Sublime

Finally, although psyche means soul, many of the current trends in psychotherapy today are empty of soul. Focused on short-term treatment and behavioral change, they lack an orientation to depth. Focused on medication, they lack a permeability to the underworld. Focused on personal psychology alone, they fail to honor the gods. Focused on insight a

Psyche, however, is not confined to the deep interior of our lives; it overlaps with the wider world and perhaps, in these times, is most evident in the sorrows and suffering of the earth itself.1

The concept of this individualized soul-image has a long, complicated history; its appearance in cultures is diverse and widespread and the names for it are legion. Only our contemporary psychology and psychiatry omit it from their textbooks. The study and therapy of the psyche in our society ignore this factor, which other cultures regard as the k

The Ego is that part of the psyche that believes in material existence.

Psyche, we must remember, was shaped by and is rooted in the foundations of nature. As such, psyche also experiences times of decay and death, of stopping, regression, and being still. Much happens in these times that deepen the soul. When all we are shown is the imagery of ascent, we are left to interpret the times of descent as pathological; we f

Caterpillars, which completely dissolve wholly into goo inside their cocoons and then re-coagulate themselves into butterflies, provide a fantastic example of how this kind of alchemical change happens in nature. The English word psyche, meaning “soul” or “mind,” comes from the Greek word psyche, meaning butterfly. Coincidence? I suspect not. Human

Like mycelium, psyche does not discern who deserves its beneficence, since we are all connected. Across the mycelial-like threads we call dreams, we receive practical knowledge, transmissions of wisdom, creative solutions, opportunities to grow, and yes, even a place to compost our dying material.