Hi Everyone.

My name is Donna May. I'm a therapist in private practice, a consultant, an educator (including an adjunct faculty member at College of the Siskiyous), and the author of the upcoming book Psyche's Call: Putting the Soul Back into Psychology. I do workshops, classes & groups in person and via the internet, with a focus on dreams, active imagination, writing,story, and art. I also give out free daily writing prompts and have a small but thriving online membership group called Psyche Salon.

I live in beautiful Siskiyou County, CA and I love my life and community here. Very rural and isolated, I truly feel I was called to be here, to do what I am doing (I am originally from Southern California, came up here in 1998 when I was hired by county behavioral health agency). In addition to the various classes and groups I offer on my own, I am asked to do workshops for county and non-profit agencies using many of the above-mentioned tools. One of my favorite things to do every year is to go teach life story writing at the juvenille hall school, which I have done for the past eight years. I believe passionately in the healing properties of writing and story (I did my thesis on writing and story for the treatment of trauma and abuse). I am currently working on bringing a first, of which I hope will be many, community storytelling event, scheduled for June 18th.

Since December, I have been supervising interns at the local county behavioral health agency. I was specifically asked to come in and focus on depth psychology concepts and tools and am enjoying this work very much, finding it deeply rewarding. These connections are creating opportunities to (possibly) bring county-wide community writing and storytelling events in the future.

The over-riding image that has been flitting about since March is that of the moth. The moth initially was presented during one of my online Psyche Salon calls (too long a story for here); the image caught my imagination - on both a literal and metaphorical level - and ended up showing up at my window, awaking me from the dreamtime (I couldn't see it initially, only hear it, but Moth stuck around and was the first thing I saw when I woke up later that morning). I continue to tend Moth in many ways. Moth, as you probably know, is one of the images of Psyche, of soul. Moth is active during the night (dreams? shadow? other?), the weaver of silk threads. Moth also is associated with story and writing. The latter seems highly significant because of my deep love of writing and story, my ongoing efforts to complete my book (and one of the things I would like to get out of this group).

What I would like to get from this group: support for one another, collaboration with various projects (if it feels right), and a safe community to develop more tech and online marketing skills (a big deficit for me).

I look forward to meeting you all on Wednesday....Blessings, D

My website: http://www.psychescall.com