Re•visions Open Talks 2011
There are no talks currently scheduled - here are some of our talks held previously.
Thomas Moore - Artemis And Her Children: The Soul's Need For Privacy
21st March 2011
The stories that surround Artemis and her avatars - Daphne, Atalanta, Acteon, Hippoloytos - show the psyche's need for privacy and its natural resistance to education and therapy. The Artemis soul is extremely sensitive to intrusion. This aggressive "resistance has many implications for education and therapy. The stories offer solutions that involve re-imagining the work. They also address the problems of the Apollo fantasy in science and technology as well as education and therapy.
Thomas Moore is the author of the bestselling book Care of the Soul and fifteen other books on deepening spirituality and cultivation soul in every aspect of life. He has been a monk, a musician, a university professor, and a psychotherapist, and today he lectures widely on holistic medicine, spirituality, psychotherapy, and the arts. He is a patron of re•vision.
Sandra White - Sacrifice, Denial and the Ecological Self
14 January 2011
Jung named sacrifice as an archetype, an innate pattern embedded as a potential in the deeper layers of the collective psyche which can become active when circumstances demand it and the conditions are right. In the context of our ecological crisis, it is clear that exhortations to 'make sacrifices for the greater good' are not being accepted and Sandra has been examining whether, if the circumstances demand it but the conditions are not right, it is inevitable and even appropriate that sacrifice gives way to denial. Her talk will explore the conditions that give rise to sacrifice and, conversely, denial and then, drawing upon Arne Naess's concept of the Ecological Self, she will describe how her ecopsychology consultancy work with different sectors is slowly evolving, in an attempt to foster the conditions in which the archetype of sacrifice can constellate.
Sandra has a background in cultural change within government and business, particularly in the fields of race equality, humanising the workplace and now ecopsychology. All her work is rooted in Jungian depth psychology. A founding member of Transition Hertford, her published articles and chapters include 'Exile from Earth' in GreenSpirit Journal, 'Denial, Stories and Visions' in Greenpeace Business, and 'White Lilies: Sacrifice, Transformation and Renewal in our Civilised Age' in Thoughts on Sustainability Vol 2 published by Ashridge Business School.
Paul Maiteny - Becoming Sacred, moving on from consuming the earth.
February 11th
Is Homo sapiens an aberration in the evolutionary and ecological scheme of things? If one accepts the view that the only option for planetary and other-species survival is for humans to disappear, then the answer could well be 'yes'. Such an anxious and exasperated view may be understandable. Yet, it puts us on a pedestal in a distortion of the very arrogance that has brought us to the ecological brink. It is to see ourselves as the only species that has no functional place in the eco-system, in the life of Gaia.
Paul will make the case that this thinking is as eco-logically flawed, anti-evolutionary and dualistic (ie splitting) as our species devouring of the planet. Both types of rejection express our arrogant, excluding idolatrous tendencies. Both are ways of avoiding the difficult, deepening work of engaging more fully with the most distinct qualities of our species, qualities that have evolved into existence through us.
Paul is an ecologist, anthropologist and psychotherapist. He has worked in ecological education and research for 30 years, and published on psycho-spiritual dimensions of ecological dis-integration since 1996. He tutors on the MSc Education for Sustainability, London South Bank University.