MEMOIR LOGO CONCEPT: The aleph and a Sufi mystic inspired my creation and design of the syzygy logo, which I initially based on the symbolism of the yin and yang.
But the concept expanded when I first saw the aleph in Judith Cornell’s
Mandala Healing Kit, My inexplicable attraction to it led me to incorporate it into my logo before I knew what it meant.
I later read that the “Aleph (the first letter of the sacred Hebrew alphabet) embodies the primordial, divine potential of the universe. ... Aleph contains all the universe’s potential and all of its emptiness simultaneously. Aleph represents a dynamic process of movement from unity to diversity and back to unity,” Jennifer Judelsohn, Songs of Creation.
And the mystic poet Rumi inspired me to use the fire and water concept after I read The Question. Here is an excerpt:
“The presence is there in front of me. A fire on the left, a lovely stream on the right.
One group walks toward the fire, into the fire. Another toward the sweet flowing water.
No one knows which are blessed and which are not.
Whoever walks into the fire appears suddenly in the stream.
A head goes under water, and that head pokes out of the fire.”
LOGO ART: Cropped fire and water images from Free Images.
LOTUS LOGO: In spiritual and religious literature, “the lotus is a symbol for the macrocosm and the microcosm, the universe and man. The lotus represents the divinity of the cosmos as well as the divinity of man.
The lotus is the center of the infinite, omnipresent consciousness which connects with the consciousness of the universe. Through the intuition, one of man’s divine gifts, the spiritual student can see the infinite, omnipresent consciousness as the lotus flower within himself.”
LOTUS ART: Courtesy
Homestead, my website service provider. (Temporary art while I design of my own lotus logo.)
TO DOWNLOAD FREE SAMPLE CHAPTER OF SYZYGY:
THE MEMOIR
TO BUY MEMOIR
(Thru Amazon)
THE MEMOIR
CROSSING THE BRIDGE TO SELF
THE WEBSITE
THE MEMOIR
NEW!
© 1955–2019 Syzygy: Crossing the Bridge to Self. All Rights Reserved.
When you first identify yourself through the mirror of another, it will feel pretty embarrassing. But once you are aware of the Projection, you can pull it back, claim it as your own, accept it, but don't beat yourself up about it. Jung said, “We cannot change anything unless we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate. It oppresses. And I am the oppressor of the person I condemn—not his friend and fellow sufferer.”
To help identify and accept Shadow aspects, you can trace the history of this repressed matter in your life and seek ways to integrate and honor the parts of yourself that you had once banished. See Shadow Work on this website for an example of this process. This process begins the healing of a psyche on an individual level, which will help to mend the psyche of all humankind, thus, heal within, heal the world. And ultimately—as was Jung’s life-long objective—“help men and women to know themselves, so that by self-knowledge and thoughtful self-use they could lead full, rich, and happy lives.” ♂ ♀
Memoir, website: “Unify within, unify the world”
Replace “child” with “world,” and Jung’s quote echoes Gandhi, “You must be the change you want to see in the world,” and Wayne Dyer, “Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change,” each suggesting healing begins within.
Jung theorized that human suffering in general stems from our fragmented psyches. I think this condition might be comparable to a split personality in an individual in which two or more personalities are unaware of each other on one level, but potentially at odds with each other on another level.
In the split personality, the individual is aware of its ego and its conscious fears, loves, desires, and dislikes, etc. But the ego will be completely unaware of the repressed personality, which is, nonetheless, also outwardly expressing its fears and desires and insecurities, which are perhaps stemming from forgotten traumatic experiences; characteristics of themselves that they dislike; memories they find too difficult to cope with; and/or latent aspirations that others may have ridiculed.
All of these denied aspects in our psyches collect in the Shadow. And identifying these unconscious aspects is the first step in a process of integration—a process Jung coined “individuation.”
Jung contends that when we repress these fears and desires in the Shadow, they manifest themselves in various mental disorders which, if identified and integrated with the conscious personality in a safe environment, may bring peace and joy to the person suffering its effects. But how are we to bring to consciousness something we do not even know exists?
Jung said our first clue is to identify a trait in another that bothers us. He said rather than claim these undesirable characteristics as our own, we will likely project them onto others. So if you find yourself emotionally charged over an apparent flaw in someone else, chances are, if you look honestly at yourself, you will see that the other person is merely reflecting your own flaw, that is, the repressed material in your own Shadow. “Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people,” Jung said.
“And I think this is the most important thing in Jung: To the degree that you condemn others, and find evil in others, you are to that degree unconscious of the same thing in yourself—or at least to the potentiality of it.”
Alan Wilson Watts
