This Jungian Life

Jung says, “Love is a power of destiny, whose force reaches from heaven to hell.” Falling in love is an initiation into the divine—light, and dark—as personal and archetypal forces combine and combust. In thrall to the magical other through whom we experience newfound parts of ourselves, we fall into a reality that transcends and possesses us. Ardor takes us by surprise and opens us fiercely and intimately to our inner world, exposing us to ourselves. Passion must pass, whether it leads to commitment and partnership or casts us into disillusion and heartbreak. We need to know and grow a capacity for loving that makes us more whole and more able to love the other in another. We shall become kinder and wiser…and bow to the excitement and aliveness of falling in love.  Here’s the dream we analyze: “I am looking at myself in a mirror in my waking-life bathroom. I lean close and notice that my two upper front teeth appear to be loose and crooked. I touch one, and it skews out of alignment. I panic! I try to realig