Susan Rowland, core faculty at Pacifica Graduate Institute, and author of The Sleuth and the Goddess in Women’s Detective Fiction, among other works of academic writing and fiction, has just had a new book published by Chiron Publications, The Sacred Well Murders. “A simple job turns deadly when Mary Wandwalker, novice detective, is hired to chaperone a young American, Rhiannon, to the Oxford University Summer School on the ancient Celts. Worried by a rhetoric of blood sacrifice, Mary and her operatives, Caroline, and Anna, attend a sacrifice at a sacred well. They discover that those who fail to individuate their gods become possessed by them.” I was delighted to speak with Susan about her new novel, which is available on amazon here.

A guest post by Dr. Joseph Cambray, President.

Our most recent Pacifica Experience Day was the first time we attempted to offer a recruitment event fully online, and I am happy to report that we had a rich, full engagement.  I set aside most of my usual introductory remarks, as I thought it more important to try applying some relevant depth psychological reflections to the crisis of our emerging global novel coronavirus pandemic.  I feel that it might be valuable to share them here.

A guest post by Keiron Le Grice, Ph.D.

The following article is based on notes made for an online presentation for Pacifica Graduate Institute on March 20, 2020.

In response to the exceptionally testing circumstances we now find ourselves in, as we try to deal with the traumatic impact of the coronavirus as it aggressively spreads around many parts of the world, I wanted to share some reflections on how we might gain a larger perspective on what is happening, and what we’re passing through, in terms of the archetypal patterns of history. At the same time, these reflections give a sense for the kind of things we are concerned with at Pacifica, the ideas we’re exploring in courses and in the classroom, and some of the ways in which we’re trying to understand and illuminate human nature and our place in the world at this critical moment of our collective history.

A guest post by Juliet Rohde-Brown, Ph.D.

As Pema Chodron has said “fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.” We are being challenged right now. How we move through this COVID-19 fear will say much about what we are willing to face. In recent times, one need only spend three minutes on most social media venues before witnessing vitriolic language and divisiveness, whether it be political or other contexts. However, this virus has opened us to consider another way.

A guest post by Mary Watkins, Ph.D.

I am hoping you are each well and taking great care to protect yourself and to help your family, friends, and neighbors in need. Our struggle with Covid-19 is both physical and psychological. As our daily routines are upended and many of us are working and conducting our lives from home, there are important healing and centering mind-body practices that we can learn and then pass on to others.

A guest post by Dennis Slattery, Ph.D.

Uncertainty continues to grow and expand and deepen around us, creating perhaps, its own virus, a virus in the heart. We hear the words today, “everything is so fluid and we don’t know what’s next.” My own levels of anxiety continue to rise, so I returned to one of my favorite books by a beloved writer to calm myself: When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times by the Buddhist nun, Pema Chodron. In addition to her gift for bringing some fundamental ideas of Buddhism into the Western world, she explores the place of compassion and sacredness in our lives, especially when the bottom begins to shred beneath us. I share a few insights from her writings that have helped me during this time when groundlessness may be the instigator of panic, binge shopping and hoarding.

A guest post by Susan Rowland, Ph.D.

We have choices. We do not have a choice about whether we are going to have this pandemic. We do have a choice about how we have this pandemic. Self-isolating is not self isolation, nor has it ever been. Not only do we need people “out there” to put the toilet paper back on the shelves, but the world needs help and we can give it.

A huge part of the threat facing us is psychological. Fear, loneliness, panic are all natural results of the insidious spread on the coronavirus. It is our nature that is challenged, our psychic nature as well as the suffering body. The shadow is out there and in here – for everyone. While there is a material aspect of this shadow in the actual virus itself, it is far more pervasive and unstoppable in psychological form. This is in-spirited shadow and the in-spiration is dark and potent for alchemical transformation.

By now, you've likely read or heard the news of the mass shooting in Thousand Oaks, California. Dr. Stephen Aizenstat, Founding President and Chancellor of Pacifica Graduate Institute, shared this letter regarding the tragedy with many in our community, and we wanted to share its message of hope with all of you.  

Phoenix Force and Feminine Jouissance: Reading Myth in Comic Books and Pop Culture. Interview with David M. Odorisio, Ph.D. A Guest Blog Post by Devon Deimler, Ph.D.c.

You began forming your Joseph Campbell Round Table presentation last Fall (2017). We had to postpone the event due to the Thomas Fire and subsequent mudslides. Of course, the mythical phoenix cyclically burns and rises from ashes. What first drew you to the phoenix myth/X-Men character and how has your relationship with it/her transformed after experiencing a wildfire?

My plan was to spend the month of December preparing for the January presentation. This was after spending the past year immersed in the Phoenix material and almost obsessively researching every X-Men storyline that involved, referenced, or developed her or her daughter’s character (another Phoenix). I live in a small house in the Toro Canyon area of Santa Barbara County, which became one of the heaviest and prolonged fire-fighting areas during the Thomas Fire. The fire was progressing closer and closer to the County line, and spreading to my surrounding area as I was literally putting together the presentation. At one point it was raining ash on my neighborhood. My yard was a blanket of snowy white ash. The visibility was maybe 10-15 ft. and the air quality outdoors was terrible – pure smoke. Here I am, spending hours indoors each day at work on this research, immersed in images of a fiery female figure and here She is right at my front door.  I reached a point where I had to pause and ask, “Am I invoking this?” Of course it wasn’t personal, but it was personal at the same time, because I’m internalizing and making my own meaning from the experience as we all have for those of us who have lived through it. 

A guest post by Chancellor and Founding President of Pacifica Graduate Institute, Stephen Aizenstat, Ph.D.

Today we grieve. Our hearts open and we send support and love to those family members and friends who lost loved ones in the shooting in Las Vegas, and, too, to those in places of natural as well as human made strife. Yes. It is a time of mourning.

The turmoil in the world’s soul is visceral. We are experiencing the collective trauma 24/7. No longer can we encounter our angst like a bad dream frightening us in the night, only to disappear in the morning when our eyes open to the avalanche of texts, Instagram posts, tweets, and emails alive on our phone, seducing our attention even before we get out of bed. No. The nightmare is real, here to stay, a living actuality . . . and demanding our response. Yes. We find ourselves in a time of great peril, as the world, as we know it, faces the imminent threats of ecological devastation, the sixth extinction, and technological takeover, which Elon Musk names as “the most serious threat to the survival of the human race.”