(2015.04.26)
"In my back yard there is a Japanese garden with a pond containing numerous koi. Shortly before Joseph Cambray arrived to give his Fay Lectures in Analytical Psychology, which became this book, a snake caught and swallowed a koi. When I saw figure 1 of “Jung’s carving of a snake swallowing a fish,” I wondered if this was an example of synchronicity. By the lakeshore at Bollingen, Jung had found a snake that had choked in the act of swallowing a fish; both animals died. At the time Jung had been working on the symbolic relationship of the fish in Christianity and the snake in Alchemy. This incident struck a chord with me as the snake in my garden was at the edge of the pond but managed to swallow the fish, which was alive for several hours as its tail fin moved back and forth. I had not observed such an event before or after this occurrence."
David H. Rosen
College Station, Texas
