The Spiritual Social

Tag: life

  • The Better Angels of Our Nature

    Meeting a fallen angel in the Pale Clearing in the 2026 game “Welcome to Elderfield” by Chris Cote

    reconnecting to the source-ground of our feeling responses means reconnecting to the inner soul-child who has been cut off in a ‘psychic retreat’ and this constitutes an ensouling of the personality (…) in working through early trauma and its archetypal defenses we are in effect slowly freeing the – powers of the collective unconscious from the dark “fallen” roles as dismembering demons to play their larger life-enhancing role as the integrative life-restoring ‘better angels of our nature’” – p. 124, Kalsched, 2013

    I read last week Donald Kalsched’s second important book on trauma aptly titled “Trauma and the Soul: A psycho-spiritual approach to human development and its interruption” (2013), and like his first book it left a mark on me and I am now feeling slightly haunted by some of its content. This second book feels more dialectic than Kalsched’s previous work “The Inner World of Trauma” (1996) which I read back in April of this year during a difficult Easter in which I relapsed into depression, saved only by painting and retreating into Kalsched’s book. I think this second book expands on his core thesis that trauma generates a system of self-care which keeps us alive even during difficult life circumstances.

    Kalsched takes that notion and expands on it, showing how that very system can often backfire in keeping a traumatized person away from connecting to the world and other people. In this way, what seems like a protection mechanism can easily turn into a personal hell riddled with demons and monsters, further pushing the individual away from real living and connections. As such, the Inner Protector becomes the Inner Persecutor, keeping its willing ‘victim’ away from real love, intimacy and the comfort of human connections, but also keeping the pain, mistrust, lies and betrayal which normally exist in human relationships, safely away from the wounded person.

    The seductive dream world offers its inhabitant a uni-dimensional experience of life and it can be imagined as whispering: “I’ll keep you safe as long as you don’t connect to someone real and actually begin to live life again”. If the power dynamic is reversed, and through therapy the willing victim begins to recover and take control of their life, and healing is proceeding full-steam ahead, that’s when the self-care system can turn ‘evil’ and begin to trap the traumatized person into cycles of pain and self-sabotage.

    No one but Kalsched warned me about the powerful ‘latch on’ effect that the so-called cozy dream world has on the psyche, and how what can begin as a powerfully protective and safe inner paradise can suddenly turn dark and foreboding at the slightest hint of recovery and freedom. In relation to this system that wants to keep you all for itself, this song by the National popped up in my mind as I was writing these words:

    I liked how throughout the book, Kalsched contrasted his Jungian approach to trauma with Dante Alighieri’s “Inferno” (the first book in his Divine Comedy trilogy, and one which I randomly purchased when I was about 15 years old) and also with Antoine de Saint Exupery’s “The Little Prince”. I’m more of a fan of Dante’s than St Exupery’s work, because for whatever reason I just couldn’t resonate as a child with the story of a prince on the moon taking care of his rose…it felt embarrassing to my little girl’s mind, and it still does to this day. Nonetheless, Kalsched links the Devil in the final circle of Hell, described by Dante as Dis (the roman God of the underworld, also known as Pluto) with the mechanism that lies of the root of all trauma and that is dissociation. To bring things into perspective he also sees the little prince as a symbol of the lost innocence of a person’s soul which happens as a consequence of trauma in the process of dissociation.

    Trauma and especially relationship trauma can “scare” the soul away from the body, and through strategies of staying somehow alive, such as dissociation, life continues on, but with the loss of the soul of the wounded individual. Traumatized people are “weird” because they no longer live in reality, they cannot bear the pain and suffering of relating as their soul escaped into a different world, one in which angels can become demons. He analyses this world by comparing it to Dante’s Inferno, and explores the Little Prince as an attempt of the human soul to regain its lost innocence before the trauma happened, to keep a vital spark that made life worth living.

    For many traumatized people, the pain they experienced in reality becomes in their inner world, the image of an internal Persecutor/Protector, a jailer who offers them safety in exchange for a solitary existence. Initially, this system of self-care appears in the form of angels and protective ancestral influences, benevolent beings who keep a person alive and grants them some sort of meaning, solid enough to keep them living against the odds. But through repeated attempts to relate to others in reality and then being disappointed (and in some cases re-traumatized by others) a traumatized person’s system of self-care can gradually change shape and turn from an inner paradise into a living hell, populated with curses, monsters, punishments and pain. Sometimes this becomes the Devouring Anima for men & the Sadistic Animus for women, and often this is expressed on the outside, in the real world as acts of self-sabotage and mental health symptoms. The patient begins to wrestle with the angel.

    Coming back to the larger perspective of Kalsched’s beautiful book I was really fascinated by the fact that he adopts a “psycho-spiritual approach”, which I am all about! Partly this may be the reason why I resonate so much with his writings. There is also an astrological reason why I am so drawn and uplifted by his work and that is because we are compatible signs, as I’m a Pisces Sun and Donald is a Capricorn Sun, so Water meets Earth in harmony, and on top of this his Sun touches upon my natal Neptune in Capricorn in the 3rd house. His work (the Sun) literally brings a spiritual approach (Neptune) to the working of my mind (3rd house).

    An image generated with Gemini of the planet Neptune and the sign of Capricorn

    I especially enjoyed his discussion of the two realms of existence: the real, material world and the spiritual, imaginary world in which people sometimes (and trauma survivors, often) escape into. Donald Kalsched believes a well-lived and healthy life is experienced in the middle part, on the bridge between these two worlds, where our bodies can become en-souled & feel alive enough to extract meaning from the spiritual and make things tangible in the practical. He offers the autobiography of Jung as an example of such a bridged life, where the analyst had to contain many times opposing forces within himself in order to expand his consciousness and reach “aha” moments of mental relief.

    Kalsched underlines that only by accepting human suffering can the soul of the traumatized person come back to the body, and make it feel alive again. In this process, the role of the therapist (linked in the book to the image of the poet Virgil who accompanies Dante on his journey through hell, limbo and heaven) bears a great responsibility. A receptive therapist may be in certain circumstances the last good link to reality or stable anchor that a traumatized patient may have with the real world. A therapist begins to assist the patient in this struggle with the angel, to experience the beauty of the liminal space again and not to escape into the imaginary world, or remain strictly in material reality. As Kalsched clarifies:

    “(…) it is a relationship that heals the trauma. But not just any relationship. The kind of relationship that makes a difference is the kind of transformative relationship actualized in the best contemporary psychotherapy (…). Such a relationship will have one eye open, looking outward and one eye closed, looking inward. Such a relationship will re-open both intersubjective & mytho-poetic space. It will “awaken the dreamer” in the patient. – p. 20,

    And also:

    there is a simple acceptance of the human condition, made possible by the previous long journey with a witnessing partner” – p. 125, Kalsched, 2013

    While I was reading Kalsched’s book in the evening, I was also playing games in the morning (I like to face the day with a strong cup of coffee and some minutes of gaming to wake up my brain). And lately I can’t get enough of the Eldritch-inspired horror farming game Welcome to Elderfield created by Chris Cote and released on Steam at the beginning of this month. In the game, among many horrible things that your character has to go through and fight, there is one that stood out to me, probably because it stimulated my unconscious concerns. There is a fallen angel that you come across at some point in the creepy Old Woods. This Angel resides in the Pale Clearing, a mystical, white, puffy place that sits in sharp contract to the jagged, rough, cumbersome decor of the rest of the frightening woods. Even the amazing soundtrack of the game disintegrates and loops ominously when you meet the fallen angel. You talk to the creature and it tells you that it once had a soul (it felt alive) but due to having fallen (the traumatic event) it remained isolated (hasn’t seen a living soul in ages) and is now hungry (blocked psychic energy that needs to be expressed).

    Screen-capture from the game Welcome to Elderfield

    The Angel is ravenous and the only thing that may satiate its hunger is a living soul, either yours or the unfortunate one you may trap in one of your adventures. So, I caught such a living soul as a loot drop after I destroyed a Chest Mimic, and offered it to the angel to see what happens. Will my offer redeem the fallen creature? Well no, I was naive. The Angel devoured the soul in nano-seconds, accompanied by a very graphic description of the act. But then again, I am playing a horror game, so shit like this was naturally going to happen. What was I thinking? 🙂

    In the Bible, we are told that fallen angels are demons even if they present themselves by their names before the fall, they become as such mirages of evil. However, Tammy Montgomery in her book “The Angel in Annunciation and Synchronicity:Knowledge and Belief in Carl Jung” believes that the dark, fallen or somber angel can have curative properties at the same time as it delivers scary messages, as she explains:

    The presence of the somber angel, then, does not signify the presence of evil. Instead, it signals the conveyance of sobering information or insight into what once lay hidden (…) the process by which these dark contents come to light is often dreadful, painful, and inescapable. – p, 103, Montgomery, 2013

    So, the fallen angel can be seen as an aspect of the Shadow energy at work in my life, and this is what this moment in the game left such a strong impression on me. And hoards of fallen angels or a general interest in demons and demonology could be indicative of the Shadow aspect of our collective unconscious, asking for some sort of light and interpretative redemption, like the ‘fallen angels’ in our celebrity worship.

    Reading Kalsched’s text in parallel with playing this game jumpstarted my brain and something became illuminated. Trying to understand how the self-care system ‘s personal protection mechanism of keeping a victim trapped inside of themselves in a world filled with so-called angels, helped me see how emotionally attached I too had been in the past with this sugary, stereotypical understanding of divinity as purely “love and light”. In reality, the true presence of God exists in every rushed decision, act of self-sabotage or hellish day. As the zen master Thich Nhat Hanh said at some point ‘no mud, no lotus’. So beware the presence of paradise for it could contain more evil than obvious evil could actually engender.

    This is why I believe women are so drawn in our current landscape to romance-fantasy books in which they make love to monsters. Because a monster can show you who he really is from the beginning, while an evil prince charming first has to deceive you and then destroy you. And it is the deception that amplifies the trauma. But more on this in another post…

    I’m told by a quick Google search that the phrase “the better angels of our nature” was coined by Abraham Lincoln desperately trying to avoid a civil war and it was a call to solidarity and compassion during a period of division (The Dis in Dante’s Hell running amok in the nascent American collective unconscious). For Jung the main problem of the 20th century was the problem of the human soul, and the continuous pressure it has to withstand to remain whole and not be broken into two sides: the deeply materialistic one or the completely spiritual one. He believed mental health lies in the liminal space between the two, on the psychic bridge which would lead a person to moments of tension followed by moments of growth and then consciousness expansion.

    Jung had Saturn in Aquarius and because he was a visionary he could pre-empt the movements of the psyche under the guidance of the planet Uranus, the very same movements which are transforming society during this decade and the next under Pluto’s transit through innovative Aquarius.

    I was struck after finishing Kalsched’s book on the story of how the soul can be lost due to trauma by sinking into the depths of a profound depression or it can be invaded by anxiety, two very common mental health concerns during a time in which we have collectively lost our faith in a Higher Power. I don’t think there’s a coincidence that as God is no longer worshipped, individual psychic content is emerging as sheer madness out on the streets and on social media. My teacher, Mihaela Minulescu discusses how the human psyche has a symbolising function and a dia-bolising function: the first one helps brings thing into union, into a cohesive whole, while the latter severs, cuts, separates. It is the psychic equivalent of “the devil” within us all. The one who comes out when we choose to struggle with the angel, as we lose hope in life, ourselves and other people.

    But the unconscious is always concerned with our adaptation to the social world around us and it will continue to send us dreams, moods, symptoms, synchronicities and will pull us into people who can help us in our healing journey. The important thing is that we stay open to it all, so that life can work through us rather than leave us. Communicating and checking in with one’s soul is as vital as brushing teeth, and can be part of the everyday hygiene of life. By having this constant inner dialogue with our spiritual nature then maybe we can bring some magic into our surrounding reality or at least enjoy and notice the magic that already exists in plain sight.

    With universal love,

    Lexi

  • Shows about Shrinks

    Jodies Foster as psychotherapist Lilian Steiner in Vie Privee (A Private Life) 2025 : https://www.imdb.com/title/tt33852162/

    “Ours is a psychological age rather than an institutional one” – R. Moore & D. Gillette

    Last week, I had a semi-funny chat with my analyst about the desk and the carpet in her office. As I’m preparing to embody the role of a therapist (hopefully in the coming year), we talk in our sessions not only about my childhood and personal traumas but also about random aspects related to the daily responsibility of showing up to work as a good-enough therapist, a ‘healer of souls’ who has to hold the patient’s emotions and do so within acceptable boundaries.

    I see each day how much of what lives in the mind and inside of our selves has nothing to do with how others perceive us. I tell my analyst my impressions about how I felt intimidated by her large dark-wood desk or that once her carpet was removed from the office I felt like the rug was pulled from underneath my feet. She just laughs and says “My previous client said that he started to hear an echo in the room. But I just sent the carpet to dry cleaning and I do this every year with my rugs. I like to rotate them in my office”. One thing is the fabric of reality and another thing the many, creative and often self-sabotaging ways in which we can interpret it.

    As I’m simultaneously allowing myself to be both a vulnerable client and an increasingly knowledgeable apprentice, I like exposing myself to a wide array of sources to get familiar with a therapist’s work and the various cases I may encounter. I began reading the “The mummy at the dinning room table”, a collection of short vignettes about the most memorable cases of celebrated therapists in the field. And I also finished Elyn R. Saks’ personal account of a brilliant woman living with schizophrenia in “The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness”. And when I want to catch a break I watch some more shows about shrinks, because when I get in the zone, it’s hard for me to stop – I need to see the theme all the way through, and I blame this behavior on the Mercury trine Pluto aspect in my natal chart (which is also to blame for my attraction to the field of psychology).

    I began this year, actually in the first week of January by going to the cinema through a thick layer of snow to watch Jodie Foster perform (in impeccable French!) the role of a therapist who spirals in chaotic ways once one of her clients commits suicide. It’s a very odd and unique movie that kept me hooked, primarily because it’s a movie led by a woman therapist (and sadly, we don’t have many of those around) and it is focused on her forgetting to practice probably the most important thing in her line of work, which is to listen (not just non-judgmentally, but to listen to people overall).

    Caught up in her unresolved personal affairs and emotionally blocked by her client’s shocking demise, she begins to live a little outside of her clinical setting and finds her heart again. The final scene in the movie made me burst into tears as it was so impactful after the zaniness of the whole movie, which combines drama with savage laughter. I also just love Jodie Foster, who like my own analyst at the moment, is a Scorpio Sun.

    Sam Claflin as Dr. Joel Lazarus alongside his father played by Bill Nighy in the mini-series Lazarus (2025): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31186865/

    Moving on to the second show I watched, which was Lazarus, about a distraught psychiatrist who communicates with ghosts and finds out some disturbing things about his own father’s legacy. Although, I have a bit of a crush on Sam and really enjoyed watching him unravel on screen, I was in general slightly put off by this show. It was overly dramatic in the directorial style and the “too cool for school” editing, so that really made me wince a couple of times. What kept me watching was Sam Claflin, who is easy on the eye and damn good at switching between emotions. Of course, I wouldn’t expect anything else from a Sun in Cancer with a Pisces Moon, so yes, I was happy to tune in each night and see a talented actor go over many professional boundaries in this desperate pursuit to understand why his patients are dying and why his father keeps haunting him.

    Just for the record, I don’t know if I should write this or not, because it seems pretty obvious, but what therapists perform in movies has little to do with how therapy actually takes place in reality. Obviously, you do have a similar setting, usually a face-to-face conversation between someone who listens and offers advice and someone else who struggles and seeks help, but aside from that the similarities between on-screen therapy and real-life therapy end. It’s also good to keep in mind that there are so many different modalities of therapy you can practice or choose from, and one of my favorite games to play when I watch a show with shrinks is to figure out: a) “What modality is the therapist trained in?” and b) “Will this show confound psychiatry with psychotherapy again?” Believe it or not, they are different things.

    A psychiatrist is more of a medical doctor who can prescribe medications and is usually having relatively surface-level conversations with you, about your medication intake, behaviors, diet and overall life-style. While a psychotherapist offers exclusively verbal support and cannot prescribe pills to help you regulate your system, but may use fun techniques to help you remember, to help you dream or to help you confront aspects of yourself that may heal you. I’m using ‘may’ because therapeutic work can be as frustrating in its lack of outcomes as any other profession, and the first things you are learning as a student of psychotherapy is that you should prepare to fail, to lose clients and to not know it all. Being humble helps a lot in this profession, in which power issues can be disproportionate and problematic.

    I also really enjoyed the art deco, gloomy set design in Lazarus, displayed by the lavish psychiatrist office of Lazarus’ father, which to be honest, who can afford these days, especially on an NHS budget, but let’s roll with movie-logics and pretend that the gorgeous vintage office makes sense in today’s economy, although it fits better in a Spider Noir setting. Speaking of which, I wish that there would be more shows with shrinks in black and white or at least sepia undertones, like flicking through the pages of an old, vintage photo album.

    From a personal pov, by watching Sam play Lazarus, I realized as well that I am uncomfortably drawn towards intelligent yet emotionally vulnerable men, to the extent that I had a whole session with my analyst about where this bizarre attraction comes from. So I guess I can thank this show and Sam’s charisma for helping me understand a part of myself that I was weirdly not aware of and may benefit by keeping it in check, as I assume a lot of my future clients would fit this profile.

    Jason Segel as Jimmy and Harrison Ford as his colleague, Paul in the series ‘Shrinking’ (2023-): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15677150/

    And speaking of not being aware of a lot of patterns and blatantly crossing professional boundaries in your psychotherapeutic work, I watched the first two seasons of “Shrinking” and I have to admit I’m not sure whether I like this show or not. It’s irreverent in its depiction of cognitive behavioral therapists and their messy personal lives and you get that the show is trying to humanize them and to break through the intimidatingly impenetrable facade that most therapists have spent years creating (or hiding behind). And I like that, but in other parts the show can be kind of rude and insensitive.

    Much like Lazarus, it just feels dramatic for the sake of provoking outrageous emotional reactions from its public. For example, I really don’t know if it was necessary to have Harrison Ford (a Cancer Sun) drive a fast sports car in the show’s pilot episode just to prove his virility and lust for life in spite of being diagnosed with Parkinson’s moments before. I mean, it’s ok to be vulnerable, weak and old, America. Some scenes felt too on the nose and this bothered me about this show.

    The most controversial character in the series is Jimmy played by Jason Segel (a Capricorn Sun), who even has a whole episode dedicated to his unusual habit of “Jimmying” or going far too deep into his patients’ lives and adopting some shock-therapy practices to help them in their healing process (as a sidenote, one of his clients, a veteran with anger-issues, lives in his pool house! which is a gross ethical violation of the client-therapist alliance). On top of this, the screenwriters struggle so much to make Jimmy seem like a flawed man, a dad who is struggling as a single parent and a therapist looking for his father’s unconscious approval (as we see in his relationship to Paul), that he ends up becoming a sketch of a person, almost a poster man for the image of the ‘modern-day quirky and messed up White therapist with a good heart’. Just for the record, it’s not advisable nor commendable to act in such a way as a professional and actually most therapists put in years of hard work and analysis in order to tame the impulses that Jimmy so generously lavishes in.

    In conclusion, as an apprentice Jungian analyst I watched three shows with “shrinks” and without a doubt, A Private Life was my favorite, the other two being “meah” and rather funny experiments into depicting what psychiatrists and psychotherapists actually do.

    With cosmic compassion,

    Lexi

  • The Other Parents

    John Everet Millais “Christ in the House of his Parents” (1849-1850) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_in_the_House_of_His_Parents

    I’ve spent most of today reading Carl Jung’s book “The Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious” and among the wealth of ideas presented inside this little book, one stood out to me the most. And this is Jung’s description of the double parenting concept. He describes it as the condition of the child being born firstly out of his biological parents and then secondly, in a spiritual way, when the child gets baptized and receives a godmother and a godfather. Here is how Jung describes this process from a historical lens as well:

    This is the motif of the dual mother an archetype to be found in many variants in the field of mythology and comparative religion and forming the basis of numerous “representations collectives.” I might mention, for instance, the motif of the dual descent that is, descent from human and divine parents, as in the case of Heracles, who received immortality through being unwittingly adopted by Hera. (…) It is an idea that underlies all rebirth mysteries, Christianity included. Christ himself is “twiceborn”: through his baptism in the Jordan he was regenerated and reborn from water and spirit.

    Consequently, in the Roman liturgy the font is designated the “uterus ecclesiae”(…) Thanks to this motif of the dual birth, children today, instead of having good and evil fairies who magically “adopt” them at birth with blessings or curses, are given sponsors—a “godfather” and a “godmother.”

    The idea of a second birth is found at all times and in all places. In the earliest beginnings of medicine it was a magical means of healing; in many religions it is the central mystical experience; it is the key idea in medieval, occult philosophy, and, last but not least, it is an infantile fantasy occurring in numberless children, large and small, who believe that their parents are not their real parents but merely foster-parents to whom they were handed over. (p.45)

    It’s interesting that just a couple of days away from the planet of higher awareness (Uranus) preparing to move from stable Taurus and into contradictory Gemini, I am entertaining Jung’s thoughts on ‘dual descent’, ‘the dual mother’, ‘dual birth’, being ‘twice born’ and receiving spiritual sponsors. I guess this shows me once again how Jung’s idea of synchonicity works and how beautifully such timed experiences play out in our lives. In some way, this makes me think how astrology is a just gigantic clock measuring the timing of the significant events in our lives, as predestined-phases meet with our human, free will.

    But I digress. The godparents – which by their naming already contain a symbol linking them to “god” figures – become the child’s spiritual protectors through the rituals put in place by the church. In older times, the godparents were important since they would’ve been the ones in charge of raising the child should something happen to the child’s family (in medieval Europe death was a flu away and people took precautions as best as they could).

    Now, this is an interesting concept, because I remember that when I was born I also had a couple of my dad’s friends who became my godmother and godfather. Sadly, they remained in my life only in the form of black and white pictures, as they lost contact with my family and I never heard of them (although apparently we live in the same city). I was even given a middle name (Georgiana) to fit with their names (which fittingly were George and Georgeta) and I guess, to have an additional layer of semantic protection, not only so-called spiritual caretaking.

    On top of this, my middle name is under the blessing of Saint George, the one who killed the infamous dragon. My parents gave me two very powerful names, under the protection of two rather tough Saints (Alexander and George) and then they struggled all their lives to crush my will and get me to blindly obey them. This was paradox all onto its Self, but at the same time a deeply strength-building life experience, marked in the profound energies inherent in my birth-chart. And even through the power of them being poor role models for successful parenting and loving, they nonetheless helped me fulfill my path in life.

    It is perhaps a fact that with time and under a political regime that supressed religion and spirituality as much as it could (communism), people lost the soulful meaning of this ‘dual parents’ blessing. The vestiges of that crushed faith were further dilutted in the current capitalist, materialistic and spiritual-dead landscape. But aside from the religious ritual, to have godparents was a blessing, and maybe it’s a practice worth keeping, as a community healing practice or life-enhancing survival strategy? Imagine if nowdays we would have continued this gift of the godparents, how much of the current mental health problems would be assuaged by having another set of parents to turn to when your biological ones would leave you out in the cold. Of course, that is presuming that your godparents are relatively good-enough and functioning human beings themselves.

    On a deeper level, it could be that we are forced as a collective by the cynical circumstances of the Age of Information to turn to the mythical and actually spiritual representations of the Divine parents (Mother Earth and Father Sky, or Mother Mary and Jesus Christ etc.) in the absence of godparents who can guide us and biological parents who can support us in our times of need.

    Jung adds to this line of thought:

    Because people have always feared that the connection with the instinctive, archetypal stage of consciousness might get lost in the course of life, the custom has long since been adopted of giving the new-born child, in addition to his bodily parents, two godparents, a “godfather” and a “godmother,” who are supposed to be responsible for the spiritual welfare of their godchild. They represent the pair of gods who appear at its birth, thus illustrating the “dual birth” motif. (p. 68)

    My thoughts on this topic are just forming and writing this short piece may feel fractured for time being, but I was reading these words and something fired up inside of me. The flame of inspiration perhaps, courtesy of Saturn and Neptune in Aries. As a mother-hungry child myself, I grew up with an image of distorted femininity. In addition, the parent I loved and felt loved by, my father was struggling with his own demons (co-dependency, porn and alcohol addiction and deap-seated emotional repression from buried childhood trauma). So I’m finding out that my Animus isn’t doing all that great either.

    In summary, I grew up not feeling deeply understood, loved and held by either parent. My physical and material needs were somehow met but emotionally I was blocked, stunted and even punished for being loving, needy and exuberant. As I matured, I became a woman afraid of vulnerability, expressing my feelings and saying the truth and I began embodying the role of the Amazon, obsessed with science and academic pursuits, but starved emotionally in my intimate life. In 2020, the pandemic offered me the chance to sit still and go within, and I began the work of healing my femininity, a work I am still immersed in, as self-acceptance ebbs and flows.

    My parents were young when they had me so we all grew up together, and I do not judge them anymore for the mistakes they have made with me. They did the best they could. Last year I lost them both: my father to cancer, against my will, and my mother from a conscious decision to keep her away from my life after another harsh betrayal. I began therapy and my formal training as Jungian analyst in the midst of the second darkest depression of my life and now I can begin to see the light and rebuild my confidence.

    Reading texts like Jung’s thinking around the archetypes helps. Talking about the past and reframing it helps. Naming the painful feelings and being brave enough to sit with them also helps. In the last year, what kept me getting out of bed and away from a pattern of dealing with tough emotions by imbibing alcohol that has plagued generations of my ancestors, was the love and light I have constantly felt from a Divine presence. Jung would’ve said this is the Self speaking back to me, guiding me through life, as the Archetypes of Father Sky and Mother Earth were constellating in my unconscious. And indeed, I had visions of sleeping in the palm of a tender Giant; I had dreams of a Lady in White washing my hair and holding me in her arms in pure water.

    The reason why I’m sharing this is to put it across that much like Jung’s intuition in the quotes above, you need to remember that you were born twice in this life. Even if you a) weren’t baptized, or b) you were but you had godparents that are non-existent, or c) you were baptized but never received godparents, this is just a ritual as a formality on the material plane. The true meaning behind the action of receiving your spiritual sponsors at birth, is to continue to nurture a spiritual life, from which you can gain your deepest strength when the material aspects of life and the people in it, will test you.

    Because on the spiritual level, as your consciousness was forming and the child you once were was growing, you were also imbued with archetypal images from your surrounding environment. It is up to you now to consciously activate them and work with them. Whether you are of faith or not, these images live inside of you because as Jung says “we are born into the collective unconscious”, with its wealth of primitive instincts and ancestral images.

    This is just a kind reminder that if you are suffering from parental abandon, if your biological parents are long gone from this mortal coil, or if they are still alive but you put up walls to defend against their vitriol, you will always have your Divine parents watching over you. Even now, as you read these words, your God-mother and God-father (emphasis on “God” here) are helping you receive these messages and find some sort of comfort. I hope that you will allow them to guide you as you continue on.

    With universal light,

    Lexi

  • Re-Love

    Edvard Munch – Lovers in the Waves (Elskende par i bolger), 1896. See more here: https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/edvard-munch

    It’s Spring, and to detract from the heaviness of my previous post here’s a playlist for romantic renewal. Because love, this invisible energy binding us all, continues to matter and to exist. And it can be found inside of you. However, if you’ve been feeling like I have recently, despondent and melancholic, let’s resort to some readily available auditory medicine.

    The following songs from these amazing alternative artists work heavily on your heart chakra to make you feel good and get you…in the mood for love. Adorned to the titles themselves you will also find small snipits of my favourite lyrics from these songs (most of which are also great dance tunes…) :

    1. Niluefer Yanya – Midnight Sun

    “Love is raised by common thieves
    Hiding diamonds up their sleeves
    Always I did it for you
    Never felt so sure
    You’re my best machine
    You’re my midnight sun”

    2. Idles – Grace

    “Give me grace, give me light
    Hold me up as I take flight
    Make me safe, away from harm
    Please caress my swollen heart
    Make me pure”

    3. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Echo

    “Maybe you’re a little fire
    You’ve been drowning your own desires
    But every time I see you smile, the heavens move”

    4. Fontaines DC – I love you

    “Well, I love you, imagine a world without you
    It’s only ever you, I only think of you
    And if it’s a blessing, I want it for you
    If I must have a future, I want it with you”

    5. Angus and Julia Stone – Chateau

    “Corner in your converse
    Living on the outskirts
    Trying just to figure it out
    Talking like a deadbeat, I just wanted you to see
    Everything that I could see
    Walking in the night sky, I’m always on your side
    You were really saving me”

    6. Father John Mysty – Screamland

    “Picked me up and drove by the light of the moon
    Four hours to the desert from the drawing room
    This year’s wine tasted suspicious but just enough like love
    God must be with the outcasts ’cause when I call, you come”

    7. HAIM – Summer Girl

    “I need you to understand
    These are the earthquake drills that we ran
    Under the freeway overpasses
    The tears behind your dark sunglasses
    The fears inside your heart as deep as gashes
    Walk beside me, not behind me
    Feel my unconditional love”

    8. Vampire Weekend – Prep-School Gangsters

    “Call me jealous, call me mad, now I’ve got the thing you had
    Somewhere in your family tree, there was someone just like me”

    9. Sharon van Etten – Jupiter 4

    “Touching your face
    How’d it take a long, long time
    To be here

    Turning the wheel on my street
    My heart still skips a beat”

    10. Clairo – White Flag

    “Grown apart and we’re so far gone
    But I’m waving the white flag
    Sending my love back, move on”

    With universal love,

    Lexi