Libellula Depressa - Symbol of The Central Archetype - 1 st May

Libellula Depressa (f) 2.5.2011 clearing

For outsiders, the idea that their own personality is part of an undifferentiated natural and psychical continuum, is almost always seen as foreign. It was however a quite common thing for tribes people to be in a synchronised state with the environment and wildlife around them in a very dynamic way. They had evolved to be so and it was the main imperative. Their primitive level of consciousness did not differentiate their individuality, nor time, nor even space, in the way of a modern person. To belong to a family group was to be subsumed by a group instinct for survival and continuity*. To act in harmony and to cooperate was a reflex and the idea of the survival of the fittest, far from being an individualistic trait, was an attribute developed in relation to mating, passing on of genes, the group, and its survival. For me, the idea that this brain - mind transposed magic on to its surroundings as a consequence of some leap in brain development brought about by diet or some other causal factor is preposterous and defies everything I know about the way I have interacted with nature throughout my life. Nature is a prime vehicle for symbolic expressions of the unconscious, simply because it is so unconscious of itself and it is my contention that it would have remained like that for ever, were it not for an imperative from a polar order of sentience in the continuum of the objective psyche and the objective material.

The symbol of the female imago Libellula Depressa in the clearing on the first of May and then the first of June, is a prime case of stooping low to see the face of god. The twice repeated imago, in this sense, is the symbol of the Imago Dei, the pristine central archetype. The area of the woods has become my back garden and therefore my unconscious. Reflecting on what Dr Venters propounded about my philosophy being of 'Spinosa', then I can only but associate the blackthorn (spinosa), with my shadow complex and the tunnelling that I have made among the dark and prickly mass of shrub - nothing less than the inroads I have made into my shadow.

* People may be unconscious of a family or group instinct, but it continues to exert a dramatic influence, often compelling people to undifferentiated and terrible acts of violence and callousness as well as acts of sacrifice and nurture.