Friday, September 2, 2016

Back to Nature

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"You must go in quest of yourself, and you will find yourself again only in the simple and forgotten things. Why not go into the forest for a time, literally? Sometimes a tree tells you more than can be read in books."

--Carl Jung, in a letter to a colleague (from The Earth Has A Soul: C.G. Jung on Nature, Technology & Modern Life, edited by Meredith Sabini, 2008)

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"Civilized man . . . is in danger of losing all contact with the world of instinct -- a danger that is still further increased by his living an urban existence in what seems to be a purely manmade environment. This loss of instinct is largely responsible for the pathological condition of contemporary culture."

--from Jung's Collected Works, in the same book as above

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The practical advice Jung gave for remedying the loss of contact with Nature, within or without, is not much different from what is widely available today: to live in small communities; to work a shorter day and week; to have a plot of land to cultivate so the instincts come back to life; and to make the sparest use of radio, television, newspapers, and technological gadgetry. The purpose of doing these things, however, is not to repair Nature, but rather to let Nature affect us. 

--from the editor writing in the same book as above 

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