On This Journey We Call Our Life: Living the Questions (Studies in Jungian Psychology in Jungian...

On This Journey We Call Our Life: Living the Questions (Studies in Jungian Psychology in Jungian Analysts, ... | James Hollis | Just the list of questions worth the price!

books:

On This Journey We...

	On This Journey We Call Our Life: Living the Questions (Studies in Jungian Psychology in Jungian Analysts, ... James Hollis Inner City Books, 2003 - 157 pages average customer review:based on 7 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Willing to be Asked the Questions

"On This Journey We Call Our Life - Living the Questions (Studies in Jungian Psychology by Jungian Analysts) is one of the 4 books by Hollis I own which include a superb audio book on CD he cogently narrates titled "The Middle Passage - From Misery to Meaning in Midlife". On This Journey... was published in 2003 and is his third latest book - his most recent being "Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life - How to Finally, Really Grow Up".

The Studies in Jungian Psychology by Jungian Analysts is a wonderful series published by Inner City Books with Daryl Sharp as founder and chief editor (himself an accomplished Jungian Analyst and writer). Marie-Louise von Franz is their Honorary Patron with 9 of her classic titles in the offerings. The publisher's charter was "...founded in 1980 to promote the understanding and practical application of the work of C.G. Jung." Since then they've published over 110 titles in this series with other prolific Jungian writers & analysts such as Barbara Hannah, Edward Edinger, and Marion Woodman to name a few. Hollis is a Zurich-trained Jungian analyst practicing out of Texas where he is also the Executive Director of the Jung Educational Center of Houston. He's contributed 8 titles to the Studies in Jungian Psychology series himself. We recently shared some correspondence and I found him warm and thoughtfully responsive.

After a nice Publisher's Forward by Daryl Sharp, Hollis tells us early in his introduction "One way of looking at this journey is to observe that psyche presents us with two large questions..." one for each of the two halves of our lives. The question of the first half is '"What is the world asking of me?" and that of the second is "What, now, does the soul; ask of me?" To the first he remembers when, as children, we asked the great mysterious questions only to relinquish the profound imperative: "The wonder and terror forgotten, buried but not dead beneath the details of the daily grind." And, sadly "...we forgot those questions, and who we were, and that we were really called upon to do something with this gift of life." To the second question (for the second half of life) Hollis offers up some poignant questions to be asked (but not necessarily answered) by honest, humble, self-seekers willing to ask and grow. These ten questions are reflected in the Table of Contents and are expanded in each chapter to flesh out the real meaning of the questions. However Hollis does not "...purport to offer their answers, though I present possibilities."

By What Truths Am I Living My Life?
What Is My Shadow and How Can I Make It Known?
What Is My Myth?
What Is My Vocation?
What Are My Spiritual Points Of Reference?
What Fiction Shall Be My Truth?
What Is My Obligation to the World?
So, Ahem . . . What's This Death Business?
What Supports Me?
What Matters, in the End?

In his chapter "What Is My Shadow and How Can I Make It Known?" he poses "Seven Questions for Personal Reflection on the Shadow". Incidentally, the whole shadow business has been hands down the most fascinating topic for me. The subject proved the genesis of my journey into individuation and the world of Jungian psychology - a veritable gateway & goldmine!

One theme I appreciate in several of his works is the affirmation that "We are all more than the sum of what happened to us." that is "I am not what happened to me - I am what I choose to become."

There's some recurrence of certain poetry and philosophy from earlier works (e.g. "The Middle Passage") and this is certainly fine with me. To name a number of poets & philosophers he cites: James Agee, Stephen Dunn, T.S. Eliot, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Kierkegaard, D.H. Lawrence, Rainer Maria Rilke, Dylan Thomas, Thoreau, Yeats (and C.G. Jung of course).
Relevant footnotes throughout helpfully point the interested reader to Hollis' earlier books and they show how this material effectively evolved out of those works. Simply put, this book ties together threads from those earlier works and weaves a nice tapestry of Jungian analysis. A good bibliography and index help the reader find sources and subjects.

The last chapter, "What Matters, in the End?" hits on aspects of our projections and requires "Doing Our Work" accepting responsibility, finding strength to pull back our projections, and a engaging in a rapport with our inner world where our choices develop. The next sub-chapter "Ask the Meaning of Your Suffering" explains how this question "tends to relocate our sense of selfhood beyond the narrow purview of our ego." It concludes with two sub-chapters that suggest we "Keep Asking What Matters, in the End" and "Suffer Consciously" lest we take the unconscious alternative of avoiding what is in us.

Finally, Hollis concludes: "...While the ultimate purpose of this journey and our unique role in the great scheme of things will remain a mystery, our questions serve us by keeping us on track. Something wants to live through us, and we need to allow it."

I was able to recognize a lot of material from this book in my life/history (as well as from my repeated listening to "The Middle Passage") and I'll undoubtedly re-read this book many times as it serves to illuminate the nature of my questions and the questions of my nature - the spirit of this is succinctly exemplified in a famous quote found in this book:

"The meaning of my existence is that life has addressed a question to me . . . or conversely, I myself am a question." CG Jung, MDR

IndiAndy
__________________
We dance around in a ring and suppose.
But the secret sits in the middle and knows." Robert Frost
Penetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the unknowable.
But there it sits nevertheless, calmly licking its chops." H.L. Mencken
Denying, believing and doubting are to men what running is to horses." Blaise Pascal
As soon as man does not take his existence for granted,
but beholds is as something unfathomably mysterious, thought begins." Albert Schweitzer

for more information click here

Just the list of questions worth the price!

James Hollis accomplished MASTERFULLY what he set out to do. He simplifies and illustrates clearly how...in Jungian terms...we repeat our patterns of behavior, endlessly, until we examine, recognize and work at changing them.
I especially appreciated the questions and tools he presented to aid the reader in the process of making new choices. He presumes some knowledge of Jung and his language can be a bit pretentious at times, but overall, I found this to be a deeply valuable and useful book.

Facing the mysteries of the soul

The Big Questions ... many ask them hesitantly, but then shy away from the troubling or painful truths they unearth; others ignore them entirely, until those neglected questions ferociously demand a response; and some few actually confront them.

As in his previous books, James Hollis doesn't offer easy answers, simplistic lists, or enumerated step-by-step programs -- none of the comforting but superficial illusions in all of those bestselling self-help books. What he does is pose the Big Questions, examining what they mean & what they require of us. Using a wide range of literature & art, accompanied by personal material from his own life, he illuminates the great task awaiting each of us.

Again, he doesn't offer answers -- only the questions. For all of his knowledge & experience, he's humble enough to recognize that we must all struggle to find our own answers, our own meaning, our own authenticity. Think of him as a wise trail guide: he knows the overall terrain, he's explored it himself, he can offer pointers & maps ... but in the end, he can't make the journey for us. We've got to do that ourselves, accepting & braving all of its risks.

As our culture becomes more shallow & lost, fewer people are willing to do the hard work of striving for wholeness as human beings. Why not simply give in to the addictive, numbing flood of materialism, consumerism, and anti-intellectualism that makes life so much easier to bear?

Because it doesn't make life easier, not in the long run. And it certainly doesn't make life meaningful. That's what Hollis is offering in these pages: if you have the courage & will to grow, to accept struggle & suffering, you may well forge a life that's truly worth living. Can there be any more satisfying goal?

Most highly recommended!

for more information click here

A deeply interesting work

This book was brought to my attention by a good friend who happens to be a Jungian analyst. As part of a group I studied both it and another work of Hollis' titled Under Saturn's Shadow. Undoubtedly this book is well worth a serious read, since it does contain much wisdom and food for thought. I especially enjoyed the chapter "What Fiction Shall Be My Truth?" since it dealt with specific issues that concerned me at the time. Hollis goes were other authors sometimes fear to tread (his examination of death for instance) and in that regard he is very stimulating. I must agree however with another reviewer's comments about Hollis' occasional verbosity and pedantic tone. While he states that no one should allow Jung to direct their life he often seems to elevate Jung to the level of a high priest of sorts and attributes as fact some of Jung's assertions, when in truth they are merely speculation (albeit of a high order). His references to the "Divine" are a bit over wrought and seem to insist that the reader accept his concepts in this regard without question. I found this peculiar tendency to be a bit much since Hollis' tone in these passages would seem to intentionally denigrate the reader who might hold opinions that differ from his own. And, after all, any discussion of this subject matter is only opinion. Certainly Hollis is no vessel of universal truth; even if he occasionally gives the impression that he might imagine himself as such. But, these criticisms aside, Hollis' main message is one that I believe needs to gain traction in our society: examine your life and take responsibility for what you find. Grow. Seek truth. Expand your horizons. Be a better person and think about your effect on others and your role in the larger scheme (assuming there is one). I appreciate teachers like Hollis since I find Jung's work to be to "dense" to access directly. And certainly almost any reader of this book will find some Jungian concept to make their own, or at least point them in a direction where they can formulate their own answers.

for more information click here

Psychology meets Philosphy

Dr. Ira Progoff, creator of the Intensive Journal and author of Jung's Society and Its Social Meaning (his dissertation), Death and Rebirth of Psychology, Depth Psychology and Modern Man and The Symbolic and the Real wrote in one of his books that in the end all of the great four (Jung, Freud, Adler and Rank) came to recognize that there was an untapped spiritual dimension to their work, which had, after all, taken over the healing role of clergy and the church. That exchange has left a lot to be desired, especially in the consciously focused schools of Cognitive and Behavioral Psychotherapy.
James Hollis in this work reunites the two (replacing religion with its broader cousin philosophy) by asking the most important questions we can pursue in life. He does not provide answers but his wonderful exploration of the questions acts a guide for our own individual search of the one and only life we will ever have.
When I read Hollis, I have my journal open to explore what he puts in front of me. Life seems a bit more understandable and complete with his prompting. He, after all, must deal whith the same tough questions.
This is not a self help book, nor one you read in a single sitting. It is more respectful on your intelligence and journey.

John Laughlin, author of Reading Thomas Merton

for more information click here

reviews: page 1, 2

products you might be interested in