The Black Sun: The Alchemy and Art of Darkness (Carolyn and Ernest Fay Series in Analytical Psychology Book 10)

Jung notes that "the tree [in general] symbolizes a living process as well as a process of enlight

We have already discussed Jung's idea that in alchemy, when light and darkness and male and female come together, the filius philosophorum is born.

Along with the tree, the theme of the whitening birds and the albedo is present, indicating the upward movement of her psychic energy.

Jung also presents what he thinks is a female version of this process, reflected in the image of the mortificatio of Eve (figure 4.23b). In this image, the female's figure points to the skull symbolizing the mortificatio. Here the tree grows out of Eve's head.`'

Here, creativity, the flowering philosophical tree, is linked to wounding and the mortificatio. It would appear that what is essential to the creative flowering of the psyche is a wounding and a death of the old self, out of which emerges the new life. In this male version of the process, the tree emerges as a phallus.

Such images reflect an archetypal moment when we stand on the threshold of our individuation and wonder whether going forward is going to lead to our demise.

A similar hole in the solar plexus appears in this Alaskan Inuit image of the body (figure 4.14) of a shaman, or tutelary deity. The idea is that, in religious life, the body is opened up, broken down, and transformed. In terms of Inuit mythology, if we maintain a respectful religious attitude toward our suffering as the price of transformation, th

I have written about an analytic parallel to this alchemical process in an article titled "The Metaphor of Light and Renewal in Taoist Alchemy and Jungian Analysis."5' The solar plexus is an important area of subtle body theory and a center of vital force in Taoist alchemy.

Years later Stephen Little published Taoism and the Arts of China,