“What takes place between light and darkness, what unites the opposites, always has a share in both sides and can be judged just as well from the left as from the right… the only thing that helps us here is the symbol….with its paradoxical nature it represents the ‘third thing” - Carl Jung(CW 13, pp. 134)

Liminality, Thresholds, and the Symbolic Landscape

Where Psyche Glides along Mountaintops and Rivers flow Deep within the Valley of the Soul: Thresholds and Liminality in Wilderness Rites of Passage

Introduction

One of the greatest deceptions of modern culture is that there is no direct relationship between the external realm of matter and the realm of psyche. The lie continues to promote the notion that while the concrete realm is “objective”, clean and clear-cut, and rational, the realm of psyche, the dream realm, is “subjective”, vague, fuzzy, irrational, and thus, not worth serious attention.

Furthermore, through our scientific understanding of the world, which values the “objective” over the “subjective”, we have demythologized the natural world, extracting from it any symbolic meaning, having sent this back into the unconscious. The result, as Carl Jung states, is a world that has been emptied of soul and a human consciousness that stands aloof from creation, further promoting what Jung calls, “The Cult of Consciousness”.

Through scientific understanding, our world has become dehumanized. Man feels himself isolated in the cosmos. He is no longer involved in nature and has lost his emotional participation in natural events, which hitherto had a symbolic meaning for him. Thunder is no longer the voice of a god, nor is lightening his avenging missile. No river contains a spirit, no tree means a man’s life, no snake is the embodiment of wisdom, and no mountain still harbors a great demon. Neither do things speak to him nor can he speak to things, like stones, springs, plants, and animals. He no longer has a bush-soul identifying him with a wild animal. His immediate communication with nature is gone forever, and the emotional energy it generated has sunk into the unconscious. (CW 18, PAR. 585).

One of the main goals of this presentation is to dispel the cultural myth of the psyche and nature split, and to illustrate how we can regain connection with nature’s soul by paying close attention to the symbolic images that emerge when one enters the threshold and into the liminal landscape of nature.

Wilderness Rites of Passage

My ideas for this presentation began to surface during my work with the School of Lost Borders, a training center for contemporary wilderness rites of passage. I have been involved with The School for about ten years, during which time I have been witness to the multitude of symbols that emerge in the stories told by those who have returned after spending four days and nights alone in the wilderness. At the School, we deliberately structure our wilderness experiences around traditional initiation ceremonies, similar to the “vision quest”, which include a four-day threshold period of fasting in a wilderness place, without company or shelter.

For many today, it is difficult to grasp the importance that traditional rites have played in land-based communities and how significant these rites have been to the survival of the community, for maintaining a reciprocal relationship with nature, and for maintaining connection to the ancestral past. Modern society has all but lost these rituals, but, nonetheless, the archetypal structure is still deeply rooted in the collective unconscious.

This structure includes three phases: the severance, threshold, and incorporation.  Briefly, the severance entails actually deciding to participate in a rite of passage, and psychologically separating from the past and worn out structures that have directed one’s life thus far. The second phases is called the threshold phase. The threshold involves stepping off the path of the known, and entering into the uncharted territory of the unconscious. At the School, the threshold includes time alone, fasting in nature. The third and final stage is the incorporation, literally, “to take on the body”, in which the initiate reenters the “ordinary” world as a new being, having gained new insights to be practiced within the community.

For purposes of this presentation, I focus on the threshold or liminal stage. As anthropologist, Victor Tuner writes, a rite of passage is “any ritual of liminality, in which one ‘passes’ from one realm or condition of life experience into another”. Psychologically speaking, this ritual involves a breaking down of the old ego structures; so that a new vision can emerge, an image that is more fluid, expanded, and rooted in the depths of the collective unconscious where psyche and nature are no longer perceived separate.

Symbolic Consciousness

Upon entering the liminal-threshold phase of rites of passage, symbols emerge that reveal the human connection to nature. Rites of passage throughout all ages and cultures have evolved to reflect the psychodrama of human transitions in relationship to the natural cycles of life and death – symbolically expressed in nature as the waxing and waning of the moon, the death of fall and winter, and the abundance of spring and summer, the opening and closing of a flower, the rise and fall of a river. In this liminal state, the uniting symbols appear most vividly.

 But, such symbols are not easily interpreted or quickly understood. Initially, symbols may appear cryptic and arcane – odd and confusing dream images such as bugs, strange animals, various plants, or unusual landscapes.

This is due to the fact that symbols are expressions for something that cannot be directly known, thus in themselves are aspects of the liminal.  A symbol is a mixture that is neither rational nor irrational. It is as much thinking as feeling, as much sensation as intuition. Symbols defy reason. They do not succumb to reductive interpretations. They always point to something greater than themselves. 

Thus, according to Jung, we must adopt a symbolic attitude to truly give them their value. Jung (1949/1971) describes the symbolic attitude as one that “assigns meaning to events, whether great or small, and attaches to this meaning a greater value than to bare facts” (p. 476).

Furthermore, symbols appear during times of extreme conflict, when two opposing positions appear to have absolutely no resolution.  In regards to wilderness rites of passage, the conflict entails making the transition from one life stage to another and the tension that arises when our limited ego-perceptions of the world are being held in question. It is also the same conflict that emerges when seeking to heal our cultural split between psyche and nature. Taken to heart, this conflict seems impossible to resolve. It is within this place that one truly finds themselves in a liminal space. Chaos, uncertainty, depression, and the breakdown of old ego-structures are characteristic of the threshold.

Jung writes, “What takes place between light and darkness, what unites the opposites, always has a share in both sides and can be judged just as well from the left as from the right… the only thing that helps us here is the symbol….with its paradoxical nature it represents the ‘third thing” (CW 13, pp. 134).

The Transcendent Fuction

Jung used the term “transcendent function” to describe this mediating force that helps us resolve the conflict of the opposites. The transcendent function arises out of intense and concentrated conflicts within the individual. Like the koan of the Zen masters, extreme and painful paradoxes can lead us to a place where we must transcend the ego so that our perception of reality is no longer split into two opposing forces.  If one is able to hold the tension long enough, without succumbing to the urge to identify with one side or the other, a third, unique position can arise.

The Scarab

Perhaps, the liminal-symbolic experience is best understood by way of illustration. The following is a story told by a woman who had just returned from a modern day “vision quest”, a four-day and night solo in the wilderness without food, shelter, or company. Prior to this event, she had been engaged in psychotherapy for many years, working through difficult complexes and coming to new realizations about herself. She had been diligent, paying careful attention to her dreams and tending to her spiritual and psychological development. Nonetheless, she was frustrated because no matter how much she worked on herself she felt that no real progress was being made. When it came down to it, she still had the conflicts, struggles, and disappointments that plagued her prior to beginning analysis. She still felt disconnected from herself and from nature. But, after three days in the desert, she had the following vision. 

Today I wake up before sunrise. It’s a remarkably clear morning. I am enjoying the naturalness of the birds singing, the fresh spring air, and the butterflies that flutter around my sleeping bag. In a state of reverie, I watch the sun slowly rise over the mountains. I’ll get out of my sleeping bag when the sun is in full view and I am fully saturated with warmth. But, just as the sun crests the surface of the mountains, I see a monstrous creature black as the night attached to the rising sun. He looks like a giant cockroach, dressed in armor with a shield. He flies out of the sun and lands right on my ceremonial circle of stones.

This woman had been carrying great tension between her innate driving force toward individuation and her inability to escape the struggles of her daily life. Essentially, her dilemma exemplified the tension between spirit and matter, between the desire to move upward and skyward (a metaphor for psychological development) and the powerlessness to escape her earth-bound humanness. She accentuated this tension by embarking on a vision quest, which required her to be alone for four days and nights in the wilderness without the distractions of modern day life. What she received in return was a gift from psyche, the symbolic image of the black bug, which, initially, left her perplexed.

At first sight, symbols always accompany a sense of disorientation for they cannot be grasped by ego-consciousness. Jung admonishes us not to jump to interpretation of symbols too quickly, but to first take the time to pay careful attention to the pure image itself. To interpret a symbol prematurely is to deflate it of its feeling tone and mystifying nature, thus, the tension is alleviated and the process is suspended. On the other hand, to pay attention to the image, despite the frustration of not yet knowing what it represents, is an essential aspect of the holding of the tension of the opposites.

Fortunately, this woman had learned that images are not to be dismissed as trivial, and so she stuck with the image. She drew pictures of the black bug, engaged it, and allowed herself to feel its creepy black bug essence until she was no longer so repulsed by it. It wasn’t until much later that she realized the dark cockroach resembled the ancient Egyptian scarab which, according to Egyptian mythology, pushes the sun up from the depths of the underworld. At first sight, the scarab is hardly romantic; it is a disgusting black bug! But, as the myth informs us, the rising scarab also symbolizes the shadowy, instinctual forces that lie beneath consciousness. As Jung has pointed out, the development of consciousness is driven by natural instinctual forces. This woman’s vision of the scarab indicated a new rising consciousness that integrates both the light and dark aspects of the Self. Not perfection, but wholeness. She then realized that her painful complexes and worldly struggles are a natural aspect of a developing consciousness; just as black bugs and other grubby creatures are an essential aspect of nature. Furthermore, throughout this process, she developed a new appreciation for her own unique humanness, which in turn, expanded her capacity to appreciate, and thus connect with, the natural world.

Conclusion

Maria-Louise von Franz, writes, “the symbol helps us over”.  Holding the tension of the opposites requires paying careful attention to the symbolic expressions of the unconscious as they appear in dreams, symbols, fantasies, and imaginations.  In terms of wilderness rites of passage the practice entails attending to the details presented in the landscape – the highs and lows, rocks and trees – while simultaneously noticing the movements of psyche – dreams, feelings, fantasies, and imaginations. What emerges is a symbolic and sensual relationship with the living landscape. By holding the tension between the realms of psyche and nature, one is led to an intermediate space – an imaginal space, a third space – where psyche glides along mountaintops, and rivers flow deep within the valley of the soul.

In our soul everything

moves guided by a mysterious hand:

ununderstandable, not speaking,

we know nothing of our own souls.

The deepest words

of the wise men teach us

the same as the whistle of the wind when it blows,

or the sound of the water when it is flowing.

   - Antonio Machado, Rebirth

Betsy Perluss, copyright, 2008