Earth Day Conference with Naomi Lowinsky

FIsher King Press authors Naomi Ruth Lowinsky and Patricia Damery will be presenting at the following conference:

Listening to Earth / Listening to Psyche:
Old and New Pathways to Healing Our Relationship to the Earth

Saturday April 17, 2010 9:30 am - 5 pm
Cost: $125
CE Credit: $15 CE Hours: 6
Approved for MD, PhD, MFT, LCSW, RN
Location: Unitarian Church 1187 Franklin St SF 94109
Reserve for this event with the San Francisco C.G. Jung Institute.

Because the Mountain is My Companion: 
Poetry of the Natural World
Presented by: Naomi Ruth Lowinsky

Poetry's roots are shamanic. There are poets of the natural world who return us to a realm in which earth, stone, tree are alive, luminous with divinity, a realm in which animals are our companions, our gods, our teachers. So are mountains.

There are poems which can alter our consciousness—opening our senses to the experience of the sacred, and to the wildness within us.

Dr. Lowinsky will read some poems that evoke these deep, essential experiences of the "unus mundus"—feeling part of everything that is—some of her own and some by poets she loves: Wendell Berry, Patiann Rogers and Gary Snyder.

Naomi Ruth Lowinsky, PhD, is an analyst member of the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco. She is the recent recipient of the Obama Millennium Poetry Prize, awarded for "Madelyn Dunham, Passing On." Her most recent publication, The Sister From Below: When the Muse Gets Her Way has recently been published by Fisher King Press. She has had poetry published in many literary magazines and anthologies in addition to her two poetry collections, red clay is talking and crimes of the dreamer.

Invoking the Divine in Psyche and Matter: 
Analytical Psychology and Biodynamic Agriculture
Presented by: Patricia Damery

"We are not lacking in the dynamic forces needed to create the future," Thomas Berry asserted. "We live immersed in a sea of energy beyond all comprehension. But this energy, in an ultimate sense, is ours not by domination but by invocation."

Carl Jung approached the human psyche through invocation and active imagination, an approach similar to that of Rudolf Steiner's to the earth through Biodynamic agriculture. Both men were deeply influenced by the scientific work and poetry of Wolfgang von Goethe. In this talk some of Goethe's basic principles necessary for the kind of consciousness which apprehends these "dynamic forces needed to create the future," will be presented, a consciousness that is at the heart of participatory science, and an experience of transcendence. Examples from analytical practice and farming will be cited and the biodynamic ritual of "stirring" described, which is at once a "setting of intention" and a prayer. Through this consciousness we are distinct and we are at one with creation, an individuating experience.

Growing up in small Midwestern farming community, presenter Patricia Damery witnessed the demise of the family farm through the aggressive forces of agribusiness, and, like most of her generation, left. Coming full circle, she returned to the land and farming when she married her husband Donald and joined him on his ranch. Her work with the psyche and the earth emphasizes feminine-based practice.

Patricia Damery, MA, is an analyst member of the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco and practices in Napa. With her husband Donald, she has also farmed biodynamically for ten years. Her forthcoming book Farming Soul: A Tale of Initiation is to be published by Fisher King Press in the spring 2010. Her articles and poetry have appeared in the San Francisco Library Journal; Jung Journal; Psychological Perspectives, and Biodynamics: Working for Social Change Through Agriculture.
Also presenting at this event will be:

Jerome Bernstein on: Explorations of Borderland Consciousness

Johnson Dennison on: Balancing Navajo (Diné) Ceremonies with Western Medicine: Introducing Nature and the Spirit of the Holy People

Maria Ellen Chiaia on: Gaia Speaks and the Gods Enter

Current Writings

2009 has been a good year for Naomi Ruth Lowinsky’s poetry. “Madelyn Dunham, Passing On” won the New Millennium Writings Obama Millennium Prize (link) and her poem, “Your People Are My People” won an Honorable Mention in the New Millennium Writings 2009 contest. In addition, several poems were accepted by a variety of literary journals:

* “An American History Poem” in New Millennium Writings

* “Goat Song” and “Forgive me My Sisters” in Jewish Women’s Annual

* “Many Houses Ago” (the first section of a longer poem) in Pinch

* “Psalm for the Whales” in Westview

* “Thunder my Love” Cadillaccicatrix

* “When One of Us is Ripped Loose We All Unravel” in Argestes

* “her song in the stars” in A Gathering: Ina Coolbrith Anthology

"The Sister From Below" Receives a Glowing Review in Psychological Perspectives

In a review published in Psychological Perspectives (Volume 52, Issue 4), Dr. Robin Robertson wrote, “This is a remarkable book, I might even say a unique book. I certainly don't know of any other book like it.” He goes on to say, “This book moves seamlessly between Active Imagination, personal memories and experience, and poetry, both her own and from other poets….There are so many wonderful stories here, so many faces of the muse: in ‘When the Sister Gets Her Way’ we hear how the muse first convinced Naomi of her spiritual calling as a poet.”

Robertson continues, “Perhaps my favorite of the stories (but it's a tough choice) is ‘The Book of Ruth: Naomi's Version,’ in which her muse is the ‘Ur Naomi,’ the ancient Naomi whose real story is missing from the Book of Ruth in the Bible. It's a moving story of what happens when the masculine and feminine are separated, and power when they once more join….I hope many read this book and that it inspires others to make their own attempt at creating a new form of literature.”

Dr. Robertson is a Jungian-oriented clinical psychologist, author of Indra’s Net: Alchemy and Chaos Theory as Models for Self-Transformation (Quest Books, 2009).

“Soul’s Tongue: A Poetry Reading with Cello and Conversation”

Bridge Crossings---Conversations in Poetry 2010
A SUNDAY AFTERNOON SERIES
February 7, May 16, September 26, November 7

Jung Institute of San Francisco
2040 Gough Street, San Francisco
(415) 771-8055

February 7th brought us the first afternoon of a series of poems and conversations by poets addressing a common theme, accompanied by music and visual images. The impetus for these conversations arose from the notion that poetry is a “crossing” over varying psychic territories that touch our lives, our practices, and our humanity with both a feeling of recognition and surprise.

A Freudian and a Jungian, both analysts, both poets, Naomi Ruth Lowinsky and Forrest Hamer read and conversed; cellist Chris Evan provided musical accompaniment.

All shared the medium of language and engaged in the work of translation—from image, affect and memory into words.

• Does soul speak to each in the same tongue?

• If the poet is also an analyst, does one discipline support the other? Or are they conflicting practices?

FORREST HAMER is a widely published poet. He is the winner of the Beatrice Hawley award for his collection “Call and Response” and the Northern California Book Award for his collection “Middle Ear.” His most recent book of poems is called “Rift.” Poems of his have been published in “The Best American Poetry.” Forrest Hamer also works as an analyst and comes from the Psychoanalytic tradition.

NAOMI RUTH LOWINSKY has published her work in many literary magazines. Her poetry collections are “red clay is talking” and “crimes of the dreamer.” Her memoir on creativity, “The Sister from Below: When the Muse Gets Her Way,” was recently published. Naomi also works as an analyst and comes from the Jungian tradition.

CHRIS EVANS has performed classical music in the Bay Area and France. She has played in the orchestras at San Francisco State, UC Davis, and UC Berkeley. Lately she has become interested in improvisation and composition.

Your People Are My People

Naomi Ruth Lowinsky was again recognized in the New Millennium Writings competition, winning the Honorable Mention Award for her poem, "Your People Are My People." According to Don Williams, editor and publisher of New Millennium Writings, "Our poetry judge, Nikki Giovanni, liked this poem a lot."

"Your People Are My People" tracks the ways music, meaningful to each culture, evokes the commonalities and differences in the experiences of European Jews and African Americans.

The poem will be published in the 2010-2011 New Millennium Writings, due out in one year, and at www.newmillenniumwritings.com.

Roland Hayes Article in Psychological Perspectives

“My Home is Over Jordan,” by Naomi Ruth Lowinsky, appears in the latest issue of Psychological Perspectives (Volume 52, issue 3 / 2009).

This powerfully moving article remembers the story and charisma of Roland Hayes, the great and almost forgotten African American tenor. A classically trained musician, Hayes was as well known in his day as Paul Robeson and Marian Anderson, both of whom he mentored. Hayes introduced the beauty and joy of spirituals to concert audiences in Europe and America.

Roland Hayes touched the author’s life when she was a very young child. Her parents were faculty members at Black Mountain College. In mid 1940s North Carolina, her father committed what at that time was the revolutionary act of inviting Hayes to perform before an integrated audience. This memorable concert featured the son of freed slaves singing the European repertoire of Schubert and Bach and the African American folk tradition of spirituals.

Spirituals offer a religious attitude that intertwines African, Jewish and Christian roots with the practical function of conveying secret messages about the way to freedom— a peculiarly American blend of soul that has much in it to sustain us in difficult times.

Roland Hayes made a profound impression on the author. She invokes his spirit in this article and learns much about herself and about him.

Psychological Perspectives is a quarterly journal of Jungian thought published by the C.G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles. Subscription information is available from http://www.junginla.org/psychpersp/.