Season: Spring 2001

Writing as Spiritual Practice

Poetry has been an expression of soul, a way to sing praise, lament, invoke, tell stories, pray, since the beginning of human culture. Poets keep their ears to the ground of the changing myth; they are the instruments on which the gods play their music. It is the poets who can guide us in a time like our own, when the myths are changing. Poets know how to follow the waves of the cultural unconscious, how to fish in the vast waters of the collective unconscious, bringing up treasure from the deep.

This talk is an act of imagination, an articulation of an inner dialogue with the poetic Self. We will consider what poetry has to do with Jungian analysis. We will listen to the news as told by the poets, especially those who are bringing the goddess back to consciousness.

Writing as Spiritual Practice

Creating a regular space to find words that express our deepest nature is a spiritual practice. We give a name to the wild thing that leaps to mind; we give voice to the stranger in our dreams; we follow the path of our own sacred words.

In this workshop we will discuss how to develop a writing practice. We will listen to poems that express the sacred and use writing exercises to open ourselves to the language of soul. Participants are asked to bring a poem they love, their own or someone else’s, that expresses a connection to the sacred.

“Testing the Spirits” – False Prophets and True Healers in the Old Age and in the New Age

The title alludes to a saying from the Christian Bible. In its original context, the advice to test the “spirits” implies a warning about the many varieties of spirituality promoted in the second-century world, and it offers a warning against trusting every so-called “spirit” that advertises itself as healing. Discernment is necessary. But how can one tell one “spirit” from another?

This presentation will explore responses to this question from religious traditions and also from contemporary depth psychology, since in these first days of a new millennium there are as many winds of “spirit” blowing as there were two thousand years ago. Today there is talk about this “spirituality” and that one in many realms: politics, media, religions, New Age spirituality, advertising and athletics. How is one to judge what is going on spiritually in our time? This is as perplexing a problem now as when C.G. Jung wrote in 1928: “I believe that the spirit is a dangerous thing and I do not believe in its paramouncy!”

“My Name is Legion” – Archetypal Images of Spirit

Some depth psychologists have avoided talk about the “spirit,” preferring instead to speak about soul. But archetypal psychology may have much to teach about images of so-called “spirits,” and especially about its shadow side, that is, about the dangers of spirituality to the individual and collective psyche. This workshop will explore the varieties of “spiritual” experience in everyday life and the different ways such experience is imagined. Ancient myths and religions will be explored for their stored-up treasury of images of “spirit” — images such as “wind,” “breath,” “fire,” “frogs” and “pigs.”

Archetypal Silence: The Mother of Soul

In Gnostic myth, Sige, Silence, is the mother of Sophia, the Soul of the World. Silence is the medium, the matrix of soul life. We know when we are in soul when we experience an inner silence, even though we may be speaking with others or there are sounds around us. Silence is an autonomous phenomenon, more like a region we can learn to step into than simply the absence of noise. This weekend explores Silence as basic to soul experience.

The evening lecture explores the barriers to the region of silence through the imagery of the Isenheim Altar and some of the writing of St. Anthony the Great. We will see that we have to find the gateway to Silence. Guardians have to be met and faced. How these guardians function in the present world is presented, along with suggestions concerning how to recognize them and how to honor their autonomy.

Archetypal Silence: The Mother of Soul

The workshop explores the spiritual psychology of Silence. We will recover the importance of Silence for the life of images, prayer, healthy soul life, inner contemplation and for the speaking of the heart. The nature of Silence is described and differentiated from solitude along with how Silence belongs to creative speaking, the therapeutic relationship and a presence to the Soul of the World. Specific imaginal exercises will be presented that help develop sensitivity to the many layers of Silence and how to tell where you are in the region of Silence. We’ll also discuss how the rhythm of Silence opens and deepens intimate relationships and professional life.

Origins of Analytical Psychology in the United States

Jung’s analytical psychology has developed in many places in the United States and in the world. Much of the spread has been during the past quarter century. As we enter into the twenty-first century, there has been a tendency not to remember how analytical psychology developed in this country. It is the purpose of this talk to briefly review the founding of analytical psychology in three areas: New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. These were the three areas in the United States where Jung’s psychology developed during the lifetime of Jung, and as a result, he influenced how these professional groups developed. In these localities the founders had had their analyses with Jung, which had an important bearing on how each professional society developed. This talk will be illustrated with photos of the founders of the different Jungian societies. Implications for the state of analytical psychology today will be presented.

Working With Dreams

The half-day workshop will focus on a general study of dreams. It will begin with an overview of the scientific findings – the discovery of Rapid Eye Movement and its relationship to analytical psychology. The workshop will continue with an overview of Jung’s theory of dreams. To illustrate archetypal themes, initial dreams will be discussed and interpreted from different vantage points.

Orphanos Exoikos: The Precarious Possibility of Wholeness

The workshop will amplify the lecture’s exploration through work on dreams and a fairy tale. This approach to the neurotic and the healthy orphan amplifies Jung’s pre-occupation with “being all alone in the world,” ie. individuation.

Archetypal Manifestations in the Individuation Process

“The body is merely the visibility of the soul, the psyche; and the soul is the psychological experience of the body. So it is really one and the same thing.” (Jung, Zarathustra Seminars, p. 355.)

Individuation is a second half of life process when we consciously return to our personal unconscious and our archetypal roots. We know much about working with personal unconscious material. Jung, however, pushes deeper in his work and invites us to research and work with archetypal forces that manifest in our personal process. These experiences are often pathologized, although they have been experienced, observed and discussed since the beginning of human consciousness. This lecture will discuss the importance of recognizing, witnessing and containing these archetypal energies when they become embodied and emerge in our lives and in our analysis. Case material and video clips will help to illustrate the subject matter.

Body and Soul: A Spiral Dance

Body and soul are inseparable and mirror each other. Our bodies contain instinctual wisdom that we have been trained to ignore. In this workshop we will encourage a dialogue between the conscious and the unconscious (body) through a gentle non-structured movement meditation. To become whole we must go beyond learned patterns. If we listen deeply to our natural rhythms, movements, sounds and images, we can become more fully embodied and heal the rift between psyche and soma, body and soul. Verbal sharing will aid us in beginning to integrate our experience. Prior movement experience is not necessary. Wear comfortable clothes to allow ease of movement for this event. This workshop is limited to 24 participants.

Special Film Seminar Weekend: “The Way of the Dream”

This unique documentary, produced and directed by Fraser Boa, is a series of 20 half-hour films on the dreams of ordinary people.

Included in this series is a montage of people around the world responding to three questions: Do you dream? Do you think your dreams are important? Can you recall a dream? The film crew traveled over 25,000 miles, to Canada, England, France, Switzerland and the United States, for these spontaneous reactions.

The basic structure of the series is a more formal telling of personal dreams by a smaller group of men and women followed with interpretations of these dreams by Dr. von Franz. Certain motifs and archetypes are illustrated in these dreams and include : The male shadow; the negative and positive anima; patterns in dreams; the female shadow; negative and positive animus; dreams of our culture; dreams of relationships; dreams of The Self. Some of segment titles are: The Devouring Mother, The Inner Bride, The Hanged Man, and Hell Has No Mirrors.

Our The Way of the Dream weekend will include discussions led by local Jungian analysts. Though the film is segmented, it is continuous thematically and the two-day attendance is encouraged. This is the first showing of Boa’s film in Oregon in over ten years, a rare opportunity for our community.

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