Circumambulation

Encircling Your True Self

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” It’s the question seemingly everyone is universally asked by friends and family in their adolescence. The question seems to almost be an archetype unto itself. It has a certain pressure to it as well, as if you better figure this out, or else. It also implies that it must only be one thing, and that you must strive toward it in order to claim yourself as a “success” in life. But why? Why must you only pick one, and why is your life considered to not have value until you cross this non-existent finish line?

Carl Jung wrote of a term called circumambulation, which is essentially a process on the path of Individuation; the apex of psychic and spiritual development. It recognizes that in order to find the Self, one can shift their orientation from a linear striving toward the future, instead to a Timeless circling and surrounding of the center. What this is implying is that you are in fact already complete as a human being, here and now, but this encircling reveals and unravels deeper and deeper layers of self-discovery. Circumambulation is emerging out from your center, revealing yourself to yourself.