Category: Journal

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Ex Libris

janetjonesfineart.com

imago

I like these images, I like the idea of using old books.

I like beeswax.

I want to make prins that have something of this feel.

I will put this whole post on my psyberspace blog because it has the Imago word, an in depth approach to the co-unconscious in relationships.

These assemblages are made
made from the covers of used
books. I seek out those that
bring their own history –
inscriptions, notations, signs
signs of wear and amateur
mending – poignant glimpses
into the previous owners’ lives.
When dipped into melted
beeswax, the papers become
translucent, and unexpected
details emerge. Sometimes
the paper on the inside covers
tear in a way that suggests
landscape, and I add to these
readymade images, painting
the moon in various phases
and hand-lettering appropriate
words from a Latin dictionary.
On some, I add tiny diamonds,
to suggest stars or lights.

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Theatre guru Augusto Boal

I’m motivated about theatre after todays experience is Second Life, both because of it being a Theatre par excellence AND because our host Kim had such an exciting deep perspective about drama and education. Learning about Boal was a find, though it is more a case of finding something lost. I think I owned a copy of Theatre of the Oppressed at one time, having a brush with Paulo Friere in the early seventies. He spoke here just as we were setting up a school.

The motivation is not just an external thing, it has been on my mind as I prepare to train others in Psychodrama this year. Theatre is an essential component of Psychodrama – it is as much theatre as therapy, it is therapy because it is theatre… but we must go further than that. Psychodrama is not only “clinical Psychodrama” it includes applications on the world, good theatre can transform the world.

I don’t like the line he has below, though the last thing I really want is a debate, I love the spirit of all this,

“it is a rehearsal for the revolution”

The reason I don’t like that in therapy is more obvious. It is possible in surplus reality to scream, shout, and annihilate whole planets, to do what you will. This only works if people are stable enough to see this as NOT a rehearsal.

So what is it?

Transformation, making things possible in the world.

So, when it comes to Sociodrama, that too might be a way of transformation, making things possible in the world.

Theatre guru Augusto Boal: “As workshop leader, I am merely an instrument”
February 2008 –

“I always fiercely opposed our government, but that is over now. Gilberto Gil is an excellent Minister of Culture. The Minister of Justice recently announced that cultural centres will be established in two hundred Brazilian cities. That is fantastic, because I know this is not an empty promise. It feels like a reward for our years of work.”

Augusto Boal
Augusto Boal
Augusto Boal (Rio de Janeiro, 1931) wrote his first book, Teatro del oprimido (Theatre of the Oppressed), in 1975. His philosophy has attracted followers under that name throughout the world. “The audience holds a general rehearsal for what happens in daily life. Key concepts are human development and freedom. The theatre shows us new roles. In essence, these roles are ready and waiting for the time when the viewer actually needs them. The theatre itself is not revolutionary: it is a rehearsal for the revolution.”

powerofculture.nl

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Psychodrama

Psychodrama Training Institute of Chicago

Presents a One-Day Workshop

at the Piccolo Theatre, 600 Main St , Evanston (first floor)

Saturday, 4th of April 2009, 10 am – 5 pm

Making Use of the Imagination in Individual and Group Psychotherapy

Director: Sue Daniel ( Australia )

Role Theory provides the palette from which clinicians and group leaders may draw inspiration and build on their technique. It can be applied in any discipline, field or day-to-day situation. The use of the imagination is central to the art of role theory, it brings freshness and flexibility and a way of looking at ‘what is’. This psychodramatic workshop is experiential. This workshop is for teachers, mental health professionals, actors, middle managers, salespeople and for personal growth. Participants can expect to learn to make interventions based on role theory, role analysis, role mapping and evaluation in a creative way, which has relevance in groups and in individual and couple psychotherapy and personal growth.

mail.google.com

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Black Wool Girl

It is all go! I am planning a speedy return to pick up our new pup at the airport. She is a mix of poodle, lab and spaniel, a labraspoodle.

 

Later: She’s here, what a lovely little girl. We are very impressed by the place we got her from:

Labradoodleland.

pup

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Revolutionary Road

Great movie. (Spoilers coming up) Deeply disturbing. One reason is that it echoed my parents relationship. Really disturbing when John, the sane but mad truth sayer says: “I am glad I am not that child” pointing to April’s pregnant tummy.

I saw 1950’s lives described through the current consciousness. These people did not know about the 60’s countercultureal response to “empty lives”, 70’s wave of feminism, let alone the “me” generation of personal groth & self actualisation. They actually did well if you think about what was available to them. (My parents did too) They attacked each other and themselves, and oscillated between moments of false peace & dubious truth.

Disturbing too in that our lives now are lived with similar inadequate resources of consciousness & skill. We could see what they missed, but what are we missing? Kate Winslet as April sums up her own plight, but it fits the best of lives any time. This is existential despair that is hard to escape without deep love and acceptance of who we are now.

April Wheeler: I wanted IN. I just wanted us to live again. For years I thought we’ve shared this secret that we would be wonderful in the world. I don’t know exactly how, but just the possibility kept me hoping. How pathetic is that? So stupid. To put all your hopes in a promise that was never made. Frank knows what he wants, he found his place, he’s just fine. Married, two kids, it should be enough. It is for him. And he’s right; we were never special or destined for anything at all

imdb.com

Why “Revolutionary Road”? It is not hard to see this as a deeply cynical political analogy. All the way through there is comment about unrealistic plans. Mendes’ “American Beauty” another family saga, similarly invited to be seen as transcending the particular lives of particular people.

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