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Awkward Awareness
Nov. 18th, 2005 12:25 pmLast night I went to a wonderful talk on Jungian psychology and the experience of shifting archetypal energies into ones body and watching that work flower. There was an odd side effect of it, though, which I lay solidly and gratefully on the doorsteps of my friends.
Jungian psychology, as it stands now, is missing stories. And it's missing stories because it is making into objects those who could bring us these stories if they were subjects. That all sounds horribly confusing, doesn't it? I'll get more explicit.
There is an archetypal figure that is called the "Black Madonna." She is a large, dark skinned woman who started showing up in the dreams of thin, white women. She represents warmth, wisdom, earthiness, pleasure, and a whole host of wonderful things, but she is a story that arises from people who view those with dark skin as objects, not subjects. It is a taking of a type of person - an image of a person - and making them an internal reference.
More and more this bothers me. At a basic level, this objectification is bourne out of ignorance, and even if complimentary it is still something which makes other that which I would call friend; makes stereotype that which I would know individually.
Of course.... I say this as a large, pale woman... so I don't know how much validity that carries.
But the absence of these stories - these dreams - and the wall that seems to be built around something I love - is a physical pain for me, and I don't know what to do about it.
Jungian psychology, as it stands now, is missing stories. And it's missing stories because it is making into objects those who could bring us these stories if they were subjects. That all sounds horribly confusing, doesn't it? I'll get more explicit.
There is an archetypal figure that is called the "Black Madonna." She is a large, dark skinned woman who started showing up in the dreams of thin, white women. She represents warmth, wisdom, earthiness, pleasure, and a whole host of wonderful things, but she is a story that arises from people who view those with dark skin as objects, not subjects. It is a taking of a type of person - an image of a person - and making them an internal reference.
More and more this bothers me. At a basic level, this objectification is bourne out of ignorance, and even if complimentary it is still something which makes other that which I would call friend; makes stereotype that which I would know individually.
Of course.... I say this as a large, pale woman... so I don't know how much validity that carries.
But the absence of these stories - these dreams - and the wall that seems to be built around something I love - is a physical pain for me, and I don't know what to do about it.
