The Spiritual Social

Tag: writing

  • The Ex : The Unconscious and Dangerous Growth

    Still from the game Tenebris Somnia created by Cancer Sun Andres Borghi, in which Julia faces for the final time her antagonist, the witchy Vitria

    I’m gradually waking up from being under the spell of two games in the last weeks, and these are the newly released Tenebris Somnia and Silver Pines. I don’t have the guts to play them myself but I watched the full gameplays on channels like TheSavchyngames and CJUGames on Youtube and I highly recommend that you give them a try. Instead of falling asleep to a movie each night, I would make a cup of cocoa and watch one hour of each game until dreams eventually overtook me. I must admit I had some fascinating dreams after each game, which then transformed into paintings (but more about this in an upcoming post).

    Tenebris Somnia (or dark dreams in Latin) is described on Steam as a “retro survival horror adventure game with live action cutscenes created by an award-winning film crew from Argentina. Unveil the depths of a disturbing story by solving puzzles and fighting horrible creatures. …What if they aren’t just nightmares?“. I don’t know why, but the atmosphere of the game is reminiscent to me of the movies “The Headless Woman” and “Santa Sangre“, two weird gems of Argentine cinema that have been haunting me ever since I saw them.

    On the other hand, Silver Pines is reminiscent more of “Twin Peaks” and “Silent Hill 2” with their heavy, brooding atmospheres and detective-like dynamics. The game was created by a team of Nordic developers and is described on Steam as “a survival horror metroidvania set in small town America. Fight nightmarish terrors and solve puzzles, while carefully managing your scarce resources as you uncover the mysteries that could hold the key to redemption.” Silver Pines has been nominated for best horror game of the year, although 2026 is a tough year for competitive horror games, seeing as we began the year with the masterpiece that is Resident Evil Requiem.

    The Pull of the Unconscious

    Still from Silver Pines depicting the town’s Quiet Hour Cafe right before the storm and the wandering, emblectic white horse, as a symbol of death’s acceptance

    Both games have multiple endings and *spoiler alert* these are the aspects that I would like to unpack in this post which isn’t only about my sheer love for thoughtful horrors games but also about the psychological underpinnings of the protagonists’ stories, as they are revealted in their endings. And the endings revolve around an ex in one case and the past and the consequences of a man’s actions in another. These two themes are brought into foreground by the current and overlapping Mercury retrograde in Scorpio and Venus retrograde in Libra, helping collective energies to scavage through their romantic past.

    In Tenebris Somnia, Julia is persecuted by nightmares about her ex-boyfriend Ivan, and after failing to reach him she decides to use the apartment key she still was holding on to, in order to check up on him and see if he is alright. There are a number of red flags already at hand and I guess you can tell that one of the endings will involve Julia just looking at the key and deciding not to use it and not to check on her ex (which is exactly what I would’ve done, to be completely honest). I keep saying this to my clients that “an ex is an ex for a very good reason” but what would be the fun in listening to reason in a horror game, right?

    At the beginning of Tenebris Somnia, we are thrown into this kind of funny and slapstick, retro vintage gaming world, until the first real-action cut scene introduces us to a zombie-like creature who lunges at Julia with a forked tongue, and we are snapped into the brutal reality of the story. Julia seems eerily entranced throughout the game. She needs to find Ivan and find out what happened to him but she doesn’t know why she is doing this.

    In a similar vein, the detective of Silver Pines, Red Walker, has been hired by a mysterious man to find a musician named Eddie Velvet and as we later find out, is tasked with murdering him. Red is desperately searching for Velvet through the horrors of an abandoned town, soon to be besieged by a storm, without understanding exactly why he feels the compulsion to find this man. Both Red and Julia are gripped by their unconscious which pulls them to confront their fears, presented in each game as terrifying and creative-looking monsters.

    In the later parts of the game it becomes increasingly evident that Eddie and Red are the same man (watch as they share a fear of dogs, for example) and that Silver Pines is a projection of Red’s fractured psyche in the wake of an accident he had suffered which led to the death of his girlfriend. Red’s mysterious employer is the voice of his Ego, who drenched in self-hatred wants to keep him repressed and split off from finding the truth and awknowledging his guilt, at having caused the death of an innocent woman.

    In my view both of these fascinating characters, Julia and Red are symbols of the human Ego struggling to understand the unconscious. Often in our lives, we feel compelled or obsessed with certain activities or certain people without fully comprehending why. These are usually pivotal moments when important content from the unconscious wants to make itself known to our conscious mind in order for deep healing, somatic release and psychological growth to take place.

    Although, it needs to be said that such a quest, when undertaken with a view to fight and destroy the unconscious rather than to seek to understand it, will lead to the actual death or gradual psychic destruction of the person involved.

    And we see this theme of being overcome by nigredo (the darkening) or a retreat into psychological repression and fear, in both Julia’ s case in her Magnum Opus ending (where she kills the Relicta and fights Ivan only to obliterate her Shadow at his command), but also in the ending in which Red Walker finds Eddie Velvet and shoots him in the back, thereby completing his mission and never fully understanding the story he had been immersed in. Killing in both of these games carries the symbolic meaning of splitting apart, because after all, the greatest suffering happens in life when we separate parts of ourself and deny our whole being a right to exist freely. Splitting also happens when trauma occurs, which I will unpack below.

    Still of Red Walker in the town’s church right after a boss battle

    In these so-called ‘bad’ endings, Julia becomes afraid of the world and suspicious of every man as she retreats from her true Self and into the arms of her controlling and abusing ex-boyfriend, while Red continues to drive on endlessly into a night so dark that not even the moon can illuminate it. Both characters are doomed to remain in perpetual darkness, as nigredo extends indefinitely and cannot ascend to the clarity of the albedo stage or the warmth of the citrinitas/rubedo fulfillment, to use the alchemical words Jung has employed to describe the psychic development towards individuation.

    Haunting dreams seek our Attention

    Tenebris Somnia felt deeper and more meaningful as a story-line to me, because it dealt with domestic violence and I grew up with a controlling person who benefited from keeping me trapped and anxious. Therefore, I have intimate knowledge of how Julia must have felt in her relationship to Ivan, and empathized with her throughout the game. It was also fascinating to see that the so called ‘good ending of the game’ was titled ‘solve et coagula‘ (dissolve and coagulate), terms used by Carl Jung in his work on psychology and alchemy.

    In Tenebris Somnia, Julia’s journey can be seen as the process of solve et coagula which maps onto a woman’s quest for individuation through psychological transformation. In the bad ending (Magnum Opus), Julia slaughters her Relicta fragments with the Aurifer, a golden knife she creates through magic. Psychologically, killing is an act of violent psychic repression—she kills off parts of herself to survive, returning to reality permanently marked by her trauma (ex. the scar on her forehead remains but only in her mirrored reflection). In this version of her chosen reality, she remains bound to the archetype of her abuser, perpetuating the trauma cycle rather than escaping it.

    Still of Julia and Ivan from the Magnum Opus ending of Tenebris Somnia

    On the other hand, by choosing the Solve et Coagula ending, she allows the old, victimized Ego structure to dissolve completely (solve). By refusing to attack her Shadow, she stops treating her internal trauma as an external enemy (she pulls her projection back). The final merging with the collapsing nightmare (coagula) is a raw, terrifying depiction of assimilating her Shadow. She doesn’t escape her history, rather she internalizes it to become whole, and I especially liked how tender she was with her Shadow when she met herself in the final boss battle, a sign that she has learned to be compassionate with the hurtful things she has chosen for herself in the past.

    In the epilogue, Julia channels a newfound raw and integrated psychic energy into her creative life as a filmmaker. She films a short-movie and debuts it at a premiere. Her film-making style is clearly different than that of her ex, Ivan, whose somber film-making contributed to her nightmarish psychic journey. In contrast, Julia’s work is funny, colourful and humane, and we see this through the way that the audience reacts to her film. I have to admit this final scene brought happy tears to my eyes, because I was so proud of her!

    In the Magnum opus ending, I was struck by how violent the relicta of Ivan was when she confronts him in the end and we see the true rage monster that was hiding inside the man she loved. The violence of Ivan’s relicta is a profound clinical depiction of what Jung called an autonomous complex bursting into consciousness with primal fury. Because Julia had suppressed the reality of Ivan’s abuse, that psychic energy didn’t vanish—it weaponized itself in her unconscious. When it finally manifested, it unleashed raw, unmitigated rage which she then problematically, turned against her Shadow rather than towards escaping Ivan and letting him go.

    We know by now that there are two halves of Julia’s reality, influenced by her decisions throughout the game, something that is aptly mirrored by the game’s shift between pixel art and live-action video. In the standard loop or the Magnum Opus ending, Julia’s psychic defenses are working against her: terrified of the outside world, her ego projects the internal threat (the danger of being harmed or controlled) onto innocent men in the public (like that guy in the subway).

    Because the trauma of Ivan’s abuse is unresolved, her psyche perceives the entire world as hostile. Paralyzed by this projected fear, she runs back to Ivan’s apartment. In trauma bonds, the abuser becomes the “safe harbor” from the very terror they created. Psychologically, Julia trades the unpredictable threat of the unknown world, for the predictable, familiar torment of her abuser. It is a regressive retreat to the root of her complex.

    In the empowered conclusion or the Solve et Coagula ending, her psychological orientation undergoes a deep change. The difference in her behavior is a textbook example of an integrated Shadow. True bravery in Jungian terms is not the elimination of fear, nor is it turning into the aggressor. In the bad ending, she attacks her fragments, becoming the abuser in order to survive.

    In the good ending, her refusal to harm her captors (symbolising aspects of her Self) shows that she has broken the cycle of victimization. She no longer needs to use violent defense mechanisms. By facing the monsters without attacking them, she looks at her trauma directly. And in turn, this robs the autonomous complexes of their stealth power over her psyche.

    Complexes or fears lose their terrifying grip on her because they are no longer hidden in the dark—they are acknowledged components of her history. By the end, she isn’t running back to the ruined apartment. She can exist in the live-action, objective world because she is no longer projecting her inner monsters onto random people around her. The outside world ceases to be a house of horrors the moment she cleanses her inner house.

    Still of retro Julia battling Vitria through a mirror, a symbol of how she is desperately trying to integrate aspects of her Shadow but faces immense resistance from her Ego

    I liked how vulnerable she was being depicted during the premiere of her short film. We could see and feel her anxiety and her compulsion to project this anxiety on the public, like she would’ve done in the past, when her anxieties held her back and pushed her into a connection with a dominant and controlling man (Ivan). But she took a deep breath and held the tension and then suddenly the situation changed. The crowd started laughing because of the funny actor in her short film. All her worries of being perceived in a negative way or criticised by others were dispelled when her creative work touched the public.

    There was an immediate collective release of tension which was mirroring her own personal breakthrough: instead of falling into a past pattern, Julia stood her ground just by breathing, she held her anxiety and was brave enough to show up at her premiere and just see what happen. It shows that in time, through such repeated experiences, she will become a very strong woman, capable of controlling her own life (like a director) instead of projecting her control onto a domineering lover who may abuse her. This was the exact moment of Jung’s transcendent function manifesting in waking life, rather than just in her dreams or the pixelated unconscious of the game.

    What Julia is experiencing during the premiere of her short film is the shift from an unconscious compulsion to repeat the trauma loop to the conscious endurance of the “crucible.” Sometimes, to truly heal we need to hold and stay strong among uncomfortable feelings. In Jungian analysis, growth rarely looks like the permanent erasure of anxiety, rather it is a change in our relationship to that anxiety. We don’t get rid of our feelings, we transform them.

    In alchemy, this is maintaining the heat of a vessel without letting it crack. She allows the anxiety to exist within her body without reacting to it or offloading it onto others.Because Julia holds her internal tension, she creates the psychological space for reality to surprise her. By enduring these moments, Julia transitions from a passive actor trapped in Ivan’s abusive, black-and-white film to the author and director of her own and colourful psychic reality. This is a process that takes time and repetition. Each time she stands her ground in the face of her anxiety without retreating into the arms of a controller, she strengthens the new Ego she is carefully building for herself. She transforms her vulnerability from a liability into the very wellspring of her creative sovereignty.

    Image depicting the alchemical vessel of containment, which can hold opposing forces (such as masculinity and femininity) with the purpose of transforming the soul

    Learning from THESE GAMES For Future ThErapeutic Work

    As a training analyst, I kept wondering what would I do in such a case, if a patient like Red Walker or Julia walks into my office? I was especially stuck at that scene of Julia’s premiere and marvelled at her subtle growth. I guess that when I would observe patients reaching this “premiere” stage in their own lives—where they face the terrifying choice between an old, toxic coping mechanism and a brave new path—I would think about what kind of clinical containment or support I could enact to help them hold that tension without collapsing back into the past.

    Since a patient has reached this advanced stage in their therapy, I don’t believe a maternal-like containment is necessary as this would be more appropriate for someone who is still possessed by a complex, but Julia emerged outside of it and may now need just some gentle nudging in the direction of courageous decisions. So I would offer her validating compliments based on her decisions to show up and hold the anxiety and I would continue to re-affirm the necessity of maintaing a strong connection to reality and to understand that she doesn’t have to be perfect, she just needs to be present and continue with the good work she is already doing.

    In my view, I would shift from the maternal, containing matrix (necessary for holding a fractured Ego together) to the paternal/transformative function of encouraging the ego to step out into the world with agency. After all, over-containing a patient at Julia’s stage can accidentally infantilize them or mirror the very dependency they are trying to escape. By offering validating compliments and focusing on presence over perfection,I can act as a steady witness to her emergent strength rather than a protector she must lean on.

    With universal love,

    Lexi

  • Morticia Addams is a State of Mind

    Cancer Sun Anjelica Huston as Morticia Addams in The Addams Family Values (1993)

    It took a Capricorn imaginarium to give birth to her, through the creative vision of January-born, Charles Addams. With all three luminary and key points in Earth signs (Capricorn Sun in the 9th house, Moon in Virgo in the 5th and Ascendant in Taurus conjunct Saturn!) Charles Addams possessed immense grounding, discipline, and patient craftsmanship. And in many ways, just like her creator, Morticia is highly Saturnian herself.

    Vintage photo of Charles Addams from the New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/09/the-addams-family-secret

    From her jet black hair, her slim figure, her undying devotion to her family, to her demure expressions of contained tension and her equally dark humor, Morticia embodies a precise and polished soft strength, typical of a Saturn-ruled individual. It’s only her tentacled dress that alludes to the fact that her nature may be darkly instinctual, behind closed doors.

    I want to focus on her image, style and essence in this post, because Halloween is approaching fast and I need a distraction from the many real horrors taking place in the world at the moment, which make the spooky gloom of this time of the year pale in comparison.

    Charles never gave us a birthday for Morticia, so I can just assume her sign, but seeing as creations are as much influenced by the astrological energy of their creator, it wouldn’t be weird to assume each Addams family character depicts an aspect of the visual artist’s natal chart. Case in point, Charles Addams also had a Mars in Gemini sitting in opposition to his Venus in Sagittarius loosely conjunct Jupiter, an energy I see embodied in Gomez Addams, the witty hypocondriac who is obsessed with his wife, easy on his children, great with money and always up for a fencing adventure.

    Image of Carolyn Jones as Morticia Addams and John Astin as Gomez Addams taken from https://www.tvline.com/2243765/the-addams-family-morticia-carolyn-jones-star-soap-opera-capitol/

    What delights me the most about Morticia, is the fascination that she displays for things and circumstances usually considered taboo or dangerous for women, and in many ways she is not only the prototype of the Dark Feminine Archetype but also a bit of a rebel. For example, she is often depicted as standing near her lion called Pet or feeding her carnivorous Venus fly trap, Cleopatra Green of the Nile, alongside other irritants such as hemlock, henbane, and poison ivy. This image of a woman capable of taming the wild, natural forces of destruction with the same calm and poise of a mother suckling her newborn child, is both wholesome and disturbing.

    In myth, Hecate the dark goddess of magic is the ultimate herbologist and mistress of potions (pharmakeia), and I think that the image of this Greek goddess aligns almost perfectly with Morticia’s dark, gothic elegance and maternal authority over the strange. Although, I must admit I see a little of the Morrigan in her too, particularly in the Celtic Goddess’ fondness for ravens and psychological warfare, which Morticia puts to good use in everyday encounters in very clever and subtle ways.

    Image taken from Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/listing/4338911032/hekate-goddess-guide-pagan-witchcraft

    Moreover, there are also many innuendos in the dialogues between her and Gomez, which indicate that a regime of physical punishments could be part of their shared sexual intimacy, which adds some edge and spice to her elegant and intimidating presence. The magic of it all is that it is done in such subtle ways that constantly leaves room for the imagination. We see that Gomez and Morticia are passionate and obsessed with each other but we never truly get to grasp what goes on when the lights are off, and seeing as they are in touch with their darker instincts, I guess the sky is the limit…or better said, the Underworld.

    I like that as a viewer, you are never dramatically hit on the head with how dark and edgy Morticia is, much like the recent goth girl trend popularized on Tiktok and catering to cheap sexual fantasies. No, with Morticia, there is an air of elegance thinly spun around her Persona which offer her a mysterious elusiveness, like a cellar spider making its nest nearby while you scroll on your laptop, completely unaware of this development in the corner of your room.

    Morticia never bends to social norms, expectations, or trend cycles. She is completely comfortable in her own skin and thrives in her unique environment without ever feeling the need to explain or justify herself to “normal” society. No matter how chaotic the world around her gets, Morticia remains serene, elegant, and collected. Chaos, hostility, or bizarre events do not break her inner peace—she simply glides through them with an enigmatic smile.

    One of my favourite episodes from the vintage series which ran on American television sets between 1964 to 1966 (fun fact: that was a Saturn in Pisces couple of years!) is the episode when Gomez and Morticia first meet, because it tells us so much about their personalities, before they became that unbreakable couple we all know and envy.

    Morticia Addams is far more than just a gothic style icon—she is a masterclass in psychological groundedness, radical self-acceptance, and unshakeable grace. Viewing Morticia as a mindset means adopting a lifestyle defined by composure, passion, and complete indifference to external judgment.

    Furthermore, Morticia’s relationships are anchored in devotion, mutual respect, and fierce loyalty. Where others see gloom, decay, or fear, Morticia sees romance, elegance, and beauty (like clipping the petals off roses to leave only the beautiful thorns). She doesn’t fear the dark or the taboo; she incorporates it gracefully into her life. Morticia never raises her voice, demands attention, or tries hard to impress. Her presence alone commands the room through stillness, slow movement, and calm confidence.

    And because imitation is the greatest form of flattery, I had some fun with Gemini and a relatively recent photo of myself , as I asked the AI to transform me into her. The outcome is kind of awesome, to the point that I am considering changing my daily make-up to look more like her. I basically adore the fact that my natural features (pale skin, long nose, arched eyebrows) fit so well with the striking visuals of all the women that embodied her so far, and believe me it took me years to accept and love my natural features.

    I think my favourite Morticia has to be Angelica Huston, not only because I look like her the most, but also for the flawless performance she gives in bringing our macabre darling to life: from the soft tone of her voice, to the passionate chemistry she displays with Pisces Sun Raul Julia, to the perfect delivery of sarcastic lines (I think that nothing tops “But, Debbie…pastels“).

    Personal photo enhanced with Gemini AI

    Who is your favourite Halloween icon? And let me know as well if you celebrate Halloween this year and what costume will you be wearing.

    With spooky and ooky love,

    Lexi

    P.S: Part of this post was written with the support of AI

  • 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

  • Romantic Realist

    This post is more of a playlist than anything else. To remind myself and others that love is still possible and that it can be found in the irregularities, mistakes and issues of everyday life. One of the least sentimental and most romantic rock bands, whose music stood the test of time, has been the American band The National. I used to religiously listen to them in high-school, specifically their brilliantly undertstated album ‘Alligator’. Then I got the pleasure of seeing them live in the Netherlands at the Lowlands festival and in special gig at Edinburgh’s Queen Hall, which I was fortunate enough to live in close proximity to, at that time.

    And because ysterday, I drank some champagne for Christmas and Youtube randomly started playing ‘Quiet light’ in the background, just as the clock turned to midnight, I thought I’d put together a top 10 of my favourite love songs from The National with some lyrics that stand out to me. So courtesy of singer Matt Berninger (an Aquarius Sun) and the band, here are the songs I most listen to when I want to feel loved and hopeful:

    1. Brainy : You know I keep your fingerprints in a pink folder in the middle of my table / You’re the tall kingdom I surround / Think I better follow you around / You might need me more than you think you will / Come home in the car you love, brainy brainy brainy
    2. Conversation 16 : I’ll try to be more romantic / I wanna believe in everything you believe / I was less than amazing / Do not know what all the troubles are for / I fall asleep in your branches / You’re the only thing I ever want anymore
    3. Val Jester : Build a fire for Val Jester / Build a room for your love / Take your time when you tell her / How she lives in your blood
    4. Quiet Light : But I’m learning to lie here in the quiet light / While I watch the sky go from black to grey/ Learning how not to die inside a little every time / I think about you and wonder if you are awake
    5. Start a War : Whatever went away, I’ll get it over now / I’ll get money, I’ll get funny again / Walk away now and you’re gonna start a war
    6. Terrible Love : It’s a terrible love and I’m walkin’ with spiders / It’s a terrible love and I’m walkin’ in / This quiet company
    7. The system only dreams in total darkness : Maybe I listen more than you think / And I can tell that somebody sold you / We said we’d never let anyone in / We said we’d only die of lonely secrets
    8. I need my girl : I am good, I am grounded / Davy says that I look taller / But I can’t get my head around it / I keep feeling smaller and smaller
    9. City middle : You said “I think I’m like Tennessee Williams” / I wait for the click, I wait, but it doesn’t kick in / I think I’m like Tennessee Williams / I wait for the click, I wait, but it doesn’t kick in
    10. About Today : Hey, are you awake? / Yeah, I’m right here / Well can I ask you /About today? /How close am I / To losing you?

    With universal love,

    Lexi