Tag: Archetypal Psychology

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Mythologium 2020 welcomes Claire Savage

Claire’s talk is called, “Lay your burden down: Baubo jests to ease Demeter’s despair”

By studying the mythic character of Baubo and her relationship with Demeter, contemporary women may find the freedom to travel into new psychic terrain, plumb the depths of the soul and embrace their own changing bodies and generative energies. C.G. Jung said, “The process of coming to terms with the unconscious is a true labour, a work which involves both action and suffering.” This presentation looks at three ways in which the relationship between the ailing Demeter and the old lady Baubo work together to facilitate a deeper relationship with the unconscious: 1) through the archetypal realm of their mythical characterizations; 2) through the power of female sexual energy in its fierce expression of life, and 3) through the divine pleasure of full-belly laughter, grounded in the libidinal flow of eros and the regenerative power of the earth. Baubo offers herself in the service of life so that Demeter may feel her own heart, lay her burden down for just that moment, and make way for the mystery of life to shine through.

About Claire

Claire Tiampo Savage is a doctoral student in Jungian and Archetypal Studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute. She has a master’s degree in educational psychology, is a credentialed teacher and resource specialist, and has taught regular and special education in Milwaukee and the San Francisco Bay Area. Claire has written for The Journal for Career Assessment and Psychological Perspectives and has an upcoming chapter entitled “The soul’s calling in teacher education” in New voices and new visions: Explorations in archetypal pedagogy, edited by C. Mayes, S. Persing, and C. Schumacher.

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Mythologium 2020 welcomes Jane Alvey Harris

Jane’s talk is called, “Fiction and Film: The Winged Serpent and the Journey to Prajna-Paramita”

Reaching the “Wisdom of the Distant Shore” is synonymous with the search for and discovery of our individual manifestations of transcendence, or the universal quest for personal mythology. The act of fictionalizing personal history, including trauma, repressed memories, and/or emotions, allows an author/screenwriter to both unmake and examine situations from a protected distance, and to ultimately reframe experiences from a position of strength. Exploring established cognitive pathways and rerouting responses to triggers through the lens of archetypal psychology empowers writer, reader, and viewer, as they each witness the often painful separation of paired opposites, and celebrate their eventual reunification. The process of crafting a book/screenplay becomes a vehicle on the journey to Prajna-Paramita for the writer. For the audience, the finished product is a tangible incarnation of the Winged Serpent, present in multiple forms and providing catharsis, insight, and entertainment.

About Jane

Jane Alvey Harris is the author of the My Myth Trilogy, a hard-hitting, issue-driven contemporary account of a seventeen-year-old girl whose reality fractures when her childhood abuser re-enters her life. RIVEN, SECRET KEEPER, and PRIMED are fictionalized documentations of a survivor’s journey to make peace with her wounded egos and achieve self-acceptance. Jane writes that through the process of weaving her tale, “I realized I was laying my hands directly on the tattered pieces of a buried map leading to rich interior landscapes I’d never acknowledged or explored before because I considered them ugly, worthless, and humiliating.” Best-selling RIVEN and SECRET KEEPER, the first two books in the trilogy, have won multiple awards. More importantly, they have started an international dialogue about living with PTSD, and ways in which victims of childhood abuse can do more than survive, they can thrive. Book three, PRIMED, will be released in September of 2020. RIVEN has been optioned for a feature film.

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The Mythologium welcomes Bob Scott

Bob’s talk is called, “San Diego as Archetypal Geography: The Box Canyon as Alchemical Vessel”

City planning can benefit from archetypal psychology by offering a perspective that is absent in the process of planning cities: one that re-visions the city by activating the figural, the metaphorical, and the imaginal as crucial and essential forms of a city’s soul. My talk, and the dissertation from which is it developed, offers a multi-disciplinary, mytho-poetic perspective toward San Diego as city. Through the lens of archetypal psychology, city is approached as subjective being to inform one’s ability to understand, and to relate to, presences that are palpable but invisible in the natural and physical landscapes.

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About Bob:

Bob holds a BA in Geography and an MA in Mythology with an emphasis in Depth Psychology. He is a PhD candidate working on his dissertation, entitled “Poiesis in the Polis: Re-imagining San Diego as Archetypal City.” In a 25-year career in city planning, Bob has observed a broken and outdated mythos toward a city planning process where economics control and where issues of aesthetics and beauty, the subjective elements that stir the soul, have no real part in the city-making process. Bob has always been intrigued by the layout of cities, the magic of natural open spaces, and understanding the psychological underpinnings of what makes a great sense of place. His academic and professional areas of interest are steering him toward a more humanistic and collaborative relationship toward the environment and city.