Most of us have had the experience of feeling stopped, stuck, or paralyzed in our lives, unable to progress, to access creativity, meet deadlines, sometimes even to manage basic obligations. Being immobilized is hardly pleasant, but it is absolutely a hallmark of impending change, and it behooves us to understand both the problem and the power of paralysis.

Years ago, I did some meaningful research into the myth of Medusa, the legendary Gorgon who turned people to stone when they looked at her. W

http://madnessatthegates.posterous.com/tag/barrysblog47howandwhytostartawar

How – and Why – to Start A War

Here are some of the essential components of the myth of American Innocence:

1 – Narratives of extreme violence, both real and fictional, always justified by the need for a hero who is willing to sacrifice himself (but rarely does) in order to protect the innocent community from the irrational, evil desires of the “Other.”

2 – Violence, like that of the mythical Apollo, that is perpetrated f

In a meeting in late December 2006, the President of a small university asked me what course I wanted to teach in their Ph.D. Psychology program. Instead of responding with the curricula that I was already prepared to teach, to my surprise I found myself blurting out… "metaphor." The topic was right there; there was no thinking involved. It seemingly came out of nowhere. At the time, I had no idea how metaphor related to Psychology, and I'm certainly not a linguist. Something was speaking throug

Most of the visitors to this blog know me only through the postings on Dreamwork, a lifelong passion, vocation and interest. I began life as an artist, before the training in Depth Psychology, and continue to create personal artwork. These have always been "dream-like" snapshots, and I thought to share one as a way of amplifying the scope of my comments on Dreamwork, Inner Dialogue, and the Creative Process. I had submitted a different drawing to the International Association for the Study of Dr

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

In this third blog inspired by the murdered children of Sandy Hook I want to look at the archetypal image of the King.

The Archetypes: In their great book King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine(http://www.amazon.com/King-Warrior-Magician-Lover-Rediscovering/dp/0062506064), Jungian psychologists Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette envision a four-part masculine psyche divided into the Lover (the image of relatedness and deep passion for life), theMagicia

In moving into the new year of 2013, we come face to face with possibilities, perhaps hopes and dreams. This gives us an opportunity to take stock of what spiritual faith means. In a New York Times article entitled, The Freedom of Faith (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/the-freedom-of-faith-a-christmas-sermon) matters of  human need and human conscience are addressed. Miracles, mystery, authority pull for religious subservience! The human psyche comes face to face with choice, to

Our instruments have no way of measuring this feeling
Can never cut below the floor, or penetrate the ceiling.
In the space between our houses, some bones have been discovered,
But our procession lurches on, as if we had recovered.

Draconian winter unforetold.
One solar day, suddenly you’re old.
Your little envelope just makes me cold,
Makes destination start to unfold.

Our documents are useless, or forged beyond believing.
Page forty-seven is unsigned, I need it by this evening.
In the space betw

Vol. 2 kindles the spirit of Breaking Plates in asking why thinking on beginnings and endings is crucially important today. The essays here may move us to rethink both how we choose to interact with this topic, and how our behavior in our current local and global environments will indelibly give way to new (as of now, unforeseeable) beginnings.

Get your copy here!

CONTENTS:

Everything Comes in a Package (Even Your Self). by Jordan Shapiro

Beginning with Image by Jason Butler

Ground Open Wound: A Memo

The French writer Albert Camus wrote, "A man's life is nothing but a slow trek to rediscover through the detours…those one or two images in whose presence his heart first opened.” The poet Stanley Kunitz believed that writers have key images that captivated them as children, and they keep working these images over and over again in their writings. The mythologist Michael Meade says that at the core of each of our lives is an image that first “moved us” into the world. And Walt Whitman poetically

Dear DPA friends,

Happy Winter Solstice - and happy beginning of the 14th Baktun of the Mayan calendar!

I'm posting the very best article I've found on the web about our much-misunderstood Mayan friends and today's auspicious date. 

Wise souls will know that the talk of the end of the world is misplaced; that what's actually happening is a birth:

'Within the Maya concept of time, what will happen on December 21 is not catastrophic. Everything said in the latter direction is only the malicious vulgar

http://youtu.be/qRkGrD7u8pc

SCAPES:

[ 1 ] Intro - Lying on the Ground

[ 2 ] soil_howl

[ 3 ] fracking the union

[ 4 ] new grid rising

[ 5 ] ear tools

We are in need of new life-giving myths~

“We are living at the end of an era. The stories of this era were written when the earth was still flat, when our planet was thought to be at the center of creation, and before the Hubble space telescope showed us that we are one in a billion galaxies in the sky. The old myths have exhausted themselves. We are in nee

             If someone had a dream of the massacre of children; a mother slain by the son’s own hand who then takes his life, what would it mean?

            As the world searches for answers – and perhaps new questions – in the wake of the slaughter in Connecticut, I struggle to imagine what I would do if I were sitting with the author of this dream.

            “But this is no dream,” you cry. “This is a horrible reality.”

            Yes, but as we search for meaning, exploring multiple dimensi

Hi Folks

Apologies for my long absence, but you may be interested in this UK initiative to promote public access to mental health services: http://www.newsavoypartnership.org

I understand this is also a big issue in the US - along with gun control - as highlighted in the tragic Connecticut shooting.

Best Wishes to all

Janet

More than ever, many of us are looking for meaning in a culture where we are moving faster and connecting with each other less and less. The more things feel out of our control, the more we tend to tamp down emotions and not allow ourselves to witness or feel the devastating effects of our environments and the things going on around us.

After all, feeling the impact of the horrors of genocide, war, disaster, famine, or senseless acts of violence such as the mass shootings in Newtown, Connecticut

The end of the world has been happening for quite some time. Dreams from patients, family, friends, myself have signaled the passing of the old and coming of the new. Energy does not end, it transforms itself!

Transformation typically happens with turbulence and oftentimes a wish that, if possible, things could just stay the same. We're used to how things have been, familiar with the tried and true; but, sometimes what's been for a long time needs to pass on, and we need to let it.

Ending the Maya

Neighbors Sharing Food, Crafts, Skills, and Goods!

Video | Post 

A new client whom I’ll call Alice came to me recently in a desperate financial situation. The work she'd been doing as a book editor had dried up over the past year, and she needed to find some other work quickly. She had decided to apply for a position as Project Manager at a non-profit. Her decision made rational sense—as a book editor she was already doing project management work, and the non-profit happened to be in the same field as the books she had edited. Rationally, it was a good way to