C. G. Jung: “My soul leads me into the desert….”

 

My soul leads me into the desert, into the desert of my own self.

I did not think that my soul is a desert, a barren, hot desert, dusty and without drink.

The journey leads through hot sand, slowly wading without a visible goal to hope for?

How eerie is this wasteland. It seems to me that the way leads so far away from mankind.

I take my way step by step, and do not know how long my journey will last.

Why is my self a desert?

Have I lived too much outside of myself in men and events?

Why did I avoid my self? Was I not dear to myself?

But I have avoided the place of my soul.

I was my thoughts, after I was no longer events and other men.

But I was not my self, confronted with my thoughts.

I should also rise up above my thoughts to my own self.

My journey goes there, and that is why it leads away from men and events into solitude.

Is it solitude, to be with oneself? Solitude is true only when the self is a desert.

 

 Red Book

Page 232