drawing water

Full moon, and female rain–that’s what the Dineh call these long, soaking, gentle days:  as opposed to male rains, which are the lightning storms, sudden and dramatic, an onslaught that is quickly over.

I love the female rains. Yesterday, waking to their gentle music,  I smudged the whole house with cedar and took off on a walk through the low clouds. Everything seems to be breathing on these days, rain-soaked and calm and alive.  Tiny reminders of the sacred are everywhere–curling wisps of fog reaching skyward, birds flying silent. These are the days I remember to take a bath of salt as the evening winds down, reconnecting with the ocean, the way the full moon draws tears to my eyes as it draws waves to the sky.  I remember on these rainy days to simmer the peelings and cuttings of vegetables to make broth for later.  And now, brewing up this month’s pleasure packages for Briana, the whole house fragrant with balsam, I feel rocked by the rain, drawn into memory.

I’m studying Jung again, and it draws me back to those months at UCLA when the Hammer Museum acquired his Red Book as part of a visiting exhibit. I remember taking my Theories of Personality homework  there every day that I could, writing and reading amid the colorful art and scribbled journal entries of that wonderful man.

Something amazing happened soon after that.  I was dating a gentle-spirited, adventurous man who was studying…what was he studying?  I know I got all weak-kneed over the fact that he built and launched satellites (shush, Freud, I’m writing about Jung right now), but it wasn’t called rocket science. Of course I always called him a rocket scientist, because I loved the way it sounded, and he would quietly and repeatedly correct me.  (Thank goodness he was so gentle-spirited.)

Anyway, here is the story of the magical encounter I had with Jung as I wrote it down then:

                                                                        ~  ~  ~

I lost my keys a little while ago. I was on my way out the door to go and soak in wild hot springs with my honey, so I didn’t let it bother me. I knew they would turn up when we got back.

But as we camped and hiked and soaked I turned the problem over in my mind. I’d checked the drawer, all my bags, the table, the counter…I mean, come on, I live in a 12-foot-square house. How hidden could they be?

Then, one night, under the clear stars of the desert, I had a dream. Carl Jung was crooking his finger at me from a chair near a window.

“Pssst,” he said, eyes gleaming with mischief. “I know where your keys are.”  He pointed to the wardrobe, which flew open, and I saw my grey corduroy pants neatly folded on the shelf.  Of course! I had been wearing those cords the day before! The keys must be tucked into the pocket!

I was so excited the next morning. A personal message from Jung himself! I babbled excitedly to H  about how Jung’s theory of the collective unconscious and the mysterious synchrony of dreams was always taking flak from the scientific community for being “unprovable.” Well here I had the means to prove it. Should I return home and find the keys in the pocket of my cords, it would PROVE that there is a collective wisdom larger than ourselves that can transmit messages in dreams!

“Or,” remarked H calmly, “That some part of your brain remembered where you’d put them and, once the constant buzz of your consciousness was out for the count, was finally able to make itself heard.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. ‘Constant buzz‘?    ‘make itself heard‘?    What, exactly, were we talking about here?

He smiled at me and nudged my arm. “You have to think of all possible ways of interpreting the evidence, or you haven’t proved anything at all.” He’s a rocket scientist. (No, really. He’s a rocket scientist.)

Finally our lovely journey to desert hot springs by way of snowy mountain roads came to an end, and I eagerly raced to my wardrobe to root around in the pockets of my cords.

But:  strike one for the collective unconscious. The keys were not there.

I was disconsolate all day. So much for my mysterious connection with Jung.  I admit I actually felt he’d let me down.

Finally I dragged myself over to the kitchen table to study for my finals. I opened my Theories of Personality text to review the reading.And there, tucked into the pages of the chapter on Jung and the Collective Unconscious, were my keys.