Alchemy—a forerunner of modern chemistry and medicine—is an ancient cross-cultural practice that integrated both material and spiritual elements and was rediscovered by C.G. Jung as he sought to understand the images in dreams.
Alchemy’s basic elements can deepen our understanding of embodied transformative processes, experienced spontaneously through Authentic Movement, a somatic, creative, meditative practice with roots in Jung’s 'active imagination' approach. Both practices bring awareness to what we least value—the somatic unconscious, known as ‘prima materia’ by the alchemists and as unconscious ‘shadow’ qualities by Jung. Such a map can help orient people in their therapeutic work, particularly when they are immersed in unconscious material that may cause feelings of anxiety, impatience, dissolution, or disembodiment.
In this workshop participants will have an opportunity to engage the Alchemical metaphor in relation to the embodied individuation process in healing and development. Moving and witnessing practice, theory, neuroscience, embodied experience, drawing and writing will enrich our experience.
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