wings
Within the depth-psychology corpus, ‘Wing’ operates across at least three distinct registers that occasionally illuminate one another. In Jung’s autobiographical writing, the wing functions as an architectural metaphor for the unconscious: the unknown annex of a house that one has never entered, discovered only in dream, and found to contain precisely those alchemical and symbolic materials that will later animate decades of research. Here the wing is a spatial figure for psychic extension — the dimension of selfhood not yet inhabited. In the I Ching commentarial tradition, ‘Wing’ designates the classical Ten Wings (Shih I), the interpretive appendices attributed to Confucius, and individual wings are numbered and referenced precisely as hermeneutical layers superimposed upon the hexagram texts; this usage is technical and structural rather than imaginal. A third register — equally technical but institutionally grounded — appears in Bion’s wartime group-therapy experiments, where ‘training wing’ names a specific organizational and therapeutic unit whose esprit de corps becomes evidence for group-psychological dynamics. The etymological tradition, represented by Beekes, supplies the Indo-European substrate linking feather, flight, and spiritual aspiration. Across all these registers the term marks a relation between bounded structure and potential movement — the wing as what enables ascent, extension, or access to otherwise unreachable territory.
The unknown wing of the house was a part of my personality, an aspect of myself; it represented something that belonged to me but of which I was not yet conscious.
Jung interprets the dream-wing as an architectural symbol for an unconscious psychic region, specifically the sector of the self that harbors alchemical knowledge awaiting discovery.
, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, 1963thesis
Fifth Wing, Sixth Wing. Passages of this commentary are to be found repeated in bk. III, as ‘Appended Judgments.’
Wilhelm’s editorial notes treat ‘Wing’ as the canonical designation for the numbered commentarial appendices of the I Ching, establishing a precise textual and hermeneutical function for the term.
, The I Ching or Book of Changes, 1950supporting
Fifth Wing, Sixth Wing. Passages of this commentary are to be found repeated in bk. III, as ‘Appended Judgments.’
The Wilhelm/Baynes translation confirms the Wings as numbered strata of I Ching commentary, linking them to the logos/eros polarity and to the principles of the Creative and the Receptive.
, The I Ching or Book of Changes, 1950supporting
Hsü Kua: Ninth Wing. There is no text of this wing for the first two hexagrams.
The Ninth Wing (Sequence of Hexagrams) is identified as a structurally absent commentary for the opening hexagrams, revealing that individual Wings vary in coverage and completeness.
, The I Ching or Book of Changes, 1950supporting
Hsü Kua: Ninth Wing. There is no text of this wing for the first two hexagrams.
Baynes and Wilhelm jointly document the Ninth Wing’s lacunae, underscoring the Wings as a heterogeneous, historically layered apparatus rather than a seamless commentary.
, The I Ching or Book of Changes, 1950supporting
1st & 2nd Wings, T’UAN CHUAN … 8th Wing, SHUO KUA … 9th Wing, TSA KUA
Ritsema and Karcher’s comparative table maps each of the Ten Wings to specific textual components of the hexagram, situating ‘Wing’ as a technical unit of I Ching hermeneutics.
, I Ching: The Classic Chinese Oracle of Change, 1994supporting
Brightness Hiding tending-towards flying. Drooping one’s wings.
In the hexagram Brightness Hiding, drooping wings image the deliberate concealment of luminous power — a psychologically resonant trope linking flight-capacity to the ethics of self-effacement.
, I Ching: The Classic Chinese Oracle of Change, 1994supporting
the organization could be used to further the main aim of the training wing—the education and training of the community in the problems of inter
Bion uses ‘training wing’ as the institutional name for his therapeutic community experiment, making the wing a bounded social space within which group-psychological dynamics are deliberately cultivated.
, Experiences in Groups and Other Papers, 1959supporting
patients not in the training wing became anxious to come over to it; and despite the changing population, the wing had an unmistakable esprit de corps
The training wing generates spontaneous group cohesion and draws outsiders toward it, demonstrating that an institutional wing can function as a psychological attractor with its own group identity.
, Experiences in Groups and Other Papers, 1959supporting
The hexagram has the form of a flying bird. ‘The flying bird brings the message: It is not well to strive upward, it is well to remain below.’
The flying-bird image — whose wings carry cosmological meaning — is interpreted as a counsel of restraint, reversing the common upward valuation of winged flight.
, The I Ching or Book of Changes, 1950supporting
The question is placed at the very tip of the butterfly’s right wing, where the motor force is most intense. Love gives wings!
In Jodorowsky’s Tarot spread, the wing-tip marks the point of maximum energetic intensity, using the winged body as a divinatory spatial metaphor for love’s impulsive momentum.
, The Way of Tarot: The Spiritual Teacher in the Cards, 2004aside
The word for ‘feather’ or ‘wing’ is derived from the verb for ‘fly’ … A heteroclitic stem is found in Hitt. pattar (also pittar) [n.], gen.pl. -an-as.
Beekes traces the Indo-European root of ‘wing/feather’ to the verb for flight, establishing the etymological unity of wing, feather, and aerial motion across ancient languages.
, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, 2010aside
Its feathers permit availing-of activating fundamentals. Significant. … Feathers, YU: wings, plumes; feathered; quick, flying.
The I Ching gloss equates feathers with wings as symbols of swift spiritual aspiration, linking the physical attribute of flight to the activation of primal principles.
, I Ching: The Classic Chinese Oracle of Change, 1994aside
were to keep on flying without ever stopping, where would it ever find a place to rest? Such a one brings disaster upon himself
Wang Bi interprets ceaseless winged flight as self-destructive overreach, warning that the wing’s power requires the discipline of rest and grounded restraint.
, The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi, 1994aside