Stolen from ABBA! 😉😅
As I must run immediately to the first ballet performance of my almost five-year-old granddaughter, Mila, I only share my second post, a part of one of my favourite ballets of all time. I hope you enjoy it.🤗
Here is the complete version if you like to watch it!🥰🤗
“Without the true masculine spirit and true feminine love within, no inner life exists. To be free is to break the stone images and allow life and love to flow… ~Marion Woodman; taken from a beautiful poem by a brilliant poet, rhymester, and valuable friend of mine: Deborah Gregory.
I have resumed an (other) old series of my posts that I believe has become increasingly relevant in light of a recent webinar on X (formerly Twitter), where Iranian participants discussed the challenges faced by individuals of different genders and sexualities (LGBT+) in Iran. However, I refrained from discussing Dr. Jung’s theories on Anima and Animus, as I knew they were unfamiliar with this topic. During meetings, I don’t speak much due to my taciturn nature. Instead, I act as a microphone for my friend who lives in Iran and cannot clearly talk in the meetings.
In this particular webinar about gender, I noticed how important it is to know about the Jungian ideas about our species and the terms Anima and Animus in all of us, whether masculine or feminine.
Marion Woodman says:
“The word’ feminine,’ as I understand it, has very little to do with gender, nor is woman the custodian of femininity. Both men and women are searching for their pregnant virgin. She is the part of us who is outcast, the part who comes to consciousness through going into darkness, mining our leaden darkness, until we bring her silver out.”
Yes! Such terms are too early for a nation which is still under pressure from the masculine’s religious domain. I was surprised to hear discussions about such issues in a country still heavily influenced by traditional religious beliefs. That became possible because of the efforts of Shadi Amin, an LGBT+ activist at 6rang.org.💖🙏
To notice it is a big problem even in the West: I know many men here in Germany, where I live, who make jokes about the subject, and gay is a swear word for them! Of course, freedom, which is common in the West, can’t mean that the people have understood it profoundly. It can be difficult to grasp the concept fully, even though I have noticed numerous misconceptions in the Jungian groups on Facebook, and I see how many falsehoods have lost their way there!
In this scenario, it is crucial to maintain an open mindset and not be limited by fundamental rules and principles. I am not suggesting that one must always be “modern,” but rather that we should exercise our imagination. We should put aside our fears and dive into the world of fantasy.
After death, it is unimaginable that there would be feminine or masculine ghosts, for souls do not have a gender.
I’d like to share another explanation from Jung on this topic. As humans, we are filled with fears, anxieties, desires, and aspirations. Jung says in on this:
But there is something to be said about the fear of the other side that is peculiar to us Westerners. This fear is not entirely unjustified, not to mention the fact that it is real. We readily understand the child’s and the primitive’s fear of the vast, unknown world. We have the same fear in our childlike inner side, where we also touch a vast, unknown world…
The fear is now justified insofar as the rational worldview (Weltanschauung) with its much-believed (because doubtful) scientific and moral certainties is being shaken by the data from the other side.
There are truths that will only be true the day after tomorrow, those that were true yesterday, and those that will not be true at any time.
However, we can open many doors once we learn to embrace our inner selves and overcome the fear of the unknown. After reaching milestones one, two, three, and four, the next milestone could be number five – Last but not least!
>”But I could imagine that someone would use such a technique out of a kind of holy curiosity, a boy perhaps who doesn’t want to put on wings because his feet are lame but because he longs for the sun. An adult, however, for whom too many illusions have been shattered, will probably only be forced to submit to this inner humiliation and abandonment and will once again endure the child’s fears. It is no small matter to stand between a day world of shattered ideals and unbelievable values and a night world of seemingly senseless fantasy. In fact, the uncanny aspect of this point of view is so significant that there is probably no one who would not reach for certainty, even if it were a “reach backwards” – for example, the mother who protected his (the son’s) childhood from night terrors. Those who are afraid need a dependency, like the weak, need support. That is why even the primitive spirit created the religious doctrine, embodied in magicians and priests, out of the most profound psychological necessity. “Extra ecclesiam nulla Salus” (“Outside the Church, there is no salvation”) – is still a valid truth today – for those who can drawback on it. For the few who cannot, there is only dependence on someone – a humbler and prouder dependency, weaker and more robust support than any, It seems to me. What shall one say of the Protestant? He has neither church nor priest; he only has God – but even God becomes doubtful.”<
>”The reader will probably ask himself in astonishment, but what does the anima produce that one needs such reassurances to deal with her? I would commend my reader for studying a comparative history of religions so that he feels the accounts dead to us with the emotional life felt by those who lived those religions. This will give him an idea of what lives on the other side. The old religions, with their sublime and ridiculous, benevolent and cruel symbols, did not arise out of thin air but out of this human soul as it lives in us now. All those things, their archetypes, live in us and can break out at any time with devastating force, namely in the form of mass suggestion, against which the individual is defenceless. Our terrible gods have only changed their name; they now rhyme with “ism”. Or does anyone have the voice to say that the World War or Bolshevism was an ingenious invention? Just as we live outwardly in a world where something similar can arise at any time, albeit only in the form of an idea, but no less dangerous and unreliable. Non-adjustment to this inner world is an omission just as fatal as ignorance and incompetence in the outer world. It is also only a tiny fraction of humanity, living chiefly on that densely populated peninsula of Asia projecting towards the Atlantic Ocean, who call themselves ‘the educated’, who, through a defective contact with nature, have conceived the idea that religion is a kind of peculiar mental disorder of inexplicable purpose. Seen from a safe distance, somewhat from Central Africa or Tibet, it appears as if this fraction had projected an unconscious “mental derangement” onto the still instinctively healthy peoples.”<
Thank you for your visit. 🙏💖🤗
The image on top: Michael Cheval
You would be seventy-one today, although you are above all these countings of this tiny earth moving the orbit around the sun when you are high up there looking down.
Even though this photo above was taken on your 40th birthday, it shouldn’t matter to you who flies up there and is not into celebrating birthdays. However, as your beloved psychologist, Dr Carl Jung, mentioned, that was the beginning of your life; though short, I am sure enough that you have just done your research.💖
We had a lot of fun that night with this party for two. We walked into the city, hopped into a pub, drank some beers, and met a talkative Iranian whose nonsense talk made our evening delightful!
Anyway, let me take this opportunity to celebrate your (wel)coming on this orbit as I am forced to count these rotations so long I live the life here on the surface. We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun…
I’d like to add a part of a poem by an excellent poet and friend, Holly (House of Heart), because I somehow found a connection between them. I hope she doesn’t mind! (Of course, the whole poem is to read here: Departure. 🙏💖
I’ve etched your voice in my memory, not to forget the sound of flight, birds battered by the wind. Still In dreams you orbit above me, a hint of blue at dawn that I may sleep free of shadow.
I’ve pared us down to dark and light, forgotten all I know of love and when I speak my words catch like rose petals tied with silk, crushed beneath a breath.
Our relationship was something unique. I mean for us both, and I am so happy to have this privilege.
I’ll hold your thoughts and teaching tightly as they remain in my mind. Keep an eye on me! 🙏💖🤘
In memory of the time of our imagination and research!🦋🌈🌱🌿
Ancient Egyptian culture recognizes Nephthys, also known as Nebet-Het, as a powerful goddess. She belonged to the Great Ennead of Heliopolis from Egyptian mythology. The myths recognize Nephthys as the daughter of the god Geb and goddess Nut. Mythology pairs the goddess herself with Isis, her sister, in funerary rites.
Honestly, I didn’t know much about Isis’s sister. It is always fascinating to learn more about this magical ancient Egypt. With forever thanks to Marie Grillot for her brilliant article about this piece of jewelry.
via: égyptophile
“Isis and Nephthys, the divine mourners, appear many times in tombs in the form of wooden statuettes”, indicates Marcelle Werbrouck in her magnificent work on “The Mourners”. This representation of Nephthys, with a height of 24.5 cm, is actually made of wood, covered with painted gesso. It is from the Ptolemaic period: this dating covers three centuries, from 332 to 30 BC. AD
The goddess kneels on a thick, rectangular base, ideally suited to her size and position. What she wears on her head, represented quite schematically, allows her to be identified. These are the two hieroglyphic signs enabling one to write her name: the ideogram castle (hout) surmounted by the basket (neb).
“The Lady of the Castle is the sister of Osiris, Isis and Seth, and the latter’s wife. During the fight between the two brothers, she was nevertheless the ally of the martyr god and helped Isis to reconstitute his corpse. Anubis is sometimes considered the adulterous son that Osiris would have given him. She appears with her sister near the divine remains, mourning and watching over her…” specifies Isabelle Franco in her “Dictionary of Egyptian Mythology”. Thus, Isis and Nephthys are frequently represented in the funerary context in their specific gestures, such as mourning, weeping, protective goddesses, and participating in the deceased’s rebirth. They are often associated with Neith and Selqet.
Nephthys wears a black tripartite wig covering most of her forehead but exposing her ears. Her large black eyes, stretched with a thin line of makeup, are topped with slightly arched eyebrows, which match them perfectly. The nose and mouth are briefly represented.
Around her neck hangs an ousekh necklace, the rows and pattern drawn in black. She wears wrist bracelets, armillas (on the humerus) and periscelides (on the ankle), all materialized by black horizontal and vertical lines. Under her bare chest, her green dress is held together by a belt or border, also painted black. The visible areas of the flesh are light yellow in colour.
Her left arm is placed flat on her left thigh while her right is raised in front of her face. The hands are made “in one piece”, and the fingers are defined delimited by black lines. The palm of her right hand is turned towards her; it is a ritual gesture of mourning, one of the postures of mourners.
Although frozen in silence, this representation lets the lamentations resonate, and the sadness spread… The divine sisters embody the mourner’s par excellence; thus specifies Marcelle Werbrouck, “Isis is the ‘great mourner’, Nephthys the ‘little mourner’. They are also sometimes called the two complainers”.
Near Isis, Nephthys occupies a place as discreet as it is significant. “Always alongside, if not in its shadow, she participates in the rites ensuring the rebirth and protection of the dead god, a use to which an untranslatable epithet – Kheresket” relates, sensitively analyzes Jean-Pierre Corteggiani. He also specifies that: “The discovery of the remains of a temple from the Roman era, at Kômir, not far from Esna, showed that Nephthys could be venerated for herself: a hymn dating from Antoninus the Pious, engraved on the base of the rear wall of this monument which she shares with Anouqis, assimilates her to most of the great goddesses of the pantheon”…
This statue of Nephthys entered the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1912, under number 12.182.23a, and that of her “inseparable” sister Isis, under number 12.182.23b. “They were probably placed at each end of the sarcophagus of the deceased as they appear at each end of the body of Osiris”, specifies the Museum.
They were acquired from Mohammed Mohassib, a well-known antique dealer in Louqsor Square at the time. In his youth, he had been a “donkey boy” in the service of Lady Duff Gordon, who, according to “Who was Who in Egyptology”, had taught him English. After being a seller of antiques “on the run”, he was able, at the beginning of the 1880s, to “settle down” and open a store. The antiques trade was then unregulated and enjoyed a good reputation. Thus, a significant number of artefacts from the Theban region passed through his hands…
Sources:
Mourning Nephthys https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/551501
Marcelle Werbrouck, Marcelle Baud, The mourners in ancient Egypt, Editions of the Queen Elisabeth Egyptological Foundation, Brussels, 1938
Youri Volokhine, Ritual sadness and funeral lamentations in ancient Egypt, Ritual expressions of sadness and weeping in ancient Egyptian mourning, Revue de l’Histoire des Religions, Armand Colin, OpenEdition Journals, 2008 https://doi.org/10.4000/rhr.6043
Isabelle Franco, Dictionary of Egyptian mythology, Pygmalion 1999
Jean-Pierre Corteggiani, Ancient Egypt and its gods, Fayard, 2007
Morris L. Bierbrier, Who Was Who in Egyptology, London, Egypt Exploration Society, 2012
Mourning Isis https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/566487
Publié il y a 28th October par Marie Grillot
Libellés: 12.182.23a Mohammed Mohassib 332 à 30 av. J.-C. deuillante Isis Metropolitan Museum of Art de New York Nephthys pleureuse période ptolémaïque
So, my dear friends. Let me end my second post with a short but wise anecdote before I drown again in the ocean of my big and small tasks.
There is an old Japanese tale that recounts the story of a samurai who was known for his warlike nature. One day, the samurai challenged a Zen master to explain the meaning of heaven and hell.
The monk replied with disdain, “You are nobody but a mere mortal. I cannot waste my time with someone like you.”
With his ego hurt, the samurai angrily drew his sword, screaming, “I could kill you for your insolence!”
“This,” said the monk calmly, “is hell.”
Startled, realizing how true the teacher was telling him about the rage that had taken over him, the samurai calmed down, sheathed the sword, and bowed, thanking the monk for his profound knowledge.
“And this,” said the monk, “is heaven”…
Source: Lectures
Painting at the top: Gyuri Lohmuller
Thank you, everybody, for being here! 🙏🤘💖
I have already written two sections about this topic, p1/p2, and I was unsure if I would write another part. It seems like I have to emphasize the importance of children in our lives. They are not only one of the most vital aspects but also one of the most vulnerable groups, especially during the ongoing wars that are devastating so many parts of the world. We must be mindful of the traumatic experiences that children face during these conflicts, which can affect them psychologically for a long time.
I don’t know whether Dr Jung would try to work on this dilemma again or forego it entirely! What humans do to their children is indescribable.
Photo by UNICEF
“If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could be better changed in ourselves. “Children are educated by what the grown-up is and not by his talk.” Carl Jung, ‘On the Becoming of Personality’ (1932)
It tears my heart apart when I see these children suffer by doing the foolishness of the grown-ups, no matter from which side of any conflict. As a child, they will never know why, and that stays in their soul forever: trauma!
Anyway, let’s try to keep learning from Dr Jung, who understood children well and believed that intuition is a gift that exists from childhood and is essential.
Jung was fascinated by intuition as an exceptional gift or function in the traditional sense. This was evident in his 1896-1899 Zofingia Lectures and 1902 On the Psychology and Pathology of So-called Occult Phenomena: A Psychiatric Study. As seen in his Red Book, a significant shift occurred in 1913 when he began using esotericist intuitions for psychological purposes. His personal and private use of intuition, which was remarkable, led Jung to place intuition at the core of his psychology. It became a necessary intuitive form of empathy in his practice and, as we will see, at the heart of his theory. In 1921, Jung wrote Psychological Types, where intuition became one of the four fundamental functions and types of the psyche, alongside thinking, feeling, and sensation. In doing so, Jung proved to the world that intuition was no longer a psychologist’s hobby for table-turning but the most significant function of the psyche.
As Christmas approaches, we begin the period of anticipation for the birth of the Christ child, a symbolic representation of the birth into divinity. Despite our beliefs or disbelief, we may try our best to save the child’s soul from the pain and trauma it may encounter.
Thank you for reading.🙏💖
You look so thoughtful. What is the matter? My wife asked.
Nothing worriedly, I just think to manage my weekend post on WP. I replied.
What do you mean? She went on . We want to ride up to Bremen visiting friends, have you forgotten?
Oh yes! I think I am so far, somehow! We had planned last week to drive up to visit friends this weekend, and I forgot!! So, I just send you love and my best wishes. 🤗🙏💖🌹
Art: Carl Fredricksen
Definition: A twin flame is an intense soul connection with someone thought to be a person’s other half, also called a “mirror soul.” It’s based on the idea that one soul gets split into two bodies from creation.
Souls, in my belief, are not defined by gender. Therefore, the concept of soulmates or twins is not restricted to masculine or feminine traits, per our earthly understanding (I think we must cast our minds wider than the limit on this Earth!). It involves a pairing between two souls irrespective of their gender. Although some poor souls have lost their mates, I have encountered a few pairs who have found their soulmates and now live together happily, albeit rarely.
Honestly, I’ve never felt the absence of a soulmate or a twin in my life. I lived with my brother, Al, for about 50 years, and I would say that he was my soulmate. Now, with my wife, who I have been in a relationship with for over 35 years, she could be my twin’s soul. Who knows for sure?
According to the esoteric religious movement Theosophy, whose claims were modified by Edgar Cayce, God created androgynous souls—equally male and female. Later theories postulate that the souls split into separate genders, perhaps because they incurred karma while playing around on the Earth, or “separation from God.” Over several reincarnations, each half seeks the other. The two will fuse and return to the ultimate when all karmic debt is purged.
In tarot card meaning, the concept of a soulmate is loosely implied to be a person with whom your soul is tied by consensual intercourse. Since in divination, it is believed that two persons acquire a shared fate once they have sex, it becomes possible for someone to have various ‘soulmates’ (even simultaneously) as read in a tarot card spread. Wikipedia
I highly recommend a book on this topic called “The Soul’s Twins” by Jean Benedict Raffa: https://jeanbenedictraffa.com/. It provides a comprehensive study of our souls, and I have learned much about my own soul through it. I even gained a deeper understanding of my wife’s soul!
My other tip is the poems of an excellent poet, lyricist and versifier, Deborah Gregory, http://www.theliberatedsheep.com/, who knows vastly about this subject.
And another puzzle is the real-born twins who mostly can’t stand each other!
Twin flames are driven towards and away from each other due to intense vibrational energies at a spiritual level.
Their fierce connection is a result of soul separation.
Before their birth, they were two pieces of the same soul.
They were sequestered, and it caused them to create bipolarity.
That’s why when they meet again in their material forms in this life,
they find it excruciatingly hard to control and contain.
They feel they will explode into smithereens if they stay in each other’s presence longer.
That is the reason why twin-flame relationships almost always end badly. …………… twin flame connection.
Hathor was the incarnation of dance and sexuality and was given the epithet “Hand of God” (referring to the act of masturbation) and “Lady of the Vulva”. One myth tells that Ra had become so despondent that he refused to speak to anyone. Hathor (who never suffered depression or doubt) danced before him, exposing her private parts, which caused him to laugh out loud and return to good spirits.
As the “lady of the west” and the “lady of the southern sycamore”, she protected and assisted the dead on their final journey. Trees were not commonplace in ancient Egypt, and their shade was welcomed by the living and the dead alike. She was sometimes depicted as handing out water to the deceased from a sycamore tree (a role formerly associated with Amentet, who was often described as the daughter of Hathor), and according to myth, she (or Isis) used the milk from the Sycamore tree to restore sight to Horus who Set had blinded. Because of her role in helping the dead, she often appears on sarcophagi with Nut (the former on top of the lid, the latter under the lid). AncientEgyptOnline
Once again, I take the opportunity to express my friendship with the brilliant Marie Grillot by sharing one of her excellent articles about discovering the magical ostracon image of the Goddess Hathor.
This “figured” ostracon comes from the necropolis of the current village of Deir el-Medineh. In ancient times, this place was called the “Place of Truth” and housed the artisans who worked on the digging and decoration of the eternal residences of the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens. “The village was a royal institution,” and community members lived there and could be buried there. This is how numerous tombs were discovered in two distinct cemeteries (east and west).
During the excavations of 1923-1924, carried out in the necropolis by Bernard Bruyère, this ostracon was discovered. It was located in TT No. 330, the tomb of Karo, who was a servant of the Place of Truth during the 19th Dynasty.
Before decorating the tombs, the artisan painters – the word artist was apparently not used then – initially practised on shards of limestone or terracotta. These graphic supports – which served as a sort of “rough draft” or preparatory sketch before working “in situ” – are called “ostraca” (singular = ostracon).
This one, 13 cm high and almost 11 cm wide, is covered with a layer of ocher-yellow colour. In its lower part, in the centre, there is an open lotus flower. Very slightly above it, occupying most of the surface, the head of the goddess Hathor flourishes.
While her face usually has round cheeks, here it is clearly triangular, almost stylised, treated in white, while the mouth and nose are sketched in light red lines. The large black eyes are stretched and rise towards the temples; the eyebrows, also black, carefully follow the same curve.
The dark blue hair is covered with a few black lines, signifying the texture of the strands of hair. It is separated in the middle, then passes behind the cow’s ears before very closely following the shape of the face. The hair parts at the neck move outwards before ending in a large curl.
Her head is surmounted by a “kind of abacus”, elegant in shape, treated in shades of red-ochre outlined in black. Above is inscribed a beautiful line of hieroglyphs, spaced and traced in black, the translation of which is “Hathor who reigns over the sky of Thebes”.
Her neck is adorned with a large, colourful “ousekh” type collar, which seems to be made up of black and ocher-red rows.
In the lower-left corner, a man is depicted. While his feet are at the level of the lotus flower, his head barely reaches the level of the hathoric ears. He is in a walking attitude; his body is simply covered in a short loincloth. His black hair reaches above his shoulders. His eye, very stretched, is also black.
Bernard Bruyère and Charles Kuentz consider that: “this tableau would be an ex-voto to the goddess Hathor whose cult in the New Kingdom was very popular in the Theban region”.
Hathor has two faces: the Goddess of love and fertility and the Goddess of the world of the dead. As mistress of the western peak: “she then receives the deceased, who has become her child, into the mystical lap of the tomb-mountain. She helps him to be reborn as, as Isis-Hathor, she watched over Horus in the papyrus swamp of Khemmis.”
We sometimes find her represented (TT13, TT278…) in the scenes of Theban tombs: in her form of a cow, adorned with the menat collar, she emerges “from a thicket of papyrus at the foot of the western mountain of Thebes, looking into the direction of the rising sun. Its papyrus residence in the swamps symbolises the place where the germ of the deceased is reformed.
During the sharing of the excavations carried out in 1927, this ostracon returned to France: it entered the Louvre Museum under the inventory number E 12966.
Source:
The face of the goddess Hathor emerging from a lotus flower http://cartelfr.louvre.fr/cartelfr/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=24103&langue=fr Stone notebooks, Anne Minault-Gout, Hazan
A century of French excavations in Egypt, 1880-1980, Ifao, Louvre museum
The artists of Pharaoh, RMM, 2002 http://www.ifao.egnet.net/bases/archives/ostraca/ostracafigures
After a gloomy post, let’s enjoy something which proves that humans can also set up something beautiful. We must focus on the bright side of life to thrive and replenish our energy.
My actual plan was to write about my latest trip to Samos, Greece, but I found this “Third Look” in my draft. Therefore, I thought it better to finish this before I stumbled onto the other journey.
First, let’s have a look around the city;
We have also, traditionally, visited some cathedrals or churches, and there’s the famous Norman Palace, a massive complex of many buildings, and we have one of these with many floors. I took some help from Wikipedia to explain the place and completed it with some pictures of mine.😉
The Palazzo dei Normanni (Norman Palace) is called the Royal Palace of Palermo. It was the seat of the Kings of Sicily with the Hauteville dynasty and served afterwards as the main seat of power for the subsequent rulers of Sicily. Since 1946, it has been the seat of the Sicilian Regional Assembly. The building is the oldest royal residence in Europe and was the private residence of the rulers of the Kingdom of Sicily and the imperial seat of Frederick II and Conrad IV. Wikipedia
Some more?!
Alright, I believe that’s enough for this. Although I may resemble the character of Mr. Ernst from Oscar Wilde’s play, I possess a wild and adventurous side that sets me apart!😁🤓 I hope you have a peaceful weekend.🙏🤗💖
lampmagician 
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