What: Lecture
Who: Michael Conforti
When: Friday
Fees: $25.00, all
With the gift of inspiration comes an experience of the transcendent. Suddenly the world opens up and vistas previously occluded from our sight are made visible. This experience of the non-material world of psyche has the capacity to truly transform our life but also carries with it certain challenges and spiritual mandates. Jung felt that the goal of life is not to find happiness but to find meaning and that such an inspired life necessarily carries with it certain consequences and inevitabilities.
The gift and the wound: History abounds with stories of our great healers and sages carrying not only a gift, but a wound. Perhaps this wound symbolizes our commitment to living out a destiny, a life inspired by Self and soul, and the reality that, once encountered, our life will never be the same. We just have to think of Jacob's and Tobias' encounter with angels, and the wounds of the Asklepians and shamans, to visualize such a life. So, too, in modern times, we find that those who are striving to live in accordance with the callings of the Self are living a life far different from others in the collective. There is a calling and a commitment to that gift and a realization that theirs is a journey meant to bring something - something of the Self and the transcendent to fruition in the world. But the gift carries with it a profound spiritual and moral mandate. Perhaps it was the sage writings of Nelson Mandela that captures this relationship between inspiration and spiritual mandate when he said that if God has given us a gift, then we owe it to God to live out this gift.
Be it the inspiration of a writer, an artist, or a parent's sudden understanding of their child's deepest needs, where ever we see the presence of this inspiration that we are given, we must carry it. To do so builds a life in accordance with the workings of Self and destiny. However, if one continually denies the gift through addictions or through seemingly "worthy distractions," one's life grows increasingly more devoid of meaning and inspiration; ultimately, life all too often becomes shrouded by unimaginable sadness and depression, sadness for the loss of the life that was destined for us to live.
In this lecture we will discuss these issues, ways of identifying what one's unique gifts may be, how to realize the spiritual mandates of such a life. From Biblical to cinematic references, coupled with clinical case examples, we will describe what it looks like to struggle with, accept, and deny the callings and spiritual mandates given us from the Self. Special emphasis will be given to how these issues are presented in dreams.
[The Assisi Institute will offer CEUs for therapists through NAAP.]
Michael Conforti, Ph.D., is a Jungian analyst, author, and founder/director of the Assisi Institute. His work has resulted not only in a training institute based on his discoveries, but also in the development of a new discipline: Archetypal Pattern Analysis. He lectures nationally and internationally and applies his insights as a sought-after consultant to businesses, government institutions, and the film industry. Dr. Conforti served as a script consultant on the recently released film, Pride and Glory, and is the author of Field, Form, and Fate: Patterns in Mind, Nature & Psyche and Threshold Experiences: The Archetype of Beginnings.
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