After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

Carl Jung? What was this 
guy getting at?
“Carl Jung the psychologist?” 
“Exactly.” 
“I know a little about him,” Ushikawa said carefully. “He was born at the end of 
the nineteenth century in Switzerland. He was a disciple of Freud’s, but broke with 
him. He coined the term ‘collective unconscious.’ That’s about all I know.” 
“That’s plenty,” Tamaru said. 
Ushikawa waited for him to continue. 
“Carl Jung,” Tamaru said, “had an elegant house in a quiet lakeside residential area 
of Zurich, and lived an affluent life with his family. But he needed a place where he 
could be alone in order to meditate on weighty issues. He found a small parcel of land 
on one corner of the lake in an area called Bollingen and built a small house there. 
Not exactly a villa or anything that grand. He piled the stones one by one himself and 
constructed a round house with high ceilings. The stones had been taken from a 
nearby quarry. In those days in Switzerland you had to have a stonemason’s license in 
order to build anything out of stone, so Jung went to the trouble of obtaining a license. 
He even joined the stonemasons’ guild. Building this house, and doing it with his own 
hands, was very important to him. His mother’s death also seemed to be one of the 
major factors that led to him constructing this home.” 
Tamaru paused for a moment. 
“This house was dubbed the ‘Tower.’ He designed it so it resembled the village 
huts he had seen on a trip to Africa. The inside was one big open space where 
everything went on. A very simple residence. He felt this was all one needed to live. 
The house had no electricity, gas, or running water. He got water from the nearby 
mountains. What he found out later, though, was that this was just an archetype and 
nothing else. As time went on, he found it necessary to build partitions and divisions 
in the house, and a second floor, and later he added on several wings. He created 
paintings himself on the wall. These were suggestive of the development and split in 
individual consciousness. The whole house functioned as a sort of three-dimensional 
mandala. It took him twelve years to complete the entire house. For Jungian 
researchers, it’s an extremely intriguing building. Have you heard of this before?” 
Ushikawa shook his head. 
“The house is still standing on the banks of the lake in Zurich. Jung’s descendants 
manage it, but unfortunately it’s not open to the public, so people can’t view the 
interior. Rumor has it, though, that at the entrance to the original tower there is a stone 
into which Jung carved some words with his own hand. ‘Cold or Not, God Is Present.’ 
That’s what he carved into the stone himself.” 
Tamaru paused again. 
“ ‘Cold or Not, God Is Present,’ ” he intoned, quietly, once more. 
“Do you know what this means?” 
Ushikawa shook his head. “No, I don’t.” 
“I can imagine. I’m not sure myself what it means. There’s some kind of deep 
allusion there, something difficult to interpret. But consider this: in this house that 
Carl Jung built, piling up the stones with his own hands, at the very entrance, he 
found the need to chisel out, again with his own hands, these words. I don’t know 

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why, but I’ve been drawn to these words for a long time. I find them hard to 
understand, but the difficulty in understanding makes it all the more profound. I don’t 
know much about God. I was raised in a Catholic orphanage and had some awful 
experiences there so I don’t have a good impression of God. And it was always cold 
there, even in the summer. It was either really cold or outrageously cold. One or the 
other. If there is a God, I can’t say he treated me very well. Despite all this, those 
words of Jung’s quietly sank deep into the folds of my soul. Sometimes I close my 
eyes and repeat them over and over, and they make me strangely calm. ‘Cold or Not, 
God Is Present.’ Sorry, but could you say that out loud?” 
“ ‘Cold or Not, God Is Present,’ ” Ushikawa repeated in a weak voice, not really 
sure what he was saying. 
“I can’t hear you very well.” 
“ ‘Cold or Not, God Is Present.’ ” This time Ushikawa said it as distinctly as he 
could. 
Tamaru shut his eyes, enjoying the overtones of the words. Eventually, as if he had 
made up his mind about something, he took a deep breath and let it out. He opened his 
eyes and looked at his hands. He had on disposable latex gloves so he wouldn’t leave 
behind any fingerprints. 
“I’m sorry about this,” Tamaru said in a low voice. His tone was solemn. He took 
out the plastic bag again, put it over Ushikawa’s head, and wrapped the thick rubber 
band around his neck. His movements were swift and decisive. Ushikawa was about 
to protest, but the words didn’t form, and they never reached anyone’s ears.