Blogs

In 1990, the renowned depth psychologist and author Thomas Moore published a book entitled Dark Eros: The imagination of sadism. In this book, Moore offers a series of extraordinary insights into the deeper aspects of sadism that regard our darker nature as a reflection of the soul. It is this relationship between sadism and nature that I’d like to ponder here.

Moore proposes that there is a difficult necessity we encounter in our own impulses to be agents of cruelty, corruption, domination, and

Medicine person Wanbli Mato, (Frank) Eagle Bear, tended to the extraordinary healing of thousands of people in his lifetime with the ritual use of sacred stones. These stones, material embodiments of the Anima Mundi, or Soul of the World, he carried in various places inside his own body, and were the prima materia with which he channeled healing for the soul and body.The stones literally spoke to him and helped him see the ailment of the afflicted person then guided him to the appropriate medici

Dear Depth community. Warm greetings for a happy new year.  

At this time last year many of us were preparing to launch the Earth, Climate, Dreams online symposium, which was a program consisting of 12 recorded interviews with some of the expert scientists, psychologists, Jungian analysts, and educators who are providing some of the most critical thinking about the topics.

Now, in honor of the anniversary of that symposium, I'm pleased to let you know that all 12 of the depth dialogues are being r

Perhaps you’ve heard of a mysterious tribe of Native Indians who live high in the mountains of Colombia, speaking only their own original language, and having little contact with the outside world. These people, the Kogi Indians, have long referred to themselves as the “Elder Brothers,” as they carry the responsibility of being caretakers of the world, helping to maintain a balance of harmony and creativity in the world. (Photo at right courtesy of Lisa Maroski).

In recent years, the Kogi have be

Dr. Pat Katsky is a Jungian Analyst and core faculty at Pacifica Graduate Institute, and she has been a therapist for thirty years. When Pat sat down with me in a recent interview, our conversation focused on the idea that some of the most psychologically healing experiences come from the natural world, a theme derived from an upcoming certificate program, “Dreaming the Earth: Earthing the Dream” starting April 15, 2016.

Pat mused on how in the last million or so years of history, humans have alw

One of the many phrases that will stay with me from this week at Women's Future First 2014 Congress is that of Joanna Macy: sustaining the gaze. Even though what we see in the world is frightening and enraging, it is so important we witness (not deny) what mankind has perpetrated upon our planet and to feel, to let ourselves have open hearts to Earth and her many inhabitants.

This conference is focusing on drafting of a Bill of Rights for Water. Joanna addressed three practices that have conseque

“Home” is a word weighted with affect and associated with rootedness, attachment, belonging, shelter, refuge, comfort, and identity. When our relationship to “home” is considered in the context of depth psychology, the study of the unconscious pioneered by Sigmund Freud and C. G. Jung among others, it stands to reason that our individual notions of “home” may impact us rather profoundly. A severed connection with “home,” particularly with the earth that supports and nurtures us, produces physica

The vineyards are quiet; the nights, cold; the goats, rowdy with too much rest. This is the time to sink into the sofa and seed yourself with Spirit, whether that be from meditation, dreaming, or from reading. These books are some of my own reading that I have gotten a great deal from this season, books which relate to Biodynamic farming and spiritual development.

My friend Katherine Presley recommended Tanis Helliwell's Summer with the Leprechauns:A True Story. When I started reading the book, I

Barbara Holifield

On February 22, 2014, the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco will offer the first of a series of eco-psychology seminars and workshops on the environment crisis. These workshops will be from differing perspectives but of one piece: the necessary crisis of consciousness in earth changes and what we can/must do. In this first workshop, Indwelling: Our Human Participation in the Dream of the Earth, analysts Barbara Holifield and Carol McRae will lead participants into active im

When we are not grounded, not connected to our roots, terrible psychic issues occur, which lead to feelings of intense fear and anxiety suggests Jungian analyst Judith Harris, in her book Jung and Yoga: The Psyche Body Connection. She quotes C. G. Jung, who, in his complex work, Mysterium Coniunctionus, establishes that the element of earth holds the exact central point between the tensions of two opposites.

Grounding oneself in the earth results in feeling held by the Great Mother, rendering one

“Spirit is the inside of things and matter is their visible outer aspect” (Jung, in Sabini, 2005, p. 2).

“I can only gaze with wonder and awe at the depths of and heights of our psychic nature. Its non-spatial universe conceals an untold abundance of images which have accumulated over millions of years of living development and become fixed in the organism….Beside this picture I would like to place the spectacle of the starry heavens at night, for the only equivalent of the universe within is the

It's common to feel nostalgic during the holidays. “Nostalgia,” by modern definition, means a "wistful yearning for the past." Etymologically, the root "nostos" means "homecoming" and "algos" means "pain, grief, distress." Thus, nostalgia may be translated as "severe homesickness.” But what we're actually yearning for may not be family or literal home. It might just be a longing for something more archetypally profound, a longing for the earth herself, and the way she once was, and the way the m