Mary-Jayne Rust is a Jungian analyst and an art therapist. Her many years of working in the area of eating problems has informed a wider interest in the cultural roots of consumerism and the links between gender and culture, soul and the land. In a dark time the eye begins to see. Facing the personal and collective shadow of ecological crisis can transform our vision of self and other. From rethinking personal symptoms such as depression or addiction to the shift in human-earth relationship, what are the pearls to be found?
Mary-Jayne starts out talking about the personal and cultural shadow and the dual nature of light and dark. Darkness opens the door to our own shadow - the parts of ourselves which we would rather not look at. It is particularly in times of crisis that we are confronted with our shadow and the current ecological and social crisis seems to try to make us aware that treating the rest of the world as unrelated objects is a significant part of our collective shadow.
Another relevant psychological process is projection : We tend to push away aspect of ourselves we don't like and then we project these aspects onto other people and see them highlighted within others. This then leads to the attempt to control and dominate the external world which consists of all the projections we fear. Instead of fixing ourselves on the inside, we try to control the external world, which only works on a very limited scale if at all. Projections can help us to see certain aspects of ourselves but it becomes problematic if we do not take the next step and re-integrate these aspects and learn to own them, of which Mary-Jayne refers as transformation.
There are different ways of transformation : The first is simply to take a step back and look at what is going on, this involves becoming aware of our unconscious and what we have been blind to before. Another way are visionaries, who are able to see beyond the cultural norms and can point out these hidden aspects to us. A third way is travelling to other cultures and by gaining a new perspective we are then able to look at our own Western culture from a different viewpoint. If these 3 ways fail the fourth way always works : It is a severe crisis which throws us off track and forces us to re-evaluate our own world view. The problem with severe crisis is that it shows the potential for madness if there is not a strong enough container for the shadow to be confronted.
Mary-Jayne continues comparing personal transformation to cultural transformation because both are quite similar processes.
The lecture itself is 50 minutes long followed by 30 minutes of discussion which is also quite interesting to watch.
Mary-Jayne Rust's website : http://www.mjrust.net
