EWP Academic News
EWP alum Stuart Stovatsky, Ph.D., is published in Perspective.
His article is entitled "Ram Dass Has a Son !" "...he began to see..."
Ram Dass's recent and stunning awakening to parental and grandparental love is grihastha (spirituality of family life) enlightenment...From the current, near-fetishistic focus on Now to the definition of enlightenment as a "state of consciousness," Ram Dass Has a Son! matures and deepens everything that has been taught without question as "final truth" in transpersonal, E/W psychology, ever since the youthful, psychedelic Sixties. It opens up currently unknown depths of meditation, kundalini-tantra-yoga and clinical training for MFTs based in the vast spiritual teachings on interpersonal love, marriage and family life, worldwide over the millennia.
EWP EWP Chair Jorge Ferrer and EWP Students to Present at Upcoming ConferenceApr 25 2012
East-West Psychology Program Chair Jorge Ferrer will deliver the keynote speech at the upcoming Institute of Transpersonal Psychology PhD Symposium, "Leading Edge Research in Service to Community," on May 12, 2012, in Palo Alto, Calif. His speech is titled, "Embodiment and the Heart of Participatory Spirituality."
EWP doctoral candidate Zayin Cabot will present, "Evolution and the Poetics of Indigenous Participation: African and American Indian Modes of Participation"; and EWP doctoral student Samuel Malkemus will present, "The Clash of Instinct and Culture: Eros, Phobos and the Roots of Morality."
Detailed descriptions of the talks:
Embodiment as the Heart of Participatory Spirituality
Jorge N. Ferrer
What do we really mean when we say that spirituality is "embodied"? What distinguishes "embodied" from "disembodied" spirituality in practice? What are the implications for spiritual practice and goals-and for our very approach to spiritual liberation-of taking embodiment seriously? Participatory spirituality stresses the embodied, relational, and enactive (inquiry-driven) dimensions of spiritual practice. In this talk, we will discuss three types of "spiritual co-creation" embraced by the participatory approach-intrapersonal, interpersonal, and transpersonal-showing how they all pave the way for the emergence of more embodied spiritual understandings and practices. After distinguishing between sublimation and integration, we will address the new position of the body, sexuality, the heart, and the mind in a fully embodied spiritual life. The talk will conclude with a brief outline of the method Embodied Spiritual Inquiry as an illustration of an embodied participatory spiritual practice.
Evolution and the Poetics of Indigenous Participation: African and American Indian Modes of Participation
Zayin Cabot
This presentation arises out of an ongoing conversation between the presenter, Zayin Cabot, and Dagara elder Malidoma Somé regarding the nature of participation and evolution. Somé and Cabot will co-teach a course in the spring of 2013 at the California Institute of Integral Studies entitled, "The Poetics of Indigenous Participation." In this course they unpack some of their assumptions regarding the nature of participation, and question the role of novelty, and possibility of evolution with regard to their different understandings with regard the nature of participation. Following the line of this conversation, this presentation examines different indigenous cosmologies. The African cosmologies coming out of the Dagara and Yoruba languages are compared with those of the Mayan and American Indian. By way of concluding, the presentation considers the ramifications of differences between these cosmologies with regard to contemporary attempts to unpack a critical evolutionary theory of consciousness.
The Clash of Instinct and Culture: Eros, Phobos and The Roots of Morality
Samuel Malkemus
This presentation explores the tension between human instinctual nature and civilization. It seeks to examine the age-old philosophical and psychological opposition between human nature and human culture that has been reflected in many guises; i.e., nature vs. nurture, passion vs. reason, irrational vs. rational, etc. To this end it involves three primary aims: (1) To present the concept of instinct as it emerged through Darwin and developed in the context of Freud' depth psychology, (2) to relate these insights to the moral ground of human nature by examining specific pan-human developmental markers that emerge in the early life of an infant, and finally (3) to reflect on the implications that these insights may have for easing the tension between instinct and culture. The works of the philosopher Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, and in specific her evolutionary ethics, serve as the textual ground for my analysis of the moral foundations of human instinct.
Ph.D. student Clara Lindstrom presents at the Cosmology of Love Conference in April 2012
Her talk was called "Love of Wild Places: The Birthing of a New Consciousness" and her abstract follows:
Many of us are painfully aware of the climate crisis we are facing and the fact that, for the first time in history, the actions of our species are profoundly altering the chemistry and functioning of the Earth as a whole. Thomas Berry calls for a re-enchanting of the cosmos and a deep felt kinship with the natural world that should pour forth in art, story, and celebration and be passed on through the most fundamental medium of the cosmos: Love. We must reestablish our human alliance with the Earth, and one small way of working towards this is to illustrate our human potential for mystical and intimate communion with the natural world. This talk is one attempt to make real this loving re-enchantment by relating a story that will give the listener a taste of that for which Berry was calling. It indicates a deeper wisdom at work, and points to the collective nature of this planetary shift and how the "crises" or "breakdowns" of individuals are NOT isolated events but in fact micro-markers of a species-wide transformation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJGA6-H_lVQ&feature=relmfu
EWP core faculty Craig Chalquist presents keynote speech
Along side Angeles Arrien, Craig Chalquist presented a keynote speech at the Holos Institute Conference in Applied Ecopsychology! The conference is titled "Re-visioning a Psychology that Embraces the Earth." in April 2012
EWP Ph.D. student Jason K. Norris facilitates workshop
Jason Kelly Norris, MA, will be co-facilitating a workshop titled "Dream Sounding and Movement," at the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD) Annual Conference to be held in Berkeley June 22 - June 26, 2012. You can read the description of his workshop and find conference links and further info here: http://luciddrum.com/workshops2.html
EWP alum Maty Leiblich, MA, lauches journal devoted to East-West Psychology
The Journal of East-West Psycholgoy was initiated to create a space for practitioners and thinkers to share thoughts and reflections about the question of integration. Please visit www.east-west-psych.co.il to view the journal online. An English edition in in the works.
The inaugral edition was published in May 2012. EWP students and alums who contributed were:
Ido Siemion Ph.D.c - Developments in the perception of the Self: From a closed system to a Social and Ecological Reality.
Monica Mody - Double Vision: Revisiting the Container of the East-West Encounter.
Jorge Ferrer Ph.D. - (A translated reprint of an article First published in JTP) Participatory Spirituality and Transpersonal Theory: A Ten-Year Retrospective.
EWP Ph.D student Lillie Falco-Adkins presents at AAR/WR at Santa Clara University
Lillie's paper is entitled Reading the Body: Kuna Women's Art as Sacred Text. The paper describes how the art of Kuna women may be understood as sacred text. The Kuna are well known for their textile art called molas and this paper illustrates Kuna women's authority through the making of molas. Historically, Kuna women's art depicts both sacred as well as secular motifs and struggles that they have encountered. Mola designs were originally painted onto the body but this gradually changed over time as the designs were transferred onto cloth. This change occurred due to a variety of western influences, such as missionaries that demanded Kuna women cover their bodies. Molas can be thought of as a form of resistance and/or hybridization between old and new ways of being. When confronted with outside influences that threatened their culture, Kuna women found an innovative expressive manner in which to keep their cultural traditions and symbols alive. The oral tradition corresponds with the visual arts as there are sacred stories describing how culture came to the Kuna through through female prophets. Through this material it is possible to comprehend how Kuna women's art and sacred stories are complementary forms that reveal the primacy of women as creators and carriers of their cultural history.
EWP Ph.D. student Larry Norris initiates student organization: Entheogenic Research, Integration and Education (ERIE) and its first annual conference
ERIE's mission is to provide a safe container for three areas of the entheogenic dialogue: 1) discussing contemporary research and scholarship involving sacred medicine 2) opening a space to share and integrate experiences and 3) envisioning a deep educational paradigm including plant teachers, from a Western context.
Recently ERIE became an official student group at CIIS and will hold a conference for those who have conducted research on the topic of entheogens (psychedelics), but are challenged finding platforms to talk about their work. This conference will be held at the Happiness Institute in San Francisco on April 28th, and is open to CIIS students, faculty, and alumni as well as outside sources. This is a great opportunity to share your work within a supportive community!
EWP alum and adjunct faculty Alessandra Strada, Ph.D., has much to celebrate
1. She recently delivered a webinar for the California Hospice and Palliative Care Association titled: "Grief, Depression, and Demoralization in Hospice Patients: Diagnostic Challenges and Treatment Modalities".
2. Her second upcoming book "The Helping Professional's Guide to End of Life Care: Practical Tools for Emotional, Social, and Spiritual Support for the Dying", Published by New Harbinger, can be preordered online.
3. She was invited to give the following talks at APA Conference next August:
How to become a prescribing psychologist
Interprofessional palliative care for the geriatric population
Grief, demoralization, and depression in patients with advance illness.
EWP chair Jorge Ferrer publishes in Transpersonal Psychology Review and becomes member of its Editorial Board
The upcoming issue of Transpersonal Psychology Review (Spring 2012), published by The British Psychological Society in the UK, features an exchange between John Rowan and Jorge Ferrer on their previous articles published in the same journal. In the Editorial, the editor Michael Daniels welcomes Ferrer as new member of the journal's Editorial Board.
