Wilna van der Walt Practice

Category: Fairytale

  • Otherness

    Otherness

    Otherness, in many forms, confronts us all the time. When looking for example into the eyes of a member of another culture, we project our personal relationship to the Stranger within, the estranged Self. In dreams, the estranged Inner Other is often portrayed as a member of ‘another culture’ and may appear as a beggar. Stories about the beggar Stranger in need tend to crop up at a time when the individual relationship to the divine, the Self, is not well. (1)

    So it is told how Jupiter and Mercury knocked and begged for shelter but were repeatedly haughtily turned away. But when they came to Philemon and Baucis, an old couple living in a hut in the forest, they were respectfully received and honored by the slaughter of the old couple’s only gander. The following day the gods revealed themselves, granting them their wish to remain together till death and even afterwards. Their humble hut became a temple, they the priest and priestess. Upon their death, they were turned into two trees, their branches entwined in eternal embrace. (2)

    To restore our conscious relationship to the Self is an individual task which is undertaken in analysis. Jung described the basic form of interaction with a stranger as participation mystique, an archaic form of identification with the other. By gaining a sense of one’s separateness, one may learn to withdraw projections, a sacrifice. In an advanced stage, an individual (and perhaps in the future a group) is able to relate to the Self in the other; it is a return to the first stage but on a higher more conscious level.

    Jung described it as “a form of love but not transference, nor friendship in the usual sense, nor sympathy. The upper story is no longer you or I, it is the many of which you yourself is a part, and everyone is part of it whose heart you touch.” (3)  

    The current zeitgeist of one-sided rationality results in a loss of the sense of the divine, of the other world. By realizing our own poverty and bringing the right sacrifice to Self and other, life is affirmed for all.

    Image credit: artwork by Jacob van Oost, Mercury and Jupiter in the House of Philemon and Baucis

    References:

    1. Von Franz, Marie-Louise. Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Shambhala. Kindle Edition, Location 1106
    2. Von Franz, Location 1091 – 1096
    3. Von Franz, Location 977 – 1006
  • An African Tale

    An African Tale

    Seven maidens went down to the river to fetch water. One girl went a little further. While the others were waiting, they decided to play her a trick and hid their bead necklaces in the sand. On her return, the girl trustingly believed her friends when they pretended that they threw it into the pond to see what might happen. So she threw her necklace into the pond. Laughingly they retrieved theirs and went away. In great distress the maiden cried out at the pool, a voice told her to move on and she obeyed.

    At another pool she was told to enter. Without hesitation she jumped into the pool and encountered a one-legged, one-armed old woman. A cruel Dimo (1) kept the old woman enslaved and had devoured her one arm and leg. Deeply touched by her suffering, the girl cleaned her wounds. In turn, the old woman protected her when the Dimo appeared, declaring that he smelled a human and, after he had left, rewarded her richly. On returning to her village the other maidens were jealous of her fortune and thought they could also be lucky. They jumped into the pool, but they were rude to the old woman and mocked her. When the terrible Dimo appeared, she did not protect them… (2)

    A tale of individual seeking and descent leads to encountering one’s own one-sidedness, the wounded old woman, in the depths of one’s being. A trusting, sincere and compassionate approach is naturally rewarded by the archetype itself. But natural resistance to “the other world,” the unconscious, often results in a self-damaging attitude of disrespect. The wounds have to be tended. In another version of the tale, it is cleaned by licking it, like an animal might do: “saliva is symbolically a healing water that we are all born with.” (3)

    The girl wants to retrieve her necklace. “The threaded bead necklace stands for the unifying of diversity… it becomes a cosmic and social symbol of ties and bonds.” (4) Associated with the heart chakra it represents our capacity to relate to our deeper selves and others. An apt symbol of the African concept of Ubuntu, a conscious descent may restore this sense of identity and interconnectedness. (5)

    REFERENCES AND NOTES:

    1. DIMO: is said to be ‘partly man, partly animal, partly spiritual’, a trickster figure. It is widely found in Africa in Swahili and the Niger-Congo basin and in Southern Africa, e.g., in Zulu and Sesotho cultures. From “Tricksters and Trickery in Zulu Folktales” by Noverino Noemio Canonici, 1995; PhD dissertation, University of KZN, SA.

    2. Edith McPherson, 1919. Native Fairy Tales of South Africa, London Harrap, UK. Distributed by Heritage History. “The lost beads” p. 45.

    3. Helen Luke, 1995. The Way of Woman, Double Day Publishing, US, p. 100

    4. JE Cirlot, 2002. A Dictionary of Symbols, Dover Edition, p. 227

    5. UBUNTU: a quality that includes the essential human virtues; compassion and humanity.

  • Mother Holle

    Mother Holle

    A negative relationship with the personal mother may be deeply wounding, but in the tale of Mother Holle we find a relational archetypal pattern (personified as feminine) aimed at restoration and inner growth.

    A maiden had a cruel stepmother who forced her to work hard and spin till her fingers bled. One day while rinsing her sore fingers, the spindle slipped from her hand into the well. Ordered to retrieve it immediately, she jumped into the well in great sorrow. She awoke to find herself in a meadow through which she started to walk. Along the way she was requested to do certain tasks which she did with compassion, as was her nature.

    After a while she reached a hut where a frightening old woman lived, Mother Holle. She was instructed to shake the bedding till the feathers fly, for it brings snow on earth. She took courage and served the old woman well for a time but then she became homesick. To her surprise the old woman helped her to find her way home through a doorway where she was showered with gold.

    Upon her return her lazy envious stepsister wanted her share of the gold. She stung her finger and jumped into the well. She was careless while attending to the simple tasks on her way and Mother Holle soon tired of her lazy servant. Dismissed, leaving through the doorway, she was showered in pitch which clung to her for the rest of her life.

    Trying to gain approval and love a person may work hard to serve the negative mother complex, working one’s fingers to the bone and wounding oneself. All one receives in return are envy and rejection. In utter despair and great sorrow, a descent follows. One discovers a different world, and a new path unfolds where one learns to undertake tasks simply and for their own sake, ‘cooling off’ the complex.

    Undertaking this service is frightening, it demands courage, but one may learn to serve an aspect of the Self truthfully. The envious stepsister, the shadow, may be tamed, and spiritual meaning may be found, extending far beyond the personal complex.

    Source:

    Dougherty, Nancy J.; West, Jacqueline J. The Matrix and Meaning of Character (pp. 142-144). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.