sol and luna

Through a Jungian Lens

Sol and Luna: On Becoming Whole

A Journey of Soul Through Archetypal Images

by Robert G. Longpré

Through a Jungian Lens

Sol and Luna: On Becoming Whole

A Journey of Soul Through Archetypal Images

©Robert G. Longpré Editor and Publisher

Retired Eagle Books

A Journey of Soul in Prairie Skies

Through Images and Words

"... whatever reality may be, it will to some extent be shaped by the lens through which we see it."

- James Hollis, 1993

Dedicated to my father, Lucien, and my mother, Beverly

Robert G. Longpré July, 2010

Introduction This book series began as a challenge. The challenge was to create a book of at least thirty-five photographs within a thirty-one day period of time. This is the SoFoBoMo challenge, a challenge in which completion of the project is its own reward. I took part in the 2009 SoFoBoMo challenge and somehow managed to complete two books within the time frame. This year, I wanted to limit myself to one book in the hopes of making it a stronger book. The challenge for me was to find enough photos that suggested the presence of sun or

moon so that I could use them to explore the essence of masculine and feminine that

lies within each of us. In Jungian Psychology, the essence of the masculine is called

“Logos” while the essence of the feminine is called “Eros.”

In an essay of Carl Gustav Jung’s called “The Personification of Opposites,” the

archetypal images of sun (Sol) and moon (Luna) are used to represent Logos and

Eros, the masculine principle and the feminine principle. I want to note that these

principles are not a representation of men and women, but of the masculine and

feminine principles found in each of us.

I invite you to read this with an open mind, open to the possibilities rather than

assumptions that limit consciousness. Enjoy this small journey of soul.

“In the beginning God created heaven and earth.

“And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness

was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God

moved upon the face of the waters.

“And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided

the light from the darkness.

“And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called

Night.”

Genesis 1

“Let there be lights in the firmament of

heaven to divide the day from the night; and

let them be for signs, and for seasons, and

for days, and years.”

(Genesis 1:14)

“And God made two great lights; the greater

the light to rule the day, and the lesser light

to rule the night . . . ”

(Genesis 1:16)

“Water in all its forms –sea, lake, river, spring- is one of the

commonest typifications of the unconscious, as is also the

lunar femininity that is closely associated with water ”

(Jung, Collected Works: Volume 14, paragraph 364)

”The sun is the father-god from whom all living things draw life; he is

the fructifier and creator, the source of energy for our world. The

discord into which the human soul has fallen can be harmoniously

resolved through the sun as a natural object which knows no inner

conflict.”

(Jung, CW: Volume 5, par 176)

“. . . it is the moon, the mother of all things . . . is wisdom

and teaches wisdom, it contains the elixir of life . . .”

(Jung, CW Volume 14, par 15)

“Our physiological life, regarded as an energy process, is

entirely solar.”


“The refulgent body of the sun is the ego and its field of

consciousness . . . light without and darkness within. In the

source of light there is darkness enough for any amount of

projections, for the ego grows out of the darkness of the psyche.”


“. . . an archetypal image has nothing but it’s

naked fullness, which seems inapprehensible by

the intellect. Concepts are coined and negotiable

values; images are life.”


“Luna is the archetypal companion of Sol.”


“The moon with her antithetical nature is, in a sense, a prototype

of individuation, a prefiguration of the self . . .”


“ Just as the physical sun lightens and warms the

universe, so, in the human body, there is in the heart

a sunlike Arcanum from which life and warmth stream

forth.


“Could the longing for a god be a passion welling up from our

darkest, instinctual nature, a passion unswayed by any outside

influences, deeper and stronger perhaps than the love for a

human person?.”


“The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not

made conscious, it happens outside as fate. That is to say, when

the individual remains undivided and does not become

conscious of his inner opposite, the world must perforce act out

the conflict and be torn into opposing halves.”

((Jung, CW Volume 9ii par 126)

“Since the soul animates the body, just as the soul is animated by

the spirit, , she tends to favour the body and everything bodily,

sensuous, and emotional.”


“symbols are tendencies whose goal is as yet unknown.”


“long before they reach consciousness, certain unconscious

tendencies betray their presence by symbols, occurring mostly in

dreams but also in waking fantasies and symbolic actions.”


“Often we have the impression that the unconscious is trying to

enter consciousness by means of all sorts of allusions and

analogies.”


“The unconscious has a thousand ways of snuffing out a

meaningless existence with surprising swiftness.”


“It requires indeed an unusual degree of self-abnegation to

questions the fictitious picture on one’s own personality.”


“All projections are unconscious identifications with the object.

Every projection is simply there as an uncriticized datum of

experience”


“Projections can be withdrawn only when they come within the

possible scope of consciousness.”


“The extreme opposition of the shadow to consciousness is

mitigated by complementary and compensatory processes in the

unconscious. Their impact on consciousness finally produces the

unifying symbols.”


“. . . psychology must regard those transcendent intuitions that

sprang from the human mind in all ages as projections, that is, as

psychic contents that were extrapolated in metaphysical space

and hypostatized.”

(Jung, CW Volume 9i, par 120)

“. . . the divine syzgies, the male-female pairs of deities . . . are as

universal as the existence of man and woman.”


“The psyche is part of the inmost mystery of life, and it has its own

particular structure and form like every other organism.”


“The anima is a factor of the utmost importance in the psychology

of a man wherever emotions and affects are at work. She

intensifies, exaggerates, falsifies, and mythologizes all emotional

relations with his work and with other people of both sexes.”


“Our attitude towards [our] inner voice alternates between

extremes: it is regarded either as undiluted nonsense or as the

voice of God. It does not seem to occur to any one that there

might be something valuable in between.”


“Consciousness grows out of an unconscious psyche which is

older than it, and which goes on functioning together with it or

even in spite of it.”


“Just as the archetypes occur on the ethnological level as myths,

so also they are found in every individual, and their effect is

always strongest, that is, they anthropomorphize reality most,

where consciousness is weakest and most restricted, and where

fantasy can overrun the facts of the outer world.”


“The only thing we know positively from psychological experience

is that theistic ideas are associated with the parental imagos . . .”


“The anima image, which lends the mother such superhuman

glamour . . . gradually becomes tarnished by commonplace reality

and sinks back into the unconscious, but not without i any way

losing its original tension and instinctivity.”


“If unconscious processes exist at all, they must surely belong to

the totality of the individual, even though they are not

components of the conscious ego.”


“Just as the day-star rises out of the nocturnal sea, so,

ontongenetically and phylogenetically, consciousness is born of

unconsciousness and sinks back every night to this primal

condition. This duality of our psychic life is the prototype and

archetype of the Sol-Luna symbolism.”


“There shall be no more sin, no more repression, no more

disharmony within oneself, no guilt, no fear of death and no pain

of separation . . .”


Copyright 2010 by the author of this book, Robert G. Longpré. The book

author retains sole copyright to his photographs and text. No portion of

this book may be copied for any reason without permission of the

author.

Robert is a retired school teacher and administrator living in small town

Saskatchewan, Canada. In retirement he is devoting more time to the

study and application of Jungian psychology in his writing, photography,

private counselling practice and his own life.

Robert has been active as a writer for more than forty years, and as an

amateur photographer for more than thirty years. His lifelong interest in

philosophy and psychology has influenced his work, both creative and

professional.

This is the fourth book in a series that will continue to grow for many years.

Web: http://retiredeaglebooks.wordpress.com

E-Mail: [email protected]

©Robert G. Longpré

Retired Eagle Books

sol and luna

Documents

light day

beginning god

spirit of god

lesser light

sofobomo challenge

essence of masculine

archetypal images robert

small journey of soul