World-Bridging and Shapeshifting: Touching Base with Mary A. Wood, Ph.D.

Posted by Angela Borda on Dec 20, 2022 4:09:26 PM

World-Bridging and Shapeshifting: Touching Base with Mary A. Wood, Ph.D.

Mary A. Wood, Ph.D., is the Chair of the M.A. Depth Psychology and Creativity with Emphasis in the Arts and Humanities program, which is currently accepting applications for Spring 2023 and Fall 2023 (visit the program here). She will be presenting the webinar “World-Bridging and Shapeshifting: Soul, Image, and Imagination in Gloria Anzaldúa, James Hillman, and C.G. Jung” on January 13th. I’m delighted to speak with Mary about her upcoming webinar and also about her program.

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Posted in: creativity, Education, depth psychology, Pacifica Graduate Institute, Engaged Humanities

Strands of Prayer: The Archetypal Artist

Posted by Angela Borda on Apr 5, 2022 12:41:14 PM

Mary Antonia Wood is the Chair of the M.A. in Depth Psychology and Creativity with Emphasis in the Arts and Humanities at Pacifica Graduate Institute, and has published The Archetypal Artist: Reimagining Creativity and the Call to Create, a book that addresses the confluence of Jungian and archetypal psychologies, the artist, the shaman, and creativity itself. I’m delighted to speak with her about her new book.

Angela: The Archetypal Artist does not shy away from the big questions, Mary! You begin the first chapter asking “What is the soul?” And more specifically, the type of soul work facilitated by the shaman, including the cave painters of Lascaux and Les Trois-Frères, the archetypal ancestors of the artist. In your estimation, what is the relationship between creativity and the soul?

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Posted in: creativity, humanities, storytelling, Engaged Humanities

The Return of Pan: The Nakedness of Power, Panic, and Pandemics

Posted by Guest on Apr 9, 2020 3:54:02 PM

A guest post by Mary A. Wood, Co-Chair, Engaged Humanities and the Creative Life Program

And no bird weeping a lament / no bird crying the song of its honey voice / in the leaves of Spring’s many flowers / could outrun him / Pan, in song” –“Hymn to Pan,” The Homeric Hymns

"Masked God." Mixed media collage, by Mary A. Wood

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Posted in: Current Affairs, Trauma, Engaged Humanities, pandemic

"One Last Conversation in Prima Materia"

Posted by Angela Borda on Jan 30, 2020 11:23:27 AM

Montecito Journal's Steve Liebowitz's article on Pacifica alum Cheri Steinkellner and her new play, "Prima Materia." Cheri is a graduate of the Engaged Humanities and the Creative Life M.A. program at Pacifica Graduate Institute. 

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Posted in: Engaged Humanities

Faculty Spotlight: Mary A. Wood & Susan Rowland, Engaged Humanities and the Creative Life

Posted by Angela Borda on Nov 4, 2019 1:48:00 PM

An interview by Angela Borda of Mary A. Wood & Susan Rowland, Pt. III of III

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Posted in: Engaged Humanities

Faculty Spotlight: Mary A. Wood & Susan Rowland, Engaged Humanities and the Creative Life

Posted by Angela Borda on Oct 21, 2019 1:53:00 PM

An Interview by Angela Borda of Mary A. Wood & Susan Rowland, Part I of III

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Posted in: Engaged Humanities

We Are All Parisian

Posted by Nikole Hollenitsch on Nov 25, 2015 3:09:22 PM

A guest post by Dr. Susan Rowland, Chair of Pacifica's M.A. Engaged Humanities and the Creative Life Program.

Dear Everyone,
Ten years ago when Al Quaeda bombed London, the Mayor of Paris said: “today we are all Londoners.” The following day, the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said “We are all Londoners” in Trafalgar Square packed with all of London’s multicultural communities. As a Londoner, then a resident, always by birth, no one speech or event did more to lessen the sense of trauma I felt.

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Posted in: Current Affairs, Trauma, Mythology, Engaged Humanities

The Return of the Goddesses-in Mysteries!

Posted by Nikole Hollenitsch on Nov 13, 2015 11:14:57 AM

Notes on a Depth Discussion between Susan Rowland and Bonnie Bright

If you are an avid reader, the mystery genre is likely a familiar presence in the pleasures of your pastime. Those who love detective fiction really love it, as author and scholar Susan Rowland insists to me in a recent interview, and there is a strong ritual element in the reading and writing of mysteries. There are certain consistencies in every story that one may begin to expect; and yet they continue to enthrall us even as they unfold. Mystery novels hold a place for ritual in our culture, and a sense of wanting to repeat something we already know about, things we expect each time we pick one up.

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Posted in: archetypes, C.G. Jung, goddesses, literature, Engaged Humanities

All Kinds of Classrooms

Posted by Nikole Hollenitsch on Nov 12, 2015 1:02:43 PM

A guest post by Aaron Mason; M.A. in Engaged Humanities and the Creative Life Program Alumnus; 2015

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Posted in: Alumni, C.G. Jung, creativity, Engaged Humanities

Sleuth and the Goddess: Hestia, Artemis, Athena, And Aphrodite in Women's Detective Fiction

Posted by Nikole Hollenitsch on Jul 5, 2015 8:33:00 AM

Goddesses live in detective fiction by women in ways little noticed before The Sleuth and the Goddess; in particular, how Hestia, Artemis, Athena and Aphrodite breathe into and shape woman-authored mysteries, whether driving a hardboiled P.I., such as Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski, or haunting domestic oriented sleuth Hannah Swensen, composed by Joanne Fluke. Goddesses are structures of consciousness and being, archetypes divining various forms of art rooted in the soul. Although these archetypes defy gender boundaries (so that male gods creep into women’s writing, just as goddesses are seduced or pursued by, or summon a male author), these four goddesses: Hestia of home and hearth, Artemis of hunting, Athena of communal survival, and Aphrodite of wily desire, most deeply incarnate aspects of the sacred in women’s mysteries. Just as subgenres of women’s writing such as the detective “cozy” have not yet received their due of critical attention, so too the goddesses are demanding that more attention be paid to the feminine psyche. The Sleuth and the Goddess shows us that to read the works by renowned authors such as Marcia Muller, Sue Grafton, Diane Mott Davidson, Jacqueline Winspear, Lindsey Davis, and many more, is to summon the goddesses and be blessed by their vision, beauty, and call to danger.

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Posted in: archetypes, gender, goddesses, Engaged Humanities