Anne Skyvington
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    • A FAIRY STORY
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    • Candidly Yours…
    • A Story of a Genteel Ghost told by Roger Britton
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    • Blackbird Mythology: Crows and Magpies of Australia
    • A Kit Home Goes Up in Vacy
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    • a funny thing happened …
    • An ancient mystic: Rumi
    • A Window into Poetry
    • A Love Sonnet by Ian Harry Wells
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    • Always something there to remind me…
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    • Voices From the Past
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Anne Skyvington

The Craft of Writing

  • Writing
    • A Change of Blog Title
    • An Article in Quadrant Magazine
    • A Guest Post by Ian Wells
    • An Aussie bloke remembers: Guest post by Ian (Harry) Wells
    • a father’s tale … by Ian (Harry) Wells
    • “Snakey” by Roger Britton
    • A Guest Poem: “First Loves” by Roger Britton
    • At the Swimming Pool
    • A Modern True Story
    • A Story of a Special Child
    • What I learnt from writing a novel…
  • Mythos
    • A FAIRY STORY
    • Anthropos Rising
    • A Grain of Folly
    • The Myth of Persephone and Demeter
    • Candidly Yours…
    • A Story of a Genteel Ghost told by Roger Britton
  • Travel
    • Adriatic Romance … Rijeka to Titograd
    • 5 or 6 Things About Valencia
    • A Bird’s Eye View
    • 7 ancient artefacts in the British Museum
    • A Tuscan Village Holiday
  • Australia
    • A Country College Residence
    • Alone not lonely in Apartheid South Africa
    • A Young Adult Novel: My French Barrette
    • A Sydney Icon or Two
    • 5 things about Coogee
  • Nature
    • Black Swans Surfing
    • Blackbird Mythology: Crows and Magpies of Australia
    • A Kit Home Goes Up in Vacy
  • Poetry
    • a funny thing happened …
    • An ancient mystic: Rumi
    • A Window into Poetry
    • A Love Sonnet by Ian Harry Wells
  • Memoir
    • Always something there to remind me…
    • A Well-Loved Pet
    • Ancient Stories from Childhood
    • Voices From the Past
  • Publishing
    • A Useful Site for Readers and Indie Authors: Books 2 Read
    • Highs and Lows of Self Publishing
    • How I Created My Debut Novel
    • 5 Further Publishing Facts
    • 5 Facts I Learnt About Self/Publishing
  • Contact Us
Category

Mythos

jung-the-red-book
Mythos

C.G.Jung’s Active Imagination and the Dead

Active Imagination

Dr Stephani Stephens, a Jungian expert, took us on a brief journey with our eyes closed, exploring ‘Active Imagination’—the term coined that describes the process developed by Carl Jung that supported his body of work.

The speaker tried to give us a glimpse into Jung’s method of Active Imagination, which is based on the subject envisioning dialogues between oneself and different parts of the psyche. It is the method Jung used for descending into the unconscious, where he contacted figures from the depths that formed the basis for all of his main writings on the Collective Unconscious; this underscored his later analytical psychological method for treating patients.

In the same way that Ezechial warned Jung, (see reference below), Stephens states that getting in touch with the Unconscious Realm can be risky without a skilled guide/mentor, or at least the use of advanced meditation techniques.

Utilising his method of Active Imagination, Jung conjured up figures from the imagination with whom he entered into dialogue.

The Red Book

The Red Book is a large leather‐bound folio manuscript, creatively crafted by Jung between 1915 and about 1930. It recounts and comments upon the author’s imaginative, visionary experiences after his break with Freud and the beginning of a period of  creativity and emotional dislocation. Despite being named as the most important work—central in Jung’s oeuvre—it was not published or made otherwise accessible for study until 2009.

It is an unfinished, personal and spiritual account that was, and still is, at odds with the atheistic and scientific direction of society. Jung’s family were concerned that it might not be accepted positively by the public, and kept it locked away until ten years ago.

According to Stephen A. Diamond, the Red Book, is a very personal record of Jung’s complicated, tortuous and lengthy quest to salvage his soul, and a first-hand description of a process that would later fundamentally inform Jung’s approach to treatment that he called Analytical Psychology.

This book was published in 2009 to much acclaim from Jungian scholars and psychologists, as well as followers of his analytical method of treatment.

The Lecture

Dr Stephens spoke well, contacting the audience and keeping our attention throughout. I was even inspired to ask a question at the end. In this lecture, the speaker introduced material from Jung’s biographical work Memories, Dreams, Reflections, and from the posthumously published The Red Book, a beautifully presented and hand inscribed journal of Jung’s encounters with visionary figures during his ‘active imagination’  explorations.

As he focused in this way, Jung was inundated with imagined scenes of global catastrophe—at a time when Europe spoke only of peace and prosperity.  In less than a year, beginning in 1914, the First World War ravaged the continent with a bloodthirstiness unknown to history. Jung found vivid symbolic experiences, often of a healing kind, that personified his personal psychology, while revealing the devastating war’s underlying dynamics.

Stephens based her lecture around significant dates relevant to Jung and his work.

The Time Line

1899-1900: Jung attended séances with his cousin Helly as medium, but abandoned them when he discovered anomalies and possible subterfuge in the procedures. However, he went on to write his doctoral thesis based on his witnessing these events, which were very popular at the time, especially in his hometown of Basle.

1902: His PhD was awarded from the University of Zurich for his thesis entitled: On the Psychology and Pathology of So-Called Occult Phenomena.

1907: His first meeting with Freud takes place in Vienna, when they converse for thirteen hours straight, having much in common. However, Jung’s different perspective on the implications of the Eros function, and his interest in the occult will, ultimately, separate them for good.

1909: Jung resigns his post at the Burgholzli Psychiatric Hospital and, during this year, he also visits the USA with Freud.

1911: His cousin Helly dies from tuberculosis in her early thirties. Jung is more and more interested in the psychology of the unconscious. The first Death Dreams begin the following year.

1913: The break with Freud occurs, and Jung’s strongest visions of ‘Rivers of Blood’ spreading throughout Europe begin. The war starts the following year, validating his intuitive visions. A period of personal uncertainty and disorientation begins for Jung.

The Realm of the Dead

Jung explores what he calls the realm of the dead, through descending into the unconscious. However, when he asks Ezechial, one of the figures he meets in the underworld, if he might accompany him and others on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Ezechial replies: ‘You cannot join us; you have a body, but we are dead.’

red-book-figure

One of Jung’s Figures illustrated in the Red Book

Does Jung present, through his tortuous descent into the Unconscious, a suggestion of survival of Consciousness after death? Is there a plausible case for continuing consciousness after death?

C.G.Jung’s Active Imagination and the Dead was last modified: July 1st, 2019 by Anne Skyvington
June 30, 2019 2 comments
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australian-magpie
Mythos

Blackbird Mythology: Crows and Magpies of Australia

Many people lump black birds (crows or ravens) and pied ones, such as the Australian magpie, all together, and think of them as “birds of ill omen” or some such. Of course, not everyone dislikes birds that are black. My brother recounts a legend in his family history book, A Little Bit of Irish, connected to our Kennedy ancestors from Northern Ireland. They were descendants of Anglo-Scottish Protestants in Ulster and came from the village of Brookeborough in County Fermanagh.

William writes: “Brookeborough was in the hands of the Maguire clan until a rebellion in 1641, when it was given to the Brooke family. Lady Maguire loved blackbirds, and the ancient name of the village was Aghalun, which means “field of the blackbirds.” (page 187). He goes on to tell of a legend from childhood, passed around in our family when we were kids. This was about a maiden aunt in Grafton, Henrietta Kennedy, who kept three pet magpies that roosted at night on the foot of her bed. My brother likes to think of that behaviour “as a resurgence of the spirit of Lady Maguire.”

I remember Aunty Ettie as an elderly, stern-looking woman who never smiled. Perhaps her affection for Australian magpies, when she was younger, was a sign of her inability to find friendship among humans. Her younger sister, my grandmother, had a niece, Kitty Walker, whose sad story I have recounted on this blog. When I tried to find Kitty’s unmarked grave, recently, in the company of her granddaughter, the doleful dirge of the crows seemed to be aware of our search.

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Blackbird Mythology: Crows and Magpies of Australia was last modified: April 9th, 2020 by Anne Skyvington
December 22, 2018 0 comment
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queen-members
Mythos

Bohemian Rhapsody the Movie

See and hear the original Queen “Live Aid” performance on YouTube (below). I love this music, so eclectic and passionate!

I don’t pretend to be a rock music expert, but I do remember Live Aid and the utopian wish we all had, at the time, to relieve African poverty forever. Dying children shown on television screens nightly. It was 1985 and my children were five and two at the time. Vain wish indeed! But I’m glad the concert happened, and that I took part in the heartfelt groundswell, led by Bob Geldof and rock stars of the time.

I loved the film Bohemian Rhapsody. Freddie Mercury, like his adopted name suggests, belongs to modern myths. Seated, recently, next to my partner in the uber comfortable lounges at the Palace Central theatre, I pressed buttons to recline my seat, and ordered drinks from the phones at my side-table.

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Bohemian Rhapsody the Movie was last modified: January 18th, 2019 by Anne Skyvington
November 24, 2018 2 comments
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echo-and-narcissus-Waterhouse
Mythos

What is your favourite myth?

A Myth is a story of the gods, a religious account of the beginning of the world, the creation, fundamental events, or exemplary deeds of the gods. The Swiss psychologist Carl Jung saw the ancient gods as archetypes of human behaviour, and  mythology as the personification of subconscious forces at work in the human psyche, mixed with real events. As such it is cultural.

Persephone

I have always felt empathy with the myth of Persephone, the maiden forced to live for a period in the underworld, separated from her mother, Demeter. See the post on this blog for more information.

Narcissus

Another favourite is Narcissus, because of its relatedness to current recognisable personality types, even within my own family!  Narcissus was the son of a river god and a nymph, but he rejected those who loved him, causing some to die for love of him.  Nemesis noticed his arrogance and attracted Narcissus to a pool, where he saw his own reflection in the water and fell deeply in love with it. Having developed an unrequited love that could never be reciprocated, Narcissus lost his will to live and committed suicide. In some versions of the myth, Narcissus stared into his reflection until he withered away. In all versions, his body disappears and all that is left is a narcissus flower.

Narcissus is the origin of the term narcissism, a fixation with oneself and one’s physical appearance or public perception. With the increasing importance of psychology as a discipline, Narcissism is today recognised as one of the main Personality Disorders by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. This is just one example of how ancient myths often relate on a deep level to problems that persist today.

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What is your favourite myth? was last modified: January 18th, 2019 by Anne Skyvington
October 14, 2018 4 comments
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botticelli
MythosWriting

Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now

First a note about the painting, Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, that serves here as a symbol for Joni Mitchell’s song. Both speak of life, love and beauty.

For Plato – and so for the members of the Florentine Platonic Academy – Venus had two aspects: she was an earthly goddess who aroused humans to physical love, or she was a heavenly goddess who inspired intellectual love in them.

Plato further argued that contemplation of physical beauty allowed the mind to better understand spiritual beauty. So, those looking at Venus, the most beautiful of goddesses, might at first note a physical response, followed by a lifting of their minds towards the godly.

A Neoplatonic reading of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus suggests that 15th-century viewers would have looked at the painting and felt their minds lifted to the realm of divine love.” (Wikipedia)

Mitchell’s song reveals a more modern approach and understanding of reality. In Both Sides Now, she questions whether her experiences of love and life have been the real thing, or as illusionary as clouds floating in the sky.  Could this be another way of exploring, from a different angle, the same questions that Plato referred to in his philosophical writings? That is, how poetic words and songs may hint at and reflect the ‘beauty’ of truths, often concealed beneath the surface of things.

Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now was last modified: July 2nd, 2020 by Anne Skyvington
April 26, 2018 1 comment
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About Me

About Me

Anne Skyvington

Anne Skyvington is a writer based in Sydney who has been practising and teaching creative writing skills for many years. You can learn here about structuring a short story and how to go about creating a longer work, such as a novel or a memoir. Subscribe to this blog and receive a monthly newsletter on creative writing topics and events.

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