A life-threatening illness has the impact of a stone hitting the still surface of a lake, sending concentric rings of disturbance outward. It affects relationships, it stirs the depths, it potentially brings the patient and those who are affected close to the bone, into the proximity of the soul. Whenever or however that line from health to illness is crossed, we enter this realm of soul. Illness is both soul-shaking and soul-evoking for the patient and for all others for whom the patient matters. AIDS and cancer are claiming so many in their prime adult years that many of us feel that midlife is a medical battlefield with friends dropping around us; for those of us in the helping professions the impact of numbers is even greater.
Illness is a metaphoric descent of the soul into the underworld. It is a spiritual and physical crisis, and a time for personal and medical decision-making. I-Thou relationships, the stories we hear, prayer, visualizations and affirmations, rituals, seeking and finding meaning, all will make a difference in healing the psyche and the body.
Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D., is a Jungian analyst and clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California Medical Center, author of Goddesses in Everywoman, Gods in Everyman, and The Tao of Pyschology, Ring of Power and Crossing to Avalon. She brings to all aspects of her work an emphasis on the quest for meaning and the need for a spiritual dimension in life, while allowing for the powerful effects of archetypes within us and family and culture upon us.
Note: On the Saturday following this lecture, Jean Shinoda Bolen will conduct a workshop based on her new book. This workshop is sponsored by the Leadership Institute of Seattle and will be held on November 9 from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on the Bastyr University Campus, Bothell. The fee is $95. Please contact the Leadership Institute of Seattle, (206) 455-2676, for more information and registration.