ARAS

Welcome by Tom Singer

The Long Weekend in Alice Springs by Joshua Santospirito

A look at The Dream and Its Amplification by Nancy Furlotti

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Charles Taylor, 1929-2013 by Ami Ronnberg

The Poetry Portal by Ellen Liberatori

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We observe several milestones with this issue of ARAS Connections. First, we are very proudly publishing the world's first Jungian graphic novel. This will sound to many like an oxymoron. ARAS is not known for its collection of comic book images and who would think of making a cartoon book about the Aborigines of Australia? And what does this have to do with psyche, symbol, and culture? For me, ARAS enters the 21st century with this mix of very old (like 50,000 years of continuous aboriginal culture) and very new (like what is happening right now to indigenous people around the world!) Secondly, we observe the publication of The Dream and its Amplification with a review written by Nancy Furlotti who, along with Erel Shalit, co-edited the book. In a way, ARAS itself is all about dream amplification--whether the dream comes from an individual or from an entire civilization. What is most significant about this book is that it takes up with great heart, mind, and spirit a subject about which very little has been written but which is at the heart of Jungian dream interpretation. Readers of this review may be interested in Harry Prochaska's fine study of amplification here. And finally, Ami Ronnberg, the Curator of National ARAS, memorializes the life of Charles Taylor who was the savior, guardian, and guide of National ARAS for many years of dedicated service as leader, benefactor, and taskmaster.
 
 
Tom Singer, M.D.
Co-Editor of ARAS Connections

As the year turns from celebrating Thanksgiving to the birth of the new light, we are reminded of the symbolic meanings of these times – of gratitude for what we have and returned hope of what is to come. We have much to be grateful for and to celebrate as we are writing to ask you for your generous support of ARAS. The year's exciting public programs on poetry, art and film and the continued success of our most recent publication, The Book of Symbols have responded to the hunger for meaning that symbolic images can offer. In the coming year, we hope to present events - all with the same focus on image - in new areas like dance, theater and music and unveil a new version of our website with improved design and function. Your contributions help make it possible for our wonderful staff, wise and active board and enthusiastic group of young volunteers to continue our work on preserving and developing this unique Archive in new and creative ways. Thank you for your support!
 
Our warmest wishes for the Holidays,
 
Ami Ronnberg
 

 

I will always remember when Charles Taylor first came into the office at ARAS some 25 years ago, carrying a well-worn briefcase that he never changed. During that first meeting he told me that he had volunteered to take on the role of Executive Director, because hiring such a person would eat up the entire budget and more. So he arrived as the servant of something he was so passionate about, in his own modest, humble way. And in the end he not only saved the Archive from closing down, but brought on wonderful new developments as the extraordinary leader he turned out to be for many years to come.
 
But all I knew back then was that he was a Jungian analyst and so we began our work together. He brought me into the mysteries of accounting and budgets, note taking, record keeping, organizing, administrating. He was as generous with his knowledge as with everything else he did – but he was also a strict taskmaster. He wanted things to be done right, and he inspired everyone to do things in the best way we could. I also got to see Charlie’s wonderful sense of fairness, always with the goal of the best way to proceed, making him a master negotiator, often finding a solution that nobody else had thought of. And so the years went by, and the Archive began to bloom, branching out, publishing books, getting known in the world – the last book called The Book of Symbols can now be read in seven languages and continues to be a bestseller. The book was dedicated to Charlie.
 
Then there was another side of him - his passion for the inner life and its rewards. It would happen during a meeting that he would tell a particularly powerful dream and we followed him along on his journey while he was writing the book on Dante’s Divine Comedy. At times it felt like Beatrice was there in the room with us. I think Charlie was drawn to ARAS, because it held the mystery of feelings that numinous images bring. Since describing what Charlie meant to all of us at ARAS would take volumes, I will use the archetypal images that he so honored, to evoke his presence: Charlie was a servant, a man of humility, a leader, a savior of worthy enterprises, a master administrator, a diplomat, a writer, a speaker, a teacher, a therapist and healer, a man of vision and heart - and during the many years we worked together he became a very good friend.
 
Ami Ronnberg
Co-Editor of ARAS Connections

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"From my perspective as a depth psychologist, I see that those who have a connection with story are in better shape and have a better prognosis than those to whom story must be introduced - to have 'story awareness' is per se psychologically therapeutic. It is good for soul. Coming early with life it is already a perspective to life. One integrates life as story because one has stories in the back of the mind"
-James Hillman, A Note on Story in Loose Ends.
 
And what if one lives in a place that has stories already there in the backyards of the town. What if one lives in a town that sits in the midst of stories and at a location that is a site of ancient and sacred stories humming away in the back of the mind. What if the minds, hearts and bodies of the people who dwell there are overshadowed by the mountain, the rocks, the rivers, the trees that are embodiments of the stories, images, myths of the peoples who have lived there for millennia and live there still - under the influence of mythic actions, symbolic trees, rocks, mountains, even if those mythic actions, those scenes, have been shoved to the back of the mind.
 
Alice Springs, the town where I live, is one such place. It is a border town in arid desert regions in the center of Australia. It is 1,7000 km (1,000 miles) from the nearest cities. It was established maybe 130 years ago as an outpost of the British colonization of the Australian continent. It is built right smack on top of indigenous tribal lands of the Arrerente peoples. Alice Springs, as it is known in English, is also known as Mparntwe or Mbantua in the Arrernte Aboriginal tongue.
 
Like many other border towns in the Americas, Africa, and Asia where indigenous people meet the incoming rampage of another and different civilization, the original landforms of Mbantua (Alice Springs, Australia) embody the traditional mythological stories of the people. The mountain range surrounding the town embodies a mythic creation story. The rocks and trees and river in Arrernte myth are living presences exerting mental influence. Mythic creatures and stories animate the landscape. You walk out your front door and you can see the story of the Dog embedded in the mountain range; walk out your back door and you can see the trees that represent mythic women dancing in ceremony. The townsfolk live in ancient time and in real time in a most interesting, continuous and yet ordinary way. It is this notion of depicting intersecting realities that The Long Weekend in Alice Spring attempts.

-Craig San Roque
 
Read The Long Weekend in Alice Springs in its entirety:
 
Part One
 
Part Two
 
Part Three


 
Joshua Santospirito grew up in suburban Melbourne and has lived in a few different places. He is a mental health nurse, comics-maker, muso and veggie patch dweller who lives in Hobart, Tasmania with his wife Nadine. When he was very young he wanted to make comics for a living. When he grew up he forgot all about that and became a nurse. Then whilst he was casting about trying to understand the complex world he found himself in he rediscovered comics as way of articulating difficult issues. Since then he hasn’t looked back ... much. Look up his website for other adventures in print.   The Long Weekend in Alice Springs in print form can be purchased here.
 
Craig Saint Roque Rooke AKA Craig St Roque Arnold, was born in difficult circumstances in 1943 and grew up in country towns, mostly Condobolin. He went to Sydney (1961) and failed at several things. In 1968 he went to Europe, became known as Craig San Roque and didn't come back for 20 years. In London he was sentenced to psychoanalysis. This took a long time and was very interesting. Psychoanalysis is a sentence from which you are never released. In 1986 he came back to Sydney and didn't fail so much and did very interesting things with good people. He was known as a psychoanalyst. He did legitimately qualify. In 1992 he went back to country towns. In this case, Alice Springs, where he has now spent many long weekends analysing intoxication and how it works.
 

 

"The fourteen chapters in The Dream and Its Amplification illustrate the many ways in which the meaning of dreams can be deepened by a variety of approaches to amplification. Each of the contributors to this volume has chosen a particular direction, whether art and poetry, myth and fairytale, culture and religion, or initiation to the stages of our life, to paint a kaleidoscopic gestalt of the dream and its amplification."
 
Picking up this book, this world of dreams, we are offered direction, guidance through example, encouragement to explore and use our imagination. But first, do we pass silently by the sleeping giant on the cover, or do we awaken him? Do we delve into the crystal blue water that washes away our blurred vision and leads us down into the realm of psyche and of dreams? Yes, we open the door and embark on a journey through the minds of fourteen Psychoanalysts. Run! some might say, but no, curiosity compels us to remain and go inside. We encounter our first dream image-- a cow that at first has no milk while standing outside the walls of Jerusalem, boiling in a pot, transforming itself in the cooking vessel of our dream work. Transformed, it releases an overflow of milk that sweeps us into the next chapter by Michael Conforti where we enjoy the heartfelt connection of sharing pane e’ vino. Here we question how to recognize what carries true value. The simple Italian meal reflects a universal ritual that gives meaning to life. Meaning is found through struggle, through fear, through perseverance.
 
With the help of an important big dream that arrived at just the right time, Tom Singer tells the story of his personal and very touching inner journey. The key image in the dream is a circus snake, which Tom thoroughly amplifies and weaves into his life understanding, making sense of his experience 40 years ago teaching in Greece and almost failing his first year of medical school. Amplification led him onto his path.
 
 
Read the A look at The Dream and Its Amplification in its entirety.

 

 

Dear Poets and Writers,
 
I write all of you from Pekin, North Dakota- a town of 95 people about two hours north of Fargo where I am visiting. Given the snowy cold surrounding me, and the time of year I have chosen a work of Pieter Bruegel, The Census at Bethlehem painted in 1566, to inspire you. I send this Invite to Write to enlist your ekphrasis poems, thoughts and creativity. Please send your poems by February 15th.
 
Thank you for your submissions to the last issue's Invite to Write. We have selected and printed some here.
 

 

 

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