Jungian Seminars - 2004
Wrong Turnings & Fateful Detours
Saturday, January 24, 2004
When we look back over our lives, most of us experience at least a few regrets. For some, regret is so profound as to be disabling. Mistakes were made, opportunities missed, harm inflicted, and needless suffering incurred. There is great comfort to be found in Jung’s often-quoted remark that “the right way to wholeness is made up … of fateful detours and wrong turnings.” But what did he mean by that? The right way? Could it be that individuation not only allows but requires us to follow a blundering course through our lives? And how might specific life narratives be re-considered through this lens?
Ecstasy: When the Human and Divine Meet
Saturday, February 14, 2004
Jung once said that when we dream about sexuality we are entertaining, encountering, the gods. There is something about our experience of sexuality, whether in our outer life or in our dream life, that carries with it a certain ecstatic quality. In this seminar we will examine the stories and images of various religious traditions which seek to describe the essence of an experience where the human and the Divine meet intimately. We will also examine contemporary dreams and poetry which address this eternal process.
Sacri-fice: to make sacred
Saturday, March 27, 2004
Fullness of life is often described in terms of “maximizing one’s potential” - as if individuation were a matter of realizing one’s greatest ambitions, or acquiring the most that life has to offer. Yet sacrifice is an archetypal facet of the individuation process. How can life’s necessary sacrifices be understood as contributing to wholeness, rather than diminishing it? Where choice exists, how are we to distinguish between meaningful self-sacrifice and neurotic “co-dependence”? Join us to reflect on traditional images and stories of sacrifice, and to connect these to our own life stories.
“Suddenly I realized”
Saturday, May 1, 2004
We in the West have long valued consciousness as a precious resource unique to humanity. Our zeal for expanding & refining consciousness is boundless. But Jung took delight in exposing an absurd fantasy that may come along with that, namely, that we create our own thoughts. How do we actually experience the emergence of something new into consciousness? Jung likened this process to the budding of a flower which cannot, at first, withstand the direct light of the sun. Is it any wonder, then, that in dreams we so often find ourselves experiencing an “Aha,” a “Eureka!” or one of those moments articulated as, “Suddenly I realized…!” We will examine such dreams, including any that participants may wish to share.
The Poetic Impulse
Saturday, May, 22, 2004
Poetry has been described as the last great amateur activity: a discipline pursued for the sheer love of it. Poetic traditions may become worn out & artificial, but fresh inspiration, living voices, always seem to find their way to the fore. What is the magic of poetry that allows it to be reinvented over & over again with the changing times? What is its power to speak intimately across all cultural barriers? This seminar will not define poetry or consider its technical aspects, but rather will explore the mythic dimensions of Poet & Poem. We look forward to participants’ bringing favorite examples, whether from the classics, hot off the “little magazine” press, or from their own poetic impulses.
“Lessons in Humility:
Saturday, June 19, 2004
When Jung was building his home at Bollingen, he chiseled above the entryway the phrase "Shrine of Philemon — Repentance of Faust." He was recalling the mythic story of how Philemon and his wife showed hospitality to Zeus and Hermes, who were disguised as humble beggars. Jungian analyst Judith Savage contends that “Philemon became the totem figure of Bollingen, symbolizing for Jung the humble respect necessary to successfully host the divine energies present within the human psyche, but which like the gods from an earlier time, are no longer valued in our egoistic world.” This seminar will explore the experience and the necessity of cultivating an attitude of humility as one approaches life, the unconscious and the Self.
“Divine Eros: Krishna and the Gopis”
Saturday, July 17, 2004
Jung believed that individuation, especially in the second half of life, necessarily involves a spiritual dimension. Eastern cultures are rich in stories and images symbolizing this phase of human development. One of the most playful of these is the tale of the god Krishna who, upon assuming the form of a humble village youth, became the obsession of an entire band of female cow-herders (gopis). Like the visions of St. Teresa of Avila, Krishna’s story draws on erotic imagery and emotions, but its tone is as different as East from West. Join us to follow the gopis in their joys and sorrows, and to explore the meaning of this story in contemporary terms.
“Creative Disorientation”
Saturday, August 21, 2004
There comes a time in every life when the transition from one stage of development to the next is bridged by the phenomenon of “creative disorientation.” Although uncomfortable, if not downright terrifying, this experience is often a necessary prelude to establishing a new adaptation to life. Using Jung’s own experience of creative disorientation after his breakup with Freud as our template, we will explore both mythic tales and personal stories to provide us with a way through the wilderness. Participants are invited to reflect on their own periods of creative disorientation, with special attention to dreams, realizations and relationships which helped them to reorient.
The Archetype of the Horse
Saturday, September 25, 2004
The first meetings between man and horse are lost in the fog of pre-history. One early glimpse takes us back perhaps 17,000 years to a cave in southern France, where our ancestors painted a giant equine figure trailing enigmatic markings. (Do they count out the nights of the lunar cycle.? We may never know for sure.) The Horse - however useful as servant, however gratifying as companion - was much more from the very beginning: a magical being with cosmic associations, around whom marvelous stories have been woven. Images of the Horse still stir us in dreams. We will look to some of these dreams and stories to experience how powerful and complex an archetypal image can be, transcending every definition in the symbol dictionaries.
“Something Wicked This Way Comes”
Saturday, October 23, 2004
To encounter Evil in the world can be a shattering experience; meeting Evil in our dreams is disturbing in a different way. Jung suggested that we interpret everything in a dream as an aspect of the dreamer‘s psyche. Do I, then, carry Evil within me? Does Evil reside somewhere in every individual as part of the universal human endowment? Join us to explore images of Evil in dreams (you are invited to bring your own) - but also to have some fun with Shakespeare’s infamous witches on the moors of Scotland.
Carrying Your Pathology Well
Saturday, November 13, 2004
Even with a strong commitment to our own individuation, each of us encounters limits in the “wholeness” we are able to achieve. Human limitation is something we are often able to acknowledge in religious life, where learning to carry one’s imperfections with integrity is a virtue in its own right. Psychology, however, sometimes promotes a more naïve and utopian view, setting up perfect “health” as the goal at which one ought to arrive. Jungian terms such as “individuation” and “wholeness” have been commandeered to express that ideal. By contrast, psychoanalysis in the Jungian tradition is particularly accepting of individuals in the place where they find themselves. Recovering Jung’s original sense of individuation as a process may be a first step towards the self-acceptance that actually makes individuation possible.
The Divine Child
Saturday, December 11, 2004
One of the most vivid and potent archetypes operating in Western culture is that of the Divine Child. It influences the way we think about everything from our actual children to the creative process and the way in which spiritual forces enter our world. “The Inner Child” has become a favorite phrase in pop psychology - as well as a favorite object of ridicule among skeptics. As the festival of the Divine Child approaches this December, let us consider what this archetypal image carries - for each of us personally, as well as collectively.