Psyberspace

Coming Home in the Dark – Christchurch Art Gallery – Exhibitions Archive 2004

I am looking forward to going to this exhibition. I live & breathe this underbelly. That is a psychotherapist’s job I guess. My pespective is more depressing than that though. I am a vegitarian in a land dominated by the economics of meat production, and when I see the green hills I see destruction of the original forest plus the destruction of animals and the destruction of our waterways. Hard to enjoy the coutryside. There must be something wrong with me when I feel like this in paradise.

Lurking behind the South Island’s legendary picture-postcard views and the stoic jaw of the Southern Man is a dark side – a gothic underbelly of paranoia, alienation, and unease. This quality, evident in the work of some of New Zealand’s most talented artists and writers, is explored in a new exhibition, inspired by and named after one of Owen Marshall’s most sinister short stories. Coming Home in the Dark taps the shadowy vein running through the work of fourteen artists with a connection to the Mainland: Leo Bensemann, Barry Cleavin, Bing Dawe, Margaret Dawson, Tony de Lautour, Tony Fomison, Jason Greig, Bill Hammond, Colin McCahon, Trevor Moffitt, Bruce Russell, Ann Shelton, Ronnie van Hout and Dean Venrooy.

Kate Tapley Horse Treks Ltd.:

Welcome to all who have joined us here at the weblog. As Walter has said this is an interactive medium for us to connect up in. It also give easy access to our websites, and to each other.

I would like to share with you all my recent experience the horse trekking is giving to me. I seem propelled by my love of the horse/human relationship along a growing edge. This has taken me into a new place where my work trek guiding, and serving the staff is giving me more and more fullness in my own life. I am less stressed, more rested, feel very supported by everyone and I do not feel alone. I seem presented by opportunity after opportunity to love more of what I do, what I see in others, and what is possible.

I am writing a paper about science and psychotherapy. This weblog is just full of references I want ! That is the whole idea of course. Here is one that poped up after a Google search, out of my own thesis: THE GROUP AND ITS PROTAGONIST

Between the sensory and the intellectual world, sages have always experienced an intermediate realm, one akin to what we call the imaginings of poets. If you are a religious believer, whether normative or heterodox, this middle world is perceived as the presence of the divine in our every day world. If you are more skeptical, such presence is primarily aesthetic or perhaps a kind of perspectivism.

Harold Bloom, Omens of the Millennium 1996.

Insight & Outlook – An Interview with Connie Zweig

Scott London: Of all the metaphors that have been used to illustrate the shadow in recent years, my favorite is Robert Bly’s image of the big bag that we drag behind us.

Connie Zweig: Yes, he said that we spend the first half of our lives putting everything into the bag and the second half pulling it out.

London: What did Carl Jung have in mind when he formulated this idea?

Zweig: He believed that everything that is in our conscious awareness is in the light. But everything of substance which stands in the light — whether it’s a tree or an idea — also casts a shadow. And that which stands in the darkness is outside of our awareness.

Scott London’s Interviews
Ages ago I posted about to this interview with James Hillman. There are many more delights where that came from. Scott London has interviewed some great people, Howard Rheingold, Connie Swieg… and there are also links to audio, streaming only unfortunatly. So what is all this? Strange how we see just a fragment on the net. All became clear when I clicked Home and discovered it is a PBA radio program:

The radio series Insight & Outlook ceased production in 1999 after almost five years on the American airwaves. Hosted by Scott London, the weekly cultural affairs program offered a trenchant look at the ideas and trends shaping our future. It also spotlighted provocative social thinkers and visionaries — men and women charting new directions in science, education, technology, health, psychology and other fields.

The program featured some of the most outstanding minds of our time — people like James Hillman, Neil Postman, Marion Woodman,Robert Thurman, Vandana Shiva, Huston Smith, Riane Eisler, Robert Coles, Sam Keen, and Warren Bennis.

Insight & Outlook has been called “one of the most refreshing interview programs available on public radio” and “a thought-provoking and enlightening contribution to the airwaves.” “More than any other single source of information,” one critic observed, Insight and Outlook “defines a certain humanistic slice of our intellectual zeitgeist, and most probably, the zeitgeist of the coming decade.”

Insight & Outlook aired on National Public Radio stations across the United States and on Radio For Peace International. The series was produced at KCBX in San Luis Obispo, California.

Magic Circle

Why is it so inadvisable to have two people from the same family as your individual clients in psychotherapy? This person ‘X’ comes along who is the mother/daughter/father/son/brother etc of your existing client ‘A’. Everything in your training tells you not to take on this new client ‘X’ because it will contaminate your relationship with your existing client ‘A’. Of course, we are not rule-bound robots and situational ethics have a place – but one is alert and wary!

This magic circle idea, or crucible is very important in my work. Yet at this moment I am thinking of breaking such a container (not exactly drasticall by doing therapy, but by having some familiy discussions to hold it.) Where does that fit in? In this context this item is worth looking at again.

NetFuture #153

Steve Talbot on the limits of predictability. I am quoting this passage, about an experiment on a leaf in a vacuum chamber, because it is similar about how experimentation on psychotherapy leads to “therapy, prevented from being therapeutic”.

It’s a remarkable achievement, but it comes at a cost. What appeals about the evacuated chamber is that it makes the entire event appear to be almost nothing but a predictable manifestation of the law of gravity. This is what the apparatus has been designed to do. But it achieves this by putting the leaf largely out of sight. It removes the leaf from its natural context and excludes from view most of what we would normally expect to see as leafy behavior. The leaf, you could say, must be prevented from leafing in order to show off just a single aspect of the lawfulness it always respects. We highlight the single aspect by training ourselves to ignore what it is an aspect of.

Tools

A new pseudo Category section of this weblog. Gadget talk, software, woosh, Palms.

Got this from Josh, thanks Josh it looks great!

~

The Most Important Election of our Lifetime
~ Spot the Difference Quiz Game! ~

http://www.theyrule.net/mostimportantelection

It is common knowledge that this is ‘the most important election
ever’ – but can you tell the
difference between the two main candidates?

This quiz is intended to question just how significant the
difference between Bush and Kerry really
is. I hope that people find it provocative as well as
thoughtful. Please follow the link at the end
of the quiz for some more serious examinations of the question.

I sent this to a bunch of people whom I haven’t spoken to in a
while – hi! – please use this as an
opportunity to reconnect!

Bring the Troops Home Now!

Josh On