“The artist’s life cannot be otherwise than full of conflicts, for two forces are at war within him [or her]—on the one hand, the common human longing for happiness, satisfaction and security in life, and on the other a ruthless passion for creation which may go so far as to override every personal desire … There are hardly any exceptions to the rule that a person must pay dearly for the divine gift of creative fire.” —Carl Jung Thank you, apoetreflects.

“The artist’s life cannot be otherwise than full of conflicts, for two forces are at war within him [or her]—on the one hand, the common human longing for happiness, satisfaction and security in life, and on the other a ruthless passion for creation which may go so far as to override every personal desire … There are hardly any exceptions to the rule that a person must pay dearly for the divine gift of creative fire.”

—Carl Jung

Thank you, apoetreflects.

If a union is to take place between opposites like spirit and matter, conscious and unconscious, bright and dark, and so on, it will happen in a third thing, which represents not a compromise but something new.
C.G Jung (Thank you, airwalker & lucifelle)
I have always tried to make room for anything that wanted to come to me from within.
Carl Jung (Thank you, zenhumanism)

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“Remember yourself, from the days when you were younger and rougher and wilder, more scrawl than straight line. Remember all of yourself, the flaws and faults as well as the many strengths. Carl Jung once said, “If people can be educated to see the lowly side of their own natures, it may be hoped that they will also learn to understand and to love their fellow men better. A little less hypocrisy and a little more tolerance toward oneself can only have good results in respect for our neighbors, for we are all too prone to transfer to our fellows the injustice and violence we inflict upon our own natures.”

—Anna Quindlen: Commencement Speech at Mount Holyoke College. Thanks to Whiskey River and Lifehacker.

“The alchemists, who in their own way know more about the nature of the individuation process than we moderns do, expressed this paradox through the symbol of the ouroboros, the snake that eats its own tail. In the age old image of the ouroboros lies the thought of devouring oneself and turning oneself into a circulatory process, for it was clear to the most astute alchemists that the prima materia of the art was man himself. The ouroboros is a dramatic symbol for the integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e. of the shadow self. This feed back process is at the same time a symbol of immortality, since it is said of the ouroboros that he slays himself and brings himself to life again, fertilizes himself and gives birth to himself. This is much like the cycle of the Phoenix, the feminine archetype. Ouroboros symbolizes The One, who proceeds from the clash of opposites, and therefore constitutes the secret of the prima materia which unquestionably stems from man’s unconsciousness.” —Carl Jung From all these outstanding Tumblrs: yama-bato, uncertaintimes, aureliomadrid, lenkody, luminousinsect & heilige: ouroboros in an alchemical still

“The alchemists, who in their own way know more about the nature of the individuation process than we moderns do, expressed this paradox through the symbol of the ouroboros, the snake that eats its own tail. In the age old image of the ouroboros lies the thought of devouring oneself and turning oneself into a circulatory process, for it was clear to the most astute alchemists that the prima materia of the art was man himself.

The ouroboros is a dramatic symbol for the integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e. of the shadow self. This feed back process is at the same time a symbol of immortality, since it is said of the ouroboros that he slays himself and brings himself to life again, fertilizes himself and gives birth to himself. This is much like the cycle of the Phoenix, the feminine archetype.

Ouroboros symbolizes The One, who proceeds from the clash of opposites, and therefore constitutes the secret of the prima materia which unquestionably stems from man’s unconsciousness.”

—Carl Jung

From all these outstanding Tumblrs: yama-bato, uncertaintimes, aureliomadrid, lenkody, luminousinsect & heilige: ouroboros in an alchemical still

(via yama-bato)

People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls.
Carl Jung, Dreams (via carljung & knowledgeandspirit)

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Life has always seemed to me like a plant that lives on its rhizome. It’s true life is invisible, hidden in the rhizome. The part that appears above the ground lasts only a single summer. Then it withers away - an ephemeral apparition. When we think of the unending growth and decay of life and civilizations, we cannot escape the impression of absolute nullity. Yet I have never lost the sense of something that lives and endures beneath the eternal flux. What we see is blossom, which passes. The rhizome remains.
Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (From Whiskey River)
Identification with one’s office or title is very attractive indeed, which is precisely why so many men are nothing more than the decorum accorded to them by society. In vain would one look for a personality behind the husk. Underneath one would find a very pitiable little creature. That is why the office is so attractive: it offers easy compensation for personal deficiencies
Carl Jung, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology p.154 (via knowledgeandspirit)

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It is important to have a secret, a premonition of things unknown. It fills life with something impersonal, a numinosum. A man who has never experienced that has missed something important. He must sense that he lives in a world which in some respects is mysterious; that things happen and can be experienced which remain inexplicable; that not everything which happens can be anticipated. The unexpected and the incredible belong in this world. Only then is life whole. For me the world has from the beginning been infinite and ungraspable.
Carl Jung. From the wonderful Slow Muse
…the experience of the self is always a defeat for the ego.
Carl Jung, Collected Works (from arsvitaest via The C. G. Jung Society of Vermont)