Psyche and Nature

“Deep inside us is a wilderness. We call it the unconscious because we can’t control it fully, so we can’t will to create what we want from it. The collective unconscious is a great wild region where we can get in touch with the sources of life”- Carl Jung

Welcome to the website of Betsy Perluss! This site explores the relationship between psyche and nature and the mysterious union that exists between these two realms. Much of the material within these pages is taken from a book that I am currently writing, which draws upon various sources including Jungian and archetypal psychologies, nature-oriented literature, and wilderness rites of passage, otherwise known as the modern-day vision fast. This is a work in progress, so please visit soon again for updates. Also, you can check out my blog at http://psycheandnature.wordpress.com/

My work seeks to challenge the modern supposition that reality is composed of two distinct domains; that which occurs on the inside of us and that which exists on the outside. Today most of us are inclined to view the inner world as containing subjective content such as memories, feelings, and dreams, whereas the outer world is made up of tangible things such as buildings, tables, trees, rivers, and stones. In this respect, psyche is also treated as a phenomenon that exists solely in the interior realm, confined to an existence within our small shell of skin. Thus, we become deaf and blind to psyche’s autonomous movements within the larger environment. Furthermore, bereft of the animating presence of psyche, the natural world also becomes that which exists “out there”, the inconsequential backdrop to the drama of our lives, valued only for its aesthetics, recreational use, or natural resources. Rarely, do we envision the landscape as a living and integral aspect of psyche.

And yet, deep in our bones resides a psyche deeply rooted in the natural landscape. Many of the subtle particularities to which we refer to in our daily conversations – high and low, upward and downward, dry and moist, hard and soft, light and dark, inner and outer, sinuous and straight, lush and stark, narrow and vast, solid and fluid – are based upon our experiences with the shapes and qualities of the land which triggers our senses and make up the archetypal imagery that give meaning to our lives. In addition, how could we really know the meaning of joyfulness without of the bounty of springtime flowers, or the depth of depression without the dark dampness of a subterranean cavern? Or, how could we, for instance, possibly describe the Hero’s journey without referring to a mountain to climb, a dark forest to pass through, or a stormy ocean to navigate? What would Odysseus’ rite of passage entail without the raging waters of Poseidon? Where would Persephone find her womanhood if not in the belly of Earth?

The archetypal images that emerge from the natural landscape are as diverse as the landscape itself and upon careful observation we discover an endless source of imagery in the form of alcoves and arroyos, bajadas and ballenas, ditches and dells, calderas and caverns, estuaries and escarpments, flats and fjords, hollows, jetties, lagoons, mesas, oases, playas, quagmires, reefs, sinks, tarns, and washes, just to name very few. Without the natural landscape, all that feeds our imagination – shape, color, texture, and sound – would be barren and flat.


	The Force of Imagination

		Even before we encounter a particular landscape psyche teases us with her images. Memory mixed with sensation provides the stuff that make up images, but psyche is the yeast that infuses it with life, and every landscape will appear and taste differently to those who approach it. For instance, last summer I was planning a trip through the red rock canyon country of the Colorado Plateau and although my trip was still a couple of months away, my imagination was swarming with images of this landscape and what it means to me: A place of sensual memory of standing on a sheer canyon’s edge during a late summer monsoon, the overpowering scent of sweet rain on the steaming red powdery ground, the verticality of canyons cut deep by the continual motion of wind and water, adversity mixed with beauty, and the painful longing to be swallowed up by it all. “The imagination invents more than objects and dramas – it invents a new life, a new spirit.” writes Gaston Bachelard. My imagination of this landscape connects me to spirit, takes me beyond myself, and yet, at the same time, seduces me to earth. Like the desert cliffrose bound to a sheet of rock, imagination binds me to this place.




		The interrelationship between psyche and nature is a mysterious one, incomprehensible to the rational mind. To demonstrate this, Carl Jung loved to share the story of the Rainmaker, told to him by his friend and colleague, Richard Wilhelm. . To read the story, click here: Basically, Jung is addressing the phenomenon of the collective unconscious expressed in acts of synchronicity, which he describes as an "'acausal connecting principle'". When the veil of the ego is pulled back, we catch momentary glimpses of perfect wholeness, that place in which psyche and matter are the same. These moments are accompanied by numinosity because they give us images of the Self. Jung says that synchronistic events occur all the time, but that we rarely see them due to our tendency to structure the world according to time and space.


	Everything within these pages is copyrighted by Betsy Perluss, 2008. Please do not use without permission.


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