- Animomentum
- Posts
- Animomentum Newsletter - September 2024
Animomentum Newsletter - September 2024
Craig Chalquist, PhD, PhD
Craig Chalquist
September 01, 2024
Animomentum
Monthly Updates, Events, and Reflections
Welcome to September!
In August I can smell autumn coming even while it’s still hot outside.
By the time you see this I’ll be on my way back from co-facilitating an ecospiritual retreat in Ireland. The island started out as two islands many millions of years ago. They hovered near the equator, separated by the Sea of Iapetus, the mythic offspring of heaven and earth. The northern part, from the supercontinent Laurentia, fused to the southern part from Gondwala. So, divisions and mergings. An ancient Irish history is called The Book of Invasions.
A terrapsychological speculation: Do thematic events unrolling in large places echo their geological origins? India, land of spiritual seekers, was a roving seeker itself before joining the rest of Asia 50 million years ago. North America had a huge divide running down the middle of it near the Great Divide during the Late Cretaceous 75 million years ago. In a sense, it still has one. Perhaps the geology gives a hint about a possible future of reconciliation. (Speaking of which, check out my blog “Let’s Repair the Liberty Bell.”)
In Heartlander, the second novel of my Lamplighter Trilogy of speculative fiction, Simeon Mackenzie grows up in two cultural worlds: the Coastal States versus the Heartland. This is about 50-60 years from now, when the United States exists mainly on paper. Part of Simeon’s struggle is to realize that he has something important to do for bringing the States back together at a higher, more just, and more inclusive level of being than before.
Mariam Najjar, the heroine of Lamplighter, the third novel, has lived in my dreams for some time, just as the other protagonists did. I knew she was a Palestinian immigrant about a year before the most recent violence in Gaza. She tells me that her grandmother organized the Chava Intifada (Eve’s Revolt), a women’s protest so powerful among the Israelis and Palestinians that everything came to a halt long enough for a “two governments, one land” confederation to gain steam. Sixty years from now, at least in my fiction, women will solve the crisis and tend the wound that men without conscience or scruple could never heal. May it happen sooner rather than later!
Mariam heads a worldwide spiritual movement called Lamplight, whose beginnings are described in my novel Soulmapper. The third novel is told through the eyes of Kay Bormanus, an admiring but not idealizing male narrator. As he tells us in the prologue:
‘My first thought was to record a biography of Mariam, a living saint and yet deeply and exquisitely human. Mariam was set firmly against this. “I’m suspicious,” she said when I raised the idea, “of all hagiography, especially when it infiltrates biography. And biography steals attention from what matters: our sacred work.” That she said “sacred” rather than “playcred,” the word she coined to describe how lamplighting plays with inspiring rituals and tales, underlined her seriousness.’
Would you like to help me with a recent project? I’m taking a class on how to promote my fiction, my novels in particular, and my instructor has asked us to create a survey for potential readers to fill out in order to have a fuller sense of who our audiences might be. You can download the survey (it’s not long) here. Thanks for considering this.
In other news, Jung Platform has asked me to create an advanced version of my class on managing codependency. The tentative title is When Echo Meets Narcissus. The class will go into greater detail about recognizing and dealing with covert narcissism. More soon.
My most recent podcast for The Lorecast, available for free at my website and through Apple Music, Spotify, and several other venues, is “Beyond Horizontal Aggression,” or sniping at each other when crises loom. Email me if you have any ideas about a topic you'd like to hear covered in a podcast.
What I'm reading: The Fifth Season by M. K. Jemison and Inside Story by Dara Marks (rereading this - it has been a while).
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 looking forward to meeting up with friends in Boston at the end of September and visiting Harvard, invited to participate in a closed seminar organized around a model of ecoresilience created by Linda Buzzell and me. I’m intrigued to see what they intend with it.
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.
Dr. Nicole K. Miller is now offering Unstorying™ Practitioner Training, which I recommend. We’ve been talking about how much of our work is based in deeply examining and changing the guiding stories we live by. Eventually we’ll offer a workshop together. In any case, if you’re serious about profound transformation:
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:
In some places, September is the start of the harvest. What harvest do you need to prepare for? What calls to you as the seasons cycle toward autumn? What has ripened and is ready to be picked?
