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
p.25
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
p.26
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:
p.27
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.
p.28
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
p.33
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
p.35
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,
p.36
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.
p.37
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.
p.39
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.
p.40
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.