I primarily define spirituality as that feeling of being connected to something beyond our small selves and beyond the mundane plane in which we typically live our lives. That thing could be God or the Goddess, Nature, a Higher Power, or other glorious Beings on this earth and beyond. I also appreciate Brené Brown’s definition of spirituality:

Spirituality is recognizing and celebrating that we are all inextricably connected to each other by a power greater than all of us and that our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in love and compassion. Practicing spirituality brings a sense of perspective, meaning, and purpose to our lives.

If Pierre Teilhard de Chardin is right when he observed that “we are not human beings having a spiritual experience” but rather “we are spiritual beings having a human experience,” then it would benefit us to spend some time contemplating our spiritual journey, which is to contemplate our spiritual being. I believe that such contemplation, where we look at our personal journeys through an archetypal lens, can help us understand where we have been and inspire us going forward toward more of Brown’s perspective, meaning, and purpose. Certainly, this sort of contemplation is what Jung did in Memories, Dreams, Reflections, which will be our core text for this program.

I’ll begin our time together by guiding you in an exploration of your sacred journeys through a mapping process, creating a unique memory-montage that will be mined throughout the month for what it reveals about the archetypal dimensions of your journey.

Next, you’ll learn about and identify your own spiritual archetypes and spiritual temperament types, those sacred threads woven into and through your spiritual life. I’ll end by introducing you to archetypal metaphors of the spiritual journey, helping you discern the patterns of your own path. Reflective writing prompts will deepen the exploration, because, as Deborah Levine Herman notes, “The process of spiritual writing is an end in itself. While you are sharing your insight and wisdom with others through the act of writing, your wisdom increases many times over, almost 

as though you are being taught by your own hand.” To this end, small group sharing will give you the opportunity to read your writing and/or share what you’ve been taught by your own hand. Together, we’ll appreciate the archetypal dimensions of our sacred human experience.

Note: Participants are encouraged to read Jung’s MDR before class begins or refamiliarize themselves with it if it’s been a while since you read it.

Jennifer Leigh Selig is a lifelong educator with 33 years of classroom experience, teaching in the fields of literature, psychology, creativity studies, and the humanities. She taught at Pacifica Graduate Institute for many of those years and is the founding chair of the Jungian and Archetypal Studies doctoral program and the Engaged Humanities and Creative Life masters-degree program.  She’s a prolific writer, authoring dozens of newspaper articles, book reviews, journal articles, three screenplays, and is either the author, editor, contributor, or publisher of over forty books, including Deep Creativity: Seven Ways to Spark Your Creative Spirit, which won the gold medal in the category of Creativity and Innovation in the 2019 Nautilus Awards.