BASELINE MOOD & AMPLIFIERS In the past, I’ve written about our baseline mood in life, imagining it as a flat line that represents how we can check in with where we are. This baseline is neutral, neither good nor bad; it is simply a starting point. As things come in and out of our awareness, our … More Fields of Awareness
FEELING ACTIVATION IN A MEDITATION I had an experience in a deep meditation some months back, when the ground was still cold here in Colorado. The practice took place late at night, as I meditated for hours. As usual, I am listening to my meditation music in my studio, working to deepen my practice. There were convincing, … More Unfinished Business
INTRODUCTION I often encourage clients to track the narrative of their lives as we create space to explore their past experiences. Asking someone to track their narrative, I realize, can be at times confusing, as when doing this, I am often asking them to track the details – the story of their life as they see it unfold. This … More Fractals of the Mind
UNCONSCIOUS SHAPING I often talk about different practices in our lives to help ground ourselves and find insight. These practices often center around journaling, meditating, or expression through the arts. Some of this is simply about being present for our lives; another reason is being present for our pain or things we are trying to work on. We … More SHAPING OUR LIVES
In my first article on psychedelics, I explored the background around plant medicines, centering on mushrooms, and considered how a Jungian may navigate the unconscious imagery that rises in a journey. I concluded at what I refer to as Liminal Consciousness. In this second part, I want to explore Liminal levels in greater depth and continue … More A JUNGIAN’S THOUGHTS ON PSYCHEDELICS: PART 2: Trance State
CONTENTS In recent years, there has been an increasing use of psychedelics both recreationally and as a renewed part of psychedelic therapy sessions. Although I do not offer psychedelic sessions as part of my practice, I have made myself available to guide clients in preparing before sessions, and to help integrate a psychedelic experience afterwards. … More A JUNGIAN’S THOUGHTS ON PSYCHEDELICS: Part 1
Awakening the Soul’s blueprint from Aristotle to Jung I’m thinking about the concept of stuckness in life, and how it’s challenging to recognize when we’restuck. We may be stuck in a certain job, a relationship, or a lack of a relationship. We may be stuck with a philosophy of life that is no longer serving us, and … More BECOMING UNSTUCK:
CONSTELLATIONS There is a term for a different way of seeing constellations in the night sky, dark constellations. Instead of seeing a constellation as those points of light that we have learned over millennia to think of as images, we can think of this differently, but it takes a shift in how we typically see things, at … More Dark Constellations
Working with clients lately I have felt aware of something being expressed that I have also become aware of in myself. If part of the purpose of psychotherapy is to make conscious something which is unconscious, at least for a Jungian, then I try to listen to the feelings and thoughts that may come up from inside. This … More The Doldrums of the Psyche
I’m thinking about self identity a lot this week. I found myself recommending a film twice when discussing parts of this subject with clients. I’ve written of this film before, it is the magician Derek DelGaudio’s, In and Of Itself. In this film DelGuadio, a magician from Colorado, creates a stage show which centers around … More Journey of Self: Escaping Plato’s Cave
I do not claim to be great at meditation, my goal is to help people start with meditation, just as I try to guide them with journaling. To listen to an audio version of this article, please use the audio file below. I want to outline the steps here that I will get into in this article … More MEDITATION: Learning to Fold the Mind
This week I am writing another article on the value of journaling and doing other forms of self-work such as artwork as part of our own internal journey. At a time when our country and world may feel torn apart by disagreements it is important to not simply jump into the fray of disagreements, but to once again turn … More Symbols We Share and Why Writing Works
An audio version of this article is below, if you would like to listen instead. Although I am more familiar with western mythology and fairy tales than I am with eastern myth and fairy tales, today I would like to delve a little into eastern mythology – and this article may sound more personal in … More THE DANCE OF SHIVA NATARAJA
An audio version of this article is below, if you would like to listen instead. A little over a year ago I wrote about grief and the intertwining of words, talking of May Sarton’s explanation that the gothic word Kara, means “lament” and is the root word for care. This intertwining of words means that lament, or … More PROEMNESIS: Folding with One’s Life
Follow Your Myth 