Aviva Joseph

Tell us a little about your personal and educational background.

In the background of my childhood-land, I see Los Andes, the magestic white mountains rising up at the horizon line of Santiago, Chile, where I was born. As a child I remember imagining that I was living inside a cauldron, embraced by the magic of the powerful mountains surrounding the city. But there was always a living impulse in me to run through the fields and climb the mountains, stepping out of the safety offered by the cauldron, and to make my way over to the other side of the mountain, where I would find my homeland, Israel.  For me, this calling did not begin with the Zionist education I received as a child, primarily by my father, a holocaust survivor. Rather it seems to originate in an ancient Place: a Place I sometimes imagine as an eternal underground fountain.  

When I was eight I did end up moving with my family to Israel but what I found upon my arrival was far from the land of milk and honey present in my imagination.  In more than one way, my personal exile begun upon this "return home."  In Jerusalem I grew up in an orthodox community which educated me toward a solid grasp of Jewish heritage and practice.  I am grateful for having had the opportunity to learn and experience the beauty available in these teachings and in this community which is often misunderstood when seen only from the outside. Yet I also had the opportunity to see and experience from close up much of the shadow present there.  My childhood calling to return to my homeland did not come to a close when I physically landed in Israel. It seems that it had only begun. My academic studies begun in an exploration of this homeland through my studied in the Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archeology in Bar Ilan University. I majored in the archeology of the biblical period. 

Ten years ago I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. Ironically, in the movement out of Israel I felt as if I was making the journey once again from a cauldron to the other side of the mountain. Coming to the US started a process that allowed me to step out of a sheltered experience within the Israeli-Jewish culture. This narrow focus broke open during a year long program on Culture, Ecology, and Sustainable Community which I did through New College of California. My concentration area was in the field of Consciousness, Healing, and Ecology. This program helped me to open up into global questions and challenges and to reconnect with a sense of global responsibility in relationship to humanity and the more-than-human-world.       

What were you doing before you applied to Pacifica? 

After six years of teaching and heading the Jewish Studies department in a private school in San Francisco, I felt ready to venture back into the academic world. But since I left Israel without completing my final thesis, I first had to formally finish my BA. During this one year program through New College of California I wrote a thesis on the psychological dimensions of the alchemical coniunctio.    

How did you find out about Pacifica, and what led you to apply? 

Years before I applied to Pacifica, I remember reading Pacifica's introductory pamphlet at home, in San Francisco, though I don't recall how it got to me. I remember thinking that I have no BA and no money to spend on it so I threw the material in the garbage. It was too painful to read about ideas and experiences I wanted so much to engage with but had no hope that I would ever be able to do it. Years passed. This time, when Pacifica's name came knocking on my door, I was reading Jung, exploring the psychological dimensions of the coniunctio, and about to finish my BA. With Jung, it was love from the first line. I felt "hungry" to engage more deeply with his visions and the presence that underlies his words. His insights into the potential transformation of archetypal opposites spoke clearly to me in regards to the relationships between Israelis and Palestinians. I was driven to understand how Jung's insights might work in a collective-cultural setting. Pacifica was offering just that.     

What specifically appealed to you about the Depth Psychology degree? 

What I knew I didn't want, was an institution with a wishy-washy program that lacks academic seriousness. But at the same time, I was looking for a place that not only speaks of soul but "has" soul, tends soul: a place in which one can engage in a deepening experience of soul. In my first session at Pacifica, Dr. David Bona said to us (I am paraphrasing): The most profound aspects of your experience at Pacifica, takes place behind the scenes, in the domain of "by-the-way...'"He was right.   

What has been the most exciting aspect of studying in the Depth Psychology program thus far?  

During the three years of class work, the most exciting thing has been the injection of a mysterious nourishment I received every time I went down to Santa Barbara. This has been the first time that I felt a part of a community that speaks my language. The fact that I could be talking to someone for hours and by the end we both know that we not really know what we have been talking about, and yet we smile knowing that something happened here - that is priceless. Today, the most exciting aspect of my studying is no doubt, my dissertation.  

 

What are one or two of the courses you’ve taken that have been favorites, or made a significant impact on you? 

This is a hard question to answer. Perhaps because it is hard to isolate one class when it feels that most classes have been working together to create an experience of profound impact, especially a lasting one. That being said, what emerges in this moment is David Bona's Introduction to Depth Psychology. That class felt to me in many ways like a symbolic chiropractic adjustment. It wasn't specifically the information presented that did it for me. It was something else which I can't call by name. During that class I kept feeling as if I was "transported" to a different dimension.  When I would get back to "myself" I would go to my analytical side and try to understand exactly what is the difference between the definition of Soul and soul, Self and self etc... I think that  profound integration started to take place during that class.    

Tell us about your dissertation topic, including how you came to find it (or how it came to find you!). 

The topic of my dissertation takes me back to my own traumatic childhood experiences of displacement and exile. These are also key experiences in the collective memory of the Jewish People associated with the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem which led to the exile of the Jewish people. Kabbalistic myths describe the destruction of the Temple, the Home of the divine presence (Shechinah), as the origin of her seclusion, desolation and terrible sorrow. Moreover, during my first fieldwork in Jerusalem, working with the Israeli Coalition Against House Demolitions learned that Palestinians have identified  the demolition of their homes by Israeli forces, taking place primarily around Jerusalem, as a key challenge they are facing on a daily basis. I experienced up-close the trauma Palestinian families suffer when their homes are destroyed. I also witnessed how Israeli political agenda can be hidden in a kafkaesque bureaucratic system. This is little known in the public sphere both in Israel and in the world. I perceive a great deal of unconscious acting out in these matters and I sense compassion for both "sides." I understand these phenomena, centered around Place and Home, experienced in the personal, collective, and archetypal levels, to be closely related.  My research aims to explore the archetypal voice of Shechinah in relationship to Home, which is closely linked with Jerusalem. During three carefully chosen dates during the summer of 2010, including the date associated traditionally with the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem (9 of Av), this work aims to gather a community to hear the voice of the exiled Shechinah. The method I will be using for this purpose is Family Constellation work. The 10 Kabbalistic Sephirot in the Tree of Life, of which the Shechinah is a part of, are understood by a central kabbalist from the 16th century, to be organized as a family. How does the Shechinah, (representing daughter/woman) relate to Bina (Mother), Zeir-Anpin (Son/Men) and so forth? Family constellation work seems to be a powerful instrument to potentially support a process that allows an exiled and displaced divine image, to re-integrate in the family and re-implace at Home. These archetypes are a part of us. What could be the lived meaning of such an archetypal transformation for individuals and communities? To facilitate the constellations in the summer, I hope to be able to work with a renonwed facilitator of family constellation work and shamanic practices from the Netherlands who was introduced to me in my recent visit to Jerusalem. This is an experiment I very much look forward to experiencing. I have been receiving  positive feedback from key people in the fields I work with which at this early point has been gratifying.   

What are your hopes and dreams for how you will use this degree after you graduate?  

I haven't found too many people including the archetypal dimension in their constellations work. In fact, I haven't seen this term being used yet. Depending on the way this project unfolds, I can see myself continuing to work in Jerusalem with communities and the Schechinah as well as traveling to other places that are experiencing conflict, supporting the process of archetypal beings coming into their proper place, through a conscious act of the community. 

Aviva writes,"The last photo includes me in the middle (wearing a 'Galabiya') inside the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. On one side is the owner of one of the houses that we rebuilt and on the other is her niece. This is the site where Solomon's Temple used to reside and arguably, the heart of the conflict, in many ways."

"Disembodied Imagination: Titans, Dyonisus and the Use of Robotics in War" for Jungian Psychology III

"Integrity With Language" for Literary and Poetic Imagination

"Stranger Than Fiction” – A Depth Psychological Analysis" for Jungian Psychology I

"Re-Membering Her: The Weeping Goddess" for Psyche and the Sacred

Below: Photos from Aviva's Fieldwork

Aviva recommends these websites:

Aviva is not only a passionate activist, but she's a fantastic writer.  Read some of the papers she wrote for classes at Pacifica.

Aviva did her 2007 summer fieldwork in Israel/Palestine and wrote a image and arts-saturated tour de force paper called "Know Hope," Read it by clicking on the paper to the left.