CATEGORY: MORE PORT TOWNSEND

Dorothy Adams came to Washington from Southern California.  She bought two acres on a hill northwest of Sequim with a fabulous view of the Olympic Mountains looking south across the Nehalem Valley, and hired me to design her house.  I had been recommended to her by her old friend Janet Dallet, a Jungian psychologist, also from Southern California.

Like Janet, Dorothy was a follower of Carl Jung.  She was fifteen years older than I, but we became good friends.  She was blunt and straight forward with a commanding personality, enhanced by an imposing physique.  She was six feet tall with light gray hair done in a style that added an extra two inches.  She was an artist who was wealthy from investments, so she didn’t need to sell her work to make a living.  She created anything she felt like creating with her art.  “Felt” is the key word here, because her Jungian training had taught her, above all else, to follow her deepest feelings and instincts.  She was what I called “a devout Jungian.”  She recorded all her dreams.  Once a month, or sometimes every week, she had a phone session with her Jungian psychologist in California during which they analyzed her dreams and examined the connection between them and what was going on in her life.  She never made any important decisions without going through this process.

She told me how Jungian psychology had turned her life around.  She had been chronically ill and stuck in a dead end, low paying job when she discovered Carl Jung.  She started reading his books, then found a psychologist and went through the first round of sessions, scrimping out the money from her meager salary.  Her life started to change for the better and she dedicated herself to that method of “listening to her inner self.”  She ended up as I already said: healthy, wealthy and wise.

It is my belief that this is what religion is really all about.  According to Jung, our sub-conscience is the link to our higher self and knows all that is necessary for our well being.  All we need to know is how to hear our own voice, listen to it and interpret it.  I think of Dorothy as someone who lived a completely fulfilled life.