Fashion Symbols with Aynura Maye

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Mother Archetype II – Son Lover of the Mother Goddess

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As we said in the previous post, first we’ll talk about mother complex in sons, later in daughters (at infancy daughter-father relationship is the topic!). In the first years of infant’s life Mother is the safe heaven (warm container and nourisher). In the dark layers of our mind this tender bond of early childhood is registered as a perfect union. Jung has collected many examples – paintings, carvings etc. and labeled this relationship as “Son Lover of the Mother Goddess”. When we say lover, obviously we understand a sexual relationship. Yet in that dark land sexuality means more than just a sexual union (that too). Sex is the most representative example of instinctuality. Symbolically, it means a very strong bond – like one can’t exist without the other (by the way, many times it has the same meaning in dreams too – just a tip, if you ever happen to have that sort of dream, do not take it literally).

This perfection lasts until when? Puberty!  Intense changes start to take place in the psychic landscape of a son and a long lasting drama ensues. We all know how turbulent this period is for both boys and girls. Always, the least wanted kid at school has the “coolest parents” and life can’t be more miserable – we all have been there, right? Interestingly, this drama is even nastier inside our head, what gets to the surface is in fact just a tip of the iceberg. Again because this is never only about just a mother and her son.

Jung, C.G, (1956) Symbols of Transformation, pp205

Destined to separate

Did we say in the previous post that the psyche was like the Great Mother to our fragile rational mind? Now we are getting into a bit of dark forest. Let’s put it this way – in the early years of life human baby lives mostly an instinctual life (in other words, without the conscious mind) and develops cognitive mind slowly (and laboriously), right? As baby grows along the years of childhood, the conscious mind grows too. Putting it in a fancy word, at some point, plateau is hit. “The container”, the Great Mother (the unconscious) can’t hold it any more. Or, let’s say, the fruit is ripen now and the tree brunch can’t hold it any more, it is destined to fall, to get separated from the mother tree. I think I am getting too poetic here. Let’s come back to our topic.

Eventually, to grow further the conscious mind seeks to differentiate and separate itself from the dark mass/the unconscious. Obviously, the Great Mother gets mad and fights back. But it doesn’t end there. The fragile conscious, on one hand wants to stay in that safe heaven. While leaping into unknown territories, a.k.a life ahead feels dreadful, staying in is now more harmful bordering on neurosis. One hand pushes forward, another hand pulls back – and a bloody battle ensues within the unconscious content. That irritability and confusion the teenagers feel is just a shadow of the bloody battle going deep inside. However, if this process doesn’t happen, it is worrisome too….Stay for more…

Read other posts of the series:

Mother Archetype I
Mother Archetype III – Don Juanism
Mother Archetype IV – Homosexuality and Impotence
Mother Archetype V – Exaggerated Maternal Instinct
Mother Archetype VI – Home-wrecker with a mission
Mother Archetype VII – Daughter in Shadow
Mother Archetype VIII – Mom Hater
Mother Archetype IX – Part Human, Part Supernatural
other Archetype X – Motherland
Mother Archetype XI – Teenage Crisis – Libido
Mother Archetype XII – Incest: Problem or Solution?

The Mother Archetype I – The Great Mother

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The series of the Mother Archetype was published on social media first, namely, at my Instagram and facebook accounts where I post more frequently. Now, with few edits, I am publishing it here too. I’ll keep the number and lengths of the posts about the same. Let’s begin!

Tabula Rasa?

For a long time, scholars kept debating whether we are born as white papers (I mean our brains). Then some smart people started to suspect that our brain is capable of creating its own reality. Long debates of rhetoric revolved around the topic. Then psychoanalysts came along and took a more pragmatic position based on, let’s say, the data they collected from patients, or putting it less fancy, they summed up repetitive cases they have observed in their patients. One of them was Carl Gustav Jung, who suggested that when we are born, our body doesn’t have an animal shape. We do not look like clouds either. We have a definite shape that long history has formed. How come, this same thing didn’t happen inside our head? The same formation process must have taken place there too. He dedicated his whole life to the study of the structure of our psyche and reached some conclusions.

The Archetypes

According to his conclusions, our psyche has a structure – randomly organized crystal-form like boxes, or honeycomb. These boxes hold information based on feelings and feeling-toned thoughts. So, attention to the feeling toned thoughts or clouds of associated thoughts, which means they do not function the way we do in our waking life – no reason and no logic in there. He called them Archetypes. They are the ones that produce cryptic symbols, or primordial images as he sometimes called (this reminds me of the movie Da Vinci code). He even went further to say that we actually live in there and project everything to the outer world. Actually, these crystal form structures are powerful sources of energy. Apparently, one of these Archetypes is the Great Mother.

The Great Mother

Did we say that the feeling association is what keeps the information together inside those boxes? Anything that is associated with Containing, Nourishing and Safe Nest (keywords) activates the primordial image of Mother and we automatically project the Mother Archetype on that object. Now, the first object this archetype gets projected on is obviously actual Mother. Along the years as we grow up, get old and move towards the inevitable destination – the death, the projected objects of this Archetype change too.

Also read: The Unconscious – The Great Mother

Yet, I’d like to make an important projection that is ever present regardless which period of life we are at. The totality of psyche (or the unconscious) is like home (nest) to our rational mind that we’ve developed in the later years of evolution. So the psyche is like “mother” to this “new kid”. In times when our conscious ego faces difficulties in physical life (or the outer world), it craves to turn back home, to the unconscious depth, from where it “was born”. Do we repeat the same pattern in life? Yes, when we face hardships in life, we crave to go back to the carefree childhood or return to cozy home. Oops, we just did very common projection.

A recent claim of neuroscientist David Eaglemann that there is no smell, no sound and no color around us, we live in a pseudo reality translated to us by a skull-bound three pounds jelly matter called brain gave more scientific support to Jung’s suggestions.

I’ll stop here before going off-topic. We’ll talk about the Mother Archetype and its influence on sons in the following post.

Read other posts of the series:
Mother Archetype II – Son Lover of the Mother Goddess
Mother Archetype III – Don Juanism
Mother Archetype IV – Homosexuality and Impotence
Mother Archetype V – Exaggerated Maternal Instinct
Mother Archetype VI – Home-wrecker with a mission
Mother Archetype VII – Daughter in Shadow
Mother Archetype VIII – Mom Hater
Mother Archetype IX – Part Human, Part Supernatural
other Archetype X – Motherland
Mother Archetype XI – Teenage Crisis – Libido
Mother Archetype XII – Incest: Problem or Solution?

Photo: Pixabay.com, Gerd Altmann

The Untold Story of Hermès

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Sky-rocketing price and unaffordability aside who doesn’t love the sight of the Hermès Birkin bag and the stories revolving around it? Even my Google news feed sometimes pops up articles about the celebrities who were seen with it. The enigma of this House is not only about its products, but also its name. The general story is that the Fashion House took its name from the namesake Messenger God. Obviously Hermès was born as a brand specialized in travel accessories (back in times when travel accessories meant horse tack and supplies). So the name of The God who is believed to travel all the time seems to be the right fit. But what kind of messages he used to deliver?

Hermès as a symbol of full transcendence – coming from the depth of underground going upwards to paradise.
Photo: the Internet

The God Hermès that everybody knows

The typical description of the God Hermès goes like this: Hermès is a “psycho-pomp” – that is to say soul-guide. Its statue is a piece of stone – Herm that has Twined Snake around a staff on one side and an Erect Phallus on the other. Next to him there is a sort of tree in a very simple form. Let’s call this composition statue. This statue used to be placed in crossroads alluding to its capacity to travel between worlds. Because like a shaman, Hermès used to guide the dead to the underworld and bring messages from there (bizarre huh?)

Let’s leave behind the logical reasoning and dive into a dimension where concepts transcend the rational and limited meaning we ascribe to them. Then we’ll see what Hermès really represents for us.

Design detail – winged feet of Hermès. Photo: the Internet

If I have to sum up in simple words, Hermès symbolizes the transmutation of soul through the history of evolution.

Not Messenger Only God Hermès

This myth talks us about times when an early man started to rise from the darkness of instinctual life (symbolized as the underground world) towards his/her way to acquire rational thinking (terrestrial life). This young Hermès has a metamorphose nature. He is not a underground force only (meaning, the purely instinctual element of the unconscious). He is also connected to the conscious life. However with capacity to still descend into the dark layers. He symbolizes the process of transcendence. While having a foot in the underground he travels from one dimension to another. How? This part is really funny.

Herm – the initial and simple version of the God Hermès. Photo: Man and His Symbols, C.G.Jung

He penetrates thru darkness of the unconscious into the light of terrestrial life (a.k.a light of reasoning) with his Erect Phallus. I know you are laughing now. But it turns out this is how our mind works at very deep levels. That childish and archaic mode of thinking is still there. Erect phallus is overly sexual of course. But in that dimension, phallus translates into fertility and not physical fertility only, but creative power of the psyche, fecundating, life giving power as well. The twined serpents are in sexual union. Again, sexual not taken literally, but equal union of the opposites that is transcendental, wholesomeness.

Almost as a rule, terrestrial and water animals symbolize our instinctual drives, forces of the “underground”. Reptiles being intermediate creatures with a capacity to live in two different environments, allude to this transcendence – arising from the depth of dark uncontrolled mass towards the world of light – the conscious reasoning.

Hermès – the symbol of full transcendence

Hermès is a living symbol that has been subject to elaboration. In middle ages, it acquired wings which denotes to rising from terrestrial life towards spiritual transcendence.  Wings symbolize this transformation. Even the caduceus in his hand that is a symbol of healing got wings at the top of the serpents. Thus our little fellow acquired a power of full transcendence – coming from the depth of underground going upwards to the paradise.

Not by chance, in the chain of living things we are the only ones who come from darkness of instinctual world of animals with aspirations to mature into spirituality of paradise. We are the terrestrial beings just between underground compulsive forces and heavenly angles.

To close, the soul each of us carry is Hermès destined to evolve through these stages. So, every time, you see an Hermès item, remember, there is a small Hermès inside you too and is way more valuable than anything money can buy.

Gucci’s Ark of Noah. Why are we all Noah?

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Now that I am on water symbol, I’ll have one more post to dig a bit deeper on water. Gucci just released its new theme for #GothicCampaign recreating the Ark of Noah and this is perfect one to pick on.

Gucci #GothicCampaign - recreation of Noah's Ark. Photo: Internet
Gucci re-created the Ark of Noah Ark for #GothicCampaign
Photo: Internet

Now Alessandro Michele takes on Deluge and the Ark of Noah, one of the early stories of Genesis. It is one of those themes that we know can’t be true, yet some part of us secretly believes that it may be true. And surprisingly it is, but in a symbolic way. Because it talks about some parts of our existence that is unknown to us obscured in the dark abyss of our psyche. We are well aware that the myths are not history, or biography or some sort of historical record. Then what is it about that touches us so deeply? In a nutshell, they are about the psychic processes happening inside us expressed through symbols in an exaggerated fashion. We sense that they tell us something, but can’t discern what it is. It is that dreamy symbolic language that puzzles us.

The Deluge and the Ark of Noah Ark is the story of our consciousness (or Ego) taking control over the unconscious content narrated in the highly symbolic language of the unconscious. Every object in the myth is purely symbolic and holds certain meaning. Let’s try to “translate” this myth.

Deluge

In psychoanalysis and dream analysis water is symbol of the unconscious – the dark abyss which is house to uncontrollable and powerful instinctual urges. The darker and the more turbulent the water, the more unease in the unconscious. So we know what Deluge stands for – the unc­ontrollable and wild nature of our unconscious.

Noah

One of the earliest prophets of the mankind is very symbolic of the very process of the birth of the consciousness. This is the element of our psyche that is in power to take control over the unconscious urges and impulses and give direction – make decisions. By the way, we’ve laboriously developed this precious “skill” over millions of years and with it we’ve distinguished ourselves from the rest of the living things and the dark totality of our unconscious. This is the reason why “prophets taking control of waters in ark or over some sort of fish” is a recurrent storyline in many religions. It is kind of the way our unconscious has registered the evolutionary process in its peculiar symbolic language.

Animals and the perfect harmony

The next question is of course, what about the animals and the perfect peace between animals and humans? Again, let’s have a look at recurring image of prophets – a good shepherd. Do we remember Orpheus? Who created perfect harmony when he played his lyre? Or Jesus? Yes, he was Shepherd too. Noah himself is kind of good shepherd who created perfect harmony among living things. Animals notoriously stand for our biological or instinctual impulses, in other words our low animalistic drives. Good shepherd is the one who through the virtue of the consciousness and wisdom has tamed his animalistic impulses and created harmony in his soul.

Translation into our common language

The myth of Noah is the story of how we gradually “woke up” from the pure instinctual life and separated ourselves from the animal kingdom and developed the consciousness (Ego). He is symbol of mankind, who has learned to navigate on the dark waters of the unconscious without being absorbed by back by it. And even give direction to his/her life.

What Noah means for each of us

We all pass this “Ark of Noah” period when we start to develop consciousness when we are babies at early toddler age. So he is a living symbol inside us. Also, as long as we tend “to lose our mind”, in other words, fall victim to our impulses and feelings, the Deluge will be an ever-present danger for us. Because those emotions are rooted at powerful forces deep inside. In the background we always live with the peril of our consciousness being devoured by the Deluge, in other words, literally lose our minds.

I wonder who will bring so much mysticism with hippy twist to Gucci besides Michele Alessandro. Who will touch so gracefully to this ever-present stories of our soul in fashion industry. I found the video just brilliant. Very much looking forwards to his creations on this theme.

Fendi’s show on Fontana Trevi and hidden mysticism

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I have moved to Rome in the beginning of 2016. Pregnant. The baby was due in July. While I was trying to settle down and make space (literally) for the new member of the family, something incredible was happening in Rome of which I became aware quite late. More precisely, that thing was happening in the same month that I was giving light to the new addition of our family. Fendi put on a spectacular show called Legends and Fairy Tales on the iconic Fontana Trevi to celebrate the Fashion House’s 90 years of heritage.

Fendi celebrating 90 years with subtle mythic show – Heroes and Fairy Tales
7 July 2016, Rome, Fontana Trevi
Photo: Internet (Victor Boyko/Getty Images)

To tell the truth, I was too busy with family duties back then. In fact even the idea of this blog hadn’t been born yet. But the thought of me being in Rome during that event and not knowing about it somehow pains me. When I write it down I realize how mean I sound.

Cut to the chase, Fendi’s show was majestic, mythical and obviously very much appraised. Now, almost more than two years later I am going back to that event to share why I would have loved to know about it and why it made people “wow”.

Fendi celebrating 90 years with a subtle mythic show – Heroes and Fairy Tales
7 July 2016, Rome, Fontana Trevi
Photo: Internet (Victor Boyko/Getty Images )

We, unknowingly, tend to reproduce exact same images that were “living realities” of our ancestors, which still are secret realities of our psychic life. You wonder what I am talking about and what it has to do with Fendi’s iconic show. Here it goes:

The Water.  And Fendi models walking over the water or “being born out of water”.


Fendi celebrating 90 years with a subtle mythic show – Heroes and Fairy Tales
7 July 2016, Rome, Fontana Trevi
Photo: Internet (Victor Boyko/Getty Images)

Water in our dreams (and psychoanalysis) symbolizes our unconscious – the dark depth of our psyche. The source or the container of everything from destructive to regenerative, from devilish to divine. In this sense, it is related to “Great Mother” as well. Because our little, tiny, fragile consciousness nourishes on the unconscious. When we feel exhausted, burnt out in life, we shut off to the world and retrieve to that source to recharge and regenerate our life energy.

Now, how this whole spectacle resembles the images and living things I was talking above? Let’s now dig a bit into mythological side of it to see how this relationship to the unconscious manifested itself as mythological symbol. Or just scratch the surface, it is a very complicated symbol.

No need to remind that since we, as mankind, became aware of ourselves, water has been an ever present symbol. Among many other things, it is symbol of regeneration, rebirth and purification. It is that baptismal water that means rebirth in Christianity. Ablution rituals in Islam that stands for purity. There is long list of strict rituals entailing water in Judaism. Regardless religion or faith, full immersion in water is about being reborn out of divine waters to where we will return. In this sense, it is related to the Great Mother, the divine uterus or in psychological terms the unconscious. (Does it explain why there are so many spells and exorcism rituals done with water? Thousand and One Nights series are full of it) I know, it sounds quite absurd when I write like this because it is hard to digest such metaphoric things consciously. But in our unconscious realm where everything gets associated pictorially on feeling-base it makes perfect sense.

Fontana Trevi – divine uterus


Fendi celebrating 90 years with a subtle mythic show – Heroes and Fairy Tales
7 July 2016, Rome, Fontana Trevi
Photo: Internet (Victor Boyko/Getty Images)

Moreover, this scene was over Fontana Trevi. Yes, Trevi is iconic because it is one of the symbols of Rome. But it has its own peculiar significance. People travel hundreds of miles to drop a coin in this water to “make their dreams come true”. With all the mythological monuments that are part of the fountain, Fontana Trevi symbolizes that divine vessel, waters of which hold secrets, recharge, and give hope and new life.

That’s why the whole show with models walking over the water or “being reborn out of water” resembled a ritual of rebirth, where initiator would be immersed in water to be reborn. This is the reason that it had people “wow”.

Secret stories of symbols

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What is in there for me: Awesome tips to those who take “spirituality thing” very seriously. These days it is cool and “spiritual” to meditate and do yoga to “attract good vibes”. That is true, serious dedication to meditation would ultimately lead to some deeper connection with inner self. Yet, it has some high prices to pay. I ask myself: Would I dedicate myself to it without supervision of some sort of guru? Absolutely, NO! Because that means embarking on an internal journey towards the dark depth of the unconscious, an unknown territory for us. Plus, we have no knowledge how to deal with powerful forces of the unconscious. This journey is potentially very dangerous for an untrained rational mind.  Especially, in modern times when we tend to deny anything that we can’t explain with help of the reasoning. Before opening up its healing aspects, the unconscious throws all the rocks, bugs, snakes, monsters on the path of the one who meditates. Only the most victorious ones get to drink the elixir of life. Just like in the story of Buddha, or in the tales of Sinbad, the most precious gems are kept in the deep wells where venomous snakes live. To get the gem, the Hero should kill the snakes first. If the language gets really weird now, I’d suggest that you go on reading the post to learn why.

Full post starts here

Signs Are Not Symbols

Our daily language is full of metaphors, symbols, logos, trademarks etc. But not all of them have the same power and impact over our psyche. Jungian psychoanalysis divides them into two generic groups – Signs and symbols. Which falls into which group? To describe very roughly, signs are man-made but symbols are produced spontaneously by the unconscious. How we decide which one is which? Here is the differentiating factor: Signs by themselves do not mean anything. They acquire a certain meaning due to deliberate use of that specific sign over an extensive period of time for a specific purpose. For example, when we see Golden arch of McDonalds, we know what it stands for. Other globally perfect examples would be Android, LG, Pantene, UNESCO etc. In other words, Signs are products of the conscious and used for a specific end or reason beyond which they do not express much.

Allusions to celestial spheres in Valentino piece. Dream motifs. Photo: Internet
Allusions to celestial spheres in Valentino piece. Dream motifs. Photo: Internet

On the contrary, symbols are produced by the unconscious and their meaning stays more less the same. Normally, they have more to their meanings than what we know about them. If we muse over them, we may get some vague sense about their meanings, but it will be impossible to fully decipher them. Their unconscious meanings have so many intertwined layers and far reaching connotation that it is almost impossible to exhaust with interpretation. They express what is inexpressible in words. They talk about the realities of our psyche in a dimension that logic can’t penetrate. They are the “letters of the alphabet” of the Unconscious and influence us on the unconscious level. This is the reason religions and moral doctrines resort to picture language. Those images transcend boundaries of duality and make logical explanation fail big time.

Faces of Symbols

Our instincts are psychical urges, like hunger, sex-drive, self-protection, fears, desires etc. But they have their own way of self-manifestation in the unconscious. These urges get personified and take a relatable shape in our psyche. So they have a living nature. The ogres, monsters, fairies, sirens, centaurs we read about in fairy tales, or falling, flying, life-regenerating breeze, deep waters, pregnancy (in case of men) and all sorts of bizarre dreams are not to be taken literally. These symbols are shared across humanity. Jung has called them “archetypes of collective unconscious”.

Their job is to kind of represent the processes happening in our soul in a highly symbolic form. But they are not produced randomly, without a purpose. They are kind of transmitters of traditional wisdom that lays in the unconscious. They call the consciousness to act upon the troubles going on in the emotional life of a person. Among other things, they talk about the psychological challenges of adaptation in different periods of human life. Going even further, they give hints about what expects us at the end of different paths. They pass this wisdom on to us in dramatized language of myths and fairy tales.

Power of Symbols

These symbols are no joke. Without doubt they underlie the patterns of our conscious behavior because they are pure manifestations of our life instincts.  Yet we fail to recognize them when we come across them in pictures, monuments, riddles, myths, fairy tales, dreams, religious texts, hallucinations etc. Because they are alien to logical thinking.

They are products of creative energies of the unconscious and possess enormous energy projected on certain images. This is why religious pictures and objects hold so much emotional charge for devotees.  Even though we do not understand their meanings, we feel that they hint to something hidden.  They pass their messages to us on a very deep level. They are in a sense numinous. They evoke deep, inexplicable feelings inside us like Mecca for Muslims, cross in Christians, idols for idolater etc. If recognized and integrated, the healing aspects of the unconscious manifest itself. Put in religious terms, the grace dawns upon. If not, they turn into repressed energies chasing one in form of hallucinations, morbid dreams, inexplicable sufferings, loss of interest in life until they drive one into pure madness and schizophrenia. If I put this in the language of our unsuspecting ancestors – one becomes possessed by daemon.

Yet their power lies in this enigmatic nature. Once explained logically, they lose that power of spell over our psyche. Just like Sun has lost its “God” image once explained with the help of science.

What are specifically those symbols and myths? Follow fashion posts to learn about them.

Gucci sends fashion back to roots…

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Gucci has made quite stir in elusive world of fashion with the latest show of RTW Fall/Winter 2018. No surprise, with Gucci’s Alessandro it is always a stir. Pale looking models were carrying around replicates of their heads, almost real-looking snakes and dragons in an operation room with operation chair in center. Some had third eye on their hands with myriad of ethnic twists to the looks. Some people found it unnerving, some awesome, some were confused, some didn’t understand at all. All for a reason. This scene resembled an initiation ritual with ghostly participants.

Models carrying deeply mythological motifes - dragons, third eyes, replica of their own heads. Gucci show - RTW, FW2018
Models carrying deeply mythological motifs – dragons, third eyes, replica of their own heads among others.

Gucci show – RTW, FW2018

Alessandro played a different card – to move to the next phase, he went back to basics, he shed light on a long-forgotten knowledge. The knowledge that fashion was not born out of the need to please eyes and tap only on sensuality. Fashion was not born to work as money-generating machine. Fashion, in the first place, is byproduct of “mystical participation”. The rituals where novice members of early societies were initiated into their roles in a neatly defined societal structure. Their “looks” symbolically communicated their role in that structure.

In this sense, primeval fashion used to be looks of medicine men, shamans with feathered headwears or of hunters with daunting chains around their necks made of horns of hunted animals etc. The root of fashion lies in taking on a social mask that represents the specific spot of each individual in a given society. Outer look used to be means, not the ends by itself. Now, with Gucci’s “cyborg-like” creations fashion takes on the same function again, it questions where we are and where we fit now. Actually, I do not think someone would call this collection sensual (which by the way has almost always been a strong card for Gucci). He had a different message and my take is as follows:

My take on the set:

To me it represented, in a more dramatized manner, the “liquid times” we are going through. In times when societies got protected by borders and distances, each survived and flourished upon certain set of moral foundations that defined general frame for every aspect of life. Yesterday traditional dresses characterized cherished values of societies and enjoyed emotional bond with those who put them on. Now, however with all the digital noise, fading borders and fusion of tastes we live in state of cacophony. Today, everything is everywhere, anything can go with anything – no bond, no emotions, no curated matching and it may feel like post-human. The experimental combinations may come out beautiful, creepy or transitory – the message that I think the collection delivered clearly. The process in making.

My doubts:

Although the concept he’s put forward is interesting, one thing is clear that he’s stepped away from what made fashion a “sweet spot” of humanity.  Namely, the tendency to please eyes and tap on sensuality. There is a reason why with time fashion became limited to only sensuality and beauty.  Deductively, outer looks turned into its only reference with no inward ties. To put it in an unpolished manner, “low” chakras are where money circulates. We have capacity to reach angels. Yet often times we find ourselves in the grip of our basic instincts of sexual desire and power quest. So, I wonder, how this new strategy will impact on Gucci sales.

My touch on the set-up:

I wish I were his genius, but we all have our opinions, right? I’d replace the operation chair in the middle with something that is pure representation of unconscious. For example, an unexplored forest, dark waters or infinite deserts. Why? Alessandro’s explanation of his vision is clear. He is the Hero busy with creating his world populated by personalities honed by his sentiments on our time in his laboratory. Another version would be to make these ghostly creatures (models) come out of a set that represents depth of unconscious. He aimed to break thru the “canonized rules”, yet every urge of destruction rises not from conscious, but from unconscious. The unknown new gets ripen there which will break into conscious only through destruction.

Symbols of Transformation

Furthermore, snake and dragon are unmistakable symbols of transformation. But they are not always that peaceful and friendly as they were in the hands of the models. Study of mythology tells us that they are personifications of our fears, desires and compulsive impulses. Each of these forces always try to get upper hand in our consciousness. The task of conscious is to tame and subdue them just like how Hercules fought. Otherwise they will grow into many-headed, flame-breathing wrathful dragons and swallow the conscious. But to defeat them the Hero needs to “re-vive” the moral values of the society he belongs. Because that is where he’d find the tips and mystical powers to subdue that dragon and experience transcendence.

Now that those moral foundations are vanishing, we are back in square figuring out where to turn to re-establish that connection with the inner space and outer space. In a sense, this set with a new twist to the centerpiece would symbolize our pledge to re-establish new set of morals, which would enable us to carry those snakes and dragons in as peaceful and friendly manner as they seemed in the show. As a result, It would also portray the process of the birth of new transcendent identity.

In general, these moments of chaos are times when new identity is born – usually more embracing, more universal.  I am curios to follow his next creations to see how he visualizes it.

This article was originally published at fashionnewsmagazine.com in Italian and in English.

I’ve made slight changes to this version to make it easier to read as a blog post.

1. That wasn’t technically fire…what was it?…

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“The light was lit to illuminate the temple of soul”
“Prometheus stole fire from Gods and Zeus condemned him to a life of perpetual torture”.

The above examples do sound like total absurdity when we try to analyze them literally, don’t they? Talk about tricky and allegoric language of the unconscious!

This is the very first post and I am still not sure how to enter the topic. I’ve changed it million times already. Especially after second birth and months of breastfeeding, I think, some part of my brain has really shrunk. I think, before talking about unconscious, I should probably, talk about definitions ascribed to conscious. After all, that is the realm where we function in general. So, simplicity in mind, I’ll try my best.

Gucci bag featuring Unicorn. The Unicorn is symbol of spirit, which is associated with reasoning and intellect (Soul is feminine, receptive). Now, reasoning has a penetrating nature that's why in the Unconscious it is linked with masculinity. To rephrase it, in the depth of our psyche reasoning and masculinity are linked due to their penetrating nature. Photo: Gucci.com
Gucci bag featuring Unicorn. The Unicorn is symbol of spirit, which is associated with reasoning and intellect (Soul is feminine, receptive). Now, reasoning has a penetrating nature that’s why in the Unconscious it is linked with masculinity. To rephrase it, in the depth of our psyche reasoning and masculinity are linked due to their penetrating nature. Photo: Gucci.com

 

Evolution….Not a Joke

We humans, obviously, are the product of long, tedious journey of evolution. Nature has been polishing functionality of our body to meet our physical needs and capacity (which itself kept evolving along the way). That means the same evolution process has taken place in our psyche as well. It is a part that we do not see, however it is the very part that has been honed and shaped the most by the evolution process. Just like how a huge tree grows from a single seed, the consciousness has grown into its current state over countless years… Does it make sense? If it does, we’ve started on the right foot!

Prometheus is representation of acquisition of consciousness. Since the moment He stole fire, he became different. He was aware of his difference. He couldn't be like the rest of living things any more. So he was condemned to eternal punishment of being consciously different. On the other side, compulsive impulses rising from depth of psyche are always after him trying to swallow him back. Photo: Wikimedia
Prometheus is representation of acquisition of the consciousness. Since the moment He stole fire, he became different. He was aware of his difference. He couldn’t be like the rest of living things any more. So he was condemned to eternal punishment of being consciously different. On the other side, compulsive impulses rising from depth of psyche are always after him trying to swallow him back. Photo: Wikimedia

Here Came that Light – Conscious

Let’s dig a bit deeper. Way back in times of our ancestors some big change took place. Extremely slowly, yet surely – our grannies acquired a new skill – The Consciousness! In language of the unconscious he learned “a well-concealed secret of revengeful Gods”.  Thus “The Light illuminated the darkness of abyss”. In other words, reasoning shed light over the bottomless unconscious… Prometheus thus stole fire. Jung calls this painful and slow process “the Battle for Deliverance”. Just like how difficult it is to totally separate oneself from mother, separating itself from Great Mother (the unconscious) was the “mission impossible” for consciousness. It separated itself through a painful process. To make it worse, it had to fight hard against violent and compulsive impulses of the unconscious not to relapse. Or not fall into possession of one of them. In other words, He had to fight against “revengeful Gods” to keep this fire.

Now, let’s see why consciousness is symbolized this way and who are those revengeful gods? Once differentiated, The Conscoius – the New Hero became aware of himself just like a baby recognizes herself in the mirror for the first time. He was different and he became aware of this.

With it came a different mode of seeing and understanding things. His mode of thinking wasn’t vague and could control the train of thoughts. Also, his judgement was causal. For him everything had a cause and effect in a way that he understood. Thus, his mode of thinking was deductive, mathematical and calculated. He reasoned for the first time. Unlike predecessors, he rose above the free rein of instincts and felt, still very dimly, the capacity to control them. This new realm of psyche had its own small center, which we call Ego today. He was the intellect illuminating the dark mass of unconscious, the Great Mother.

Revengeful Underground Gods?…Seriously?

Here comes another question, who are those revengeful gods that condemned Prometheus to a life of eternal torture? They are our own instincts, urges, impulses, all the impetuous animalistic tendencies. They are our desires and fears that inhabit in the depth of our psyche. In the unconscious landscape they get personified just like in fairly tales and myths. They are living realities that are out of conscious control. They are capable of full manipulation of our mind. In a sense, they are creative powers of cosmos such as sexual desire, hunger drive, survival instincts etc.  But if experienced in destructive form, they turn into obsessive impulses chasing one to insanity. These are the cases they are experienced as wrathful Gods and underground frightful creatures. This battle has been one of the major themes of fairy tales, myths, monuments (Rome is full of it), paintings etc.

Here the Hero is the consciousness fighting against primordial Semi-Gods in shape of half snake-half human monsters, flame-breathing, many-headed dragons, wrathful and scary creatures, ogres, treacherous trolls, deceitful sirens etc. These dark forces persecute this new Hero each trying to assume total control. It would take this New Hero a very long time to learn how to tame and subdue dark aspects of these forces of psyche. Once subdued, Hero experiences the illuminating, spiritual and celestial aspects of those same Gods. Interestingly, during our lifetime, our consciousness repeats – in a fast pace – the evolution of conscious development.  That explains why toddlers up until five to six years can not tell difference between imagination and reality. At those ages the level of conscious development is still incipient and fragile.

Proportion of The Conscious – To be or not to be…

But this differentiation doesn’t mean that the “job” of Ego is over. Like any other acquired skill, there is always a danger to lose it. Relapsing back into the unconscious or “being swallowed by devouring monsters” is looming danger for each of us. However, too much separation of the consciousness is not good either as it will strip off that irrational, intuitional, “feeling” foundation upon which the Conscious has built its small kingdom and on which still nourishes and keeps its balance. The more separation, the greater the danger to be “possessed by daemon”. Meaning, the more danger to be associated with certain psychic forces that are already out of conscious control. So this Ego it is a bittersweet affair of mankind, which is too sweet to give up and too costly to keep in right proportion.