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.

The term actually originates from religious sects, and is the act of people, usually in large masses, circling around a sacred object or figure in a manner of worship and devotion. But Jung’s use of it instead applied to oneself, and the circling around the Self with various interests. I would like to say that it is expressing various flavors and shades of what Aleister Crowley called one’s True Will.

I have always found myself doing this before I ever knew of this word, which I actually only discovered recently when reading Jung’s work. I tend to circle around in my pursuits. I have a wide array of things that interest me, and I tend to cycle through them like a deck of cards. It just feels natural for me to move in this manner and to not think very much about being overly disciplined about staying with one or the other, as I feel that to follow the Tao is to let it guide you in whatever way the moment calls for. Creativity can stay organic and spontaneous if you aren’t forcing yourself…