Lisa Baugh, MA and Joseph Lancia, DO

The Image of Equus: Equine Assisted Psychotherapy from an Imaginal Perspective

This presentation describes the new and innovative field of equine assisted psychotherapy where horses are used as co-facilitators to promote human emotional growth and learning. The technique is illustrated by a clinical example that is interpreted using the concepts of Imaginal psychology. Parallels are drawn between this experiential form of therapy and more traditional forms of expressive art therapy as well as active imagination and dream interpretation.

Lisa Baugh, MA received her master’s degree from Pacifica Graduate Institute. She is an IL Associate MFT and a FL Registered MFT Intern splitting time between Lincolnshire IL and Wellington FL. She is certified in equine assisted psychotherapy by the Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Association. She provides equine assisted services for local agencies and treatment centers as well as offering personal growth workshops. Together with Joseph Lancia she offers a 5-day Colorado Retreat Experience called The Horse Within, where participants explore equine archetypes as means of connecting with their own life’s story. She can be contacted at lsbaugh1@yahoo.com.

Joseph Lancia, DO is a psychiatrist from Rochester, NY. In addition to his private practice, he is Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Rochester Medical Center and provides psychotherapy supervision for practitioners in the greater Rochester area. He is certified in equine assisted psychotherapy by the Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Association and practices at Windhorse Farm. Together with Lisa Baugh he offers a 5-day Colorado Retreat Experience called The Horse Within, where participants explore equine archetypes as means of connecting with their own life’s story. He can be contacted at copal7@frontiernet.net.

Douglas Belknap  

The Imaginal Nature of Globalization and Its Discontents   

Throughout its history there have been those who have questioned the course of Western culture and even the project of civilization itself. We are in a unique position today to see the validity of that counter-cultural critique. Environmental science, with its own kind of cultural-medical perspective, has confirmed that our civilization as constructed is detrimental to the health of biological life on the planet. Modern technological civilization is – in the opinion of the experts-- a pathological condition. Depth psychology would have to agree that what we have on our hands is a cultural pathology unprecedented in magnitude. An imaginal psychology, however, shouldn’t be content to approach cultural pathology from the same medical angle as ecological science or environmental activism. An imaginal approach would have to ask: What psychic intention could possibly be at work in the collective compulsion to arrange life as a gigantic machine bent on ravaging creation? And, most importantly, what response could be generated which would honor this intention in a manner other than the blindly destructive form it’s having to assume? In a 20 minute presentation I would like to offer a brief sketch of what I’ve arrived at in response to these two questions.

Douglas Belknap has been practicing an imaginal approach to psychotherapy for over 25 years. He was one of the original Fellows of the Dallas Institute, a member of the Vision Board of the Salt Institute in Santa Fe, and has taught graduate school at the University of New Mexico and for Antioch College. He is currently at work on a book entitled, Imagining: The End Of The World As We Know It.

Jerome S. Bernstein.

Living in the Borderland: Healing the Split between Psyche and Nature.

Jerome is a Jungian Analyst and author. His work with the Navaho tribe led him into dream explorations and spurred a dream process that ultimately took him to the C.G Jung Institute in New York. Now in private practice for over thirty years, he is a member of the faculty at the C.G. Jung Institute of Santa Fe.  His book Living in the Borderland:The Evolution of Consciousness and the Challenge of Healing Trauma was published by Routledge in 2005.

G.A. Bradshaw, PhD

Beyond Adam’s Wall: The Emergence of Trans-Species Psychology

Gay is adjunct faculty at Pacifica Graduate Institute in the Depth Psychology Program and in the Environmental Sciences Graduate Program at Oregon State University. Her research and teaching focus on trans-species psychology and trauma recovery of wildlife. She is the director of The Kerulos Centre for Animal Psychology and Trauma Recovery (www.kerulos.org) that is dedicated to education and research supporting psychological recovery of animals in captivity and conservation of wildlife cultures. Her forthcoming book Elephant Breakdown: The Psychological Study of Animal Cultures in Crisis focuses on psychological trauma experienced in Asian and African elephants. Dr. Bradshaw has written and lectured extensively nationally and internationally, and conducted studies in South Africa, Chile, Europe and the UK, China, and Amazonia.

Connie Buffalo and Mark Gokee 

Ojibway Prophecy: Ancient Guidance for Critical Times

Ojibway prophecies foretold of the great Algonquin migration, the coming of the white man, and of the critical choices that face humankind. Mark Gokee, pipe carrier and philosophy teacher for his Ojibway tribe and Connie Buffalo, Ojibway cultural teacher and past developer of chemical and biological decontamination systems for world governments, combine their knowledge to present a powerful session on a prophecy written over 300 years ago that impacts every person today. Comparisons are drawn between the current worldview of an objective world with man at its apex versus the natural world, related and inter-connected. The world around us is remembered as Monidou, sacred, animated and one in which we are all related. With this foundation, the Ojibway prophecies are introduced. Each of the first six prophecies has been fulfilled and now we stand at the most critical one, the Seventh Fire Prophecy. It speaks of a critical time of decision-making during which the destruction or evolution of the earth is measured by the decisions of each person.

Mark Gokee and Connie Buffalo are members of the Red Cliff Band of Chippewa (Ojibway). Mark has been an instructor of Ojibway philosophy, history and the Anishinaabe language for over 15 years teaching through University of Wisconsin cultural outreach programs and tribal educational programs. He is a pipe carrier, participating in ceremonies whenever called upon. Connie Buffalo has taught Ojibway spirituality nationally and internationally. She has a background in chemical and biological warfare decontamination, designing interactive video learning systems, computer design, television production and philosophy. Together Gokee and Buffalo now create workshops focusing on traditional Ojibway teachings and human consciousness.

Craig Chalquist, M.S., PhD

Going Out as Going In: Sharing Terra’s Psychology

Craig teaches depth psychology, ecopsychology, myth, and research at Sonoma State University, JFK University, New College of California, and the Institute of Imaginal Studies. He lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is the author of Terrapsychology: Reengaging the Soul of Place (Spring Journal Books, 2007), which calls for a new perspective of deep encounter, terrapsychology, for listening into the presence, voice, or "soul" of the land and its features as sites of earthly animation.

George Cornecelli, PhD 

Why Nature Always is About History

Because history is the psyche in action, any talk of “Nature” and its relation to man, always necessarily ends up, as a talk about history. The paradox is that nature is supposed to be one of those areas that have no history, only an eternal past. No one has ever written an actual history of the atom. Yet, to understand an atom we must develop and study the history of the ideas of the atom’s and nature’s genesis--that is to say, we must understand the story of nature’s nature. When it comes to the self or to the Self, the same is true. The presentation will argue that our best bet to respect and possibly be “cleansed” by “Nature,” is to remake ourselves and our history.

George Cornecelli has a PhD in philosophy. For 25 years he has been an executive in several Fortune 500 companies. For the last 8 years he has run his own company, The Mkt. Group (www.mktgroup.net). Dr. Cornecelli has continued his meditations and writing in Jungian psychology and philosophy for over 30 years. He is also the owner and Director of the non-profit organization, The Loudoun Family Therapy Center in Leesburg, VA. Dr. Cornecelli lives with his wife and family in Leesburg.

Safron Courter, MA

The Court in the Wilderness and the Wilderness in the Court 

The legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, written in the late 14th century, has been known as one of the finest Arthurian romances in English literature because of its treatment of the themes of love, heroism and honor. Its enduring fascination lies in its symbolic representation and provocative questioning of nature as the psychological shadow land, the forbidden woods whereupon all that is experienced as uncivilized and undigested in the human experience remains both physically and psychically. From this psychological perspective, the legend provides a remarkable view into the dynamic tension between the Arthurian court whose highly civilized, chivalric philosophy represents some of the ideals of humanity and the chaotic, brutal realm of nature. The Arthurian way of life that is represented by Sir Gawain comes into direct confrontation with the other--nature in a violent and virulent manifestation as the Green Knight. Embodying the unnerving and disorienting effect that nature can have upon the social world of human construction, the Green Knight challenges the seemingly civilized human world in a number of provocative ways, asserting the dominion of nature over and against the fragile civility of society, at the same time critiquing society by its own constructions.

Safron Courter is a PhD student at Pacifica Graduate Institute. She is currently very fond of French feminist scholars and is preparing to begin her dissertation on feminine triads in comparative mythology using a feminist methodology. What is a feminist methodology? A mode of perceiving and questioning in which the woman/scholar does not allow anyone to think in her place....

Mary Locke Crofts, PhD 

Connection Through Creation  

In my dissertation, Down into the Abyss, Up into the Shelter: My Journey to the Rock Art/ists of the Lower Pecos Region of Texas, I intertwine rock art scholarship, experience of place, and creative expression. The resulting experience, which is the topic of my presentation, demonstrates the way creative responses of poetry and story unveil mythic, archetypal motifs underlying ancient rock art, the desert canyonland where it is found, and its generations of inhabitants.

Mary Locke Crofts' abiding love of story and interest in narrative led to careers as a literature teacher, a storyteller, and a mythologist. Her love of west Texas landscape led her to Langtry, Texas, where she wrote her dissertation and found her own sacred place.

Maila T. Davenport, PhD   

A Walk on the Wild Side:  Pilgrimage as Eco-Postmodern Ritual for Soul Implacement  

In this postmodern world, the call for implacement surpasses the old boundary. We can no longer separate exterior environment and interior psychology. The displacement of soul presents in the individual as spiritual crisis. The displacement of World Soul presents in Western culture as atomistic placelessness. From a mythic sensibility placelessness is the way of the Stranger. When the interiority of the world is ignored or denied the simulacra, culture-copies, leave hollow ground beneath our feet. The mimetic action of unfiltered culture--culture that does not seed itself from the Wild--is the wake of the Stranger. The ritual of wild, imaginal pilgrimage can re-speak the Stranger; it can saturate the hollow ground that dichotomizes human soul and Soul of the World. A pilgrimage through both terrestrial and imaginal landscape is a healing ceremony that implaces: wilderness, imagination, soul, and place. By including the mythic trail, the relationship of psyche and World reanimates. We can be re-storied within the vastscapes of archetypal fields. We can remember that we embody places and carry their invisible stories within us. Thus pilgrim and landscape are not discrete entities but co-creators of both the journey and each other.

Maila T. Davenport PhD received her degree from Pacifica Graduate Institute. She has advanced training in imaginal healing and energy medicine from Japanese, Tibetan, and Shamanic traditions. Her teaching integrates archetypal psychology, Wisdom Traditions, creativity, and ritual. She has 20 years experience applying metaphor and imaginal intelligence in both clinical and retreat settings. She has written extensively about the cultural wound of placelessness and the ritual of pilgrimage, through the wilds of both nature and imagination, as embodied prayer to implace humanity in World Soul.

Jonathan Paul DeVierville, PhD 

Myth, Mounds & The Mysteries of Modern Crop Circles

Once upon a Time, myths appeared throughout the planet where humanity imagined knowing the worlds around and within, below, above and beyond. Today, myths continue to emerge from around and within, from below, above and beyond, especially when and where unexplained realities and modern mysteries continually manifest each summer in the fields of England, Europe, America and elsewhere around the planet. Commonly described by the popular media as Crop Circles, these magnificent eco-mysteries of Nature are much more than crops and a whole lot more than circles. The sacred geometrical plant patterns engage, entangle, and enchant human consciousness on a natural and archetypal stage of grand mythic proportions. What is going on with Mother Nature? Who or what is making these natural and environmental friendly matrices? Why? In an imaginative manner and visual presentation we will wander out into the fields of England and North America and return to where this mythic fascination began – near the ancient stones of Avebury, Silbury Hill and Stonehenge and the pre-historic Mounds and Moon aligned Earthworks of Ohio where the geometrically perfect crop circles first appeared near The Great Serpent Mound and Seip Mound during the Summer of 2003. Participants will be encouraged to imagine and draw their own conclusions as to the significance, meaning and purpose embedded in these unexplained environmental friendly archetypal phenomena appearing in nature near the great mythical, pre-historic and ancient sites of America and England. 

Jonathan Paul De Vierville, Phd is Professor of History and The Humanities, St. Philip’s College and Director, Alamo Plaza Spa, San Antonio, Texas.  He facilitates The Eco-Social-Psi-Dreaming & Global Spa Culture Seminars. Trained at The C. G. Jung Institute, Zurich he participated in The Spring House Seminars during the early years (Œ70’s) of Archetypal Psychology. At The University of Texas, Austin (Œ80s) he wrote A History of American Spas and Healing Waters and helped found The International Spa Association and Foundation. He presents at World Congresses on Spa Culture.  At Schumacher College, England he encountered the dreams, sounds, mysteries and myths of Crop Circles. http://www.alamoplazaspa.com

Thomas Patrick Donovan

The Paradox of Killing the Planet in the Quest for Immortality  

Could it be that the most inconvenient truth that humans continue to repress, deny and sublimate is the truth of our mortality? This presentation explores the seeming paradox between the relentless human quest for immortality and the apparently unstoppable destruction of the planetary ecosystem. It is argued that modern civilization as we know it is incompatible with sustainability. The starting point for meaningful dialogue over the fate of the planet must begin at the wellsprings of grief and melancholy over the very brief sojourn of each human life. Only by embracing and living from full awareness of our mortality can the destructive projections that are being unleashed upon the Earth be taken back. 

Thomas Patrick Donovan is a doctoral student at Pacifica Graduate Institute who is currently writing his depth psychology dissertation, Troubled Guests: Facing Mortality and the Permission to be Human. He is also adjunct faculty at John F. Kennedy University in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has facilitated men's circles, practiced sports massage with elite athletes, and worked with a number of traditional teachers.

Amanda Dowd, ANZSJA, IAAP 

The Cultural Complex and the Environment: A Case Study  

In predominantly semi-arid Australia, over 200 years of mostly inappropriate land use has attempted to “remake” the landscape in the image of its colonizer. The transplanted image of Nature/God from the North usurps the fabric of meaning inherent in the subtleties of local eco-spiritual systems and ignores, for the most part, indigenous knowledge. The fragile soils and complexities of ecosystems, so different from the North, are succumbing to salination, desertification, species loss and drought. This represents a tragic playing out of an unconscious cultural complex with respect to the environment. This presentation will describe something of the origins of a pattern of disavowal and disconnectedness which the presenter feels originated in the primal terrors of exile when, in 1788, the first “convict settlers” and therefore psychological antecedents of a non-indigenous identity arrived in terra incognita. The psychic politics of survival--disavowing the trauma of dislocation and the recognition that it is we who are the foreigners, the projection of fear and hatred of the unknown Other onto land and indigenous population alike--has resulted in an attempt at indigenous genocide and almost successful ecological terrorism.

Amanda Dowd, ANZSJA, IAAP is a Jungian Analyst and former biologist/teacher. As a migrant to Australia she has had direct experience of “coming to terms with the land as Other.” After 15 years practising with migrants and locals this depth experience of the profound interconnectedness between internal and external landscapes is pivotal to her practice and has contributed to thinking about an emergent therapeutic metaphor specific for  “country.” What also particularly interests her are the psychocultural factors that disrupt this “link to the land.”

Victoria C. Drake

In the Deep Ecology of Nature’s Psyche: How the Immanence of Earth Work Art Transcends and Integrates the Soul of Nature with the Nature of Soul

This presentation explores the relationship of earth work art (or “land art’”), particularly that of Walter De Maria (born 1935), to its referential, contextual landscape and natural physical site in space and time from a depth psychological perspective. The subtle embodiment and transformation of earth work as the in situ art material over time seems to be both a conscious/unconscious call and response to the specific question: what is nature’s soul or psyche asking of me? versus what is world soul (or anima mundi) asking of me? The symbiotic continuum of earth work art is alive; in present time, never static. It thus becomes a symbolic proving ground or mirror for what we may be seeing outside that is beckoning us across a threshold deep within. The experience of this evolving, manifest medium offers a clearer understanding of how to reimagine our respective, infinitely, polycentric reply for: what is nature’s soul asking of me? What is Gaia dreaming of me?

Victoria C. Drakeis a second year MA/PhD graduate student at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Depth Psychology. In August, 2004, she visited The Lightning Field (1977) by Walter De Maria near Quemado, NM and spent 24 hours with her family observing this singularly remarkable earth work installation. Recently, she made a pilgrimage to DIA Beacon, NY to study additional De Maria art works. A former primatologist and international wildlife conservationist, Victoria is now involved in community justice advocacy issues with the Human Rights Watch Chicago Committee and The Field Museum of Chicago/Openlands working in China.

Debra Durham, PhD  

Mirror Image: Archetypal Splitting and the Emergence of the Trans-Species Healer

Anthropocentrism denies the continuities between humans and other primates. Genetic evidence shows that ancient humans human and chimpanzees interbred for millions of years after our species lines first diverged. The shared evolutionary heritage of humans and our primate kin extends beyond genes and physiological pathways to include capacities for love, fairness, empathy and even psychopathology. Functionally all primates are the same, yet nonhuman primates lack any legal and ethical parity. Chimpanzees and other primates are used in experiments to infer what and how conditions will affect human psyches without regard to their suffering. Yet others are hunted and exploited. A new trans-species science has emerged where a common model of brain, behavior, and psyche is shared by all species. It is no longer possible to hold ethical from scientific rationale and the union of opposites is compelled. Congruent with analytical psychology's split archetype, and spirit of the wounded healer, I explore emergent models of psychological healing that give rise to a new trans-species profession of healers. I discuss how a growing number of healers—medical doctors, veterinarians, psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors and ethologists like myself—are coalescing in a unified effort to ameliorate suffering across ancient species lines.

Debra Durham, PhD is an ethologist who specializes in primates. She earned her PhD in animal behavior from UC Davis and her areas of expertise include responses to stress, change and trauma. She has studied and advocated for primates both in the wild and in captivity.  She is co-founder of the International Association for Animal Trauma and Recovery. www.iaatr.org

Lima Edvaldo, PhD 

The Hero’s Journey and the Rediscovery of Gaia  

Like a bridge linking different worlds of knowledge, the Hero’s Journey puts together Joseph Campbell and Carl Gustav Jung in the unlikely environment of Hollywood movie making. Steven Spielberg and George Lucas created pearls of mass media phenomena. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Star Wars are not just entertainment. They convoy meaning and purpose, touching the hearts and souls of millions world wide who get the message: the real adventure is not about good guys fighting bad guys. The real adventure is a quest for Self and illumination. On the road of trials, the protagonist may face a re-enchantment with Nature. With his/her own deep Nature, that is, which in turn may reconnect him/her to the natural environment around. The Hero’s Journey as a narrative structuring method can also be applied to real life stories. It has the power to unleash narratives of discoveries. With a little help of proactive educommunicators who understand that science and imagination can walk together, it provides a magnificent opportunity for a transformative journey. The reward is to learn that we are here not to subjugate Nature. We are here to evolve together as allies and co-creators of realities.

Edvaldo Pereira Lima, PhD is a professor at the University of São Paulo who teaches graduate courses on Literature of Reality in Brazil, taking a transdisciplinary approach in his work. He has published in his home country and in Mexico. He did postdoctoral studies in Education at the University of Toronto, Canada. The Hero’s Journey is a key element in his real life story writing method.

Jamie Egolf, MSW, LCSW 

Geysers, Grizzlies, and Paint Pots: Finding the Deep Self in the Yellowstone/Wyoming Wilderness and the Wilderness of the Psyche

The exploration of the Wyoming wilderness by early explorers and the actual creation of Yellowstone National Park was a mythic scenario within itself. Finding the Deep Self in this challenging ecological wilderness is comparable to the exploration in the wilderness of the psyche. This presentation explores the sometimes savage wilderness both within the Self and in the deep forest through encounters with grizzlies, mapping the country, and looking at the actual dreams of people doing this wilderness work otherwise known as Individuation.

Jamie Egolf, Jungian Psychotherapist, Consultant, and Psychodramatist in Laramie, Wyoming, received a MSW from Catholic University of America, Washington, DC. She was trained by the Interregional Society of Jungian Analysts; trained in Psychodrama, Shamanism, Creative Writing, Art. She began The Magic Theatre of Life (workshops in psychodrama and drama therapy,) co-authored the PreMarital Inventory; wrote Dreaming Superman, presented, University of Melbourne's Superhero Conference, 2005; Desire and Sensuality in the Music and Relationships of Claude Debussy: A Look at the Split in the Archetypal Feminine, presented, 2007 Creativity and Madness Conference in Santa Fe. Her grown daughter Sarah is a Conservationist.

Thomas Elsner, JD, MA

The Symbolic Life of Inner and Outer Nature

The contemporary ecologist and depth psychologist have something in common. They mourn the loss of an erotic, reciprocal interaction with non-human reality. This loss, whether it is expressed as separation from nature or psyche is experienced as alienation and is ultimately a crisis of Eros. The ecologist tends to experience erotic reciprocity in non-human nature, the depth psychologist in non-human psyche, but both experiences are symbolic and archetypal and the distinction between them is not absolute. This short presentation, which I would suggest as a plenary session, will compare the similarties in certain statements by psychologist C.G. Jung and ecologist David Abram to illustrate these points.

Thomas Elsner, JD, MA is a Jungian Analyst trained in Switzerland at the Research and Training Center for Depth Psychology according to C.G. Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz. He is a faculty member of the C.G. Jung Study Center of Southern California and has a private practice in Santa Barbara. His forthcoming book is entitled, The Night-Sea Voyage of Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner: The Circuitous Journey of Individuation.

Leslie Emery, PhD  

Telling It Like It Really Is: Eco-Logical References for Narrating the Mythical Multiplicities of the Non-Linear Natures of Nature

How does one narrate the dynamic character of an ‘oikos’—whether it be the ordering of a planet, society, or psyche—if the eco-logic of environmental relationships is fantastically complicated? Chaos theory shows order emerging from chaotic behavior. Ecological science models environments as complexes of overlapping, radially interactive, mutually modifying contexts. Nature is thus literally non linear. This ‘science of interminable interactivity’ prompts reflection upon the adequacy of our habitual ways for ‘telling’ nature. This centerless interactivity ‘spreads out’ in all directions, reverberating across time. Rational models for it include concepts like ‘self-ordering chaotic behavior’ and the layered ecosystem components of hierarchical patch dynamics theory (Wu and Loucks). Such notions about ‘eco-logical ordering’ provide references for developing more effective rhetorical styles for ‘telling It like It really really is.’ A ‘representational disequilibrium’ emerges, requiring divergent styles, concepts, and disciplines, in order to elaborate the inclusive dynamism of indefinitely complex eco-logical nature(s)—including that of psychic ecology. The forest thus becomes the indeterminable relationships that generate the trees, indicating the irreducible multiplicities constituting both material phenomena and consciousness. We show this to be a fundamentally mythical mode of telling the ‘indefinite natures of nature.’ Examples are provided in literature, myth, and popular culture, as well as science.

Leslie Emery, PhD explores human motivation and epistemology through various genres of writing, performance, and psychological analysis of cultural mythologies. He is a storyteller, independent writer and teacher, and author of the website www.mytho-logos.net

Donald Strauss focuses his writing primarily on relations between individuals, communities, and environments. He is associate professor at Antioch University Los Angeles, teaching writing and environmental literature, and currently enrolled in the Environmental Studies PhD Program at Antioch University New England.

Scott Feaster, PhD 

Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain: The Landscape of the Soul  

I seek to disturb clinical and critical hierarchies. To bridge the insights of Jung with film criticism often amounts to little more than applying Jung to narrative structure, but not to make the attempt is ethically indefensible. It fatally neglects the needs of the mass psyche. The key to unlock the symbols of Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain (2005) is Post-Jungian film criticism. For example, John Izod takes the Western genre as myth to frame and interpret contemporary cultural symbols through compensation. I go beyond Izod because I link his criticism’s Logos with Eros. Eros, if it is not to be misunderstood (based on our complexes) must be experienced. The story of Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist is about love and its destruction by the violence of complexes. What the intellect and facts cannot explain, the emotions of the story can. Experiencing the images as ethically transforming is potentially demonstrable if we amplify the images as we watch them. I shall try to show that symbols are a bridge between the individual and collective that allows us to face with moral integrity the violence of our relationships to self, other and the earth.

Scott Feaster, PhD earned his Comparative Arts degree at Ohio University. Since then he has concentrated on community college students and how film is their myth. To engage students as whole beings, he authored two books, Jung Goes to the Movies: the Puer and Puella are Alive and Well in Film, (1991) with Jungian Analyst, Roger and authored In Search of the Rose: Jung Meets Orson Welles (1994). At the 3rd Conference of the International Association of Jungian studies, he gave a presentation, The Blue Rose of Love: Krzysztof Kieslowski's Three Colors Trilogy (2006).

Andrew Fellows, PhD

PsychEcology: Gaia meets Anima Mundi

"PsychEcology" proposes and explores a metaphor of world as psyche through a synthesis of Gaia theory (biosphere as self-regulating soma) and Jungian psychology (psyche as self-regulating bounded totality). This re-activates an archaic world-view (Anima Mundi) alongside modern science to offer an original framework for enquiry into our estrangement from “nature within and nature without" in contemporary terms. Why have we, especially through political and religious fundamentalism, become so indifferent to the natural world? Why does scientific materialism deny our inner nature? Can environmental-ism itself escape such destructive hubris? What are the roles of individual action and collective policy? What are the implications of  a global monoculture? Above all, what, if any, is the connection between our relationship to the natural world and our inner psychic dynamics? Can one be healed, or even valued, without the other? Clearly the metaphor of psychecology suggests not. This is brought down to earth with brief examples from the climate change negotiating table, the therapeutic practice room and, above all, from immersion in nature herself.

Andrew Fellows is completing his Zurich training as a Jungian analyst at ISAP, previously at the C G Jung Institute. He holds a Doctorate in applied physics, and has two decades of professional experience in technical, commercial, social and political aspects of renewable energy and sustainable development in Europe, Africa and Asia. He is a former Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society and Director of the British Wind Energy Association. His publications include The Potential of Wind Energy to Reduce CO₂ Emissions presented to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Further information is available at his website www.psychecology.org

Annamarie Fidel-Rice, PhD 

Traveling Grief - A Soulful Place   

Boots. Hundreds of boots. There were literally 2,753 pairs of boots representing American soldiers killed in Iraq. A traveling exhibit of the Iraq war, Eyes Wide Open, was in Denver October 11, 2006. Boots were lined up in rows on the lawn of Civic Center Park. Bodies filled those boots. Those bodies had lives. Now, flowers filled the boots. Families attached memorabilia to their son or daughter's boots. There were letters to the souls that used to wear the boots. The boots had become traveling graves of sorrow. This place on any other day contains Frisbees, homeless people, civic employees, and is a crossroads between the art museum, library, and Starbucks. Magically, sorrowfully the boots alchemically transformed the soul of this place overnight. I experienced and witnessed alchemy as I walked through the sea of boots. I felt the death, anger and rage. Tears flowed effortlessly. A spiritual essence was present. This presentation will explore the overnight transformation of this urban environment into a terrain of grief, comparing the medieval process of alchemy to change the soul of place. Two thousand pairs of boots catalyze a traveling graveyard--the alchemy of grief.

Annamarie Fidel-Rice, PhD is a depth psychologist in private practice for fourteen years and core faculty at Regis University in Denver, Colorado.  In addition, Annamarie is president and owner of The Fidel-Rice Group, Inc., a management consulting firm.

Andy Fisher, Ph.D is the author of Radical Ecopsychology: Psychology in the Service of Life. A psychotherapist and wilderness guide, he lives in Perth, Canada.

Druscilla French, Ph.D. is a Founder and President of the Board of Directors for The Foundation For Mythological Studies. She also serves on the Board for Archives and Research Center at Pacifica Graduate Institute and the Women’s Leadership Council at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is currently at work on The Blissless Myth: Narcissus and Echo.

Sukey Fontelieu, MA, MFT  

The Greek Nature God Pan and World Terrorism

Does Pan's split nature, half divine and half animal, inform the needed metamorphosis for the current world crisis? In the mythic stories, Pan was often misunderstood and even feared by humanity, but was adored by the gods (they named him all). He ruled the borderlands between city and the wild. Tolerating the divinity in the wild outskirts of psyche, on the one hand internally as the place of personal growth and on the other the borderland between cultures, is the landscape for deep transformation. This presentation will explore whether the Great God Pan is dead as proclaimed at the time of Christ’s crucifixion or if, after centuries in abeyance, he returns with a vengeance in the wild intensity of the terrorist. In the imagination of the ancient Greeks, Pan ruled both panic and fertility. Today, we are left with the uncertainty of whether world transformation will be devolution through unresolved panic, anger, and blame or an evolution born of tolerance and the fertile presence of Pan and the nymphs within. Either path is part of Pan’s domain and examining the split nature of the god may help to inform the unconscious split in the dark, chthonic nature of us all.

Sukey Fontelieu, MA, MFT is a writer and editor of fiction and non-fiction. She is a psychotherapist in private practice in Santa Barbara CA, a PhD candidate at Lancaster University in England, and an adjunct member of the faculty at Pacifica Graduate Institute.

John Foster 

Spring Water

Science is the product of ego-consciousness and can be developed along particular lines for conscious apprehension of the world in a limited but useful set of ways. A more fully human, and thus soulful, apprehension of the world requires accessing and developing other poles of consciousness instinctually made available to the human mind through archetypes. This presentation focuses on spring-water and will utilize images from Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away.

John Foster holds a BSc in Psychology and Biology from McMaster University. He is a teacher of English -- at university in Tokyo (ten years) and at a private school in Vancouver (seven years). It is his intention to restore a Japanese farmhouse and is working with his wife to start up a sustenance farming project in rural Japan..

Amy Gardner, MA 

Collaborating with the Natural World: Mythic Dimensions of Sustainable Building

Architectural structures are often microcosms of a culture’s perceived universal order. Amplifying the idea that buildings reflect mythological sensibilities, this presentation explores several themes in the contemporary sustainable building movement. Within the movement are “natural builders” who seek to integrate local traditions, site requirements, and personal influences in creating their contemporary dwelling place. Fusing together site realities, vernacular architecture patterns, sustainable building techniques and solutions, and subjective choices, the builder/dweller collaborates with the natural world in the creative process. Several examples of the resulting forms, shown in slides, share a number of patterns that reveal a symbolic relationship between humans and the natural world. As demonstrated above, this presentation proposes that the making of dwellings and other structures that attend to nature, place, and the pantheon of human needs is a path of discovery that reveals meaning. The presentation conveys how an embodied exploration of hand-building methods and listening to the land cultivates a sensitivity to the “soul of place.” The process of synthesizing local methods, insights from other regions, and one’s inner yearnings integrates personal, natural and practical realities that support the psyche-nature connection.  

Amy Gardner, MA is a New Mexico landscape artist, natural builder and writer who collaborates with the earth in creating spaces and structures. She works with a variety of materials including adobe, straw bale, cob, and wattle and daub. Gardner earned her MA from Pacifica Graduate Institute where she is currently a PhD candidate in the department of Mythological Studies.

John Gentile, PhD 

The Longing for Sacred Landscapes

“[O]ur anguish over the fate of the earth,” writes Roger S. Gottlieg in This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment, “is a real element in our everyday emotional lives” (4). Confronted with the desacralization, commodification, and destruction of the natural environment in the United States, I have sought sacred landscapes found in other cultures, particularly those of Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Bhutan. This paper explores the longing for sacred landscapes, its inspiration in grief, its early unconscious stirring, and recognizes that holy longing as a yearning for the restoration of wonder and a deep connection to the divine.

John S. Gentile, PhD is Professor and Chair of the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies at Kennesaw State University. His publications include Cast of One: One-Person Shows form the Chautauqua Platform to the Broadway Stage (Univ. of Illinois Press). He is the founding co-editor of Storytelling, Self, Society: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Storytelling Studies. His production The Hero’s Journey: Mythic Stories of the Heroic Quest was presented at the 2004 Mythic Journeys conference. He will direct his adaptation of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick in April 2008.

Frances Gray, PhD 

Wild-Life Warriors and the Overcoming of Nature 

 In my paper, My Daddy was My Hero, I argued that the overcoming of the natural environment is an aspect of the hero archetype. In this presentation I explore Steve Irwin's notion 'wildlife warrior' as the obverse of 'wildlife lover.' I argue that Irwin's sensitivity to the creatureliness of the animals he encountered was muted by his failure to see himself as a potential threat to those animals. However, the muting of sensitivity is not limited to either Irwin or the human/non-human animal relationship. Emphasis on development in the West has obscured our dependence on nature as the source of our being. The notions of overcoming and wildlife warrior re-inscribe that failure. My presentation critically examines what we can do to address the potential 'defeat' of the natural environment. The presentation proposes that rather than 'wildlife warriors' the notion 'wildlife lover' captures a healthier ethical relationship to nature.

Frances Gray, PhD holds a doctorate in Philosophy from the Australian National University. She lectures in Philosophy at the University of New England, Armidale, NSW, Australia where she has lived and worked since 1998. Her forthcoming book, Jung, Irigaray, Individuation will be published by Routledge in 2007.

Honor Griffith, PhD.

Changing Human Nature? 

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower/ Drives my green age. These lines by Dylan Thomas move us so profoundly, I believe, because they capture our intrinsic knowing about our oneness with nature. In contrast, the prevailing paradigm of a human species which is separate from, and has dominion over, the earth has spawned a view of human nature characterized by fear, mistrust, and the need for control. These beliefs are internalized in childhood at an age before we even acquire the brain/ mind equipment required to be conscious of them. However much we attempt to deal with the devastation of our man-made ecological disasters, those unconscious assumptions about our species will continue to undermine our efforts. We must have a new myth about human nature. Fortunately, the ingredients for the creation of such a myth are all around us. Research in fields such as affective neuroscience, child and infant development, complexity theory, quantum biology, and epigenetics point to the possibility of the emergence of a human species embedded in nature and powered by love, cooperation and community. This paper explores, within a Jungian framework, some of the cutting edge research in contemporary science and psychology which traverses this terrain.

Honor Griffith, PhD is a Jungian based psychotherapist and workshop leader practicing in British Columbia, Canada. Her current work focuses on building a bridge between research in affective neuroscience, attachment theory, trauma and Jungian thought. Published papers/conference presentations include: Evoking the Embodied Image: Jung in the Age of the Brain (2006), a review of Phil Mollon’s EMDR and the Energy Therapies in Harvest (2005), a review of Robert Romanyshyn’s The Soul in Grief in The San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal (2001), and Jung and Postmodernism: Bridging the Self-Other Divide in Psychology at the Threshold (2000).

Fletcher Harper 

Nature and Soul - The Shape of the Human Relationship to the Created Order

Human beings from diverse cultural, socio-economic, ecological and religious backgrounds have "spiritual" or "depth" experiences in the natural world which can be classified in a discrete number of categories and which provide a window into the psycho-spiritual architecture of humanity's relationship to the created order. During 2004-6, the author interviewed over 50 individuals from diverse ecological settings and wide-ranging cultural, socioeconomic, and religious backgrounds, asking them to describe a personal experience in the natural world which they described as a "spiritual" or "depth" experience. This presentation will present findings from this research, including connections between the most widespread types of human experiences in nature and common mythological/religious themes, provide an opportunity for participants to offer their perspectives on the inner structure of humanity's relationship to the natural world, and offer a critique of popular, consumer culture's impact on this relationship. Participants will learn to create a psycho-spiritual ecological autobiography to trace the growth and development of their own relationship with the natural world.

Fletcher Harper, an Episcopal priest, is Executive Director of GreenFaith, an interfaith environmental coalition based in New Jersey.  An award-winning spiritual writer and nationally-recognized preacher on the environment, he preaches, teaches and speaks weekly at houses of worship from a wide range of denominations about the moral, spiritual basis for environmental stewardship and justice.  A graduate of Princeton University and Union Theological Seminary, he served as a parish priest for ten years and in leadership positions in the Episcopal Church prior to joining GreenFaith.

Dina Hartzell, PhD  

Prolegomena for an Eco-Mythology

An Eco-Mythology would explore the effects of mythologies (as epistemological structures) on ecological realities—on how humans actually behave toward their environment. For example, Greek mythology originates the world in a chaos that needs Olympic efforts to balance, monotheistic traditions originate the world through a singular god who does not need the agency of other creatures, and Western science sets it up as a machine. These defining stories set the stage for the hierarchical and mechanized realities that have been playing out in human exploitation of the natural world. Western scientific and mythological structures that separate humans from the rest of nature are increasingly held responsible for the dire environmental circumstances in which we find ourselves. Eco-scholars around the globe are exploring the idea of a science based on the premise that nature, including humans, is relational and interdependent. An Eco-Mythology would interpret or explain this new (or Native--Gregory Cajete) science through the lenses of its root stories. It might also explore the roles of places and ecosystems in creating both mythological and scientific epistemologies. In this paper, I will lay a preliminary foundation for the field.

Dina Hartzell graduated with a PhD in Mythological Studies with an emphasis in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute in 2000. Her dissertation, The Irrepressible Dance: A Choreomythology, argued that dancing can expand human perception and reveal essential ingredients of tradition, myth, and culture through somatic, creative memory. Dina is Assistant Professor in the graduate and undergraduate departments of Interdisciplinary Studies at Marylhurst University in Oregon. She teaches interdisciplinary research methods, community theory, and mythological and depth psychological studies, with a focus in eco-scholarship.

C. Doyle Hollister, MA

Soul of Place and the Instinctual Life

The focus of this presentation centers on the themes in a memoir I have written entitled, “I only went out for a walk…” The title takes off on a John Muir quote, “I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.” The memoir's themes resound with the soul of place and the psycho-spiritual effect on persons having a deep connection to a personal wilderness. As well, the darker side of disconnection is addressed, the psycho-spiritual effect on persons emotionally cut-off from a personal wilderness place. The memoir describes personal experiences growing up on this rustic ranch, immersed in the wild, as a youth and the early seeding of a later grounded connection to instinctual life, initiation. The memoir then moves into the psychological terrain of losing connection to this powerful place, the sale of the family ranch, and assesses the severe psychological effects of this loss. The memoir concludes coming full circle via reconnection to the land mid-life, a reunion, deeply spiritual to the day. I use my intimate journey here to make more collective statements. My story is really our story; it is a metaphor for all. It must be.

C Doyle Hollister, MA has been practicing as a psychotherapist in Santa Barbara for 25 years specializing in relationship process therapy. He has taught marriage and family therapy graduate classes extensively at Antioch University and Pacifica Graduate Institute. He is currently an Adjunct Faculty member at Pacifica. When he is not seated in the psychotherapy “chair,” he is up in the wild relating to oak trees, rattlesnakes, mountain lions, hawks, wind and more…He can be emailed at cdhduende@aol.com

Madeleine Houston, PhD 

Eco-Narcissism, Echo Logic

For this presentation, Ovid’s tale of Echo and Narcissus will be considered in the context of the human relationship with the non-human world. Even as nature echoes back to us the direct consequences of our actions, we are so enamored of our selves and our societies that we do not recognize the illusions that endanger us. Were we able to respond to the clear messages that the natural world calls back to us, that which is beautiful in human culture might not waste away and the human species might not extinguish itself. A listing of the criteria for narcissistic personality disorder according to the DSM-IV is almost comic in its applicability to much of human conduct, and to contemporary American culture in particular. However, it is useful also to turn the mirror on the environmental movement specifically, and to discuss the implications of emotional participation from this perspective. Sixteen or seventeen years ago, in response to a question from Joanna Macy, the Dalai Lama stated that what Tibetan Buddhism could best offer the environmental movement was altruism. This presentation will conclude with some reflections on this suggestion.

Madeleine Houston, PhD has accumulated a mixed and curious history through geography, ceramics, buddhist studies, international development, writing, psychology and mythological studies. She is currently engaged in developing alternative dwelling strategies in rural Washington State and New Mexico.                                                       

Jean John
The Fall of Rome - A Life-Cycle Archetypal Perspective of Climate Change

The world we live in is threatened by climate change. Through our overuse of fossil fuels, we are unwittingly moving the planet head long into a global crisis with potentially catastrophic consequences. Within our lifetime – or at least our children’s lifetime – the world may pass the tipping point, beyond which it will be impossible to avert massive impacts on the planet. Western civilization as we know it could collapse. We are like frogs in the warming water, oblivious to our imminent demise. Or we are quickly overwhelmed by the magnitude of the problem, and we leap immediately to despair and hopelessness. Psychologically, our epoch of benign climate is about to end. Death is in the wings, and transformation has to happen. The breakdown of civilization was prophetically captured by W.H. Auden in his poem Fall of Rome. The storms are unleashed on the abandoned relics of existence, despair sets in, and the polluted world spirals down into anarchy and betrayal. But rebirth is in the wings. While the affected bird witnesses this demise, she sits patiently on her nest, in hope and expectation. The spirit of the reindeer heralds the birth of a new world, coming alive with electric speed and agility. Rome is about to fall. Will we be paralyzed and whither away beneath the heaviness of the fall? Or will we run gracefully and fleetingly with the reindeer, transformed by the climate of change that is now upon us?

Jean Johnis the director of the Psychesoma Center in Santa Barbara. She has a PhD in clinical psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute and a MS in nutritional science from the University of Wisconsin. She teaches through Santa Barbara City College and on the adjunct faculty at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Jean has published articles on her work and lectured internationally and nationally.

Dianne Juhl, MA 

Winds of Change: A Study of Ecological and Embodied Dream Incubation

What is meaningful about ecological and embodied dreaming experiences for our everyday lives, nature and culture? How might we tend dreams so that all soulful beings feel welcome to be close to us humans, to reveal their stories and commentary on our collective life together?  This presentation explores the dream world's reality, the natural world's presence, the material imagination, and the crucial role of the body in transforming human-nature, mind-body splits. This account speaks to the commitment of a dreamer to acquire an eco-centric worldview and dwell in a long term, dialogical relationship with the imaginal, specifically exploring oikos and the mystery that a real home is always at once a particular place and the entire world. The study describes the process of re-inhabiting the dream ecosystem and the human body using the Embodied Imagination method and the Authentic Movement discipline, which allow one to hold the tension of opposing feeling states accompanying dream imagery within the body so to expand the diaphragm of one's awareness. The study describes how community dreaming practices provide public homeplaces to hear the imaginal, thus connecting us with our creative imagination and orienting us toward a collective vision of well-being.

Dianne Juhl, MA is currently enrolled in Pacifica Graduate Institute's Depth Psychology doctoral program. Previously Dianne worked at Microsoft Corporation as a design anthropologist, usability engineer and program manager. She has published articles and a book chapter on participatory, customer-centered software design processes and field research methods. The Winds of Change study draws upon Dianne's work exploring the role of dreams and dreaming in creative life and for creative problem-solving. Dianne considers herself a social entrepreneur and tempered radical, provoking learning, change and transformation via patient, deliberate efforts as an "everyday integral leader."

Pat Katsky, PhD 

The Inner Experience of the Natural World: Nature as a Transference Object

For many of us, experiences in nature are openings to the realm of the numinous, offering spiritual nourishment and psychological healing. These rich moments share important qualities of mind with transformative experiences occurring in depth psychotherapy. When deeply meaningful connections are found to the natural world, our understanding of the psychotherapy process can be used to explore the unconscious dynamics which may be active in these moments. Kohut's ideas about mirroring and idealizing transferences will be considered, as well as Jung's thoughts about the relationship between the ego and the Self, synchronicity, and active imagination.

Pat Katsky, PhD is a Jungian Analyst and core faculty at Pacifica Graduate Institute. She was formerly on the faculty of the Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA, and has extensive management consulting experience. She co-founded a nonprofit mental health center, Counseling West, located in the Los Angeles area, and is currently working on a book about the process of becoming a psychotherapist.

Jeffrey Kiehl, PhD  

Nature: Visible and Invisible

The greatest environmental challenge facing humanity is global warming. I find it difficult to convey the severity of this issue to the public using the language of scientific fact. Evoking imagination is a more powerful way to communicate the seriousness of global warming. Story animates our imagination providing a creative way to address global environmental problems. In attempts to tell the story of our relationship to the environment many words appear with the prefix dis-, such as: dissonance, disconnection, dismissal, disrupted, displaced, distraction, and distancing. Dis is a name for the Greek god Hades, ruler of the underworld. Hades is the god who lives apart from others and, as such, gives birth to an alterity of invisibility. Hades is also the possessor of the riches of Earth. Dis is an archetypal force that entraps and separates. He enters a situation unseen and creates discord, disarray and disconnection. I will explore how Nature becomes invisible to us and how in separating from Nature we look upon it as an inanimate resource to be used and abused. Using stories of Dis I explore how we can re-member our interdependence in Nature and reconnect to a deeper sense of participation with Nature.

Jeffrey Kiehl, PhD is a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, where he is a member of the Climate Change Research Section. He has published over 100 articles on Earth’s climate system. His current research interests include understanding greenhouse climates of Earth’s past and their relation to extinctions. Jeff holds a M.A. in psychology, and is currently in the control stage of training in the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts. His thesis is Nature: Visible and Invisible. He is interested in how environmental dialogue among scientists, the government, and the public can be facilitated though psychological reflection.

Stephen King, PhD 

Water

I recently attended a presentation by Masaru Emoto. His method is to freeze water then photograph the crystals as the water melts. These crystals appear under a black light microscope for only twenty to thirty seconds, which gives us a glimpse into a magical world; a profound philosophy emerges and reflects back on the world around. For the crystals that emerge from pristine beautiful settings are clearly more perfect and beautiful than those from more troubled or polluted surroundings. Dr. Emoto subsequently discovered that the shape of these water crystals change as one thinks loving positive thoughts vs. harsh negative thoughts. Our emotional vibration is reflected back in the water not just on the surface but also at its very core in its crystal formations. Crystals from poor circumstances look weird and deformed and those from pure circumstances look beautiful and proud. As the crystals emerge the emotional quality of water becomes visible, its soul surfaces through the reflection of its skin. People are so used to seeing themselves in water, not considering what is below the surface or the water’s feelings, that they are astonished to learn that they, the observer, are being observed. We are 70% plus water, surely we should take care of the water in our bodies, to make our crystals perfect and beautiful. This will only happen with positive thoughts and environment. The link between subtle energy and well-being becomes crystal clear. As with many gods, people will look to de-personify water, control it and turn it into the bargaining chip of the 21st century, between individuals, states, and countries. An unwitting bargaining chip, a depersonalized bargaining chip, just as it already is in Oregon’s high desert. As we dig our wells and divert our streams let us not forget that it also supports life not just fish and wildlife but ours, even our golf, skiing and tamed nature need water. Water has become yet another thing we can control, bottle and clean-up, nevertheless, we need to attend to water not take it for granted. The Navajo and most Native Americans will tell you that if something is wrong with the water “this would have been interpreted as a punitive response. Wrought by Water itself to something the people had done.” (Basso, 16) We must take care of Water and she will take care of us.

Stephen J. King, PhD has headed many ventures within the software technology market in the United States and abroad, Stephen attributes much of his business success to his unique management style, which is rooted in Jungian philosophy and mythology. He believes that for a company to be truly successful, it is essential to harness the creativity, enthusiasm, vitality and imagination of every employee. He is a graduate of London University, attended the Wharton Business School, and is completing his PhD in mythology from Pacifica. He presents internationally on organizational issues.

Dean LaCoe, EdM 

Addressing Oil Addiction with Substance Abuse Treatment

The USA would fail an oil addiction screening test: •Do I continue using (oil) despite negative consequences? •Is my usage escalating? •Have I tried to stop and been unable? •Am I rationalizing? (i.e. but everyone is driving an SUV...) •Am I minimizing? (I personally don’t feel the temperature rising…) While oil abstinence (stopping oil use) is not possible, a harm reduction approach is called for. The presentation introduces two tools addiction psychologists use to facilitate recovery from substance dependence: (1) The most reliable predictor of drug treatment outcome is patient readiness. The Stage Change Model (Prochaska and DiClemente 1985) assesses readiness and prescribes conversations designed to move the client toward the next step of awareness and recovery; and, (2) Self-Narrative Analysis (Hanninen & Koski-Jannes 1999) finds that different types of addicts often use one of five stories from the cultural stockpile to support and sustain their healing. For example, male alcoholics respond to the Alcoholics Anonymous conversion story with its underlying mythic hero’s journey motif. This presentation introduces story themes that different types of Americans might productively tell themselves to support growing ecological awareness and behavior change.

Dean LaCoe EdM, Harvard, BA Mass Communication, Boston University, works for the Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse of Santa Barbara and for a communication technology corporation. A member of the California Association of Drug and Alcohol Counselors and the International Institute for Trauma and Addiction Professionals, he has a specialty in the treatment of sex addiction. In business, working in 10 countries Dean has pioneered computer applications in interactive education and user-friendly interfaces. Dean writes and speaks on technology, society, addiction and spirituality. His book on oil addiction as substance abuse will release late 2007. deanlacoe@earthlink.net

Tim LaSalle 

Awakening to Ecocide

The human record in regard to ecology is one of destruction. Since long before modern times, the conscious or unconscious degradation of the environment, with its attendant pollution, atmospheric warming, soil loss, and elimination of species, has been accelerating, and is now climaxing at the most rapid pace ever recorded or studied. Humans are the primary disrupter of the natural balance and we remain as the principal disturbance to the self healing quality of the natural world. Social, economic and political structures both domestically and on the transnational level continue to support the status quo of humanity’s destructive patterns. Through a depth psychological lens this study explored what within the human psyche holds the propensity to ecocide. It also studied what it was that distinguishes those who are awake to this propensity and working to change our current destructive paradigm. This research offers to depth psychology and ecopsychology three important elements that these eccentric awakened offer the collective that is critical for the well-being of both the human psyche and the ecologically based soul of the world.

Tim LaSalle brings twenty-seven years of leadership development experience, coupled with decades of non-profit leadership. Tim served as President/CEO for the California Agriculture Leadership Program, as Executive Director of The Savory Center for Holistic Management, an international non-profit focused on ecological restoration and is currently Executive Director of the Northwest Earth Institute. He was originally trained as a population genetist and was a tenured professor for twelve years. He was a dairy farmer and has extensive international experience. His research is the result of many years of study and investigation that has been accepted as partial fulfillment for his PhD candidacy at Pacifica.

Othon Leonardos, PhD 

On the Hidden Messages from the Metamorphic Rocks of Pyrrha

Rocks are Gaia’s basic ingredients and metamorphism her main process. Rocks contain water and nutrients for countless life forms. Blue algae grew from animated rock soup four billion years ago. It could reproduce and renew messages from the proto anima mundi. It took 3,300 million years for the message of a human project pass from blue into green algae and just 600 into mammals. During this period moss changed into flowering trees and much life was extinguished or evolved. We have existed for just a geological instant and capable of speculating about our disappearance from the rock record. Present sediments bear toxic chemicals, radioactive and plastic wastes associated with massive extinction. Shall layers to come show humans were upgraded to accompany new flowers? Human upgrade energy will not come from the logics or ethical discourses of hegemonic cultures unless dominance myths are deconstructed. The myth we are ruled by a self-regulatory free-market where each person is a rational man acquiring maximum wealth from Nature is here deconstructed as hidden messages from the Pyrrha myth  are unveiled, helping us face new times. 

Othon Leonardos, PhD  ((Berkeley, Manchester) is a professor of metamorphism and Earth physiology. A Brazilian Academy of Science member and former director of the Geosciences Institutes of Rio and Brasilia, and Centre for Sustainable Development, Brasilia, he wrote 150 scientific articles and books on geochemistry, petrology, paleontology, economic geology, sustainable development and ethics (Nature, American Journal of Science, Geology, Human Ecology …). He now teaches sustainable development at CDS, Brasilia and studies mythology and translates Rumi and Hafiz with Luciana Mesquita at Mitoludens. He also and takes care of an archeological/wildlife sanctuary.

Jeff Levering, MA

The