Organiser
The New Mexico Society of Jungian Analysts
Website
https://jungian.directory/iaap-organisations/nmsja/Living Our Animal: A Jungian Wilderness Quest
Throughout his life, C. G. Jung experienced a deep and abiding connection to nature and animals as alive and ensouled. Initiated in childhood into the secrets of nature, he honored an ancient ancestral call to explore the wild terrain of human nature within a framework of ritual art and natural reverie all of his days. From early chthonic visions and states of participation mystique to later practices of embodied active imagination in art and alchemy, Jung exemplified a way of being in the world that envisioned humanity as part of the earth and “one with the other animals.” As we face an eco-psychological crisis, now is a Kairos or opportune moment to remember our relationship to the earth in humility, reflecting the Latin root humilis for “on the ground” or “earth.” In contrast to the modern hubris of attempting to soar to the sun like the mythic Icarus, we are called back to earth, to ground ourselves and root into our animal nature.
Combining Ecopsychology as the psychological dimension of Ecology and Terrapsychology as the spirit of place, this webinar will explore our psychological landscape in relationship to ecology to connect our nature to Nature in a process of creative remembrance.
Online participants will be invited to more fully and deeply embody their soul as what Jung referred to as living our animal and the lament of the dead ancestors. Through visual lecture, active imagination, and artistic creation, artist and depth psychologist Heather Taylor-Zimmerman will lead us to root deep in creating a mandala of the earth as a living medicine wheel—using simple materials such as pens, pencils, and markers (whatever is at hand). In the process, participants will deepen their relationship to their animal nature as a central theme of Jungian Depth Psychology and a goal described by Jung as living our animal on a higher spiral.