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Australian Aboriginal Dreaming: How It Works and What it Has to Teach Us
November 13, 1998 @ 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm PST
You may be familiar with the concept of the Australian Aboriginal Dreaming or creation stories through Bruce Chatwin’s novel The Song Lines, or through Australian Aboriginal art works or popular films and novels which convey something of the mystery and exoticism of Aboriginal Culture. This illustrated lecture will help introduce people who live on the American continent to the way the Australian continent has been imagined and constructed (made) by the Aboriginal Creation ancestors. The Dreaming is a very pragmatic way of telling stories, encoding cultural and ecological knowledge and ensuring the physical and spiritual survival of the groups of nomadic peoples who inhabited Australia for tens of thousands of years. Craig San Roque will explain how the dreaming works and what the aboriginal creation stories have to teach contemporary peoples (of any culture). Drawing upon extensive on-the-ground experience in central Australia, upon friendships with Aboriginal people, and upon a Jungian psychological background, he will attempt to give as straightforward account as possible of what the dreaming is and what it is not. This will involve some demystification and also some stories on intercultural ethics
Related Workshop: “Dead Drunk, Good God”: The Myth of Dionysus as a Basis for Understanding and Dealing With Substance Abuse
Craig San Roque, Ph.D., is a Jungian analyst trained in London who currently lives and works in Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia. In addition to his psychoanalytic practice he works in alcohol and substance abuse treatments with the indigenous people of his native land. He is currently serving as president of the Australian/New Zealand Society of Jungian Analysts.