Now that I’m eighty-two, I can further test Sendak’s ideas, especially since I’ve been developing my own “creative mechanism” for many years as a writer of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Creativity also appears in my work as a teacher. Yet it’s also true—and I’m sure others can relate to this—that my internal age, the self that I’m writing from at this very moment, doesn’t seem to recognize chronological time. I’m still eager for what each new day brings, something I’ve noticed in other older people who are fully invested in living—despite ill health and countless hurdles that can happen at any age.

At the beginning of 2012, in my seventy-second year, I decided to return to analysis so I could explore my fears of aging and dying. Fortunately, I found Dr. Y, a Jungian analyst who takes Medicare, freeing me to explore my new terrain—old age—without depleting our savings. Dr. Y is a psychiatrist who merges the rational world of science with C. G. Jung’s more esoteric ideas about the psyche. I have feasted on Jung since my late twenties, when I discovered his writing. For me, his more mystical aspect overshadows the scientist. I love how he evokes the multiplicity of things—the magic, mystery, and many levels of reality, including the mythical. Of course, dreams inhabit the mythic dimension, and I view them as communications from a part of myself that knows more about me than my conscious ego does.

They also appear connected to magical realism, a mode of writing that travels naturally from my brain when I write poetry and fiction, allowing me to blend the real and the surreal. But at the time I started this late-life analysis, I felt somewhat alienated from the mythic worldview, one consequence of living in a modern culture where the rational scientific stance dominates. I needed someone who could help me return to my core self.

My husband, a classical Freudian analyst, doesn’t share my Jungian perspective. While we both believe there is an unconscious, we have differing ideas about its breadth and depth as well as how to access it. Since I value his tremendous intellect (and his sweet heart), I’m sure that preserving our relationship has been a factor when I’ve distanced myself from the more fabulous realms. Still, we share multiple other interests, including similar values and a passion for all the arts. In Jungian parlance, we would be considered opposite psychological types.

I’m sure that much of what I do with dreams and in Jungian analysis appears mysterious to my husband. He jokingly accuses me of conducting secret rites in our study after he goes to sleep—lighting candles, doing “witchy” things.

Strange.

Mystifying.

In 1973, I went to Tahoe on a camping trip with my husband at that time, my young son from an earlier brief marriage, and another couple, along with their three kids. In the evening, while the others sat around a campfire, drinking, chatting, and laughing, I stole away to our tent and read Jung’s Man and His Symbols (1964) by flashlight.

The world I fell into then thoroughly engrossed me, especially Jung’s belief in the importance of dreams and his ideas on how symbols convey knowledge that often can’t be accessed in our usual discursive way of thinking. After reading that book, which introduced me to the unconscious, I began seeing multiple meanings—other layers to investigate—in almost everything around me, from baseball games I attended when my son was pitching, to scenes I observed when wandering through a mall. And, of course, what I found in Jung was behind my impetus to eventually claim my writer self. Having majored in English, I became adept at tracking down hidden meanings in the texts I explored.

I was particularly fascinated by Jung’s idea that dreams are a way forgotten or unacknowledged aspects of consciousness reach awareness. A prolific dreamer, I was eager to know what I could learn from them. Like Alice in Wonderland, I’d fallen down the rabbit hole and would be forever changed by my encounter with Jung. I learned that individuals have not only the personality they present to the outer world, but also other personalities loitering beneath consciousness. As Jung points out, the neurotic isn’t the only one whose right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. Most modern men and women suffer from this problem.

My interest in Jung’s psychology has not only led me into the complexities of my individual self, but also created a link between my small-“s” self and the larger Self he believed shapes our psyches.  All of this led me back to an October 1959 interview BBC journalist John Freeman conducted with then 84-year-old Jung. Jung told Freeman he’d grown up as a pastor’s son in the Swiss Reformed Church. At that time, he went to Sunday services and believed in God. When Freeman asked whether he still believed in God, Jung answered, “Now? Difficult to answer. I know. I needn’t, I don’t need to believe. I know.”

What a response! Jung’s bold statement that expressed his powerful faith was astonishing, inspiring—and comforting. I was far from arriving at Jung’s destination of “I know.” But I wanted to have experiences that would give me similar confidence in something beyond my five senses. I also wanted to understand more about this divinity’s existence. A novice, I didn’t know anything. I just hoped I might one day share Jung’s belief in something beyond the visible world and find the same supreme confidence that he expressed.

Dreams strengthened my belief that, as Hamlet says to Horatio, “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” I didn’t expect dreams to give irrefutable knowledge that God exists (though I wouldn’t mind if that happened). But they do show how complex my inner life is and how eagerly the unconscious wants to interact with the conscious ego. I continue to find this dynamic astounding. Dreams have increased my awareness of realms beyond my everyday understanding.

Since my late twenties, dreams have reminded me of funhouse mirrors that reflect multiple images of ourselves, capturing how multifaceted we are. It’s as if I have an inner being who knows me intimately and, through dream images and stories, broadens (and deepens) my self-understanding. I’m constantly amazed at the ways in which this occurs. Recently, I dreamed I was riding in a car with my husband, who was driving. Upset because he kept his head turned to the left, absorbed by something he was seeing in that direction rather than on the road, I told him he needed to focus his eyes straight ahead. I’d learned that most accidents occur in those seconds when we aren’t paying attention. In this dream, I was expressing the conventional wisdom—the “rules of the road”—of the external world.

But such rules don’t necessarily exist in the unconscious. It often challenges our external perspective. Our laws and morals can be too restrictive for much of what happens outside of our awareness. So I stepped back and asked myself what would happen if my ego self in the dream, who is criticizing my husband’s driving, looked at the scene differently? Instead of being upset because he is staring at something to the left, I could loosen my “rules” and discover what has captured his attention. What am I missing because of my rigid attitude?

I realized that, while the dream seemed to be speaking of a dynamic in the unconscious, it also could be offering me another way of thinking. How often in my conscious life do I use such directives to criticize my husband or shut him down rather than discover what knowledge and perspective he has that I don’t? A long-term relationship gives us an opportunity to integrate certain qualities of our partner.

Each morning, then, I capture in my journal as many dream fragments as I can remember. A therapist I worked with years ago referred to these treasures as my New Testament, and I actually feel the daily dialogue with them has a prayerful aspect. I’m communing with something deeper. I also believe that I don’t have to consciously understand dreams to benefit from their potent imagery. They affect me whether I “get” them or not, becoming part of my memory bank, energy deposits that I can draw on for a lifetime.

No wonder that in my late twenties, like Odysseus, I began my own inner journey, seeking the parts of myself I didn’t yet know. And no wonder that at seventy-two I once again chose to work with a Jungian.

While in Dr. Y’s waiting room, I nervously try to entertain myself by examining all the framed photographs of doors that hang on the walls. Anxious about this new potential relationship with an unfamiliar man, I speculate on opening one of those doors. Where might it take me? That I don’t have an answer almost makes me bolt for my car. But I realize that both Dr. Y and I will be opening many doors over the course of our analytic relationship. This will be just the beginning.

At the appointed time of 2 pm, he enters the waiting room and invites me inside his office. Close to me in age, bearded, and well over six feet tall, he resembles an Old Testament patriarch. His calm presence puts me at ease immediately. So does his office, located at the edge of a lagoon; the unconscious is often represented by bodies of water. His homey office has a hunter green sofa for patients and a matching chair for him.

The analysis begins when he asks me why I’m there. I tell him that reading Man and his Symbols in 1973 had taken me into a realm I’ve never left. I also tell him about a much more recent experience that had reminded me of Jung and his ability to perceive what many of us can’t.

My husband and I had visited a Canadian bed and breakfast in Osoyoos, British Columbia, Canada, owned by an expert astronomer. Through his powerful telescope he revealed to us some of the stars and planets and nebulae—active day and night—that we normally aren’t aware of. Our own limited vision prevents us from seeing all these wonders. This experience reminded me of how much I don’t notice as I go about my daily routines. It also confirmed for me that dreams are a kind of telescope, offering a way of penetrating the unknown.

I ask Dr. Y how he has merged the medical (more rational way of being) with the mythic. He says, “I don’t see a separation between soma and psyche. Nor did Jung.” His response reassures me.

When he asks about my recent dreams, I tell him of one in which I was involved with a group of people who were putting on an event that included poetry. I seemed to have a leadership role and suggested Robert Haas, a major American poet, as a reader. But several people were down on Haas, claiming that he had turned too conservative. I didn’t think that should change the fact that he’s a wonderful poet.

I told Dr. Y that Haas represents the more traditional perspective of narrative poetry, and while I also write in that mode, I’m equally drawn to the work of his wife, Brenda Hillman, who tends to be more experimental. I mention my own recently published poetry collection, All This, and how it blends both worlds. He wonders if Haas represents a more patriarchal view that I continue to favor, though other voices in the dream seem to be challenging me. This might be an issue we’ll confront together—the tension between patriarchal consciousness and those voices inside me that oppose it.

He speaks quietly, thoughtfully, making observations about my dreams and other topics without imposing a view. One of the main challenges that surfaces for me is learning to juggle the rational scientific worldview and the mythic. He also wonders if my re-entering therapy could be about a need for renewal—letting go of an old identity and moving toward a new one—something I might resist.

I realize that any resistance I felt might be a reaction to working with a male therapist again. As a younger woman, I’d been in intense therapy with a female Jungian analyst and established a stronger connection to my feminine roots. At age seventy-two, I would find many lingering problems to address, given that our culture remains so dominated by the masculine stance. It’s never too late to take on this challenge.

Before my next session with Dr. Y, I dreamt that I loved the place where I’d been living and didn’t want to move into a new house, which was supposed to have a view of the water. However, the view wasn’t enough to make me feel good about making the change, and I wondered if I should have done more to hold onto the previous dwelling. When Dr. Y and I discussed this dream, we agreed it seemed to confirm the internal transformations I would be undergoing in the months ahead. It also suggested I would cling fast to my more familiar inner structure, my psychic house. The struggle had begun.

It seemed strange to think that at seventy-two, I would shed an old identity as a snake sheds skin. But why should that be surprising since we are constantly changing, psychologically as well as physically. Old age should be as vital a time as any other period in our lives. It’s true that growth can be scary, and it seems only human to resist change. Still, I felt excited about the future possibilities.

Before my next meeting with Dr. Y, I drew an image that had appeared in another dream: women were creating an arch with their legs for me to pass through. Dr. Y noted that it resembled a birth passage.  He wondered if the dream was a sign that I was being ushered into the feminine principle in a new way. I felt uncomfortable with the abstract term feminine principle. Now, when gender identity is being shaken up and the difference between masculine and feminine can no longer be so firmly established biologically, any reference to a feminine principle raises questions and makes me wonder about its role in my psyche. How do I differentiate between feminine and masculine? What am I being initiated into?

One scene in my 2019 novel Freefall: A Divine Comedy addresses this dilemma. Tillie, the point-of-view character and an installation artist, knows there’s a lot of talk in certain circles about matriarchies and patriarchies—“the feminine” and “the masculine.” But she wonders what these words mean. Has masculine consciousness so dominated Western thought that it’s impossible to tease out what might be feminine? If women can’t locate the source of their being, and if they view themselves through masculine constructs and lenses, then how can they ever truly know themselves? How do women find their true identities in a mostly male world?

Clearly, this is something I’ve wrestled with over the years. Perhaps, as I’m aging, something in my feminine self needs reinforcing. I’ve read that as men age, their female aspects become more pronounced, and the opposite can be true for women. I’ve never been in doubt about my female identity, though people called me a tomboy when I was a girl because I loved to explore and do things associated with boys, like climbing cliffs or borrowing my uncle’s bike so I could explore the city of Calgary and its outskirts. I have also worshipped most males’ inherent physical power and cultural influence. Why wouldn’t I want the same influence? Such control can be a tremendous lure.

As I write about aging (both in this piece and in my book-length hybrid memoir, Dreaming Myself into Old Age: One Woman’s Search for Meaning, I ask myself, “What are your goals?” I believe that aging offers its own questions and mysteries for us to uncover, and that is part of my quest here. There isn’t just one way to age well. Nor is there a formula to fit everyone. We all must find the path that works for us. So, in writing about this time in my life, I’m not just interested in how I encounter each day. Instead, I hope to dig deeper into this perplexing journey toward death we are all making.

Who am I now? One aspect of aging’s mystery is the new identity many of us must create out of fragments from our former selves. And that often requires creatively using our imaginations to reassemble what we’re left with.

Imagination has been central in my quest for knowledge. When I lose the capacity to imagine other worlds or other ways of being, I become static rather than dynamic and stop the life force from reinvigorating me. I hope I don’t reach that point—that I never lose what I feel is the essence of life, the ability to confront and embrace the unknown.

A History of Kindness

Poems by Linda Hogan

Poems from Linda Hogan explore new and old ways of experiencing the vagaries of the body and existing in harmony with earth's living beings. Throughout this clear-eyed collection, Hogan tenderly excavates how history instructs the present, and envisions a future alive with hope for a healthy and sustainable world that now wavers between loss and survival. “Hogan remains awed and humble in this sweetly embracing, plangent book of grateful, sorrowful, tender poems wed to the scarred body and ravaged Earth.” —BOOKLIST "In an age as acrimonious as ours, Linda Hogan’s new poetry collection, A History of Kindness, sounds especially poignant." —THE WASHINGTON POST "There is no one like Linda Hogan. I read her poetry to both calm and ignite my heart. A History of Kindness is a series of oracles rising from the page born out of a life of listening, feeling, responding." —TERRY TEMPEST WILLIAMS, author of Erosion Available from Torrey House Press and Bookshop.org

Find this and more in ArtsMart