The Wallet

Last week, I was in Montreal for the tri-annual congress of Jungian Analysts. 700 of the world's analysts converged in Canada for the first time in IAAP history.   On the first full day, I lost my wallet or it was stolen - I am not sure.  The wallet had vanished - completely disappeared.  It was all rather discombobulating. Mercury, the trickster god who also rules commerce, and communication, was retrograde i.e. going backwards. The Retrograde Station was the previous Friday.   However, the essentials were replaced within a couple of days and so there wasn't a great deal of inconvenience while I was in Montreal.

The location of the loss and the circumstances of my life at the moment suggested to me that this loss should be taken a bit more symbolically.  The whole experience had a dream like quality and if the experience was a dream how would I interpret it.  The unconscious seems to have been speaking to me in a quite dramatic way. The wallet that had gone missing was purchased in Florida in December 2008 when I was there with an ex-partner. It was the last reminder of a painful relationship. It was heavy and full of receipts that needed to be organized, filed or thrown out.  Over the last weeks, I have been determined to get my life and environment more organized. When my life becomes too busy, it is one of the first things that goes. And yet the disorganization and the outer chaos actually contributes to being ill at ease rather than providing a remedy for the busyness.

Symbolically, the wallet reflects how we look after our resources. I saw that the way I took care of my wallet was a mirror to the way I took care of my inner resources. The wallet is a container of our identity and our relationship to the resources in our life.

I could have looked at this as a great tragedy. However, I  recognized that the loss was also an huge opportunity. The trickster/thief forced my hand to look at how I handle my internal and outer resources.  The decision facing the "recreation" of my wallet will all its identity papers, drivers licences, health card,and credit cards is how do I do it.  Do I revert to my old way of being of being disorganized or do I recreate it with intention and consciousness that is in alignment with how I want to take care of myself. This process is ongoing.

"What's in your wallet?"

Addendum
September 13, 2010  - This has turned out to be a Mercury story.  Mercury went direct on September 12 at 7:08 pm. My wallet lost in Montreal on Monday, August 23 - 2 days after Mercury went retrograde - was mailed by Canada Post on September 3, 2010 - the date of Mercury's conjunction with the Sun - and landed in my mailbox today September 13, 2010.  The universe moves in mysterious ways and fortunately, we sometimes are graced with a glimpse this through astrology. I will sort through the things that I need to keep and throw the wallet out.

Christina Becker is a Jungian Analyst, Alchemical Astrologer and Consultant with a private practice in Toronto, Ontario Canada. She is graduate of the C.G. Institute Zurich. Her practice purpose is to empower individuals, couples, teams and organizations on their path of transformation. Her website is www.cjbecker.com