20th March 2015
7.00pm-7.45pm Habitat Canterbury - The Club Room
DISCUSSION TOPIC
‘A Jungian Approach to Spirituality in Later Life'
by Lionel Corbett
taken from
“C. G. Jung and Aging:
Possibilities and Potentials for the Second Half of Life”
edited by Sawin, Corbett and Carbine
8.00pm Habitat Canterbury - The Sanctuary
Whitefella Dreaming:
Modern Myth & Sacred Reality for the 21stC
If we ‘new’ Australians want an embodied sense of the spiritual life, in which the sacred is experienced as an aspect of nature, we need to learn from the ancient Australian Aboriginal wisdom traditions as well as get in touch with the deep roots of our mainly western cultures. With the right tools we can open the portals to the inner dimensions of the material world and align ourselves with ecological sensibilities. In seeking to feel ‘at home’ on this sacred land, the path of Jungian individuation remains helpful, especially when we keep in mind Jung’s interest in Native American spirituality.
Consideration of ‘big’ dreams and their archetypal dimensions that arise spontaneously from within can help us live authentically; especially when the transcendent function is taken into consideration. Jungian analyst Jerome Bernstein has shown how some people, of the “borderland” personality type, are intuitively in touch with the land and its other dimensions. This fits with the kind of eco-spirituality I have been writing about as White Fella Dreaming.
This Australian version responds to the wisdom of this land and includes scientific understandings of physical reality alongside the “metaphorical” journeys we all experience beneath the veneer of the “ordinary” reality of everyday life.
Dr Geoff Berry is Director of Studies at The Phoenix Institute of Australia, where he also teaches Myth, Symbol and Ritual and Archetypal Psychology. He spent 2012 in Ireland and the UK researching utopian thinking and his PhD analysed the symbol of light across the western traditions. He previously completed an MA on Modern Underworld Journeys, and became Editor-in-Chief of COLLOQUY, the Monash Journal of Contemporary Cultural Studies. He has lectured at Monash and RMIT Universities in Literature, History, Communications and Philosophy.