Soulandstream

So many ways to the heart of the matter of one's life!

The truth of this diversity of pathways is at the heart of this shared life.

"Many paths lead to the central experience. Those who have descended to their own depths also recognize the value and legitimacy of other paths leading to the center. Knowledge of the manifold paths gives life its fullness and meaning." --last note of CG Jung, May 16, 1961. (Jung died at his home in Kusnacht June 6, 1961)

Ever humbled and inspired to work with clients willing to move beyond an ego psychology to a soul psychology.

Working with the metaphors of life, again and again widening our window of tolerance, opening doors of imagination to new horizons, and offering meaning in times of confusion and suffering.

"Mythology tells us that where you stumble, there your treasure is....And where it seems most challenging lies the greatest invitation to find deeper and greater powers in ourselves. (And) where the power to respond succeeds, there comes a new amplification of life and consciousness."
--Joseph Campbell

By reading the pattern, by making it conscious, by interpreting the dreams, we cannot escape our fate, but we can give it a more positive meaning. It makes a difference whether we say yes to our fate and fulfil it positively, or say no and are dragged by it against our will.
--Marie-Louise von Franz, The Way of the Dream, Page 213

*see first comment for link to my practice at Soul and Stream LLC

Nature and Civilization in "Reflections on the Life and Dreams of CG Jung," by Anelia Jaffe (p. 99)

"In civilized life here one is always expending energy--we use energy. As if you were always spending out of a full wallet. But there, in nature, you are not full but rather empty, and nature is abundantly full. You do not expend, you receive. The potential is reversed. It is not I who is dealing with nature, but rather nature is dealing with me." (Jung, May16, 1958)

"By reading the pattern, by making it conscious, by interpreting the dreams, we cannot escape our fate, but we can give it a more positive meaning. It makes a difference whether we say yes to our fate and fulfil it positively, or say no and are dragged by it against our will."
– Marie-Louise von Franz, The Way of the Dream, Page 213

Naming it to tame it or owning it so that it doesn't own us...Such an important part of our practice working with fate and destiny and our soul's guidance into and out of the depths of the unconscious.

Essential to acknowledge the autonomy of the complexes guiding and sometimes ruling, sometimes ruining our lives.

Identifying the pattern in the carpet. Or as Thomas Moore says of dream tending, finding access to the glass bottomed boat that allows us to see what is at the bottom of it all.

Warm wishes to all you soul seekers and dream listeners out there. Working with the unconscious to create new consciousness is such an important part of our development as individuals and as a collective.

*See first comment for ways to work with me at Soul and Stream

Body and Soul

I cannot understand the mystery,
But I am always conscious of myself as two—as my soul and I,
(And I reckon it is the same with all men and women.)
I am the poet of the body and I am the poet of the soul,
I too, with my soul and body,
We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way.

--Walt Whitman

For me and many of my clients, turning to dreams is just one way we find ourselves more fulfilled by a recognition of this human mystery of connection and otherness. My father and I used to discuss it's subtle presence arising in our shared experience of jogging and running--a way in which the body's movement alerted us to a deeper presence. Part of a soul psychology involves overcoming some of the literalism of a more ego based psychology. Whitman reminds me of the poetic, creative and grounded ways we can work with our human need for deeper connection to ourselves and the world.

With thanks to my father for sharing his curiosity and Whitman for his many poetic celebrations of body and soul.

*find my soul based offerings through my practice at Soul and Stream LLC listed in the first comment below.

The sunrise this morning, like a million mornings before it.
The first Iris this year, like a million first flowers of spring before it.
The first sunrise walked toward with intension for me in a long time, as with the Iris.
"We are patiently waiting for you, urging you, arising for you and all of creation, today, and every day. We are with you."

In upcoming Soul Writing....More soul feeding our writing. And more writing feeding the soul.

Can you see and feel how our imagination offers the world new consciousness, new ideas, more choices?

Are you ready to acknowledge that whatever sprouts or blossoms from our creativity, has roots in the psyche?

If interested in our next round of Soul Writing, please PM me here or go to my new website listed in the first comment below and reach me there.

Hope you will join us in the play, adventure and soul making of this next round of Soul Writing.

We are too sincere, too productive, and too realistic. We need to enter more fully and more willingly into that realm under the rocks and behind the mirror." —Thomas Moore

The shift....Clients including myself in my memory of being in Jungian analysis, from bringing a list of problems we are conscious of to a session and working together to find how some unconscious material wants to feed our consciousness.

Then at some point the shift occurs and we begin showing up with no list, just spontaneous reflections in the space of therapy. In this shift, it appears there is a building of trust of psyche's call to swim in unconscious material and that we will eventually be able to bring some aspect of this submerged material to the surface and find a home in our conscious concerns.

The pleasure of noticing this with clients. The way it often marks a greater trust of the individual in more than just ego and persona. A deepening of their relation to soul.

*see my website for Soul and Stream LLC in the first comment below to connect with my professional offerings.

Thinking today about how far we've come from Freud's couch. Of course chairs and walks outside. But on the couch, thanks to clients mostly, I've been feeling grateful for the movement on the couch. Clients switching positions, moving from side to side, one client showing how they felt forced off the family couch. There's a real embodiment happening on the couch for clients, more diversity of voices seen and heard. A real rich personifying, dramatizing and giving voice to more of ourselves, more of our selves on the couch.

*see first comment below for how to find the couch virtually, in person and on the trail with me at Soul and Stream LLC.

Make your plea...

"Western science, believed man could force nature to reveal its secrets; the Sioux simply petitioned nature for friendship." — Vine Deloria, Jr.

Love what you love...

“Connection isn’t about nature in our service, a slave to our needs, a commodity for our use, a sticking-plaster for our stresses. Nature isn’t there to provide us with therapy; that isn’t what connection is about. Connection is about love. Enchantment. Wonder. And a necessary and appropriate sense of awe.” --Sharon Blackie, The Enchanted Life

Return to kinship...

"The more uncertain I have felt about myself, the more there has grownin me a feeling of kinship with all things." --CG Jung, MDR

Following the Psyche

RoRob Brezsny."So it turns out that the ‘blemish’ is actually essential to the beauty. The 'deviation' is at the core of the strength. The 'wrong turn' was crucial to you getting you back on the path with heart."

Carl Jung... “A neurosis is by no means merely a negative thing, it is also something positive. Only a soulless rationalism reinforced by a narrow materialistic outlook could possibly have overlooked this fact. In reality the neurosis contains the psyche, or at least an essential part of it; and if, as the rationalist pretends, the neurosis could be plucked from them like a bad tooth, they would have gained nothing but would have lost something very essential to them. That is to say, they would have lost as much as the thinker deprived of his doubt, or the moralist deprived of her temptation, or the brave woman deprived of her fear. To lose a neurosis is to find oneself without an object; life loses its point and hence its meaning.” (edited for gender neutrality)

Marie-Louise von Franz, The Way of the Dream, Page 213..."By reading the pattern, by making it conscious, by interpreting the dreams, we cannot escape our fate, but we can give it a more positive meaning. It makes a difference whether we say yes to our fate and fulfil it positively, or say no and are dragged by it against our will."

*see Soul and Stream offerings in first comment

Find your Embodiment, find your soul....

"Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul." --author Oscar Wilde
...Help us to feel what we need to feel in order to heal. Help us heal what we need to heal in order to feel.

(see first comment for link to my practice at Soul and Stream LLC)

"The nonviolent approach does not immediately change the heart of the oppressor. It first does something to the hearts and souls of those committed to it. It gives them new self-respect; it calls up resources of strength and courage they did not know they had."

--MLK

Hi Friends, I’ve got a new website! I sure am grateful to have Debbie Sipowicz on my team. She did all the heavy lifting and found lots of creative ways to help me represent my work. Please ping her if you need support re-visioning yours.

I have been supporting clients in their call to soul for almost 20 years now!

It started with a workshop I ran for young adults called "Voicemails from Your Future Self." My journey of tending soul includes wilderness work, groups, writing and creativity, dreamwork, brain-spotting, and therapy one-on-one.

My current caseload is about half in-person and half online. I also have clients in both Colorado and Northern California.

I love what I do and feel lucky every day to connect to so many talented individuals listening and responding to deep roots of self-knowledge. Please reach out if you or a loved one are seeking support.

Link in comments.

The challenges and struggles of the week ahead are real, yet the grace and beauty of the world persists. Feeling held in the mystery and awe of it all, despite the complexity. And indeed perhaps due to the complexity. Blessings and best wishes to all of you in all of our suffering and our joy.

Exploring creativity this month and its relation to the psyche. How does engagement with the imagination engage the psyche and thus activate mental health?

“Human freedom involves our capacity to pause between the stimulus and response and, in that pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight. The capacity to create ourselves, based upon this freedom, is inseparable from consciousness or self-awareness.”
― Rollo May, The Courage to Create (pg. 100)

“The very tendency to superstition, so marked in the [Celtic] nature, arises from an instinctive dislike of the narrow limitations of common sense. It is characterized by a passionate yearning towards the vague, the mystic, the invisible and the boundless infinite of the realms of imagination.” --Lady Jane Wilde

Below the Surface of Awareness: Working with the Unconscious

So often we seek therapy because we feel stuck in our thoughts and emotions. We’re in a loop, unable to think our way out of a feeling, out of a problem, a concern, a dilemma, our sense of discontent. We’ve tried over and over. But we’re stuck.

One way to get out of this stuck state is by unlocking what is hiding beneath the surface – the unconscious. It’s like opening a door to new possibilities. Through making the unconscious conscious, we find new pathways, new conversations, new ideas and new choices. Sometimes transformation, often healing.

The beauty and integrity of working with the unconscious is that it is a natural part of you. It’s in the stories you tell, it’s in your body, it’s in your dreams, it’s in your reveries. This is not about someone else telling you what to do. This is deep listening to your own soul
and witnessing the psyche's pleas for the path you were meant to walk, the destiny you were meant to live.

When I work with clients, we create a safe and dynamic space to access the unconscious through dialogue, dream tending, nature questing, soul writing and a technique called brainspotting.

If you or someone you know is feeling frustrated, down, anxious, or caught up in behaviors that don't feel good because of this stuck feeling, please reach out to me in my practice at Soul and Stream LLC.

It would be my humble pleasure and great honor to enter the healing waters of the unconscious with new clients who are ready to embark on a journey of exploration and healing.

*see link in the comments

"Problems are not the problem; coping is the problem." --Virginia Satir (American author and psychotherapist 1916-1988)

"Each of us then is the scene of a sustained civil war, a contention between the natural desires of the organism for self-expression and the repressive powers of adaptive history." --James Hollis in Hauntings: Dispelling the Ghosts who Run Our Lives

"Until we make the unconscious conscious, it will direct our lives and we will call it fate." --CG Jung

"Our heart glows, and secret unrest gnaws at the root of our being. Dealing with the unconscious has become a question of life for us."
--Carl Gustav Jung

Such a relief in these times to tend the roots, make contact with the depths, and befriend the psyche's images.

A dream is like a deer at the edge of the forest: If it’s welcomed, it will come out. If you feed it, it will develop a relationship with you. But if you don’t care about it, it will disappear.” ~MarionWoodman (shared by my friend and colleague Donna May)

How Poetry Comes to Me
It comes blundering over the
Boulders at night, it stays
Frightened outside the
Range of my campfire
I go to meet it at the
Edge of the light.
~Gary Snyder

Therapy Outdoors with Soul and Stream

You may not know this about me, or maybe you do--but as a Therapist in Colorado for the past 8 years, part of my practice has been offering Outdoor Therapy.

Coming out of Covid, coming out of winter, getting off the screen, going outside—all part of a movement many of us are feeling individually and collectively this season.

We’re Zoomed out!

If you've been thinking about therapy, or getting back into therapy, but Covid Cabin Fever is real for you...

Why not follow that momentum with your impulse to work and walk through your struggles with stuck patterns, determination to dissolve your depression, attend to your anxiety, and loosen the grip of addictive behavior...outdoors?

I love the work I do in the office and on Zoom and will always offer these traditional modalities. But for many of us--what an enhancement of the process to take it out of doors--the oldest tradition of them all!

We all know the mental and physical health benefits of nature exposure. Nature’s gifts run deep. Why not expose your longing, your suffering, your joy, and your sorrow to the trail under your feet, the sky above your head, and the wind in your hair?

Want to learn more? PM me for a complimentary 30-minute consultation or to book a session.

"Our heart glows, and secret unrest gnaws at the root of our being. Dealing with the unconscious has become a question of life for us."
--Carl Gustav Jung

Soul-making and soul tending with clients in the office, online and in the field. Our work is with dreams, dilemmas and dialogues that want to be lifted up, witnessed and resolved. I offer trauma resolution through brainspotting and somatic attunement. We work with depression, anxiety and addiction from a perspective of process and nervous system awareness. What wants to be lifted up and what wants to be laid down? Can we own the story we are living or is there a new story that wants to emerge?

Currently scheduling 30 minute free consultations for men and women called to this work with the Psyche.

"When you regain a sense of your life as a journey of discovery, you return to rhythm with yourself. When you take the time to travel with reverence, a richer life unfolds before you. Moments of beauty begin to braid your days. When your mind becomes more acquainted with reverence, the light, grace and elegance of beauty find you more frequently. When the destination becomes gracious, the journey becomes an adventure of beauty." --John O'Donohue (from Beauty: The Invisible Embrace)

One of the aspirational images that I keep in my back pocket for my clients and myself. On the ground it looks a lot more messy, distracted and inelegant than this. But nonetheless, the aspiration to hold space, create pauses and notice intentions for accessing some of these threads of a sacred journey can make a great difference. At least a little bit every day. A little bit of the braiding, feeling a rhythm, seeing the brave beauty of it all amidst the turmoil, contributes to a therapy of soul, with soul, in soul.

I see clients on Zoom and out on the trail four days a week. No one size fits all. I have a background in Jungian psychology, brainspotting, archetypal questing, process work, and lifetime experience in the book business alongside marriage and raising children.

My current caseload includes men and women from 20-70 years of age. I have openings at this time for men and women over the age of 35. If interested in a free 30 minute consultation for yourself or a loved one, please ping me and I'd be happy to discuss where you are on the journey.

Soul Writing starts up again Tuesday, January 25th. Just a few spots left. PM me for details.

Book Browsing and Therapy

At the end of my career as a bookseller, I got into a metaphysical space where I relished being a guide and ally to people's longings for the right book, the next book. I had a growing second sense that good book spaces are a venue for pursuing the mystery of the conversation we are in or the next conversation that beckons us. There was a lot of honoring timing, noting past adventures with writers, genres, getting curious about current appetites--it could be such a pleasure getting the right book into a reader's hands or introducing the right author. Bookstores felt like a sacred space for browsers to wander the waters of their curiosity and feel the pull of different streams of thought and imagination.

Sometimes being a therapist feels like a continuation of that work. Creating a sacred space for exploration...Sharing associations, musing on narratives, characters, delighting in the magic of word choices and phrasings, travelling and following many streams of thought. Being with the archetypal spirit of authorship--our own and others.

I'm grateful for the great booksellers I've known over the years, the subtle work they do of listening and helping book browsers find the text, the words, the binding that will carry them through the passage they long to be accompanied in.

Clay Creatures

The spontaneous, hard won and deeply felt imaginations of my clients this week have me bowed down in gratitude and rising up in celebration of the creative impulse and its powers for healing and wholeness--every where I can.

And so even here now is John O'Donohue, Gaelic poet, theologian and life celebrant delivering the message!

"The awakened imagination brings us great riches. The imagination is not one-sided; it is passionately interested in wholesomeness and wholeness. The imagination is never tempted or attracted to the flat surface or to whatever is safe and perfect. Sometimes when you hear people talking about the human self you would think that it was made of stainless steel and is meant to have perfection and purity. But we are clay creatures, striving desperately toward the light." --in his Walking in Wonder

So much love for those that have been lost, those that have suffered that loss.

My grief says that I dared to love, that I allowed another to enter the very core of my being and find a home in my heart. Grief is akin to praise; it is how the soul recounts the depth to which someone has touched our lives. To love is to accept the rites of grief.

~ Francis Weller: The Wild Edge of Sorrow

[Image: Andrei Stan]