When applied to spiritual direction, the ancient concept of temenos particularly offers a revealing and helpful metaphor for the sacred relational field that takes place between director and directee.

In my earlier article on The Spiritual Life and our Shadow, I describe the Jungian under-standing of how we learn, from early childhood, to suppress aspects of ourselves deemed unacceptable to our culture and context. They remain in our ​ unconscious and can dramatically influence our daily lives in unseen ways. As we grow up, we receive both subtle and overt messages (from our family, care-givers, peer group, school, religious community, wider society and so on) that cer