As the established religious traditions and worldviews pass away or lose their persuasive power, what, if anything, might serve as a shared framework of meaning to illuminate our individual and collective experience? What, many of us wonder, might be the nature of a mythology to come? In this talk, we will consider the role of an archetypal astrology as a cosmological perspective that could help us better understand our relationship to the universal powers and principles shaping our experience and provide mythic orientation for our lives.
Season: Spring 2022
The Way of the Archetypes: Using Archetypal Astrology as a Guide to Individuation
By considering examples in film, music, and literature, and with reference to our own astrological birth charts, in this workshop we will explore how to use archetypal astrology to understand the major themes and experiences of our lives. We will focus on the archetypal principles associated with Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, each of which is profoundly consequential for individuation, moving us towards psychological maturity, creative awakening, spiritual realization, and deep transformation.
Psyche’s Stories: Wisdom from the Depths
for the Spirit of the Times
Oregon Friends of Jung, in partnership with The Pacific Northwest Society of Jungian Analysts, continues our series of seminars designed to deepen your knowledge of Jungian psychology. You’ll have an opportunity to learn from and engage with Analysts who are experts in their fields.
Registration is now open for the Winter 2022 online seminar: Psyche’s Stories: Wisdom from the Depths for the Spirit of the Times. In keeping with our entire 2021-2022 Lecture series, the seminar will be held online, via Zoom Meeting. Attendance is limited to 15 participants.
Please see the seminar description below for details and registration information.
Psyche’s Stories: Wisdom from the Depths for the Spirit of the Times
C.G. Jung’s revelation of the mytho-poetic dimension of the human psyche, i.e., its story-making structure, gave credence to his hypothesis of the collective unconscious, its archetypal images and their healing intent. In this seminar, we explore the wisdom hidden in the Scottish fairy tale Maol a Chliobain and in the ancient myth Amor and Psyche. Together, we will discover how these age-old stories can provide solace, meaning and guidance during times of upheaval and transition.
In Maol a Chliobain, we ask what it means to receive a mother’s blessing or curse; we feel into being tied to a rock and left behind; we recognize the pattern of moving into and out of a Giant’s laird without being caught…and then link these symbolic images to Jungian concepts such as the formation of one’s shadow and psychological complexes, the cultivation of one’s anima and animus, and the individuation process itself. Our aim is to cultivate symbolic perception and apply it to everyday life.
In Amor and Psyche we behold Aphrodite, the great goddess of love and beauty, and wonder at the torture she makes Psyche endure for usurping her claim to being the most beautiful. We ponder whether there’s more to this story than Aphrodite’s jealous claim and whether the outrageous behavior of this Greek goddess, like that of many other Greek gods, actually has something of great importance to impart. Finally, we look for the reverberations of Amor and Psyche in modern stories and films to understand their hold on us and to identify new variations on the ancient themes.
Reading assignments and material will be made available to all participants in advance of the sessions.
Dates and Times
- Sundays from 1:00 – 3:00 pm
Schedule
Maol a Chliobain: A Scottish Fairytale
- January 30, 2022 – Jenny Gordon
- February 6 – Jenny Gordon
- February 13 – Jenny Gordon
The Ancient Myth of Amor and Psyche
- February 27 – Diana Oxley
- March 6 – Diana Oxley
- March 13 – Diana Oxley
Cost
- 12 hours of instruction: $195 (OFJ members: $185)
- Sorry, we are unable to offer refunds.
- Continuing Education Credits are available, with one hour of CE credit for each hour of attendance. CEUs will be available for purchase
,at a cost of $15, which will cover all CEUs earned over the six-session seminar.
Seminar Size
- Attendance is limited to 15 people
- If seminar fills, and you would like to be added to our wait-list, please write us at [email protected]. If you have any questions, please call 503-223-3080.
Seminar Leaders
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Jenny Gordon, Ph.D., graduated from the C.G. Jung Institute, Zurich, in 1996, and returned to her hometown of Eugene, Oregon. For the past 25 years, she has supplemented her private practice by offering fairy tale seminars, dream group retreats, and lectures on topics as varied as music and climate change. She is co-founder of Eugene Friends of Jung and a member of the Pacific Northwest Society of Jungian Analysts. |
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Diana Oxley, Ph.D., LPC, received her diploma in Jungian psychotherapy from the C.G. Jung Institute, Zurich, in 2019 and has been in practice since 2015. She maintains an office in Multnomah Village and is a member of the Pacific Northwest Society of Jungian Analysts. |
Archetypes, Aesthetics & Culture in the Art of African Diaspora
This talk lays the foundation for understanding the universal nature of archetypes and their environmental expressions in personal and collective cultural complexes that are mediated by the environmental culture. We take the archetype of the Life Cycle, common to all living beings, and ground it in visual arts as expressions of the aesthetics, art, and culture of the African Diaspora. We’ll explore how the commonalities and differences in Pan African sculpture, as metaphor, bridge consciousness to multiculturalism and world view.
Jung, Jurisprudence & Psyche: Imagining the Good Society
In this workshop we look at the U.S. political economy through the Kemetic-Egyptian Myth of MAAT, an Archetype of Justice, Judgement and orderly Judicial Proceedings. The myth offers the example of spirit and matter integrated in law and political economy. We use this myth and its teachings to interrogate legislative initiatives in the For the Peoples’ Act and the John Lewis Act. We then explore Jung’s construct of Active Imagination to construct images of the good society. We will imagine together core elements of the good society, Multicultural democracy and the psychological resistances that undermine the architecture of the vision.
Relationship as a Spiritual Path: The Present Heart
Love always guarantees a broken heart. No matter how else it functions in our lives, love will include loss, separation or betrayal. In this lecture I will address the question, “What is love, anyway?” We will talk about loss in the context of the Buddha’s teachings about reality. This lecture presents a new context for personal love as a spiritual practice of deep acceptance of the human condition.
Relationship as a Spiritual Path: Love Between Equals
We want a new kind of love in the 21st century. In relationships, we want to be treated as equals and to be seen and known for ourselves. Equal and reciprocal love between adults, in marriage and committed partnerships, is in many ways more problematic and unhappy now than ever, after decades of struggle for gender equality and sexual freedom. 21st century love requires new psychological and spiritual skills that are go beyond secure attachment or “improved communication.”
This day-long workshop will show specifically how and why well-meaning couples who “know how to communicate” still get caught up in harmful emotional patterns if they do not understand their inner lives, as individuals. Real dialogue requires the creation of a “mindful gap” in which partners relate as adults who recognize and take responsibility for their own thoughts and feelings.
Drawing on object relations, Jungian theory, Dialogue Therapy (originated and practiced by the speaker), as well as mindfulness and Buddhist teachings, this workshop will give an overview of what has to happen in order for couples to change their emotional behavior and learn how “mind the gap” between them with respect and compassion.
Reciprocity: What We’ve Always Known
We are in the process of entering a new reality paradigm, a new psychic reality that calls for a reorientation to the way we see, think, learn, and behave. Through fire, floods, disease, and other increasingly chaotic events, the planet and all of nature is telling us, desperately communicating to us that we are not in control; we can no longer dominate without impunity; we can no longer get away with murder. The laws of nature suggest that in addition to dominion, reciprocity is also an integral psychic dynamic, a part of life that we’ve always known but seem to have forgotten. We need to be reminded. How do we encourage a realignment with and actively engage reciprocity?
Reciprocity: What We’ve Always Known
Building on Friday’s lecture concerning the dynamics of dominion and reciprocity, our time together will be spent exploring both the theoretical and experiential ways the psychic dynamic of reciprocity demands our attention. Through prompts made to provoke, engage, and agitate, we will solicit and share experiences of reciprocity through active imagination, images, and storytelling. This asks for active participation with these materials. In addition, we will investigate how human-animal transformation in Indigenous myth illustrates how necessary this relationship is to establishing reciprocity with land, animals, and all spirit beings.