Near the end of his life, Jung wrote that it would be the artist who would provide the welcoming eros for the coming guest. I take this to mean not just those who are acclaimed as artists by the marketplace or other means, but the artist in each and every one of us. I think it means recapturing that state we were in as children, where art was the province of all. So, how do we begin to make art in which eros is the cosmogonos of creation? I will be doing a five-session seminar for the C. G. Jung Society of Seattle that will focus on this question and its urgency in the present chaos. For details, follow this link: https://jungseattle.org and scroll down and look for “From Inside Out: The Eros of Expression.”

Saturday Memory
May 2, 2026

Despite my ear hurting, I went to the Saturday matinee which I frequented regularly as a kid, To mu surprise, I won the door-prize drawing. It was a box of Hershey chocolate bars. A couple of days later I was in the hospital with a serious case of mastoiditis, stemming from an infection in my middle ear. I began a round-the-clock treatment with penicillin shots (in the butt, as I remember). Penicillin had only recently become available. Arthur Fleming had won the Nobel Prize in 1945 for its discovery in 1928. My Mom thoughtfully brought in a small radio so I would have something to listen to. Radios in those days were powered by tubes that got hot. Without thinking, I put the box of Hershey bars, which mom had also thoughtfully brought, on top of the radio. Of course, they melted. Nonetheless, I licked up the gooey mess. I don’t recall thinking there was a lesson to be learned here. Even now, I’m not certain what the lesson might be. I do remember I enjoyed the melted Hershey bar. Perhaps that’s the lesson. One can enjoy the consequences of one’s errors.

I can do no better than to post the vision in acupuncture today. I now take the collapsing balloon as a metaphor for collapses everywhere and for how to respond.

Acupuncture. The scene began as soon as I closed my eyes. A huge balloon filled the space, and part of it was close enough for me to touch. It was a balloon. For quite a while, nothing happened, and then I could hear and then see the balloon was deflating, the air was coming out. After it fully collapsed, I understood that it was a symbol of what happens when inflation deflates, when a plan loses steam, or when the wind goes out of an idea’s sails. I also understood that the thing to do was not to try to fill the balloon again, but to focus on how to use the balloon in new ways. So, I thought the balloon could be gathered up to form a pillow and could be used as a dream pillow.  It could be cut into figures to make a collage. It could be stretched across a frame and used as a canvas. It could be a backdrop for a photograph. These ideas kept coming to me (it was not like I was doing the thinking) for the rest of the session.

Russ

My earliest memory about what I would be when grown up was I would be a medical doctor. This was the intense desire of my parents. Later it would be the intense desire of my best friend and my first long-term girlfriend. When I got to college, my major was pre-med and I was doing well. Then, one morning at the very start of my junior year, I woke up with the realization that, no, I was not to be a doctor. That was not to be my way. I had never had such an experience but it was so intense, that I could not ignore it and had to change to something else. I changed my major to experimental psychology. My parents were incredulous, my best friend said goodbye and my girlfirend ended our relationship. Letting go of being a doctor cost me a great deal, but I have never felt it was a wrong decision. If anything, it taught me to pay attention to intense experiences coming from “somewhere” I did not know, but would come to learn about later.

If this was a graduate seminar at the university, I would ask you to read Ben Lerner’s little book, The Hatred of Poetry. One can sum up his argument by saying that poetry is essential but impossible, like love.

Saturday Memory for April 18, 2026

In my last year of high school (1956), I worked part time for Bank of America, delivering deposit information to the Federal Reserve Bank. At lunch time, my friend and I would eat lunch at Clifton’s Cafeteria. Almost everyone there was old, in our minds, really old. The conversations we overheard we thought were hilarious: talk of being old, hospital stays, friends dying, falling, wheelchairs., aches and pains. We smirked and giggled. I can’t recall now why we thought all this pain and suffering was funny.

Today, I read in the Los Angeles Times, that the proprietor of Los Angeles’ legendary Clifton’s has given up on reopening the shuttered venue.

A wave of nostalgia swept over me.

It was no longer funny what we heard there seventy years ago.

And now Cliftons’ itself has died.

I have acupuncture on Wednesdays and very often I cannot think of anything better as a thought for the day than the autonomous vision I experience. Things are presented to me that I would never have thought of. Here is today’s experience as I recorded it when I got home.

Acupuncture. The scene began as usual. No one was present. On the stage was a large mirror, seemingly hanging in midair without any support. I could see the mirror, but it did not reflect anything that it should have.  I kept watching and after a while things started to emerge from the mirror. The first things I saw were fountain pens and drawing pencils, but as soon as they emerged, they evaporated. After more objects emerged and evaporated, I knew I must respond to what emerged in some way. As I did this, the objects no longer evaporated but stayed present. The pencils and pens reappeared, and I welcomed them. Then words emerged and I welcomed them as well. Then musical notes. I tried to hum what they seemed to be forming.  Then ideas appeared, in the form of illustrated sketches. Some ideas I did not grasp, and some seemed to be related to different things I am working on.  As this went on, I became more excited and as the session ended, I felt this excitement continuing. It was if I had now a scrying mirror but operating in reverse and bringing things into my awareness in this extraordinary way.

Comments or questions are always welcome.

Ruass                     

Saturday Memory
April 4, 2026

It was July 14, I was not yet 13. My dad and I were at Hollywood Park to see Citation (our favorite horse) run in the Hollywood Gold Cup. We were at the finish line and when Citation crossed the finish he became the first million dollar horse. My dad and I danced as he crossed the line. It was the last time I danced with my dad. I knew (somehow) that this was the end of my childhood. This was confirmed later that summer, when I read Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, which came out on July 16, two days after Citations’ thrilling finish. These two events are entertwined in my memory.

Someone asked me what AI (Artificial Intelligence) thought of my work. I didn’t know, so I thought I would include AI’s view of my work as a Thought for the Day

Overview

Russell A. Lockhart, Ph.D. is a senior Jungian analyst, scholar, writer, editor, and teacher whose work spans more than five decades. Trained at the C.G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles, where he later served as Director of Analyst Training, Lockhart has been influential in shaping contemporary Jungian thought, particularly in relation to dreams, language, imagination, and the lived experience of psyche. [speakingofjung.com], [dreamnetwo…ournal.com]

He has practiced Jungian analysis since the 1970s and has taught at several University of California campuses, as well as worked as a research psychologist and director of a psychophysiology laboratory at Camarillo State Hospital. [speakingofjung.com], [dreamnetwo…ournal.com]

Central Themes in His Work

1. Psyche as Living, Speaking Reality

A defining feature of Lockhart’s work is his insistence that psyche is not an abstract system or set of concepts, but a living, autonomous presence that “speaks” through dreams, images, symptoms, language, and everyday events. He consistently emphasizes listening to psyche, rather than mastering it through theory or technique. [books.google.com]

This perspective is most clearly articulated in his book Psyche Speaks: A Jungian Approach to Self and World, where he argues that modern life fails to “nurse” psyche, leading to fragmentation and meaninglessness. He frames dreams as messengers arriving from a space between inner and outer worlds, challenging rigid psychological boundaries. [books.google.com]

2. Dreams as Agents, Not Objects

Lockhart is especially known for his work with dreams, treating them not as material to be interpreted or decoded, but as intentional, purposive agents that seek relationship with the dreamer. Across his essays, seminars, and the collaborative trilogy Dreams, Bones & the Future (with Paco Mitchell), dreams are portrayed as expressions of both personal and collective psychic realities, particularly in times of cultural crisis. [speakingofjung.com], [owlandhero…ss.website]

In this work, dreams are understood as responding to ecological, social, and existential conditions—not merely individual psychology—and as offering orientation when dominant cultural narratives fail. [owlandhero…ss.website]

3. Language, Image, and the Imagination

In Words as Eggs: Psyche in Language and Clinic, Lockhart explores the idea that language itself carries psychic life. Words are not neutral tools but living vessels shaped by image, myth, and unconscious process. This view informs both his clinical work and his teaching on writing, imagination, and symbolic expression. [dreamnetwo…ournal.com], [ralockhart.com]

His seminars such as “Writing From Inside the Inside” emphasize writing that emerges from dream-like, imaginal depths rather than ego-driven intention, reinforcing his broader commitment to imagination as a primary mode of psychic truth. [jungseattle.org]

4. Jung’s Red Book and the Reality of the “Other”

Lockhart has written and taught extensively on Jung’s Red Book, focusing on Jung’s insistence on the reality and autonomy of the Other—figures, voices, and presences encountered in imaginal experience. In essays like “Appassionato for the Imagination,” he connects Jung’s work to modern art, imagination, and contemporary struggles with meaning. [jungseattle.org], [owlandhero…ss.website]

Publications and Editorial Work

Key published works include:

      Words as Eggs: Psyche in Language and Clinic

      Psyche Speaks: A Jungian Approach to Self and World

      Dreams, Bones & the Future (with Paco Mitchell)

      Dreams as Angels (essay collection)

      The Final Interlude: Advancing Age and Life’s End (with Lee Roloff)

He is also co-editor of Owl & Heron Press, a depth-psychological publishing project devoted to dream, imagination, and cultural crisis, and editor/publisher at The Lockhart Press. [speakingofjung.com], [dreamsbone…future.com]

Overall Significance

Russell Lockhart’s work stands out within Jungian psychology for its:

      Emphasis on experience over explanation

      Deep respect for the autonomy of psyche

      Treatment of dreams as active partners

      Integration of psychology with art, writing, and culture

      Willingness to confront endings, mortality, and collective uncertainty

Rather than systematizing Jung, Lockhart’s contribution lies in keeping Jungian psychology alive as a lived, imaginal, and ethical encounter with psyche. [ralockhart.com], [speakingofjung.com]

My thought for the day comes from my acupuncture vision today. Recent visions are informing me about the nature of reality in various ways and pointing me in a direction of thought and study I would otherwise not be involved in. This experience was thought-rich and prompts me to take up tasks that I will report on as I make progress.

Here is the vision as I wrote it down following the experience.

Acupuncture. The scene began as usual and right away I saw that everything (inducing me) was outlined with a thin red line. As I looked all around, I understood that this was a new way of seeing. As I continued to look, the red line was followed by the other four colors but once all five lines were in place the outline disappeared entirely.  I understood that this was the normal state, that is, not being able to see the outlines. I understood it was my task to learn how to see them. I could see also that no matter the angle that one looked at, the outlines were there. I also understand that it was this that gave objects their “thingness.” I understood that the outlines interacted and could be in harmony or in disharmony and other such relationships. I also understood then that the interior lines were circulations and that these interacted with each other as well as with the exterior lines. I was then instructed that the inner and outer lines were vibratory fields and that to understand this, I would need to learn more about vibration and how vibrations affect one another.

Comments or questions always welcome.

Russ