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<\/a>How do we find our way when we have lost it? \u00a0More importantly, how do we find the way we have lost, when we\u2019ve never known it to begin with? \u00a0And finally, how do we find our way when there are powerful forces \u2014 society, family, habit, and love \u2014 that draw us away from the path we are destined to walk?<\/span><\/p>\n In 1890, Charlotte Perkins Gilman attempted to answer these questions in her deft little tale, <\/span>The Yellow Wallpaper.<\/span><\/i> \u00a0The story looks supernatural to many of its readers, as Sue Mach\u2019s play looks supernatural to many of its viewers. \u00a0But in fact, both the book and the play are eerily resonant with the very real experiences of we who have attempted to find our lost ways in life. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Of course, few of us are born with a clear vision of our destined path. \u00a0But some of us encounter a daunting number of obstacles and obfuscations between ourselves and the path we <\/span>want<\/span><\/i> to walk. \u00a0Perkins, for example, was born a woman in the late 19<\/span>th<\/span> century, a time when her artistic nature and mystical gifts were in stark opposition to the docile life of constraint that she was expected to live. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Gilman\u2019s fierce psyche responded to the repressive dictates of her marriage and her culture by sending her into a severe depression, much as a caged wild animal is inclined to curl up despondently in the corner of its pen. \u00a0The \u201crest cure\u201d prescribed by Dr. Weir Mitchell, which corresponded to the autocratic medical approach of that era (an approach that still prevails in much of physical and psychological medicine), only exacerbated Gilman\u2019s misery. \u00a0Her penned animal began to circle its cage and tear out its fur. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In a person with less intellectual and creative energy, this repression may have led to a complete shutdown of life force \u2014 the state that psychologists call \u201ccatatonia\u201d \u2014 or even to literal death. \u00a0But Charlotte Gilmore was \u201can animal of the highest order\u201d\u2026with the emphasis on <\/span>animal<\/span><\/i>. \u00a0When Gilmore\u2019s mind was immobilized by the \u201ccure\u201d of Dr. Weir Mitchell and her collusive husband, her animal instincts erupted to effect her rescue. \u00a0How did this happen?<\/span><\/p>\n In the human psyche, there is an elegant dance between the primal, life-giving forces that the Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung called the <\/span>archetypes<\/span><\/i>, and the containing structure that he called the <\/span>ego<\/span><\/i>. \u00a0You might think of <\/span>archetypes <\/span><\/i>as the rainbow of energies that are our innate birthright \u2014 the full spectrum of our human instincts, refined to a nearly infinite number of hues and intensities. \u00a0These archetypal energies blaze through us, much as electricity blazes through the wires that carry it. \u00a0And those wires represent what Jung called the <\/span>ego<\/span><\/i>. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Now, you can imagine that if the wires of ego are too thick and resistant, containing too many blocks and dampers, the archetypal energy can\u2019t stream through them and no light will shine. \u00a0But if the archetypal electricity is too powerful for the thin wires of a weak ego, the circuits will short out, the wires will incinerate, and again, no light will shine.<\/span><\/p>\n We can imagine that Dr. Weir Mitchell had developed his \u201crest cure\u201d after he treated some people whose archetypal electricity was enormous, but whose ego wires were minimal\u2026or incinerated. \u00a0He prescribed a container of treatment that was rather like a large dampening rod, grounding all the electricity that was flying around in a person\u2019s psyche like a lightning storm, and subduing it until some ego wiring (that is, habits, thoughts, behaviors, and structure) could be re-established.<\/span><\/p>\n But for a woman like Charlotte Gilmore, someone whose wiring was probably quite sufficient, but whose light was simply shining too brightly by the standards that were dictated for women in her time, Dr. Weir Mitchell\u2019s \u201ccure\u201d was a devastating torment. \u00a0Deprived of every means for creative expression, the archetypal energies of Gillmore\u2019s psyche began to seethe and amplify. \u00a0In the exquisite manner of any artistic soul that seeks to survive, Gillmore\u2019s psyche began to deploy the tools of association (\u201cIt makes me think of all the yellow things I ever saw\u2014not beautiful ones like buttercups, but old foul, bad yellow things.\u201d), synesthesia (\u201cthat yellow smell!\u201d), dissociation and projection (hunting, finding, and dancing with her \u201cother, separate self\u201d), and regression (becoming \u201can animal of the highest order!\u201d) in order to avoid her demise.<\/span><\/p>\n In some people, this explosion of creative energy might result in a \u201cshort circuit\u201d of the ego wiring. \u00a0In other words, deprived of the practical skills and structure that an ego affords us, the person would be unable to function in the world. \u00a0But apparently, Charlotte Gilmore\u2019s circuits were not so easily blown. \u00a0Her short story and subsequent life are proof of the strength in her ego\u2019s wiring. \u00a0Clearly, her ego structure was resilient enough to withstand the power of the creative eruption that her archetypal energies precipitated when they were heavily repressed by the \u201crest cure\u201d of Dr. Weir Mitchell.<\/span><\/p>\n What is the tale that each of us touches in ourselves when we read the book or see the play of <\/span>The Yellow Wallpaper<\/span><\/i>? \u00a0What do we learn about our own search for our individual path \u2014 lost, found, or hitherto unknown? \u00a0The answers to this question are, of course, as numerous as the readers and viewers of the tale. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Some of us realize that we have been living for months, even years, in a locked room with bars on the windows, a bed nailed to the floor, and disturbing yellow wallpaper on every vertical surface. \u00a0We are the ones whose lives have been heavily shaped (that is, pressed, and repressed, and even depressed) by expectations, obligations, and accommodations. \u00a0We have ego wires of such a heavy gage that it would take a bolt of archetypal lightning, in order to pass through them and light up our lives. \u00a0We are not necessarily miserable; we might even have accommodated enough to be able, like Jenny, to discuss patterns in the china with our insufferable mothers. \u00a0But we usually have a dependency upon someone or something in our lives \u2014 whatever holds the key to a larger world, a world where there are irreverent word games, audacious ideas, and forbidden sweets. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Others of us realize that we are awash in the world of hidden truths, hedonist urges, revolutionary notions, and outrageous acts. We are at sea in the storm of our archetypal energies, unable to anchor ourselves or find safe harbor. \u00a0Or, to return to the electrical metaphor, we are constantly ignited by ideas and impulses that break the bounds of our known world. \u00a0We may have found a way to function in the ground-bound world of ego, despite our incandescent version of existence. \u00a0But it is more likely that we are constantly scorching ourselves and others every time our archetypal energies arc out of our control, and our wires cannot contain the power of their combustion.<\/span><\/p>\n Whatever we discover about ourselves in Gilman’s\u00a0story, we are subsequently challenged to find in our own lives the elements that will provide the balance that we need. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n For some of us \u2014 those who are lightning rods of archetypal energy \u2014 the challenge may be to find the structure of diet, exercise, and regularity that Dr. Weir Mitchell was trying to provide for his patients (although he prescribed it to an excessive degree in Gillmore\u2019s case). \u00a0Weir Mitchell\u2019s error of excess notwithstanding, animals of all orders and any number of feet will always benefit from good food, appropriate exercise, and a moderately predictable life. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n For others of us, those who have become ego\u2019s prisoners of expectation and obligation (and this is most of well-behaved Western society), the challenge will be to employ the tools of creativity \u2014 association, dissociation, projection, synesthesia, and even regression \u2014 that can awaken the archetypal animal within. \u00a0Our inner animal can enable us to tear down the yellow wallpaper, and like Charlotte, we can <\/span>get out at last<\/span><\/i>, to a place where we<\/span> cannot be put back in<\/span><\/i>!<\/span><\/p>\n May you receive the gift that is offered by Gilman\u00a0and Mach, and may you find the elements of balance that will allow your animal of high order to play safely and joyfully through a rich and meaningful life.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a>Share this:<\/h3>