Since I am lucky enough to attend Pacifica's Coming Home 2016 conference on Vocation and Service, hosted by PGIAA (alumni association), I wanted to share some of the takeaways I've been getting from some of the excellent talks. Maybe you've already seen these in the Depth Psychology Alliance Facebook group, but just in case:
Pacifica’s Dr. Jennifer Selig, at the PGIAA “Vocation and Service” conference speaking on James Hillman’s Challenge to Us All: The Call for a Depth Psychology of Extraversion.” Jennifer contrasts how introversion and extraversion show up in depth psychology, particularly in the both Jung, an introvert, and Hillman, who approaches things in a more extraverted way, address it, and asks us to pay attention to how or if introversion ignores the anima mundi, the world soul.
As we enter the age of what is increasingly being called “the Anthropocene” (the age of man), we are changing the nature of the structure of the planet itself. We need to enter into dialogue with what Jung called “the unconscious.” That which has been repressed, much like the contents of a landfill (which we bury but doesn’t go away), must come to surface and be engaged so we can come into some kind of relationship with it. —Dr. Glen Slater of Pacifica speaking at PGIAA’s “Coming Home 2016” on “Vocation and Service: A Journey of the Soul”
There is an existential problem modernity has handed us: a certain loss of soul. We’ve gotten good at pretending it’s not a problem. If you consider that as humans, we have vital needs – community, contact with nature, fresh food – you can notice that technology develops very well-manicured substitutes—secondary versions of the things we need. With technology, especially Internet, we eat up what’s being offered, but are not getting what we need. It doesn’t satisfy our basic hunger, so we keep eating “more,” leading to consumerism.
—Dr. Glen Slater of Pacifica speaking at PGIAA’s “Coming Home 2016” on “Vocation and Service: A Journey of the Soul”
Being willing to be instrumental but not incidental is the crucial moment of yielding in leading a coherent life. Coherence is the by product of a destiny. Destiny is a willing response to call.
—Dr. Dennis Patrick Slattery on “Leading a Coherent Life” at the PGIAA’s Coming Home 2016: “Vocation and Service”, Pacifica Graduate Institute
Being willing to be instrumental but not incidental is the crucial moment of yielding in leading a coherent life. Coherence is the by product of a destiny. Destiny is a willing response to call.
—Dr. Dennis Patrick Slattery on “Leading a Coherent Life” at the PGIAA’s Coming Home 2016: “Vocation and Service”, Pacifica Graduate Institute
To be called is not an act of isolation but rather of communion—to join with something beyond our self-imposed limits. To be called is not only vocational, but a fundamental act of faith. If there is no myth, there is no growth.-
—Dr. Dennis Patrick Slattery on “Leading a Coherent Life” at the PGIAA’s Coming Home 2016: “Vocation and Service”, Pacifica Graduate Institute
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Thank you so much for sharing!