Ring

The ring is a circular object and is one of the symbols of the Self. The ring has in general two functions besides its quality of roundness, which makes it an image of the Self. It symbolizes either a connection or a fetter. The marriage ring, for instance, can mean connectedness with the partner, but it can also be a fetter—which is why some people take it off and put it in their pocket when they go traveling! So it depends on your own feeling toward it, whether it is a fetter or a meaningful connection. If a man gives a ring to a woman, he expresses, whether he knows it or not, the wish to be connected with her in a suprapersonal way, to be connected with her not just in an ephemeral love affair. He wants to say, “This is forever. It is eternal.” And that means a connection via the Self, not only via ego-moods. Thus in the Catholic world marriage is a sacrament, and the connection is not only that of two egos making up their minds to have, as Jung expressed it, “a little financial society for the bringing up of children.” If a marriage is more than that, it means the recognition that something suprapersonal, or, in religious language, divine enters into it and that it is meant forever in a much deeper sense than just the love mood or some calculation which brings people first together. The ring expresses an eternal connection through the Self, and whenever an analyst has to cope with marriage troubles or to accompany a human being on the last terrifying steps to the guillotine of his wedding day, very interesting dreams often point in this direction—that the marriage has to be made for the sake of individuation. That gives you a profoundly different basic attitude toward the everyday troubles which may arise. One knows that for better or worse, it is the fate by which one has to work through to higher consciousness and that one cannot just throw one’s marriage over the first time something upsets one. That is secretly expressed by the wedding ring, which symbolizes a connection through the Self. -Marie Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales

In general the ring means any kind of connectedness, and therefore it sometimes has quite a different aspect. Before performing many religious rituals, people must take off their rings. No Roman or Greek priest was allowed to perform any sacramental act without first removing all his rings. There it meant that he had to connect with the Godhead and therefore must put aside all other connections; he must strip himself of all other obligations so that he may be open only to the divine influence. In this sense the image of the ring stands—very often negatively in mythology—for being tied to something to which one should not be tied, being enslaved by some negative factor such as, for instance, a demon. In psychological language that would symbolize a state of being fascinated and being the slave of some emotional unconscious complex.-Marie Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales

In amplifying the ring symbolism, we could pull in not only the ring for the finger but all other rings, such as a witch’s ring or marching in a ring to carrying a hoop. In general the ring in this wider sense has the meaning of what Jung describes as a temenos, the sacred space set apart either by circumambulation or by drawing a circle. In Greece, a temenos was simply a small sacred place in a wood or on a hill, into which one might not enter without certain precautions, a place where people could not be killed. If one who was persecuted took refuge in a temenos, he could be neither captured nor killed while there. A temenos is an asylum, and within it one is asulos (inviolable). As a place of the cult of the god, it signifies the territory that belongs to the Godhead. Witches’ rings have a similar meaning; they are a piece of earth marked off, a round place reserved for a numinous, archetypal purpose. Such a place has the double function of protection for what is within and exclusion of what is without, and of concentration on what is within. That is the general meaning which is to be found in so many forms. The word temenos comes from temno, to cut. It indicates being cut out from the meaningless, profane layer of life—a part cut out and isolated for a special purpose.-Marie Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales

Gold ring- Gold, as a most precious metal, has always in the planetary system been ascribed to the sun and is generally associated with incorruptibility and immortality. It is everlasting and in former times was the only known metal which did not decay or become black or green and resisted all corrosive elements. Gold treasures can be buried in the earth and dug up unharmed after a thousand years, unlike copper or silver or iron, so it is the immortal, the transcendental element, that which outlasts ephemeral existence; it is the eternal, the divine, and the most precious, and whenever something is made of gold, it is said to have that eternal quality. That is why a wedding ring is made of gold, for it is meant to last forever; it should not be corrupted by any negative earthly influences, and the precious stones emphasize this even more. Precious stones generally symbolize psychological values.-Marie Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales

The ring is a symbol of union. In its positive meaning, it stands for a consciously chosen obligation toward some divine power, that is, toward the Self; in its negative aspect it means fascination, being caught, being bound, with a negative connotation: for instance, being caught in one’s complex or in one’s emotions, being caught in a “vicious circle.”-Marie Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales

Here we have yet another motif—jumping through a ring. This comprises a double action since it means jumping high and at the same time being able to aim accurately at the center of the ring to get through it. In folklore there is mention of the old spring festivals in German countries, when, riding on horseback, the young men had to strike through the center of a ring with a spear. It was a spring fertility rite and at the same time an acrobatic test for the young men on their horses. There again is the motif of aiming at the center of the ring in a contest. This brings us closer to the meaning of aiming at, or through, the center of the ring. Though it seems rather remote, a connection can also be made with the Zen Buddhist art of archery, where the idea is to aim at the center, not in the extraverted way Westerners would do it, by physical skill and conscious concentration, but by a form of deep meditation by which the archer puts himself inwardly into his own center (what we would call the Self ), from whence, naturally, he can hit the outer target. Thus, in their highest performances, with their eyes shut and without aiming, Zen Buddhist archers can effortlessly hit the target. The whole practice is meant as a technical help to find the way to dwell in one’s own inner center without being diverted by thoughts and ambitions and ego impulses.-Marie Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales

Now jumping through a burning ring is not practiced, as far as I can discover, except in the circus, where it is one of the most popular tricks. Tigers and other wild animals have to jump through burning rings. The more undomesticated the animal, the more exciting it is to see it jump through a ring, a motif to which I will return later.

Aiming accurately through the center of the ring is not so difficult to interpret. We could say that, although exteriorized in an outer symbolic action, it is the secret of finding the inner center of the personality and is absolutely parallel to what is attempted in Zen Buddhist archery. But there is a second difficulty. The person who jumps has to leave the earth—reality—and get at the center in a movement through midair. So the anima, the princess figure, when she goes through the center of the ring, is hovering in midair; it is specially emphasized that she could do this well. The peasant girls, however, were so heavy and awkward, the story says, that they could not do it without falling and breaking their legs, the gravitation of the earth being too strong for them.-Marie Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales

Unknown's avatar

Published by Professor P

My name is Paityn Masters, my friends call me P. I am queer, Pisces, & an ENFP. I am trained as a psychotherapist, and my roots were as a youth pastor. As a psychotherapist, my specialty is in trauma and complex PTSD. I met my best friend and my cosmic partner, Jenni McCullum in graduate school. Together, we began discovering the spiritual world and the psychic gifts that had laid dormant in our psyche. We both went through a wild initiatory process that joyfully and sometimes even painfully expanded our capacity to both SEE and to HEAR, beyond the limits of the five senses. We are both intuitives, and Jenni is also a medium. As traditional psychotherapy frowns on the mystical modality, we had to start our own practice, and sacrifice licensing in order to answer the Call. Fortunately, we found our theoretical home in a branch of psychology known as Depth Psychology, that has its roots in the discoveries made by C. G. Jung, and seeks to study the soul rather than behavior, and sees the whole person on a spiritual level first—then works down to personality, family influence, upbringing, biology, heredity, physicality, status, image, and complexes. We see symptoms as more than something to eliminate, we see them as messages from the Soul. Psyche means Soul, but not many people know this, because our culture can’t seem to get beyond its dependence on the “safety” of the logical/rational mind. “Whenever you are in the realm of Soul, things will always go over your head. The statements of the conscious mind may easily be snares and delusions, lies, or arbitrary opinions, but this is certainly not true of the statements of the soul: to begin with they always go over our heads because they point to realities that transcend consciousness.” (C.G. Jung, Answer to Job). Healing means “making whole,” and many either think they are already whole, or fear they’re broken beyond repair. Healing involves the courage to look at the wounds that caused the brokenness to begin with. Symptoms are a huge help in identifying not only the injury but also the gifts one possesses. Marion Woodman said, “the wound is where the God enters.” So, we look at pain and trauma from the standpoint of Soul Making. I speak of God in my writing quite frequently, and like Soul, God is something that transcends our ability to conceptualize what that means. When I say God… I mean the God that I have discovered within… the same one that is within you. Folded up within each of us is the entirety of the cosmos. How we relate to our inner world determines how we will relate to everything. Our primary wounds and our deepest wounds are in the realm of relationship—beginning with the way we relate to our own inner selves. We are wounded in relationship and so we must be healed in relationship. That’s one of the things that we hope to do in our work here in this earth school. We hope to hold up a mirror so you can see your true nature, the image of your soul; reflection brings about insight, knowledge, and Wisdom.

Leave a Comment