Although Racu has moved on to greener pastures, and in his place, less cantankerous llama Hijo guards, this true story about a rainmaker at another time of severe drought has never been more relevant. The blog first appeared in June 2011 at the beginning of California's drought.
At first no one noticed the Buddha I had placed in the forest by the winter creek— except our llama, Racu. Racu sees everything! His job is guarding the goats. He witnesses what moves in the forest near their pen, alar
¡Como Mexico No Hay Dos! In any discussion of contemporary immigration the most emotionally divisive arguments are either about Muslims or Latin Americans. But the vast majority of the undocumented – “illegal aliens” – are Mexican. So we are really talking primarily about Mexicans. Conventional anti-immigrant fears are primarily about these four issues: job-loss (They’ll put Americans out of work), crime (They are all drug users), taxpayer expenses (They all go on welfare and pay no taxes) and r
My co-author, Judith Harte, and I are delighted to announce the publication of our new book "Images of Soul: Reimagining Astrology." It's published under the imprint of Iris & Acorn Press. The book is now available on Amazon.
"Images of Soul" grew out of a friendship and collegial conversation that has spanned three decades, As the book evolved we sought to create a provocative fusion of astrological symbolism, Depth Psychotherapy, and Imaginal Psychology. Our discourse interfaces with the “acorn
THE ASTROLOGICAL HOROSCOPE:
& HESTIA’S INNER DIVINITY
About a year ago, I noticed some activity within my own horoscope involving Hestia, that mythic, spiritual, virginal, asteroid goddess of the hearth. Curious, about what this might mean, I researched Hestia’s mythical story, while observing her astrological movement and activity within my own horoscope. By way of explanation, asteroids, are those astronomical, allegedly less significant poi
We’ve seen some of the political, racial, economic and religious factors that determined an immigrant’s status as he or she attempted to enter the U.S. But what happened next? How did one become American? And, especially in the great expansion of population between 1880 and 1920, how did non-Anglo-Saxon, non-Northern European, non-Protestant immigrants rise in status from conditionally white to fully white? They did so – and still do – by taking on WASP values, embodying the myth of the melting
Dear Alliance members (all 3,500 of you - what a great number!),
I keep coming across reports of how well Robert Bly and Marion Woodman worked together at the Great Mother Conferences. Apparently they were quite the Katharine Hepburn / Spencer Tracy act!
I'm keen to hear from any of you who attended the Great Mother Conference and are willing to share your memories.
Also, if any genius among you can find footage of the two at the conferences anywhere online, I will be eternally grateful
(I have tri
Since the ideas of “citizen,” “American” and “whiteness” are inherently unstable, their definitions have had as much to do with who one is not as they have had with who one is, and they have changed regularly in their exclusion and inclusion of various immigrant groups. To see how often, and in what ridiculous detail, these definitions have changed, let’s review this history:
16o8-1784: Over half of all immigrants to the British colonies arrive as indentured servants.
1774: The Continental Congres
The Industrial Revolution in the United States required millions of new workers, yet immigration policy was highly selective. For over a century, the Supreme Court periodically determined who was Other (see Part Three below). Admission to whiteness was an invitation to emerge from darkness and walk in innocence. In a thousand small but consistent ways, law and custom defined white persons in terms of what they weren’t. The “boundaries of whiteness,” writes historian Judy Helfand, “were construct
Last week I journeyed from my home in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul Area to Joshua Tree, CA to seek insight into the synchronicities that permeate my personal and professional life.
By profession I am an urban and regional planner; increasingly I find value in discerning the "spirit of place" as a window into the community where I work. That has led me into the emerging field of terrapsychology, especially as articulated by Craig Chalquist.
Although the Joshua Tree synchronicity symposium did not a
July, 2018: One shared characteristic of the Age of Trump is our ongoing sense that it just can’t get any crazier than this – and our regular, almost daily recognition that in fact, it has. Still, like all true believers in American innocence, we go on, insisting that the horrors perpetrated in countless times and places within our own lifetimes just can’t happen here. In fact, they have indeed happened here.
In June and July they happened here again, as Trump separated immigrant children from th
Solitude and quality of life form a complex matrix of meaning that includes having nourishing relationships and excludes relationships that detract from who we are as individuals, our essential solitude, and who we are as loving beings.
C.G. Jung wrote, "Solitude is for me a font of healing which makes my life worth living." Life being worth the living goes further than doing this or that with these or those people. In fact, too much contact with others, especially in order to while away time wit
“Cryptomnesia occurs when a forgotten memory returns without it being recognized as such by the subject, who believes it is something new and original. It is a memory bias whereby a person may falsely recall generating a thought, an idea, a song, or a joke, not deliberately engaging in plagiarism but rather experiencing a memory as if it were a new inspiration.” -Wikipedia
‘The word was first used by the psychiatrist Théodore Flournoy,[2] in reference to the case of medium Hélène Smith (Catherine
But What About Ferguson? Returning to this question of “every 28 hours,” we ask incredulously, innocently, again: How often do police shoot unarmed black people? Is it surprising that the government keeps no statistics (http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/how-often-are-unarmed-black-men-shot-down-police?akid=12164.80614.R3Utbp&rd=1&src=newsletter1016803&t=13)? Recently, some citizen groups have been trying to find out: http://www.fatalencounters.org. It turns out that the number of persons k
But What About Ferguson? I quoted Orlando Patterson earlier: “Today we no longer lynch in public rituals supervised by local clergymen. Instead, the state hires the hangman to do it.” Quite true, but this civilized approach creates two problems for the high priests of sacrifice. One: Specific capital punishment cases can take many years, including lengthy appeals, from crime to arrest to judgment to execution. Two: Since the act itself is relatively private and few people get to observe it, it h
Richard Kearney in a recent New York Times post (8.30.2014) wrote, "In perhaps the first great works of human psychology, the “De Anima,” Aristotle pronounced touch the most universal of the senses. Even when we are asleep we are susceptible to changes in temperature and noise. Our bodies are always “on.” And touch is the most intelligent sense, Aristotle explained, because it is the most sensitive. When we touch someone or something we are exposed to what we touch. We are responsive to others b
Dream 256: A 52-year-old woman dreamed that she had sex with a Catholic priest. She then saw the image of a Catholic nun. She then saw the image of a female Reike energy healer that she knew. This healer looked amazingly attractive and had glorious angel wings.
Interpretation– This dream is all about spirituality. She was raised Catholic. Her having sex with a priest indicates that she wants to actively integrate spirituality into her life (men are associated with action parts of the psyche while
There are major haters in life. And, they will get to you and drag you down if you let them. The problem is, we often close our eyes, dim consciousness, regarding the reality of haters and the phenomenon of the evil eye. Then, we're vulnerable, the psychic immune system having been compromised.
Melanie Klein, grand dame of psychoanalysis, explored the violence associated with envy. Jealousy desires what the other has; envy not only desires what the others has but seeks to taint or destroy it for
Over time, literal sacrifice became somewhat socially unacceptable. Legal executions, which had long been well-attended, public, outdoor events, went indoors after the Civil War. Government gradually came to the consensus that public ceremonies of state cruelty were not fit for decent folk. At the same time, lynching incidents increased dramatically, coming to a head in the 1890s, but lasting for generations. Eventually, even Southern politicians grudgingly accepted that the practice was contrib
“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
Sociologist Calvin Hernton wrote in 1966 that the image of the black sexual beast was so extreme in the mind of the racist that he had to eradicate it, yet so powerful that he worshipped it:
In taking the Black man’s genitals, the hooded men in white are amputating that portion of themselves which they secretly consider vile, filthy, and most of all, inadequate…(they) hope to acquire the grotesque powers they have assigned to the Negro phallus, which they symbolically extol by the act of destroyi
