talks

on creativity and the mythic return to origins University of Dallas, September 2019

Reading Jung: Psychology as Art

I first read Jung in an introductory class taught by Robert Romanyshyn. His instruction for our reading was to take up Jung’s practice of hospitality toward psyche by noticing our reactions and journaling them. I now understand that the attitude of hospitality lives in Jung’s writing as an invitation to the same. Embracing the invitation, …

Reading Jung: Psychology as Art Read More »

Language embodies imagination

Language embodies imagination; its diastole and systole, its expansion and constriction. Our proclivity for constricting imagination by turning everything into literal noun-things lives in grammar. To see how this plays out, let’s track how the phrase ‘the unconscious’ can open to imagination or turn what began as an experience into a thing. Some emerging psychological …

Language embodies imagination Read More »

What the body knows

A friend reported the following experience: “Being an empath can be an odd thing…I was introduced today to an art exhibit photo of two wall clocks hung side-side-side and synchronized.(1) I was asked what I thought it was about. I teared up and cried, with no idea as to why. I didn’t feel any emotion …

What the body knows Read More »

when a metaphor runs wild

Be aware: some metaphors are a force of nature. A metaphor, charged with numinous force can spread like wildfire until all is subsumed under it. Intoxicated, we may very well fall under its spell and, like lotus eaters, forget our home. Succumbing, we erect edifices in its name; forgetting, we fall into idol worship. Recovering …

when a metaphor runs wild Read More »

an example of being figured by the work

in the essay, “the dream-ego in the dream, the waking-ego in creativity,” i write of how we (in this case, composer, performers and audience) are figured by the creative work. Here is a stark example. Background for the Rouse composition from  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odna_Zhizn    Christopher Rouse’s 2009 composition Odna Zhizn (Russian for “a life”) is what …

an example of being figured by the work Read More »

group mind IV: chemistry

Related posts group mind I: like conversation group mind II: transcendence group mind III: the nature of music group mind IV: chemistry group mind V: connection to the audience Insight: When an ensemble really gels and their performance is organic and alive, you’ll hear “That band has great chemistry.” “Chemistry,” is so essential and is …

group mind IV: chemistry Read More »

Scroll to Top