News Release - Just Published: Jung and Ecopsychology

Just Published!

Jung & Ecopsychology 





The Dairy Farmer's Guide to the Universe Volume 1, 
Paperback & eBook editions
Download a Free Preview

"Western man has no need of more superiority over nature, whether outside or inside. He has both in almost devilish perfection. What he lacks is conscious recognition of his inferiority to nature around him and within him. He must learn that he may not do exactly as he wills. If he does not learn this, his own nature will destroy him. He does not know that his own soul is rebelling against him in a suicidal way."  — C.G. Jung

Carl Jung believed there had to be a major paradigm shift in Western culture if we were to avert many of the apocalyptic conditions described in the Book of Revelation. He coined the terms ‘New Age’ and ‘Age of Aquarius’ to describe a change in consciousness that would honor the feminine, our bodies, sexuality, the earth, animals, and indigenous cultures. Jung deplored the fast pace of modern life with its empty consumerism and the lack of a spiritual dimension.

Volume 1 of The Dairy Farmer’s Guide to the Universe develops the framework and principles of Jungian ecopsychology and describes how they can be applied to our educational system and in the practice of psychotherapy. It offers a response to Jung’s challenge to unite our cultured side with the ‘two million-year-old man within’ thereby opening a bridge to the remaining indigenous cultures. Dreamwork, individuation, synchronicity, and the experience of the numinous are important elements in this conceptual system. The Dairy Farmer’s Guide provides a Jungian contribution to the developing field of ecopsychology, exploring values, attitudes and perceptions that impact our view of the natural world—nature within, nature without.

Download a Free Preview

About the Author
Dennis Merritt, Ph.D., is a Jungian psychoanalyst and ecopsychologist in private practice in Madison and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Dr. Merritt is a diplomate of the C.G. Jung Institute, Zurich and also holds the following degrees: M.A. Humanistic Psychology-Clinical, Sonoma State University, California, Ph.D. Insect Pathology, University of California-Berkeley, M.S. and B.S. Entomology, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Over twenty-five years of participation in Lakota Sioux ceremonies has strongly influenced his worldview.

"Scientific study, cognitive behavioral techniques, self-help books, and political action will not do the trick. We will not achieve the fundamental level of change and understanding that is called for unless the archetypal, transcendent, sacred and mythical dimension of the psyche is engaged. The sense of the sacred Carl Sagan saw as necessary to save the environment will not be developed. Our educational systems will not be able to teach from a deep, holistic, integrated perspective unless they embrace an ecopsychological framework. Without a mythic perspective, hubris and inflation with “our” powers and the religion of science will make John’s revelatory visions a reality." —Dairy Farmers Guide to the Universe Vol. 1

Fisher King Press publishes an eclectic mix of worthy books including 

Jungian Psychological Perspectives, Cutting-Edge Fiction, Poetry, 

and a growing list of alternative titles. 

www.fisherkingpress.com

Re-Visioning our Relationship with Nature

article by Dennis Merritt

Western man has no need of more superiority over nature, whether outside or inside. He has both in almost devilish perfection. What he lacks is conscious recognition of his inferiority to nature around him and within him. He must learn that he may not do exactly as he wills. If he does not learn this, his own nature will destroy him. He does not know that his own soul is rebelling against him in a suicidal way.  —C.G. Jung, (CW 11, ¶ 870)

A radical revision of our worldview is in order and several encouraging voices have arisen. Carl Sagan, who as co-chair of A Joint Appeal by Science and Religion for the Environment, presented a petition in 1992 stating:

The environmental problem has religious as well as scientific dimensions…As scientists, many of us have had a profound experience of awe and reverence before the universe. We understand that what is regarded as sacred is more likely to be treated with care and respect. Our planetary home should be so regarded. Efforts to safeguard and cherish the environment need to be infused with a vision of the sacred. At the same time, a much wider and deeper understanding of science and technology is needed. If we do not understand the problem it is unlikely we will be able to fix it. Thus there is a vital role for both science and religion. (Sagan 1992, p. 10, 12) 

The Forum on Religion and Ecology is a leader in developing the dialogue on spirituality and the environment http://environment.harvard.edu/religion. Joseph Campbell thought that if a new myth of any value were to emerge, it would be of a “society of the planet” living in relationship with the Earth. (Campbell 1988, p. 32) Ecotheology, creation spirituality and ecospirtuality have been developing over the past two decades with the writings of Matthew Fox and Thomas Berry being notable examples.

A growing number of philosophers, dubbed environmental philosophers or ecophilosophers, have been re-examining “the philosophical bases of our attitudes toward the natural world” with a “heightened interest in basic questions of values, of worldview, and of (environmental) ethics.” (Metzner 1991, p. 147) “Deep ecologists” challenge the dominant philosophical positions by making three main points. First, they assert the need to overthrow our human-centered focus by placing an emphasis on an ecological, or Earth-centered, approach. We must acknowledge “the complex web of human interdependence with all life-forms” and develop what Aldo Leopold called a “land ethic” and an “ecological conscience.” (Leopold 1948 referred to in Metzner 1993, p. 4)

The Red Book and a Word from the Sister

Marked By Fire

Stories of the Jungian Way

"This life is the way, the long sought after way to the unfathomable which we call divine"

—C.G. Jung, The Red Book

Marked by Fire: Stories of the Jungian Way is a soulful collection of essays that illuminate the inner life.

When Soul appeared to C.G. Jung and demanded he change his life, he opened himself to the powerful forces of the unconscious. He recorded his inner journey, his conversations with figures that appeared to him in vision and in dream in The Red Book. Although it would be years before The Red Book was published, much of what we now know as Jungian psychology began in those pages, when Jung allowed the irrational to assault him. That was a century ago.

How do those of us who dedicate ourselves to Jung’s psychology as analysts, teachers, writers respond to Soul’s demands in our own lives? If we believe, with Jung, in “the reality of the psyche,” how does that shape us? The articles in Marked By Fire portray direct experiences of the unconscious; they tell life stories about the fiery process of becoming ourselves.

A Word from the Sister

The publication of “Marked by Fire” is exciting. I want to share a portion of Naomi's essay in the collection, especially the part where I show up and play a pivotal role. I hope you’ll want to read more....

Drunk with Fire
How The Red Book Transformed My Jung

Support me for I stagger, drunk with fire. . . . I climbed down through the centuries and plunged into the sun far at the bottom. And I rose up drunk from the sun . . . The Red Book

There has been a breach between C. G. Jung and me. How could that happen? I had no idea who I was until I met Jung, nor had I had a decent conversation with my soul. Jungian analysis showed me my way into the world, and into my inner life—it opened the door to the poet I'd left behind in my childhood. But when I encountered Jung's suspicious attitude toward artists—so like a Swiss burgher—the poet in me was offended.

Enter The Red Book. When I sat down with that enormous tome on my lap and leafed through its gloriously illuminated pages, its visionary poetry, its astounding paintings and mandalas, my heart opened to my illustrious ancestor—all was forgiven. I felt vindicated. Jung, as I'd always suspected, was a closeted poet.

What is this Red Book? During a difficult time in his life, after his break with Freud, Jung was deluged with powerful images and visions. He wrote them down and painted them. He created a strange and beautiful book—bound in red leather—to hold them. It looks like a medieval illuminated manuscript. The Red Book was not published, even after his death, because of concerns that its wild, prophetic tone would cause people to dismiss Jung as a mystic or a madman. When it finally came out in 2009, it surprised the Jungian world by creating a media sensation and selling out its first printing


With the publication of The Red Book my Jung has been transformed. He is "outed" as a poet and a painter. He writes directly out of his vulnerability, working out his relationship with his soul in the depths of the mythopoetic imagination, just as I do. In The Red Book Jung reclaims his soul—or rather she reclaims him. She appears to him and becomes his guide. She is an inner figure with a mind of her own. This honoring of the voice from within, which Jung would later call active imagination, is one of his greatest gifts to me. Instead of ignoring or dismissing voices that speak to me from within, Jung taught me to listen and to engage in dialogue with them. When "The Sister from Below" began speaking to me, telling me she was my muse, my soul, my writing life took off....


When Jung implores, "Support me for I stagger drunk with fire," I feel a tug and am deeply moved. Why is this? They are wildly poetic words—in the Dionysian mode. They take me down to that primal level of religious feeling—worship of the sun, our source. I know the states he describes. To be drunk with fire tells it all—the creative ecstasy—at once wildly enlivening and demonic—fire as Dionysus, fire as Shiva, fire as Pele. Certainly being a poet can mean being drunk with the sun from the bottom of time. One finds oneself climbing "down through the centuries" pursuing a word, an image, a phrase of goat song.

It has been essential for me to write directly out of the experience of being in other realities, rather than describing such states from a safe distance. In The Red Book Jung contains his intense and overwhelming experiences by writing them down, by painting them. I recognize that urge. I have shelves and shelves of journals in which I've worked to contain my own fire, to follow inner figures, to work with poems and with dreams, to dive below the surface of the times to what is moving in the depths. And I always feel better, more grounded, more real to myself after I do.

Enter, the Sister from Below. She's got an idea:

Why don't you take your own advice? Do an active imagination with Jung, now that you feel this warm glow of kinships libido for him? Imagine you two are sitting by the primordial fire, as he puts it in The Red Book:

An old secret fire burns between us. . . . The words uttered at the fire are ambiguous and deep and show life the right way. . . .
[We] will respect the holy fire again, as well as the shades sitting at the hearth, and the words that encircle the flames.

This makes me nervous. Jung is the master of active imagination. Is it hubris to invoke him? But I have learned to listen to the Sister. So I sit down, with my notebook. Jung, I discover, is reluctant. He is not at all sure he wants to engage in this exercise...



Marked By Fire: Stories of the Jungian Way
Volume 1 - Inaugural Edition, Edited by Patricia Damery and Naomi Ruth Lowinsky. Available Spring 2012

Contributors to Marked by Fire: Jerome Bernstein, Claire Douglas, Gilda Frantz, Jacqueline Gerson, Jean Kirsch, Chie Lee, Karlyn Ward, Henry Abramovitch, Sharon Heath, Dennis Patrick Slattery, Robert Romanyshyn, Patricia Damery, and Naomi Ruth Lowinsky.

Paperback & eBook editions - Advance Orders Welcomed

Product Details
Paperback & eBook editions: 150 pages (estimate)
Large Page Size Format 9.25" x 7.5"
Publisher: Fisher King Press; 1st edition (April 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1-926715-68-3
ISBN-13: 978-1-926715-68-1

Fisher King Press publishes an eclectic mix of worthy books including 

Jungian Psychological Perspectives, Cutting-Edge Fiction, Poetry, 

and a growing list of alternative titles. 

www.fisherkingpress.com

Poetry Anthology - Open Registration

Registration for The Book of Life Poetry Anthology has been closed. We will be announcing a new project in the near future. Please join our mailing list to receive updates.

Fisher King Press publishes an eclectic mix of worthy books including 

Jungian Psychological Perspectives, Cutting-Edge Fiction, Poetry, 

and a growing list of alternative titles. 

www.fisherkingpress.com

Shalit Lectures

Erel Shalit Lecture Dates are as follows

January 28, 2012, Ramat Hashron - The Cycle of Life: Themes and Tales of the Journey

February 2012: The Cycle of Life: Themes and Tales of the Journey, Book Club, Depth Psychology Alliance, including internet interview with Bonnie Bright. Here's a link to the February Cycle of Life Book Club. Here’s a link for an overview and the entire line-up of Depth Psychology Authors for 2012,

March 1-4 2012, Denver, Colorado -The Cycle of Life: Themes and Tales of the Journey

March 9-10 2012, Santa Fe, New Mexico - Self, Meaning and the Transient Personality

August 2012, St. Petersburg - Recollection and Recollectivization

November 2012, Warsaw - tba

October 2012, Sofia - tba

Erel Shalit is a Jungian psychoanalyst in Ra'anana, Israel, and the Director of the Jungian Psychotherapy Program at Bar Ilan University. He is past president of the Israel Society of Analytical Psychology. He is the author of several publications, including The Cycle of Life: Themes and Tales of the Journey; Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return; Enemy, Cripple; Beggar; The Hero and His Shadow; and The Complex: Path of Transformation from Archetype to Ego. Articles of his have have appeared in many journals, among others Quadrant, The Jung Journal, Spring, and Midstream. He has entries in The Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion. 'Silence is the center of feeling,' an interview with Erel Shalit, appears in Robert and Janis Henderson's "Living with Jung" volume 3. He has contributed the chapter on Jerusalem in Thomas Singer's book Psyche and the City: A Soul's Guide to the Modern Metropolis. Dr. Shalit lectures at professional institutes, universities and cultural forums in Israel, Europe and the United States.

Fisher King Press publishes an eclectic mix of worthy books including 

Jungian Psychological Perspectives, Cutting-Edge Fiction, Poetry, 

and a growing list of alternative titles. 

www.fisherkingpress.com

Environmental Crisis - Abrams and Damery Dialogue

February 10, 2012: 

The Environmental Crisis and the Living Quest of the Embodied Psyche 

An Evening of Dialogue: David Abram in Conversation with Patricia Damery

Friday, February 10, 2012, 7-9:30 pm, The Brower Center, 2150 Allston Way, Berkeley.

An event of the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco.

Tickets available at www.sfjung.org Availability limited. $15 students; $25 general public.

The morning I was to meet David Abram in preparation for the February dialogue with him, strong winds shook the chimney in the Truchas, New Mexico adobe in which we had been staying over the past week, playing songs whose words only the heart knows. A storm was coming. By the time we were packing up the car to return to the airport (David and I were to meet briefly in Santa Fe on our way), the snow was blowing horizontally. We feared for our safety on the drive down the winding mountain road. When we reached Santa Fe, unseasonably heavy snow had accumulated and the electricity was out citywide.

If Air has the capacity “to provide awareness, thought, and speech,” as Abram asserts the Navajo hold, then that morning Air began the dialogue! “For the Navajo… the Air has the properties that European, alphabetical civilization has traditionally ascribed to an interior, individual human ‘mind’ or 'psyche,’” Abram writes. As humans created the alphabet, moving from oral traditions toward written word, our relationship with the natural world changed. Whereas once we knew the at-oneness of dialogue with the landscape, now the written page and its words intervened, effectively removing us from the liveliness of communication with the natural world. In the hubris of apparently harnessing outer forces for our comfort or sustenance, we have become inflated. Being in relationship-with the not-human world no longer feels necessary. We no longer consider the rights of Nature. But Nature has not lost Her voice! 

If Air began the dialogue, with Snow and Electricity chiming in, then where will this dialogue proceed? What awareness might come, what corrective action? What is the impact on our embodied selves of such disconnection from our environment?

Please enter this dialogue with your presence! Never has it been so important to renew our conversations with the not-human and the natural world. David is a lively and thoughtful speaker, and we are very fortunate to have him this evening in the Bay Area.

David Abram, is a cultural ecologist whose lyrical evocations in his books, The Spell of the Sensuous and Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology, have captivated a generation of readers. Patricia Damery, an analyst member of the C.G. Jung Institute and a Biodynamic farmer, explores the interconnected fabric of consciousness through her books, Farming Soul:A Tale of Initiation, and novel, Snakes. She and David Abram will discuss the challenges as well as the evolutionary potential to the current ecological crisis.

Also, listen to Gray Scott’s radio interview of Patricia Damery on

Serious Wonder Radio www.seriouswonder.com.

BIODYNAMIC FARMING

What is biodynamic farming? Can we heal our bodies, the earth and raise our awareness by using this method? Gray Scott talks with Jungian analyst and author Patricia Damery about her book FARMING SOUL

Fisher King Press publishes an eclectic mix of worthy books including 

Jungian Psychological Perspectives, Cutting-Edge Fiction, Poetry, 

and a growing list of alternative titles. 

www.fisherkingpress.com

Animus, O Animus!

by Deldon Anne McNeely

Animus, O Animus, wherefore art thou, Animus? Please step forward out of the shadows, out from behind the dark foliage which camouflages you, into the moonlight, and show yourself to be a true, substantial bridegroom.

Or must I play this scene alone, foolish in my belief that this soliloquy finds an audience? Alas, who speaks? Is it I or you? Aren’t you the Word? The one who insists on clarity? So why am l out here alone on this balcony and you invisible? True, I’m the one who wants togetherness; perhaps by withholding yourself you flush me out so you can see me clearly. How do I get what I need from you? How do I even know what I need from you? You’re supposed to be the assertive one. Am I at your mercy, waiting to be overtaken? And if you come, who in me stands up to you? Can you bear to look me in the eye, or must I feign indifference? Do you respond to honesty, or only to coyness, or, worse yet, must I treat you sadistically to reassure you that you’re dispensable, in order to keep your attention?

Are you loyal? Will you lead me to the true center, or mislead me into folly? Will you fructify me or leave me alone and barren? How can I know your voice? Will I find you in the world, or only through renouncing the world? What, of me, are you? Where, in me, are you? Do you exist outside of the imaginative schemas of nineteenthcentury men?

My confusion about you stems partly from the fact that your functions, as supposed by analytical psychology, sound mightily like “ego,” as we have generally come to define it in heroic terms. Come to think of it, you sound quite a bit like “God,” when It is Whom the patriarchal worlds describe as He. If you are Logos, whose voice speaks you? The voice of reason? The voice of conscience? The voice of the Holy Spirit? The voice of We, the People? The voice of one crying in the desert, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord”? All of the above? Does the heroine exist who is not under your spell? How can you connect me to my Deity, the One who is both male and female, creator and destroyer, now and forever, indivisible?

In trying to understand where the animus lives in the psyche of a woman, it may be helpful first of all to place it in relationship to ego. In Jung’s schema, the ego consists of all we are conscious of being. That which we exclude is defined as shadow. Anima and animus are subsumed under the shadow in early life, and are gradually brought into conscious focus through experience and introspection. At first we cannot differentiate these structures of the psyche, nor can we tell which is functioning through our outward behavior.

Pacifica Graduate Institute Bookstore

The Pacifica Graduate Institute stocks Fisher King Press psychology titles. 
Located in the renovated wine cellar of the former Fleischmann estate, the bookstore at Pacifica is an important and popular feature of campus life. Starting out on a borrowed shelf in the library, the bookstore has become an essential resource for students, faculty, staff, and conference participants.

We carry a selection of faculty publications, suggested course readings,  a unique general reading and gift section, and we are particularly proud of our selection in the fields of counseling, clinical and depth psychology, and mythological studies.

Our collection includes many different literary works and publications with the primary emphasis on the following:

•   Depth, Jungian, and Archetypal Psychology
•   Religion, Mythology, Philosophy
•   Joseph Campbell
•   Marija Gimbutas
•   James Hillman
•   Pacifica Faculty and Alumni Publications

Please e-mail inquiries or requests to bookstore@pacifica.edu or phone 805.969.3626 extension 327. Special orders and shipping are available to students, faculty, staff, and conference participants. Your purchases support Pacifica programs!  

         Pacifica Bookstore

         249 Lambert Road
         Carpinteria, CA 93013
         Phone:805.969.3626 Ext. 327
         Fax: 805.879.8270                   email: bookstore@pacifica.edu

www.pacifica.edu/bookstore

Fisher King Press publishes an eclectic mix of worthy books including 

Jungian Psychological Perspectives, Cutting-Edge Fiction, Poetry, 

and a growing list of alternative titles. 

www.fisherkingpress.com

If You’ve Got “The Blues,” Play 'em

Review of Mark Winborn's Deep Blues
by Laura Sentineri Harness

Mythopoetry Scholar Annual eZine vol. 3. Stephanie Pope, Editor. Fountain Hills: mythopoetry.com, January 2, 2012 (© 2012)

Deep Blues: Human Soundscapes for the Archetypal Journey
Publisher: Fisher King Press
September 1, 2011 1st edition
140 pages, Illustrations, Index, Bibliography
ISBN-10: 1926715527
ISBN-13: 978-1926715520

In the midnight hours, long ‘fore the break of day
              When the blues creep on you and carry your mind away
                                -Leroy Carr, Midnight Blues1

What Is It About “The Blues” That So Deeply Stirs The Soul?

In Deep Blues: Human Soundscapes for the Archetypal Journey, Jungian psychoanalyst, Mark Winborn brings the astute lens of depth psychology to this question, exploring “Blues” music as a psychological, archetypal and cultural phenomenon. The strength of this book is its ability to cross between two vastly different worlds juxtaposing the gritty emotions and simple earthy lyrics of the Blues with the expansive intellectual framework of Jungian Psychology.

Winborn’s brilliant analytical skills and personal passion for the subject is evident and this book often reads like a love story to the muse of the Blues. Although the genre of Blues music is his focus, there is a breadth to his writing that distills many valuable insights into human nature. Winborn applies a variety of Jungian analytic theories as well as elaborates upon the interface of creativity and alchemy, the shamanic role of a “Blues” performer and Neumann’s theory of Unitary Reality.2 Deep Blues is a poignant testimony to the power of Blues music to heal and redeem the “midnight hour” sufferings of the soul.

Tracing the origins of the Blues to slavery and the African-American experience of devastating loss, tragedy, trauma and personal pain, Winborn calls the Blues “survival music.” He then gives a brilliant in-depth analysis of the healing, medicinal qualities inherent in Blues music which contribute to emotional resilience, redemption and restoration of wholeness.

Music has long been used to help people deal with their emotions. In the 17th century the scholar, Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy3 argued that music was critical in treating mental illness especially melancholia. He noted that music has an "excellent power ...to expel many other diseases" and he called it "a sovereign remedy against despair and melancholy."4 Back before Prozac and Zoloft music was prescriptive, often used as a homeopathic remedy as “like cures like.”

The Cycle of Life Book Club

Erel Shalit will be tending the free Depth Psychology Alliance online book club which will be featuring The Cycle of Life: Themes and Tales of the Journey in the month of February 2012.

Each month, the group is "tended" by a different author who takes charge of the group on the first day of the designated month to introduce the book, assign selected readings, and pose study questions, so Erel will be on call to monitor progress, field questions online, point out themes, comment on select passages, draw out correlations with current events, and he will be available for questions, comments and discussions.

Dr. Shalit will soon be featured in an audio interview for Depth Insights Radio.

Here's a link to the February Cycle of Life Book Club

Here’s a link for an overview and the entire line-up of Depth Psychology Authors for 2012, 

There will be a drawing for a free copy of Erel's book Enemy, Cripple, Beggar: Shadows in the Hero’s Path and one of The Hero and His Shadow: Psychopolitical Aspects of Myth and Reality in Israel, among the attendees during the month of February.

Fisher King Press publishes an eclectic mix of worthy books including 

Jungian Psychological Perspectives, Cutting-Edge Fiction, 

Poetry, and a growing list of alternative titles.

www.fisherkingpress.com

Fisher King Review Free Newsletter

Subscribe to the Fisher King Review

The Fisher King Review has contracted with MailChimp to deliver our online Newsletter.

Don't miss out on future articles and postings, Subscribe Today for free.

If you enjoy reading our many articles and postings, forward this message to family members, friends, and/or colleagues and invite them to visit the Fisher King Review.

Fisher King Press publishes an eclectic mix of worthy books including Jungian Psychological Perspectives, Cutting-Edge Fiction, Poetry, and a growing list of Alternative titles.

The Fisher King Review by Fisher King Press

Subscribe Today for Free

Scientific Study, Self-help Books, and Political Action will not do the Trick!

Publication Date Jan 27, 2012

Jung and Ecopsychology

"Scientific study, cognitive behavioral techniques, self-help books, and political action will not do the trick. We will not achieve the fundamental level of change and understanding that is called for unless the archetypal, transcendent, sacred and mythical dimension of the psyche is engaged. The sense of the sacred Carl Sagan saw as necessary to save the environment will not be developed. Our educational systems will not be able to teach from a deep, holistic, integrated perspective unless they embrace an ecopsychological framework. Without a mythic perspective, hubris and inflation with “our” powers and the religion of science will make John’s revelatory visions a reality."

Jung & Ecopsychology: The Dairy Farmers Guide to the Universe Vol. 1

Fisher King Press publishes an eclectic mix of worthy books including 

Jungian Psychological Perspectives, Cutting-Edge Fiction, Poetry, 

and a growing list of alternative titles. 

www.fisherkingpress.com