Dryness

A dry and sterile landscape can symbolize something old and stagnant within us. (Compare with Winter.)

The alchemists' initial operation, calcinatio (calcination, heating), aims to burn away the bad, but also to "dry out." Edinger says that "a crucial part of psychotherapy is drying out the 'waterlogged,' unconscious complexes," and quotes Heraclitus' words: "A dry soul is the wisest." (Anatomy of the Psyche, p. 42-43.) The energy used for heating resides in the complex itself, just as the fire for the ancient Greeks lay hidden in the calcium. The heat emerges as affect when one allows the uncomfortable emotions associated with the complex to come out (in a safe, therapeutic situation), which "dries out" the complex and purifies it.

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