Check It Out

Conjunction between Moon, Jupiter and its three moons – Io, Ganymede, & Callisto. Europa is hiding behind Jupiter.

A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.

William Shakespeare (via goodreadss)

Robert Doisneau (1912-1994) French photographer “You educate a man; you educate a man. You educate a woman; you educate a generation.” ― Brigham Young

Emerging from the water.  By eventyrphotos

All Along the Bollingen Tower

αἰὼν παῖς ἐστι παίζων, πεττεύων· παιδὸς ἡ βασιληίη*

In 1950, a most unremarkable year otherwise, on the occasion of his 75th birthday, Jung set up a stone cube on the lakeshore, just West of the tower he had made built, inscribing it on three sides.

One side contains a quote taken from the Rosarium philosophorum:

Hic lapis exilis extat, pretio quoque vilis, spernitur a stultis, amatur plus ab edoctis.

“Here stands the mean, uncomely stone, 'Tis very cheap in price! The more it is despised by fools, The more loved by the wise.”

A dedication is also inscribed on this side of the stone: 

IN MEMORIAM NAT[ivitatis] S[uae] DIEI LXXV C G JUNG EX GRAT[itudine] FEC[it] ET POS[uit] A[nn]O MCML 

(In memory of his 75th birthday, C.G. Jung out of gratitude made and set it up in the year 1950.)

The second side of the cube depicts a Telesphorus figure, a homunculus bearing a lantern and wearing a hooded cape reminiscent of the figure of The Hermit (IX) (Major Arcana VIIII). It is surrounded by a Greek inscription:

«Ὁ Αἰὼν παῖς ἐστι παίζων, πεττεύων· παιδὸς ἡ βασιληίη» · Τελεσφόρος διελαύνων τοὺς σκοτεινοὺς τοῦ κόσμου τόπους, καὶ ὡς ἀστὴρ ἀναλάμπων ἐκ τοῦ βάθους, ὁδηγεῖ «παρ' Ἠελίοιο πύλας καὶ δῆμον ὀνείρων».

The inscription says:

Time is a child — playing like a child — playing a board game — the kingdom of the child. This is Telesphoros, who roams through the dark regions of this cosmos and glows like a star out of the depths. He points the way to the gates of the sun and to the land of dreams.

"Time is a child at play, gambling; a child's is the kingship" is a fragment attributed to Heraclitus.

"He points the way to the gates of the sun and to the land of dreams" is a quote from the Odyssey (Book 24, Verse 12). It refers to Hermes the psychopomp, who leads away the spirits of the slain suitors.

The second side also contains a four-part mandala of alchemical significance. The top quarter of the mandala is dedicated to Saturn, the bottom quarter to Mars, the left quarter to Sol-Jupiter [male], and the right quarter to Luna-Venus [female].

The third side of the cube is the side that faces the lake. It bears a Latin inscription of sayings which, Jung says, "are more or less quotations from alchemy."

The inscription reads:

I am an orphan, alone; nevertheless I am found everywhere. I am one, but opposed to myself. I am youth and old man at one and the same time. I have known neither father nor mother, because I have had to be fetched out of the deep like a fish, or fell like a white stone from heaven. In woods and mountains I roam, but I am hidden in the innermost soul of man. I am mortal for everyone, yet I am not touched by the cycle of aeons.

Quote of the Rosarium philosophorum

hic lapis exilis extat, pretio quoque vilis, spernitur a stultis, amatur plus ab edoctis 

("this stone is poor, and cheap in price; it is disdained by fools, but it is loved all the more by the wise"),

and the dedication

IN MEMORIAM NAT[ivitati]S DIEI LXXV C G JUNG EX GRAT[itudine] FEC[it] ET POS[uit] A[nn]O MCML "in memory of his 75th birthday C.G. Jung out of gratitude made and set up [this stone], in the year 1950."

On the second side, Jung Telesphorus figure, a dwarf or homunculus bearing a lantern and wearing a hooded cape, surrounded by a Greek inscription

  "Ὁ Αἰὼν παῖς ἐστι παίζων, πεττεύων· παιδὸς ἡ βασιληίη» · Τελεσφόρος διελαύνων τοὺς σκοτεινοὺς τοῦ κόσμου τόπους, καὶ ὡς ἀστὴρ ἀναλάμπων ἐκ τοῦ βάθους, ὁδηγεῖ «παρ' Ἠελίοιο πύλας καὶ δῆμον ὀνείρων". The central figure is Homunculus-Mercurius-Telesphorus, wearing a hooded cape and carrying a lantern. He is surrounded by a quaternary Mandala of alchemical significance, with the top quarter dedicated to Saturn, the bottom quarter to Mars, the left quarter to Sol-Jupiter ("male") and the right quarter to Luna-Venus ("female"). The Greek inscription translates to approximately: "Aion (Time, Eternity, the Eon) is a child at play, gambling; a child's is the kingship. Telesphorus ("the Accomplisher") traverses the dark places of the world, like a star flashing from the deep, leading the way to the Gates of the Sun and the Land of Dreams" Time is a child at play, gambling; a child's is the kingship is a fragment attributed to Heraclitus. To the Gates of the Sun and the Land of Dreams is a quote of the Odyssey (24.11), referring to Hermes the psychopomp leading the spirits of the slain suitors away.

From David C. Hamilton

* Eternity is a child playing, playing checkers; the kingdom belongs to a child.

Quoted by Hippolytus, Refutation of all heresies, IX, 9, 4 (Fragment 52), as translated in Reality (1994), by Carl Avren Levenson and Jonathan Westphal, p. 10

Variants:

History is a child building a sand-castle by the sea, and that child is the whole majesty of man’s power in the world.

As quoted in Contemporary Literature in Translation (1976), p. 21

A lifetime is a child playing, playing checkers; the kingdom belongs to a child.

As quoted in The Beginning of All Wisdom: Timeless Advice from the Ancient Greeks (2003) by Steven Stavropoulos, p. 95

Time is a game played beautifully by children.

As quoted in Fragments (2001) translated by Brooks Haxton

Lifetime is a child at play, moving pieces in a game. Kingship belongs to the child.

As quoted in The Art and Thought of Heraclitus (1979) translated by Charles H. Kahn

"Before enlightenment, no one can rely on strength. Enlightenment comes across by itself, and enlightenment can only be helped by a ray of enlightened power." Dogen Zenji

[Dogen Zenji (19 January 1200 - 22 September 1253) was a Japanese monk, writer, poet, philosopher and Zen master, and the founder of the Soto sect in Japan.]

Being lost and being enlightened are like two sides of the same coin, in fact they are one and the same. So you don't have to be in panic to seek enlightenment, but when you are lost, you should just be lost. 

You may try the hardest to “enlightenment, enlightenment” and think, for example, that we must do Zazen sitting meditation, read Buddhist scriptures, and so on.

But it is a force beyond enlightenment. Enlightenment comes to you far beyond enlightenment. In other words, Dogen teaches us that enlightenment has nothing to do with the efforts we make to try our hardest to find a way to become enlightened. Enlightenment comes one day out of the blue. So if you are lost now, then do not hesitate to be lost. Not ‘more lost’, but ‘firmly lost’. 

It's okay to be ‘just lost.’ Just think so and just be lost. 

Got a mind that ramble, got a mind that roam I'm travelin' light and I'm a-slow coming home

“Mother of Muses”

Bob Dylan “Rough and Rowdy Ways”

幽玄 The two main elements in Noh acting were monomane, “an imitation of things,” or the representational aspect, and 幽玄 yūgen, the symbolic aspect and spiritual core of the Noh, which took precedence and which became the touchstone of excellence in the Noh. Zeami wrote, “The essence of yūgen is true beauty and gentleness,” but not mere outward beauty: it had to suggest behind the text of the plays and the noble gestures of the actors a world impossible to define yet ultimately real. Such plays as Matsukaze, written by Kan’ami and adapted by Zeami, have a mysterious stillness that seems to envelop the visible or audible parts of the work. In other of Zeami’s dramas there is less yūgen and more action and, occasionally, even realism. Yūgen (幽玄) is one of the important concepts in traditional Japanese aesthetics. The exact translation of the word depends on the context. In the Chinese philosophical texts the term was taken from, 幽玄 yūgen meant “dim”, “deep” or “mysterious”. In the criticism of Japanese waka poetry, it was used to describe the subtle profundity of things that are only vaguely suggested by the poems. Yūgen is said to mean “a profound, mysterious sense of the beauty of the universe… and the sad beauty of human suffering”. Yūgen suggests that beyond what can be said but is not an allusion to another world. It is about this world, this experience. Ortolani, 325). Ortolani, Benito. The Japanese Theatre. Princeton University Press: Princeton, 1995

Please do!