BLOG 3 KC 4/21/17

For months and perhaps years leading up to accessing the database at the Archives for Research on Archetypal Symbolism (ARAS) at the CG Jung institute, two symbols that consistently reveal themselves to me every day are long dark hair (brown and red) and a lemniscate which is a symbol that I actually purchased a silver necklace with a lemniscate pendant. In this post I will discuss the former symbol because that is what I concerned myself with exploring at the ARAS archive. The night before arrive at ARAS, I had another customary dream of long hair but this one was very unique because I was washing it as well as braiding it; it really stayed with me and prior to this I had already selected this image to work with at ARAS (despite that a lemniscate was revealing itself to me with much more intensity than what I am typically confronted with):

I selected this image because of the hair perhaps because this is how my hair used to be before I was forced to confront a very difficult life trauma in a yellow taxi cab. After that trauma, I very rarely if ever wore my hair down ever again and for so long wore my hair up in a tightly coiled bun to the point that the tension on my scalp began to make the upper right portion of my hairline recede. I lived in the Middle East for many years while working in the UN and completing my graduate school. While living in the Levant, I would frequently visit the Persian Gulf, I readily recall some of the more observant locals’ disapproving glances and verbally scolding me in shopping centers and many other times in public for not wearing a hijab—these individuals did not know I was from a Judeo-Christian background and was not compelled to cover my hair. Throughout these years, I didn’t realize how exposure to these socio-religious aspects of new country environments was influencing me at the subconscious level, like many women who had their power taken away before me, I initially blamed myself for being too carefree, too sexy with my long hair and instinctively felt that I had brought this loss of power upon myself for not being more conservative just as the locals had projected onto me to be during all those years—without my conscious awareness, I had inadvertently bought into their narrative that my hair should be hidden away that certain aspects of my being should disappear from sight. And so the predisposition to self-annihilate certain aspects of my being was cultivated and the trauma served as the catalyst to carry this out. My hair disappeared from sight, my maintaining a healthy weight did too and my body shape as I knew it also disappeared, my social butterfly tendencies to go out with friends, network and meet new people also disappeared; there were times when I felt I had placed myself in a self-imposed figurative burqa. I selected this image because this woman reminded of me of myself before the trauma when I could wear my hair down and feel safe and free to just be me.

Another image I found in The Book of Symbols the Christian saint Mary Magdalene, cloaked in her red tresses, surrounded by the eight stories of her life (p. 347):

 I recently hennaed my hair and I put so much effort into researching and formulating the perfect ratio in an attempt to ensure that I would carefully mix the henna with enough indigo to ensure no dramatic red highlights…I was so preoccupied with avoiding any red color that I was unable to sleep well during the night that the henna dye was releasing because of my strong concern to not obtain a red hair color result. I know that I must explore these eight scenes in more detail as the number of these scenes coincide with the other symbol that presents itself to me because a lemniscate looks like the number 8 turned sideways.

Finally, Dr. Athan’s question posed to us at ARAS: was What was found here? 

I found so many images in the online ARAS database, but this is the image that immediately spoke to me when I saw it:

The caption of this image: “A young widow re-reads old letters before the bust of her deceased husband, while the faithful and cowed spaniel by her side serves to underline the picture’s theme of mourning and fidelity. Greuze imbues the emotive subject with his own peculiar blend of sentimentality and theatricality. 'The Inconsolable Widow' was painted before 1763, and listed with 'The Broken Mirror' (Greuze P454) in the Salon catalogue of that year, but not exhibited.”

I felt such a cathartic, special feeing, an emotional reaction and cleansing tears appeared upon viewing this image, and a sense of sisterhood, a comforting knowing feeling that this image represented for me that I was not alone and that other women across history had this shared universal experience, that I was not the first, and will not be the last to experience what this image depicts.

Interestingly, I was surprised about the healing that began to emerge from this image for me once I realized that a male actually painted this image; because many times I feel that our male counterparts are so far removed from experiences that a woman can encounter because how do you know what you don’t know if you don’t know it? How could a man truly understand the depth of a woman’s emotions? But this artist captured it somehow and in some way he really did and this image helped me to begin taking my first steps toward humanizing my male counterparts.

My partner of five years broke up with me earlier this year on our five-year anniversary when I asked that we both get engaged together in preparation of marriage after I graduate in May 2018. He broke up with me a week before Valentine’s Day, in the hardest semester of my academic life; this is a semester when I was to submit my dissertation proposal, conduct data collection for my dissertation, present at an international conference and facilitate a 90 minute session, as well as complete my doctoral certification examination. Although we were never married and I am not a widow, yet this image still spoke to me because I felt as if the man I had developed a fantasy bond with died when he broke up with me and I was left alone in mourning with his letters, my feeling of nakedness and vulnerability in life, and my long hair down at home in solitude where I feel safe to just be me and free.

The Mothergod who never withdraws

‘In solitude our deepest intuitions of an indwelling personal God Spirit are confirmed, the Mothergod who never withdraws from us whose presence is our existence and the life of all that is.  Her Unveiled glory is too great for us to behold; she hides her face. But we find her face in reflection, in sacred guises, mediated through the natural, elemental symbols. It is the response to them that matters, the desire to receive with animation those messages carried through our nervous senses and the will to focus their energy and transform it into worship.’

Meinrad Craighead, ‘Immanent Mother’

K.C.