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| Mouth of the Mekong River, Vietnam CC Jean Stimmell: 1966 |
Joan
Didion comments in her essay "On
Keeping a Notebook": Only the very young and the very old may
recount their dreams at breakfast, dwell upon self, interrupt with memories of
beach picnics and favorite Liberty lawn dresses and the rainbow trout in a creek
near Colorado Springs. The rest of us are expected, rightly, to affect
absorption in other people’s favorite dresses, other people’s trout.[1]
Keeping
my blog is a modern equivalent of Joan’s notebook and, alas, I can't
deny often dwelling on myself, recounting my recollections and dreams. Is
this a clear indication my old mind has slipped its moorings like those ancient
ships we passed, just before heading up the Mekong River in Vietnam in 1966, or
is it possible that, instead, my old mind is purifying itself, regressing back
to the unfettered bliss of the very young as Carl Jung attempted in his old
age, to dwell happily in dreams, myth, and the collective
unconsciousness.
Postscript: It was after midnight when I finished this blog entry and I went straight
to bed. Before shutting off the light, I reached for a book to relax my brain
after a long day. Among many choices, I grabbed the Tao Te Ching [2]
and randomly flipped it open. The first
stanza I read is a good example of what Jung called synchronicity:
“Know the male,
yet keep to the female:
receive the world in your arms.
If you receive the world,
the Tao will never leave you
and you will be
like a little child.”
Was
this Carl Jung’s motivation in old age to return to childhood?
“If you accept the world,
the Tao will be luminous inside you
and you will return to your primal self."
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