In the past, Aspen used to just throw stuff into her big, walk-in closet until it was a jungle in there. It had to do with her mood, a lot to do with her moon cycle. Aspen would always say that she did it because she didn’t want to deal with her stuff at the time.

The notion of the personal unconscious that we have received from Freud and Jung and their many colleagues is similar in function to Aspen’s closet. It’s where we put all our stuff that we don’t want to deal with at the time. However, Jung says that if we explore and organize our personal inner closets, we will be able to find our way to ourselves and to the larger transpersonal realm of imagination and spirit.

I had a dream once in which I was on board a large, ocean-going sailing ship. We saw that a big storm was coming, so we gathered everything up and stored it away in the proper places. We didn’t want the coming storm to toss anything about. Afterwards, when I woke from my dream, I realized that it was telling me something important. In my life, when emotional or psychical storms can come at any time, it would be wise for me to keep everything in its place, all the many aspects of myself on my ship of life.

I have a closet. I also have a cedar chest and a chest of drawers. I have places to put things. When I last moved, I went through everything. I know where everything is now, and it’s all useful and worth keeping. I may not use all of it often, but I know where everything is if and when I do need it.

My inner closet is the same. I have places where I store memories and feelings and thoughts, whatever is worth keeping; stored where they’re not on my mind all the time but are easily available whenever I do want to connect to them. And I never just toss something into my inner closet. I don’t repress anything just because I don’t want to deal with it at the time. I’ve had that sort of inner closet. I don’t like what it did to my head, and I’ve worked very hard since to clean it out – to have no loose ends.