How is it meaningful?
Creative inner work has two components. Expressing unconscious content creatively is only the first part. The more difficult ethical part is to formulate some sort of understanding of the content and purpose of the image. To me, finding meaning in this sense is not a question of ‘what does it mean,’ but much more a question of ‘how it is meaningful.’
Most of the time, meaning gradually dawns on one, and that is completely and utterly sufficient. No interpretations are needed. There is often a sense of relief soon after completion of the creative event. It comes with inner alignment and helps one to be more objective. It is also worthwhile to unpack your images on the floor and to trace your use of colour and shape from image to image. Colours and shapes which you use often are usually meaningful. A certain colour may present itself as a mountain, in another image as an umbrella, and in a third as a woman, circling, describing different aspects of a single psychic fact.
Relating to your work is crucial. In this way it is possible to experience the work as a living reality and inner truth. By relating to not-loved, repressed parts of one-self, it enters one’s life and may gradually influence one to accept previously rejected aspects of one’s personality. Jung described it well.
Jung, Tavistock Lectures 1935
“But [the therapist] should leave the originals with the patients; and when they look at them, they feel that their unconscious is expressed. The objective form works back on them, and they become enchanted. The suggestive influence of the picture reacts on the psychological system of the patient and induces the same effect which he puts into the picture… They cast their magic into our system and put us right, provided we put ourselves into them… to the extent that you can put yourself into it, it answers and comes into you. It has a magic effect.”
This process is beautifully demonstrated in Ovid’s Pygmalion.
Pygmalion became disillusioned with women. He thought of them as spiders, and was afraid. He determined to remain celibate and to occupy himself with sculpting. He made a sculpture of a woman that he found perfect and became obsessed with it. It was to him his beloved; he kissed and fondled the sculpture, brought it various gifts. But in time, he realized he had a problem.
At Venus’s festival, Pygmalion made offerings at her altar. By this time, his attitude had changed and he realized that he actually did need a partner. There, too afraid to admit his desire, he quietly wished for a bride who would be like his ivory girl. When he returned home, he kissed the statue., and then found that her lips felt warm, that she became alive. Venus had granted his wish, and Galatea woke up as if from sleep.
From a psychological perspective
First there is a need and a problem in the fulfilling of it: Pygmalion suppressed his natural needs and developed a severe crisis. This activated the archetype and resulted in the making of the statue. He then became so fascinated, enchanted by the archetypal content of the statue that he treated the statue, the symbol, as a living reality: relating to it in an authentic and devoted way, a bit like a teddy bear, bringing it completely into his life.
The symbol re-aligned him, nourished and strengthened his weakness, and influenced his one-sided viewpoint. The strange love-affair with his statue helped Pygmalion to accept and learn to love this feared and estranged part of himself, the long journey to self-acceptance and self-love.
Pygmalion went to the festival and great sacrifices were made: the old fearful approach to life could be sacrificed and replaced by a more life-affirming attitude. He overcame his earlier aversion and acknowledged his need. This change of heart is due to the nourishing influence of the symbol. When praying to Venus, he expressed her own wish as the archetypal foundation of his personality to become ‘incarnate’, for it is an essential aspect of his own natural development. By acting on the influence, it entered his real lived life, enriching his life.
Amplification of a symbol
If we amplify an image or aspects thereof, it widens our understanding of it. In the original poem, Pygmalion thought of women as spiders, and this is a well-known symbol of the unconscious. It is true that we are often afraid of the unconscious and its processes. About this, Jung said:
“The center acts like a magnet on the disparate materials and processes of the unconscious and gradually captures them as a crystal in a lattice. For this reason, the center is often depicted as a spider in its web. If the process is allowed to take its course, then the central symbol, constantly renewing itself, will steadily and consistently force its way through the apparent chaos of the personal psyche… Indeed, it seems as if the personal entanglements and dramatic changes of fortune that make up the intensity of life, were nothing but hesitations…Often one has the impression that the personal psyche is running around this central point like a shy animal, at once fascinated and frightened, always in flight, and yet steadily drawing nearer.” (CW12:325-6)
Jung’s beautiful description pictures vividly the unfolding central symbol and our natural fear of the unconscious and its processes. We also see that the fearsome image has another side, it is full of meaningful purpose: the natural development and growth of Pygmalion’s personality.
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