Everything but the kitchen sink (ok everything but podcast posts).

Balance and Healing with Archetypes & Essential Oil

Balance and Healing with Archetypes & Essential Oil

Podcast available on Apple Podcast, iTunes and pretty much wherever you download your podcasts. Published: August 12, 2018 Aloha! We have been on a bit of a summer sabbatical but we are back and excited to get this episode out to you! As ever we invite you to be part...

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Archetypal America

Archetypal America

I'm happy to announce that a new audio lecture is available from my friend, mentor and fellow Archetypal Counselor, Jim Curtan.   This set of recordings from his workshop for the Minnesota Jung Association last fall is an examination of American Mythology and...

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Embracing the Grace of Change

Embracing the Grace of Change

“Tell me, what is it that you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” – Mary Oliver I am so very excited to present this new Archetypes & a Movie course to you! The third edition of Archetypes & a Movie examines what happens when our old story has...

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The Way: A Journey of Healing & Self Acceptance

The Way: A Journey of Healing & Self Acceptance

I am super happy to announce that another edition of the Archetypes & A Movie course is now available.  As the Producer of this series it's an especially joyous occasion, not just a 'job done' elation but gratitude for how much I have learned throughout the...

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Books That Saved My Life

Books That Saved My Life

Into each life comes information that changes the course of your life, in tiny ways and gargantuan ones.  For me, books have always been a source of life-changing information.  Fiction and non-fiction alike have turned the rudder of my life for as far back as I can...

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Harvesting from this year’s season

Harvesting from this year’s season

I've been contemplating the fact that we are now almost half way through 2014.  How did that happen and where did the last 5 months go?   More importantly, what season is it? I mean this metaphorically.   It's almost Summer here in my part of the western United States...

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Archetypes and a Movie

Archetypes and a Movie

Movies are one of the best ways to see how archetypes shape our motivations, drive us forward or pull us back.  We learn and experience so much when watching a film with the added bonus of being entertained.  I had the privilege to learn about archetypes through film...

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Dating Survival Guides Part 4: Check Yo Self

Dating Survival Guides Part 4: Check Yo Self

Ever get super annoyed about a date's habit of eating loudly, or feel uncomfortable because they have a super hot ex?  It can be oh so easy to extrapolate small things into relationship-stopping catastrophes even when other aspects of the situation are great.  When...

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Heart Break Through

Heart Break Through

Heartbreak is a term most often associated with the unfortunate end of a romantic relationship.  It's also a pervasive pattern that intersects every single human life everywhere.  When we hear a friend say, “My heart is broken,” we can relate in an instant without...

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Who are you really?  A Halloween Experiment

Who are you really? A Halloween Experiment

Halloween is such a great archetypal holiday.  What other time do people get to dress up and show their alterna-selves?   When my clients are trying to figure which of two similar archetypes fits them the best, I often suggest they try each one on and see how they...

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Dating Survival Guides Part 3: Safety vs. Strength

Dating Survival Guides Part 3: Safety vs. Strength

If dating seems like an ordeal, you are not alone.  I've heard many versions of  "I'm not dating because it sucks"  from all sorts of people; gay, straight, men and women of all ages.  I've expressed that sentiment myself more than a few times, but I also know that it...

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Dating Survival Guides Part 2: You Are Enough

Dating Survival Guides Part 2: You Are Enough

They say to always lead with your strength. I'm going to lead with one of my weaknesses - sometimes I feel like I'm not enough. Not smart enough, pretty enough, rich enough, thin enough etc. Basically, take any positive quality and put 'not' in front and 'enough'...

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Victim-Victorious

Victim-Victorious

Let's consider for a moment that we all have a container in our psyche that holds the entire history of our being wounded: betrayal, abandonment, shame - the whole painful enchilada.  This same container also holds the story of our healing: past, present and future....

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Meet Your Dating Survival Guides

Meet Your Dating Survival Guides

Dating can feel like a trip to the amusement park, filled with excitement, ups, downs and the occasional sense of inertia. Certain archetypes can help serve as guides for keeping grounded while amidst the thrills and spills of dating life. So far I've written about...

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Three Archetypes of Awesome

Three Archetypes of Awesome

Little things can mean a lot. Let's say you're having a crappy day and you're at the store when the cashier pulls out a coupon that saves you a dollar. This gives you a boost and you walk out the door in a better mood.  Maybe you don't honk at the numbskull ahead of...

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Archetypal Tarot Podcast

Archetypal Tarot Podcast

I've partnered with my friend and colleague Cyndera Quakenbush to publish a new series of podcasts on archetypes.  We are exploring the archetypes of the first 22 cards Tarot  (also called the Major Arcana) as both individual patterns and as stages of a journey....

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Archetype attraction pt 3: Shared Archetypes

Archetype attraction pt 3: Shared Archetypes

In part 2 of this series, I wrote about the ways of Romantic Archetypal Attraction where people are drawn together by the complimentary needs and attributes of their archetypes.   Equally important is the kind of an attraction to someone because of shared qualities. ...

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Romantic Chemistry: The Knight and the Damsel

Romantic Chemistry: The Knight and the Damsel

The Knight and the Damsel are a matched set of patterns with naturally occurring complimentary attributes and dysfunctions. This can be true of any couple with these archetypes no matter their gender, same, different or otherwise. While we think of the Knight as a man and the Damsel a woman, that’s not always the case. I’m going to go the traditional route here but keep an open mind that the archetypes are not necessarily gender specific.

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Archetype attraction part 2: Romantic Chemistry

Archetype attraction part 2: Romantic Chemistry

Read Archetype attraction part 1: The Basics Romantic Archetypal Chemistry is based on complimentary needs.  Typically it's either an archetype we value or one that reflects qualities we want to see in ourselves.  This is the kind of attraction we usually think of in...

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Archetype attraction part 1: The Basics

Archetype attraction part 1: The Basics

We are attracted to people by archetypal patterns.  For most people it can be so subtle that you don't know what's going on, but paying attention to these powerful patterns can really improve your dating experience.  I mean, wouldn't you want something to help guide...

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Archetypes and Dating 101

Archetypes and Dating 101

I was at a gathering recently and mentioned that I was thinking of writing about archetypes and dating. Heads swiveled, glasses stopped clinking and I had the feeling that I was in some sort of TV commercial with all eyes on me.  Everyone wanted to know more and where...

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The Networker Archetype and the Tipping Point

The Networker Archetype and the Tipping Point

Are you the hub that connects a diverse group of people?  If someone mentions they are looking for a new job or a place to have great Korean Barbecue do you have a list of suggestions for them? Do you make it a habit of never throwing out business cards or deleting...

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Seizing the power of Lover Archetype

Seizing the power of Lover Archetype

"So much is happening in the world, earthquakes, revolutions and wars and you're writing about the archetype of the Lover?"   My reply: "Heck yeah, with all this chaos how do we approach what needs to be done without the passion of a Lover!?"   She gave me a look of...

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“I am myself” The Self Possession of the Virgin

“I am myself” The Self Possession of the Virgin

In his biography of Emily Dickinson, Alfred Habeggar describes a scene where Emily sits happily in the lap of a male acquaintance in the front room of her family home.  During her later years, she found pleasure in this man's attentions long after mysteriously...

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Hedonist Revolutionary

Hedonist Revolutionary

I haven't found a more potent and exciting combination of the Hedonist and the Revolutionary archetypes than in Jamie Oliver (formerly know as the Naked Chef).   One of the the UK's brightest culinary exports is  taking America by storm and I for one love him all the...

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Part of us is grouchy and lives in Florida

Part of us is grouchy and lives in Florida

Understanding archetypes goes much deeper than a chat about a movie and beyond the confines of a psychology textbook.  An archetype is not just a pattern "out there" in theory but it is a recurring set of experiences that unfold through the course of a human life....

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DMC and the Angel

DMC and the Angel

"Everything happens for a reason." Says Darryl "DMC" McDaniels, who is one third of the pioneering rap group Run DMC and one of the most influential rap artists of all time.  At the age of 35, DMC made a startling discovery and suddenly, everything he thought he knew...

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What keeps you in the cave? Archetype of the Zombie

What keeps you in the cave? Archetype of the Zombie

We find ourselves in the middle of the first month of the New Year. The air is still fresh, dreams are new, and heartbeats run fast. Maybe, like me, you are starting to slump under the abundance of material on keeping resolutions for the next twelve months. Instead of...

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An Artist Walks into a Monastery

An Artist Walks into a Monastery

How do archetypal motivations become passions that bring something new into the world? Sometimes one enriches another so much as to create a whole new experience. Inspiration is the deity of the Artist and contemplation the mark of the Monk/Nun. These two archetypes...

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Myth and Motivation of the Martyr Archetype

Myth and Motivation of the Martyr Archetype

Know a Martyr? Most people have had the experience of working with or knowing someone with a  Martyr archetype,  or maybe you even see it in yourself.  I'd like to provide some information in order to help understand and work with this pattern. Bad Reputation The...

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The Poet

The Poet

I try to make a point to write about what could be called the 'unsung' archetypes.  One's that don't seem to have a popular or even a very present place in our culture.   Last month I wrote about the archetype of the Scribe to illuminate it's presence and potential...

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Here’s to the bean counters: the power of the Scribe

Here’s to the bean counters: the power of the Scribe

This comes on the heels of a similarly themed article that I published in June  called "Does productivity = happiness?" which deals with the same topic.   Statistician (a Scribe in Archetypal terms) Nic Marks asks why we measure a nation's success by its productivity...

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Chaos Calling

Chaos Calling

The ingredients for a resilient, empowered and purposeful life are within you.  That knowledge is at the heart of my practice and my vocation is to provide the tools and guidance to not only learn more about the wonderful person that is you, but to live more fully by...

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Mothers and Bears Oh my!

Mothers and Bears Oh my!

I recently came upon a blog post by Arianna Huffingtoncalled  Sarah Palin, "Mama Grizzlies," Carl Jung, and the Power of Archetypes . Huffington points out the use of the shadow aspects of the Mother and Bear archetypal symbols being used by Palin and her cadre, the...

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Archetypal Casting – the results are in!

I often use movie and television references in my consultations.  They are one of the best ways to really see archetypal patterns in action.  We all have an instinctual sense of archetypes and can usually spot them pretty quickly - especially when they are on screen....

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Summertime and the Child Archetype

Summertime and the Child Archetype

It's summertime here in the northern hemisphere and it seems our Child archetypes are clamoring to go out and play.  I remember as a child, summer was about being outside and hanging out doing whatever we fancied at the time.   For most of us, childhood was the only...

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What counts? Does productivity = happiness?

What counts? Does productivity = happiness?

How do we measure what makes life worthwhile?  When the dotcom bubble burst, hotelier Chip Conley went in search of a business model based on happiness. In an old friendship with an employee and in the wisdom of a Buddhist king, he learned that success comes from what...

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Storyfied: The Storyteller Archetype

Storyfied: The Storyteller Archetype

This is a true story about one woman, the Storyteller archetype and it's power for both good and tragic.   I came across it on a podcast recording from The Moth which is a not-for-profit storytelling organization. When Nancy Finton was in her early 20's she had a job...

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Prostitute Finds Faith in You

Prostitute Finds Faith in You

The term Prostitute doesn't typically come up in polite conversation. It does however in popular culture, usually  in it's slang form, "ho". In fact "ho" is used quite liberally and casually in music, movies and by kids talking on the bus. So what is all this "Ho"...

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Reunion: How We Heal Our Broken Connection to the Earth

Reunion: How We Heal Our Broken Connection to the Earth

Reunion: How We Heal Our Broken Connection to the Earth by Ellen Gunter and Ted  Carter. This is an incredible and practical guide to reconnecting with our planet co-authored by one of my colleagues from the CMED Institute. Highly recommended! Click here to purchase...

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OFGM: Original Fairy Godmother

OFGM: Original Fairy Godmother

Once upon a time I was in a grocery store check-out line and struck up a conversation with the woman in front of me.  We were talking about good deeds and she mentioned how her friend liked to put quarters in parking meters for total strangers.  She called her friend...

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Facing the Bully: A New Karate Kid

Poke fun all you want, but I am totally cool with their being a new Karate Kid movie (coming in June).   I've no doubt that Jackie Chan can pull off the Mentor role first played by Pat Morita (Mr. Miyagi).  He's made an entire career playing Fools and Warriors with a...

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Ok Go! music to get the funk out

I love coming across wisdom and inspiration in musical form!  Nothing is better than some poignant lyrics accompanied by and infectious groove.  Double the fun with a highly entertaining video. Ok Go, the band that brought us the clever and highly entertaining music...

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Survival Archetypes and “The Wizard of Oz”

Survival Archetypes and “The Wizard of Oz”

The film "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" provides a prime example of the hero's journey of each of the four core (or survival) archetypes: the Child, the Victim, the Prostitute, and the Saboteur.   This film is an archetypal treasure trove, but for brevity's sake I will...

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The Child Archetype

The Child Archetype

Simply said, we all have had a childhood and a part of us remains a child throughout our lives.  Eight or Eighty we are all still capable of playing wild and free, throwing tantrums, hiding from grown-ups (authority), believing that anything can happen or just being...

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