Please note our location and our format:
Park Hill United Church of Christ, 2600 Leyden Street, Denver, CO 80207
The social and refreshment time is at 6:30-7:15p.m., followed by lecture and discussion.
Cost: free to members, $15 at the door,
$10 students and seniors
The Little Dream that Doesn’t Mean Anything
a lecture by Tess Castleman
September 7th, 2018 at 7:15 p.m.
When a dream is forgotten, dismissed, ignored or called names (“worthless, a snippet, stupid, etc.”), important information is lost. A discussion with clinical examples will explore what many miss: the quiet beginnings of consciousness evidenced in what is often overlooked. Alchemical parallels, cultural dreams, and elements of dreaming that are routinely misunderstood will be discussed as well.
Tess Castleman, Jungian Training Analyst, is the author of two volumes and numerous articles. Besides practicing in Dallas and Zurich, she leads groups in dream circles, writing seminars, creative process experience as well as active imagination/dream retreats in locations throughout the world. She was elected to the Curatorium, (the governing body of the Jung Institute of Zurich) as the only non-resident of Switzerland where she served for six years. There she helped to implement a revamped English training program. She has founded Das Tiefengeist Institut, a training institute for helpers and healers to deepen their work with the unconscious. She lives in Manitou Springs, CO and Dallas, Texas.
Finding Ernest Hemingway in Wyoming’s and
Psyche’s Wilderness
a lectureby Jamie Egolf and Chavawn Kelley
October 5th, 2018 at 7:15 p.m.
Drawing on backgrounds in Analytic Psychology and Literature, Egolf and Kelley explore Psyche’s (sometimes extreme) inner landscape in Ernest Hemingway and how war trauma, PTSD, and constant suicidal thoughts manifested in the wilderness of Wyoming, where hunting, fishing, a wedding, injuries, hospitalization, and a suicide attempt occurred. Archetypes of bear and mother that led to gender confusion, impotence, and failed romance are illustrated in his life and writing. Finally, Hemingway’s role as a Soviet spy is revealed, and his suicide is explored.
Jamie Egolf, M.S.W.Jamie’s publications include topics such as comic superheroes, tapestry art, war heroes, and her presentations have occurred nationally and internationally in Santa Fe, Melbourne, and the US Air Force Academy–most recently on how Trickster transformed female oppression at the Seeing Red Conference in Connecticut.
Chavawn Kelley, M.A.,a Wyoming Humanities Council scholar, has been awarded fellowships nationally and internationally. Her poems, essays and short stories have appeared in Quarterly West, High Desert Journal, Creative Nonfiction, Iowa Review, and other publications.
Modern Mythology: Archetypal Expressions in Star Trek
a lecture by Sharon Coggan
November 2nd, 2018 at 7:30 p.m.*
*Please note the slightly later start!
There is a Fair Trade Gift Market in the Narthex of the church until 7pm that day, so we will be “opening our doors” at 7 and beginning the program at 7:30!
Echoing Jung, Joseph Campbell said mythologies need to be in synch with their host societies. Our ruling myths, or “sacred stories” carried in our religions, are 2000 years out of date with our modern experience. But cultures will always produce authentic new mythologies. In our day, it is science fiction that fascinates so many moderns. The immense popularity of the Star Wars saga, and the Star Trek series, speaks to the authentic nature of these modern myths.
This talk will explore some of Star Trek’s rich mythic themes from the half-human/half Vulcan master of science and logic, Mr. Spock, to the leadership of Captains Kirk, Picard, Sisco and Janeway. The myth of the Hero’s Journey acts as the backbone of the whole saga. Other archetypal themes include the embrace of the shadow, and anima/animus expressions: all as seen through the lens of the amazing and multiform Star Trek universe.
Sharon L. Coggan, Ph.D. was educated at the University of Denver, Harvard Divinity School, Stanford University, and Syracuse University. She is the Director of the Religious Studies Program at University of Colorado Denver, a program she created. She offers a range of classes on religion: World Religions, Concepts of the Soul, Concepts of God, Death and Afterlife, Mysticism, Eastern Thought, Myth and Symbol, Classical Mythology, Perspectives on Dream Analysis, and the Hero’s Journey.
Alchemical Black and the Mystery of the Prima Materia:
a lectureby Grazia Di Giorgio
November 30th, 2018 at 7:15 p.m.
Together with white, black is the only color to have a name in every known human language. While this fact already seems to hint at black’s powerful archetypal significance and its dyadic relationship with white, the development of Western culture instead saw a progressive moralization of the black-and-white pair that has rendered our collective dangerously one-sided in its relationship with darkness.
Within the underbelly of the Judeo-Christian tradition, however, alchemy – the “Black Art” – has cultivated for centuries an opposite approach to blackness as the base of the opus, which holds the promise of reanimating the darkness of matter. Using images, texts, and practical examples, this lecture will explore the alchemical view of the nigredo and its important decapitatiosymbolism, which appear particularly relevant in our difficult present times.
Grazia Di Giorgio, M.A.is a Jungian Analyst with a background in contemplative and somatic psychotherapy, who found in alchemy a common ground between these different approaches. A recent graduate of the C.G. Jung Institute of Colorado, she currently lives and practices in Bari, Italy.
Jung Society of Colorado 