The Twelve Mysteries

How many synchronicities does one person experience in a month, in a year, and in a lifetime?… View More

I have great news to share in this blog post! The image above won the GRAND PRIZE in the New York Center for Photographic Art (NYC4PA) competition! You won’t believe it, but I was not going to submit to this competition. Thanks to synchronicity, I ended up submitting right at the deadline! Have you experienced synchronicities (“meaningful coincidences”) but ignored them because it’s too irrational and out there? Then you’re a synchronicity skeptic! For many years, I was skeptical of Jung’s idea too. But what if there are rational ways to justify the belief in synchronicity? You might be amazed at how mysterious your life is!… View More

Could a dream foretell the future? If you asked me a year ago, I would have said, “No, it can’t. That’s crazy.” But I had a dream on August 6, 2020, that changed my life. It’s hyperbolic but true! I quit my 25-year accounting career in October 2019 to become a full-time artist. I was finally going to devote more time to art. But then that pesky COVID pandemic invaded the world, and like everyone, I tried to make the best of it. I started shooting The Unseen photo project, writing on my blog, and selling cyanotype prints through my online store. I didn’t know where any of these would lead, but I was willing to find out. Life had other plans, however. In this article, I show how I analyze my dream using Jungian dream analysis so you can interpret your dreams too. If you pay attention, your dreams may be telling you something about your future! But first, the dream.… View More

I have some art news! My cyanotype artwork graced the catalog cover of Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) based out of California State University! A big thank you to Ann Jastrab, Executive Director of the Center for Photographic Art, for recommending my work to OLLI.  This catalog is beautifully printed and features the cyanotype art of other artists like Christina Z. Anderson, Brenton Hamilton, Heidi Kirkpatrick, Robert Langham III, Emma Powell, and Brian Taylor. If you want to see amazing cyanotype work, download a pdf copy of the catalog. Also, why not sign up for a continuing education course? The classes will be through Zoom this fall, so anyone can join! Their offerings run the gamut of art, history, literature, writing, and current events. For the front cover, OLLI chose The Unremembered Gate—an image I created in 2012. Reflecting on this image, I realize I’ve changed a lot. For example, the way I approach choices now is more “grown-up” than before. In this article, I explain what I mean by recounting my journey and referencing the ideas of psychoanalyst Carl Jung. If you’re deciding between two jobs, two choices, or two life paths, I hope this article helps!… View More

I had an epiphany while writing last week’s article: I want to be more spiritual and explore it in my art and writing. I don’t actually want to do this because talking about spirituality is…icky. But then I asked myself, “What’s the point of ‘following my bliss’ if I just turn around at the first sign of fear?” How do you become more spiritual? In this article, I share the approach that I’m learning from the books of psychoanalyst James Hollis and comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell.… View More

There are two things that one should never talk about: politics and religion. I’m breaking that rule today. As I “follow my bliss,” I’m grudgingly realizing that I need to explore spirituality in my art and writing. I really don’t want to. Because, well, of the first sentence of this article. It was with great trepidation that I kept reading James Hollis’s book, Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life (affiliate link). In his view, the two main tasks during the second half of life are recovering a personal authority and discovering a personal spirituality. I already wrote about personal authority in part 1, so this article will focus on spirituality.… View More

A subscriber emailed me this week:

“I really appreciated your insights into Rilke, who is also a favorite of mine. The question about why we want to shut out pain and melancholy without knowing their purpose in our life seems especially apt these days of the pandemic and the political turmoil and for me personally at this point in my journey.”

A few weeks ago, I emailed an 85-year-old writer who I greatly admire and asked for career advice. She had started writing at 50 years old, the age I am now. This parallelism inspired me. “If I want to have published books and lecture when I’m 85 (assuming I survive that long), what would I have to do?” I wrote. I wasn’t expecting a reply of course. The pandemic has turned the world upside down, so there are more important things right now. But last week, she graciously replied:

“Hello Jonah, Thank you for your email….Now if at 50, someone had said what will you do to pursue your career, I would have hopefully responded, ‘Listen to the voice within…’ I certainly had no idea that I would be able to bring my writing, teaching, and Jungian studies together in such a way. Then through dreamwork, analysis, reading, journaling, and silent prayer, I found my way. But your way will be different and you will find it.”

The pandemic lockdown is an opportunity to journey inward to find your bliss. It’s easy to say, but where do you actually start? I believe that keeping a journal is key to finding your bliss. In this article, I share journaling ideas and techniques I’ve picked up over the years from trying different approaches, such as diaries, morning pages, daily planners, productivity journals, bullet journals, and habit-tracking journals. Who knows, maybe these ideas might finally convince you of the habit of journaling!… View More

With the unmasking of systemic racism in our society, not just in policing, but in employment, housing, academia, and the list continue to grow every day, I keep thinking of a line in Joseph Campbell’s Power of Myth book: “We need myths that will identify the individual not with his local group but with the planet.” We need a mythology of inclusion rather than exclusion. Unfortunately, mythology has always worked by excluding others. This article goes into why that is and how an individual might change the mythology that he lives by. Consider this post a book review focused on mythology as applied to the systemic racism that is evident today.… View More

Bump into a friend in an unlikely place, and you might say, “Wow, what a great coincidence!” This is usually how we use the term coincidence. Sometimes, however, coincidence can move beyond that normal experience—into the realm of wonder, surprise, and mystery. When that happens, coincidence can be used as a guide to a meaningful life. Let me explain.… View More

To be honest, I don’t know whether to be angry or sad these days. I’m part of the silent many who support movements that address the “-isms” and “-phobias” that plague our society: racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia, xenophobia, and the list goes on. Saying nothing about George Floyd’s murder doesn’t feel right. But saying something feels inadequate also. My hope is that the protests in the US and around the world will help eradicate two viruses when this pandemic is over. Racism is also a virus. And, it’s even worse than coronavirus. This virus is airborne and transmissible through words, images, and inaction. Just like asymptomatic COVID carriers, people infected with racism don’t know they’re infected. This virus doesn’t live in the bloodstream where an antibody test can detect it. Instead, it lives in a person’s shadow.… View More

When are you most alive? That is the one deep question to ask yourself before the pandemic ends. This week, I want to answer that question by exploring a Joseph Campbell quote:

“Follow Your Bliss.”… View More

Like you, I long for the days before February. “I just want to return to normal.” “But would you want to return to normal?” one Facebook friend asked. I thought about this for days afterward.  I don’t have it all figured out, but I would like to share a story of how I arrived at an answer through the writings of three wise people.… View More

Since traveling is out for now, I wanted to write about a practice that might help a little. With this idea plus your Instant Pot, you’ll be in another corner of the world in no time! I’ve also included my favorite recipes.… View More

Coronavirus preparations at home and what mythology has to say about the battle with the coronavirus.… View More

The world seems to be ending, but we know it is not. We will get through the peak and emerge on the other side. The sooner we all stay home, the sooner this will come to pass.… View More

Joseph Campbell tells us that mythology had four functions: cosmological, social, eliciting a sense of awe, and psychological. One of these haven’t been replaced by something created by humankind. Which one? The cosmological function explains how the universe was created. In Greek mythology for example, out of the void (referred to as Chaos) came the… View More

Everything goes back to childhood. In primary school, there was a reading comprehension exercise that still haunts me to this day. It’s where you read a short story, and at the end of it, you had to answer a series of questions. The first question was… View More

I love Steven Pressfield. His book, The War of Art, is the best book I’ve found that describes the internal struggle some artists face when creating new work. It certainly describes my struggle. The procrastination, the second-guessing, the indecision… View More

I recently came across a book on storytelling entitled, The Myth Gap, What Happens When Evidence and Arguments Aren’t Enough? by Alex Evans. Storytelling is something I’m interested in. I want my images to have a storyäóîwith a beginning, a middle, and an end.… View More

As mentioned last week, I started reading Pride & Prejudice. What a wonderful book! I couldn’t put it down even though I already saw the movie and knew what would happen. I was reading the annotated version of Pride & Prejudice. This book is annotated by Shawn Coyne, a book editor of over… View More

We get the wrong message in movies. If you are not saving the world, getting rich, or living happily every after by the end of the story, then it’s not worth telling. I get it. A movie that is quiet and doesn’t have explosions will not have broad appeal. Movies are expensive to make. Studios have… View More

Could we look at going to work as a hero’s journey just like in the movies? How would that go? Hollywood movies like Joy follow the arc of the Hero’s Journey, popularized by Joseph Campbell who first identified this universal pattern in mythological stories from around the world.… View More

Recently I was part of a team at work that had to prepare a powerpoint presentation. One of the requirements was that this presentation had to have a clear story. How would we actually do that? I suggested the ABT template of storytelling. ABT stands for AND-BUT-THEREFORE. About two years ago, a… View More

Coincidences happen all the time in our lives. As I continue to read up on the topic of synchronicity, I’ve been wondering about this: why is it that some coincidences are synchronistic and some are not? I just finished reading a book entitled The Are No Accidents by Robert Hopcke. I started… View More

I just came back from Robert McKee’s Story Seminar held in New York City. McKee is well known in Hollywood as the Story Doctor. He teaches the structure of stories and how they work. While he focuses on movies, his teachings can be applied to all kinds of storytelling–including the wordless novel that I am attempting in A Million Suns. That is why I signed up; it’s part of my ongoing research. Up to this point (Parts I and II), I’ve been cobbling together an understanding of story structure. I decided that it was time to seek help and learn from an expert.… View More

I went to a Michael Chabon artist talk recently at the University of Baltimore. My friend Kent loves Chabon’s work, and he suggested I go. I’ve only read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, which I loved, so I decided to go. The talk was going to be about writer beginnings, as in, where… View More

A blog reader sent me a link to this NPR news article and said, “you might want to write about this.” In this news article, a woman born without a uterus gave birth to a healthy baby after getting a uterus transplant.… View More