Honi the Circle-Maker: an ancient narrative for creating temenos in challenging times

Abstract

Our current world pandemic and the ensuing turmoil have challenged us to find new narratives of radical change. Poet Antonio Machado speaks of ‘listening on the vast rim of silence’. The author opens with reflections on the importance of soul-work that is grounded in the ephemeral, reverie and other non-verbal experiences in creating new narratives. She invites the reader to engage in active imagination with an ancient myth from the Jewish Talmud dealing with death and destruction. Honi the Circle-Maker, a known miracle-worker draws a circle around himself and with chutzpah (daring) challenges God to send the right type of rain to end a devastating drought. Using the theoretical concepts of Carl Jung, Erich Neumann and other contemporary Jungian analysts (Hillman, Kalsched, Winborn, Stein and Tuley), the author discusses the power of archetypal imagery of circle-making and the Great Round. To the background of the myth, she emphasizes the power of the individual to make a difference in the world. Finally, she concludes with reflections on the importance of the other in the face of a pandemic.

KEYWORDS:

• Narrative
• active imagination
• Jewish myth
• COVID-19
• Jungian
• transformation

When day comes, we ask ourselves, where we can find light in this never-ending shade? (The Hill We Climb, Amanda Gorman, 2021 https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/20/politics/amanda-gorman-inaugural-poem-transcript/index.html)

Has my heart gone to sleep? Have the beehives of my dreams stopped working, the waterwheel of the mind run dry, scoops turning empty, only shadow inside?

No, my heart is not asleep. It is awake, wide awake. Not asleep, not dreaming – its eyes are opened wide watching distant signals, listening on the rim of vast silence. Antonio Machado (1982, 93):

Like Amanda Gorman, I ask where we can find light? As I struggle to find it, Antonio Machado’s words reach inside my heart and soul. For two and a half years, the devastation of COVID-19, a world-wide pandemic has challenged us with so much suffering and death. It is all too easy for our heart to go missing. Sometimes the trauma is too much, and we can no longer meet all the pain. Thrust into a world of lockdowns, isolation, emptiness and loneliness, some were forced to celebrate, suffer, mourn and die alone. We have faced a ‘rim of vast silence’ in a new world reality. We have no words. Our heart continues to beat, yet the new reality creates a betwixt and between, a third space that begs for different expression.

I am a Jungian analyst and a Jewish woman of faith. My lifelong journey includes a search for meaning, hope and holy spaces of safety. As a therapist, over four decades, I have held so much trauma and suffering of others. Yet, like so many of my colleagues, this time is different. Speechless and horrified by the images, I also bled with the world. I will never forget the visceral anxiety and drive to clean all the groceries before they entered our inner spaces. As Jungians, we speak about the temenos, the holy space of the therapy room and of deep relationship. Yet, the virus, like an alien force, had the power to insidiously creep into and burst into every nook and cranny of our previously safe places.

Early in the development of the pandemic, before COVID reached our country, I dreamt a strange, scary and perhaps intuitive dream (Zeiger 2021) of alien forces that decimated trees. I attempted to run away to Iceland, alone, without my spouse and beloved children and I met the fear and pain of so many sad individuals destined to suffer without loved ones. Hillman (1979) reminds us that many of our dreams are scary and filled with images of death and destruction. Yet sometimes our dream world compensates our outward stance with something helpful and peaceful.

Following the alien invasion of the trees, I received a peace offering of my soul. I dreamt of the miracle of pregnancy of a woman I call ‘Tikva’, a Holocaust survivor, mentor and senior supervising analyst, in her 90s (Zeiger 2021) A student of Erich Neumann (1905–1960), himself a noted Jungian analyst and student of Carl Jung,¹ she gifts me the experience of sitting at the feet of the elders. In this narrative of the night, I was excited and a bit nervous about her pregnancy. Yet, the scene reminded me of her survival of Auschwitz and her ability to create a life of deep meaning and service. If she could survive this horror, there was hope for our pandemic. My dream narrative comforted me as psychoanalyst and enabled me to reach out and continue to offer hope to the other who was also wounded and suffering.

As we faced COVID, most of us anxiously listened to the news and attempted to digest the ever changing and confusing directives from science, medicine and the government. Yet, If I ask myself, where I began to find some semblance of peace, it was not via logos and information.² Rather it was in the rim of vast silence beyond words. Art, meditation and short walks with my dog within the quiet field behind my home became important saviors.

One of my most pivotal experiences occurred very early on during the pandemic. I was privileged to train as a Jungian analyst with a group of six colleagues. We had built deep intimacy and continued to meet after our training to discuss theory and clinical cases. During early COVID, we made the decision to meet regularly via Zoom and engage in what I would call pandemic art therapy. Sitting on the floor of my tiny home office with an open Zoom window and in partnership with my beloved friends, I created art that expressed the pain, angst and hope of my soul. I also began to write blogs to give voice to the non-verbal (Zeiger, April 11, 2020).

In retrospect, I understand I needed my introverted time desperately. But I also needed fellowship with individuals who also struggled with the soul-work of relating to a world that was trembling, destroying itself and recreating itself in a new reality. My soul needed to create new narratives incubated in reflection and fellowship.

The power of the narrative

In November of 2020, as COVID-19 raged anew in my country, I was privileged to engage in an online multidisciplinary conference of scholars (from psychology, psychoanalysis, sociology, technology and cultural studies), Narratives in Times of Radical Transformation.³ I knew I had to participate. I needed the voices of the conference.

Jungian theory values mythology, fairy tales and narratives of the soul. Carl Jung, afforded a great deal of importance to the personal and collective myth of human existence. Narratives provide the stuff of life and offer a road within to the unconscious. In the words of Jung,

No science will ever replace myth, and a myth cannot be made out of any science. For it is not that ‘God’ is myth, but that myth is the revelation of a divine life in man. It is not we who invent myth, rather it speaks to us as a Word of God. (Jung [1969/1989], Kindle location 5925).

Further he states,

Only here, in life on earth, where the opposites clash together, can the general level of consciousness be raised. This seems to be man’s metaphysical task- which he cannot accomplish without ‘mythologizing’. Myth is the natural and indispensable intermediate stage between unconscious and conscious cognition. (Jung [1969/1989] , Kindle location 5440).

What is a necessary and useful narrative? It is a myth that awakens within us our heart and soul. As we sit listening on the vast rim of silence, we experience the beat of our heart. We can sense, intuit and feel. We attend not only to the word of the story, but the cadence of the speech and the pauses between words. Here is the third space between the teller and the told. Here is the space that enables us to hear with our imagination and wonderment.

During this period, I found myself reflecting upon a powerful ancient myth from my Jewish tradition – that of Honi the Circle-Maker, a Talmudic scholar and miracle worker from the first century B.C.E. (Babylonian Talmud, Taanit, 19a). We are told that Honi lived at a time of serious drought in Israel, a middle Eastern country that is more than half desert. Thus, rain is crucial to existence. The rabbis approached Honi, as a known miracle maker. They begged for his help. There was no World Health Organization nor scientists to desalinate water of the sea. Honi was the last address in desperate times.

In the tractate of the Talmud Taanit where Honi’s story is found, we are told of a series of measures the rabbis instituted to deal with drought. The community engaged in a series of fasts and prayers. It is only when things became dire that the elders turned to a miracle maker. From inside a magic circle that he created, Honi challenged the Divine Creator and with chutzpah demanded the right type of rain.

This story spoke to me. Initially, I wasn’t quite sure why, but it returned again and again as a powerful image of our current pandemic. I was privileged to open the short paper presentations of the online conference via active imagination⁴ with this ancient myth. From inside the strange square of Zoom, I invited my fellow participants to join me in a meditative experience with this ancient circle myth. Using active imagination, a technique discovered and developed by Jung to dialogue with our unconscious, we imagined ourselves as Honi and asked how we might save our world.

At the time of the conference, we were in the throes of a pandemic with so much death, fear and uncertainty. The world had begun to bleed, and the vaccines were yet unknown.

In contrast, at the time of the writing of this paper, we have fallen into a new normal. We have learned to live with vaccines mixed up amongst conspiracy theories, angst over each new variant, debates about masks, and the cautious renewal of hope. The new normal is ‘there is no normal’.

Perhaps, in a post-trauma stance, I find myself relating to Anima Mundi (our world soul) with deep compassion, sadness and concern. Anima Mundi herself suffers from a wounded and bleeding temenos, and I suspect we will never quite forget. We are faced with a world that shakes at its foundations with war, climate change, political upheaval and the proliferation of refugees. My internal wandering within my own soul leads me to a startling realization. Perhaps Anima Mundi has become one of my most traumatized patients, and I am now deeply related to her.

In my mind Honi is still an important psychopomp (in Jungian thought, a mediator between the unconscious and conscious realms). The narrative is a curious story of struggle with death, miracles and the Godhead. Perhaps Choni’s circle is the most interesting of all. I would like to invite my readers to join me for active imagination in the spaces between the words. It is a play in several acts. First, I will set the background scenes via several theorists. Then I will introduce the myth and task of Honi, the Circle-maker, inviting your imagination and associations. Finally, I will offer one analysis of the power of the story via reflections on the circle, chutzpah with the Godhead, and the power of the individual to make a difference.

Staging the play

Scene one – burning the bridge

With the assistance of Jungian analyst James Hillman, a master of dreams and archetypes, I open my narrative with the burning of a bridge. The stage is set as a dream image born in confusion, chaos, and as a sense of hopelessness. Here, we meet the early stages of a pandemic and world confusion that appear as a bad dream. Maybe we will wake up to a new world and realize it had all been a nightmare.

Hillman in his classic ‘The Dream and the Underworld’ (1979) speaks about the images of death and destruction that occur again and again in our psyche as represented in the world of dreams. In a beautiful passage, he decries a reliance on a literal view of a world where things seem as they appear. In his words:

It is this dayworld style of thinking- literal realities, natural comparisons, contrary opposites, processional steps - that must be set aside in order to pursue the dream to its home territory. There thinking moves in images, resemblances, correspondences. To go in this direction, we must sever the link with the dayworld, forgetting all ideas that originate there … We must go over the bridge and let it fall behind us, and if it will not fall, then let it burn. (13).

The world is forever in flux, and our dreams prepare us for this reality. The world of yesterday is not the world of today or tomorrow. We must let go, ask new questions, burn the bridge, and let it fall to pass over to the other side.

Scene two: reverie and the ephemeral

After the destruction of the bridge, Mark Winborn enters stage left. His poetic images of gazing at clouds together (2014) offer hope after the destruction. He speaks about the intimacy the analyst and patient build in the moments of reverie and participation mystique. With his image, I can imagine entering the rim of vast silence with my dear traumatized Anima Mundi. I am not sure which one of us is the wounded patient and which one is the wounded healer. Yet, more than ever we need each other. We need intimacy and community. After all the masks, the horrific death of George Floyd and the ensuing attention to Black Lives Matter, I wonder if any of us are any better at gazing into the eyes of the other. Winborn reminds me there is comfort in the participation mystique and from here, we can begin to heal.

Watching clouds together is the metaphor which, for me, most closely captures the essence of analytic reverie. The subtle flow of conscious and preconscious thoughts, affects, and sensation associated with reverie is often cloud-like. It is ephemeral and ambiguous, appearing on the periphery of experience … (70).

He reminds me to pay attention to the ephemeral in our transient world, the still small moments of life.

The ephemeral can be defined as something lasting only a short time, transitory, elusive, or difficult to capture and hold. The ephemeral does not make its appearance accompanied by trumpet fanfare nor glistening with bold, iridescent colour … The ephemeral is glimpsed out of the corner of one’s eye, often hidden behind some psychic veil, or tucked away in some forgotten crevice of memory with only a small thread left visible. (2022, 365).

Just as the old witch and the shaman most often dwell on the edges of their villages, and as fairies and little people are only found in the forests, the ephemeral does not march boldly in the center of the town square … . It inhabits the regions around the edges of our experience, places where our eye is not easily drawn. The ephemeral is more likely to be found dwelling amidst the mists, shadows, crevices, and backwaters that exist on the edges of our awareness. (2022, 367)

Here is the potential for treasure buried in the mud. I remember the beauty. In the throes of lockdown, I suddenly discovered during lockdown, on walks with my dog within the allowed one hundred meters of my house, the tree stump offering life to new greenery and the blooming yellow wildflowers. I added the wildflowers to an old purple bottle I had discovered filled with sand, long ago on the shores near my former analyst’s house. I have enough time to do some research and learn the bottle is about one hundred years old. I am touched. My dear analyst has left this world, and like this bottle, her legacy remains.

Anima Mundi, as my patient is elusive, ever-changing, confusing and in distress. In her post-traumatic state, does she have abandonment issues? It is clear I/we have been neglectful, not heeding the warnings about climate destruction (Zeiger, November 2022, In Press). I did not pay enough attention to our disregard for and destruction of nature. I did not stop long enough to smell the flowers and give thanks for all the beauty. Winborn reminds me to pay attention to the brief moments. I think I know how to do this with my human patients. I am less sure when it comes to the world.

Scene 3: Umbra Mundi sneaks in via the back door

Murray Stein in an interview with Rev. Dr. Robert S. Henderson (2018) reflects about our speechlessness in the face of the pandemic. Once again, I am reminded of the power of narratives to bring us to our knees without sufficient words. There is pain, shadow and hope.

The image that comes to my mind is an Umbra Mundi, a ‘world shadow’ hovering over us and infecting our psychic lives. I see this shadow spreading over the globe like a solar eclipse. … The sun is covered by the shadow of death. It is the familiar stage that signifies the beginning of significant transformation. We are being asked to walk through the valley of the shadow of death. (2).

It seems here we meet the shadow of our patient, Anima Mundi and perhaps our own shadow as individuals who did not care enough about our world. However, Stein also reminds us all ‘we have been handed an opportunity for a vast transformation of consciousness on a general collective level’ and that ‘a new humanity is being born’ (3).

Scene 4: Anima Mundi and the beating heart

Laura Camille Tuley (2021) enters the narrative next with a selection from her short reflection piece entitled ‘Anima Mundi demands a hearing from the heart’. She reflects upon her training as an analyst to discover the proverbial gold in the darkness. Tuley tells us a story with many words, yet the cadence of her ‘voice’ invites deep images. During the height of COVID, one of her fellow colleagues teaches her a mantra in Sanskrit via his guitar, Baba Nam Kevalam (beloved name only). She translates it to ‘everything is love’. In her words:

I begin with my family: my husband and son, our old dog, and three backyard chickens. Moving outward, I focus on my community, its neighborhoods, lakes, and green spaces; downtown bustle and university teeming with youth; the rolling hills and small farms that frame the city. Larger still, I remember those places I have lived and visited which are dear to me: the whimsical disarray, music, and vibrant decay of New Orleans; the friends and family gathered there; the hot springs and spirits of New Mexico; the breathtaking cityscape of San Francisco and the Bay Area, my place of birth. Further, I imagine the wild spaces—the woods and mountains I have hiked—and the animals I have met, at a distance: the hawk, the fox, the deer. The howl of the wind, the cold of the snow, the salty spray of the ocean’s surf, the heat of summer sun. Baba Nam Kevalam. Always there on the edge of my awareness, to be noticed, breathed in, and beloved. (2021, 243).

Anima Mundi and I calm down with these words. We experience deep respect and understanding. Now we are ready for the main body of the play.

Scene 5: Honi the Circle-Maker: an ancient myth of redemption

This scene is set to the backdrop of the first century B.C.E. Step onto the stage as the main character. Dressed in a long light brown robe and sandals, you are alone in the desert of Israel with a huge task before you. The scholars of the times and the simple people of the streets recognize you as a miracle-maker. Yet, you do not like the title. At times, it is truly a burden. It is your passion instead to engage in learning all the nuances of the holy Torah (Five Books of Moses) and the growing body of oral tradition of halacha (Jewish legal and ritual tradition).⁵ But now, you are faced with a difficult task. Although it is the rainy season, there has been no rain. The water has all but dried up. The food supplies are dwindling. Crops are shriveling up. As Honi, you are faced with a life and death situation. The elders have begged you to work your miracles and bring much needed rain. With no water, people will surely die. This task is overwhelming.

In Talmud Ta'anit 19a we are told:

An incident occurred in which the people said to Ḥoni HaMe’aggel (the Circle-Maker): Pray that rain should fall. He said to them: Go out and bring in the clay ovens used to roast the Paschal lambs, so that they will not dissolve in the water, as torrential rains are certain to fall. He prayed, and no rain fell at all.

Table

What did he do? He drew a circle on the ground and stood inside it and said before God, ‘Master of the Universe, Your children have turned their faces toward me, as I am like a member of Your household. Therefore, I take an oath by Your great name that I will not move from here until You have mercy upon Your children and answer their prayers for rain’. Rain began to trickle down, but only in small droplets. He said, ‘I did not ask for this, but for rain to fill the cisterns, ditches, and caves with enough water to last the entire year’. Rain began to fall furiously. He said, ‘I did not ask for this damaging rain either, but for rain of benevolence, blessing, and generosity’. Subsequently, the rains fell in their standard manner but continued unabated, filling the city with water until all of the Jews exited the residential areas of Jerusalem and went to the Temple Mount due to the rain. They came and said to him, ‘Just as you prayed over the rains that they should fall, so too, pray that they should stop’. He said to them, ‘Go out and see if the Claimants’ Stone, a large stone located in the city, upon which proclamations would be posted with regard to lost and found articles, has been washed away’. In other words, if the water has not obliterated the Claimants’ Stone, it is not yet appropriate to pray for the rain to cease Shimon ben Shetaḥ, the Nasi of the Sanhedrin (president of the great Rabbinical Assembly) at the time, relayed to Ḥoni HaMe’aggel, ‘Were you not Ḥoni, I would have decreed that you be ostracized, but what can I do to you? You nag God and He does your bidding, like a son who nags his father and his father does his bidding without reprimand. After all, rain fell as you requested. About you, the verse states: Let your father and your mother be glad, and let her who bore you rejoice (Proverbs 23:25)’.^6

Active imagination

Now that you have read the words, close your eyes for a few moments and imagine. The burden of your immediate world rests upon your shoulders. What images, feelings and thoughts emerge from deep within? Allow this experience to accompany you as you travel through time once again, arriving at our present world situation and disasters. Perhaps ask yourself, ‘Where do I identify with Honi’? or ‘What is one thing I can do to help save my world’? Spend a few moments allowing your inner soul to speak to you.

Meeting the ancient narrative with new eyes

What is the essence of this narrative? Hopefully each of my readers will respond to the story and the active imagination with differing perspectives. This is the stuff of transformational narratives. I have lived with my ‘Honi’ inside for over two years and I would like to share my associations to the power of this narrative in a world affected by a pandemic.

I. Circle Making and the Power of the Great Round

My active imagination - brings me to fascination with the circle. As Honi, it is clear to me I must draw a circle in the sand. The desert is too vast. The wasteland that is being created in a drought is too scary. I need safety. I need a space to work. My tradition teaches me about holiness created in dedicated space. The work ahead is daunting. I did not choose this task. Who am I to bring salvation? What do I know? Meeting the Godhead is terrifying. I am not sure what it means to meet the Divine Creator. From deep inside of my soul, I intuit that the space of the circle is so important. I need the experience of the magic circle to protect me and help me to be taken seriously.

Theoretical reflections

There are many potential titles for Honi. Perhaps he could have been called Honi, the righteous or miracle-maker or rainmaker. Instead, it seems that this singular act of drawing a circle defines the essence of the narrative. Thus, the beginning action of drawing a circle seems to define the essence of the story. Honi is forever known as the Circle-Maker. As a psychoanalyst and a religious Jew, I hold in deep reverence the holiness of space.

It is important to create boundaries and sanctify a place and space for something important to happen. This is the spaces of temples, beautiful gardens, and the safe havens of our home. Jung called the space of therapy ‘temenos’ after the Greek word for a place dedicated for the gods. Here, we create potential for transformation. As a therapist, I am aware that temenos goes beyond the four walls of an office or haven. With stability and safety, we create an internal temenos, a representation of safety via peaceful places and intimate relationships.

The current pandemic shook our temenos at its foundations. Mother Nature who nurtured us, suddenly began to destroy our entire sense of safety. Nowhere did we feel safe. We were forced to reach deep inside for a sense of safety.

The Honi story reminds us of the importance of a place to protect us. Because I live in the same Middle Eastern desert country as Honi, I am aware of the vastness of the desert and the expansiveness of the wide-open spaces (Zeiger, November 2022, In Press). Honi met the vastness of the space and of his life-saving mission by creating a temenos, a holy space that allows for safety and transformation.

One can create a holy space with many shapes. In Jung’s writings on Gnostic symbols of the Self, he states that the ‘circle is a well-known symbol for God’, (Jung, 2013 AION, para. 304). along with the cross and the quaternity. He also speaks of how these images are expressions of the wholeness of man. They are uniting symbols bringing together the collision between the conscious and unconscious. They are a compensating principle of order out of chaos and warring opposites. Thus, perhaps Honi’s own connection to the Collective Unconscious spoke and offered needed assistance. He was able to create order from a frightening chaos and symbolically invite the Godhead into his space.

Erich Neumann, a well-known Jungian analyst and theorist wrote beautifully about the archetypal image of the Great Round and its connection to the feminine principal, mothering, and the primary relationship. In his words:

This participation mystique between mother and child is the original situation of container and contained. It is the beginning of the Archetypal Feminine to the child … (Neumann [1955/1991, 29).

This is an early archetypal stage perhaps most keenly symbolized by the circular snake of the uroboros; a mythical snake that eats its own tail and thus contains what is within. Likewise, in more ideal personal development, the baby is contained safely within the mother’s embrace.⁷ It is this uroboric experience of the Great Round that builds the original sense of safety and containment for the baby and his/her infant ego.

As adults, we all return from time to time to this experience. I speak about it as an often-unconscious longing to return to the Garden of Eden. This archetypal experience helps keep all of us safe throughout out life. We merit those experiences in moments of deep intimacy with others. Art, music, experiences of embodiment and intimate sexual encounters are but a few examples.

Thus the Great Round of the uroboros arches over man’s life, encompassing his earliest childhood and receiving him again, in altered form, at the end. But in his own individual life, too, the pleroma of universal unity can be sought and found in religious experience. In mysticism, where the self-re-entrant figure of the uroboros appears as the “ocean of Godhead,” there is often a dissolution of the ego, an ecstatic surrender which is equivalent to uroboric incest. But when, instead of the death ecstasy of the ego, the “Stirb und Werde” principle of rebirth predominates, and the theme of rebirth prevails over Itthat of death, this is not a regression but a creative process (Neumann [1954/2014] 2014, 37).

It seems to me that COVID has awakened in us a heightened need for the embrace of the Great Mother. We need more holding and reassurance. Kalsched, a foremost Jungian trauma therapist (2021) speaks about the potential in our times for the hijacking of imagination for those troubled with unresolved trauma from the past.

Some of us are more fortunate and find ways in the vast rim of COVID silence to seek out experiences of participation mystique. Sometimes the needed experience of womblike safety is found in the embrace or gaze of the other or in a beautiful place of nature. Those of us who are therapists or in therapy are aware of the heightened need for the safe gaze and reassuring words of the therapist.

In active imagination - It appears to me this is my attraction to the Honi story. As miracle-worker, he is a mystic. He reminds us of the necessity for the Great Round in the face of the tragedies around us. He reaches deep inside of Self to meet this archetypal image in an unapologetic manner.

II. The Danger in the Numinous

In active imagination- As Honi, I take in the power of the circle. I imagine myself sitting on the ground. Like Moses in the presence of God, I take off my sandals to remain in this holy space. Sighing, I contemplate my very difficult task in a dying world. I close my eyes and enter a mystical trance imaging my inner connection to the Divine. The spark of Divinity rests inside my Soul and I begin to feel the godliness that connects me to my Creator as one.Suddenly, in one moment, my humility transforms into something beyond myself. I am no longer fully myself. I begin to pray with all my power and might for salvation. It is hard to concentrate and to remember it all. God answers me with a drizzle, but it is not enough. I don’t know what comes over me. I become impassioned and reach beyond myself. I argue. I make it clear to my Creator I will not move from this circle until the rain is just right. As Honi, after the experience I return home spent and reflective. I receive the message of the president of the great Rabbinical Assembly, Shimon ben Shetah. ‘Were you not Ḥoni, I would have decreed that you be ostracized, but what can I do to you? You nag God and He does your bidding, like a son who nags his father, and his father does his bidding without reprimand’. I am not sure how I feel. I did not ask for the job. Did I do a good enough job? Did I endanger others? Did I become lost in the mystical experience? Perhaps I can go back to my Talmud study in a quiet place, unseen by others. But can I really?

Theoretical reflections

It is perhaps a bit too easy to become fascinated with Honi the rainmaker. We can imagine it is an interesting children’s story. Shimon ben Shetach’s response is humbling.

The numinous experience contains within it the experience of two side of the coin. It is a uniquely human experience. Only human beings are capable of connecting to the wonderous, beautiful and fascinating. We are capable of petitioning and meeting the Godhead. It is the stuff of inspiration, creativity, art and mysticism. Yet, there is another side to the numinous that is dangerous, destructive and deadly. We meet this side in the dangers of nature; volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis and in Honi’s flood waters.

Rudolph Otto ([1917] 1923) writes extensively of both sides of the numinous, the wondrous and the frightening. In his words:

… there is only one appropriate expression, mysterium tremendum. The feeling of it may at times come sweeping like a gentle tide, pervading the mind with a tranquil mood of deepest worship. It may pass over into a more set and lasting attitude of the soul, continuing, as it were, thrillingly vibrant and resonant, until at last it dies away and the soul resumes its ‘profane’, non-religious mood of everyday experience. It may burst in sudden eruption up from the depths of the soul with spasms and convulsions, or lead to the strangest excitements, to intoxicated frenzy, to transport, and to ecstasy. It has its wild and demonic forms and can sink to an almost grisly horror and shuddering. It has its crude, barbaric antecedents and early manifestations, and again it may be developed into something beautiful and pure and glorious. It may become the hushed, trembling, and speechless humility of the creature in the presence of–whom or what? In the presence of that which is a Mystery inexpressible and above all creatures. (Kindle location 424).

Neumann emphasizes the fascination and richness in the numinous experience in which the ego goes beyond itself. Thus, the numinous is always transformative.

Every numinous experience, whatever form it may take, is mystical. The numinous content possesses a fascination, a richness beyond the power of consciousness to apprehend and organize, a charge of energy surpassing consciousness. Hence the encounter with it leads always to an upheaval of the total personality and not only of consciousness. In every confrontation of the ego with the numinous, a situation arises in which the ego goes “outside itself”; it falls or is wrenched out of its shell of consciousness and can return “to itself” only in changed form. (Neumann, 1948/1968, 380-381).

Neumann warns us of the dangers of the numinous. Honi dares. Yet, he brings torrential and dangerous rains that flood a desert country.

Normally the ego transformed by the experience of the numinous, returns to the sphere of human life, and its transformation includes a broadening of consciousness. But there is also a possibility that the ego will succumb to the attraction of the numinous and, as a Hasidic maxim puts it, “will burst its shell.” This catastrophe can take the form of death in ecstasy, mystical death, but also of sickness, psychosis, or serious neurosis. (Ibid. 397).

As COVID-19 raged along with strange and growing voices of conspiracy theories, I reflected upon an ancient way of living, before humankind understood the unconscious. It was a place where of splitting and projection of our own shadow side onto the other. With this world perspective, the gods wreak havoc and superstition abounds. It is a space in which humans remained in the infancy of our development. Without science and advanced technology, ancient humankind searched for explanations in the outer world. Plagues, famine, and other natural disasters were projected upon and ascribed to the other, the sinful, the misfit, the stranger in our midst. We prayed and engaged in rituals of healing. We searched for salvation in the mystical because there was little else to do.

However, we must be warned! We meet the danger in returning to this perspective in the twenty-first century. Increasingly, we meet the splitting and shadow in political unrest, violence, terror and blame directed at the other. As Kalsched (2021) points out:

Imagination is how we make meaning out of our experience, and when experience becomes ‘too big’ or terrifying, or threatening to our self-esteem for us to organize in customary ways, the imagination gives us archetypal stories and lenses through which to see our experience … .We descend into a dissociative psychology … We see this splitting and dissociative psychology operating in USA culture right now in the polarization of its politics and all the many outrages that people feel- including systemic racism, nativism, malignant nationals and ‘othering’ of all forms. (447)

We need the heroic individual to see ahead and inspire us. The heroic individual often reaches beyond the common person on the street. As I meet Honi with modern eyes, I wonder at the heroic nature of his act. Here is a story of partnership with the Creator. Honi did not appear to ask why the drought was occurring. He did not appear to blame the other as sinful or negligent. Rather, he rose to the occasion and took upon himself responsibility in partnership with the Godhead. Perhaps akin to Moses, Abraham and Channa (the mother of the prophet Samuel), he found the daring inside to challenge the current world order. He asked what he could do and how.

However, as Shimon ben Shetach hints, perhaps what was missing for Honi was the necessary humility. Perhaps he became lost in the moment of mysticism and did not heed the dangers of inflation and concomitant loss of ego. Sometimes the great hero or heroine reaches beyond him/herself. Yet, as Neumann noted (referenced above), within this stance, there is the possibility of ‘death in ecstasy, mystical death, but also of sickness, psychosis, or serious neurosis’.

The power of one

I end this essay with a challenge to all of us. Sometimes when faced with something so devastating, the human response is to retreat inside and/or become hopeless. I return to Amanda Gorman’s words from the beginning of the essay, When day comes, we ask ourselves, where we can find light in this never-ending shade?

Why did I begin this piece with Amanda Gorman’s quote? Born in 1998, she is a young woman who has become a symbol of our future. She was born to a single mother, and as a child struggled with a speech impediment and an auditory processing disorder. In spite and because of her wounding, she became an American poet and activist who focuses on oppression, race, marginalization, and the African diaspora. She was the first person to be named National Youth Poet Laureate. She recently published a new collection of poems, Call Us What We Carry (2021). As she delivered her poem, The Hill We Climb, she created a new narrative from ancient stories. Her words and her delivery wove together a personal story with the archetypal. She offered hope to the masses.

The power of the many

The unconscious and the Self continue to surprise and fascinate me. There was nothing simple about the journey with Honi. I have led individuals in active imagination many times in my office and in workshops, but never via squares on a Zoom screen at a conference. While I attempted to create togetherness, it was not at all simple without the feedback of sitting together face to face. If someone had asked me to engage in such a task, pre-COVID, I would have emphatically said no. It was also no simple task to offer ‘active imagination’ via an academic paper, but our Anima Mundi in her healing, encourages me to try.

As I was in the very final stages of the revision of this manuscript, my soul gifted me one additional dream. The details are complicated and not necessary for this manuscript. However, in summary:

I am in a new space that seems to be a vacation with my husband. I meet an old woman who is an author and interesting to me. I am curious about this stranger and wise old woman. I wonder what she might teach me in my waking life, I think I would like to know her. In the final scene, there is a large outdoor space. A large group of people are engaging in some form or circle dancing. Yet the circle is directed forward; somewhere between line-dancing and an oval. The group of dancing people move forward and weave in and out of the underside of a building. I cannot see all of them, but there is a lot of energy and joy. I am happy to join this dancing circle and become a part of it all. Something new and joyful is created in this space.

When I awaken, I am immediately contemplative about the Honi story. Honi is alone in his circle, facing a very difficult task. I am an only child, and an introvert, who was and is sometimes lonely. My dream circle is a circle of belonging and togetherness. We need our introverted time, but we also really need each other in times of trouble. This pandemic has taught the whole world how connected we are one to the other. This I will never forget.

As we face the fear and suffering of our current pandemic and world-wide upheaval, will we fall asleep while awake? Will we use our circle to retreat inward? Or can we use our cocoons of safety to reach outward and ask how to make a difference?

Acknowledgements

The author would like to acknowledge the helpful comments of my colleague, Dr. Henry Abramovitch, Senior Jungian Analyst and founding President of our IIJP, Devora Kuchinsky, Senior Jungian Analyst, and my spouse and soul-mate, Dr. Jonathan Ben-Ezra. The author would also like to offer a special thanks to Rabbanit Michelle Cohen Farber, the co-founder of Hadran, an initiative to encourage women to learn and participate in Daf Yomi (a world-wide program to encourage the learning of the Talmud on the same schedule, one day at a time that enables completion of the entire Talmud in 7½ years). In synchronicity, this paper was completed as the story of Honi, the Circle-Maker was learned world-wide.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Robin B. Zeiger

Robin B. Zeiger received her Ph.D. in clinical and social psychology in 1985 from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is a Jungian analyst and member of the Israel Institute for Jungian Psychology in Honour of Erich Neumann (IIJP) and the International Association for Analytical Psychology (IAAP). She is the President of the Israel Sandplay Therapists Association and a member of the International Society for Sandplay Therapy. She immigrated to Israel from the United States in 2009 and practices psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, supervision, teaching, and training. She teaches Jungian psychotherapy in the continuing education program at Bar Ilan University and offers workshops to the Jungian analytical candidates of IIJP. Her specialties include dream work, symbolism, and sprituality. She is a free-lance writer and has published and presented numerous professional works as well, as blogs on medium.com presenting psychology to laypeople.

Notes

1 Neumann was a brilliant thinker and a noted analyst. Unfortunately, he died in his prime, yet he authored several key Jungian texts and was an important founder of Jungian psychology in Israel, where I live.

2 Logos is traditionally defined as the word of God or divine reason and creative order. However, in Jungian psychology it is used as the principle of reason and judgment and associated with the animus, the masculine force inside.

3 In the call for papers, a short essay of purpose was included to emphasize the importance of narratives for social change. In the words of the conference organizers, ‘narratives entail guiding principles for personal, social, and cultural transformations’ (https://narrativeoftransformation-2020.org, accessed 20 May 2021). All throughout the generations, stories have entertained and enriched our lives. However, a story is not just a story. In the past several years, scholars from many disciplines have begun to recognize the power of the narrative to effect transformation. As the organizers highlight, storytelling possesses a simplicity of depiction and a persuasiveness that reduces complexity.

4 Carl Jung discovered and developed the technique of active imagination after his break with Freud in 1912–1913. He found himself in a state of intense inner turmoil and found himself professionally unproductive (e.g., had difficulties reading professional works and published relatively little). He suffered a great deal and his moods threatened to overwhelm him. He searched for a way of healing and happened upon his concept of active imagination. It is a quiet, yet active process, where one focuses on a dream, image, scene, or story and allows inner images and dialogue to emerge from the unconscious. One then honors and works with this material of the soul to deepen one’s inner process and integrate the unconscious productions into conscious reality.

5 Jewish tradition states the Five Books of Moses were given by God to the Jewish people at Mount Sinai. This Torah was the written tradition. Yet, Moses was also gifted an oral tradition to pass on and teach to the Jewish people via the scholars. Much of prescriptions for life in the Torah are seen as cryptic and in need of further explanation. As an example, the prescriptive ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’ is meant not as a directive to take actual revenge. Rather the oral tradition dictates very specific laws for how to compensate the other monetarily. This oral tradition or law was eventually written down in somewhat cursory fashion in the Mishna completed in the third century. In the sixth century, the Talmud was completed which included the Mishna and the Gemara, an extensive and often associational commentary on the Mishnah. From here the entire system of Jewish religious law was developed into codified systems of daily life.

6 The English translations of the Talmudic entries in this paper are referenced from https://hadran.org.il The author wishes to acknowledge the excellent resources and teaching provided by Rabbanit Michelle Cohen Faber via her daily Talmud study offered in person and online, both in Hebrew and English.

7 I use 'mother loosely'ka. It is a task more than a gender or person. The baby can also feel contained by a father or other consistent and loving caretakers.