After my wife’s death. . . I felt an inner obligation to become what I myself am.
To put it in the language of the Bollingen house, I suddenly realized that the small central section
which crouched so low, so hidden was myself!
I could no longer hide myself behind the “maternal” and the “spiritual” towers.
So, in that same year, I added an upper story to this section, which represents myself, or my ego personality.
Earlier,I would not have been able to do this; I would have regarded it as presumptuous self-emphasis.
Now it signified an extension of consciousness achieved in old age.
With that the building was complete. ~Carl Jung, MDR, Page 225.
Dear Aniela… .
I have finished painting the ceiling in Bollingen and done more work on my inscription and – last but not least – rebricked the rivulets to prevent
seepage and cooked some good meals and found and bought an excellent wine.
All this has rested me and cured me of various vexations.
But I won’t speak of that.
Thank heavens I have no idea how great is the disorder or order of my correspondence.
My memory has the most astonishing holes in it, so that I often catch myself forgetting not only
what I have done but more especially what I have not done. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 351.
Solitude is for me a fount of healing which makes my life worth living.
Talking is often a torment for me, and I need many days of silence to recover from the futility of words.
I have got my marching orders and only look back when there’s nothing else to do.
This journey is a great adventure in itself, but not one that can be talked about at great length.
What you think of as a few days of spiritual communion would be unendurable for me with anyone, even my closest friends.
The rest is silence! This realization becomes clearer every day as the need to communicate dwindles.
Image:
lung on a wall at Bollingen, c. 1955.
In his eighties, Jung needed solitude as a “fount of healing,” and silence to overcome the “torment” of talking.
