I was tempted to edit the blog on the first Way of the Dream class, because now my perspective has changed so much. i have an immense feeling of respect and gratitude that Fraser Boa made the film we are watching. I still don't agree with the stance Dr. Von Franz takes in the first section but I accept it as in and of a certain context, the expert to the analysand. Her experience and knowledge are deeply effecting my understanding and I have a serious respect for the power of complexes and drives in the psyche.
Last night I went to see Happy-Go-Lucky and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that Mike Leigh was the director, having walked into it without knowing a thing about it. What a touching and very worthwhile film, I found myself mulling over the storyline and the compassion this woman displays as she trips and giggles through her life, seemingly. i was annoyed at the beginning and had a really hard time following the thick and quick British accents, noticing that i was listening as hard as i could but still couldn't make out what as being said. a little patience payed off as i got used to the style of speaking. such a humanistic story. so sweet, my only criticism would have been why the need to have her wear such trampy outfits, it seemed such a mismatch, though i appreciated their small element of visual suprise, and certainly the clothes did fit a very important part of her personality, the playfulness of the ensembles felt like an expression of her own inner child. the needless? display of her body in one scene, which i feel in retrospect just underlined her character development, key word being : vulnerability. the display of trust that this character continually bore out for others was such a lovely and refreshing draught.
what a potrait, how idealized i wonder some might think- even her nickname is a spinoff on another loving caregiver exrtaordinaire...
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Thursday, October 16, 2008
The Way of the Dream - the first meeting
Yesterday marked the first viewing of Fraser Boa's The Way of The Dream, a film 20 hours long, that explores dreams and focuses particularly on the wisdom and experience of renowned Jungian, Dr. Marie Louise Von Franz. She began analysis with C.G. Jung at 18 and went on to devote her life to the study and interpretation of dreams for 30 years.
We are meeting every Wednesday, noon- 1:30 p.m. at the Recovery Learning Community, 187 High St. in Holyoke in the beautifully restored Caledonian building. We watch a half hour segment and discuss our responses as well as spend time working on our dreams through writing and sharing.
Since undertaking this group I researched methods of doing group dream work, especially hoping to find a leaderless format or something that mirrored a possibly more indigenous style of a group working on dreams together, holding the dream, with no one person being the authority/interpreter/expert.
What I was led to was a perfect answer: the work of Clara E. Hill, whose approach to dream work is from a client-centered perspective. She has constructed a framework and instructs therapists that that they should not put their own reactions on their clients dreams, for dreams are deeply personal. She states what an impossibility it is to say with surety what a dream means for someone, other than the person who it came to. The role of the therapist instead is to act purely as a guide, a skilled questioner, a deep listener, one who stands next to the seeker of self, as they venture forth, side by side. The only caveat she makes is if a person seems stuck one could say "if it were my dream I would think/feel this way about it."
I have to say, though delighted as I was about her overall method, I was disappointed that this had to be slipped in. Can we let be with another's stuckedness? That is a much harder practice. Can we listen to the silence, the place where the gold of who they are is waiting, to be discovered by them. Honoring process is very delicate and demanding and so needed in this world of rush,
'I want it now'.
Dr. Von Franz, as I somewhat expected, but was also surprised at the veracity of her inhabiting the role, plays the expert to the hilt. I hoped to find a teacher, a fellow sister of the deeps, who was inhabiting the wisdom of the feminine and a model for all to see. Instead I witnessed a woman who was a product of her time, conscious or not of the patriarchal coat, her alignment with power hierarchies was evident in her approach. She spoke of the clients who come to her with their own 'completely ridiculous kitchen table dream book" interpretations to share with her. She goes on about how dangerous an operation it is to fool with the unconscious "on your own" , that the dream world can destroy and is a mighty fearsome thing to approach only quaking or with a body-guard in the form of a professional analyst. Yes, her authorship, scholarship, experience and undoubtedly her intuition are profoundly valuable, but what about her spiritual values, her ethics, her heart and her relationship to her own body?
The stance she has lived and worked from seems to be one that has decided that people are basically unequal and non-experts on themselves. To teach people that they should fear themselves and what is deep within them, their unconscious contents, seems misdirected and a ploy for keeping control. This might be true to a huge degree, with addictions, compulsions, and various manifestations or sympthoms of mental unease, but I don't think we move forward from a place of fear as much as from one of love for ourselves and all of who we are, all parts that make up the whole. There is enough fear in the world and the potential for it to be triggered in each of us. Mental illness or unease has only so recently and with awful consequesenses, been defined as a frightening illness, allowing for heaps of stigma and abuse to be hurled at people in a spiritual process of healing. If we weren't so fearful, (AND judgemental) our culture might not have lost this early more wholistic way of viewing "the crazy".
Certainly the woman she refers to coming to her appointment with her own interpretation was seeking her own power. Was trying to understand herself as the avenue upon which to heal, not have someone else define herself for her. Isn't it a great form of madness to let others tell you who you are, if and when and before you yourself know who you are. That people with mental health issues struggle at their core with self-esteem, trusting themselves, boundary and identity issues.
On the other hand the methods of Clara E. Hill speaks to the quiet revolution that is sweeping the earth in some parts, that of NVC or Non-Violent Communication. Marshall Rosenberg, its creator/formulator, who authored Non-Violent Communication, A Language of Life (www.cnvc.org) says that whe we tell another who they are it is a form of violence, and if this brings any raised eyebrows, doubts or questions, please read the book.
And please consider coming to join in the conversation, and the work !
Wednesdays Noon-1:30 p.m. www.westernmassrlc.org for directions, calendar & other offerings
We are meeting every Wednesday, noon- 1:30 p.m. at the Recovery Learning Community, 187 High St. in Holyoke in the beautifully restored Caledonian building. We watch a half hour segment and discuss our responses as well as spend time working on our dreams through writing and sharing.
Since undertaking this group I researched methods of doing group dream work, especially hoping to find a leaderless format or something that mirrored a possibly more indigenous style of a group working on dreams together, holding the dream, with no one person being the authority/interpreter/expert.
What I was led to was a perfect answer: the work of Clara E. Hill, whose approach to dream work is from a client-centered perspective. She has constructed a framework and instructs therapists that that they should not put their own reactions on their clients dreams, for dreams are deeply personal. She states what an impossibility it is to say with surety what a dream means for someone, other than the person who it came to. The role of the therapist instead is to act purely as a guide, a skilled questioner, a deep listener, one who stands next to the seeker of self, as they venture forth, side by side. The only caveat she makes is if a person seems stuck one could say "if it were my dream I would think/feel this way about it."
I have to say, though delighted as I was about her overall method, I was disappointed that this had to be slipped in. Can we let be with another's stuckedness? That is a much harder practice. Can we listen to the silence, the place where the gold of who they are is waiting, to be discovered by them. Honoring process is very delicate and demanding and so needed in this world of rush,
'I want it now'.
Dr. Von Franz, as I somewhat expected, but was also surprised at the veracity of her inhabiting the role, plays the expert to the hilt. I hoped to find a teacher, a fellow sister of the deeps, who was inhabiting the wisdom of the feminine and a model for all to see. Instead I witnessed a woman who was a product of her time, conscious or not of the patriarchal coat, her alignment with power hierarchies was evident in her approach. She spoke of the clients who come to her with their own 'completely ridiculous kitchen table dream book" interpretations to share with her. She goes on about how dangerous an operation it is to fool with the unconscious "on your own" , that the dream world can destroy and is a mighty fearsome thing to approach only quaking or with a body-guard in the form of a professional analyst. Yes, her authorship, scholarship, experience and undoubtedly her intuition are profoundly valuable, but what about her spiritual values, her ethics, her heart and her relationship to her own body?
The stance she has lived and worked from seems to be one that has decided that people are basically unequal and non-experts on themselves. To teach people that they should fear themselves and what is deep within them, their unconscious contents, seems misdirected and a ploy for keeping control. This might be true to a huge degree, with addictions, compulsions, and various manifestations or sympthoms of mental unease, but I don't think we move forward from a place of fear as much as from one of love for ourselves and all of who we are, all parts that make up the whole. There is enough fear in the world and the potential for it to be triggered in each of us. Mental illness or unease has only so recently and with awful consequesenses, been defined as a frightening illness, allowing for heaps of stigma and abuse to be hurled at people in a spiritual process of healing. If we weren't so fearful, (AND judgemental) our culture might not have lost this early more wholistic way of viewing "the crazy".
Certainly the woman she refers to coming to her appointment with her own interpretation was seeking her own power. Was trying to understand herself as the avenue upon which to heal, not have someone else define herself for her. Isn't it a great form of madness to let others tell you who you are, if and when and before you yourself know who you are. That people with mental health issues struggle at their core with self-esteem, trusting themselves, boundary and identity issues.
On the other hand the methods of Clara E. Hill speaks to the quiet revolution that is sweeping the earth in some parts, that of NVC or Non-Violent Communication. Marshall Rosenberg, its creator/formulator, who authored Non-Violent Communication, A Language of Life (www.cnvc.org) says that whe we tell another who they are it is a form of violence, and if this brings any raised eyebrows, doubts or questions, please read the book.
And please consider coming to join in the conversation, and the work !
Wednesdays Noon-1:30 p.m. www.westernmassrlc.org for directions, calendar & other offerings
Monday, October 13, 2008
Grapes of Beckoning
the birds eat tiny wild grapes from the vine
at my windows
small and dark
they're rushing their rushing in
softly flapping wings
flashing movement volleying light
back and forth in the air their movements
like souls come to feed
their motion caresses me
the effervesence of the moment
is recieved by the eye of my soul
its mouth drinks in
the perfect peacefulness of this needed effort
showing me what its like to feel free
free in the flapping free in the beaks bent forward quickly grasping
what the vine holds
flapping
unison of group flight
the shift
all at once
to a resting roof
DO NOT READ THIS UNTIL YOU HAVE ALREADY SEEN MCCABE & MRS. MILLER
LAST NIGHT i went to see McCabe and Mrs. Miller at the Robert Altman film fest in Northampton in our beautiful Academy of Music. I'm sure I've seen all Altman's films, but its been a long time and always rewarding to see a tv-only viewed movie on the big screen.
the volume was way too loud and when i went up to ask if it could be fixed i didn't need to ask, the popcorn guy said "volume too loud? he just went up to fix it"
it didn't really help too much and i adjusted to catching as much as i could of the dialogue, until a psychedelic camera trip occurred whereby the film went completely out of focus, amazingly, in the most pivotal scene of the whole film. after that the sound was 'hearable'
if you read this blog regularly you will find i make up words as is my wont. as is for everyone.
this film was incredibly poignant and i left feeling i witnessed a master with an invisible hand at work. the choppily haircutted dutch boy reveals his coldheartedness by killing the cowboy of love, who i didn't know how to take in his first two scenes, a startingly young Keith Carradine, when in the third scene, he wins approval by making all the ladies of the house happy. we like him, he's a lover, like Mccabe, who only speaks gruff, but never does a wit of violence to anyone, "I got poetry in me, I do..."
And Mrs.Miller the caustic-talking opium smoker who won john mccabe's heart. she smokes to hide from her feelings of laying with men she doesn't love- she charges the highest price of all the hens in the house, 5 x's the regulars, she does it to survive. she knows her worth in a twisted way, smart as a whip, but clearly shows a woman in a man's world, alone, with little chance to get ahead without backing or partnership (yet she does). would she rather be a whore than a wife? for her she says "it's more honest, and at least you get paid."
mccabe knows he loves her but doesn't come straight out and tell her, and she hides her loving smile , and maybe her glee at controlling him by making him pay, behind her quilt.
the perfect accompaniment to the snow cold silence of the town is leonard cohen's songs.
they are soothing, elgaic, trobadourean swirls, weaving a net around our view of these landscapes. the emotionality of the music offers volumes of feeling tone for what we are really looking at, the story we are being told. the mining that's the whole point of the town springing up is never shown, the hard work here are the travails of love, panning for elusive comfort in the midst of addiction and alcoholism. trying to get needs met in the wild and valuing of both the masculine and the feminine for both of their capacities to hold the dual aspects: tender vulnerability and arrogant, raucous power. the main characters repeatedly display this through word and action; mccabe stands out from the other men for his delicacy- he uses words to keep others at bay; his seeming superiority protects a somewhat innocent heart that wants to love.
mrs. miler is a dainty figure "why you're just tiny like me" she says to shelley duvall's character and we are reminded that the picture of her as a larger-than-life 'Tough Madam' belies her actual petiteness.
gentelity of sorts in the wilderness.
does tragedy have to befall them?
or was it written on their record of life ahead of their effort?
that she knew he was too headstrong to be saved, to listen and hear the demands she made to get out of town as a completely torn open love letter? she begs and he, because of his need to prove his masculinity, loses his chance at continuing his life with her.
was it a no-win situation? he humiliates himself when he tries to make a deal with his assassin.
she walks away, soon after, to sink into the oblivion of opium, a response to the pain deeply buried of not being able to save him and to maybe not being able to make herself emotionally available to him. his end is not without its satisfactions; he kills all three of his pursuers; the church is saved. while all the townsfolk are putting out and then celebrating the end of the fire,
he is killing his demons and gut-shot, surrendering to the cold that covers him. snow like sifted sugar frosting falling on him like the harlot's birthday cake he didn't show up to partake in.
for this viewer his loss is sharp, his humanity, once revealed, leaves a bitter tang of longing for him to pull yet another trick and live.
the volume was way too loud and when i went up to ask if it could be fixed i didn't need to ask, the popcorn guy said "volume too loud? he just went up to fix it"
it didn't really help too much and i adjusted to catching as much as i could of the dialogue, until a psychedelic camera trip occurred whereby the film went completely out of focus, amazingly, in the most pivotal scene of the whole film. after that the sound was 'hearable'
if you read this blog regularly you will find i make up words as is my wont. as is for everyone.
this film was incredibly poignant and i left feeling i witnessed a master with an invisible hand at work. the choppily haircutted dutch boy reveals his coldheartedness by killing the cowboy of love, who i didn't know how to take in his first two scenes, a startingly young Keith Carradine, when in the third scene, he wins approval by making all the ladies of the house happy. we like him, he's a lover, like Mccabe, who only speaks gruff, but never does a wit of violence to anyone, "I got poetry in me, I do..."
And Mrs.Miller the caustic-talking opium smoker who won john mccabe's heart. she smokes to hide from her feelings of laying with men she doesn't love- she charges the highest price of all the hens in the house, 5 x's the regulars, she does it to survive. she knows her worth in a twisted way, smart as a whip, but clearly shows a woman in a man's world, alone, with little chance to get ahead without backing or partnership (yet she does). would she rather be a whore than a wife? for her she says "it's more honest, and at least you get paid."
mccabe knows he loves her but doesn't come straight out and tell her, and she hides her loving smile , and maybe her glee at controlling him by making him pay, behind her quilt.
the perfect accompaniment to the snow cold silence of the town is leonard cohen's songs.
they are soothing, elgaic, trobadourean swirls, weaving a net around our view of these landscapes. the emotionality of the music offers volumes of feeling tone for what we are really looking at, the story we are being told. the mining that's the whole point of the town springing up is never shown, the hard work here are the travails of love, panning for elusive comfort in the midst of addiction and alcoholism. trying to get needs met in the wild and valuing of both the masculine and the feminine for both of their capacities to hold the dual aspects: tender vulnerability and arrogant, raucous power. the main characters repeatedly display this through word and action; mccabe stands out from the other men for his delicacy- he uses words to keep others at bay; his seeming superiority protects a somewhat innocent heart that wants to love.
mrs. miler is a dainty figure "why you're just tiny like me" she says to shelley duvall's character and we are reminded that the picture of her as a larger-than-life 'Tough Madam' belies her actual petiteness.
gentelity of sorts in the wilderness.
does tragedy have to befall them?
or was it written on their record of life ahead of their effort?
that she knew he was too headstrong to be saved, to listen and hear the demands she made to get out of town as a completely torn open love letter? she begs and he, because of his need to prove his masculinity, loses his chance at continuing his life with her.
was it a no-win situation? he humiliates himself when he tries to make a deal with his assassin.
she walks away, soon after, to sink into the oblivion of opium, a response to the pain deeply buried of not being able to save him and to maybe not being able to make herself emotionally available to him. his end is not without its satisfactions; he kills all three of his pursuers; the church is saved. while all the townsfolk are putting out and then celebrating the end of the fire,
he is killing his demons and gut-shot, surrendering to the cold that covers him. snow like sifted sugar frosting falling on him like the harlot's birthday cake he didn't show up to partake in.
for this viewer his loss is sharp, his humanity, once revealed, leaves a bitter tang of longing for him to pull yet another trick and live.
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