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- Animomentum Newsletter April 2024
Animomentum Newsletter April 2024
Events and depth reflections
Animomentum
Monthly Updates, Events, and Reflections
Happy April! According to one meaning, “April” is a month for Aphrodite, the goddess of allurement, beauty, and romantic love. Her archetypal sisters in other traditions include Oshun, Freya, Lakshmi, and Maeve. They set the mythic tone for the month. So does Persephone’s return from Hades to make the flowers bloom up here.
No wonder my dreams have been brimming with such mythological figures. Are yours? The older I get, the more I notice parallels between motifs in dreams and the doings of the natural world, including cycles that come and go. Even celestial cycles coincide with internal shifts. One night, for instance, Mars was prominent in my dreams. I got up the next day and checked. Sure enough, a major Mars movement was swinging by high above.
Here’s a move: I’ve just opened the doors on Enchantvale, a new online network and platform for dreamers, visionaries, intuitives, and other creatives to gather and converse. The above link takes you to the landing page, where you’ll see a video from me and a screen shot of the site. After conferring with the team that went in early to look around, I’ve designed a free membership tier, with two paid tiers to follow. Try it out.
Enchantvale offers conversation, DM, chat, video posting, online events, meetup spaces, virtual conferences, networking opportunities, online courses, livestreams, deep education without tuition, and a lot more. The paid tiers will offer discounts on classes I’m putting together on various topics, including “Angels In Our Fictions” and mythology for healers and teachers. I’ll be eager to hear about what you make of it and any suggestions you have.
While out walking during the last Seminary of the Wild Earth retreat, after I had asked for a hint about next moves in life, I entered a trail on which a woman about a hundred feet in front of me dropped something and kept walking. I picked it up with the notion of giving it back to her, but it was a folded paper napkin; evidently it had fallen out of her pocket. When I unfolded the paper, it bore a four-armed design similar to an emblem I had played with for Lamplight, the religion of imagination and play invented for my novel Soulmapper. I continue to sit with this interesting signal.
By next newsletter I should have received the final copy of my dissertation, which focuses on fiction, imagination, and vision as paths of wisdom and social transformation. It also mentions Lamplight. I will give you the link to it.
I am also looking forward to a retreat in Donegal, Ireland, on August 25-29th, 2024. Ards Friary, traditionally a Capuchin monastery and retreat center, is becoming a contemplative ecology center. We will have the entire center reserved. Hope to see you there! (Link corrected.)
I can’t believe my online class for Jung Platform on the Trickster is already over. It was such fun, and a lot of people showed up for it. I’m glad JP recorded it. Five sessions for a modest fee. We looked at how to deal with chaos and comedy at work, in relationships, at home, and in other areas of life. Also, Trickster in current events, folklore, and film. I will likely teach more classes for Jung Platform; they make Jung’s ideas available to a non-analytic audience.
My most recent podcast for The Lorecast, available for free at my website and through Apple Music, Spotify, and several other venues, is on adding imagination to the Myers-Briggs schema; specifically, some of us keep our imagination in things, and others in possibilities. In other words, some of us are “heredreamers” and some of us are “fardreamers.” Email me if you have any ideas about a topic you'd like to hear covered in a podcast.
What I'm reading: Until the End of Time by Brian Greene. An excellent overview of cosmic science and history.
Upcoming Events
The C. G. Jung group in Eugene, OR has asked me to visit in the fall to present on psyche and place. Details soon.
I'm dreaming up some leadership courses on voice, storytelling, and inspiration for the Teton Leadership Center. Details soon.
I've been speaking with the international United Human Foundation about a series of talks focusing on shifting collective narratives away from scarcity, conflict, and hyper-individualism and toward Earth-honoring dreamings of where we want to go together and how we want to live. More soon.
I will present "Inquiry with Earth in Mind" at the Twenty-second International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities, at Sapienza University of Rome. The conference is June 26-28, 2024, and I will be speaking about Terrapsychological Inquiry.
Ongoing Offerings
Free stuff first:
My book consists of 30 stories ("archetales") of speculative fiction and a number of fables, all of which trace the path of humanity's long adventure toward consciousness and maturity from early origins in prehistory up to Terrania, the Earth-honoring, ground-up world culture of inclusion, belonging, and delight awaiting us in the future.
The tales address the question: What might it look like, after all the chaos and conflict, if humanity finally gets it right? An annotated version is also available.
A man in his forties wakes in a park in San Diego with no memory of his name, his past, or how he got there. He finds a cowboy hat, black boots, an e-bike, and a gold medallion that talks. Who is he? Where did he come from?
Ride north, the medallion tells him. Visit the old missions one by one. At each, carry out a mysterious ritual. When you reach Sonoma, your memories will be restored, including those of a mysterious past. You will know who took them and why. Refuse, and I will stop your heart.
As he journeys, encountering a persistent assassin, meeting reanimated gods in his dreams, resisting being cast as a hero, and building new relationships across overheating California, he bears the potent biochemistries needed for collective survival. But his strongest medicine is hope.
My debut novel, set in the Assembling Terrania Cycle.
I created the following courses available at Jung Platform:
Journey into the World of Soul - This is a course on Jung's Black Books, which are his journals spanning 19 years of his life. An indispensable guided tour for understanding the man behind the work.
Codependence: How to Identify and Heal - Several videos drawing on my clinical experience of helping people understand and work with the chronic need to turn relationships into attempts at emotional rescue.
Your Personal Myth and Archetype - What is your deeper story, the mythic plot and basic pattern behind the details of your biography? What are you here to respond to?
Narcissism - Everyone talks about it, but few understand it. Why does it seem so prevalent? Where does it come from? What are its covert forms? How can we protect ourselves from being victimized by it?
I earn an ambassador’s fee when you purchase them. You can also view my instructor page at JP here.
These were fun to make. I packed a lot into each. Topics include
Introduction to Loreology - The craft of creating personal, social, and cultural change by examining our guiding stories and melting them down into new tales, practices, and possibilities.
Deep Teaching and Mentoring - This came from graduate students asking: How do we translate what we learn about consciousness, dreams, myth, the esoteric, etc. into terms other people can grasp?
Equalwise: The Art of Emotional Self-Defense - "The world is full of bullies," said Krishnamurti. Learn to recognize and avoid giving your power to them. Stop being taken off guard and learn the art of guarding your wellbeing.
Soft Skills for the Workplace: Being In Demand - According to Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, and other sources of business news, hiring managers like me are very interested in relational workplace skills. Learn more about these skills and how to cultivate and demonstrate them.
When the World Shows Up In Our Dreams: Decoding the Call - Not everything in our dreams is about us. Some of it reflects events around us showing up as symbols. Why do they? How do we work with such powerful beckonings?
Concentrate Your Life! A Course for the Super-Busy - This comes from two decades of teaching, administrating, publishing, and other time-intensive endeavors requiring excellent organizational skills. Take back your time.
These you’ll want to have a computer to download them onto. The prices vary.
When I finish teaching an online course, I often package it up, zip up all the audio lectures, rewrite the syllabus into a course outline, and make it available at my website.
Topics include: Healing and Nature, Archetypal Family Systems, Ecopsychology, Intro to Terrapsychology, Applied Hermeticism, Visibility for Introverts, Jung and Creativity, Depth Psychology, Alchemy and Vocation, Jung’s Red Book, Applied Mythology, Deep Storytelling, Writing with Soul, and others.
Thoughts for the Month:
Where is Aphrodite calling or teaching you? Where does Beauty land in you and stir your heart? And where in your life waits the energy and force of her partner Mars?
