When I ponder the meaning of “depth,” there are several archetypes and personality typology functions that immediately come to mind.
There’s Scorpio, the fixed water sign that is the domicile of the yin version of Mars. Especially if Mars, Mercury, or the Moon are placed here.
Mercury-Pluto, per Richard Tarnas, has “a tendency to think with acute, penetrating intensity that in exceptional cases reflected the possession of a powerful, driven intellect; an unusual capactiy for…shrewed analysis of underlying or hidden motivations.”
The I Ching itself is about depth. Johnson F. Yan says, “The I Ching penetrates to the soul and then demands soul-searching.”
Introverted intuition likes to go deep into whatever it is interested in. John Beebe says, “When introverted intuition is operating well, an image of the deeper reality compellingly presents itself.”
Introverted sensation also can provide deep insight and can, per Beebe, “single out from all the possible meanings that one meaning which tells us what is the specific psychic activity behind the dream and how it can be brought into the foreground of consciousness.”
Then there’s depth psychology, that inexhaustible source of wisdom for many of us. Psychology is the study of the soul and the soul refers to the deep. Depth psychology approaches the whole person and connects us to our own depths by engaging the unconscious.
By the way, we’re considering depth today because of Hexagram 48 – The Well of the I Ching*: “The well from which water is drawn conveys the further idea of an inexhaustible dispensing of nourishment.”
The flip side of depth is superficiality. Have you ever noticed that the people most interested in depth are sometimes the most fearful that they are too superficial?
Encounters with depth are also defeats for the ego. Jung wrote in his autobiography about how when he regularly attended to his depths, he repeatedly was brought up short: “Aha, here is another thing I did not know about myself.”
Mercury enters Libra tomorrow, October 5. It doesn’t probe the depths the way Scorpio does, but it gently prepares the way for that.
Diplomatic, other-centered Libra, a yang air sign that is the domicile of Venus, can help remind us that, as James Hollis says, “each of us is, after all, a character of great depth.”
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References:
I Ching or Book of Changes translated by Richard Wilhelm
DNA and the I Ching: The Tao of Life by Johnson F. Yan
Memories, Dreams, and Reflections by C.G. Jung
What Matters Most by James Hollis
Cosmos and Psyche by Richard Tarnas
*The 64 hexagrams of the I Ching, an ancient Chinese text, are arranged along the ecliptic (the celestial equator) in Human Design. In astrology there are 12 zodiac signs along the ecliptic, so there are 5.3 hexagrams per zodiac sign. I’m contemplating these hexagrams as a way to engage with astrology, the I Ching, and Jungian psychology.
