The best Jungian psychology books I read in 2024

The best Jungian psychology books I read in 2024

What a great day to talk about books! There’s a full Moon in Gemini and Mercury stations direct today. I appreciate this dose of Gemini energy as we enter our final week of Sagittarius season before the winter solstice.

My approach to reading is much like what Simone Weil describes, as I don’t follow a syllabus or structure in selecting the books I read and write about:

In reading, as in other things, I have always striven to practice obedience. There is nothing more favorable to intellectual progress, for as far as possible I only read what I am hungry for at the moment when I have an appetite for it, and then I do not read, I eat.

The selections here are my favorite Jungian books that I read in 2024 (for visuals, and fun Jon Baptiste music in the background, here is a Reel I made of the books):

  1. Life and Ideas of James Hillman: Volume 1: The Making of a Psychologist by Dick Russell This covers Hillman’s life from childhood through his years running the Jung Institute in Zurich. I look forward to reading volume 2 in 2025.
  2. The Faithful Gardener: A Wise Talk About That Which Can Never Die by Clarissa Pinkola Estés Estés grew up in a foster family and says she learned more from those family members about grief, rebirth, and nature than she did in all her years of psychoanalytic training. The stories about the trees in this book have stayed with me all these months later. It is less than 100 pages and a book one can easily reread many times.
  3. Where People Fly and Water Runs Uphill: Using Dreams to Tap the Wisdom of the Unconscious by Jeremy Taylor This book gives you all the information you need to work dreams in a group. Note that this isn’t group therapy but any gathering of individuals who want to work through dream material together. Taylor shares his experiences running dreams groups in the local community and in prisons. A major theme of this book is that dreams come in the service of health and wholeness. All dreams reflect society as a whole as well as the dreamer’s relationship to it.
  4. Tracking the Gods by James Hollis This is one of Hollis’ earliest works and a favorite of his. Hollis explains myths using real world examples, which is very helpful. He defines depth psychology as care of the soul and “a process whereby the fractured psyche may heal, whereby one may achieve a personal myth to supplant the bankrupt cultural ideologies. It is not a dogma, but rather a methodology that seeks to facilitate one’s encounter with inner transforming powers. It is not New Age but Old Age, as old as the archetypes.”  Overall this book reminded me of why I love depth psychology and it would be a great one for astrologers to read as well, as astrologers essentially engage in tracking the gods.
  5. Coming Home to Myself: Reflections for Nurturing a Woman’s Body and Soul by Marion Woodman and Jill Mellick This is like a daily devotional/day book of Marion Woodman passages that have been reworked into poetry. I started most every day in 2024 with one of these passages and highly recommend it.
  6. Addiction to Perfection by Marion Woodman Woodman shows how body movements can be understood as a waking dream. Perfectionism inhibits us in taking responsibility for our bodies and keeps us trapped in our heads. She was the daughter of a minister and is also brilliant on the topic of Christianity and religion in this book.
  7. Labyrinths: Emma Jung, Her Marriage to Carl, and the Early Years of Psychoanalysis by Catrine Clay It is clear when reading this book that Jung’s work and legacy wouldn’t have endured without Emma, who, in addition to being a mother of five children, was an analyst and scholar in her own right. The book also provides a birds-eye view of the early years of Jung’s career and his relationship with Freud.
  8. Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams by Lisa Marchiana, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee This book was released just a month ago. I’ll have more to say about it in my December newsletter, but it is a much-needed practical and accessible guide for working with your dreams. James Hollis wrote the foreword and the book is written by the three Jungian analysts of the This Jungian Life podcast.

Every month I write about the Jungian books I read in my Reading in Depth newsletter. Would love to have you as a subscriber! I also weave in quotes from these books into my blog posts and post quotes on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky. I cross-post my blog posts onto Substack.

As always, feel free to contact me with any questions or comments. Talk to you soon!

Continue ReadingThe best Jungian psychology books I read in 2024

A boon of wild provisions from the soul

A boon of wild provisions from the soul

We are in a transitional space that invites us to enter into a state of receptivity, grace, and openness.

November 7 marked the halfway point between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice. In the Chinese calendar, this date signals the start of a two-week period referred to as the “beginning of winter,” which we are now in the midst of.

The Receptive is associated with the beginning of winter:

To receive, be receptive. Embrace the power of yielding, and you shall receive. … Supportive power is the blessing of finishing to completion….A heart receptive to faith will never fear darkness or uncertainty. You are blessed with knowledge and intuition…you are a vessel for healing and receiving sustenance. —Benebell Wen, I Ching: The Book of Changes

This weekend’s full Moon in Taurus happens to fall during this time. Taurus is receptive earth and seeks stability.

This is a good time to follow the recommendation of Clarissa Pinkola Estés regarding “intentional solitude:”

Solitude is not an absence of energy or action, as some believe, but is rather a boon of wild provisions transmitted to us from the soul. In ancient times, as recorded by physician-healers, religious and mystics, purposeful solitude was both palliative and preventative. It was used to heal fatigue and to prevent weariness. It was also used as an oracle, as a way of listening to the inner self to solicit advice and guidance otherwise impossible to hear in the din of daily life.” —Clarissa Pinkola Estés

I love that phrase “boon of wild provisions transmitted to us from the soul.” I sometimes call it to mind whenever I observe the squirrels in my backyard as they gather wild provisions almost constantly. (Fun fact: squirrels have an association with Hermes/Mercury because of their ability to go up and down trees and cross difficult terrain).

Estés says that the only thing needed for intentional solitude is the ability to tune out distractions. This can be practiced anywhere, even in the middle of a contentious meeting, in the crowd at a loud sporting event, or in a cluttered home where children make constant messes.

“It is not hard to do, it is just hard to remember to do.”

Estés says that the word alone was once treated as two words, all one. This means to be wholly one and is the goal of solitude.

With the chaotic and distracting energy of Uranus involved with this full Moon in stable Taurus, being all one will be more difficult. I can’t help but note, however, that Uranus energy can also relieve the tension of opposites. From that, not only do we have the ability to be all one as individuals, but an opportunity to see that, ultimately, we are all connected and participants together in the Great Round.

_____________________

WHAT I OFFER:

Consultations:
Astrology Consultations and Tutoring

Writing:
Subscribe to the Reading in Depth monthly newsletter
Get blog posts for free by email or on Substack (also free)
Index to my popular blog posts about personality typology

Continue ReadingA boon of wild provisions from the soul

Growing with the Flow: Pumpkins and the Psyche

Growing with the Flow: Pumpkins and the Psyche

Virgo season is associated with the harvest, and around here, we’re getting ready to gather seven pumpkins from our little patch.

We planted three pumpkin plants during a rainstorm on the last weekend of May. I’m no expert gardener, and I’ve never tended to pumpkins before.

I searched for a “Pumpkin Gardening for Dummies” book but found nothing, so I ended up having more than a few ChatGPT consultations about pumpkin care. In the end, I mostly left it to Mother Nature, trusting her to handle what I couldn’t.

Before long, the vines outgrew the space I had set aside for them. They stretched into the front lawn and claimed half of the porch. The result? A bit chaotic, and not very Virgo-like!

Speaking of which, with today’s full moon in Pisces, I’m reminded that Pisces sits opposite Virgo in the zodiac.

If you were to add a hint of Pisces to Virgo, it might resemble this beautiful description of the virgin archetype from Marion Woodman: “As I understand the virgin archetype, it is that aspect of the feminine, in man or in woman, that has the courage to Be and the flexibility to be always Becoming.”

One of the things I love about depth psychology is Jung’s idea that we often outgrow our problems rather than solve them. As James Hollis puts it, “This capacity of the psyche to enlarge is what makes healing possible.”

Fittingly, some of our pumpkins are the Big Moon variety. They remind me that, much like the psyche, true growth rarely follows a strict design. Instead, it often requires giving nature—and ourselves—the freedom to expand beyond the limits we first imagined.

_______________________

WHAT I OFFER:

Consultations:
Astrology Consultations and Tutoring

Writing:
Subscribe to the Reading in Depth monthly newsletter
Get blog posts for free by email or on Substack (also free)
Index to my popular blog posts about personality typology

Continue ReadingGrowing with the Flow: Pumpkins and the Psyche

Like a Virgin?

Like a Virgin?

Is there any archetype more misunderstood than the Virgin?

We are now at the beginning of Virgo season, which is associated with the Virgin, so it’s as good a time as any to ponder this question.

For starters, the word virgin in Greek (parthenos) and in Hebrew (almah) simply meant “unmarried” and was also used in reference to unmarried mothers. Virgin wasn’t associated with being chaste and innocent.

Now let’s consider the deeper meaning of Virgin in this quote from the late Jungian analyst Marion Woodman:

The virgin is the being-ness in us, the I-am…One-in-herself. That is what the word really means. I’m talking about the initiated virgin, not the 14 year-old-maiden who is not initiated yet, but the virgin who has worked on her feeling, knows what her values are, has the courage to live those values. Use the word as you would the word “virgin forest” where the forest is untrammeled, there’s nothing foreign in it, it is clear to be itself, but it is full of all kinds of seeds so that there is immense potential.

The Crown of Age by Marion Woodman

Here is Esther Harding’s description of the virgin goddess:

She is essentially one-in-herself…Her divine power does not depend on relation to a husband-god, and thus her actions are not dependent on the need to conciliate such a one or to accord with his qualities and attitudes. For she bears her divinity in her own right.

Woman’s Mysteries by Esther Harding

For a visceral sense of what this is like, even a very brief encounter with a young child will present you with “One-in-herself” in action.

My mother has often told me that when I was around age four I would go around saying, “I’m the boss!” She always found that amusing and her coworkers would often ask her “how’s the boss today?”

There certainly wasn’t much I could be boss of at that age, other than my stuffed animals, but that child was in touch with her inner authority in a way that my adult self marvels at and has often struggled to replicate.

One can also sometimes see “One-in-herself” in the elderly. There are many Jungian analysts, for example, who are in their 80s who are “full of all kinds of seeds” and continue to write, see clients, and travel. James Hollis is just one of many that come to mind. He maintains a full client load and writes books in the evenings, even though he has had significant health challenges in recent years.

For the rest of us in between childhood and old age it can be hard to bear our divinity in our own right. But perhaps in those fleeting moments when we truly know ourselves, we can reconnect with that inner authority and, like the Virgin, stand fully in our own power, untrammeled and whole.

_______________________

WHAT I OFFER:

Consultations:
Astrology Consultations and Tutoring

Writing:
Subscribe to the Reading in Depth monthly newsletter
Get blog posts for free by email or on Substack (also free)
Index to my popular blog posts about personality typology

Continue ReadingLike a Virgin?

The influenza of the Sun

The influenza of the Sun

Have you ever tried to imitate the influence of the Sun?

That is what scientists in the Middle Ages tried to do through alchemy. They thought they could turn base metals into gold:

They wanted to imitate the influence of the Sun, which was traditionally thought responsible, under God, for making all the gold that already existed in the Earth. This, we might say, was the original understanding of ‘solar power.’

–The Narnia Code: C.S. Lewis and the Secret of the Seven Heavens by Michael Ward

It’s currently Leo season. Leo is the temple of the Sun and symbolized by the lion. As James Hillman describes it:

The heart of the lion is like the sun: round and full and whole. The classical symbolisms of this heart are gold, king, redness, sol, sulfur, heat. It glows in the center of our being and radiates outward, magnaminous, paternal, encouraging.

The Thought of the Heart and the Soul of the World by James Hillman

That brings us to the current Full Moon in Aquarius. Full Moons are polarities, with the Moon in Aquarius opposite the Sun in Leo.

When we consider Leo, with its focus on a heart-centered personal journey, we also need to take into consideration Aquarius, its opposite sign, which is the temple of Saturn and emphasizes the intellect and the collective.

Carl Jung was born under a Leo Sun and an Aquarius rising sign. One of the major themes in his work is that we should not capitulate to collective norms and should instead strive towards our own individuation.

By contrast, a major emphasis of James Hillman’s work was that if we focus too much on the inner soul and neglect the outer soul, we contribute to the decline of the world. Hillman had Jupiter and Mars – the Sage and the Warrior – in Aquarius in his natal chart.

Another example of this Leo-Aquarius polarity comes from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis, which is a book drenched in Sun symbolism. In a subtle reference to alchemy, Eustace gets greedy when he discovers a pool that turns everything it touches into gold. Suddenly he wants to turn all the things into gold and rake in the money.

Of course that doesn’t work out so well for Eustace. His greed turns him into a dragon and he desperately tries to remove the dragon skin, but is unsuccessful.

Aslan the lion – a solar figure – appears and removes it for him. Eustace says, “The first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart.”

After this, Eustace evolves from a self-absorbed individual to someone who embodies more Aquarian traits, with a greater focus on the collective and a more cooperative approach to life.

There will never be perfect balance between the Aquarius-Leo axis in our lives, but we can regularly remind ourselves that, as James Hollis says, “group action can be no more efficacious than the sum of individual consciousness brought to it.” A deeper understanding of the Sun’s placement in your astrology chart, and of your Aquarius-Leo axis, are two practical ways astrology can begin to assist with this.

C.S. Lewis prefered the metaphorical use of the word influence in astrological passages, which was influenza. Therefore the change in Eustace was brought about by the influenza of the Sun through Aslan.

Rather than trying to imitate the Sun’s influence like the alchemists, we should instead allow its “influenza” to transform us from within, letting its light guide our personal growth while also illuminating our contributions to the collective.

——————————-

I have started cross-posting my blog posts onto Substack, so that is now an alternate way to get these posts if you’d like. The subscription is free.

_______________________

WHAT I OFFER:

Consultations:
Astrology Consultations and Tutoring

Writing:
Subscribe to the Reading in Depth monthly newsletter
Get blog posts for free by email or on Substack (also free)
Index to my popular blog posts about personality typology

Continue ReadingThe influenza of the Sun

What makes you roar?

What makes you roar?

When you were a child did anyone ask you “How do you want to be when you grow up?”

My guess is probably not!

Calling is more how you do something than about what you do. That is a key insight I learned years ago from my favorite James Hillman book, The Soul’s Code.

We tend to find ourselves going through the first half of life focused more on what we want to be when we grow up.

Leo season presents the opportunity to revisit and reflect more deeply on the Hero archetype:

In reflecting on the archetypal gestalt of the hero, Jung notes how each of us has an innate cluster of energy whose task it is to overthrow the dark powers that threaten, whether outer or inner. The outer threats are the powers and principalities of this earth that confront us and generate fear.

Each of us knows this well, for more of our reflexive, patterning behaviors arise out of fear management, or rather our being managed by fear, than any other motive. And yet, each of us also knows a summons to show up in life as ourselves, no matter how deeply buried that impulse is.

–Living Between Worlds: Finding Personal Resilience in Changing Times by James Hollis

For a clue as to that “innate cluster of energy” within you, consider the Hero function of your personality type.

One indicator of the “summons to show up in life as ourselves” is the location of the Sun in your natal chart. The Sun shows us the manner in which we respond to that call; or, the how, not just the what.

Because the Sun is the host of Leo, the location of Leo in your chart also gives clues about that summons, even if there are no planets in Leo in your chart.

During the New Moon in Leo tomorrow, the Sun will be in the Retreat section of Leo (per the I Ching). Retreat is about a leader remaining at a distance from their people – an advisor rather than a friend. It takes the 10,000 foot view and practices caring detachment.

The lion is the symbol of Leo. The roar of a lion can be heard from great distances and establishes the lion’s presence without physical confrontation. A roar is used strategically; a lion never says more than is necessary. The roar of a lion captures the essence of Leo’s confident, expressive energy and Retreat’s strategic wisdom.

When you speak from your core and show up fully as yourself, it is like roaring. Roaring helps you reconnect with the essence of how you want to be in life, beyond just what you want to do. The deeper the summons to show up as your true self is buried, the louder you might need to roar!

What makes you roar?

_______________________

WHAT I OFFER:

Consultations:
Astrology Consultations and Tutoring

Writing:
Subscribe to the Reading in Depth monthly newsletter
Get Blog Posts by Email
Index to my popular blog posts about personality typology

Continue ReadingWhat makes you roar?

A Wild and Wise Inner Mother

A Wild and Wise Inner Mother

A branch fell off the top of a large maple tree in our backyard a few days ago, narrowly missing the power line and family members in the yard at the time. The day was sunny with no wind.

It was yet another jolt from Mars-Uranus in Taurus.

There were many other such zaps in the air last week, especially the aptly named CrowdStrike, which is the largest IT outage in history.

To top off the fun, we get some Full Moon energy this weekend!

It’s the second Full Moon in Capricorn in a row. The Sun was just barely into Cancer during the first Full Moon – now it is at the tail end of Cancer.

Cancer and Capricorn are opposite each other on the zodiac. It’s a polarity of the archetypes of The Great Mother and Wise Old Man (Senex).

I have been contemplating the below quote during Cancer season, and it seems fitting to share it now under this Full Moon:

Rather than disengaging from the mother, we are seeking a wild and wise mother. We are not, cannot be, separate from her. Our relationship to this soulful mother is meant to turn and turn, and to change and change, and it is a paradox. This mother is a school we are born into, a school we are students in, a school we are teachers at, all at the same time, and for the rest of our lives. Whether we have children or not, whether we nourish the garden, the sciences, or the thunderworld of poetics, we always brush against the wild mother on our way to anywhere else. And this is as it should be.

Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Capricorn would have us disengage from the mother.

Such disengagement is necessary when it focuses on withdrawing projections from the personal mother, or an idealized image of mothering, and developing one’s own inner mother.

With the Sun entering Leo the day after the full Moon, the focus shifts to the father archetype, as Leo is the home sign of the Sun. It provides an opportunity to reflect more on becoming father to your own life:

One becomes a father to one’s own life by becoming intimately acquainted with it and by daring to traverse its waters. I’m talking here about a deep father figure that settles into the soul to provide a sense of authority, the feeling that you are the author of your own life, that you are the head of the household in your own affairs.

Care of the Soul by Thomas Moore

WHAT I OFFER:

Consultations:
Astrology Consultations

Writing:
Subscribe to the Reading in Depth monthly newsletter
Get Blog Posts by Email
Index to my popular blog posts about personality typology

Continue ReadingA Wild and Wise Inner Mother

The art of letting yourself go

The art of letting yourself go

No, not that kind of “letting yourself go,” which is a phrase used to disparage someone who pays less attention to their appearance than they used to.

We’re in the Keeping Still section of Cancer season, so I’ve been reflecting on the Chinese wu wei sort of letting go. Jung described wu wei as “the art of letting things happen, action through non-action, letting go of oneself.”

The Keeping Still hexagram of the I Ching is a doubling of the mountain trigram. It correlates with introverted feeling (Fi) per Chinese Jungian analyst Chenghou Cai: “For Fi, deep feelings are seldom articulated, but are powerful when they are expressed. At this level of introverted feeling, one is like the person who has mastered the art of Keeping Still as taught by the I Ching.”

One is at rest, not merely in a small, circumscribed way in regard to matters of detail, but one has also a general resignation in regard to life as a whole, and this confers peace and good fortune in relation to every individual matter.

The I Ching translated by Richard Wilhelm

The opposite of introverted feeling is extraverted thinking. The United States is an ESTJ culture and one-sided in extraverted thinking. Jung said extraverted thinking is the only kind of thinking recognized by Western culture.

Extraverted thinking (Te), which compares to Thunder in the I Ching, acts with directness and authority and has little use for wu wei and Keeping Still.

Since the Aries eclipse this spring, followed by the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in Taurus, and then all the Gemini energy, it sometimes felt like it has been a never-ending parade of extraverted thinking, extraverted sensation, and extraverted intuition.

Now that it’s Cancer season with its introverted feeling energy, hopefully some of how we let ourselves go can be in the “Calgon, Take Me Away!” kind of way.

If the waters of Cancer ever get too choppy, here’s Marion Woodman’s reminder about stillness, with its introverted feeling undertones:

To find the stillness at the center of the whirlpool, the eye of the hurricane, and not hold onto it with the rigidity born of fear, is what in analysis we struggle to reach. That center I call Sophia, the feminine Wisdom of God. It is not the masculine standpoint, the highly-principled “Here I stand.” … It is an invisible center encountered only in a creative process, at first not consciously recognized, but gradually revealed as the process unfolds.

Addiction to Perfection by Marion Woodman

WHAT I OFFER:

Consultations:
Astrology Consultations

Writing:
Subscribe to the Reading in Depth monthly newsletter
Get Blog Posts by Email
Index to my popular blog posts about personality typology

Continue ReadingThe art of letting yourself go

8 Things I Learned From Ashok Bedi, M.D.

8 Things I Learned From Ashok Bedi, M.D.

It’s a good thing I’ve been doing wrist strengthening exercises lately (for pickleball) because I took notes almost constantly as Jungian analyst and psychiatrist Ashok Bedi spoke to our Jungian Studies group at the Jung Institute of Chicago.

The topic was individuation , which he defined as: “The process of becoming oneself, whole, indivisible and differentiated from the collective but worthy of merger with the collective in one’s uniqueness.”

Here are eight things I learned during those four hours:

  1. Individuation is immoral unless you pay it back. Might as well start out with the one that pulls no punches! Focusing on individuation cuts you off from conformity and collectivity. After a while you should emerge and serve the community that chooses you to serve it. This is a summary of Jung’s thoughts in The Symbolic Life.
  2. The 4 types of people and how to handle them (based on the Yoga Sutras):
    • Unhappy people – Show them compassion, but not too much. You rob them of necessary suffering if you are too compassionate. Suffering is needed for individuation.
    • Happy people – Be mildly joyful towards them, but not too much, because you don’t know how they got their success.
    • Wicked people – Avoid them. If they are a family member and you can’t avoid them, put them on a maintenance list, such as only seeing them on holidays.
    • Virtuous/soulful people – Stay with them and follow them to the end of life.
  3. Live your authentic nature in balance. He used the analogy of Lion and Lamb. If you are a lion, be a lion most of the time. But there are times for a lion to be a lamb and vice versa. Sometimes a lamb must speak and act from greater strength and there are times for lions to focus on healing, forgiving, and not holding grudges.
  4. All our transactions are one of the following (I’ll let you guess which one is the most preferable):
    • Both lose.
    • I win, you lose.
    • You win, I lose.
    • Both win.
  5. Is Jungian psychology spirituality or psychology? Per Bedi it is on the edges of science. The “edge of science is always spirit.” As one of our instructors put it, Jungian psychology is “psychological understanding of how spirit works in human beings.”
  6. Absence of proof is not absence of truth.
  7. You are everything. The universe is one. As above, so below. You are god, human, animal, vegetable, and mineral. In small group sessions we had fun discussing which animal, vegetable, and mineral we are. If you must know, for mineral, I’m an amethyst, because that was once a nickname given to me by a friend who thought I was multi-faceted. For animal, I’m a white-throated sparrow, my favorite bird. A flock of them spends a few weeks in our backyard every spring before migrating north. I love their unique and charming whistles and the stipes on their heads. If you look closely at them, and listen carefully, you will see they aren’t “just a sparrow.” For vegetable, I’m a potato: I like the underworld connotations. They are boring to look at, yet multi-purpose (French fries are my favorite of their forms), nourishing, easy to cook, and abundant in tough times.

Which animal, vegetable, and mineral are you?

Did someone say French fries?

WHAT I OFFER:

Consultations:
Astrology Consultations (including a package deal option)

Writing:
Subscribe to the Reading in Depth monthly newsletter
Get Blog Posts by Email
Index to my popular blog posts about personality typology

Continue Reading8 Things I Learned From Ashok Bedi, M.D.

Contemplation gives you true power

Contemplation gives you true power

I love that Hexagram 20: Contemplation of the I Ching correlates with the beginning of Gemini season.

As I wrote about last year, Mercury’s sign of Gemini has a lot more depth than one might think. It is perfectly suited to help us with the three levels of contemplation that Richard Rudd describes in his commentary on this hexagram in The 64 Ways.

The first level is simply viewing. We have to learn to train our lens on the present and on our current life situation. This helps us to make the connection that “our outer life is built upon the foundation of our inner life.”

The second level “is about viewing oneself in relation to the world. The self awareness really deepens now.” Seeing the effects of our actions has a preventative effect in us. Bad habits start to fall away. As we start to become more integrated in the world it brings a sense of calm. Note that it is becoming more integrated in- and not detached from – the world that brings this calm. “Allow this calm to settle deeply into your soul.” Cultivate it and make space for it to grow.

The third level is when the contemplation ceases of its own accord. “Everything you do or feel becomes an aspect of your contemplation. You use everything that happens in your life. This is the subtle art of contemplation.”

Using everything that happens in your life reminds me of what Jungian analyst Robert A. Johnson said:

Becoming whole is a game in which you get rid of nothing; you cannot do without these diverse energies any more than you can do without one of the physical organs that make up your body. You need to draw upon everything that is available to you.

Living Your Unlived Life by Robert A. Johnson

Isn’t that a wonderful alternative to the all-too prevalent notion that you have broken parts that need fixing?

Jupiter entered Gemini yesterday and will spend a year there. I look forward to having that in the background as we move through all the zodiacal seasons. It will be in Hexagram 20 for several months.

Jupiter, combined with the Mercurial nature of Gemini, brings a positive outlook, eloquent communication skills, ability to see the big picture, and ability to synthesize a lot of ideas. It will also help remind us that, as Rudd says, “Contemplation gives you true power.”

From a personality type perspective, hexagram 64 contains Earth (extraverted sensation) and Wind (extraverted feeling). You can see this combination in our closing quote:

When you learn the art of contemplation you have more influence on the direction of humanity than the President of the United States. You may not see this on the surface, but it’s true. A person living in presence affects the very air around them. They send off radiations of harmony that touches all quadrants of the universe. They are like the gentle wind blowing across the earth.

WHAT I OFFER:

Consultations:
Astrology Consultations (including a package deal option)

Writing:
Subscribe to the Reading in Depth monthly newsletter
Get Blog Posts by Email
Index to my popular blog posts about personality typology

Continue ReadingContemplation gives you true power