October 10, 2023

The world is awash in even more war and natural disasters today than it was the last time I wrote you. And, as my thoughts on those topics are as raw as anyone’s, I am going to stay the course today and share, instead, about my trip to Maine and Massachusetts and the journey to Christiana Morgan’s Tower, before I forget the details. In brief, it was an extraordinary trip. I want to try to convey just a little bit of that magic to you. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you can read my last post for a little backstory.)

Saturday:

Carol (Ferris) and I had a midnight flight scheduled but it was so horribly delayed that we made a game-time call to reschedule for the following day. (Leaving at 3am only to miss a connecting flight and sit for potentially hours upon hours in JFK did not sound appealing.) It was delicious to fall asleep in my own bed that night and know that I wouldn’t be facing that exhausting uncertainty. 

Sunday: 

We caught our new red-eye out of Portland, Oregon direct to Boston (change of plans) and tried to sleep on the flight as much as we could!

Monday: 

We arrived in Boston so very early, got our rental car, and drove into Boston for breakfast because we’re in Boston! How fun and unexpected.

We pointed at lots of buildings and walked around a bit. Then we drove from Boston to Maine to meet Ann Carroll, whom we had never met in person. We’ve worked together on Zoom for several years now— beginning with The Red Book salons when Ann popped in and introduced herself as “Ann from Maine” and started translating The Red Book from the original German and dropping wisdom with every breath.

Here’s the moment that Carol and Ann met!

And here’s us grabbing a selfie together moments after arriving. We’re standing in front of a series of prayer wheels that Ann constructed from old maple barrels and placed inside a small structure so that anyone walking past can make a prayer. The whole scene is absolutely amazing.

For the rest of that day, we enjoyed looking at Ann’s beautiful home along the river, met her fabulous husband, Chick, and prepared a simple dinner together. Over pasta and salad that evening, we got to meet another couple of longtime Salome friends whom we’d yet to meet in person. It was a lovely evening and we went to bed very early.

Tuesday:

We were up early and drove to a town in Massachusetts about 90 minutes away where we met Hilary Morgan (Christiana Morgan’s granddaughter), and Mara, a Salome friend who has been helping with a Christiana-related task.

The group of us had a quick breakfast at a local diner and then traveled together to The Governor’s Academy, a 9-12 boarding & day school that is now the lawful steward of Christiana’s Tower. The archivist there generously shared with our group the various papers pertaining to Christiana that they have on file, as well as some of her artwork that has been removed from the Tower for safekeeping. That portrait of her up there (scroll up!) used to be in the Tower but is currently on the wall in the archives in a temperature-controlled space.

Here are some of the wood shutters that Christiana carved that have been removed only very recently from the Tower for protection.

You can see those shutters in their original location in this image from Christiana’s living room in the Tower, as it looked back in the day.

You can also see where her portrait used to live in the upper right-hand corner. (Photo courtesy of Hilary Morgan.)

And here, from the archives, is just one of the countless gems hidden amidst the papers: a poem for Christiana by the poet, Antonio Alfredo Giarraputo, upon hearing of her passing.

There are also many, many documents pertaining to the legal ownership of the Tower and various pieces of correspondence with Harry Murray (and so much more). I’ve yet to spend much time with these documents myself, but we’re cataloging the images we took of these papers for future exploration. As time passes, I’m likely to share more about what’s in those archives with all of you.

For those of you who are new to this story, you might read a bit more here from the Harvard archives where most of Christiana’s papers are stored. (Her Wikipedia page is, unfortunately, rather inaccurate —Is anyone out there comfortable with editing Wikipedia and want a brief internship…?)

After leaving the archives, Hilary took us to see the statue of Christiana created by Gaston Lachaise, which was being stored in a relatively empty room at the school amidst a few folding tables, chairs, art supplies, and a swarm of very large and very angry wasps whose nest had just been destroyed. (What’s the symbolism there?)

Given the very protective wasps, we visited with Christiana only briefly before getting back in our rental cars for a short drive to the Tower on the Marsh.

After just a couple of minutes, we paused briefly on the side of the road to get context for where Christiana spent so much time in hermitage, study, relationship, and art-making. If you squint, you can see Christiana’s gray Tower in the middle of the trees, beyond the water. It’s hard to convey the beauty of this place and the feeling of peace that it exudes. We all marveled at the feeling. 

Then our small group continued on towards the Tower for our chance to see it up close and wander its halls.

…to be continued! (Read Part 2 here)

I’ll send what happened during our visit to the Tower and the days following in a second installment very soon!

I will say now that this trip has only further inspired all of us to devote energies to protecting the Tower and Christiana’s legacy. And we could use your help! There’s much more to say about the specific work and why it’s so inspiring, but if you already know that you’d like to help, please reply to this email. 

We could use interns to organize a trove of digital files from her original never-before-published vision journals, which inspired Jung’s Vision Seminars, and some other incredible papers. As you can imagine, we could also use funds to potentially edit & publish her archives and to restore the Tower.

More soon!

XO, Satya

Satya Doyle Byock, Director of The Salome Institute of Jungian Studies

To learn more about Christiana and the Tower, here are a few quick resources:

• Claire Douglas’s book, “Translate this Darkness: The Life of Christiana Morgan,” about the woman who is known by various terms — psychologist, psychoanalyst, Jungian analyst, patient behind Jung’s Vision Seminars, co-author of the Thematic Apperception Test, lover, mother, grandmother, and much more — and whose work has been largely buried.

• The Harvard archives of Christiana Morgan’s papers.

• Hilary Morgan’s website + short film about the Tower.

• My blog post from March on Christiana and my grandmother.

• Our original seminar listing.