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.

How can we understand a death that means new life or a darkness that shines?

"If consciousness works according to nature, the blackness is not so black or so destructive, but if the Sun stands still, it is stiffened, and burns life to death"

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.`'

The mortificatio process was often thought of as tortuous and as the "most negative operation in alchemy."" "It has to do with darkness, defeat, torture, mutilation, death and rotting. The process of rotting is called putrefactio, the decomposition that breaks down organic bodies""

"There are as many ways to be lost in the light as in the dark," says storyteller and poet Madronna Holden, who recognizes the peril that occurs when light loses touch with the principle of darkness.' On the cultural level we all too often have become lost in our spiritual, Apollonian, patriarchal, male perspective. Our roots in European

Psychologically, there is nourishment in wounding. When psychological blood flows, it can dissolve hardened defenses. This then can be the beginning of true productivity. In dreams the imagery of blood often connotes moments when real feeling and change are possible. The theme of the wound can also suggest a hidden innocence, which is also a subjec

In the cold light of the black sun, we understand what Conrad calls the "heart of darkness" and the horror of the "cry" so vividly portrayed by Eduard Munch and the alchemists.

Images of the subtle body have been known throughout history and across cultures and have been discussed and imaged in a variety of contexts. From the Western astrological, kabbalistic, alchemical, hermetic, and magical traditions to Indian, Chinese, Buddhist, and Taoist ones, imagining the subtle body has played an important role in medical, psych