Disconnecting from Jung

​ Disconnecting from Jung   

 

 “What’s this mean?” I asked Uncle Albert, whose Latin is much better than mine.

     “It doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “It’s gibberish. Why are you reading Jung? He’s gibberish.”
     “I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll stop maybe.”
     “Good,” Uncle Albert said.

This was a week ago, maybe more. I keep losing track of the time. I still talk to Dr. Feight on either Mondays and Thursdays or Tuesdays and Fridays, I’m not sure which. And without church to go to on Sundays, I lose all track of the days.
     “Did you quit Jung like you said?” Uncle Albert asked this morning, a Wednesday it says on my phone. “St. Patrick’s Day,” I remember Roz saying as she left for work this morning dressed in green. “Don’t forget you are cooking.”

 

So, I got up, but I didn’t shower because I needed to start the corned beef and cabbage. I just threw a sweatshirt and my green corduroys over my pj’s, pulled on socks, stepped into my slippers, and came downstairs. I’ll probably not shower now: it’s too much work to undress and dress again. It’s too much work to make the bed properly. I can get downstairs only with the help of gravity.
     But I do manage to fill the slow-cooker with a layer of potatoes, carrots, onions, and a stalk of celery, on top of which I put the brisket with its spices and several shakes of caraway seeds. I wedge the cabbage all around the meat, putting a few leaves on top to cover it. I start the pot on high to get it going. I’ll turn it to low in half-hour’s time. I’ve got cabbage left over, but I can add it to the mess later when it cooks down a bit.

Uncle Albert comes as I’m ready to go into the front room and flop down on the couch to rest.
     “You came down the stairs by yourself!?”
     “Only because I knew where that damn cat was, it wasn’t going to hurtle by and trip me up,” he says. Then, “Did you quit Jung like you said?”
     “No,” I admit.
     “I remembered the Latin, what it ought to have said,” Uncle Albert said. He has a prodigious memory for things like this. He knows half the psalms by heart.
     “It’s from the cathedral on via Rossini in Pesaro,” Uncle Albert says. “When I remembered that I got Roz to find a picture for me.” He hands it to me. “What it means is ‘est homo non totus medius sed piscis ab imo.’ He is not completely man but half fish from below or underneath. Below can mean the depths, as ocean depths, or below the waist. The figure in the mosaic is a triton, a merman, but it’s also, I think it must be, a type of Christ in his two natures.”
     “But Christ is fully man and fully God, not half and half,” I say.
     “Yeah, well draw that,” Uncle Albert says.

I help him into the living room though who is the one needing help I’m not sure. He sits down in his chair, picks up the book beside it, puts on his readers, and waves bye-bye to me as I fall onto the couch.
     “Wait,” I say, “before you go: What made you think of that? It had to be one of Jung’s ‘mysterious connections.’”
     “It’s ‘the mystery of connection,’ the Latin: mysterium conjunctionis. And it’s no mystery, just gibberish. No connection, I just thought of it.”
                                                                          03.17.21