2018 Oxford Conference: The Still Point and the Turning World

Worcester College, Oxford, UK

Speakers: Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D. and Monika Wikman, Ph.D: 

Emergence of Feminine Wisdom and the End of Patriarchy: the Process of Evolutionary Change in Individuals and Humanity – Jean

One thousand years ago, the unfinished story of wounded Fisher King, the Wasteland, and the mysterious Grail absorbed the storytellers of the eleventh century. The wheel of time turns, and now at the beginning of the 21st Century, humanity and planet are in crisis: Chinese pictograph for Crisis combines two characters:  Danger + Opportunity.  Patriarchy has brought humanity and the planet to the brink of destruction, at the same time that humanity could be at the threshold of evolutionary psychological and spiritual transformation with the emergence of the feminine. When new life is emerging through the birth canal, the most dangerous phase is called “transition.” This is where we are now.

Moving Toward the Millionth Circle -- Jean

It began with an Aha! that led Jean to write The Millionth Circle (hundredth monkey, millionth circle—Bingo!). The book seeded circles with a sacred center. inspired the Millionth Circle Initiative, brought her to the UN in 2002, and led to her advocacy for a UN 5th World Conference on Women (5WCW),  the first since Beijing 1995 and internet communication. Jung’s collective unconscious and Rupert Sheldrake’s morphic field theory provides an understanding of how deep change happens at the archetypal level. Soul journey, individuation, “assignment,”         

Where the Spirit of these Times meets the Spirit of the Depths: Emergent Dreams Revisioning the Collective and Individual Psyche” — Monika 

When we hold space for the spirit of the times to meet the spirit of the depths, as Jung articulated it, in our own experience, dreams, and active imagination we may become more able to witness and be present in the world as it is.  Fresh connection with the deeper psyche and psychoid helps us discover new ways of being, witnessing, and healing with the living waters of the psyche, for the good of all sentient beings, so imperative in these times.   We will consider a number of unique visionary dreams that address the individual and the collective specific to these times.  With the  reality of the invisible worlds that inform our dreams, we will look to the guidance and revelatory presence in the deeper psyche to help us once again, find our humble transformative place in the family of things. 

Prayer for the World Soul: Experiences of Ash and Its Alchemical Mysteries - Monika

Life brings each of us human experiences of grief, loss, death, and the resulting openings in these experiences to the psyche where healing and greater wholeness may emerge.   Jung wrote, “we are threatened with universal genocide if we cannot work out the way of salvation by a symbolic death.” (Jung, Letters Vol. I, p. 586.)  Ash takes us into the realms of symbolic death mysteries. Meditations on the alchemy on ash open us to the mysteries of the soul and spirit that may be at work during times of loss, grief and change in our individual lives and in the collective.  We will meditate on the mysteries of ash via myth, dream, fairy tale, film, and life where we may discover the profound presence of the greater psyche emerging from the ash, and the gifts that emanate into our world from these experiences.

Conference Information:

Guild of Pastoral Psychology Oxford Conference 2018

http://www.guildofpastoralpsychology.org.uk/events