The inner figure of the blind victim, the one who has the power to withstand the dark pull of the archetypal dynamic of illness/wholeness, was particularly active for a long period of time after I initially lost my eyesight. She kept looking for what I could not see, checking each eye over and over again separately, crying out in despair to the other eye to see if it could not grasp what this one could not. As a metaphor pointing to something not seen—shadow material not identified with—the soul of my blindness kept reaching out past her claustrophobic confinement to the blackness pressing in on her. She was relentless in her efforts to stay connected to the “not-me” that might help her learn how to see in another less literal way. I reflect now on how seeing and my sense of self became symbiotic in that what I could see, I felt was still a part of me; I could still be whole. I still had a relationship with these parts of my experience. And what I could not see, was not lost to me forever vanished as if my very sense of myself was suddenly unavailable, absent. Dead.
Mourning the Dream/Amor Fati: A Mythopoetic Inquiry Looking through a Spiral Lens is an investigation of the relationship between a state of mourning or loss, and amor fati--love of one's fate. This investigation is a process of exposing the dialectical nature of self-actualization, or individuation. The inquiry proposes that the nature of consciousness and what we can know about it is a matter of epistemology. As the study of knowledge, epistemology is concerned with questions, some of which have been identified and pursued in this mythopoetic journey. Through both personal and clinical experience, Mourning the Dream/Amor Fati: A Mythopoetic Inquiry Looking through a Spiral Lens, includes an examination of what role 'image' plays in the relationship between perception and consciousness and the implications of what looking through a spiral lens suggest. The inquiry speaks of image as embodiment of unconscious or invisible processes that inform consciousness through the creative process. Modalities of art making, poetry, autobiographical inquiry, and field notes from living inquiry as methods of "active/embodied imagination"--a technique wherein one opens to the contents of the unconscious, then shaping these through the creative process--are presented within a theoretical framing from the discourses of Depth Psychology, Mythology, Art Education, Art Therapy, Phenomenology and Taoism. Part of the method of Mourning the Dream/Amor Fati is a kind of 'soul tracking' by way of the footprints of the emerging autonomous images from the unconscious that present themselves metaphorically and symbolically. From the metaphoric ground created in the spiral inquiry process, emerges the diaphoric imagination in which new presences arise that generate the possibility of both mourning the dream and loving one's fate. Amor Fati. Mythopoetic process extends the rational--conceptual into the imaginal; it allows a new understanding of how new information gained through the experience of the imaginal changes the creator in the process of creation. Mythopoetic inquiry extends rational knowledge based information; the imaginal discourse is a bridge into the unconscious, bringing the previously unknown into awareness. In the realm of the imaginal the image as experienced in the body and the process of creation is a powerful mode of inquiry extending beyond regions of rational evidence based inquiry. The application of the findings of the research involves asking questions, while dwelling in the everyday, listening to the call and feeling into the "flickers" as clues the direction the inquiry is both led by, and leading me to: the symbolic. Mourning the Dream/Amor Fati: A Mythopoetic Inquiry Looking through a Spiral lens demonstrates that perception is an act. It is not just something that comes to us therefore it is inherently dialogical.
From the first episode to the latest feature film, two main symbols provide the driving force for the iconic television series The X-Files: Fox Mulder's "I Want to Believe" poster and Dana Scully's cross necklace. Mulder's poster may feature a flying saucer, but the phrase "I want to believe" refers to more than simply the quest for the truth about aliens. The search for extraterrestrial life, the truth that is out there, is a metaphor for the search for God. The desire to believe in something greater than ourselves is part of human nature: we want to believe. Scully's cross represents this desire to believe, as well as the internal struggle between faith and what we can see and prove. The X-Files depicts this struggle by posing questions and exploring possible answers, both natural and supernatural. Why would God let the innocent suffer? Can God forgive even the most heinous criminal? What if God is giving us signs to point the way to the truth, but we're not paying attention? These are some of the questions raised by The X-Files. In the spirit of the show, this book uses the symbols and images presented throughout the series to pose such questions and explore some of the answers, particularly in the Christian tradition. With a focus on key themes of the series--faith, hope, love, and truth--along the way, this book journeys from the desire to believe to the message of the cross.
This book, like the post-Heideggerian reception of Nietzsche, rides out the splits and frays of the text offering an up-to-date look at international Nietzsche scholarship. Included are topics such as the collaboration of German thought with the rise of National Socialism and the alliance between Nietzschean genealogy and Freudian culture criticism in regard to technology and the unconscious, the status of moral imperatives from Kant to Heidegger, and Heidegger's alleged rediscovery of Nietzsche as the "last metaphysician." Looking After Nietzsche is nonexclusionary in the risks it takes; every thread of "Nietzsche" is pursued throughout its labyrinthine entanglements.
Let's get into the heart of Amor Fati: Poems Curated by Fate. This book is kind of like a map to Jadan Washington's soul. Jadan's this creative force who's lived a life full of art, music, and fashion but finds the deepest connection in the rhythm of words. This collection? It's all about the big and small stuff-love, hope, the kind of healing that comes after you've been through the wringer, and the pain that just seems to be part of of being human. But it's not just a mishmash of feelings. Jadan weaves in these awesome concepts like fate, dreams, and even the stars to create a narrative that's more like a conversation with the reader. Amor Fati: Poems Curated by Fate isn't just a book; it's an invitation. An invitation to see the world through Jadan's eyes, to feel the rhythms of his life, and maybe find a bit of your own story reflected back at you. So, if you're ready for a journey that's as much about discovering yourself as it is about discovering Jadan's world, this book is for you.
The disturbing and intense films of Lars von Trier are often dismissed as misogynist, misanthropic, or anti-humanist. This book, however, invites us to engage with his work to found a new feminist vision and discover what might be distinctively hopeful for the future of our fragile human condition.
The collection of personal essays, Someone Traveling, chronicles one life unfolding in the aftermath of murder. Each of the essays tells a story that crosses internal and external boundaries like acts of grieving do. Grieving consciously and unconsciously, the widow travels. Someone Traveling is a name borrowed in order to relate stories about all sorts of travel from short jaunts for local color to metaphorical outings on the displacements and harbors of loss. Someone Traveling tells of experiments in travel rather than well thought-out itinerary or once-for-all arriving. How to account for the displacements wrought by murder--self, home, wandering/staying put, healing, memory, intention, myth/history--and what to make of all this transformation? From nearly the first moment, the notes of intimacy in grieving the lover lay the ground for everything else. And although intruders like publicity trouble her grieving, somehow the traveler abides in intimacy. In these essays, the widow goes to this place and that, quite uncharted, to do what was never before required by her. The traveler meets allies she never thought to know before. New intimacies, made-up intimacies abound. The first of these is found in healing sessions. The intensely intimate register of the personal essay proves supple enough for telling of being lost like an out-of-reach memory as well as for creating connection like a new set of nerves. In this collection, intimate stuff, inner stuff is celebrated as the stuff we all know something about. In intimacy, we find commonalities and particularities to excavate for knowing ourselves and others and for reconciling with the world.
Written in Irv Yalom's inimitable story-telling style, Staring at the Sun is a profoundly encouraging approach to the universal issue of mortality. In this magisterial opus, capping a lifetime of work and personal experience, Dr. Yalom helps us recognize that the fear of death is at the heart of much of our anxiety. Such recognition is often catalyzed by an "awakening experience"—a dream, or loss (the death of a loved one, divorce, loss of a job or home), illness, trauma, or aging. Once we confront our own mortality, Dr. Yalom writes, we are inspired to rearrange our priorities, communicate more deeply with those we love, appreciate more keenly the beauty of life, and increase our willingness to take the risks necessary for personal fulfillment.
A powerful workshop-in-a-book for healing from loss One day everything is fine. The next, you find yourself without everything you took for granted. Love has turned sour. The people you depended on have let you down. You feel you’ll never love again. But there is a way out. In The Abandonment Recovery Workbook, the only book of its kind, psychotherapist and abandonment expert Susan Anderson explores the seemingly endless pain of heartbreak and shows readers how to break free—whether the heartbreak comes from a divorce, a breakup, a death, or the loss of friendship, health, a job, or a dream. From the first shock of despair through the waves of hopelessness to the tentative efforts to make new connections, The Abandonment Recovery Workbook provides an itinerary for recovery. A manual for individuals or support groups, it includes exercises that the author has tested and developed through her decades of expertise in abandonment recovery. Anderson provides concrete recovery tools and exercises to discover and heal underlying issues, identify self-defeating behaviors of mistrust and insecurity, and build self-esteem. Guiding you through the five stages of your journey—shattering, withdrawal, internalizing, rage, and lifting—this book (a new edition of Anderson’s Journey from Heartbreak to Connection) serves as a source of strength. You will come away with a new sense of self—a self with an increased capacity to love. Praise for Susan Anderson’s The Journey from Abandonment to Healing: “If there can be a pill to cure the heartbreak of rejection, this book may be it.” — Rabbi Harold Kushner, bestselling author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People
