Chicken Little: The Inside Story (A Jungian ... - Inner City Books

16 Chicken Little: The Inside Story
intriguing Axiom of Maria?—
One becomes two, two becomes three, and out of the third comes the
One as the fourth. 24
From there, according to Brillig, it is but a short step to Jung’s
theory of neurosis, his views on psychic energy, and the mysterious
tertium non datur or transcendent function. I concur. 25
The clamor reached Ducky Lucky, working in his garden. “What’s
this cackling all about?” he demanded.
“The sky is falling!” cried Henny Penny. “A piece of it hit
Chicken Little on the head!”
“That’s terrible!” squawked Ducky Lucky.
And together they all three wailed: “Help! Police! The sky is falling!”
Their alarums were heard by Goosey Lucy and Gosling Gilbert.
“What’s that?” asked Goosey Lucy and Gosling Gilbert.
“The sky is falling!” cried Ducky Lucky. “A piece of it hit
Chicken Little on the head!”
“That’s terrible!” squawked Goosey Lucy and Gosling Gilbert.
And now all five wailed: “Help! Police! The sky is falling!”
What a tight concoction. Three new characters—all aspects, psychologically,
of Chicken Little herself. Ducky Lucky, whatever his
sexual proclivities, is easily seen as an instinctual animus, close to
the earth; Goosey Lucy is perhaps a symbolic allusion to the flighty
feminine; and Gosling Gilbert, well, what else could he be but her
neglected inner child, the potential source of creative energy, yet
still buried in an avalanche of civilized accretions? And all seeking
help. In Jung’s words:
Too much of the animal distorts the civilized [wo]man, too much
civilization makes sick animals. 26
—giving further credence, I think, to Brillig’s seminal notes on
24 See Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, CW 12, par. 209. My own interpretation of
this alchemical dictum is presented in Getting To Know You: The Inside Out of
Relationship, pp. 86-87.
25 See my outline in The Survival Papers: Anatomy of a Midlife Crisis, pp. 11-29,
and Jung Lexicon, pp. 133-136.
26 “The Eros Theory,” Two Essays, CW 7, par. 32.