Patriarchy is a word that triggers strong emotion.\u00a0 Men can feel defensive and attacked, made to feel bad or wrong.\u00a0 Women feel oppressed, silenced, annihilated.\u00a0 As a system of power and domination, patriarchy hurts people of all genders, and all of us are needed to create a world that works for everyone. How can we, as female, nonbinary, and male persons work together to transform a culture that harms us all by misusing the archetypal masculine and feminine principles present in each person for the purposes of power and domination? How can we make a world based on inclusiveness, equality, and psychological wholeness\u2014a world in which people of all genders embody the integration of both rationality and feeling?<\/p>\n
The paintings of Remedios Varo engage the viewer in a mercurial movement of misty swirls and eerie distortions of perspective. Her figures are isolated and often confined in secluded spaces\u2014a tower or forest\u2014and held captive by unknown forces. Personally engaged in spiritual practices dedicated to self-knowledge, in her paintings Varo often depicts a relationship between human figures and a mysterious force from which an essence is being extracted, woven, or brewed. Varo was 55 years old when she died unexpectedly of a heart attack in Mexico City in the fall of 1963. Since then, the art and life of this traumatized and reclusive artist has been carefully investigated\u2014each painted image marveled at and inspected in a bid to pinpoint the origin and allure of imaginal characters who are determined to seek out the numinous unseen forces that animate human life.<\/p>\n
Today, Varo\u2019s work is being re-discovered by a new generation.\u00a0 In this half-day presentation and experiential workshop, Dennis and Rebecca Pottenger explore the transformative presence of the archetypal Feminine in Varo\u2019s artwork as the artist challenges the mythic underpinnings of patriarchy and through her paintings re-imagines a male-dominated world that can now embrace the presence and power of women and the Feminine in people of all genders.<\/p>\n
This program is based on Alchemy, Jung, and Remedios Varo: Cultural Complexes and the Redemptive Power of the Abjected Feminine.<\/em><\/p>\n Lecture Friday 7-830pm ( in-person and online)<\/strong><\/p>\n Dennis and Rebecca follow the Varo book and explore the symbolism in a number of the artist\u2019s paintings, including The Encounter<\/em>, where a woman comes in from the woods of the unconscious carrying a dangerous secret. In the Varo book, Dennis looked in some detail at an important dream Varo recorded in her only published diary. This was an encounter with an executioner ordered to kill her for possessing a secret so dangerous the fabric of the world would be destroyed if everyone knew about it.\u00a0 Varo\u2019s Dream of the Executioner is the focus of the second half of the presentation. The aim is to explore the symbolism in Varo\u2019s dream, which communicates piercing truths about the way patriarchy silences women and cuts men off from intimacy with others and with themselves.<\/p>\n Experiential Workshop Saturday\u00a0 9am-12pm ( In-person only)<\/strong><\/p>\n Dennis and Rebecca also explore the presence in Varo\u2019s work of the Kore goddess, an archetypal presence who helps us discover what Safron Rossi has called \u201cthe ground of our own values, ideals, and emotional reality.\u201d As we weave our way through Varo\u2019s imaginal world as she brings forth the kore in herself and her work, Dennis and Rebecca pause frequently to make space for comment and reflection.\u00a0 Through image, idea, and imagination, the intention is to thread into our own lives what Varo\u2019s alchemical practice of painting might offer us as individuals and as a collective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Patriarchy is a word that triggers strong emotion.\u00a0 Men can feel defensive and attacked, made to feel bad or wrong.\u00a0 Women feel oppressed, silenced, annihilated.\u00a0 As a system of power and domination, patriarchy hurts people of all genders, and all of us are needed to create a world that works for everyone. How can we, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":100518,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","tags":[],"mec_category":[184,542,210],"mec_speaker":[871,870],"class_list":["post-102269","mec-events","type-mec-events","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","mec_category-lecture","mec_category-webinar","mec_category-workshop"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n