The Pregnant Virgin
…I asked Jung whether the separate room in the second tower, which was added in 1931, was intended as a kind of chapel. He then told me about his longing for a place of seclusion and timelessness, a longing which had been with him since his student days.
~Aniela Jaffe
I never intended to build a chapel, rather I wanted to create a place I could withdraw to, and where I could be completely alone, by myself. A place of retreat, like a kind of meditation room…
The paintings in there are not for display. I always have the key to this room on my person, no one else is allowed to enter. On the walls I have painted what leads me into a state of solitude. It is a den for meditation, sometimes a very unpleasant meditation.
~ Carl Jung,
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The word ‘feminine,’ as I understand it, has very little to do with gender, nor is woman the custodian of femininity.
Both men and women are searching for their pregnant virgin.
She is the part of us who is outcast, the part who comes to consciousness through going into darkness, mining our leaden darkness, until we bring her silver out.
If we are blindly living out an archetype, we are not containing our own life. We are possessed, and possession acts as a magnet on unconscious…
