"We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect; we apprehend it just as much by feeling. Therefore, the judgment of the intellect is, at best, only the half of truth, and must, if it be honest, also come to an understanding of its inadequacy." The Psychology of Individuation (1921)
Tuesday: Classes
1. In All Its Forms II
A Poetry Workshop with Ann Goldsmith ((Limited to 12 participants; send check to register.))
Tuesday, September 14th, 7:30 PM at 408 Franklin Street
Non-Members, $45; Members and Students, $35
One of the pleasures of writing a poem is discovering how one's ideas can take on unexpected textures when new forms are found for their expression. Suddenly, intimacy and immensity touch in an image.
Bees and bells chime together; dailiness shines with a mythic light on doorknobs, dandelions and duffle-bags. Several poetic forms were explored in the last series of seminars. We'll work with a few more over the next series of classes. As before, participants will have opportunities to work with each form. (Limited to 12 participants – register early by sending your check.)
Ann Goldsmith, Ph.D., is a longtime member and former board member of APSWNY, is an award-winning poet who has taught classes in poetry and journaling at the Jung Center for over fifteen years. She is the author of No One Is the Same Again, a prize-winning book of poems published by The Quarterly Review of Literature. Her most recent book is The Spaces Between Us, published in 2009 by Outrider Press.
2. Exploring Death, Dying, and the Afterlife: Soul’s Journey in the Imaginal Realms
Class with Jan Beurskens
Tuesday, October 19th, 7:30 PM at 408 Franklin Street
Non-Members, $35; Members and Students, $25
James Hillman talks about soul as being "the reflective perspective that experiences events as imaginative possibilities". He qualifies his definition this way..."the significance soul makes possible...derives from its special relation with death".
Just what is soul? What is meant by imaginative possibilities and what is the soul's "special relation with death"?
Using excerpts from writings by Blake, Swedenborg, Steiner, Corbin, and Jung, flavored with film clips and music we will explore the Mundus Imaginalis - the Imaginary and the Imaginal world which is the realm of soul. Henri Corbin (1908-1978) originally employed the Latin term Mundis Imaginalis, as he was uncomfortable with the connotation of imaginary being "unreal". Corbin was French, a philosopher/theologian/professor of Islamic studies, a contemporary of Jung's and a frequent participant at the Eranos conferences. Jung explored this world using his creative unconscious as the Red Book so beautifully depicts.
The topic of death and dying of necessity transports us to this realm - there is no access to "this world" via our physical, rational, objective pathways. This will be an interesting journey.
Jan Beurskens is a long time member of APSWNY and board member. She is interested in the world of creativity, spirituality, death and dying, and has attended numerous conferences and workshops on these topics for the past 15 years. She is currently a student in a 3-year Music thanatology program, a field of palliative medicine which uses prescriptive harp music to facilitate a more conscious terminus.
3. Dreamsongs, a class in Music and Interpretation with Paul Kochmanski
(Limited to 10 participants; send check to register.)
Tuesday, November 9th, 7:30 PM at 408 Franklin Street
Non-Members, $45; Members and Students, $35, Students $25
Most of us have had the experience of a song or piece of instrumental music having a deep emotional resonance, but what does it mean to us, and how can it contribute to our individuation? When these experiences are psychologically associated with experiences of the self, Jung calls them numinous. “The numinosum is either a quality belonging to a visible object or the influence of an invisible presence that causes a peculiar alteration of consciousness” [Psychology and Religion, CW 11, par. 6.]. Much as the images and emotions of a dream can illuminate interior drama, so can those associated with a piece of music. In this participatory workshop, the facilitator and participants will share personally significant pieces of music, reflectively respond with freely associated images and words, and discuss their significance to our individuation. “The aim of individuation is nothing less than to divest the self of the false wrappings of the persona on the one hand, and of the suggestive power of primordial images on the other” [The Function of the Unconscious, CW 7, par. 269.]
Paul Kochmanski, MA, is currently an Instructor of Psychology at ECC, a tutor of Natural Sciences at Trocaire College, and a board member for APS-WNY. He previously was a psychotherapist for 10 years, working in agencies as a child and adolescent specialist.