Von Franz, Marie-Louise, On dreams and death; a Jungian interpretation.

p. 24 ON DREAMS AND DEATH

2.

The Vegetation:

Tree, Grass, Corn, and Flower

In the dream motif of the trampled cornfield which grows again and in the wheat and barley symbolism of the dead god Osiris, we have seen that the death of vegetation often appears as an image of human death and, at the same time, as a symbol of resurrection. Thus Edinger's patient, who was at the point of death, dreamed:

I am alone in a great formal garden such as one finds in Europe. The grass is an unusual kind of turf, centuries old. There are great hedges of boxwood and everything is completely ordered. At the end of the garden I see a movement. At first it seems to be an enormous frog made of grass. As I get closer I see it is actually a green man, herbal, made of grass. He is doing a dance. It is very beautiful and I think of Hudson's novel, Green Mansions. 1 It gave me a sense of peace, although I could not really understand what I was beholding. 2

This green man, like the Egyptian Osiris, is a vegetation spirit. The frog, for which the dreamer at first mistook the green man, reminds us of the Egyptian frog-queen Heqet, who was frequently depicted sitting on the head of a mummy and who represented resurrection. On oil lamps of early Christian graves she unequivocally bears the designation "resurrection." In the Middle Ages, green was considered to be the colour of the Holy Spirit, of life, procreation and resurrection. 3 It is the colour of a kind of life-spirit or world-soul which pervades everything. As far as the dancing grass man in the dream is concerned, J. G. Frazer 4 and W. Mannhardt 5 report numerous European customs in which a young boy, in springtime or at Whitsuntide, is completely covered with grass or leaves, is ducked into water or otherwise "killed" symbolically, and then rises again. He is called "King May, " "the Green George, " etc. The event is a magic ritual, designed to bring about the defeat of winter and to insure fertility and sufficient rainfall for the coming year. Sometimes this "Whitsun lout' is replaced by a richly decorated hewn-down tree. 6

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In some places he is also buried, something which was interpreted as a "death-play." 7 Whatever this mythical figure means in itself, it has something to do with death and with life's further blossoming. The American dreamer's dancing grass man must also represent such a May King, an image of the principle of life and death symbolised by vegetation.

Along with grass and grain, the tree also often appears as a symbol for death's mysterious relation to life. Thus, for instance, the aforementioned symbol of the tree made of visible and invisible world-fire (world energy) carried for Simon Magus the sense of life and death united within itself; whereas in the teachings of the Manichaeans, and in keeping with their generally dualistic view of the world, the tree was divided into a tree of death and a tree of life. The former, planted by the demon of desire, ugly and split up within itself, symbolised matter and evil; the latter, however, signified gnosis and wisdom; it is the Tree of Knowledge, whose fruit opened Adam's eyes when he ate of it. At some future time the redeemer will cut down the tree of death, but will plant and preserve the trees of good. The tree of light is also represented as a tree of precious stone. 8

In the impressive dream series of a young woman dying from cancer reported by Jane Wheelwright, the final dream is as follows: "I was a palm tree, the middle one of three trees. An earthquake was about to occur that would destroy all life, and I didn't want to be killed by the quake. "9 As Wheelwright remarks, the tree is, among other things, a mother symbol. The dream tree therefore represents a devotion to "mother nature. " Jung comments on the Germanic legend, according to which man originally came out of trees and will eventually disappear into them again.10 The world of consciousness yields to the vegetative. The tree is the unconscious life which renews itself and continues to exist eternally, after human consciousness has ceased to exist.

A dying seventy-five-year-old man had the following dream:

I see an old, gnarled tree high up on a steep bluff. It is only half rooted in the earth, the remainder of the roots reaching into the empty air. . . . Then it becomes separated from the earth altogether, loses its support and falls. My heart misses a beat. But then something wonderful happens: the tree floats, it does not fall, it floats. Where to? Into the sea? I do not know. 11

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In this dream too the tree is certainly an image of continuing life. And the last dream of another man who died a few days later was as follows:

I am on or in a sky-blue air-liquid that has the shape of an egg and I have the feeling that I am falling into the blue, into the universe. But then it is not so. I am caught and carried by a little blue cloth or by the flakes which hold me. Now I fall into the universe - I want to try it. But I do not lose my hold and I am caught by cloths and by people who speak to me. The small cloths surround me. Red stairways drip and form a Christmas tree. 12

The blue cosmic air-liquid in the dream will be discussed later.

What is important here is the Christmas tree which appears to the dying man as a goal lying in the Beyond. Jung points out in "The Philosophical Tree" 13 that in the alchemical tradition the tree is also considered to be a symbol of the opus alchemicum.

Psychologically, it symbolises the individuation process, that is, the continual inner development toward a higher awareness, in which over and over again new lights are seen. Such a tree also exists in the heavenly Jerusalem of the Book of Revelation:

". . . through the middle of the street . . . the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit . . . and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. " (Rev. 22:2). In the Islamic paradise there are also numerous trees of precious stones, the most frequent being the so-called tula tree.

Its root is of mother-of-pearl and its leaves are of silk and brocade. . . There is no space, no arch, no tree in the garden that could not be shaded by a branch of the tula tree. Its fruits are rare and very much desired in this world, for they certainly do not exist in this world. Its roots are in the sky and its light reaches into every comer of the world. 14

Here we have an inverted tree; "honorary garments" emerge from its crown for the pious. One may compare this with the little blue cloths in the dream, which protect the dreamer from disintegration. Jung writes about this inverted tree:

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The alchemist saw the union of opposites under the symbol of the tree, and it is therefore not surprising that the unconscious of present-day man, who no longer feels at home in his world and can base his experience neither on the past that is no more nor on the future that is yet to be, should hark back to the symbol of the cosmic tree rooted in this world and growing up to heaven - the tree that is also man. In the history of symbols this tree is described as the way of life itself, a growing into that which eternally is and does not change; which springs from the union of opposites and, by its eternal presence, also makes that union possible. It seems as if it were only through an experience of symbolic reality that man, vainly seeking his own "existence" and making a philosophy out of it, can find his way back to the world in which he is no longer a stranger. 15

The dream seems to say to the dreamer that in the Beyond he will continue to grow and to develop toward a higher degree of awareness.

Vegetation symbolism also appears in "Komarios to Cleopatra, " one of the oldest texts of Graeco-Egyptian alchemy, dating back to the first century. Before the passage in the text that interests us there is an account of the entire cyclical process through which the "philosopher's stone" or gold is supposed to be produced, a cycle in the form of a mandala of two times four colours and processes (See Fig. 1). 16

After this general schematisation, the text continues:

Observe the nature of plants and from whence they come. Some come down from the mountains and grow up out of the earth, others rise up from caves and from plains. But observe how one approaches them. One must gather them at the right moment, on the appropriate days. Pick them from the islands in the sea and from the upper plains. And observe how the air serves them, how the wheat embraces them protectively, so that they are not damaged or destroyed. Observe the divine water which nourishes them, and how the air rules over them after they have incorporated themselves into one substance. 17

Before further consideration of the text, I would like to interpolate at this point the brief explanation that the plants discussed here were regarded at the time the text was written as identical.

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FIGURE

Melanosis - Blackening

Leukosis Whitening

Xanthosis - Yellowing

Iosis - Reddening

I. Washing the ashes, treatment with fire

2. Mixing with liquid to form a wax cake

3. Bipartition and mixing with yellow and white liquids

4. Sepsis, second decomposition and presentation of the gold

There are four principal stages in the alchemical process: Melanosis (blackening), Leukosis (whitening), Xanthosis (yellowing) and Iosis (reddening), together with four operations: (1) taricheia (mummification and washing), (2) chrysopoiesis (production of the gold through fire), (3) Bipartition and further mixing with white and yellow, (4) Sepsis (second decomposition, at the end of which the gold appears). The four operations are closely connected with the four colour phases.

with certain ores and metals. 18 The two genres apparently differ from each other only in that the metals are "dryer," the plants "wetter. 19 Both grow on mountains and in caves. The ores are considered as "efflorescences" of the earth. Earth, air and water "serve" them and the "wheat embraces them protectively. " The trees of precious stones of the Islamic paradise might very well have originated from such alchemical associations.

But back to the text. After an incidental remark, Komarios says to Cleopatra:

Tell us how the highest comes down to the lowest and the lowest up to the highest, and how the middle approaches the upper and the lower and they become one with the middle, and of what kind of elements they are. And the blessed waters flow down to the dead who are lying there, who are bound and  [p.29] oppressed in the gloominess and darkness of the depths of Hades. And how life's curing element enters in and awakens them, so that they revive for their creators. And how the new [fresh] waters enter into the head of the grave bed and are born in the bed and come forth with the light and the cloud carries them upward. And the cloud which carries the waters rises up from the sea. When the adepts see this apparition, they rejoice." 20

Then Cleopatra speaks to the audience:

The penetrating waters revive the bodies and the bound, weakened spirits (pneumata). For they have suffered renewed affliction and have been hidden again in Hades. After a short time they begin to grow and to come forth and clothe themselves in splendid, bright colours, like the flowers in spring. And Spring rejoices and indulges herself in the beauty which clothes them. 21

I would like to pause here in the Komarios text to consider the psychological meaning of this particular passage. Obviously we have here, in the first place, comparisons drawn from the realm of vegetation. The "ores" blossom like plants from the earth, they die, lie hidden, buried underground, are watered with fresh water, awaken again to life and bloom again with radiant beauty in a new spring.

It is later said of these plants that before reviving they are first "spoiled" by fire. Behind this image there surely lies the pattern of vegetation, which, when cut down by man or dried by the sun, always grows into a physical life again and continues to survive. In the Vimala Kiuta Sutra, the body of man is compared to the hardy plantain tree "which has nothing firm in itself. The trunk does die off in the autumn but the creeping root system (the rhizome), which remains in the earth, sprouts anew. " Since, however, according to the Buddhist point of view, this new experience is supposed to be interrupted, the image of a radish is often used: one pulls up both its root and branch as a symbol of a definite separation from the wheel of rebirth. 22 However, in cultures where a continuation of life is viewed positively, images of vegetation are to be understood rather as a promise of further existence, [p.30] Often the mowing of com or of grass or the hewing down of trees in the dreams of people close to death also points to the end of life. A fifty-two-year-old analysand of mine had cancer of the bladder which was due for operation. Naturally he was extremely worried about the outcome. He dreamed that an ambulance came to take him to the hospital. (In reality he was still well enough to be able to go by taxi.) The driver got out of the ambulance, opened the back door, and there lay a white coffin. After the operation the patient left the hospital, but only for a short time. Due to metastases he had to return and he died shortly afterward. I cite this brutal dream here because later I will present a very comforting dream of the same man.

As mentioned above, people have frequently objected to my use of consoling dreams on the ground that they are after all only wish-fulfilment dreams. Yet the unconscious usually does announce the end in a highly drastic manner to people who have illusions about the nearness of death, as shown in the above-cited dream of the dead horse, and here in this dream of the white coffin. As a result of this latter dream, the analysand acquainted himself with the possibility of impending death and shortly afterward dreamed the following:

He was going through a forest in winter. It was cold and misty. He shivered. From a distance he could hear the moan of a chain saw and from time to time the crack of falling trees. Suddenly the dreamer was once again in a forest, but on a higher level as it were. It was summer, sunlight spotted the green moss on the ground. His father (who, in reality, had died long before) walked toward him and said, "You see, here is the forest again. Do not concern yourself any more with what is happening down there" (that is the hewing down of Trees).

The cutting down of trees alludes perhaps to the brutal surgical intervention that awaited him, a damage to and destruction of his vegetative life. (The chain saw is applied to his life tree. ) Death here is a woodcutter. In the visual arts he is often represented as a reaper with a scythe. This art motif dates back to the portrayal of the pre-Christian god Saturn, who was often depicted as a harvest god with a sickle. Something is "hewn  [p.31] down" in death, is "cut." Death is always a brutal event, as Jung remarks, and "it is brutal not only as a physical event, but far more so psychically: a human being is torn away from us, and what remains is the icy stillness of death. "23

The same dream, however, continues on a "higher level" where there is life once again or, in the terms of the dream, there is another forest. In that forest the dead continue to live, as the appearance of the long-deceased father indicates. The mood is happy, agreeable, as in the "new spring" (a description of which appears in the Komarios text), and the dead father advises the dreamer not to worry any longer about what is happening "down there. " The unconscious obviously wants to detach the dreamer psychically from the physical terminal event. In reality, the unfortunate man suffered a painful, sorrowful end, which he endured however with great courage. The "higher level" of the second forest could indicate some elevation and intensification of psychic energy, a phenomenon which will be discussed later.

The transition from a forest being destroyed to another resurrected forest is established through a typical dream-blending and is not described in any greater detail. The ancient alchemical Komarios text, however, describes more exactly how the plants, that is, the "bodies" and "spirits," suffer the blackness of the underworld and are then awakened and brought back to life by an infusion of the water of life. Then they rise again as spring flowers.

As Henri Corbin 24 has shown, the idea of flowers as prima materia is present in the religious conception of the world of the Persians as the primary material of the resurrection process. 25 As we see in Persian landscape representations of the Beyond, every angel and every divine power possesses its own special flower. The god Vohuman has the white jasmine, Shatrivar the basil, the Daena -the divine anima of the male - has the rose of a hundred petals.26

One meditates on these flowers in order to constellate their "energies," with which the angel or the divine force itself then illuminates the inner field of vision. Thus the meditation on a flower, as Corbin expresses it, makes possible an epiphany of otherworldly divine beings within the archetypal world. 27

The idea of resurrection was also for the ancient Egyptians connected with the image of the world of plants and with them,  [p.32] Fig. 5: Vegetative resurrection, symbolised by a blooming lotus flower from which emerges the head of a dead man returning to life.

too, flowers were an aspect of the resurrection body. They even put wheat grains and flower bulbs inside the mummy bandages, or in a container near the dead body and poured water over them. If they germinated, it was taken as a sign of a completed resurrection. Such "wheat mummies" can still be seen in the Cairo Museum. They demonstrate how literally the resurrection of the dead was equated with the germ of either the wheat or of the flowers. This custom also explains an obscure sentence in our text, where we read that "the wheat embraces them (i.e., the plants or the ores) protectively." Here the ore-plants are also identified with the corpse which is wrapped up in the wheat inside the linen mummy bandages.

At the time of resurrection the plants "bloom," as the Komarios text says. Flowers are a widespread archetypal image for postmortal existence, or for the resurrection body itself. In the so-called "vigil hours" of the Osiris mysteries, 28 the "vegetal resurrection" occurs in the fourth hour of the day (to be followed soon afterward by the "animal resurrection, " which seems to have been a rebirth rite in which the dead man's ka renews itself). Then in the sixth hour it is said that the sky goddess Nut

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receives the deceased and brings him forth again as a child.29 The vegetal resurrection is thus the first stage in the resurrection of the deceased, after which the dead man says: "I am that pure lotus flower which emerged from the light radiance which is in the nose of Re. . . . I am the pure flower which emerged from the field." 30 Or he says to Osiris: "I am the roots of Naref, the nehetal plant of the west horizon. . . . O, Osiris, let me be saved, as you let yourself be saved." " Or: "I have ascended like the primeval form, I came into being as Khepri (scarab). I have grown as a plant. " 32

In the Far East, the Golden Flower is a symbol of the Self, a familiar image for the eternal in man. Buddha is supposed to have given a wordless sermon at one time, during which he presented a yellow flower (or, according to another version, a white lotus) to his disciples. Only his pupil Kasyapa understood him and responded with a knowing smile. 33 The flower here corresponds to illumination. In "The Teaching of the Pure Land," the flower (the white lotus) is used as a symbol for the man who, in the midst of a guilty, illusive, entangled life, nevertheless "lives in God," in the eternal light and life of the Amidha Buddha. In the Taoistic Chinese text, "The Secret of the Golden Flower, " this is described as a "new being, " which, through meditation, unfolds from the dark inner depths into silence. 34 It is this unfolding that Jung calls the experience of the Self. At the same time it is also an experience of immortality which has already begun in daily life. 35 "The body resembles the roots of a lotus plant, the spirit is its flower. The roots remain in the mire, yet the flower unfolds toward the sky." 36 The golden flower represents a union with the "ever creative One"; 37 immortality lies within it, 38 so that an eternal or dharma body may thereby be crystallized.39

Today in Nepal flowers and grains of rice are still scattered on cremation pyres. During celebrations for the dead, garlands of tagetes (yellow flowers) are strung over the sacred river to make a bridge to the Beyond. The so-called tulasi flower also plays a special role. An infusion from this flower is given to the deceased to drink and its leaves are placed on his tongue. When a member of the warrior caste dies, tulasi flowers are placed in front of the corpse and pieces of its roots are laid on the tongue, ears, eyes, [p.34]  and top of the head. Water from the Ganges is blown over him while the name of the flowers -tulasi - is called out three times. In this way his soul can escape into the sky. Furthermore, after death the soul can still visit its survivors by descending from the house altar over tulasi flowers. 40 Orange-yellow tagetes are still used by the Indians in Guatemala as a symbol of All Saints Day; for them the flowers represent sun, light and life. 41

The West does not possess such highly differentiated views of the nature of this soul-flower as does the East, but the idea does appear frequently as an archetypal motif. For instance, in "The Vampire, " a Gypsy fairy tale, 42 a pretty, innocent girl is pursued by a vampire-like devil and, after vain attempts to escape, is killed. A flower, "which shines like a candle, " grows up on the head of her grave. The emperor's son rides by, picks the flower and takes it to his room. At night the girl emerges from the flower and sleeps with the prince; in the daytime she is once again transformed into the flower. The prince is weakened by these nocturnal adventures, until his parents discover the secret and seize the girl. The son awakens and is finally united, while awake, with the beloved. She gives birth to a golden boy who holds two apples in his hands. But, after a while, the vampire returns and kills the child. The girl warns the vampire that "he may die wretchedly, " whereupon he explodes. She tears his heart from his body and with it brings the child back to life.

As in Eastern mysticism, the flower is here a symbol of absolute inner unassailability, and of life that survives death. The golden boy, which the heroine bears, is, like the flower, an image of the Self, but more human and therefore more vulnerable to the devil. Only the heroine's bravery is eventually able to conquer the destructive principle.

The motif of survival as a flower on the grave is also quite common in legends. In Swiss folklore, for instance, a story is told of the attempt, in the year 1430 in Hiltisrieden, to build a curate's house. A lily sprang from the earth, where it had grown through the heart of a corpse that rested on that spot. Later the same story was told of the place nearby, where Duke Leopold was buried, and it was said that the lily had grown from his heart. The Swiss saint Nicholas of Flue once, while deep in prayer, had a vision in which he saw "a white lily with a wonderful fragrance spring upward out of his mouth until it touched

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Fig. 6: In a Mayan ritual, the soul of the departed is accompanied on his journey to rebirth by the bird Moan (center) with the words, "Living grain," on its beak, and (right) a god with a long seed-stick.

heaven. " (At the same time, he thought about his cattle, and his favourite horse ate the lily. ) Here the lily is obviously a subtle-body apparition, an image of Nicholas' anima candida which strives toward heaven. 43

The flower is thus an image of the soul, which frees itself from the coarse material of the body; at the same time it is an image of the post-mortal existence of the soul. 44

In the culture of the Maya, the growth of vegetation was also closely associated with the cult of the dead. 45 The decipherment of the Mayan script is unfortunately still very uncertain; therefore I can point to only a few of the more general characteristics.

The Maya seem to have practised a ritual in which they accompanied the soul of the departed into the Beyond, from the moment of his death until his rebirth. "The souls of the dead had a close relation to the life of plants, especially of corn. They also assisted plants in their rebirth." 46 Not everyone, however,

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took part in this kind of initiation. Some individuals disappeared into gloomy Mictlan, never to return. Fallen warriors, on the other hand, and women who died in childbirth entered the heavenly regions and accompanied the sun on his journey until evening. Then they returned to the earth as butterflies and hummingbirds. Upon dying, the deceased was confused at first, but with a priest's help he was awakened and became active again. He lost his body, but as an "eye" or a "soul" he chose a pregnant woman in whose child he could return to life.47 The ideogram for this re-procreation is a vessel full of ashes (!), or a little bone from which two or three leaves are growing. 48 A bird named Noan, with the words "living grain" on its beak, helps the soul to its rebirth.49 Paul Arnold, editor of the Mayan Books of the Dead, points to the close relationship between these ideas and those of the ancient Chinese.

In ancient times the Chinese probably buried their dead on the north side of the house, 50 where the grain for the next sowing was kept. Originally, they thought that the dead somehow went on living in the ground water under the house, near the Yellow Springs which marked the end of their journey. From the Springs they returned to life. 5l Marcel Granet informs us that

the Yellow Springs formed the land of the dead, a reservoir of life; because the Chinese were of the opinion that the Yang, which had withdrawn into the Yellow Springs in the depths of the north (the depths are yin) survived the winter (yin) enclosed and surrounded by the Yin (water). There it won back its full power and prepared itself... to burst forth anew. 52

It began to grow again at the winter solstice.

Later the dead in China were buried in tombs north of the city. The north is associated with the time of winter rest and with the festival in commemoration of the dead. In this festival, players wearing animal masks wandered around, presenting themselves as the spirits of the dead, and people went to the burial places to repair them. 53 They also had a ceremonial meal to which the spirits of the ancestors were invited. 54 This was followed by the clearing of the fields, the plowing, and the first sowing. 55 This was also the time for weddings, another sowing of new life.

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The Chinese believed that their ancestors returned to life in their descendants, not as identical persons but as their intimate life essence, which was also that of the family. 56 Hence there is a mystical analogy between the dead, who go into the earth for a winter's rest, and the grain which rests in the northern, storage-room side of the house and awakens again to new life in spring.

In the West, too, in the Mediterranean area, especially in late Mycenean times, the dead were often buried in so-called pithoi, earthen storage vessels in which grain was otherwise kept. As the grain, sown in spring, awakens to new life, so will the dead, too, arise again in the Beyond. 57

Again and again we read in the literature that the "vegetation gods" are associated with resurrection symbolism, in the sense that Osiris, Ads, Tammuz and others signified the death and rebirth of vegetation. Seen psychologically, this is incorrect. For rural cultures, vegetation in its concrete aspect was no mystery but such an intimate part of their lives that it was not in itself divine. In the cult of the dead it served rather as a symbol for something unknown, something psychic, and like all archetypal symbols was therefore closely interwoven with many other mythical images. Vegetation represented the psychic mystery of death and resurrection. Moreover, one should bear in mind that in reality all vegetation is characterised by the fact that it draws its life directly from so-called dead, inorganic matter, from light, air, earth and water. For this reason it is an especially appropriate symbol for the miracle that out of "dead," gross substances new life can arise. Now, man's dead body also consists of inorganic matter only, and indeed - or so one hopes - a living "form" could arise from it again, as the vegetation imagery indicates.

Unlike the tree, grass, and bunches of flowers, the symbol of a single flower has a particular meaning. Flowers are generally mandala-shaped (Buddha's golden flower! ), which makes them especially appropriate as a symbol of the Self. So the mythos of the flower would suggest that in the flower the Self possesses or builds for itself a new mandala-shaped body insofar as it extracts its "life essence" from the dead body.

Our rich offerings of flowers and wreaths of flowers at a burial surely symbolise not only our feelings of sympathy but also, unconsciously, a "resurrection magic, " a symbol for the return of [p.38] the departed to a new life; to this belongs also the mandala form of the wreath.

How alive the flower is as a symbol of the postmortal "body," as a firm abode for the soul, I discovered to my sorrow through the "active imagination" of a fifty-four-year-old woman, an analysand and friend of mine, who died unexpectedly. Active imagination, as we know, is a form of meditation taught by Jung, in which one conducts a conversation with inner fantasy figures. In her imagination, the conversational partner of this woman was a spiritual bear man. The layman can imagine him as a kind of inner guru.

One month before her death, she wrote the following "imagination":

I: Oh, my big bear! I am so cold. When will we get to our homeland?

Bear: You will only really be there at your death.

I: Can't we go there now?

Bear: No. You must complete your tasks first.

I: I can't because I am so cold.

Bear: I will give you my animal warmth.

(He embraces me carefully and slowly warms me up again. )

I: Can't we go now, for just a short visit, to that beautiful homeland?

Bear: It's dangerous.

I: Why?

Bear: Because one does not know for certain whether one will return or not.

I: Haven't we already stood here more than once before . . . in front of the wonderful flower? 58

Bear: Yes, but that is not the same as entering it.

I: But I cannot live without this center. The center must always be with me. I do not want to be outside, but always inside it. Outside, everything is meaningless, one is left to chance.

Six days later. I see the flower. It shines, radiantly wonderful, in the dark forest. It has grown; it is rooted and is eternal. Its radiant bloom has eight leaves, four golden and four silver, distributed symmetrically. It is in the center of a circular area, surrounded by a thick, high wall which has four locked gates.

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My companion, the bear, has four golden keys. He opens one of the gates. We enter. He locks the gate behind us. As soon as I am inside the wall, I feel very well.

I: Why do I feel so well here?

Bear: Because there are no demons inside the wall.

I: I am very happy in our homeland, in the center. The flower radiates a wonderful healing light. I am not in the flower yet, but I am near it, in its protection, in its mild warmth. It is inner order, the center. There is no splitting here, no halfness.

A few days later. Here, near the flower, I am safe from too much heat or cold.

I: Why is the wall so thick?

Bear: To protect us against God.

I: Who built it?

Bear: God.

I: Who arranged for the flower to grow?

Bear: God, in order to protect you against him.

I: Terrible, awful, kind, helpful God!

One week later. The mystery of the flower is within me. I am it and it is me. It has entered me and has been transformed into a human being. . . . I am this radiant flower, from which a spring has burst forth. . . . Am I this? From now on, when I go to the flower, I know that I go into myself.

Two weeks later. I go to the wall. My companion, the bear, opens one of the four gates for me. We enter. . . . As soon as we are inside the surrounding walls he takes on human form. He wears a golden coat. I look at the flower. As I meditate on it, I am transformed into a flower, fully rooted, radiantly eternal. Thus I take the Shape of eternity. This makes me quite whole. . . . As flower, as center, no one can harm me. I am protected in this way. For the greater part of the time I will have to return to human form, but again and again it will be possible for me to become the flower. I am happy about this, for until recently I did not know it was possible. I only knew the flower as an object. Now I know that I can also be it.

The text ends here abruptly, for shortly afterward the writer died, quite unexpectedly, from a lung embolism. It was as though she definitely wanted to go inside the flower, clearly a symbol of the postmortal body.

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This does not mean that the resurrection body actually resembles this flower form. One must of course understand the flower as a symbol for a form of existence, that is in itself unimaginable and not rationally understandable. As stated in the Jungian view, the mandala structure of the flower points to the Self, the inner psychic totality. In this sense the flower is a slowly maturing inner core, a totality into which the soul withdraws after death. In one passage of the active-imagination exercise not given here, the writer also calls the flower a star. This is another historically familiar symbol for the resurrection body. In ancient Egypt, the immortal ba soul, as we have seen, was represented as a bird or as a star. The star symbolises the eternal uniqueness of the dead man who possesses his own identity as one among millions of stars. This motif occurs later in our principal text, the Komarios tractate, to which we must now return.