Grave

The grave is a place where something old has been left behind, which is rediscovered for some reason. It can be ancient remains; something related to ancestors, as in Jung's dream where he explored a house.

Repression

The grave implies that something has been buried. Something has been dug down to be hidden, forgotten – perhaps repressed. That which has been buried coming to the surface is a common dream motif, just as the repressed keeps haunting us.

Burial

A burial may imply an "end." Often, the burial of a loved one helps a grieving person move on and accept the facts. This reoccurs in dreams when one has difficulty letting go, as if the deceased is not truly buried, etc.

Treasure

What has been hidden can be both the highest and the lowest, and in this way, it tends to be something frightening, but it can also sometimes be a treasure. Thus, the grave can be associated with the treasure that is hard to find.

Womb

The grave, urn, and coffin are sometimes symbols of the "death mother’s" womb, where something returns to be transformed and re-emerge at the right time.

Rebirth

The grave is symbolically a place of transformation and rebirth, as illustrated by the barrows in The Lord of the Rings, or on the other hand, the grave of Jesus.

Cemetery and Ghosts

The cemetery is a place where people are buried, those who have returned to Mother Earth. It is therefore an expression of psychic content that has sunk back into the unconscious. According to Ries, it may be “needs or personality aspects that have ‘settled’ or those that are still active but repressed…” (1992, pp. 31-32.) Since they have not ceased to exist, they may return as ghosts. There can be a renewal aspect in the image. (See also Death.)

The ghost represents the numen of the grave or tomb, which can also appear as, for example, a serpent or horse. This refers to the autonomous presence, the entity of the objective psyche that wanders in the unconscious.

Tombstone

The tombstone symbolizes the identity of the deceased as living, chiseled in stone to be eternally preserved in the memories of the living.

The tombstone marks the entrance and boundary to the underworld, the realm of the dead.

Tomb Chamber

The tomb chamber is a grave we can enter and shares to some extent the symbolism of the cave (cf.); it is a symbol of the unconscious; it is the world of the dead, the womb, a potential birthplace for the resurrected; for alchemists, the vessel where transformation occurs.

The tomb chamber can also refer to “the psychic background of existence” (Edinger 1995, p. 70); the graves of our ancestors, from which we are born, and thus contact with our background; the place we return to and complete the circle.

Alchemy

The grave is a recurring image in alchemy. It was sometimes synonymous with the central vessel (cf.), but also with the body. Being laid in the grave for mortificatio or putrefactio can be part of the process, sometimes an image for nigredo. The alchemist is sometimes urged to “dig a grave for the dragon and the woman”; a Greek text describes the alchemical process as “eight graves”; the secret of the art is called “Hermes' grave”; being laid in the grave is likened to a solar eclipse, when “the woman [i.e., the moon] reigns.” (CW 14, par. 65.) What is laid in the grave decays, unites, and is liberated.

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