Schedule-Workshop
Schedule
March 2010 I’ll repeat the popular week-end Super-Ego Workshop. It will begin Friday night continue Saturday and for half-day Sunday. The exact dates will be announced later. Check below in the workshop section for more details about the content..
The workshop for fall/winter, Psyche’s
Tasks began October 12th and will meet three more
Saturdays over the next four months. This workshop is full.
The novel, Time & Transformation, A Novel of Mayan Mysticism was officially published May 1, 2008.
The book is available now. Information for purchasing and publication is in the Purchasing section of the site.
Beginning in the February 2008““““`
issue of the magazine “Ancient
American,” I’ll be writing a long
series of articles with photographs titled:
“Travels in the Yucatan, on the
Trail of Classic Mayan Secrets.” Look
for it on the newsstands every other month!
Book
Launch Party and Readings
Party: Saturday, May 10th
at 7PM, Book Passages in Corte Madera.
Phone 415 927-0960. Please come and
invite your friends for wine,
snacks and sharing this exciting event with me.
Saturday May 17th, 1PM, Orinda Book Store,
Orinda. Reading
News Release
In this time of crisis when the fate of our world is in the balance, Colette Obrien offers a vision of hope. Set within the myths and concepts of the
Classic Maya, 700 AD, a pair of female/male twins must discover how to save their culture from extinction. (The Maya predicted that
life on earth would end in 2012, foreshadowing the darkness of our time if not the actual end.)
Ms. Obrien sweeps you away on a ride so multi-layered it takes your breath away. Packed with insight into the human
heart that one can use as a guide to life, at the same time the novel is a timeless tale of adventure and love with heroines and heroes, shamans and evil magicians, and of course, a quest.
Separated and apparently lost in the jungle, the twins travel through a fascinating world of sorcery, magical
practices, and human sacrifice; of mystics and elaborate cyclical understandings of time, astronomy and mathematical genius into the hearts and minds of the Mayan Goddess, Ixchel and the God, Itzamna. What they learn itragic, and might be irresolvable; only time will tell. The feminine and masculine have been separated at the level of divinity for eons and onlymankind can bring them back together again. This thesis forms the core of the book, and the enquiry that results from it suggests answers to the dilemma we face in our world today.
The book is thoroughly researched historically as the author has spent 15 years traveling
to archaeological sites and studying all information that has come out of the
region.
Ms. Obrien is currently writing a series of articles about Classic Mayan concepts for the national magazine Ancient American. She has published
over 30 articles about other cultures in US newspapers, including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and San
Francisco Chronicle.
Time & Transformation is
available for $25.95 at : www.wheatmark.com/bookstore.
####
Time & Transformation, a Novel of
Mayan Mysticism by Colette Obrien. Trade paperback 6
by 9, 364 pages. ISBN#9781587369988.
Review
“Finally, a book that brings the world of the Classic Maya of Mexico to life in a way
that makes its people distinctly human and memorable. No one has so captured the intelligence and beauty of this ancient American
culture; rich in sensory detail and the activities of life at the palace centers and villages where these remarkable people lived for hundreds of
years before their disappearance.
You can practically see the jaguar crouched in the jungle undergrowth where the
trees drip with orchids, where monkeys and armadillo were honored as spirit
gods and astronomers charted the night sky while mathematicians drew up
calendars that predicted our present time with pinpoint accuracy. This is a
work of both science and magic that reflects the very attributes the author
demonstrates as we’re taken into this ancient world where mankind lives close
to the gods and the gods themselves depend on mankind for their own
survival.
A timeless tale of love and betrayal, a quest for a new vision in a time when our own world is in danger. The hero twins offer a vision for all of mankind for all time. Believe it or not.
Within the pages are constant surprises of wisdom and insight as applicable today as
they would have been 1500 years ago. A wise and uplifting look at the nature of mankind. A demonstration of both
the dark and light side of humanity that uplifts the spirit and frees the heart to hope for a better world today.”
Workshops
Creative Tools for a Changing World
In the Western World in the 20th and 21st Century aside from minor glitches, life has appeared to be
lived within certain known parameters; get an education, get a job, build a life, family or not, your choice,
marry and or divorce, your choice, have children, your choice. advance in your chosen field of interest, save for a house, retire and die. These are the portrayed values of life here and now and the expectation, and or goals, most people believed would be true. Whether we were successful in accomplishing what we wished within the choices offered was not the point, but that these things were the pattern most would follow in some fashion. Even those individuals who have chosen to live outside these main expectations have followed a path they believed would continue with no majo changes in the pattern itself.
Voila! What happens when the structure that supports the pattern collapses? Few of us have questioned what was holding up
this pattern. The first earthquake to the fundamental structure shook the world September 11th. Sincethen news of global warming has reached almost everyone. The 2nd earthquake happened October 2008 when the financial systems collapsed. Each of these things has
rocked our world—what that looks like for many of us is that we realize,– maybe for the 1st time– that there is an underlying structure
that has to be in place for the pattern we’ve believed life would follow to occur.
We stand on the brink of fundamental change. What the future will look like can no longer be reliably predicted. How do we live
a life into an unknown future where what we assumed would happen may not? What resources in ourselves do we need to face such an unknown? These questions form the dialogue I propose we engage in together.
Super-Ego
March 2010
The painful reality for most people is that where the super-ego was meant to aid our lives it has become a hindrance Most simple
neurotic problems derive from here. Neurosis is described simply as unnecessary suffering, and this little demon is the source of that kind of
suffering. The super ego is an archetype, as is the ego. The ego archetype is the center of consciousness and the identity of the person, whereas the super-ego stands separate from that identity. Very like the moon to the earth. It’s true purpose is to maintain the integrity of the ego. It is the conscience, the judge, the critic, the guidance, etc. It is programmed personally by the parental voices. Today it internally mirrors
the relation between your child self and your parents. If your parents were good guides, the relationship between your ego and super ego will be a healthy reflection of that dynamic.. Your relation with your superego is from the self-image of a child. But if your child was criticized and judged harshly by your parents; if they didn’t trust you to make your own decision; if they overrode your own internal guidance; if they made you wrong, you learned to put aside your own essential experience in order to keep connection with your parents, and
you’re still doing it today in regard to your own super ego. The superego as judge is the force in you that constantly evaluates and assesses your worth as a human being and thus limits your capacity to be fully alive in the present moment because it’s attack rejects your present state.
In this week-end seminar we’ll explore the structure of this archetype; how it is meant to function, how it has been programmed in your individual lives, and how to alter the program.
Psyche’s Tasks
Fall/winter
2008 Psyche’s Tasks will use the Greek myth, Amor & Psyche to explore the
archetypal process of feminine development.
Psyche:
Modern
Psychological meaning, the human soul which governs the total organism and its interactions with the environment.
Feminist psychological meaning, a specifically female soul and her journey to
wholeness.
Mythic meaning, a maiden who, after under going many hardships due to the jealousy
of the goddess, is reunited with her lover, Amor and made immortal.
Complete in the Greek myth of Amor and Psyche the archetypal process for feminine
development is symbolically outlined through the heroine’s journey. As a mortal woman, Psyche faces the
challenges unique to a feminine life; each step of her journey brings her closer to realizing her goal—union and love fulfilled. Though she is a flesh and blood woman she is essentially a soul on a journey, and the union she seeks is her own wholeness; the return to her true nature after having been separated at birth.
Almost every woman experiences the longing for union; to be loved and find her ownrue love. The fairytales and modern romances are full of this desire. Unfortunately the essence of that longing is misunderstood as an outward one when it is in fact an inward process. Not to diminish the importance of an intimate love relation in our physical lives but it will never satisfy. The recent divorce rate is evidence, not
that people aren’t finding good partners but that they misunderstand what that partner can give them and what they can not.
We will explore the myth and expand on the meaning of the symbols, and the
outline will form the basis for a personal exploration: where you are in your
particular unfoldment, and developing a practical understanding of each of the challenges. We will look at each
step on Psyche’s path and what it means to you as modern women.
Psyche has four major tasks with sub-tasks in the fourth and final one.
This workshop series will be in four parts with each day devoted to one task. I will send out the myth to be read before
we begin. The first day is Sunday October 12th with the next 3 days on Saturdays approximately 6 weeks apart. We’ll meet from 10AM to 5PM each day. This is a series so I’m asking for commitment to all four meetings at the outset. I’ll do everything I can to
accommodate your schedules as we move forward. The cost is $140 per day for those of you who are currently working privately with me and $170 for those who are not.
Archetypes of the Feminine
Preparing for the next workshop series, 2007-2008, I’ll try to clarify the general ideas I propose we work with.
Think of the unconscious as containing a vast array of patterns — we call them archetypes — and that those patterns
are the palette; color, form, shape, feeling, movement, quality, that we have to choose from to lead our
lives; to make our individual movie. We are the artists who choose from that palette but until we’re mature, the choices have been made primarily by the demands of the environment. This being the primary difference between the child and the true adult.
OK?
managing, you will have unconsciously drawn up the archetype of Athena from
the palette as it would serve your needs to know how to perform those
functions. Later, you want an intimate relationship and Athena can’t help you
because she doesn’t contain the patterns for relationship, and you don’t know
that you can draw up Aphrodite– the love, or Hera the wife. You have become
identified with Athena, and so, like a dress you think is your skin, you
don’t know you can take it off and put on another.
Artemis who cares for children, or Demeter –the mother herself — even
though you’re a child. We can do this, and often do. We can draw up a color
even though the time for that is incorrect in the cycle of life. Then you
reach maturity and are so identified with Mothering or Caretaking you don’t
take off that suit and become the Lover or the Artist or whatever it is that
would more correctly suit your life at that time.
Once we become aware
of the patterns and realize that our sense of identity has been formed by
whichever one or ones we’ve used, something far more important occurs – the
person who’s looking at all this, the Self who cannot be defined by such
rigid structures – is revealed. Having
stripped ourselves of the archetypes, what’s left is the truth, and it’s this
truth that’s the goal of the series.
What we’ll explore is:
a. the archetypesthemselves.
b. the ones you identify with
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