Psychoanalysis and the unconscious

by D. H. Lawrence

The breasts themselves are as two eyes. We do not know how much the nipples of the breast, both in man and woman, serve primarily as poles of vital conscious effluence and connection. We do not know how the nipples of the breast are as fountains leaping into the universe, or as little lamps irradiating the contiguous world, to the soul in quest.

But certainly from the passional conscious-center of the breast goes forth the first joyous discovery of the beloved, the first objective discovery of the contiguous universe, the first ministration of the self to that which is beyond the self. So, functionally, the mother ministers with the milk of her breast. But this is a yielding to the great lower plexus, the basic solar plexus. It is the breast as part also of the alimentary system—a special thing.

In sucking the hands also come awake. It is strange to notice the pictures by the old masters of the Madonna and Child. Sometimes the strange round belly of the Infant seems the predominant mystery-center, and sometimes from the tiny breast it is as if a delicate light glowed, the light of love. As if the breast should illumine the outer world in its seeking administering love. As if the breast of the Infant glimmered its light of discovery on the adoring Mother, and she bowed, submissive to the revelation.

The little hands and arms wave, circulate, trying to touch, to grasp, to know. To grasp in caress, not to reive. To grasp in order to identify themselves with the cherished discovery, to realize the beloved. To cherish, to realize the beloved. To administer the outward-seeking self to the beloved. We give this the exclusive name of love. But it is indeed only the one direction of love, the outgoing from the lovely center of the breast—the nipples seeking, the hands delicately, caressively exploring, the eyes at last waking to perception. The eyes, the hands, these wake and are alert from the center of the breast. But the ears and feet move from the deep lower centers—the recipient ears, imbibing vibrations, the feet which press the resistant earth, controlled from the powerful lower ganglia of the spine. And thus great scope of activity opens, in the hands that wave and explore, the eyes that try to perceive, the legs, the little knees that thrust, thrust away, the small feet that curl and twinkle upon themselves, ready for the obstinate earth.

And so, also a wholeness is established within the individual. The two fields of consciousness, the first upper and the first lower, are based upon a correspondence of polarity. The first great complex circuit is now set up within the individual, between the upper and lower centers. The individual consciousness has now its own integral independent existence and activity, apart from external connection. It has its right to be alone.

CHAPTER V
THE LOVER AND THE BELOVED

Consciousness develops on successive planes. On each plane there is the dual polarity, positive and negative, of the sympathetic and voluntary nerve centers. The first plane is established between the poles of the sympathetic solar plexus and the voluntary lumbar ganglion. This is the active first plane of the subjective unconscious, from which the whole of consciousness arises.

Immediately succeeding the first plane of subjective dynamic consciousness arises the corresponding first plane of objective consciousness, the objective unconscious, polarized in the cardiac plexus and the thoracic ganglion, in the breast. There is a perfect correspondence in difference between the first abdominal and the first thoracic planes. These two planes polarize each other in a fourfold polarity, which makes the first great field of individual, self-dependent consciousness.

Each pole of the active unconscious manifests a specific activity and gives rise to a specific kind of dynamic or creative consciousness. On each plane, the negative voluntary pole complements the positive sympathetic pole, and yet the consciousness originating from the complementary poles is not merely negative versus positive, it is categorically different, opposite. Each is pure and perfect in itself.

But the moment we enter the two planes of corresponding consciousness, lower and upper, we find a whole new range of complements. The upper, dynamic-objective plane is complementary to the lower, dynamic-subjective. The mystery of creative opposition exists all the time between the two planes, and this unison in opposition between the two planes forms the first whole field of consciousness. Within the individual the polarity is fourfold. In a relation between two individuals the polarity is already eightfold.