The tree that called my name: on the significance of encountering the constellated symbol in the natural, other‐than‐human, world

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>In this paper I explore what it means to encounter the symbol as a meaningful object, or process, within the environment of the other‐than‐human. Using Jung’s account in ‘The spirit mercurius’ of an enlisted Indigenous soldier who attempts to desert his barracks on hearing a native <jats:italic>Oji</jats:italic> tree calling him, I compare the evolving stages of consciousness theorised by Jung to explain this phenomenon with the progression discussed by him in his commentary on Dorn’s <jats:italic>coniunctio</jats:italic>. My aim is to clarify Jung’s understanding of the symbolically constellated and ‘undifferentiated’ worldview of what Jung calls the ‘primitive’. I also draw on the work of Spitzform, Searles, Roszak, Fisher, Chalquist, Prentice and Rust in relation to the emerging field of ecopsychology, where consideration of a fundamental link between psychological and material existence – between psyche and <jats:italic>ecos</jats:italic> – has been proposed as an essential component of psychological theory, and in which our alienation from our natural surroundings has been identified as pathological. I include observations from my own experience of working therapeutically with clients in outdoor settings and I ask how a more ecosystemically integrated sense of self might be sought for a psyche that encounters symbolic material within its containing environment.</jats:p>