wishes of roots

As the first entry to this new blog, I would like to tell a little about Jungian approach in psychotherapy and why I named my blog “towards wholeness.”

In order to illustrate it I would like to introduce a short poem called "Wishes."  It is a poem by a Japanese poet, Shinmin Sakamura.  When I translate it in plain English, it runs like this:

       "Wishes"
         Wishes of invisible roots make such a beautiful flower.

This poem seems to describe the very simple but important truth in life.
We are easily aware of the beautiful flower, but we hardly care about the roots underground.  When we happen to see the roots of the flower, we tend to ignore them or cover them up with soil, often thinking they are not pretty enough to look at.

However, without those roots, the plant cannot live.  The roots ground the plant firmly on the earth, take nourishment and water from the soil, and support the whole being of the plant.

Nevertheless even when we want to know what the roots of a plant look like under the ground, we cannot see them so easily.  If we try to dig them up carelessly, we will damage them and might even kill the plant itself.  There might be no direct way to learn about them.

The poem suggests wishes of the roots make the beautiful flower.  Their invisible wishes are revealed to the world above through the flower, the visible part of the plant.
It means that we have to use our imagination, creativity and empathy to try to understand and appreciate the roots, the invisible part, and consequently, the plant as a whole, including both the visible and invisible parts.

Each flower has its own beauty, no matter how similar they might look.
When viewing this plant in the poem as an image of an individual person, it suggests beauty of the unique being, supported by his/her own roots.
When every part of the individual is recognised and appreciated in harmony, s/he can live his/her whole being.

This idea of appreciating the whole being of a unique individual is the basic attitude of Jungian approach.

I named my blog “towards wholeness” because it is the concept which includes the philosophy of Jungian psychology and the direction I myself hope to go.  Various aspects of an individual are taken with respect and appreciated as a whole.  I believe that one’s life is grounded and full when one has such a harmonious world within and without.


(* This article is published in Personal-Development.Com Newsletter issued on 16 October 2013.  Thank you!)