In the winter of 1944 Jung lost his footing when out walking, fell, and broke his foot. Perhaps the symbolic significance of losing his footing contributed to his suffering a heart attack shortly thereafter. For several weeks he hovered in a liminal state, on the threshold of death, often with the feeling of being way above the Earth in an altered state entirely. He was certainly in a mystical condition, in an out of body near-death situation. The down-to-earth reality of the daily hospital routines irritated him intensely and about the only time he experienced a complete relief from the vagaries of his illness was late at night when the night nurse brought him some soup. Perhaps she brought him chicken soup, a symbolic cure-all that Jewish mothers will tell us cannot hurt, and it might even do some good. Jung even fancied that the nurse was an old Jewish mother figure, preparing ritual kosher dishes for him. And only then was Jung able to eat, and with appetite, as he describes it in his Memories, Dreams, Reflections.
