WHOLENESS

First Posted Aug 2009 

A quote from Edward F Edinger a Jungian psychologist :
THE ETERNAL DRAMA: The Inner Meaning of Greek Mythology

 

"Nothing new can emerge unless one is willing to dip into chaos and pull it out. 

Once it is out it promptly splits in two, into earth and sky in terms of the myth. This is something we see whenever something is coming into awareness: the very process of achieving consciousness involves a split into opposites. Things can remain in their state of oneness only as long as they are unconscious. When they reach consciousness, they must divide into opposites and then we have the experience of conflict." Page 10

From Encounter with the Self, by Edward F Edinger:  

"At first, the encounter with the Self is indeed a defeat of the ego; but with perseverance, /Deo volente,/ light is born from the darkness. One meets the "Immortal One" who wounds and heals, who casts down and raises up, who makes small and makes large - in a word the one who makes one whole." 

Page 9

Blake is willing to dip into that chaos and endure the splitting. He follows the process through its inner and outer manifestations and describes the unification process on the other side at a higher level of consciousness.

In plate 96 of JERUSALEM Blake writes:

"Then Jesus appeared standing by Albion as the Good Shepherd
By the lost Sheep that he hath found & Albion knew that it
Was the Lord the Universal Humanity, & Albion saw his Form
A Man. & they conversed as Man with Man, in Ages of Eternity
And the Divine Appearance was the likeness & similitude of Los"

This passage is symbolically dense. Practically every word in it is pregnant with meaning. Focus on any word within its context and it leads toward the transcending of divisions which is about to be achieved. From the undifferentation of unconsciousness, through recognition, awareness, sifting, and integration the Divine Appearance (unification) is being activated.

Yale Center for British Art

Jerusalem

Plate 96

Think of Jesus on the mount of transfiguration: fourfold in humanity encountering the Eternal.