What do you think?
Rate this book
The Unseen Partner: Love & Longing in the Unconscious
For three years, Diane Croft had access to a hidden, animated realm described by C.G. Jung as "the collective unconscious," where she took part in an initiatory process of death and rebirth, as told by countless others -- from Dante's journey to the underworld to Rumi's ecstatic encounter with the Beloved. Her beautifully illustrated book of Eros-awareness speaks the metaphoric language of symbol, art, and poetry. Follow Croft's uniquely embodied experience of a universal reality outside the boundaries of time and space, and discover the source of our longing for a wholly Other.
Silver Winner, 2016 Nautilus Book Award
First Place, 2016-2017 Reader Views Literary Book Award
Winner, 60th New England Book Show Award
Winner, 2017 Next Generation Indie Book Award
Finalist, 2018 Eric Hoffer Book Award
"The true poet is the guardian of the archetypes of the culture's collective unconscious - not to invent, but to rediscover and animate." -- Heinrich Zimmer, Indologist
Includes 65 full-color images
Silver Winner, 2016 Nautilus Book Award
First Place, 2016-2017 Reader Views Literary Book Award
Winner, 60th New England Book Show Award
Winner, 2017 Next Generation Indie Book Award
Finalist, 2018 Eric Hoffer Book Award
"The true poet is the guardian of the archetypes of the culture's collective unconscious - not to invent, but to rediscover and animate." -- Heinrich Zimmer, Indologist
Includes 65 full-color images
152 pages, Paperback
Published September 5, 2016
1 person is currently reading
268 people want to read
About the author
Diane L. Croft
11 books7 followersA graduate of Wittenberg and Harvard, Diane Croft has spent most of her career as a publisher at National Braille Press, a nonprofit braille printing and publishing house in Boston. She has edited and published dozens of books, including the award-winning biography Louis Braille: A Touch of Genius, now available in seven languages. Her most recent book The Unseen Partner: Love & Longing in the Unconscious has garnered four book prizes: 2016 Nautilus Book Award, 60th New England Book Show Award, 2016-2017 Reader Views Literary Book Award, and a 2017 Next Generation Indie Book Award. One of her poems Birdsong was selected to be inscribed on a rock in Edmands Park, and another poem Flight will appear on a sidewalk, visible only when it rains, on The Street. She currently lives in a Victorian farmhouse in Boston with her family.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 2, 2020
This is a review of "Blinded at Birth" a collection of poetry that eventually morphed into "The Unseen Partner", with the addition of detailed references to Jung and striking graphics related to his discoveries.
_________________________
According to the preface, this short book is what remains of over 700 poems that "happened" to the author -- emotions, words, and images that, uninvited, intruded upon her mind. Over the course of five years, she trimmed and trimmed again, shaping and reshaping, pruning and rearranging, until at last the collection felt right.
The epigraph from Plato sets the tone -- "we acquired our knowledge before out birth, and lost it at the moment of birth, but afterward, by the exercise of our senses upon sensible objects, recover the knowledge which we had once before..." Hence the title "blinded at birth" refers not to physical blindness, but to a sense of loss -- that there was a kind of sensitivity and knowledge that we had access to before we were born, or before we developed rational thinking, and which, at rare moments, we recall.
These poems hover around the place where the tactile and the abstract meet. Ordinary events and sensations ignite images and phrases that sparkle where before there was only darkness.
Looking at the horizon at the end of twilight, when night begins "waiting for the last whisper of light to hide behind the line that separates sea and sky", she focuses on the stillness inside herself. "...only then can I make my way inside the stillness that tells me everything I need to know without asking."
Wordsworth, too, gets quoted at the beginning "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting." And the tone here sometimes echoes Wordsworth: "I was part of nature's call before I slipped into this mindfulness," and sometimes with a playful ironic twist, "I cannot sleep; wide awake in my unconscious."
Elsewhere the conjunction of tactile and abstract recalls e.e. cummings and Paul Valery. For instance, her "I can touch the time before we spoke", and later "I want to sink into the silence that is your hands" and also " these lines [on my face] mark the time I spent in idle worship of things that matter less than your walk" call to mind cummings' "no one, not even the rain, has such small hands" and Valery's "Tes pas, enfants de mon silence, saintement, lentement place..." [Your steps, children of my silence, placed slowly and sacredly..."].
But the tone is not imitative. Here is a fresh new voice, discovering anew the wonders of the self -- that inner place that we all have in common, the oneness that we share and are only rarely reminded of.
Her words gently lead you from the familiar to the unimaginable, for instance, "as I crawl through this space barely wide enough to fit my whole being..." Likewise, the moment that rain turns to snow prompts her to think of longing
"to be part of the cosmic cycle,
changing in one moment
from bitter to soft
accepting the pain of metamorphosis."
The rhythm is soft but compelling. The wording is simple and direct. Often it reads just as well written out in sentences, as it does broken into lines.
Sometimes a poem consists of a single unexpected and striking image, such as:
"maybe there is a point
some purpose
in the breaking of a heart
exploding in tiny pieces
shooting across the floor
like a necklace of pearls
torn from the bosom
scattered in all directions
each piece waiting to be found
reclaimed
one by one
restrung in a less elegant way
like something from a church bazaar
like life."
Likewise:
"when roses bloom
they do not ask permission
they open wide their mouths
to the sun,
exposing their inner core,
and then they die."
And another favorite of mine:
"when one life has been lived
it falls into another,
a brand new baby cries
with the first breath
an instinctive knowing
that tears are the beginning
and the end,
a transition between lives
human rain."
These so carefully chosen poems belong together. They are arranged in sections by seasons, and are illustrated with photos of trees, some amazingly and provocatively misshapen. Often an image from one poem is echoed or carried further in the next. And sometimes a poem feels like a commentary on a photo that appears nearby. For instance, near a photo of the topmost branches of a group of leafless trees, covered with newly-fallen snow appears:
"black veins sketched across a winter sky
naked
as if scorched by fire, standing ready
in anticipation
knowing life will be renewed
to its lovely tendrils
branched out like God's hands
forcing its way into my consciousness
showing me what I thought
I could not see."
In a case like this, the photo helps to make the image all the more concrete, making the abstract and religious implications all the more palpable.
Some of the poems seem to be about nature, others about love, and others about God. They are all explorations of that same still, inner place, where glimmers of what we may have known before birth remain, a realm of experience we all share. The implication is that hints from nature, strong emotions like love, even strong religious feeling can awaken those hidden memories and feelings. And once unleashed, the emotional repercussions can be powerful and unexpected. But Diane doesn't dwell on this experience pedantically. Reflecting on such extraordinary moments, she is both reverent and playful:
"God hides
so we must seek
sneaking in Moses' ark
sliding down Mother Therea's
rosary beads
staining the edges of the Bible
red
looking out
from a dog's eyes
Heavens, you were staring right
at me.
why be found,
the game would be over
Oh, there you are;
what shall we play now?"
_________________________
According to the preface, this short book is what remains of over 700 poems that "happened" to the author -- emotions, words, and images that, uninvited, intruded upon her mind. Over the course of five years, she trimmed and trimmed again, shaping and reshaping, pruning and rearranging, until at last the collection felt right.
The epigraph from Plato sets the tone -- "we acquired our knowledge before out birth, and lost it at the moment of birth, but afterward, by the exercise of our senses upon sensible objects, recover the knowledge which we had once before..." Hence the title "blinded at birth" refers not to physical blindness, but to a sense of loss -- that there was a kind of sensitivity and knowledge that we had access to before we were born, or before we developed rational thinking, and which, at rare moments, we recall.
These poems hover around the place where the tactile and the abstract meet. Ordinary events and sensations ignite images and phrases that sparkle where before there was only darkness.
Looking at the horizon at the end of twilight, when night begins "waiting for the last whisper of light to hide behind the line that separates sea and sky", she focuses on the stillness inside herself. "...only then can I make my way inside the stillness that tells me everything I need to know without asking."
Wordsworth, too, gets quoted at the beginning "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting." And the tone here sometimes echoes Wordsworth: "I was part of nature's call before I slipped into this mindfulness," and sometimes with a playful ironic twist, "I cannot sleep; wide awake in my unconscious."
Elsewhere the conjunction of tactile and abstract recalls e.e. cummings and Paul Valery. For instance, her "I can touch the time before we spoke", and later "I want to sink into the silence that is your hands" and also " these lines [on my face] mark the time I spent in idle worship of things that matter less than your walk" call to mind cummings' "no one, not even the rain, has such small hands" and Valery's "Tes pas, enfants de mon silence, saintement, lentement place..." [Your steps, children of my silence, placed slowly and sacredly..."].
But the tone is not imitative. Here is a fresh new voice, discovering anew the wonders of the self -- that inner place that we all have in common, the oneness that we share and are only rarely reminded of.
Her words gently lead you from the familiar to the unimaginable, for instance, "as I crawl through this space barely wide enough to fit my whole being..." Likewise, the moment that rain turns to snow prompts her to think of longing
"to be part of the cosmic cycle,
changing in one moment
from bitter to soft
accepting the pain of metamorphosis."
The rhythm is soft but compelling. The wording is simple and direct. Often it reads just as well written out in sentences, as it does broken into lines.
Sometimes a poem consists of a single unexpected and striking image, such as:
"maybe there is a point
some purpose
in the breaking of a heart
exploding in tiny pieces
shooting across the floor
like a necklace of pearls
torn from the bosom
scattered in all directions
each piece waiting to be found
reclaimed
one by one
restrung in a less elegant way
like something from a church bazaar
like life."
Likewise:
"when roses bloom
they do not ask permission
they open wide their mouths
to the sun,
exposing their inner core,
and then they die."
And another favorite of mine:
"when one life has been lived
it falls into another,
a brand new baby cries
with the first breath
an instinctive knowing
that tears are the beginning
and the end,
a transition between lives
human rain."
These so carefully chosen poems belong together. They are arranged in sections by seasons, and are illustrated with photos of trees, some amazingly and provocatively misshapen. Often an image from one poem is echoed or carried further in the next. And sometimes a poem feels like a commentary on a photo that appears nearby. For instance, near a photo of the topmost branches of a group of leafless trees, covered with newly-fallen snow appears:
"black veins sketched across a winter sky
naked
as if scorched by fire, standing ready
in anticipation
knowing life will be renewed
to its lovely tendrils
branched out like God's hands
forcing its way into my consciousness
showing me what I thought
I could not see."
In a case like this, the photo helps to make the image all the more concrete, making the abstract and religious implications all the more palpable.
Some of the poems seem to be about nature, others about love, and others about God. They are all explorations of that same still, inner place, where glimmers of what we may have known before birth remain, a realm of experience we all share. The implication is that hints from nature, strong emotions like love, even strong religious feeling can awaken those hidden memories and feelings. And once unleashed, the emotional repercussions can be powerful and unexpected. But Diane doesn't dwell on this experience pedantically. Reflecting on such extraordinary moments, she is both reverent and playful:
"God hides
so we must seek
sneaking in Moses' ark
sliding down Mother Therea's
rosary beads
staining the edges of the Bible
red
looking out
from a dog's eyes
Heavens, you were staring right
at me.
why be found,
the game would be over
Oh, there you are;
what shall we play now?"
December 21, 2017
Diane Croft's book was beautifully written, deeply moving, and immensely challenging. Combining images from a multitude of sources with original poems and commentary as well as relevant quotes, the book was engaging on every page. National Braille Press produced a Braille edition, with descriptions of the images. I applaud the author of those descriptions. It is supremely difficult to convey the relevant aspects of something visual to a blind person without including one's biases in the description. Yet time and again, the descriptions did just that, leaving the interpretation, discovery, and contemplation to the reader.
The author readily acknowledged her formative influences--raised a female child in New England as part of a Lutheran Church. So while the book is steeped in Christian imagery and references, it plumbs the universal ideas that underpin every culture and religion: how do we live our lives on this earth so they have meaning? How do we transition from the child within the womb to the child outside in the world? How do we leave this child behind while still honoring him or her as we become adults and pass into old age and beyond?
This is by no means a comfortable book. But deep in the Advent season as we are, and with the New Year approaching--but only after the longest night of the year--this seemed like a good time to read it.
It will be a book I return to over many years, and I recommend it to anyone searching for another window through which to glimpse the soul. In this case, the soul of the individual and the soul of all humanity are closely intertwined. Gaining an understanding of oneself is always beneficial. But it is even more helpful to provide a wider perspective on how one can accept others, as we are all variations on a theme, facets of the same jewel, and pieces of one great mosaic.
The author readily acknowledged her formative influences--raised a female child in New England as part of a Lutheran Church. So while the book is steeped in Christian imagery and references, it plumbs the universal ideas that underpin every culture and religion: how do we live our lives on this earth so they have meaning? How do we transition from the child within the womb to the child outside in the world? How do we leave this child behind while still honoring him or her as we become adults and pass into old age and beyond?
This is by no means a comfortable book. But deep in the Advent season as we are, and with the New Year approaching--but only after the longest night of the year--this seemed like a good time to read it.
It will be a book I return to over many years, and I recommend it to anyone searching for another window through which to glimpse the soul. In this case, the soul of the individual and the soul of all humanity are closely intertwined. Gaining an understanding of oneself is always beneficial. But it is even more helpful to provide a wider perspective on how one can accept others, as we are all variations on a theme, facets of the same jewel, and pieces of one great mosaic.
May 1, 2021
I purchased this book in Dec 2020 and just finished it today. For me, it wasn't a book that I could sit and read straight through, but one that I would pick up and read maybe three or for poems at a sitting. In many ways it mirrored my own experience with individuation, and I think that is why I related to it on such a deep level. I was just beginning to learn about Jung through a chance listening to a podcast by James Hollis. Anyway, this is a beautifully written and illustrated book and certainly helped me on my journey which isn't over yet and may never be. Don't rush through the poems, but give yourself time to think about them and how they might relate to you. You will find it to be a worthwhile read.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews