Robin Barre

"Image and Word Workshop:

Healing and Transforming through Soul Journaling"

          Psyche and logos, image and word, soul and spirit. We live in a world where it is easy to access logos and spirit, and yet we struggle to find room and acceptance for psyche and the imaginal. Jung (1964) argued because we avoid the dark places of the unconscious and are unable to access soul, the modern western world is led into dangerous places. James Hillman (2004) saw a clear connection between the work of the individual and the state of the collective: “My practice tells me I can no longer distinguish clearly between neurosis of self and neurosis of world, psychopathology of self and psychopathology of world” (p. 93).

           This workshop presents a unique process developed by the presenter called “Soul Journaling.” It adds to the body of expressive arts therapies and active imagination techniques to access the personal and collective unconscious. Soul journaling is a process of creating mixed media collages in a bound journal and incorporates the more traditional practice of writing journal-style entries on the collaged pages. We will focus on the processes in which psyche and logos can be engaged, though participants will be directed to outside resources for the various art techniques.  

           We will explore the bound journal as an alchemical vessel, where “art and the ancient and timeless Art of soul might overlap” (McConeghey, 2003, p. iii). Processes from the presenter’s lived experiences will be shared in which the interior metaphors taking place within the journal are transformed into lived experiences.

           These processes include: covering the journal, preparing the page, choosing the images, and welcoming logos. We will focus primarily on choosing images and putting words on the page. Allowing the unconscious to speak through the images we choose is much like dreaming and can be likened to an encounter with the Other. The interior of the psyche is then exteriorized, much like the materials of the alchemist being worked with in the vas. Because the images are from the world – magazines, maps, texts, etc – in soul journaling we then begin to have a relationship with this Other, both within our own psyches and with the exterior world. The soul work, if made conscious and lived in the world, then becomes the work of the anima mundi. Tending our souls allows us to tend the soul of the world. Engaging equal time with logos creates balance, a homeostasis and grounding for the upwelling of unconscious material. The words become placeholders, maps, the translators for the images. We are languaged and languaging creatures. Writing accesses the more linear, rational side of the brain and can keep us grounded.

           We must tend our souls for the sake of the anima mundi because the world and the individual are inseparable. Soul journaling allows our lives to deepen and spiral down to a place of balance, rooted in the things of this world and yet having wings in the breath of spirit. The intentional work of soul tending heals the individual and, as Jung believed, the collective.

 

References

McConeghey, H. (2003). Art and soul. Putnam, CT: Spring.

Hillman, J. (2004). The thought of the heart and the soul of the world. Putnam, CT: Spring.

Jung, C. (1964). Approaching the unconscious. In C. Jung (Ed.) Man and his symbols. New York: Dell.