Leaping With the Fool Archetype
One of the most important tasks of the Fool is to learn to leap. When we look at a tarot deck, we see the Fool standing on the edge of a cliff, ready to leap. Leaping is no small feat. But without learning to leap we become fearful. We stay stuck in situations that we outgrow, stay with people that limit us, and environments that no longer inspire us. Leaping means we stay alive and awake in the journey of becoming.’
Dante’s Divine Comedy
Imagine the poem as a vessel containing the prima materia of soul life. Dante’s poem is an opportunity to allow a deepening into our own story, our own narrative, by the imaginal power of analogy. One writer I read years ago spoke of poetry allowing us to enter our own “spiritual unconscious,” with whatever poem we are reading as our guide.
Sufism and the Way of Blame
The Sufis would actively create circumstances in which they were blamed for not acting piously or ethically. The object was to shatter the false image that they or the society had created for them. In this way a master would show disciples that they had been more devoted to an idol or image they had created in their minds, than to the actual spiritual guide.
Living in Balance with Nature
Humans hold within their hands the ability to insure a flourishing future for all life on Earth. Essential to accomplishing this task is the need to create and implement new technologies and economic systems both locally and globally. However, to achieve this task with minimal shadow effects, we need a transformation of consciousness that enables us to live in true balance with the natural world.
Psychotherapy: Learn What to Expect
When things feel so dark, it’s hard to see our way out from under it all. It’s one thing to know the dangers of getting stuck in that sort of thinking, but it’s quite another to move through it into a transformed state of consciousness, where meaning can be found. Such a journey is a tall order and one that we may not be able to take on our own.
Self Recognition
Our body’s deep sensitivity is calling us home. Yet home is not somewhere, some when, or something other than what is already wholly present now. Our true nature is not some inner state that will be found in the future. It is always here and now, unbounded by space or time. It can never be objectified.
The Essence of Your Inner Critic
The Critic evaluates your inner and outer landscapes. It propels you to take action with respect to your body and overall health, money, career, or relationships. Your Critic is very vocal in enforcing the rules of your early institutions, including family, church, and school. It is committed to your success by ensuring that you fit in.
Why Most Dreams End in Obscurity
For decades, I was enamored by dreams and faithfully recorded them, hoping for insight into what they were attempting to tell me. But, most of my dreams remained elusive in meaning.This changed at age 39, long after I had earned my Ph.D. in psychology. I was fortunate to find a gifted dreamworker who opened the astonishing world of dreaming to me. Here I share a few insights that have rescued my dreams from falling into obscurity.
Breaking the Spell of Time
Living myths are always nearby waiting to be rediscovered. They are able to reveal truths that shed light upon the past as well as illuminate the present moment in time. Myths are intended to break the spell of time and release us from the immediate pressures and limitations of daily life.
Do We Benefit from Dreams?
There are varying schools of thought from, at one end of the spectrum, the notion that dreams don’t do anything for us at all to the idea that dreams are a piece of unfinished process that moves us forward only when we revisit the dream and allow it to complete. The middle road is the notion that dreams are useful in and of themselves but are more beneficial if you work with them in some way.
The Yearning to Create: A Universal Impulse
One of the most interesting recognitions we discovered is that, at its most basic level, creativity is an attitude.
Walking the Path of Individuation
Jung dedicated his life to understanding the nuances of the psyche, the typical patterns and dynamics that influence each of us on personal, collective and archetypal levels. Like the psychopomps of mythology, Jung’s work guided me deeper to my soul, and I believe he can for others as well.
