The images inside of us

Poetry of the unconscious

I have long been a Jungian in the practical sense, as a therapist (and as a friend).

Creating spaces for people to be seen in their wholeness, loving their lovely and less lovely parts well, is a value that called me to psychology and has dominated my psychological practice. Letting ourselves be complex is something we as humans, particularly in the West, are not naturally skilled towards. We usually prefer neat and tidy, self-explanatory, less complicated.

Sit down with me in my office and hear me say —

You, my dear, are anything but less complicated.

There is infinite beauty in the complexity of the human spirit. Holding our challenges out, identifying where these are more likely to bring pain, to bring harm, rather than joy or health, only expands the beauty of the human spirit, rather than dulls it.

Courtney Mosier Warren

and I celebrated the unconscious to spend time with the parts of ourselves we were less likely to hear from, the behind-the-scenes part of ourselves, in our poetry project this week. The prompts led us each day to sit with the unconscious and let the images come forward, whether sensical to us or non-sensical to our conscious selves.

Below you’ll find the results: five poems, one poem passed back and forth between the two of us and two from each of us independently. Spending time with our unconscious, even for mere seconds, produced some of our favorite poetry so far. The images are vibrant, surprisingly attuned to our hurts and that which needed tending. (Or perhaps only surprisingly to our conscious selves.)

What images would your unconscious bring forward for you? Know that there is space for all of you. We hope our poetry encourages you to sit with your own muddled and marvelous parts this week, to be attuned to the whole of you, worthy of being tended.

Poetry of the Unconscious

Passed Around (a poem between friends)

My spleen is tucked into my body
I don’t really know where 
Holding whisky in my mouth
the sting eats my flesh 

Birds escape into the clouds 
Become the turtle or the brontosaurus of a child’s imagination 

I used to play under the stairs in my childhood home, thinking it was Alibaba’s cave

There are rust colored leaves in April
Unconventional residents washing their dishes while looking out the window to the sky

He says he likes the way at night I read, 
under the duvet wearing just my glasses and my panties, 
engrossed and unprotected from everything, 
except the modern blue light. 
 
If I could eat the light, I would
One of my therapy patients lost their spleen in a car accident long before we met
Or was that someone in a movie 
Maybe it’s the job of the spleen to hold life’s pain and so now she has me

Forgotten Island (Ode to the hole in my heart) by Heidi Goehmann

Once I walked fourteen miles and
Then ate the foot attached to my
Left leg
To the disappointment of my right

Then the waters opened to reveal 
The scroll of Les Cayes
Labored penmanship moaning in exile
Until the rocks break with the weight of their tears

Someday we will be forgotten again
Less oppressive than the first 
And still forgotten
Again
Again
Again

The banana trees grow into the moon
Hopefully 
If I apologize enough 
Will the fish’s eye bring healing 

Something about me that I cannot read by Courtney Moiser-Warren

“And your dreams lately?”
My therapist asks from 
behind her computer. 

I’m in a hotel 
and I can’t find my room. 
I wander the hallways.
Use the elevator. 
I sometimes find a
swimming pool that is
sticky with heat and
the undying smell of chlorine. 

But as I wander
I forget my room 
number all together, 
an anxiety 
settling in, not unlike
losing my mom 
in the grocery store;
losing my child.

“And you have it all the time?” 
I nod. She types something 
that is about me, but
that I cannot read. 

When I visit ohio kitchens (friendship fears) by Heidi Goehmann

Middle-school dreams 
Standing in your mom’s
kitchen 
surrounded by butcher block
And the sound of my failures
The cleaver pounding meat beats
To the rhythm of my heart

Ethereal beauty 
I can’t hold
Or touch
unworthy 
The geese fly south for the winter
Outside the window 
Blue sky upon
Brick upon 
grass upon 
Corn 

Pinky toes with glitter polish
Or black
The size of our friendship 
Engulfs 
My fears
And also my confidence 

Se llama Eva Mitocondrial:
Once the tectonic plates
moved inside, they collapsed.
Contract, flicker, and pulse.
At the time, growls of the
outside coalescing
with the lust fire of the 
world’s core, then suddenly,
all at once, continents
were made from the single
fastest Olympian,
from the pickiest egg,
creating what we know
as Africa, birthing
Pyramids of Giza
and all this seemingly 
from a single orgasm.

Your turn

What is in your unconscious and what might you learn from that part of yourself? We invite you to follow our prompt and see what delights your behind-the-scenes self brings to you, to God, to the community around you.

If you are interested in more about the challenges of human awareness and the consciousness particularly from a psychological and theological perspective, look for more in my book, Finding Hope.

Extras

PS: this week I’ll be sending out digital therapy zines to paid subscribers. Paid subscribers help pay for doctoral research & reading materials ;) They also reap the nerdy benefits. Free subscribers get all the poetry goods and monthly-bimonthly mental health and relationship health content.

*Photo by kevin laminto on Unsplash