Reason and Love in “The Knight of the Cart”

Posted on May 17, 2013 by mythgirl under Grad School, Psychology, Writing

This is the final essay I wrote for my graduate program in Mythological Studies. I had finished all my course work and the comprehensive exams but had one last class I had missed taking during my first year. So I took The Arthurian Romances of the Holy Grail course as an independent study. It was strange not having lectures to attend, but I had a great prof to work with. However, honestly, I wasn’t particularly looking forward to the course. I didn’t really know anything about the Arthur and his knights outside of Disney’s Sword and the Stone. Wow was I in for a surprise! What rich, wonderful, exciting literature I encountered! So, below is my essay about my now beloved Lancelot and his tale by Chrétien de Troyes. Enjoy!

Reason and Love in “The Knight of the Cart”

The love, romance, and adventure depicted in the Arthurian romances have captivated readers for centuries and remain a powerful force in the literary world. Chrétien de Troyes, noted as a “remarkably influential author” (Lacy and Grimbert xi), is one of the most celebrated writers from the twelfth century, renowned for being the first author to pen the affair of Lancelot and Guinevere. Though he is a key figure of Arthurian studies, relatively little is known about him, and there is much speculation about why he did not personally complete one of his most popular stories, “The Knight of the Cart” (hereafter referred to as Lancelot, the title most commonly used in the related scholarship). As varied as the speculation about Chrétien himself is the diverse interpretations of his tale of courtly love and romance. These details in conjunction with the mythological and psychological elements in Lancelot – including but not limited to love, death, the underworld, and the union of opposites – place it as an incredibly rich text worthy of analysis. In one of the finest collections on Chrétien, A Companion to Chrétien de Troyes, the editors note that “[e]ven Chrétien specialists surely find the volume of critical studies on Chrétien daunting, and students, however diligent, will find it virtually impossible to select the most useful scholarship and to read and master even a small volume” (Lacy and Gimbert xi). This task, like Lancelot’s adventures, has been both challenging and rewarding, and while there can be no definitive analysis of Lancelot, the exploration herein will address the romance as a reflection of its times, an examination of courtly love, and a truly mythic adventure into the depths of the underworld, where both love and death await.

One unchallenged fact about Lancelot is that Chrétien wrote it under the service of Marie de Champagne. Known for her appreciation and encouragement of literature, Marie was also an influential figure in Andreas Capellanus’s The Art of Courtly Love. It is unknown exactly when each piece was written, but best estimations place Chrétien’s writing of Lancelot anytime between the 1160s and the 1180s (Lacy and Grimbert xii), and while The Art of Courtly Love was probably written later, it “was almost certainly intended to portray conditions at Queen Eleanor’s court at Poitiers between 1170 and 1174” (21). Regardless of exact dates, each text demonstrates the notion of courtly love prevalent at the end of the twelfth century, a time when “a new art of love, fin ‘amor (true love) . . . which glorified amorous passion” was emerging (Harf-Lancer 29). The unique and defining characteristic of courtly love, however, is that it is “extramarital,” as defined by Ovid, whom Parry attributes as the originator of courtly love (Capellanus 5). So how is it that Chrétien, “viewed as the poet of love in marriage” (Bruckner 141), was the first to bring the affair of Lancelot and Guinevere to life?

Debate in Chrétien scholarship explores why he discontinued his work on Lancelot, though it is a curious fact that Marie even selected Chrétien as the writer of this tale. It is accepted in scholarship that the affair between Lancelot and Guinevere is “against [Chrétien’s] own moral convictions” (McCash 22). Was his patron Marie aware of his personal beliefs when she told him the legend? Did she simply disregard his views, or did he hide them? Or, perhaps, was he not even as opposed to courtly love as scholars now believe? Of course, answers to these questions will never be known, but the speculation creates a stimulating setting for the creation of a story that embodies courtly love – which itself encourages debate in its own right about love and honor. As Bruckner asserts, Chrétien himself “offers not answers but questions” in Lancelot (155).

That Chrétien himself did not pen the ending of Lancelot is clear although the reasons remain unknown. Parry states Chrétien left the work unfinished because of his dislike of the subject (Capellanus 13), but Lacy and Gimbert review other speculations about why Chrétien stopped writing the tale (22). Since the order in which he wrote his romances is unknown, it is possible that his own illness simply prevented him from writing anymore (22). Others speculate that Lancelot was nearly completed when Marie’s own husband died and that Chrétien discontinued writing it because she feared if the work were to be printed in her widowhood that many would suspect she had been unfaithful to her husband (22). Despite speculation about Marie, Chrétien, and his intentions or feelings in writing about this theme, the value of courtly love in the character of Lancelot himself never wavers.

In Lancelot, the leading knight is defined as one of “great goodness” (Chrétien 234) who is “brave” (243) and completes the “boldest deed” (when crossing the Sword bridge) (247). During his adventures to rescue Guinevere, Lancelot stays at one household wherein all of its members agree upon this description of him: “if all the world’s knights were assembled in a single place, you’d not see a fairer or nobler one” (240). As Chrétien’s narration continues in this section, he describes Lancelot as “fair” and “good,” and directly speaks to the readers: “I trust you will believe my description of all this” (240). Chrétien’s limited use of the first person voice throughout the text is clearly his own voice and not that of a fictional narrator. This is set up in the very introduction when he attributes details of the story to Marie de Champagne (207). When Chretien describes Lancelot in passages like this with such praise, it is difficult to believe that Chrétien himself was so strongly opposed to courtly love.

Regardless of the virtues Lancelot is ascribed throughout Chrétien’s text and by many scholars, the fact remains that he is an adulterer – a term which Bruckner points out is never used in the text itself (154). Bruckner concludes that “Lancelot does not [recommend or disapprove] of courtly love, rather it aims at a wider ethical problem, the contradictions of human experience explored within a secular and courtly ideal” (154-155). This is a further reflection of the period Chrétien was writing in – a time when there was a disconnect between “individual consent and parental choice in contracting marriage” (Kelly 59). Because marriage was typically arranged and amor was just developing, courtly love explored “a doctrine of paradoxes, a love at once illicit and morally elevating, passionate and disciplined, humiliating and exalting, human and transcendent” (F.X. Newman qtd. in Lupack 84). This description immediately reflects a paradoxical theme present throughout Chretien’s work.

Pairs of opposites are prevalent throughout Lancelot, which is first depicted in the very title “The Knight and the Cart,” for one would not typically find a knight willing to ride in a cart! The cart encompasses the opposite of everything Lancelot represents as a strong and noble knight. Chrétien clearly describes the shame of the cart throughout the text, and indeed Lancelot himself even briefly hesitates to ride in the cart (which is the catalyst for later heartache and confusion with Guinevere), but the power of the shame of riding in a cart is perhaps most poignantly demonstrated in the following instance: Lancelot defeats an opponent and when the man begs for his mercy, Lancelot tells him he may live if he is willing to ride in a cart (Chrétien 241). The opponent refuses to do so, choosing death over the shame. This scene emphasizes at once the great disgrace of the cart and the power of Lancelot’s love. Despite his initial hesitation, Lancelot unabashedly accepts the stigma that the ride in the cart assigns him, driven deeply by love for his Queen.

Furthermore, not only is Lancelot’s story titled “The Knight of the Cart,” but that is how Chrétien identifies him until the moment Queen Guinevere reveals his name nearly half way through the text (252). Up to this point, Lancelot has refused to give his name to those he has met during his adventure, even those who offer him assistance. This evokes the mythological motif of true names having power over the individual. In some myths, one’s true name is a guarded secret. The concealment of Lancelot’s name is akin to the secretiveness of his love for Guinevere, and for her to be the first to name him to the readers is further representation of her role as the one who truly knows and loves him.

Chrétien’s use of the humiliating cart as a symbol of his brave knight functions like the “oxymoron” as it was used in “Oriental religious texts . . . to point past those pairs of opposites by which all logical thought is limited . . . beyond ‘names and forms’” (Campbell, Masks 188). As Campbell further indicates in The Power of Myth, “every act in life yields pairs of opposites in its results.” Therefore it is fitting that courtly love (the primary force behind Lancelot’s quest) embraces opposites (as identified above by Newman). These opposites are not something to be resolved but something that is symptomatic of the threads of life and our perception. Courtly love is all at once a deep sign of devotion and “hersey . . . punishable by death” (Campbell, Power). This punishment of courtly love further connects love to its “twin,” identified by Smith as death (176). The cart itself also has “mythic overtones . . . linked to death” (Bruckner 140). In this romance, threats of death abound.

Death is an essential theme in Lancelot because his adventure includes a journey into the underworld. As Smith clearly identifies, “the unconscious [is] represented in this tale by the underworld into which Guinevere is abducted, and into which Lancelot descends in order to retrieve her” (Smith 49). Indeed, Lancelot’s descent from Arthur’s court and his return in the end encompass the Nekyia, the underworld motif that is also representative of the unconscious. Since any descent to the underworld and/or the unconscious is representative of death, it is necessary for Lancelot to face death. Two particular events on his journey highlight that he has entered the realm of the underworld.

Early in Lancelot’s adventure, when he is on his path to find Guinevere, there is a moment where he takes his horse to drink from the water and is so distracted by his thoughts of love that he does not hear the guardian that forbids his entrance into the ford. Breaking this barrier signifies not only the adventure of the hero and the crossing of a threshold a la Joseph Campbell’s hero journey motif, but it also illuminates Lancelot’s psychological state. To begin with, he is so consumed by love that he is completely unaware of his surroundings. Such obsession and preoccupation are very characteristic of courtly love, and these moments are essential for a text dealing with this theme. As Capellanus outlines in the rules of love, “A true lover is constantly and without intermission possessed by the thoughts of his beloved” (186). When Lancelot finally hears the guard, he jumps “to his feet like a dreamer from sleep” (Chrétien 217), a description that further conjures images of the unconscious realm of the underworld.

It is also significant that Lancelot does not hear the guard until he shouts for a third time, a number that repeats throughout the text and bears mythological significance as it represents both the “intellectual and spiritual order” and is related to the three stages of being – birth, life, and death (“Three”). I briefly want to identify other important times when Chretien specifically writes the number three, bringing this specific grouping to his readers’ attention: when the dwarf, Gawain and Lancelot arrive in the cart (212); when the three girls cry at the funeral procession Lancelot and Gawain see out the window (214); in a meadow when three knights point out Lancelot as the knight of the cart (228); when Lancelot is accompanied by two riders (235); the “ointment of the three mary’s” (249); and when Gawain orders three men to bring him his armor when he plans to battle Malegnant in Lancelot’s place (290). The significance of each cannot be discussed in the scope of this paper but is worthy of future study.

Water is another important element introduced in the scene with the guard of the ford. Here, Lancelot is crossing a threshold of water, which “[u]sually we interpret . . . as the unconscious” (von Franz 101). The symbol of water is also utilized in one of the key trials of his journey – crossing the sword bridge – which exemplifies both his presence in the underworld and his dedication to Guinevere (“I would rather die than turn back” [Chrétien 245]). Water itself holds the tension of opposites as it can be “either the great healing factor, or poisonous and destructive . . . according to the context” (von Franz 101). In its destructive state, water can drown people “in the unconscious” (101). At hen Chrétien identifies that Lancelot “would rather maim himself than fall from the bridge into the water from which there was no escape” (Chrétien 245), we know the stakes are high and that this water is clearly destructive. Lancelot is risking death at every level.

This epic moment with the sword bridge is so popular and important in literature that Chevalier and Gheerbrant specifically cite the incident in the symbolic definition of “bridge,” declaring that it “symbolizes the passing from one state of being to a higher state” (“Bridge”). This transformation (yet another element of the underworld journey) is the ultimate test of his devotion of courtly love and, despite its associated shame, solidifies his position as the most honorable knight. Bridges, which are commonly recognized as a representation of a “trial,” can also “symbolize the transition between . . . two conflicting sets of desires” (“Bridge”). We constantly see Lancelot’s battle between Honor and Love, as is first exemplified in his hesitation to step into the cart. He is both knight and lover. While Kelly argues that Lancelot is “lover before he is knight” (59), Lupack asserts that “Lancelot as lover is inseparable from Lancelot as knight in service to king and country” (90). It is certainly a fine line to distinguish in this noble knight: surely he would complete this task for the love of his king (as Gawain himself encounters a similar trial at the underwater bridge in his attempt to retrieve Guinevere for the King), but we know he completes it because love compels him to do so. As Ovid’s description of courtly love indicates, the lover will “perform all sorts of absurd actions” (Capellanus 6).

Another threat looming over Lancelot as he crosses the sword bridge are the two lions that await him on the other side. Though they are ultimately mere illusions, Lancelot chooses to cross the bridge while believing they are material foes. The threat of death could not be more prevalent here as an unarmed Lancelot crosses the sword bridge, hovering over waters of a deep abyss, anticipating to be greeted by two ferocious beasts. That Chrétien chose this animal and not any other is significant as well. To begin with, the lions are a reflection of Lancelot himself because “the lion is burdened with . . . virtues and defects [that] are inherent in its status[:] he may be as admirable as he is insupportable, and facets of his symbolism waver between these two extremes” (“Lion”). Like Lancelot, the fearless knight of the cart, the symbol of the lion encompasses opposites. Furthermore, both Christ and the Buddha have been identified with the symbol of the lion (“Lion”). Themes from both Christianity (as detailed by Smith in Sacred Mysteries) and Buddhism (as detailed by Zimmer in The King and the Corpse) are prevalent in Lancelot. This can most readily be identified in Chrétien’s recurring use of the number three, which has significance in both Christianity and Buddhism. The lion itself also has a relationship with the number three in Buddhism: “The arms of Ashoka [a Buddhist king] comprised three lions seated back to back on a pedestal [and may represent] the teachings of the Buddha [Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha] (“Lion”). (Smith also expands on the relationship between Lancelot and “the three temptations of the Buddha” [49]).That Lancelot sees two lions is indicative of the theme of duality that is thread throughout the text. Furthermore, in Ancient Egypt, “lions were often depicted in pairs” and represent the opposites “birth and death . . . yesterday and tomorrow . . . exertion and rest” (“Lion”). Lancelot’s trial over the sword bridge clearly symbolizes his trial in the underworld while touching on the other key themes in the book: courtly love, death, and their duality.

After succeeding in this great feat at the sword bridge, Lancelot faces the man who is holding Guinevere, Meleagant, “son of the king of Gorre” (Chrétien 215). As Kibler’s footnote indicates, Gorre may be a reference to the Celtic underworld (512). On every level, Chrétien has made Lancelot’s position in the underworld clear. The immediate description of Meleagant then shows us that Lancelot has met his shadow figure. The prince is described as “treasonous and disloyal” with a “wooden heart . . . utterly void of kindness and compassion” (Chrétien 246). The shadow figure is also indicative of the unconscious realm of the underworld, and we see in Meleagant everything that Lancelot is not. Meleagant ultimately becomes the one that holds Lancelot captive in the underworld, and he is the figure that Lancelot defeats at Arthur’s court after his escape, touching on another important element the hero motif: “the hero . . . discovers and assimilates his opposite” (Campbell, Hero 108).

An even more important element of the hero motif that Lancelot attains is the meeting with the goddess, also identified as the sacred marriage. Though sex is not Lancelot’s goal in his love for Guinevere, the consummation of their relationship is the purest celebration of it. As highlighted in the great lyrics of the troubadours, who sang of courtly love in the twelfth century, the “aim [of courtly love] was neither marriage nor the dissolution of the world. Nor was it even carnal intercourse . . . The aim, rather, was life directly in the experience of love” (Campbell, Masks 178). This experience of love is most prevalent when Lancelot and Guinevere make love after he breaks through the barriers on the window to enter her chamber. This union, which calls to mind the alchemical coniunctio, also serves as further representation of “the bringing together of the opposites” (von Franz 164). Though their act is adulterous, it could not be more pure. Chrétien describes Guinevere’s anticipation of her tryst with Lancelot: “The queen was most eager for the arrival of her joy, her lover” (Chrétien 261). According to Baumgartner, “Chrétien’s entire work was organized . . . around the quest for ‘joy.’ To affirm and construct oneself as a hero in this universe, ideal yet full of risk” (226). He is a hero in his quest to save her, and he is complete in his union with her. Once the lovers unite, Chrétien explains that their “joy” was unlike that ever known before, but says he will keep the details a secret (265). Indeed, as Smith identifies, “the ineffable joy of the ‘Liebstod,’ of love in the domain of death . . . transcends the categories of reason, and . . . we must remain silent [about this] genuinely sacred mystery” (52).

Throughout the romance, Chretien has emphasized the tension of opposites that culminate in the love affair of Lancelot and Guinevere. He emphasizes the most important terms with capitalization, not uncommon in the period, and gives true characterization to the terms Reason and Love (212), Generosity and Compassion (242), Nobility and Cowardice and Sloth (246), Love and Hatred (253), Life and Death (260), Cowardice and Courage (278), and Fortune (286). His final emphasis lies on Reason, which prohibits Guinevere from demonstrating public affection for Lancelot (291). As encapsulated by these terms of opposites, whose presence and function could yield yet another project, Chretien’s Lancelot reflects the concerns of twelfth century love while also touching on the timeless mythological motifs of love and death as explored in every hero’s journey.

Works Cited

Baumgartner, Emmanuele. “Chretien’s Medieval Influence: From the Grail Quest to the Joy of the Court.” A Companion to Chrétien De Troyes. Trans. Veronique Zara. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2005. 214-27.

“Bridge.” The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols. 1996.

Bruckner, Matilda Tomaryn. “Le Chevalier De La Charrette: That Obscure Object of Desire, Lancelot.” A Companion to Chrétien De Troyes. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2005. 137-55.

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1972. Print.

—. The Masks of God. New York: Viking, 1968.

—. The Power of Myth Will Bill Moyers. Prod. Catherine Tatge. Apostrophe S Productions, 2001. DVD.

Capellanus, Andreas. The Art of Courtly Love. Trans. John Jay Parry. New York: Columbia UP, 1990.

Chrétien De Troyes. Arthurian Romances. Ed. William W. Kibler. London, England: Penguin, 1991.

Harf-Lancer, Laurence. “Chreiten’s Literary Background.” A Companion to Chrétien De Troyes. Trans. Amy L. Ingram. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2005. 26-42.

Kelly, Douglas. “Narrative Poetic: Rhetoric, Orality and Performance.” A Companion to Chrétien De Troyes. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2005. 52-63.

Lacy, Norris J., and Joan T. Grimbert. “Introduction.” A Companion to Chrétien De Troyes. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2005. xi-xiv.

“Lion.” The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols. 1996.

Lupack, Alan. The Oxford Guide to Arthurian Literature and Legend. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007.

Smith, Evans Lansing. Sacred Mysteries: Myths About Couples in Quest. Nevada City: Blue Dolphin, 2003.

“Three.” The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols. 1996.

Von Franz, Marie-Louise. Alchemy: an Introduction to the Symbolism and the Psychology. Toronto: Inner City, 1980. Print.

Zimmer, Heinrich Robert. The King and the Corpse: Tales of the Soul’s Conquest of Evil. Ed. Joseph Campbell. New York: Pantheon, 1975.

Works Consulted

Campbell, Joseph. The Arthurian Tradition, Lecture I.6.3. Joseph Campbell Foundation Publications, 2012. MP3.

—. The Grail Legend, Lecture I.6.4. Joseph Campbell Foundation Publications, 2012. MP3.

Ford, Boris, ed. Medieval Literature: The European Inheritance. London: Penguin, 1990.

Jacobi, Jolande. Complex/archetype/symbol in the Psychology of C.G. Jung. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1959.

“The Knights of Camelot.” History’s Mysteries. Weyand, Daiman, dir. The History Channel. 2006. Netflix. Web.

Lacy, Norris J., ed. The Lancelot-Grail Reader: Selections from the Medieval French ArthurianCycle. New York: Garland Pub., 2000. Print.

McCash, June Hall. “Chretien’s Patrons.” A Companion to Chrétien De Troyes. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2005. 15-25.

Weston, Jessie Laidlay. From Ritual to Romance. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1957.

Happy Birthday, Joseph Campbell

Posted on March 26, 2013 by mythgirl under Books, Grad School, Life, Mythology, Psychology, Teaching

There is no other writer/thinker/scholar/mythologist who has had as big of an impact on me as Joseph Campbell. His notion of following bliss was introduced to me during a turning point in my life when I was an undergrad. Following my bliss led me to into two master’s programs that transformed me. The first master’s program led me into my career; the second led me into my very being. Beginning with the works of Campbell, I have discovered exciting realms of mythology, scholarship, psychology, psyche, and bliss. For more than a decade, his words have inspired me to make leaps of faith and follow unpaved paths.

Happy 109th bday, Joe!

Embracing the Shadow: An Exploration of A Wizard of Earthsea

Posted on November 14, 2012 by mythgirl under Grad School, Psychology, Words for Wednesday, Writing

“The shadow personifies everything that the subject refuses to acknowledge about himself and yet is always thrusting itself upon him directly or indirectly” (Jung 221). The shadow, an important concept Carl Jung explored throughout his career, exists individually as well as collectively (Bly 26). Societies used to confront and work through the shadow with rituals (Slater CL1). Now that those fundamental ceremonies for confronting it have all but vanished, the shadow has a stronger presence. According to Glen Slater, “Modern existence is inherently shadow making” (Slater CL3). Collectively and individually, the shadow needs to be recognized “so it doesn’t take over or jump out” (Slater CL2). When the shadow is ignored, then its “energies become destructive” (Bly 59).

One place where the shadow is acted out is in literature: “All literature, both of the primitive and the modern peoples, can be thought of as creations by the ‘dark side’ to enable it to rise up from earth and join the sunlit conscious again” (Bly 63). Dark shadow-figures, often in the form of a person’s double, are commonly depicted in film, literature, and television. In Ursula Le Guin’s novel A Wizard of Earthsea, the protagonist, the young wizard Ged, performs a spell that unleashes a literal shadow. Le Guin’s use of the shadow specifically as a physical shadow works stronger than metaphors in other works of fiction because she is using the language needed (by always calling it a “shadow”), and she is showing the psychological process of confronting the shadow. Ged’s interactions with his shadow resonate for readers as his movements parallel Robert Bly’s five stages in “exiling, hunting, and retrieving the shadow” (Bly 27). Through the novel, Le Guin develops Ged as a character that has generally good intentions, but still has that darker side, a duality that is present in all individuals. The novel demonstrates that the shadow side must be reconciled with, and Le Guin does this by implementing not just a shadow metaphor, but an actual physical shadow that is truly a part of the main character.

The shadow imagery begins in the very first chapter of A Wizard of Earthsea. When young Ged casts his first major spell to protect his home town, he does so with “a mess of shadows” (Le Guin 13). Shortly thereafter, when Ged leaves town with his first teacher, Ogion, he steps “through the leaves and shadows of bright autumn” (Le Guin 15, italics mine). The problem Ged is developing with his shadow is immediately apparent as he is primarily focused on learning “to gain power” and dismissing the importance of balance in the use of magic (18). In fact, it is his desire to demonstrate his power that leads him to the spell that will come to physically unleash his shadow. After a young girl in the woods challenges Ged’s ability to perform any useful spell, Ged looks at a forbidden spell book of Ogion’s. The first spell that catches his attention is one that summons the dead. As he reads this text, the appearance of his shadow is foreshadowed: “he saw that something was crouching beside the closed door, a shapeless lot of shadow darker than the darkness” (22). Ogion then enters, dispelling what he later calls only “the shadow of a shadow” (127). With concern, the master wizard questions young Ged: “Have you never thought how danger must surround power as shadow does light?” (23). Unfortunately, this does not resonate with the headstrong Ged. Recognizing Ged’s frustration in not learning more spells from him, Ogion gives Ged the choice between staying with him or advancing more quickly by attending Roke, a school for wizards. Ged chooses the latter.

The shadow imagery continues as Ged travels to Roke on a ship aptly named Shadow. Le Guin is not overusing the imagery, but building towards the inevitable confrontation Ged will have with his shadow. Ged’s shadow is present, as it is for all individuals, but he is refusing to see it. The readers need to see this growth of the shadow figure within Ged because, as Jung warns, “the less [the shadow] is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is” (88). Ged’s shadow is going to erupt, and because he has so heartily ignored it, it is going to be vicious. When Ged enters his new school, “it seem[s] to him though the light was behind him, a shadow followed him in at his heels” (Le Guin 34). While readers are starkly aware of the shadow imagery and sense the impending doom, Ged remains arrogant, eager to learn and impress others.

Ged’s new instructor, The Master Hand, immediately explains to Ged that “[t]he world is in balance, in Equilibrium . . . To light a candle is to cast a shadow” (44). Nevertheless, this warning, like that from Ogion, falls on deaf ears: Ged believes that “surely a wizard . . . was powerful enough to do what he pleased, and balance the world as seemed best to him, and drive back darkness with his own light” (44). Like all youngsters, Ged must learn through experience. Jacobi indicates that “[i]n psychology, one possesses nothing unless one has experienced it in reality” (14). Essentially, Ged must face his own shadow, as everyone must. If he had heeded any of the warnings from his instructors, perhaps his shadow would not have become so dark, powerful and threatening. However, of course, “[W]e have to learn to discipline ourselves. And discipline rests on the ability to act in a manner that is contrary to our feelings when necessary. This is an eminently human prerogative as well as a necessity” (Whitmont 167). Self-discipline and shadow-work is vital for development, and because Ged has so deeply ignored his shadow, the work is going to be especially difficult for him.

One of the first subjects Ged studies at Roke is Summoning, which leads him to “certain phrases . . . that he did not like to say [that] made him think, for an instant, of shadows in a dark room, of a shut door and shadows reaching out to him from the corner by the door” (Le Guin 54). He reluctantly remembers the darkness when he was looking at the spell book at Ogion’s, but he tells himself these are “shadows merely of his ignorance” (54). Not only has he ignored the warnings from his masters, but now he is even ignoring his own intuition. As Bernardo and Murphy emphasize in their study on the novel, “Ged sees himself as an individual who should be able to act simply because he wishes to. He does not see connections between his actions and a widening circle of events.” By not seeing his shadow or acknowledging it, Ged is essentially possessed by it. His drive for power continues as he refuses to recognize the importance of balance. This continues to build his shadow.

In his book A Little Book on the Human Shadow, Robert Bly discusses how people continually fill their “bag” with shadow figures. In Part 3 of his text, Bly thoroughly breaks down the five stages of facing one’s shadow. He does stress that “[w]e don’t live wholly at any moment in . . . any stage; we are in all five stages simultaneously” (Bly 38). There is a development, though, that is apparent in the stages demonstrating how one can lead to the next. Of course, confronting the shadow is not easy work, so the individual does slip around the stages as he continues through this struggle, likely through his lifetime. In A Wizard of Earthsea, after Ged’s shadow physically manifests itself, his journey lies in learning to embrace it as a part of himself; this serves as a great example of moving through Bly’s five stages of facing the shadow.

One night, Ged’s pride is pushed so far that he uses the spell he read at Ogion’s and summons a spirit from the dead. Jungian Analyst Robert A. Johnson explains that when the shadow “accumulates more energy than our ego, it erupts . . . The shadow gone autonomous is a terrible monster in our psychic house” (5). Ged’s action unleashes an actual physical shadow, described by Le Guin as a shadow “the size of a young child [with] no head or face” (61). This is the moment when Ged encounters Bly’s first stage, wherein the shadow “comes to rest outside the owner’s psyche, and seems likely to remain out there somewhere” (31). At this moment, neither Ged nor the readers understand this shadow figure to actually be a part of Ged. It appears to be something that erupted from a dark spell. Because the shadow comes from Ged’s unconscious, he is unaware of its origins. As Jung notes, “[I]t is not the conscious subject but the unconscious which does the projecting” (92). The shadow, which has now been so long repressed, erupts aggressively and physically attacks Ged. According to Jung, “No one can overlook either the dynamism or the imagery of the instincts [including the shadow, which arises from the unconscious] without the gravest injury to himself” (Jung 389). In this confrontation, the shadow physically maims Ged, and when the Arch Mage saves the young wizard at the cost of his own life, the shadow flees.

Everyone at Roke, especially Ged, believes the shadow is something nameless and evil. Jung asserts that the shadow is not something evil: “If . . . the shadow . . . were obviously evil, there would be no problem whatever. But the shadow is merely somewhat inferior, primitive, unadapted, and awkward; not wholly bad. It even contains childish or primitive qualities which would in a way vitalize and embellish human existence” (90). The size of Ged’s shadow is a physical representation of its childish quality, while its violent instinct demonstrates its primitive quality. If Ged had recognized the shadow as himself in that moment, he could have prevented what becomes an arduous journey. However, that journey is necessary. Jung reveals the difficulties of facing the shadow:

To become conscious of [the shadow] involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge, and it therefore, as a rule, meets with considerable resistance. Indeed, self-knowledge as a psychotherapeutic measure frequently requires much painstaking work extending over a long period. (91)

Appropriately, it takes years after this incident for Ged to successfully confront and join himself with his shadow. It is a difficult path met with a lot of resistance, but also with the great reward, in the end, of psychological wholeness.

After this dark confrontation, which has left Ged physically maimed and psychologically weakened, he stays at Roke to study quietly and “undo…the evil” (Le Guin 65). The new archmage identifies the monstrosity Ged released as an “evil shadow” and knows it will “possess” Ged if he leaves Roke immediately (65). The characters refer to the entity as a shadow because of its dark, characterless appearance. Le Guin is using the term aptly, as the psychological shadow is precisely what Ged is fighting against. The archmage appropriately describes it to Ged as “the shadow of [his] arrogance [and] ignorance,” though no one can really identify what it is (66). These comments bare more truth than Ged, his masters, or the reader can yet recognize.

Ged stays to study in silence, essentially ostracizing himself from the other students. According to Bly, Jung’s reports illustrate that “when the shadow is successfully repressed, the person doing it finds it very difficult to talk to other people about feelings” (Bly 50-51). Though the shadow is out in the world now, it is still something repressed because Ged cannot recognize it as a part of himself and does not even wish to discuss the incident with anyone. In Bly’s second stage, there is some type of rattle or disturbance wherein “something doesn’t quite fit anymore” (31). Though Ged is safe from the shadow at Roke, after completing his studies he is ready to go out into the world. On a subconscious level, Ged is aware that “to be cured it is necessary to find a way in which his conscious personality and his shadow can live together” (Jung 89). He knows the shadow is waiting for him, but becomes unsettled and uneasy at Roke. His focused training after the unleashing of the shadow has inspired him to help people instead of impress them, and Ged moves to the small town Pendor to protect the citizens from dragons.

Ged befriends Pechvarry, and when his new friend’s son is dying, Ged tries to save him with a spell. When he enters the liminal space between life and death, he sees the shadow for the first time since the night it was unleashed. Ged will later understand the relevance of meeting the shadow in the realm of death, for it is in fact the shadow of his own death that he unleashed. Through this spell, Ged barely survives, and the child is lost. At this time, Ged moves into Bly’s third stage “in which the distressed person calls on the moral intelligence to repair the rattle” (34). Ged wants to flee from the shadow, but he first wants to complete the task that brought him to Pendor.

Rather than waiting for the dragons to attack Pendor, Ged takes the fight to them. The eldest dragon tries to bargain with Ged, offering to name the shadow that hunts him. True names have a great power in Earthsea, and by knowing the shadow’s name, Ged would know it as himself. Of course, the psychological process cannot be achieved if one does not personally recognize the dark part as self. Importantly, Ged refuses the dragon’s offer and kills him and his offspring. At this point, Ged is more determined to save the Pendor people than himself. The wizard who was initially driven by power and glory has undergone great development.

With Pendor safe, Ged flees to both escape the shadow, which he fears facing again, and to spare Pendor from the shadow creature. While Ged retreats from the shadow, another confrontation drives him back to his true master, Ogion. He is now prepared to hear and heed his master’s advice: “Now turn clear round, and seek the very source . . . There lies your hope of strength” (Le Guin 128). Encouraged by his master, Ged bravely switches from the role of the hunted to that of the hunter, perhaps another indication the two are the same. Once Ged begins to hunt the shadow, it assumes Ged’s physical appearance. As Johnson indicates, “whether we know it or not our psychic twin follows us like a mirror image” (Johnson 16). Though there are reports from others of a man looking just like him, Ged still does not recognize himself in the shadow.

In the next meeting with the shadow, Ged tries to grab the shadow by force and fails. In The Symbolic Quest, psychotherapist Edward C. Whitmont explains that the “energy [of the shadow] cannot simply be stopped by an act of will. What is needed is rechanneling or transformation. However, this task requires both an awareness and an acceptance of the shadow as something which cannot simply be gotten rid of” (Whitmont 166). Ged thinks he needs to overcome the shadow, to kill it. Of course, this is not possible since the shadow is a part of his “unconscious personality” (Jung 87). Ultimately, after Ged tries to attack the shadow, it flees. Until he can recognize the shadow as himself, he cannot unite with it or achieve wholeness. Ged does begin to recognize that his “acts have their echo in it; it is [his] creature” (Le Guin 160). He is starting to accept ownership, but still sees the shadow as something monstrous he created, not as something that is a part of him.

Ged does not know how to defeat his shadow monster. In Bly’s fourth stage, “one gives up for a moment. . . we suddenly look into ourselves and see our own diminishment” (Bly 36). In hunting it and failing to so much as grasp it, Ged feels a momentary defeat. He continues to hunt the shadow, but does not know what he will do when he finds it. In a fortuitous moment, Ged runs into his old friend Estarriol from Roke. This is a key step in moving towards his final confrontation with the shadow because even though one must personally recognize his own shadow, the task does not require solitude: “Our friends play crucial roles in what we call the fourth stage” (37). The friend’s role is not to offer empty platitudes and insist things will be okay. In fact, Bly indicates such congeniality is useless. Instead, the true friend brings steady, moral support on the quest.

As a concerned friend, Estarriol insists upon accompanying Ged as he sets out across the ocean to search for his shadow. During this time, Ged comes closer to understanding that the shadow is an aspect of himself. He acknowledges to Estarriol, without yet understanding the full meaning of his words, “If I lose it, I am lost” (Le Guin 173). Earthsea, which is composed mostly of islands, is mapped only to a certain distance. Where the land disappears and the ocean becomes expansive, it is believed the world drops off. Ged is now willing to move into these uncharted waters, which are representative of the unconscious, the home of the shadow. This is the place Ged must go. Furthermore, not only is the ocean representative of the unconscious, but “[w]ater has often been used as a symbol for the deepest spiritual nourishment of humanity” (Johnson ix). This nourishment is exactly what Ged needs to complete his psychological wholeness and achieve the quest of the novel.

This hunt brings Ged into Bly’s fifth and final stage of “eating the shadow” (Bly 38). As Ged travels silently with his companion, he begins to recognize the shadow for what it truly is. He finally understands that the shadow is not something he created or unleashed, but that it is an unrecognized part of himself. His original way of thinking, to confront or overcome the shadow, was incorrect. He needs to identify and accept it, and he will do this by calling the shadow its true name: Ged. Not only do true names hold an important power in Earthsea, but “[u]sing language consciously seems to be the most fruitful method of retrieving shadow substance scattered out in the world. Energy we have sent out is floating around beyond the psyche; and one way to pull it back into the psyche is the rope of language” (42-43). This language, this naming of the shadow, of the self, is the final step for Ged in owning his shadow.

In the final confrontation, before Ged vocally names his shadow, it appears to him as shapeless. Then it goes through a series of transformations, taking on the following successive appearances: Ged’s father (who Ged left behind to study wizardy), Jasper (the wizard Ged was showing off to when he unleashed the shadow), Pechvarry (the friend whose son Ged failed to save), and Skiorh (a man who the shadow temporarily took hold of when chasing Ged). All these individuals represent different parts of Ged’s journey against his shadow: respectively, his inability to see the shadow, his arrogance in unleashing it, his fear of it, and his inability to see it for what it is. After this display, the shadow turns back “into black emptiness” (Le Guin 178). Once the shadow drops its guises, Ged recognizes the shadow as himself. Ged “took hold of his shadow, of the black self that reached out to him. Light and darkness met, and joined, and were one” (179). The wizard now holds a balance within himself. He has learned responsibility the responsibility of wizardry and reconciled the good and the bad within himself.

In naming his shadow, Ged recognizes what comprises his shadow. Le Guin describes, “Ged had neither lost nor won but, naming the shadow of his death with his own name, had made himself whole” (180). The spell to summon the dead and his own confrontation with death at the hands of his own shadow demonstrates what Ged had really poured into his shadow: his own mortality. In his arrogant youth, Ged felt invincible. Because he saw no harm falling upon himself because of his ability to alter the world through his powers of magic, he buried his own vulnerability deep in his shadow. Ged could not have contributed much to the world with his original attitude. In fact, if he had continued in his reckless ways, he surely would have done more harm than good. His progress here represents Johnson’s important recognition: “To own one’s shadow is to reach a holy place – an inner center – not attainable in any other way. To fail this is to fail one’s own sainthood and to miss the purpose of life” (Johnson 17). The following Earthsea books reveal the purpose of Ged’s life as a great and masterful wizard.

After his final confrontation with the shadow, Ged explains to Estarriol that his wound is “healed” and he is now “whole” and “free” (Le Guin 180). Ged has incorporated his shadow self and achieved what Jung identified as individuation, which Glen Slater describes as both “growing more into your uniqueness and character [and] feeling more connected to the human story as a whole” (CL1). By achieving individuation and incorporating his shadow, Ged can venture into the world as a psychological whole prepared to aid others on their journeys. This shadow hunt has been a great psychological journey for Ged, and it was necessary in his formation as a powerful and responsible wizard. As Jung indicates, “anyone who has insight into his own actions, and has thus found access to the unconscious, involuntarily exercises an influence on his environment” (Jung 401). With his magical abilities united with a sense of balance, Ged now has much to contribute to the world.

Through this novel, Le Guin has successfully demonstrated Bly’s steps of working with, confronting, and eating the shadow. The details and actions she writes demonstrate that this is not an easy process, but definitely a necessary one. By calling the shadow what it is, a shadow, the metaphor of the unleashed creature is strong and resonant for readers. Le Guin makes the process of the facing the shadow, one that must be recognized individually and collectively, identifiable and opens the ground for discussions amongst readers and scholars. The novel, written for children, is accessible to all ages and has a profound resonance even if one is not familiar with Jung’s terms and definitions.

Works Cited

Bernardo, Susan M. and Graham J. Murphy. Ursula K. Le Guin: A Critical Companion. Westport: Greenwood, 2006. N. pag. Kindle Edition.

Bly, Robert. A Little Book on the Human Shadow. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1988. Print.

Jacobi, Jolande S. Complex/Archetype/Symbol in the Psychology of C.G. Jung. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1959. Print.

Johnson, Robert A. Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche. New York: Harper and Row, 1991. Print.

Jung, C. G. and Anthony Storr. The Essential Jung. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983. Print.

Le Guin, Ursula. A Wizard of Earthsea. New York: Bantam Books, 1968. Print.

Slater, Glen. “Class Lecture 1.” Jungian Depth Psychology. Pacifica Graduate Institute, Carpinteria. 13 Apr. 2011. Lecture.

– “Class Lecture 2.” Jungian Depth Psychology. Pacifica Graduate Institute, Carpinteria. 19 May 2009. Lecture.

– Class Lecture 3.” Jungian Depth Psychology. Pacifica Graduate Institute, Carpinteria. 23 June 2011. Lecture.

Whitmont, Edward C. The Symbolic Quest. New York: H Wolf Book Manufacturing Company, 1969. Print.

“Did I Fall Sleep?” Self-Awareness and Technology in Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse

Posted on October 17, 2012 by mythgirl under Grad School, Mythology, Pop Culture, Psychology, Whedonverse, Words for Wednesday, Writing

For this week’s Words for Wednesday, I have an essay on Dollhouse to share with you. I wrote the essay this summer for the graduate course “Psyche and Nature.” It’s written for a reader who is not familiar with the show. In addition to discussing ideas from the course, the assignment required a brief personal reflection. Limited to ten to twelve pages, I didn’t have a chance to delve deeper into ideas regarding Topher or to touch on Senator Perrin at all. Perhaps I’ll expand on it in the future. Enjoy!

“The more successful we become in science and technology, the more diabolical are the uses to which we put our inventions and discoveries” (Carl Jung II).

During 2009 and 2010, two short seasons of Dollhouse aired on FOX. The DVD and Blu-ray sets comprise a total of a mere twenty seven episodes (including two that were unaired). While this television series did not attract the network’s desired ratings, it has been greatly received by many popular culture fans, including the dedicated cult fans of Joss Whedon’s work (including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog). The series blurs lines of morality and asks tough questions about science, technology, and soul. Set in present day, the series focuses on the Los Angeles branch of the Dollhouse, a clandestine business run by the corporation Rossum – a name chosen by the co-founders because of the 1920s play R.U.R. about Rossum’s Universal Robots (“Hollow”). The employers, scientists, and employees of Rossum typically view the mind as a machine and treat it as such. The mindset here is identical to the modern first-world notion identified by Glen Slater in his essay “Cyborgian Drift”: “We have already lost an awareness of ourselves as animals, as a species belonging to an ecosystem, and we are fast developing psychologies that reduce our experience to robotic and computational processes, conceiving of ourselves as analogues of complex machines” (Slater 173). This approach pulls humanity away from its nature, away from the environment of nature, and into a technological world that seems to promise more destruction than hope.

The stage for Dollhouse is initially set by its location in Los Angeles, which provides an interesting backdrop for the series. This crowded, fast-paced, highly industrialized city is often utilized as a setting in film and television to let viewers know they are descending into some type of underground or underworld experience. Despite the glamour often associated with Hollywood, it is not uncommon for people to maintain negative thoughts and assumptions about Los Angeles. This is demonstrated, for example, when one character claims to be in hell and is corrected: “You’re in Los Angeles, though I can see the confusion” (“Belonging”). In a later episode, a character comments, “He’ll be an empty headed robot wandering around Hollywood. He’ll be fine” (“Belle Chose”). This comment, even without its context, clearly identifies assumptions about individuals, technology, and Los Angeles that operate in our world and in the series.

In the fictional Los Angeles of Dollhouse, a technology has been developed where an individual’s personality can be removed and replaced with a technologically constructed personality. This is the service offered through the Dollhouse’s “dolls,” people that have “volunteered” to work for the Dollhouse for a five-year contract. These dolls are transformed into whoever the high-paying client desires for an “engagement” that often only lasts one day. Therefore, each doll undergoes many different engagements and personality implants throughout their service to the Dollhouse. During that time, the original personality of the doll is removed and stored on a wedge (a type of hard-drive). The notion of the wedge has traces back to the 1980s when the “possibility . . . began to surface on the AI grapevine [of] the idea of ‘downloading’ the mind into a machine (Noble 161). Throughout the series, the fictionalized technology demonstrates roots in our modern technological developments.

The dolls are in type sort of blank-slate state when they are at the Dollhouse and not being used for an engagement. When a client requests a doll for a job, the parameters for the desired personality are built by the on-site programmer Topher Brink. The desired personality is then, through a new wedge, technologically imprinted into the doll. The term “imprinted” has a history linking back to Plato and Freud who “liken[ed] memory to imprinting (whether this be on a wax tablet or within specifically psychical neurons in the brain)” (Casey 16). In the Dollhouse, imprinting includes the creation of a false identity with false memories that are transferred into the brain. Therefore, when a doll is imprinted he or she not pretending to be a different person with a different personality – that doll becomes that personality completely and wholly. For example, if a client pays for a doll to steal a piece of art, the doll absolutely believes he or she is a thief. Furthermore, if a client wishes to have a doll for a romantic engagement, that doll is programmed to absolutely love the client. The doll believes their identity just as well as any of us do. The basic assumption in creating and implementing this technology is that the body and the mind are completely separable. As a result, this is an abuse of technology that goes against human nature. Unfortunately, this science fiction thriller offers a glimpse of the threats posed by our own modern technology and desires to improve upon or perfect the human being.

Such ideas about the separation of mind and body and technological advancement stretch back through our history. Descartes insisted that the mind is separate from the body and the self; by the mid-twentieth century, AI scientist Marvin Lee Minksy “described the human mind as nothing more than a ‘meat machine’ . . . and regarded the body as ‘teleoperator for the brain’” (Noble 156). Minksy, therefore, insisted that we can be replaced by machines (Noble 156). Developments in AI, robotics, and cyborgology have stemmed from this historical perspective and, for many, have called to question the understanding of the mind and the body. What Dollhouse ultimately shows viewers is that, despite advances in technology, there is an inherent mind-body connection. When some of the dolls begin to show “grouping” patterns, Topher notes that what is happening runs “deeper than memory.” Their habit of sharing meals and activities together in the doll state, despite all the wipes and various implants, demonstrates “instinctual survivor patterns” (“Grey Hour”). Furthermore, it demonstrates the inherent connection between mind, body, and experience. To honor humanity and the laws of nature, this connection should not be tampered with. As Jung noted decades ago, “Through scientific understanding, our world has become dehumanized” (Jung 79). Dollhouse is a constant reminder of this break from nature that we need to mend.

The main character in Dollhouse is the doll Echo. Through flashbacks across the two seasons, viewers learn that she was originally Caroline Farrell, a young woman trying to destroy the Dollhouse for its abuses of technology and persons. In her honorable though misguided attempts, she commits terrorist acts. When Rossum Corporation catches her trying to blow up one of their buildings, she is offered a contract with the Dollhouse in exchange for her inevitable prison time. The series begins with several formulaic episodes that depict her various engagements as a doll, such as being someone’s girlfriend, a bodyguard, and a midwife. However, it becomes apparent to Topher that, unlike other dolls, Echo is “evolving” (“Spy”). When the dolls are in the Dollhouse in their doll state, they have no memories or personality. After each engagement with clients, the dolls are wiped – supposedly returned to a blank slate. As early as the second episode, however, Echo is seen, after an engagement that has been wiped, making a “shoulder-to-the-wheel” gesture that the client had taught her. She starts to become more than what they program her to be.

Echo’s name and lack of identity (at the beginning of the series) call to mind the myth of Echo and Narcissus. However, there is more to Echo – in the myth and in the Dollhouse – than meets the eye. The mythic figure is condemned to repeat what is said around her, as Echo in the Dollhouse must behave as she is programmed – but it does not end there. In the myth, Echo is attracted to Narcissus, someone that Patrica Berry identifies as being similar to Echo (121). Berry concludes that through the relationship between Echo and Narcissus, the myth reveals that “what one echoes is very like oneself, and that within one’s echoing is a kind of self” (121). Though Echo’s voice is a mere repetition of what Narcissus says, she has chosen Narcissus as the one to echo. Furthermore, Berry indicates that Echo is “shaped by what’s around her” (121). The same applies to Echo in the Dollhouse. Though Echo does not chose the personalities she is imprinted with, the traits that begin to form her evolving character in doll state are similar to her original personality as Caroline. In fact, as she evolves into a whole person in the second season, Echo adopts the same mission Caroline had to overthrow the Dollhouse. In echoing the person she used to be, she is demonstrating her true self. Her character arch demonstrates that, ultimately, the self cannot be eradicated.

In season one, viewers learn that Echo is not the first doll to exhibit a likeness to her original personality. Flashbacks introduce the doll Alpha (a violent criminal the Dollhouse recruited in exchange for his prison term) who brutally attacks another doll while in his doll state. The Dollhouse was mistaken in believing they could completely eradicate an individual’s natural tendency with technology. After Alpha’s first attack, he is taken for a “treatment” where his mind should be wiped. However, he struggles against being wiped by the tech and a “composite event” occurs: all the personalities that Alpha was ever imprinted with for engagements are dumped into his mind. After this event, Alpha escapes, killing and injuring others on his way out. It is not only the overload of the many imprinted personalities in his head or their temperaments but his own natural propensity to violence that brings out the ferocity of the many “voices” that now struggle in his mind.

Ultimately, the employees of the Dollhouse do not take Alpha’s case seriously enough. The superior of the L.A. Dollhouse, Adelle Dewitt, explains that Alpha was an “unfortunate technical anomaly” (“Omega”). If they really heeded the warning presented by Alpha’s actions, they would see that the real problem was not merely the poor choice to imprint a violent criminal nor was it an anomaly. His violent outburst is representative of the mind/body connection that the Dollhouse has at best misunderstood, but more than likely chosen to ignore. By removing and imprinting personalities, the Dollhouse is interfering with human nature, and the consequences will be much more disastrous than the frightful event with Alpha.

At the end of season one, Alpha returns to kidnap Echo. He then dumps all of her past imprints into her mind to make her like him (harkening images of Frankenstein’s creature desiring the creation of another monster). However, since her nature is different from his, she rejects him. After surviving Alpha’s kidnapping, Echo is returned to the Dollhouse in the first season’s penultimate episode. She undergoes a wipe that is supposed to remove all the personalities that Alpha dumped into her. After this, she appears to be in the traditional doll state, but the early episodes of season two reveal that she remembers pieces of all her engagements. Eventually, imprinting is not even necessary. She can access any personality she chooses. She does not pose a threat in the way Alpha did because she is not naturally violent. She does pose a threat to the Dollhouse because she wants to destroy Rossum. However, over the course of season two, employees of the Los Angeles branch of the Dollhouse also begin to recognize that what Rossum is truly trying to achieve is far from respectable or acceptable. Ultimately, they work with Echo to try and prevent an apocalyptic future that their technological “advances” threaten to generate.

The various events that transpire throughout Dollhouse because of the technology implemented point to one key element: memory. To begin with, most of the individuals that volunteer to be dolls have memories they are wishing to escape or subdue. For example, one doll, Victor, is suffering from severe post-traumatic stress after serving in the army. In return for his time to the Dollhouse, he will be compensated with a great amount of money and the removal of his PTSD. Another doll, November, has signed her contract because she cannot deal with the death of her child. However, as Dennis Slattery has identified, “Body and autobiography, one’s individual life story, are seamless” (210). Likewise, Edward S. Casey in his book Remembering: A Phenomenological Study emphasizes again and again that the body and the mind are inseparable. Memories are not housed in just the mind; they are a part of the body as well. This explains why Alpha’s formal criminal nature surfaces in his doll state and why Echo continues her fight against Rossum. Something in them is aware of who they used to be.

The unconscious is another important element explored in Dollhouse. The physical placement of the Dollhouse (besides its Los Angeles locale) points to the unconscious. It is housed underground, hidden underneath a business building at street level. The dolls literally descend into the Dollhouse. To drive the metaphor even deeper, when the dolls sleep, they go into sleep pods that are inlayed in the floor. They physically go down into bed for the dreamless sleep they are given. It would be dangerous, from the perspective of the Dollhouse, for the dolls to dream. The removal of dreams, of that access to the unconscious, leaves the dolls even further cut off from their psyches, their selves, and their very human nature.

In pushing the limitations of human nature, Topher “advances” the technological possibilities in the Dollhouse, altering not only the minds of the dolls but their bodies as well. His most extravagant attempt is with Echo in the episode “Instinct.” Nate, the client Echo is sent to, lost his wife during the birth of their son. Unable to bond with his son and care for him, Nate pays the Dollhouse to program Echo to be the boy’s mother. To make this as real as possible for Echo, Topher makes “a code for the brain that change[s] the physical body . . . on a glandular level”: he programs Echo’s body to lactate (“Instinct”). The bond she experiences with the child is as strong as the bond between a birth mother and her child. After the engagement ends and the imprint is supposedly wiped from Echo, she fights off Topher and flees the Dollhouse to return to her baby. When another employee notes, “Maybe her body was stronger than her brain,” Topher recognizes that “the maternal instinct is the purest” (“Instinct”). This is the first time that Topher realizes that he took something too far. Though Topher is only one cog in the machine of the global Dollhouses, his character provides a fascinating look at the scientific mind.

In 1929, scientist John Desmond Beral noted, “Scientists would emerge as a new species and leave humanity behind” (qtd. in Noble 196). This is echoed in the fictional company Rossum, whose plans are certainly for the elite; their application of science and technology will not only leave behind but abuse the rest of humanity. What is really perplexing about this idea is that while some see it Beral’s claim as a threat, others see it as a promise. Individuals such as Reinhardt readily recognize the “threat to our survival” posed by technology (qtd. in Noble 208), while those like Moravec see it as a salvation, with the ability of machines to provide “personal immortality by mind transplant” (qtd. in Noble 162). Many former and current scientists would be greatly impressed and thrilled by the developments of the Rossum Corporation.

In the fictional world of Dollhouse, scientists have gone even further than AI, robotics, and cyborg technology. Here, the mind is not replaced by a machine but enhanced by the use of technology. Modification to the original human mind is a great leap forward, from this scientific perspective, because the mind has a far greater computational power than any designed computer or machine. The ability to program the human mind as one can program a computer seems like a great concept to many of the scientists and employees of Rossum. Through their technological capacity to copy, remove, and replace an individual’s mind, Rossum eventually plans to offer “upgrades,” wherein clients can move their mind from one body to the next. The technology is already being used by some employees of the company. Historically, this echoes the vision of AI specialist Hans Moravec and his prediction of “‘postbiological’ computer based immortality” (Noble 161). He foretold that with this technology and “enough widely dispersed copies, your permanent death would be highly unlikely” (Moravec qtd. in Noble 162). Though this sounds exciting to many in our world and in the Dollhouse, one of the co-creators of Rossum, Clyde Randolph, recognized a problem.

Whenever dolls or employees of Rossum become damaged or pose a threat to the Dollhouse or Rossum, they are sent to the Attic. In the Attic, the individual is placed into a permanent comatose state. The body is completely restricted and the individual is left in a nightmare state, trapped in an endless loop. It is in the Attic (on a secret undercover mission) that Echo meets Clyde, who was placed in the Attic by his partner when he tried to detect possible problems with the use of their technology. Clyde reveals his nightmare loop to Echo: over the fifteen years that he has been in the Attic, he has “run statistical probability scenarios for where the technology [of Rossum] might lead. All but three percent of them include the end of civilization” (“Attic”). As the episodes “Epitaph 1″ and “Epitaph 2″ (the respective season one and season two finales) ultimately reveal, he is not wrong.

Like many that work for the Dollhouse, Topher is completely embedded in the promises of Rossum’s technology. Season 2 reveals that he sleeps on a mattress surrounded by machines in a room connected to his office in the Dollhouse, which he rarely leaves. Ecologist and philosopher David Abram identifies that we currently “participate almost exclusively with other humans and with our own human-made machines” (ix). This is most aptly demonstrated in Topher’s character as he primarily interacts with other employees, dolls, and technology. In the season one episode “Haunted,” Topher even programs a doll to celebrate his birthday with him. He is completely cut off from the outside world and, therefore, from nature. Abram recognizes that our trending technological, human-based modality is “threatening to obliterate the world-of-life entirely” (41). Indeed, that becomes the greatest threat of the Dollhouse, as predicted by Clyde.

Rossum’s technology, which continually develops, falls into the wrong hands, and by the year 2019, wiping and imprinting has happened on a mass scale. The world has fallen into chaos and many people have lost their minds – literally. Echo and her comrades attempted to prevent this fall out, and they are ultimately able to save the world in the heart wrenching finale, but the path is dangerous and destructive. The destructive and frightening ability of the technology clearly supersedes any benefits it may have once presented.

Scientists like the AI guru Earl Cox see technology as a promise that will allow people to “escape the human condition” (qtd. in Noble 164), failing to recognize the greatness of our flawed condition. It is the human condition that allows us to experience the wonder of the world and to treat the world and each other with any sort of kindness. It is not an easy world, but allowing technology to run or replace our race is not the solution. As Joseph Campbell indicates in Pathways to Bliss, “Life is a horrendous presence, and you wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for that. The first function of a mythological order has been to reconcile consciousness to this fact” (3). This is clearly something that our modern technological myths lack.

A lack of nature – the physical outdoor world – is apparent throughout Dollhouse. In one poignant moment in season one, this is brought to attention in a brief conversation. When Echo is remotely wiped while on an engagement, and before she has developed any autonomy, she is suddenly in her doll state in the real world. As a result, she becomes clueless and helpless on the heist she was supposed to manage. Noting that they are now going to get caught, a fellow thief comments that they will be sent to prison. Echo innocently asks what prison is, and he replies, “A place with no sky.” This is great commentary on the Dollhouse itself. Embedded in technology in the depths of the ground without windows, sunshine, or fresh air, the characters in Dollhouse face the same trauma that Glendinning identifies in her essay “Technology, Trauma, and the Wild”: “The trauma endured by technological people like ourselves is the systemic and systematic removal of our lives from the natural world: from the tendrils of earthy textures, from the rhythms of sun and moon, from the spirits of the bears and trees, from the life force itself” (Glendinning 51). The Dollhouse shows us what happens when technology essentially possesses the mind and attempts to delete the natural, needed exposure to nature.

In my life, I have found nature to the most grounding element in my life. At times of stress or worry, the best thing that I can do is spend time outside, especially at the beach. As far back as I can remember, I have felt at peace and in balance when I am staring into the open ocean. Sitting on the sand and watching the tide flow in and out awakens my rhythm with nature. It reminds me of everything essential, natural, and important. I love that the ocean (not the beach front around it) is not run by mankind. We do not move the shore line or orchestrate the ocean waves. This is nature at its finest. When I cannot get to the beach, and I feel stress, I will literally stop what I am doing, go outside, and simply get some fresh air. Stopping, breathing, feeling the nature of the air, examining the sky, and hearing the birds is deeply refreshing. I really got a feel for how important this connection with nature is when I worked in an office building that had no windows. Some days I would literally run down the stairs to get outside on my breaks or at the end of my shift. Even four hours of complete indoor isolation is damaging to the psyche. The absence of nature in Dollhouse reminds me of that windowless office.

Dollhouse addresses many concerns about technology and humanity, including many secondary storylines that extend beyond the scope of this paper. Essentially, the series serves as a great warning, signaling what catastrophic possibilities may indeed lay before us if we continue on our speedy, developmental path with technology. As Slater indicates in his “Cyborgian Drift” essay, “resistance is not futile.” Our path does not have to end in destruction, and our way to salvation is not the negation of technology. However, as Dollhouse emphasizes, the important questions must be asked sooner rather than later. In her essay, Glendinning asks us to ask all the right questions: “What is the essence of modern technology? How does it structure our lives? Our perceptions? Our politics? How does it shape our psyches? What does it say about our relationship to our humanness and to the Earth?” (42). It is our responsibility to explore and answer these questions in a manner that honestly honors our nature and our psyches, as well as the earth and its nature. If we ignore these questions now, we just may pass the point of no return.

Works Cited

Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-human World. New York: Pantheon, 1996. Print.

“The Attic.” Dollhouse. Maurissa Tancharoen and Jed Whedon. Fox. 18 Dec. 2009. Twentieth Century Fox, 2010. DVD.

Berry, Patricia. Echo’s Subtle Body: Contributions to an Archetypal Psychology. Dallas: Spring Publications. 1982. Print.

Campbell, Joseph. Pathways to Bliss. Novato: New World, 2004.

Casey, Edward S. Remembering: A Phenomenological Study. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2000. Print.

“Epitaph 1.” Dollhouse. Joss Whedon. Fox. Unaired. Twentieth Century Fox, 2009. DVD.

Glendinning, Chellis. “Technology, Trauma, and the Wild.” Ecopsychology: Restoring the Earth, Healing the Mind. Ed. Theodore Roszak, Mary E. Gomes, and Allen D. Kanner. San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1995. 41-54. Print.

“Gray Hour.” Dollhouse. Writ. Sarah Faine and Elizabeth Craft. Fox. 6 Mar. 2009. Twentieth Century Fox, 2009. DVD.

“The Hollow Men” Dollhouse. Writ. Michele Fazekas, Tara Butters, and Tracy Bellomo. Fox. 15 Jan. 2010. Twentieth Century Fox, 2010. DVD.

“Instinct.” Dollhouse. Writ. Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters. Fox. 2 Oct. 2009. Twentieth Century Fox, 2010. DVD.

Jung, C. G. The Earth Has a Soul: The Nature Writings of C.G. Jung. Ed. Meredith Sabini. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic, 2002. Print.

Noble, David F. The Religion of Technology: The Divinity of Man and the Spirit of Invention. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1997. Print.

“Omega.” Dollhouse. Writ. Tim Minear. Fox. 8 May 2009. Twentieth Century Fox, 2009. DVD.

Roszak, Theodore. The Voice of the Earth. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992. Print.

Slater, Glen. “CYBORGIAN DRIFT: RESISTANCE IS NOT FUTILE.” Psyche & Nature. Vol. 75. New Orleans, LA: Spring: A Journal of Archetype and Culture, 2006. 171-95. Print.

Slattery, Dennis. The Wounded Body: Remembering the Markings of Flesh. Albany: State University of New York, 2000. Print.

“A Spy in the House of Love.” Dollhouse. Writ. Andrew Chambliss. Fox. 10 Apr. 2009. Twentieth Century Fox, 2009. DVD.

Whedon, Joss. Writ. “Man on the Streets.” Dollhouse. Audio Commentary. Twentieth Century Fox, 2009. DVD

Depth Psychology and Culture

Posted on August 9, 2012 by mythgirl under Buffyverse, Grad School, Mythology, Pop Culture, Psychology, Whedonverse, Writing

In celebration and honor of passing the comprehensive exams in my Master’s program in Mythological Studies and Depth Psychology, I’m sharing each essay I wrote. Here’s the final one. Here I was required to look at a piece of popular culture or media from a mythological and depth psychological perspective. Of course, I turned to Whedon, and then to my dear blue friend, Illyria. The handful of episodes she is in are amazingly dynamic and loaded. For more on Illyria –and here comes my shameless plug– check out Joss Whedon: The Complete Companion for my piece, “Touch Me and Die, Vermin!”: The Psychoanalysis of Illyria.

Myth and Psychology in Angel

Television shows offer a great avenue for telling mythological stories with detailed characters and events unfolding over a period of time. Series such as Angel provide viewers with a mythology that is as rich as those developed in ancient texts. A spin-off of the popular series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel captured viewers’ attention for five seasons as it explored the individual journeys of each main character in its ensemble cast. Throughout my course work at Pacifica, I have explored the mythological elements of this series. I examined thecharacter Angel as the modern Oedipus (Greek and Roman I), explored the series Angel as a Tragedy (Greek and Roman II), and examined the role and significance of the Apocalypse in Angel in relation to DH Lawrence’s Apocalypse (Approaches to the Study of Myth). Through this research, I have found the most provocative mythological and psychological storyline in Angel occurs in season five with the characters Wesley and Illyria.

One of the main characters in Angel is Wesley Wyndham Price. He is a human that works with the vampire Angel in this series about a group of misfits that fight against the dark supernatural forces in Los Angeles. Wesley falls in love with the human Winifred “Fred” Burkle, but Fred’s body is overtaken by the godking Illyria (an old one who once ruled in the world at the beginning of time). As Wesley mourns the loss of his love, he has to deal with the unpredictable godking who has replaced her. Illyria has one simple goal: to regain her full powers (beyond what her human vessel can contain) and reclaim her rule over the world. She believes she is better than humans. Her character is representative of the god complex, and as her ego faces defeat, Illyria comes to know emotional pain.

Joseph Campbell asserts that pain is a part of our humanity: “The impact of this horror on a sensitive consciousness is terrific – this monster which is life. Life is a horrendous presence, and you wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for that” (Pathways 3). This idea is illustrated throughout the Angel series quite often as all the characters face dangerous trials and tribulations. It is accentuated in the character of Illyria as she undergoes a great transformation and explores human emotions. Furthermore, the storyline with Wesley and Illyria includes the four functions of mythology, which Joseph Campbell asserts must be present in a traditional mythology, and which address living with the “horrendous presence” of life. Historically, a mythology itself would provide these four functions (discussed in detail below) for the members of a given a society. In the popular culture form, the mythology of Angel depicts the four functions within the story itself, allowing audience members to see the characters grapple with matters they can relate to. Though humans do not literally face the supernatural forces characterized in Angel, the truth of these battles exists in our daily lives as we struggle to live in this world.

According to Campbell, the first function of a mythology is cosmological and requires the individual to look at the mystery of the world and make some type of reconciliation with it (Pathways 104). Illyria and Wesley must make reconciliation with the world as it is, especially after they have both suffered great losses: she is no longer a ruler, and he no longer has the love of his life. This process of reconciliation may be even more difficult for Illyria because her previous status exempted her from human emotions. Though Wesley never suffered such a tragic loss as the death of Fred, he is at least familiar with the pain and misery of living in a world filled with disappointment, loss, and death.

In Illyria’s first appearance in the episode “Shells,” she is quick to express her views of the human experience as she examines Wesley mourning the loss of Fred: “This is grief. I’m watching human grief. It’s like offal in my mouth.” In a following comment, she declares, “Your breed is fragile.” In this early observation, Illyria quickly distinguishes herself from humans. However, by the end of the episode, Illyria learns her temple and army are destroyed, and she painfully expresses, “My world is gone.” She suffers disappointment, something she never felt as a godking. At this time of her defeat, she is really being born into this human world, and the first connection between her and Wesley occurs when he replies, “Now you know how I feel.”

Struggling through this cosmological stage, Illyria analyzes the world around her and concludes, “I’ve nowhere to go. My kingdom is long dead. There’s so much I don’t understand. I’ve become overwhelmed. I’m unsure of my place. But I exist here. I must learn to walk in this world.” Anyone who has suffered a significant loss can understand Illyria’s feelings. It is at this point that she formally asks a hesitant Wesley to be her guide. He agrees, and they both try to re-establish their place in the world. At this point, Wesley’s role also exhibits the fourth function of myth, which will be discussed below.

After acknowledging the harsh truths of reality, Illyria moves toward “[t]he second function [of mythology which] serves to present a universe within which the mystery as understood will be present, so that everywhere you look at it, as it were, a holy picture, [opens] up in back to the great mystery” (Campbell, Pathways 105). After looking at the mystery of creation, the individual begins to look at the meaning or significance of the self in this world. Illyria despises her human form, and as she examines the world around her, she feels trapped. Wesley takes her to a rooftop to offer some breathing room, though she still complains: “Your world is so small. And yet you box yourselves in rooms even smaller. You shut yourselves inside, in rooms, in routines” (“Underneath”). As Wesley tries to discuss the difficulties of existence that lie beyond the walls, Illyria begins to demonstrate the humanity she too “reeks” of, finally concluding, “We are so weak (italics mine).” Her ego is beginning to recognize that she is no longer a godking.

As Illyria continues her earthbound struggle, “The third, sociological function of mythology [which] gives you laws for living within your own society” appears (Campbell Pathways 107). This function encourages the development of a moral code. As her guide, Wesley has been trying to explain the differences between right and wrong to Illyria. When Illyria first chooses to participate in the climactic apocalyptic battle the protagonists face, her motives are not altruistic. Illyria herself explains, “I’ve been broken and humiliated. I will return in kind every blow, every sting. I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces” (“Not Fade Away”). She is still controlled by her desire to assert her power. However, when Wesley dies in battle, Illyria begins to get in touch with her humanity. She mourns for him and expresses, “I’m feeling grief for him. I can’t seem to control it.” Illyria’s response to his death demonstrates she has developed the ability to emotionally connect. She is just starting to move beyond her own desires and function within the society she has found herself in.

Illyria provides an unadulterated view of human struggles, and Wesley shows how to deal with the passage of life from birth to death, fulfilling the fourth and final psychological function of mythology. According to Campbell, “All societies are evil, sorrowful, inequitable; and so they will always be. So if you want to help this world, what you will have to teach is how to live in it. And that no one can do who has not himself learned how to live in it in the joyful sorrow and sorrowful joy of the knowledge of life as it is” (Myths to Live By 104). Once exposed to the human condition, we are all subject to the same vulnerabilities. This shared experience makes us all equal; no one is “above” the pleasures or the pain of it all. Wesley’s key role here is to teach Illyria learn to live in this world, while he manages his own suffering. It is important to note that it is not through any supernatural powers but through their choices that the characters in Angel, particularly Wesley, are defined as heroes. The greatest choice is the one to continue to face the despair in the world and to continue to fight for the world in spite of the pain. Throughout the series, and as seen in this storyline, Angel not only functions as mythology, but depicts ways to accept the pain of life. Campbell emphasizes that, “All life stinks, and you must embrace that with compassion” (Pathways 77).

Illyria makes negative comments about humanity that viewers can relate to, and one could ask why anyone would want to be human and experience all the suffering. However, it is through the pain that human life becomes magnificent. In a unique depiction of the four functions of mythology, Illyria reveals the terrifying truths of living in this world. By embracing life as the brutal force it is, being a part of it, and willing to sacrifice it honorably, Wesley depicts humanity is at its best.

Wesley, who had stated that he did not intend to die in this battle, gave his life for Angel’s worthy cause in “Not Fade Away,” the series’ finale that emphasizes the underlying theme to the series, to fight the good fight (both physically and mentally). His nobility portrays the importance of their stand against dark forces. Finally, Wesley’s sacrifice stands out because he still sought to live and fight alongside Angel despite all the recent pain he suffered. The strength of his character throughout all five seasons of Angel demonstrates a true hero and an inspiring image of humanity. Though he did not survive the final battle, one can hope that his guidance will live on through Illyria and through the viewers.

Works Cited

Campbell, Joseph. Myths to Live By. New York: Penguin, 1972.

— Pathways to Bliss. Novato: New World, 2004.

“Not Fade Away.” Writ. Joss Whedon and Jeffrey Bell. Angel. WB. 19 May 2004.

“Shells.” Writ. Stephen S. DeKnight. Angel. WB. 3 March 2004.

“Underneath.” Writ. Sarah Fain and Elizabeth Craft. Angel. WB. 14 Apr. 2004.

Mythological Studies & Depth Psychology

Posted on June 26, 2012 by mythgirl under Buffy, Grad School, Life, Mythology, Pop Culture, Psychology, Writing

As I come to the end of my second year of study at Pacifica, I have just completed a daunting task: Comprehensive Exams. For our school, these are essentially take home questions, consisting of three questions that each need a four-five page response. It doesn’t sound too challenging, but the question are large and creating succinct answers based on everything you’ve learned in the last two years is… daunting.

I am quite thrilled that I have now completed this venture. In geeky celebration, I decided to see how much I’ve written for the program during the fifteen courses I’ve completed to date. Including my comps, I’ve written a whopping 160 pages. That’s 52,674 words. So, of course, I pasted all these words into wordle to get a visualization of where I’ve concentrated my work. It’s quite clear how much I’ve written on Buffy, Angel, Joseph Campbell, and the shadow archetype. What a journey!!

Tribute to James Hillman, Pt 5

Posted on March 14, 2012 by mythgirl under Grad School, Psychology

The Tribute to James Hillman closed with a tree ceremony on the sunny afternoon of Sunday, March 4. Michael Meade again led us in song. You can hear an excerpt here. The song repeats, “Away,” as the person has departed, but concludes that they are still with us. This is the part of the weekend, as Meade had discussed on Saturday evening, where we Let Go.

We sang the song in a group as we excited the lecture hall, but fell to a silence when got outside. We walked down a sidewalk lined with prayer flags that we had written quotes and thoughts about Hillman on during Saturday’s gathering. Each of us took a small pouch of compost to place in the new tree’s site. When we all gathered there, Marshall Chrostowski, Pacifica’s land manager, explained the grove he is growing to honor Hillman.

Update: Marshall was kind enough to share with me the complete details of the pouch, that I share with you now:

NOTES ON THE HILLMAN MEMORIAL OAK CEREMONY March 4, 2012 Marshall Chrostowski

THE HILLMAN MEMORIAL OAK AND OAK GROVE

The California Coastal Live Oak was chosen to memorialize James Hillman because, in part, of his focus on the acorn as epitomizing our beginnings, our character and even our fates. The live oak also was valued by the Chumash for its acorns as food and for spiritual qualities and was known to have been managed by the Chumash to enhance production and health of the trees. The oak tree and grove planted on a low rise (Hillman’s Hillock) will one day inspire future students and visitor to reflect on these matters.

I chose this particular oak with several criteria in mind: a healthy specimen, natural youthful bushiness, a good root system not over-rooted, and sourced from the same watershed as our mature oak trees. To form the future grove, I also planted a seedling started by me from acorns collected on the Lambert Campus. Five other acorns were planted nearby as well, expressing the range of “oak-ness”, so to speak.

After the weekend ceremony we scattered/planted mixed native flower seeds and potted poppies in memory of Hillman and in memory of the Institute’s 30^th anniversary at the end of which participants sowed wild flower seeds nearby. At the same time I interred a dozen or so additional pouches left there by students and others unable to attend the Hillman Memorial.

In the future a cut-stone sitting wall will bound the Hillman Oak and an appropriate plaque will be installed. Additional landscaping with native plants and medicinal herbs are planned nearby.

The Hillman Oak Grove then is comprised of locally sourced acorns, most of which came from the Lambert Campus, and represents the ethos and vision of James Hillman, a lover of gardens.

THE POUCH

The Memorial weekend culminated in the dedication of the Hillman Oak and ceremonial planting by Steve Aisenstat and Maren Hansen, and others followed with handfuls of soil. Participants of the tree dedication placed their special pouches, now imbued and empowered with prayer and their personal energy and moisture, in a shallow trench encircling the Hillman Oak. In time the roots of the oak will join these life-affirming gifts linking to the Chumash, to the Lambert campus and to the world at large

Think of the pouch as composed of amulets, each significant to Hillman or to our relations to place and time and looking toward a future framed by the Hillman Oak Grove.

The shell, a small Pismo clam, was retrieved from the old Chumash Hi’Lo village located in the lagoon and slough now mostly filled in and occupied by the SB Airport in Goleta. The same shells are found many miles inland under live oak trees, carried there seasonally by the Chumash for their annual acorn harvest (Sept. and Oct.) The shells added calcium and lowered soil acidity and so protected oak roots from fungus. Thus, I chose the midden shell for its connection to millennia of Chumash occupation of the landscape and the ecological intelligence of Chumash practices.

To the pouch I added a few ounces of compost made at the Lambert campus from yard, farm and kitchen waste, recycled through the composting processes and representing the land and history of the Lambert site. Nearly all the living plants represented in the compost sample were introduced by Pacifica’s efforts. My intention, then, was to “inoculate” the land and spirit of Ladera with the Lambert compost’s rich microbiological and mineralogical composition.

The final component is a product called Azomite, mined in Utah from layers of volcanic ash mixed in with 70 elements deposited by hundreds of rivers emptying into the shallow inland seas as far back as 30 million years ago. To me this material represents contributions from the world of geological processes long ago and used today to re-mineralize our depleted agricultural soils.

At the event, I captured some of Marshall’s speech on video. The visual quality certainly lacks here, as I couldn’t hold a steady position and capture Marshall’s face well through the crowd, but you get to hear his wonderful explanation of this beautiful dedication.

The tree dedication was touching, and I feel adding this piece of nature to our campus is the perfect tribute to Hillman. The speech for this final ritual of the weekend was minimal as we all enjoyed the beauty of nature in silence.

Please enjoy these final images of the event.

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Tribute to James Hillman, Pt 4

Posted on March 12, 2012 by mythgirl under Grad School, Life, Mythology, Psychology

On the morning of Sunday, March 4, the Tribute to James Hillman continued as more individuals shared their memories of Hillman and the impact his works have had on their lives.

The first speaker of the day was David Miller. He was introduced with great praise by Ginette Paris.

Miller took us through a series of quotes from Hillman, as pictured above. Throughout the weekend, I heard many commenting on the density of Hillman’s texts, and more than once I heard the comment, “But you just can’t highlight every sentence!” Indeed, that’s what one feels like doing when reading Hillman. Miller’s breakdown gave us the opportunity to look at some of these great thoughts individually and to reflect on them, allowing them to speak loud and clear on their own.

Miller reflected that for Hillman, depth and soul were deeply missing from psychology and practice. He had a sense of anger, but it was on behalf of soul and soulfulness. Miller shared an old Japanese saying: The tea bowl has 2 handles; always pick it up by the other one.” He said Hillman had a knack for finding that other handle.

Miller then reflected on Hillman’s strategy, which was to introduce psyche to the underworld, view neurosis as best friends, and use the lens of the archetypal perspective. He reflected on his own time in analysis under Hillman, claiming it was “a dire psychic necessity” for him at the time.

In his final reflection, Miller noted that “everything in the dream is right. The dream wants what the psyche wants, except for the ego desires.” These dreams, of course, are important in analysis. And, in analysis, he argued that Hillman preferred the “oh shit” moment as opposed to the “aha” moment of enlightenment. When you hang your head in your hands, you’ve broken through to something.

The final set of speakers presented under the title Student & Alumni Sparks. There presentations have been made available here on the Pacifica Alumni Website. I’ll offer just a quick overview here.

Jason Butler discussed Hillman as image and emphasized the importance of things fall. Matthew Green claimed we need to individuate each moment of life and presented focused on the importance of imagining. Elizabeth Robinson emphasized archetypes, which cannot be explained but experienced. Jennifer Sandoval opened by quoting Jung: “I would rather be whole than good,” and emphasized how throwing away differs from letting go or seeing through. She emphasized that we must bear our shadow. There is “numinous beauty of a world ensouled.” Gustavo Beck discussed the importance of fears, which Hillman declared as the road to the numinous. Beck emphasized risk, love, and community.

“Words, like angels, have invisible powers over us.” James Hillman

Tribute to James Hillman, Pt 3

Posted on March 11, 2012 by mythgirl under Grad School, Life, Psychology

On the evening of Saturday, March 3, the Tribute to James Hillman had a very special guest speaker, Michael Meade.

Before his presentation began, one of my close friends told me she had seen him speak before. She explained to me how dynamic he is, but there really is no understanding it until you witness it yourself! He is a storyteller in touch with the depth of soul and the power of community. He has the power to evoke deep emotion and the ability to speak wisely without preaching. To begin with, Meade told us the evening would serve very much like a traditional funeral, which traditionally used to take place for three days (just as this event!). He said you have to Remember, Recognize, and Let Go. We had been remembering Hillman since the Friday evening reception. Now he was having us recognize the loss, and Sunday we would see the art of Letting Go.

Meade instructed that there are three ways to help souls move in the other world: tears, prayers, and song. He defined prayer as a means of thinking of something greater than ourselves (inclusive to all religions, or no religion). Then he taught us a song to sing together. It was an ancient song, and he said we couldn’t mess up the words. He explained that the song was an honor to the elder. The meaning and feeling resonated. Also, there’s something greatly powerful about having 200 people sing in unison, being led by this great man.

Here is a brief video I took with my iPhone. The visual quality isn’t great, but the audio came through nicely and hopefully it captures some of the event for you.

As Meade reflected on James Hillman, he said he could describe James in two words: Extravagant and Irreplaceable. He defined “extra-vagant” as “to wonder outside, beyond the boundaries.” And he defined “irreplaceable” as the “job of every human being.” You want “to live life so fully that everyone knows there will never be another person like you.”

Then he told us a story through song. It was the story of a sage, a tiger, and a grieving woman finding a deep strength within herself. I believe it resonated for us all. His drumming was exquisite, and the storytelling was poignant in this collective time of grief.

Meade then reflected on Senex and Puer, a topic of one of Hillman’s books, and one that came up frequently throughout the day. According to Meade, senex and puer, ending and beginning, are inside us all. Therefore, we’re living with a split inside ourselves. Until we each heal it in ourselves, it will not be healed in the collective. Giving us some direction, Meade indicated that we can respond from the heart, which, in olden days, was considered the organ of perception. The world is in catastrophe. But it’s not the end of the world. It’s only the end of the way wethink about the world, according to Meade. We need to accept our pathologies, our cracks, and our confusions.

As we prepared for a funerary ritual, Meade explained that when you are memorializing any one person, others may come to mind. That was also part of old traditions. In other words, it’s natural and okay. Really, grief for one allows for grief of all. And finally, returning to the ideas of gratitude expressed throughout the day, Meade reflected that you can only feel gratitude when you are whole.

Then Meade led the group through a ritual. The lights were dimmed. We chanted the song he had taught us. And one by one we came up to light small candles and place them on an alter in remembrance of James Hillman.

Continue to Pt 4

Tribute to James Hillman, Pt 2

Posted on March 7, 2012 by mythgirl under Grad School, Life, Mythology, Psychology

As the Gathering to Offer Tribute and Celebrate the Life and Work of James Hillman continued on Saturday, March 3, attendees were blessed with a variety of reflections from Hillman’s colleagues. Please enjoy the excerpts below.

Pacifica Graduate Institute, Ladera Campus

Dennis Slattery quoted Hillman from a presentation he gave in 2000 at UCSB: “Notice. Listen. Appreciate. Something is always speaking.” In addition to reflecting on the fun of parties at Hillman’s house, including a reluctant tap-dance performance by Hillman, Slattery focused on the soulful side of Hillman, citing a heart-felt gift Hillman once sent him. The gift was a reflection of Hillman’s listening. He truly heard his friends and colleagues when they spoke. Slattery concluded, “Listening to another human being might be the most generous gift we can give.”

Michael Sipiora placed emphases on the importance of one’s character and made a call for our society to untie the link between old age and death. Mary Watkins reflected on the welfare of society, concluding that “Self is a self among, not a soul apart.” Her call was to an awareness of dysfunction in community. Joe Coppin discussed a beautiful image of a living fence that appeared to him in a dream. In his imagining, this is something sufficient to hold ideas but not prevent them from flirting with other ideas. He concluded that dream is the natural state of the human mind. Ed Casey discussed Nietzsche’s notion “Love Your Fate” and examined how slowing down – one of Hillman’s great traits – makes sudden insight possible. In each of these reflections, the influence of Hillman shone through.

Glen Slater focused on the collective unconscious, which Hillman defined as unconsciousness of our collective history. Slater described that Hillman befriended ideas and would sit with them until they revealed their deeper characteristics. Hillman’s capacity for listening was reflected upon again and again, making clear his generosity and attention to detail in both his personal relationships and in his work. In conclusion, Slater explained that our ideas, like our complexes, often have us more than we have them. It appears Hillman had a better grip on his ideas than many of us manage. His patience with his ideas permitted him to present great depth in his books and presentations in a way that resonates for the intellect and the soul.

Robert Romanyshyn discussed places of language in the land of the soul. Quoting Keats’ notion of the world as the vale of soul-making, Romanyshyn declared that the consciousness of nature is in each of us through our collective unconscious. He directed that we can hold onto our epiphanies of words by letting them go. Important places to be are in the gap, on the bridge, at the threshold, at the edge of the abyss. He warned us that the best way to kill the soul is to bastardize logos.

Ginette Paris opened to the audience in a deeply personal way by sharing her experience at the loss of Hillman, her close friend and colleague. And in respect of her and her experience, I do not feel comfortable in restating it here. I mention it only to say that I was moved by her discussion, her openness, and her soulfulness. As she continued with her reflection, Paris indicated that during his sickness, Hillman stated, “I am dying, but I could not be more engaged in living.” Through personal experience and intimate understanding of Hillman, she powerfully depicted the vibrancy and energy he always maintained. She pointed us to the image of the tree, reminding that the soul sends roots down as much as it sends branches upward. Paris reflected further that the art of dying permits us each to have our own way. And it is through our own unique Rise and Fall that we get the variety of life, which was, according to Hillman, the “cosmic lesson of life.”

As the speakers participated in a brief roundtable discussion, Slater emphasized that our culture tends to ask for the separation of good and bad before asking if something is beautiful or ugly. He shared an antidote he had heard Hillman present. In short, if a kid drops the wrapper to his candy, the father shouldn’t talk about littering and the importance of picking up trash. Instead, he should tell the kid that if he doesn’t put the wrapper with the other wrappers, it will be lonely without its friends. Engage the imagination, the beauty, the soul!
Romanyshyn reflected again on “the connective tissue between ideas and taking time,” emphasizing that “words have roots in the suffering of the soul.”
Finally, Paris shared Hillman’s fantasy – and really love – of work. She said his image for working was a farmer. I envision honor, hard work, patience. Paris mentioned cleaning and creating.

Rumi: “It’s easier to be angry than to think.”

Continue to Pt 3

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Category Archives: Psychology

Reason and Love in “The Knight of the Cart”

Happy Birthday, Joseph Campbell

Embracing the Shadow: An Exploration of A Wizard of Earthsea

“Did I Fall Sleep?” Self-Awareness and Technology in Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse

Depth Psychology and Culture

Mythological Studies & Depth Psychology

Tribute to James Hillman, Pt 5

Tribute to James Hillman, Pt 4

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Tribute to James Hillman, Pt 3

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Tribute to James Hillman, Pt 2

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