Legacies Burned, Legacies Saved

Cultural history and the publication of Emma Jung's collected papers

If you’re looking for places to donate to those affected by the LA fires, one excellent option is this list of the many displaced families from Altadena, a historically Black neighborhood where Octavia Butler grew up (see more below). These families lost everything and need help to rebuild. Donate here.

Angelenos, my heart is deeply with you. We are all with you.

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In Elise Loehnen’s poignant piece on evacuating from the fires, she mentioned something I’ve been thinking a lot about: what kind of intellectual legacies can be—and are—lost in tragedies. While she was quickly packing everything to leave, she grabbed clothes, “Documents. Photos. Jewelry. Medicine. Irreplaceable heirlooms.” And, importantly, “all of my notes for my next book.” (Thank goodness.) She later mentions an upcoming podcast episode with the author Pico Iyer:

whose new book Aflame is presciently partly about fire. He and his mother lost their house in Santa Barbara many years ago, including his notes for three books and all of her belongings.

This loss of labor and cultural history is its own kind of painful, inconceivable blow. I’m not at liberty to say anything about it yet, but this is something I’m grieving this week in particular. The archives of someone I care a great deal about, a woman who recently passed away and whose papers I’d hoped to protect for history, just went up in flames along with her home. Or at least it seems that way; we’re waiting for confirmation. As I write this, I keep feeling that I should quickly say, “In the grand scheme, it’s a very small thing.” But I’m not sure that’s the case. In terms of the history of ideas, of women’s scholarship, of very specific research that only she was doing, and the perpetual struggle to bring certain voices out from the shadows, it’s a very big loss.

I texted last night with Ayana Jamieson about it, a depth psychologist and founder of the Octavia E. Butler Legacy Network. I’d checked in to see how she was doing and to appreciate a post she’d shared about Butler’s uncanny anticipation of this moment. On Instagram, she wrote about Butler’s novel, Parable of the Sower, a work of speculative fiction based in 2024: “Parable of the Sower was not a guidebook or prophecy, it was a meticulously researched warning based on evidence gathered over decades.” Butler had studied what was coming.

Luckily, Butler’s archives are totally protected and available to historians like Ayana, to better understand her mind and how she knew what she knew. Nonetheless, in Ayana’s words, “the actual physical spaces don’t exist except in memory and collective experience.” All of this has been very painfully amplified by the fires in Altadena, where Butler and Ayana both grew up and which has just burned to the ground. As Ayana says, it’s not just Butler’s neighborhood: “countless other elders and generations are displaced.” (You can donate to some of those families here.)

The whole world is in flames.

“The whole world is in flames.” Painting by Emma Jung, 1917.

I’d intended to write you about something else this week, though it all feels woven together and related. In this case, it’s positive news (with some wildly related images).

While one woman’s papers have been recently lost, others are being brought out of the shadows: a new compilation of never-before-seen writings, drawings, and paintings by Emma Jung are days away from publication in a book called Dedicated to the Soul. I’ve had a chance to spend time with the book already and wanted to share some of it with you.

Emma Jung was, of course, Carl Jung’s wife, mother to his children, and financial backer to so much of his work (she was perhaps the richest woman in Europe when they met). She was also a huge support to his work and business, and an analyst and author in her own right. I recently wrote about her work on The Grail Legend here. Her book, Animus and Anima, was among the first and best scholarship on the topic, especially as regards the classical understanding of a woman’s inner masculine.

I’m still exploring her writing and a fascinating series of symbols related to physics, Taoism, and alchemy. It’s a lot to dive into, with many incredible parallels to other thinkers and artists at the time when she was working!

A selection from “Dedicated to Soul” a book of work by Emma Jung

I’m particularly excited for the opportunity to see what Emma was studying and exploring during the time that Carl dove into the material that would become The Red Book (and thus his entire psychology). In those same years, he had strongly encouraged Emma to do her own intellectual work, while raising their four children and pregnant with a fifth.

For anyone excited about this history, it’s a beautiful publication that honors this woman’s incredible contribution to the beginnings of modern psychology.

Relevant to this moment, I’ll leave you with a series of her paintings entitled “Death and Rebirth of the World.” A larger image of her painting, “The whole world is in flames,” is above.

“Death and rebirth of the world", a painting series by Emma Jung

“The fire died, the smoke drifted away, the world collapsed into ash. And now?”

“The fire died, the smoke drifted away, the world collapsed into ash. And now?” Emma Jung paintings

“Image of an Emerging World”

Image of an Emerging World, painting by Emma Jung

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Other resources on Emma Jung and her legacy include Labyrinths: Emma Jung, Her Marriage to Carl, and the Early Years of Psychoanalysis by Catrine Clay and a recent podcast episode with Jenny Montgomery and Béa Gonzalez, The Life and Legacy of Emma Jung

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Coming up:

Join me on Sunday, February 2nd, for our next paid subscriber gathering. We’ll ground together following the inauguration and… the grief in the world. Who knows what else we’ll be processing in three weeks' time? Learn more + Register.

A workshop that may be worth returning to right now:

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I’m Satya Doyle Byock, psychotherapist, author of Quarterlife: The Search for Self in Early Adulthood, director of The Salome Institute of Jungian Studies, and co-host of a podcast on Jung’s Red Book. My work has been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, Oprah Daily, NPR, The BBC, Literary Hub, The Tamron Hall Show, and on podcasts such as Apple News in Conversation and The Joseph Campbell Foundation Podcast. All links can be found here.