-fix a wound. I contend that we are self-fixing organisms on both the physical and psychological level, and dreams are the expression of psychological fixing. In a dream commonly there is a feeling. This is the purpose of the dream, dredging up an irritant in the psyche in order to remove it, and the way to remove it is to fully feel it within the dreams boundaries. This is also the safety mechanism of the self-fixing system, our psyche doesn’t want to destroy itself, it wants to fix itself. Going at it and expressing feelings in an unboundaried way is an unbalanced start that is more than likely to end in unboundaried and unbalanced ways, maybe this is why so many restrictions are put on emotions, they can destroy an individual who has lost contact with their own internal cleaning system. Dreams contain more than that single level of information, but decoding the other levels is harder, and feeling the feeling is enough information on the first run. * One example of the use of emotions for making good decisions that has been known for decades: Would it really be in our best interests to detach from this feeling and keep heading merrily in the direction of the snake?

A friend who was a TCM practitioner and had been taught that anger correlated with liver once told me that when his Chinese wife got angry she used to clutch her liver which was a sort of proof to him of the correlation. Where does your idea that it’s non-emotional stagnant qi come from?

An uncleared heart is a cesspool, clearing it requires standing knee deep in the muck, feeling the feeling. Over time more and more clear water starts to fill it, but that doesn’t make you a saint, that just makes you more and more “hyper-emotional”, until you find the door that leads beyond the heart and upwards. But first you have to be saturated in the heart. It’s a very long journey but the only worthwhile one I believe. If meditation is getting you to walk around in the muck then it’s sure working for you! Good luck 😊

The Black Madonna In approximately A.D. 797. St. Meinrad was born of royal parentage in Central Europe. In 822 he was ordained as a Benedictine priest, eventually becoming a hermit six years later. Ultimately, his hermitage was founded as the Einsiedeln Monastery, which now lies within the borders ofSwitzerland, and is dedicated to the Black Madonna, the Virgin Mary. A universal phenomenon, the Black Madonna still lies within the sphere of mystery. There are an estimated 400 shrines to the Black Virgin, yet she remains little known, a subterraneous figure even within mainstream Catholic cosmology in which she is firmly rooted. As will be more fully explained below, the Catholic Church has little explanation for her blackness, except to surmise that the figures have been long exposed to candle soot and therefore darkened. Seen from a psychological and historical perspective, however, the Black Virgin is an archetypal figure of pre-Christian origins and has always been black. She carries the dark pole of the feminine archetype. As such, the Black Madonna is the religious expression of one aspect of the Godhead, revealing its dark, unconscious, mysterious and unpredictable side. St. Meinrad’s initial approach into the realm of the Black Madonna began with his hermit’s journey, delineating the religious expression of his desire for greater intimacy with the unconscious or the Unknown. To establish a hermit’s refuge, St. Meinrad travelled deep into a dense and virgin forest: the dark and mysterious aspect of the unconscious, the Black Madonna in vegetative form. Soon after establishing his refuge, St Meinrad was confronted by an overpowering multitude of spectral demons that arose from the forest. To these fearful figures, he surrendered completely, lying prostrate in prayer and terror on the ground. After a long time, an Angel of deliverance appeared out of the east, and the demons were dispelled. At the threshold of unpredictable and utter demonic destruction, a redemptive, fecund beginning presented itself. Through his prayerful surrender to the demons of the dark wood, St. Meinrad plumbed the darkest depths of the unconscious - existential terror and a sense of total abandonment - out of which new life, a new beginning, emerged. Here in the dark wood the hermit built the first edifice of what has now become a foremost point of pilgrimage to the Black Madonna. Like Bonhoeffer, St. Meinrad survived the trauma of God’s abandonment, in and with God. http://www.cgjungpage.org/learn/articles/analytical-psychology/574-the-dark-feminine

A very timely resurrection of this thread for me, it makes the hard stuff more bearable because it underscores the idea that the harder it gets the closer I also get to the new beginning 😌

Interestingly, to me the female aspect or Yin needs to sort itself out first, so it begins with female, but can only go so far without the interaction and direct instruction of the masculine or Yang helping Yin. In an even more direct opposite to your setup, to me the individual female aspect (Shakti would be the best term for me) fully awaits resurrection and direction via the individual masculine aspect (or Shiva). I think these differences do matter, as the starting point directly affects the end point.

The introduction from the book “Great Clarity: Daoism and Alchemy in Early China” by Fabrizio Pregadio.