‘In this third lecture, Mary Antonia Wood explores the relationship between desire and denial, asking what these opposing yet interdependent impulses might reveal about our difficulty in bearing the fullness of our own lives.
Titled “The Seer and the Saboteur: Desire, Denial, and Reawakening at the Crossroads of Immanence and Transcendence,” this lecture continues Kosmos Institute’s six-part online speaker series, offered as a public prelude to our First Annual Colloquium: “To Be and Not to Be: Immanence, Transcendence, and the Emergence of Sophianic Consciousness,” to be held December 17–21, 2026, in Ascona, Switzerland.
Wood considers immanence and transcendence as a crossroads at which temporal and eternal realities meet. Drawing upon depth psychology, philosophy, mythology, neuroscience, and the lives of artists, mystics, and spiritual practitioners, she explores the forces that draw us toward greater aliveness and those that encourage us to withdraw, anesthetize ourselves, or betray our own inner possibilities.
At the center of the lecture are the figures of the Seer and the Saboteur: two dimensions of human experience through which Wood examines creative vocation, addiction and distraction, encounters with the sacred, and the difficult negotiation between our desire for transformation and our resistance to it. Drawing upon thinkers including Plotinus, C. G. Jung, James Hillman, and Adam Phillips, she asks how human beings might remain grounded in embodied life while sustaining a relationship with the transcendent.
This lecture invites us into a larger field of inquiry: How much of our own aliveness can we bear? Why do we so often deny or sabotage what we most deeply desire? And how might we learn to live more consciously at the crossroads between immanence and transcendence?
Mary Antonia Wood, PhD, is a visual artist, mythologist, and educator whose work stands at the intersection of depth psychology, creativity, and the imaginal life. She serves as Chair and Professor of the MA program in Depth Psychology and Creativity with Emphasis in the Arts and Humanities at Pacifica Graduate Institute.
She is the author of The Archetypal Artist: Reimagining Creativity and the Call to Create (Routledge, 2022). With more than twenty-five years of experience as a visual artist, Wood has exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions, and her work is held in both public and private collections. Her work integrates mythology, philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, and contemplative traditions in exploring creativity and artistic vocation.
These online lectures are free and open to all. Please visit the link below to view the upcoming talk schedule, read the abstracts, and RSVP to attend.
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JOIN US IN ASCONA THIS WINTER!
The colloquium is an intimate, residential gathering of scholars, practitioners, teachers, artists, poets, and serious seekers working at the living intersection of depth psychology, mythology, philosophy, esotericism, archetypal inquiry, poetics, cosmology, and consciousness studies.
In-Person Speakers:
Gary Lachman
Lisa Marchiano
İpek S. Burnett
Daniel J. Polikoff
Laurence Hillman
Aaron Cheak
Attendance is intentionally limited. Residential packages include four nights and five days at Hotel Ascona, full access to the colloquium program, excellent drinks and meals, a group visit to Eranos, a closing-night gala dinner and Underground Disco party, online series access, and the full in-person experience.
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