It shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel
And the LORD God said to the woman, What is this that you have done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. And the LORD God said to the serpent, Because you have done this, you are cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; on your belly shall you go, and dust shall you eat all the days of your life: And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; it shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. ~Genesis 3:15
Iz: “No stronger being has ever cut me down, no monster has ever resisted my strength. But your poison, worm, which you have placed in my way has lamed me to the marrow. Your magical poison is stronger than the army of Tiamat.” (He lies as if paralyzed, stretched out on the ground.) “You Gods, help, here lies your son, cut down by the invisible serpent’s bite in his heel. oh, if only I had crushed you when I saw you, and never heard your words.” ~Carl Jung; Red Book.
So the path of my life led me beyond the rejected opposites, united in smooth and-alas!-extremely painful sides of the way which lay before me. I stepped on them but they burned and froze my soles. And thus I reached the other side. But the poison of the serpent, whose head you crush, enters you through the wound in your heel; and thus the serpent becomes more dangerous than it was before.
Since whatever I reject is nevertheless in my nature. I thought it was without, and so I believed that I could destroy it. But it resides in me and has only assumed a passing outer form and stepped toward me. I destroyed its form and believed that I was a conqueror. But I have not yet overcome myself. ~Carl Jung, Red Book
A God who looks like the sun does not hunt worms. But the worm aims at the heel of the Powerful One and will prepare him for the descent that he needs. His power is great and blind. He is marvelous to look at and frightening. But the serpent finds its spot. A little poison and the great one falls. The words of the one who rises have no sound and taste bitter. It is not a sweet poison, but one that is fatal for all Gods. ~Carl Jung; Red Book
Many have wanted to get help for their sick God and were then devoured by the serpents and dragons lurking on the way to the land of the sun. They perished in the over bright day and have become dark men, since their eyes have been blinded. Now they go around like shadows and speak of the light but see little. But their God is in everything that they do not see: He is in the dark Western lands and he sharpens seeing eyes and he assists those cooking the poison and he guides serpents to the heels of the blind perpetrators.
Therefore, if you are clever, take the God with you, then you know where he is. If you do not have him with you in the Western lands, he will come running to you in the night with clanking armor and a crushing battle axe. If you do not have him with you in the land of the dawn, then you will step unawares on the divine worm who awaits your unsuspecting heel.
The serpent now became angry and tried to bite my heart, but my secret armor broke her poisonous fang. She drew back astonished and said hissing:
“You actually behave as if you were unfathomable.”
I: “That’s because I have studied the art of stepping from the left foot onto the right and vice versa, which others have done unthinkingly from time immemorial.” ~Carl Jung; Red Book
But it is the unacceptable, the awfully repulsive, that which I have forever rejected that rises in me. For if the wretchedness and poverty of this life ends, another life begins in what is opposed to me. This is opposed to such an extent that I cannot conceive it. For it is opposed not according to the laws of reason, but thoroughly and according to its own nature.
Yes, it is not only opposed, but repulsive, invisibly and cruelly repulsive, something that takes my breath away, that drains the power from my muscles, that confuses my senses, stings me poisonously from behind in the heel, and always strikes just where I did not suspect I possessed a vulnerable spot. ~Carl Jung; Red Book
In Transformation and Symbols of the Libido (1912), Jung commented on the motif of the wounded heel (CW B, §461). ~Red Book; Footnote 78.
