Dream-Related Topics to Be Presented at October Event in NC
October 16-19, 2008
Greensboro, NC area
Leadership: Featured Presentations, Workshops/Events
Featured Presenters:
Barry Williams, M. Div., Psy.D.
Dreams and Divine Revelation
In spite of the Old Testament proscription against graven images of the Divine Power invading the consciousness of a primitive people, the psyche continues to offer images of the Divine in ordinary life to ordinary people. To discern the presence of the sacred in our lives, we do not have to confine ourselves to the study of a sacred text that revealed theophanies that helped to formulate the reality of a new god image for that period of history. We can now look at our own dreams, in our own day-to-dayness for images of the Divine that are emerging from the unconscious.
Through the direct, affective experience of the Imago Dei in and as the dream, the dream shapes our encounter with That which wants to make itself known to us in a continuing revelation of its nature. This lecture will examine the modern dreams of ordinary people for images that help us to understand and experience the continuing presence of the Divine in our lives. Such dreams can be entheogenic for the dreamer. That is, they can generate the numinous experience of the god that dwells within, the divinity who appears within the dream. In the process of imagining itself, the numen becomes the image and meaning of the dream. In this way the dream functions as a religion-creating event in the evolution of personal and collective consciousness. We no longer need to tolerate the idea of the hiddenness of the Divine, the Deus Absconditus, if we but know where to look.
Barry Williams, M. Div., Psy.D. is a Jungian Analyst in private practice near Taos, NM. Known internationally for his lectures, workshops, wilderness pursuits, work with indigenous cultures and dreamwork, he has served on the Adjunct Faculty at Pacifica Graduate Institute, has been a long-time presenter at Journey Into Wholeness, and for over two decades a leader of the Temagami Vision Quest in Canada. An important part of his own journey toward wholeness has been a twelve year initiation into the tradition of the Huichol people of Central Mexico. Along with his family at their remote home in New Mexico, at sea in New Zealand and in a wilderness setting in Northern Canada, Barry offers retreats on dreams, shamanism, ritual and the great forces of nature.
Mary Watkins, Ph.D.,
Psychic Decolonization
Speaking of his experiences with the Pueblo in Taos, New Mexico in 1950, Jung began to describe the shadow of colonialism: “What we from our point of view call colonization, missions to the heathen, spread of civilization, etc., has another face–the face of a bird of prey seeking with cruel intentness for distant quarry–a face worthy of a race of pirates and highwaymen” (1961, pp. 248-9). As we find ourselves in America half a century later, how does colonialism and its morph to transnational capitalism afflict our psyches, as well as immigration, foreign, and environmental policies? What are the practices of psychic decolonization that we could put into place within ourselves and between ourselves and others from our communities? Working with an interdependent understanding of psyche, culture, and environment, Watkins will address the individual, community, and national healing that is necessary at this moment in American history.
Mary Watkins, Ph.D., is coordinator of Community and Ecological Fieldwork and Research and a core faculty member at Pacifica Graduate Institute. She is the author of Waking Dreams, Invisible Guests: The Development of Imaginal Dialogues, co-author of Talking With Young Children About Adoption, and co-author of Toward Psychologies of Liberation. A clinical and developmental psychologist, she studied at the Jung Institute in Zurich and was a member of the founding group of archetypal psychologists. She is a Quaker and a scholar of the intersection of depth and liberation psychologies, and a practitioner of the innovative individual, group, and community work that flows from their conjunction.
The Love of Power
Jung writes: “…where love is lacking, power fills the vacuum.” It seems then that power is at odds with love. This lecture will address the light and dark aspects of power. It is timely that with the fall elections, this topic will help us to analyze that which empowers vs. that which overpowers. There is a collective and personal power complex. Each demands analysis for power’s light can create and its dark destroy.
The Power of Love
In this lecture, we will encounter what Jung called, in his later years, “the incalculable paradoxes of love.” Our single word “love” fails to adequately capture and express the powerful, often contradictory feelings that drive behavior and animate one’s soul. We will turn to the three Greek words for love (eros, philia, and agape) and explore the psychological distinctions they express. We will look at both the inter-personal and intra-psychic dynamics of love, as well as its light and dark sides. Finally, we will address the healing and wounding nature of this greatest of paradoxes.
Pittman McGehee, D.D.
The Very Reverend J. Pittman McGehee, D.D. ordained priest in the Episcopal Church, served for 11 years, as Dean of Christ Church cathedral, located in the center of downtown Houston. In demand as a distinguished lecturer and speaker in the fields of psychology and religion, he is also an author, book reviewer and an award-winning published poet. In 1991, Pittman resigned from Christ Church Cathedral to become the director of The Institute for the Advancement of Psychology and Spirituality. The Institute joins the disciplines of psychology and religion by exploring the concept that mental health comes with the integration of the biological, psychological, and spiritual elements of the human condition. In 1996, the C. G. Jung Institute of Dallas awarded him a diploma in Analytical Psychology. A regular lecturer at the C.G. Jung Center in Houston, Dr. McGehee has held many other distinguished lectureships including the 1987 Harvey Lecture at the Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, where he received an honorary Doctorate of Divinity; the 1988 Perkins Lecture in Wichita Falls; the 1990 Woodhull Lectures in Dayton, Ohio, and the 1991 St. Luke’s Lectures in Birmingham. He was the 1994 Rockwell visiting Theologian at the University of Houston and 1996 Carolyn Fay Lecturer in Analytical Psychology also at the University of Houston, as well as being an Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Texas. Dr. McGehee is currently in private practice as a priest/psychoanalyst and teacher/lecturer.
In addition, we plan to have some special events and up to sixteen workshop offerings, which will include workshops exploring the archetypal ground of dreams in a group setting and two or three occasions for dream-sharing in the conference at large. (Estimated up to 18.75 NBCC CEU’s possible), including a workshop to help Therapists meet their CE ethics requirement!
For more information, see:
http://www.journeyconferences.com/conferenceinformation.htm
