When my mum said not to rush into things, I suspect she didn’t mean leaving 58 years between one piano lesson and another. But life slips away. One minute I’m a timid eight year old petrified of my teacher and…
Category: Symbolic and archetypal insight
I fell for Frida Kahlo in an instant. It was the tango that did it as Salma Hayek and Ashley Judd strutted, stamped and slid across the floor and each others bodies in two minutes of intense passion. Knowing this…
Two women on a road trip. Hardly Thelma and Louise, although it did feel a bit like driving off a cliff as we headed towards a dream retreat. I’d been in, and loved, Jungian dream analysis but the idea of…
A workshop at Common Ground Conference Progressive Christianity Aotearoa Saturday 8th September 2018 Abstract Blogging about spirituality drew sharp criticism from church authorities who determined my theology ‘not Christian’. I responded by destroying my website, home to myriad articles that…
The Illness The We Are: A Jungian Critique of Christianity by John P. Dourley A creative reading group for explorers Dates and times Thursday evenings, 7-8.30pm. 4, 11, 18, 25 Oct & 1, 8 November 2018. Venue A café in…
When I was at theological college I was fascinated by how it was perfectly acceptable to see the first chapters of Genesis as mythology but not necessarily the Gospel of Mark, an action-packed narrative that forms the bare bones of…
The giant creature Seraphina went up in flames on Wellington harbour. Within her maternal belly were notes holding the secret desires, dreams, yearnings, and concerns of the locals. A form of confession if you like. The whole thing was cathartic,…
In 1969 when singer Peggy Lee released, Is that all there is, she posed an intense existential question. She wasn’t searching for an after-life but musing about the disappointment that life can be, even when faced with the unbridled energy…
Amongst the debris on my desk sits a small skull. It’s just big enough to remind me that I’m not long for this world. No, I don’t have a diagnosis that may make you feel awkward, other than being terminally…
Crying into my muesli was familiar territory in the days when hormones were more rampant, usually activated by the loss of some love or a response to the all-encompassing despair that used to dog my footsteps. The loves are gone…