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Can mythology really save our kids? · This Jungian Life Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst in Cape Cod.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Well, I am delighted to welcome back Kwame Scruggs to
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: the show. Kwame, you were on, I think, in 2021,
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: so it's been a few years. It's delightful to have
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: you back, and I'm so excited to hear about what
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: you've been doing since. But first, in terms of introduction,
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: I want to start with my personal introduction to Kwame,
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: and then I'll share the official introduction.
• 1:02
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Deb and I were actually teaching at the New York
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: Young Foundation. And it was a small group, lovely group
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: of people that we were teaching. And so we went
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: around the room and everyone introduced themselves. And Kwame, you
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: were there. And I remember you said, I use myth
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: to work with inner city youth. And I was like, what?
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: I thought, you know, then we went on and we
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: did our thing. But I was like, I have to
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: talk to him. Because one of the things I love
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: about your work is, you know, I'm a very strong
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: believer that a symbolic perspective, a mythological perspective, a Jungian
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: perspective can bring a lot of healing to many different
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: areas of life. And I'm always, of course, as analysts,
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: we work one-on-one with people in the consulting room mostly.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: But it seems to me that there are opportunities to
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: share this wisdom in other arenas. And I'm always really
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: excited when I see someone doing that. And that is
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: exactly what you do. And that's what we're going to
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: be hearing about today. So here is the official bio.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Kwame Scruggs is the founder and director of Alchemy Inc.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: and has over 20 years of experience in using myth
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: in the development of urban youth and adults. He holds
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: a PhD and an MA in mythological studies with an
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: emphasis on depth psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, California.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: In 1993, he was formally initiated into the Akan System
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: of Life Cycle Development, which is an African-based rites of passage.
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  Speaker 2: And in 2012, Alchemy was one of 12 programs to
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: receive the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award by
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, the
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: nation's highest honor for after-school and out-of-school programs. Kwame accepted
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: this award from First Lady Michelle Obama at the White House.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: That must have been something. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Pretty cool.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: In 2020, the Association of Teaching Artists with Lincoln Center
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: Education presented Kwame with their Innovation in Teaching Artistry Award.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: In 2016, he was one of three to receive the
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: University of Akron's Black Male Summit Legacy Award. And in 2013,
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: Pacifica Graduate Institute presented him with the initial award Wendy
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Davey Award for Outstanding Service and Contributions in the Tradition
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: of Soulful Service. That is beautiful. I love that. Kwame
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  Speaker 2: is also a board member of the Joseph Campbell Foundation
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: and a graduate of the National Guild Community Art Educations, CALE,
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: Community Arts Education Leadership Institute, Class of 2015, and a
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: BME Fellow, 2017. So I spent the whole teaching morning
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: or whatever I was doing like he can't leave before
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: I talk to him and I think afterwards I like
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: made sure tell me more tell me more and you
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: had some literature and I just was like this is
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: this is fascinating so I've been a big fan of
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: your work ever since then and it's um I'm so
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: excited to hear more about it today and uh really
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: looking forward to diving into it with.
• 4:41
  Speaker 5: You okay thank you Lisa thank you and Joseph.
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: To see you, Kwame.
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: You too, brother.
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: So you're doing some deep, soulful work in the world,
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: which we try to stay abreast of. You've got some
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: new things that you are in development and you're trying
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: to sustain some things that have good momentum. But I
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: thought it would be important for our listeners and viewers
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: to get a sense of the work you do and
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: how you came to it. how this came to be
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  Speaker 3: so significant to you as a human being.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: Well, but, but first also like, or maybe in that,
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: just make sure like you describe what it is that
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: you do.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: Okay. Great.
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: Okay. Yeah. Thanks for asking.
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: So, so it started while, it started back when I went,
• 5:37
  Speaker 5: when I went.
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: Through the African based rights of passage. So I was.
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  Speaker 5: Around, 37 years old. So I'm 66 now. And when
• 5:46
  Speaker 5: I went through that African-based rites of passage, that's when
• 5:48
  Speaker 5: I was introduced to the work of Carl Jung. I
• 5:51
  Speaker 5: was introduced to the work of Jung through the African-based
• 5:54
  Speaker 5: rites of passage. I was introduced to the work of
• 5:56
  Speaker 5: Joseph Campbell through the African-based rites of passage. So I
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: started reading Jung and I was just amazed at... I
• 6:04
  Speaker 5: read portable Jung and I was amazed at his chapter
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  Speaker 5: on the phenomenology of self and about the shadow and
• 6:11
  Speaker 5: the anima and the wise old man, and then the
• 6:14
  Speaker 5: chapter on synchronicity. So I started reading more Jung, and
• 6:17
  Speaker 5: then I started to read Joseph Campbell, Power Myth. I
• 6:23
  Speaker 5: would read some other Campbell stuff, but what amazed me
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  Speaker 5: was that reading all these different myths, no matter where
• 6:30
  Speaker 5: they were from, they were basically saying the same thing.
• 6:34
  Speaker 5: And then Campbell's one sentence, When you follow your bliss,
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  Speaker 5: doors open where you thought there'd be no doors. And
• 6:41
  Speaker 5: I remember I was 38 years old at the time,
• 6:44
  Speaker 5: looking out my window, University of Akron, and I asked myself,
• 6:47
  Speaker 5: what was my bliss? I asked myself, what was it
• 6:49
  Speaker 5: that I wanted to do? Not what could I do?
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  Speaker 5: What did I want to do? And my exact words,
• 6:54
  Speaker 5: my exact words were, play my drum and tell mythological stories.
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: Okay. So let me back up. Let me back up.
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  Speaker 5: So after reading Jung and Campbell, I got introduced to
• 7:05
  Speaker 5: the work of Michael Meade.
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: And so I.
• 7:09
  Speaker 5: Read Meade's book, Men in the Water of Life. I
• 7:12
  Speaker 5: read that book four and a half times. I purchased
• 7:14
  Speaker 5: that book for over 170 some people. I still got
• 7:17
  Speaker 5: the names in the back of the book who I
• 7:19
  Speaker 5: purchased and gave that book to. But basically, because at
• 7:22
  Speaker 5: the time I did University of Akron and I was
• 7:25
  Speaker 5: counseling like urban youth. I was counseling primarily male youth.
• 7:29
  Speaker 5: And it was like pulling teeth, getting them to talk.
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  Speaker 4: And from reading Meade's book, the first two myths.
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  Speaker 5: Dealt with the father-son relationship. The next two dealt with
• 7:36
  Speaker 5: mother-son relationship. Then he had a myth that dealt with
• 7:39
  Speaker 5: initiation through sorrow and one that dealt with initiation through desire.
• 7:44
  Speaker 5: And any initiation is going to be a symbolic death
• 7:46
  Speaker 5: and rebirth. And so from reading that, it just helped
• 7:49
  Speaker 5: me to understand so much about my life just from
• 7:52
  Speaker 5: reading a myth and.
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  Speaker 4: Listening to his interpretations.
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  Speaker 5: And so from that, I said, well, I'm going to
• 7:58
  Speaker 5: start using this with the youth and the adults because
• 8:00
  Speaker 5: I was running parent workshops. So that's what I started
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  Speaker 5: to do. I decided because it helped me to understand
• 8:07
  Speaker 5: so much about my life. Because what I found is
• 8:09
  Speaker 5: that generally speaking, if you tell somebody they're doing something wrong,
• 8:14
  Speaker 5: quote unquote wrong, it's just natural to become defensive. But
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  Speaker 5: if you tell them through a myth, you remove them
• 8:21
  Speaker 5: from the situation and then it allows you to look
• 8:24
  Speaker 5: at the situation objectively. So I'm going to say for
• 8:27
  Speaker 5: a good five, six years, I just.
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: Left off the work of me. Okay.
• 8:31
  Speaker 5: I was just doing, I was just doing the hunter
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: in the sun myth, the water of life myth, the
• 8:37
  Speaker 5: firebird myth, the half boy myth. And then I started working.
• 8:44
  Speaker 5: I started working with high school dropouts in Akron and Cleveland.
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  Speaker 5: And I'm like, I'm like, I'm not going to be
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  Speaker 5: able to just keep doing it this way. And so,
• 8:53
  Speaker 5: because I, I, Because I'm going to have these boys
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  Speaker 5: for a year. I'm going to have these boys for
• 8:57
  Speaker 5: an entire year. So what I did, I just started
• 9:00
  Speaker 5: to find other myths. I started to find other myths
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  Speaker 5: and create questions. Create questions that went to each portion
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  Speaker 5: of the myth. Because I would tell a portion of
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  Speaker 5: the myth, stop at critical points. And then ask them
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  Speaker 5: what resonated with them in the myth. No right or
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  Speaker 5: wrong answers. No right or wrong answers. Just to create discussion.
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  Speaker 5: And then I would have questions for each portion of
• 9:22
  Speaker 5: that myth. here again to create discussion and just to
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  Speaker 5: get you to think. And wherever I went, it worked.
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  Speaker 5: And it's, it's just, I just, I've been in the
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  Speaker 5: right place at the right time and just surrounded by
• 9:38
  Speaker 5: the right people.
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  Speaker 4: So that's how it started. The doors opened.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: So that's, so that's how it started.
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  Speaker 2: And when you say it worked.
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  Speaker 4: Okay.
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  Speaker 5: So, so I got I have three anecdotal stories, but
• 9:52
  Speaker 5: I'll tell you two of them.
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  Speaker 4: I'll tell you two. Okay.
• 9:56
  Speaker 5: And because when I first, you know, doing it, folks
• 9:59
  Speaker 5: was like, what is he doing? And because when I
• 10:05
  Speaker 5: was telling people, I want to play my drama into
• 10:08
  Speaker 5: a mythological story, people were like, who end up going
• 10:12
  Speaker 5: to pay you to play your drama into mythological stories?
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  Speaker 4: Okay. So anyway, so.
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  Speaker 5: Working with the high school dropouts in Akron, in Akron.
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  Speaker 5: And we were doing the Water of Life myth. In
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  Speaker 5: this myth, the boys are crying. Okay, the boys are
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: crying because their father, the king, is sick. And they're
• 10:34
  Speaker 5: sitting on the castle steps crying. These high school dropouts,
• 10:37
  Speaker 5: now these young men were like ages 16 to like 22.
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  Speaker 5: They took it upon themselves. We were near the end
• 10:45
  Speaker 5: of the year. they took it upon themselves to go
• 10:49
  Speaker 5: around that circle and talk about the last time they cried.
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  Speaker 5: These high school dropouts.
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  Speaker 4: Okay. So, you know, yeah, yeah. So I'm like, so
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: I'm like, wow, this myth is the ticket. Okay. That
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: was the first one.
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  Speaker 5: And then the second time I was in Cleveland working
• 11:04
  Speaker 5: with high school dropouts and in Cleveland, the gentleman would
• 11:07
  Speaker 5: give me like 30 of them at a time, just me.
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  Speaker 4: Okay.
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  Speaker 5: And I had them for like an hour and a half,
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  Speaker 5: three different sets of, of, of youth hour and a half.
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  Speaker 5: I'm like, And at the time, Cleveland was rated the
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  Speaker 5: poorest city in the country.
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  Speaker 4: It was ridiculous. There was no way that I was
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: going to be able to keep.
• 11:25
  Speaker 5: The attention of 30-something high school dropouts from Cleveland for
• 11:29
  Speaker 5: an hour and a half. So what I started to do,
• 11:32
  Speaker 5: I would go home and I'm like, I know I
• 11:34
  Speaker 5: have something to offer these youth through the myths and blah, blah, blah.
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  Speaker 5: So I told them, I came back the one day
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: and I said, hey.
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  Speaker 5: I'm going to give you the first 15 minutes. You
• 11:44
  Speaker 5: do whatever you want to do. I'll give you the
• 11:46
  Speaker 5: last 15 minutes. You do whatever you want to do.
• 11:49
  Speaker 5: But I said, that hour, that hour in between, you
• 11:51
  Speaker 5: give me that hour. You give me that hour.
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  Speaker 4: We do these myths.
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  Speaker 5: So it was pretty chaotic, that first 15 minutes, the
• 11:58
  Speaker 5: last 15 minutes, because I'm letting them do whatever they
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: want to do.
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: It was in the summer. So they're outside.
• 12:02
  Speaker 5: They're freaking their blackened mouths, which is like stuff with cigars, okay,
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And just a lot
• 12:10
  Speaker 5: of joking going around. I mean, it was cool, but
• 12:11
  Speaker 5: it was chaotic. And it was their 15 minutes. It
• 12:16
  Speaker 5: was their 15 minutes.
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  Speaker 4: It was chaos.
• 12:18
  Speaker 5: And one of the youth hollered out. He was sitting
• 12:20
  Speaker 5: in the back. He hollered out, Kwame, tell us another story.
• 12:25
  Speaker 5: And I was just like, wow, this is in their
• 12:28
  Speaker 5: 15 minutes. And that's when I said, hey, this myth
• 12:30
  Speaker 5: is the ticket. So, yeah, when I say it works,
• 12:34
  Speaker 5: a friend of mine doing these workshops with Silverman a
• 12:39
  Speaker 5: few weeks ago, she's like, wow, Kwame, you have created
• 12:42
  Speaker 5: a simple method that you've created a simple method that
• 12:48
  Speaker 5: makes people answer complex questions in an immediate amount of time.
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: So wherever we go, it works because it makes people.
• 13:02
  Speaker 5: Respond, really respond to the deeper questions in a simple way,
• 13:07
  Speaker 5: in a simple.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: Well, it seems to me that when you work with
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: these stories, you're entering into the world of the imagination.
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
• 13:19
  Speaker 5: So before we start any myth, and in like a year,
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: when we work the youth for a year in school,
• 13:25
  Speaker 5: you get maybe through three myths.
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: It's according to how long the myths are.
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  Speaker 5: But like on a Saturday, when we would have them
• 13:32
  Speaker 5: for a Saturday, like four hours, it might take us...
• 13:36
  Speaker 5: It might take us three months to get through one myth.
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  Speaker 5: So like in a seven-year period, the youth that we had,
• 13:43
  Speaker 5: like four to seven years, we might get through 25 myths, okay,
• 13:46
  Speaker 5: in seven years. But you're talking about setting the stage.
• 13:51
  Speaker 5: And so we always have, we would tell the golden age, okay?
• 13:55
  Speaker 5: Before each myth, we would tell the golden age to
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: get them in that mythic space, okay? So- If we
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: had time today, remind me to tell you to go, Nage,
• 14:08
  Speaker 5: before we go off into a myth.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, okay, great, yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Kami, could you just frame, we'll probably go into it more,
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: how you bring a myth to life with a group?
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  Speaker 3: Because I think many of our Jungians might read a
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: myth to personally amplify it, or maybe they'll read the
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: Book of Symbols or what Jung had said. But it
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: takes a special skill to bring a myth, bring it alive,
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: for a group of people? And how do you engage
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: them and unpack the myth such that it goes on
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: for weeks or months?
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: Well, thank you.
• 14:45
  Speaker 5: One of the first things is that you got to
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: set an environment that they feel safe.
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 14:52
  Speaker 5: So like these youth that we work with here again,
• 14:54
  Speaker 5: we'll have them for like at least a year.
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 14:57
  Speaker 5: If not three years, seven years. But even with the dots,
• 15:01
  Speaker 5: the first thing is creating a safe environment. letting people
• 15:04
  Speaker 5: know that what's in that room stays in that room.
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: I have like a little agenda I go through and
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: just really believing that I call it choosing the womb
• 15:14
  Speaker 5: and how each of us were brought here to complete
• 15:20
  Speaker 5: something on this earth. And the fact that we're in
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: that room together, there's It's far too coincidental for it
• 15:27
  Speaker 5: to be coincidence. Okay, so you're setting the stage. First
• 15:29
  Speaker 5: of all, you're setting the stage to make a safe environment.
• 15:32
  Speaker 5: And then through the myth, I'll tell the myth to
• 15:35
  Speaker 5: the beat of a drum. Okay, tell the myth to
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: the beat of a drum. And so just the drum,
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: it soothes you, puts you in a trance-like state. And
• 15:43
  Speaker 5: then just, like I say, we'll tell the golden age first,
• 15:47
  Speaker 5: and then just tell that portion of the myth to
• 15:50
  Speaker 5: the beat of a drum.
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 15:54
  Speaker 5: They all have journals. They all have journals. There's no
• 15:57
  Speaker 5: right or wrong answers. So that's another thing that makes
• 16:00
  Speaker 5: it a little more comforting.
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: What's the questions that you're posing to them that bring
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: them forward into the process?
• 16:09
  Speaker 5: So like with the water of life, and I wasn't
• 16:12
  Speaker 5: going to do that one today. We only get through
• 16:14
  Speaker 5: a little bit, but the other myth I haven't done
• 16:16
  Speaker 5: in a long time, so I'm like, let's just do
• 16:18
  Speaker 5: the water of life, okay?
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: So in the beginning....
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: Should we do it a little bit right now?
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that'd be great.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'm lucky enough to have participated in your process,
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: so it's remarkable. Okay.
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: You hear the drum? Yes.
• 16:42
  Speaker 5: Yep.
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: Okay. So I'm going to do the golden age first.
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: I'm going to do the golden age. Okay.
• 16:49
  Speaker 5: And this is what we do before... Before each new myth,
• 16:53
  Speaker 5: before each new myth, we tell the golden age. So
• 16:57
  Speaker 5: in the golden age, this was a time when everything,
• 17:00
  Speaker 5: when I say everything, I mean everything, was created with.
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: A sense of enchantment, a sense of wonderment, a sense
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: of beauty.
• 17:08
  Speaker 5: It was a time when there were no doors because
• 17:11
  Speaker 5: people had nothing to hide. It was a time when
• 17:15
  Speaker 5: all people ate were fruits and vegetables because the concept
• 17:18
  Speaker 5: of killing had not been thought of.
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: It was a beautiful time. It was a time when
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: it was perpetual spring. It was a time.
• 17:29
  Speaker 5: When all the gods and all the goddesses and all
• 17:33
  Speaker 5: the heroes and all the sheroes walked amongst the earth
• 17:36
  Speaker 5: with the living beings so they knew what it was
• 17:38
  Speaker 5: like to treat one another with love and with honor,
• 17:42
  Speaker 5: with respect and with dignity. It was a time when
• 17:46
  Speaker 5: the sun and the moon sang as a duet and
• 17:49
  Speaker 5: the galaxies danced. However, like we tell our youth and adults,
• 17:54
  Speaker 5: there's always a however. On this particular day, evil came
• 18:00
  Speaker 5: into the world. And when evil came into the world,
• 18:05
  Speaker 5: doors were invented. Killing was invented. All the guys and
• 18:09
  Speaker 5: all the goddesses and all the heroes and all the
• 18:11
  Speaker 5: sheroes went underground, never to be seen again. So the people,
• 18:16
  Speaker 5: they were searching around for that golden age.
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: Because they missed that golden age.
• 18:25
  Speaker 5: And they searched around high and low, near and far.
• 18:32
  Speaker 5: But they couldn't find it. Rumor has it that that
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: golden age was hidden in myths and fairy tales. And
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: when you pull a group of people together and you
• 18:44
  Speaker 5: tell them a myth or a fairy tale, they are
• 18:46
  Speaker 5: once again reminded of that golden age. And so today
• 18:51
  Speaker 5: we're going to reenter that golden age through the myth
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: of the water of life. So I'm going to go
• 19:00
  Speaker 5: just to the beginning of the water of life, okay?
• 19:01
  Speaker 5: So I'm just going to tell the beginning of the
• 19:03
  Speaker 5: water of life. So once upon a time, in a
• 19:08
  Speaker 5: time before we knew the name time, in a time
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: when the grass was blue and the sky was green,
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: There lived this king and this king, he was sick.
• 19:23
  Speaker 5: And when the king is sick, the entire village is sick.
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: Now this king, he had three sons. And these three sons,
• 19:33
  Speaker 5: they were sitting on the castle steps and they were
• 19:35
  Speaker 5: crying because their father, the.
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: King, was sick.
• 19:39
  Speaker 5: An old man just happened to walk by and when
• 19:42
  Speaker 5: he saw them crying, he asked what was wrong.
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: He said, why are you weeping?
• 19:46
  Speaker 5: And the son said, we are crying because our father
• 19:50
  Speaker 5: the king, is sick. And the old man says, I
• 19:53
  Speaker 5: know where a cure is, but it's difficult to get to.
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: It's called the water of life.
• 20:00
  Speaker 5: Well, the oldest son thought that if he.
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: Would inherit Secure the water of life that he would
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: become his father's favorite and inherit his father's kingdom. So
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: he went to his father and asked, could he go
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: in search of the water of life? And his father said, no,
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: it is far too dangerous.
• 20:22
  Speaker 5: But that oldest son didn't give up and he kept
• 20:26
  Speaker 5: asking his father and the father relinquished as some fathers do.
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: And the oldest son He mounted his.
• 20:34
  Speaker 5: Horse and he left out of the castle in search
• 20:37
  Speaker 5: of the water of life. And the dwarf was standing
• 20:40
  Speaker 5: on the right side of the road and the dwarf
• 20:42
  Speaker 5: asked him, where are you going in such a hurry?
• 20:45
  Speaker 5: And the oldest son said, none of your business, you
• 20:48
  Speaker 5: little rat. What business is it of yours? And he
• 20:50
  Speaker 5: had his horse kick up dirt to the face of
• 20:55
  Speaker 5: the dwarf and the dwarf did not take too kindly
• 20:58
  Speaker 5: to that. And he cast a magic spell on the
• 21:01
  Speaker 5: oldest son. And the further and further that he rode,
• 21:03
  Speaker 5: the mountains enclosed upon him and his horse. So he
• 21:09
  Speaker 5: did not return. And he might as well have been
• 21:11
  Speaker 5: in jail. Because he didn't return, the king remained sick.
• 21:15
  Speaker 5: And when the king is sick, the whole village is sick.
• 21:19
  Speaker 5: I'm going to stop right there. Just have them write
• 21:22
  Speaker 5: down what resonated with them. And that portion of the myth.
• 21:30
  Speaker 5: So we just had them write down what resonated in
• 21:33
  Speaker 5: that portion.
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: And they go around. They sit in a circle by age,
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: youngest to oldest. Two reasons. Two reasons for sitting in
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: a circle by age. One is to provide a sense
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: of order in a chaotic world.
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: And because you have your space, there's no reason to
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: be jealous of anybody else's space. The second reason they
• 21:50
  Speaker 5: sit in a circle by age is because it's up
• 21:53
  Speaker 5: to the oldest to look out for the youngest. So
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: for right there, for that little section right there, Here again,
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: you write down what resonates with you in the myth.
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: No right or wrong answers, okay? They all have journals.
• 22:06
  Speaker 5: Like alchemy, everything is black and red and white, okay?
• 22:10
  Speaker 5: So they all have journals. And like the youth now
• 22:14
  Speaker 5: who are 30 years old, they started in sixth grade.
• 22:18
  Speaker 5: And so it's so cool for them to go back
• 22:21
  Speaker 5: and look at what they wrote in sixth grade. So
• 22:23
  Speaker 5: the first thing, what resonated with you? No right or
• 22:26
  Speaker 5: wrong answers. And they'll say, when this happened, when that happened,
• 22:29
  Speaker 5: when this happened. And so then, you know, you just
• 22:31
  Speaker 5: create discussions. Discussion is created right then. So like the
• 22:35
  Speaker 5: first thing, first question, ask them, what does a king do?
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: Okay, what does a king do?
• 22:40
  Speaker 5: And they just, you know, you write down first thing
• 22:43
  Speaker 5: that comes to your mind for the most part. So
• 22:45
  Speaker 5: the next question, what is the king in your life
• 22:49
  Speaker 5: right now? Okay, so they have to identify what's the
• 22:52
  Speaker 5: most important thing to them right now in their life.
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: Like I said, if the king is sick, the entire
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: village is sick. All right.
• 22:59
  Speaker 5: So we'll have them identify that and we'll talk about
• 23:01
  Speaker 5: that situation. Oh, then crying. When they're on the castle
• 23:05
  Speaker 5: steps crying, crying is a sign that something is wrong. Okay,
• 23:10
  Speaker 5: so we tell them that if they're sitting on the
• 23:13
  Speaker 5: castle steps acting like nothing is wrong, then that old
• 23:16
  Speaker 5: man is going to walk by.
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: Okay, so then it goes on and on and on.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: So you might spend like several hours just on that portion.
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 23:27
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so it's interesting when we do the myths, especially
• 23:31
  Speaker 5: with adults, with adults, because they have so much more
• 23:34
  Speaker 5: life experience to reflect upon. So yeah, that right there,
• 23:38
  Speaker 5: we could spend, we could spend, like with adults, let's say.
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: It's 10 people in the room.
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we could be on that for two hours. Okay,
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: because here again, there's no right or wrong answers. And
• 23:52
  Speaker 5: so then when you identify, okay, when was the last
• 23:55
  Speaker 5: time you cried? And then them just talking about that.
• 23:58
  Speaker 5: But here again, you're just keeping it, you know, what's
• 24:00
  Speaker 5: said in this room stays in this room.
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: So that's an example.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: And in the group, would all the boys be speaking
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: as a solo voice in the midst of 10 people
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: or did you break them into smaller groups?
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: No, no, no, no. They all speak.
• 24:18
  Speaker 5: That's the one thing too about our groups. Like our
• 24:22
  Speaker 5: first core group, we had like 28.
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 24:25
  Speaker 5: So like on a Saturday, On a Saturday, we average
• 24:28
  Speaker 5: a good 20, 20 on a Saturday. So they sit
• 24:32
  Speaker 5: in there and each of them have to respond.
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 24:36
  Speaker 5: They have to respond. Here again, there's no right or
• 24:38
  Speaker 5: wrong answers. What's said in that circle stays in that circle.
• 24:42
  Speaker 5: And then what you find out too in the method,
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: because they are hearing the same myth and you're just
• 24:48
  Speaker 5: hearing different perspectives. You're hearing different perspectives. So what are
• 24:52
  Speaker 5: the key things about the method? It's just having an
• 24:55
  Speaker 5: open mind.
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 24:57
  Speaker 5: And, and listening to the opinions of others. Another thing
• 25:01
  Speaker 5: you find out is when people, you know, are sharing
• 25:03
  Speaker 5: their stories, you find out the rain does not fall
• 25:06
  Speaker 5: on one roof alone.
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: And are the other boys commenting on what someone says?
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. It's a conversation. It's a conversation.
• 25:18
  Speaker 5: And it's just, it amazes me because like with the adults,
• 25:22
  Speaker 5: the adults who are in the circle, so like the
• 25:24
  Speaker 5: brothers who've been with me, uh, like to Alchemy, we're
• 25:27
  Speaker 5: in our 20th year. So I had like one group
• 25:29
  Speaker 5: they were with us like for 10 years, the facilitators
• 25:32
  Speaker 5: are with me now.
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: I've been with us for like 10 years. Okay.
• 25:35
  Speaker 5: And basically all of us, all of us, you know,
• 25:38
  Speaker 5: went through like a, uh, a training in the method.
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: And we, we've got that.
• 25:44
  Speaker 5: A lot of us have that been initiated in a
• 25:47
  Speaker 5: kind of system of life cycle development. So we, so
• 25:49
  Speaker 5: we're coming with those different, So basically our philosophy, our
• 25:54
  Speaker 5: foundation is based on Jungian psychology, the Akash system of
• 25:58
  Speaker 5: life cycle development, and just Joseph Campbell's work, the common
• 26:02
  Speaker 5: themes and the myths. But yeah, so the conversations, it
• 26:08
  Speaker 5: never ceases to amaze me because as the adults, we share,
• 26:12
  Speaker 5: we share some deep, stuff that's going on in our
• 26:16
  Speaker 5: life so that so that we can be used as
• 26:18
  Speaker 5: a mirror which will allow them to choose another reflection
• 26:22
  Speaker 5: okay so the things that are shared in that circle
• 26:24
  Speaker 5: out of you know and they're shared because of the
• 26:27
  Speaker 5: trust the trust that the thoughts have in us and
• 26:30
  Speaker 5: the trust that we have in them because i mean
• 26:32
  Speaker 5: we share some really personal things you know in that circle.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I bet. And gosh, there's so much to react to. First,
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: I want to just clarify that Alchemy is the name
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: of the nonprofit that you started.
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes, yes.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: And that's done this wonderful work and was profiled in
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: this really beautiful film. The Gold Within, is that, do
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: I have the title right?
• 26:56
  Speaker 5: Finding the Gold Within, yeah, Karina Epperlein, we had a
• 27:00
  Speaker 5: filmmaker out of Berkeley, she followed six of the youth
• 27:03
  Speaker 5: for like three and a half years, so it's not
• 27:05
  Speaker 5: a film about alchemy, it's a film about six youth
• 27:08
  Speaker 5: in alchemy, but alchemy serves as like the backdrop.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but it's a really, and it was just,
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: it's just a very compelling film because it shows that
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: this process that you're leading these young men through It
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: really is an initiation. I mean, and the results are
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: really remarkable. But I did want to say, talking about
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: the sense of trust and what comes up in the group,
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: I love your aphorism there, the rain does not fall
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: on one roof alone, because I think that when we're
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: in the archetypal world, one of the things that's really
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: powerful about it is we're in the realm of the
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: universal and we can understand our suffering better. and our
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: difficulties and our challenges and our joys within the context
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: of universal human experience.
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: Thank you. Thank you.
• 27:56
  Speaker 5: Uh, the one thing too, uh, about when you, when
• 27:58
  Speaker 5: you were talking, Lisa, the, what the primary objective I
• 28:03
  Speaker 5: would say is, uh, for the youth to become the
• 28:07
  Speaker 5: hero within.
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: Their own stories. Okay.
• 28:09
  Speaker 5: So looking at the common themes and the myths and
• 28:12
  Speaker 5: incorporating those common themes, the hero into your life, which
• 28:16
  Speaker 5: is basically, you know, sacrifice, making sacrifices, persevering, overcoming obstacles,
• 28:21
  Speaker 5: asking for help. But yeah, that's what it's all about
• 28:24
  Speaker 5: through the myths. We do the myths while the myths
• 28:27
  Speaker 5: do us.
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: That's great.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: I'm imagining that leading these programs and developing them has
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: changed you.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: No kidding, right?
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: I'm kind of.
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: Wondering that if someone were to take kind of a
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: snapshot of your inside and outside when you started it
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: and took a snapshot of your inside and outside now,
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: what might they see as the transformative points?
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: Wow, thank you.
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: One of the things that I really focus on is
• 29:04
  Speaker 5: you can't teach someone something you yourself didn't not knowing
• 29:08
  Speaker 5: you can't lead them somewhere where you yourself are unwilling
• 29:11
  Speaker 5: to go. So it's like before healing others, heal thyself.
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: So I've been in therapy seven years with Jungian. What
• 29:18
  Speaker 5: gets me by is my therapy and the myths.
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: And the myths. Okay, so.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: You really live these myths.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: Oh, yeah, without a doubt. Without a doubt.
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: And that's what gets me by. Because I'm still learning.
• 29:34
  Speaker 5: I'm still learning. I guess what has changed for lack
• 29:41
  Speaker 5: of better word is that I'm living them out.
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: Okay. Yeah. I'm living them. I'm living them out.
• 29:49
  Speaker 5: And it's what gives me, it's what gives me hope.
• 29:53
  Speaker 5: It gives, it's what gives me hope to, to persevere.
• 29:56
  Speaker 5: So like, And I'm laughing to keep from crying. But
• 30:02
  Speaker 5: like right now, the myth of the hunter and.
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: The bow constrictor is just like, hey, you got to
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: put trust.
• 30:09
  Speaker 5: You got to put trust in the universe that everything
• 30:11
  Speaker 5: is going to work out in the end, even when you're.
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: Sitting there, you know, in that belly of the whale.
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: It gives me hope. It gives me hope and it
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: allows me to persevere.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: Well, it sounds like you've really created this very strong
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: connection with the objective psyche. And you have this deep
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: trust in the unconscious.
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: No doubt. No doubt.
• 30:35
  Speaker 5: And as you know, you got to be careful with that.
• 30:40
  Speaker 5: You know, you got to be careful with that. Because, yeah,
• 30:44
  Speaker 5: I'll speak for myself, but so often I think we
• 30:47
  Speaker 5: see what we want to see. You know, and that's
• 30:49
  Speaker 5: the one thing with this method. That's the one thing
• 30:52
  Speaker 5: with this method. it makes you answer the deeper questions, okay,
• 30:57
  Speaker 5: about your life.
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: And you gotta be truthful. You have to be truthful.
• 31:01
  Speaker 5: And like I always tell the youth, when they're writing
• 31:03
  Speaker 5: down these responses, you can lie to us, but you
• 31:07
  Speaker 5: can't lie to yourself. You know, for me, you know,
• 31:10
  Speaker 5: going into an unconscious, it's like looking into a mirror.
• 31:14
  Speaker 5: And if you, if you, I, again, I'm speaking for myself.
• 31:18
  Speaker 5: And if you really look deeply, there's gonna be some
• 31:21
  Speaker 5: things you don't like, you know? There's going to be
• 31:23
  Speaker 5: some things that you don't like that you see. And
• 31:25
  Speaker 5: so the thing is to work on it, okay, to
• 31:28
  Speaker 5: identify it. And so that's another thing. That's another thing
• 31:32
  Speaker 5: when they're writing down the responses. Like I'll tell them
• 31:35
  Speaker 5: there'll be a few questions that's pretty deep. I'm talking
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: about pretty deep questions. If they don't want to respond
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: in a group setting, 95% of the time they have
• 31:45
  Speaker 5: to respond, okay? But that might be that 5% chance
• 31:48
  Speaker 5: you don't have to. But I tell them at least
• 31:50
  Speaker 5: write it down. And that way it's acknowledged by your site.
• 31:53
  Speaker 5: at least write it down so that way it's at
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: least acknowledged by your psychic. So to give you an
• 31:59
  Speaker 5: example of a tough question, we were doing this myth,
• 32:02
  Speaker 5: this one myth, and the parent, and so many of
• 32:06
  Speaker 5: the myths deal with parent-child relationships, but the parent beat
• 32:11
  Speaker 5: the child. The parent beat the child to death because
• 32:16
  Speaker 5: it was ashamed. It was ashamed of his child. And
• 32:18
  Speaker 5: so one of the questions we asked the youth, in
• 32:21
  Speaker 5: what ways Are your parents ashamed of you?
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: Okay. Hey, that's a deep question. Okay. That's a deep question. Okay.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. So you go really, really deep. You know, Kwame,
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: it was so great having you tell the myth with
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: the drum. And it's just a very unique way of
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: hearing the story. And I found myself thinking, well, first
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: of all, I had two thoughts. One thought was, God,
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: I wish I had a recording of you telling these
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: stories with the drum. I mean, even without the questions,
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: I could just imagine putting my headphones in and lying
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: back and just listening to the story. And then I thought,
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: you know, in addition to being a healer and a
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: kind of modern day shaman with this You're also a
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: storyteller because you really tell the stories in a beautiful,
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: rhythmic way. And I think that's a bit of a
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: lost art to be a good storyteller.
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: Yes, thank you. I got the idea with the drum
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: through Michael Mead. Okay, okay.
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: It was my first men's workshop. I went to Michael
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: Mead in Melodoma, so I came down here to Southern
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: Virginia and just rocked my world, man.
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes, yes.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: And that book, by the way, The Water of Life,
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: that book is amazing.
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes.
• 33:47
  Speaker 5: So Michael's been to Akron five times to work with
• 33:50
  Speaker 5: our youth, okay?
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 33:53
  Speaker 5: So I don't really, I don't consider myself a drummer, okay?
• 33:57
  Speaker 5: I don't consider myself a storyteller, but I appreciate that.
• 34:01
  Speaker 5: They say comparisons are never justified, but you only find
• 34:04
  Speaker 5: justification through comparisons. So when I, you know, see Michael
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: Mead telling the myth of playing the drums, I'm no,
• 34:12
  Speaker 5: I'm no storyteller.
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: Okay. But thanks.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: Okay. Okay. Quick story, quick story, quick story.
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: So like, so like our youth, like I said, these
• 34:21
  Speaker 5: youth are 30 years old now, but when they were,
• 34:23
  Speaker 5: when they were in eighth grade, they were leaving seventh
• 34:26
  Speaker 5: grade and I told them it was near the end
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: of the year. And I told him, I said, you
• 34:30
  Speaker 5: guys want to spend a full day with Gerald McDermott,
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: who's a kind of called metal winner, studied under Joseph
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: Campbell for 13 years. I said, you're going to spend
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: an entire day with him and end of the year,
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: but starting off next school year, eighth grade. I'm going
• 34:42
  Speaker 5: to pull you out of school. You're going to spend
• 34:43
  Speaker 5: an entire day with Michael Meade. And I told him,
• 34:46
  Speaker 5: that's where I got to learn what I'm doing. And
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: one of the students raised their hand and said, Kwame, Kwame,
• 34:50
  Speaker 5: does he do what you do? Like, tell the drum,
• 34:53
  Speaker 5: playing the drum, tell the story. I'm like, yeah, when
• 34:55
  Speaker 5: you meet Michael, you're going to be very disappointed in me.
• 34:57
  Speaker 5: They say, no, Kwame, no, Kwame. And so then they
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: spent a day with Michael.
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: That was on a Friday. They spent a day with Michael.
• 35:08
  Speaker 4: And so we had our first session.
• 35:11
  Speaker 5: That Monday after school, Stacy Starr comes to me, said Kwame,
• 35:15
  Speaker 5: you were right. He said, he said, he said, he said,
• 35:22
  Speaker 5: he said, you're like our father, but Michael, he's like, God.
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: Oh my God. Oh my God.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: That's so cool.
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: That's really great. Fabulous.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: What a great story. Oh, that's such a great story.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: So when you started alchemy, you were working in the schools.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: Is that right?
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: When I started.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: Tell us how you... How did you find these young men?
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: Wow, here again. Wow. Just right place, right time.
• 35:49
  Speaker 5: So when I first started using myth, I was at
• 35:53
  Speaker 5: University of Akron, Upward Bound, working at Upward Bound. And
• 35:57
  Speaker 5: then I was going to Pacifica. Okay, so I was
• 36:00
  Speaker 5: traveling back and forth from Akron, Ohio to Santa Barbara, California. Well,
• 36:04
  Speaker 5: I only had.
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: Enough vacation for one year. OK. And so then I
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: quit the next year. I quit. I quit Akron U.
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: I've been there five years. I quit.
• 36:15
  Speaker 5: And then I start to just get contracts that work
• 36:18
  Speaker 5: with high.
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: School dropouts, blah, blah, blah.
• 36:20
  Speaker 5: And then in the charter schools, all these people doing
• 36:24
  Speaker 5: with the nonprofit, they just give me the contracts. I'm
• 36:26
  Speaker 5: doing the work. So then I'm like, I can do that.
• 36:29
  Speaker 5: And so little did I know.
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: Little did I know.
• 36:37
  Speaker 5: So that's when I started Alchemy. Okay, so that's when
• 36:40
  Speaker 5: I started out to get my nonprofit. Well, it took
• 36:44
  Speaker 5: me a while to get that, so I left off
• 36:45
  Speaker 5: my credit, my wife and son didn't even notice. I
• 36:48
  Speaker 5: left off my credit cards for nine months to pay
• 36:50
  Speaker 5: the rent, okay, to pay the rent. So nine months,
• 36:54
  Speaker 5: and then I just happened to be in the right
• 36:57
  Speaker 5: place at the right time. I was at this one school,
• 36:59
  Speaker 5: Perkins Middle School in Akron. The year before I got
• 37:01
  Speaker 5: my nonprofit, the Knight Foundation had given this school $ 5
• 37:06
  Speaker 5: million for afterschool programs. So the following year, I got
• 37:10
  Speaker 5: my alchemy, got the nonprofit. But that prior year, I
• 37:15
  Speaker 5: worked with five groups, three groups for boys, two for girls,
• 37:18
  Speaker 5: pretty much for free. Okay. Just running the myths.
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: And it was like, wow, this shit work.
• 37:25
  Speaker 5: So the following year, I ended up getting a three-year
• 37:28
  Speaker 5: grant from the Knight Foundation. And I had to recruit students.
• 37:33
  Speaker 5: And so a friend of my son was at the
• 37:36
  Speaker 5: school and he helped me get students in that That's
• 37:38
  Speaker 5: just how it started. That's how it started. We just
• 37:40
  Speaker 5: started with an after-school program. I just happened to get
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: the right students. They were football players, basketball players. So
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: they was kind of like, you know, big men on
• 37:50
  Speaker 5: campus for sixth grade. And then I had them sixth, seventh,
• 37:54
  Speaker 5: and eighth grade. And then in ninth grade, this one
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: other school in the suburbs had an influx of black males.
• 37:59
  Speaker 5: They had heard about us. And I combined those youth.
• 38:05
  Speaker 5: They were ninth graders. So that's how Alchemy started. Okay,
• 38:08
  Speaker 5: so we had those youth four to seven years. We
• 38:09
  Speaker 5: had a second core group like seven years. We had
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: another core group for like six and a half because
• 38:15
  Speaker 5: COVID hit. So we've worked with over 2,000 youth. But
• 38:18
  Speaker 5: that's how Alchemy started. I was just in the right
• 38:20
  Speaker 5: place at the right time, kind of just the whole
• 38:23
  Speaker 5: partial thing, just stumbling along. I've just been in the
• 38:26
  Speaker 5: right place at the right time, surrounded by the right people.
• 38:29
  Speaker 5: They say only you alone can do it, but you
• 38:32
  Speaker 5: can't do it alone.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: That's great.
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: Call me back to that. to just drop down a
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: little bit. There was something I heard when you were talking,
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: that soul voice hearing. And it occurs to me that
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: in the work that you're doing with other people, that
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: you are writing a myth about the birth, death, and
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: resurrection of hope. And you're writing that myth, or you're
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: telling that story. So I wonder when, when I offer
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: that to you, your story, your myth about the birth, death,
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: and resurrection of hope, what is your myth about that?
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 39:20
  Speaker 5: Um, that's a good question, Joseph.
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: Um, and you can break out the drum and wing
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: it if you like. And I mean, you can tell,
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: you can tell you've, that I can feel that script
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: is about three millimeters right below your conscious focus. I
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: know that that's happening to you. I can feel it.
• 39:41
  Speaker 5: If I start to tear up, uh, Hey, like we
• 39:44
  Speaker 5: tell our youth, soul would have no rainbow, had the eyes,
• 39:47
  Speaker 5: no tears.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 39:49
  Speaker 5: So it's okay. Like we say, because you see this
• 39:54
  Speaker 5: a lot of times in the myths that the boys
• 39:56
  Speaker 5: are crying, but we say it's okay for boys to cry.
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: So for me, wow.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 40:09
  Speaker 5: Once upon a time, there was a boy who was
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: born and he didn't see anybody who looked like him
• 40:37
  Speaker 5: doing positive things.
• 40:39
  Speaker 4: So he.
• 40:46
  Speaker 5: He only saw images of him that were people who
• 40:48
  Speaker 5: looked for slaves, butlers, and clowns. So he internalized that
• 40:55
  Speaker 5: that was all he could be.
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: Until one day, he.
• 41:10
  Speaker 5: Was in this boat, a boat that he would go
• 41:12
  Speaker 5: into every day. And one day he went out farther
• 41:17
  Speaker 5: than he had ever been before. And he met some
• 41:21
  Speaker 5: people who told him a myth. And in that myth,
• 41:32
  Speaker 5: he found a lot of similarities to his life. And
• 41:41
  Speaker 5: he started to have a better understanding that he was
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: not alone and that everybody goes through something where they
• 41:56
  Speaker 5: forget who.
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: They are.
• 42:01
  Speaker 5: But people come into their lives to remind us who
• 42:05
  Speaker 5: we are. And if we can just submit and listen
• 42:17
  Speaker 5: and follow the roadmap that we've been given and make
• 42:21
  Speaker 5: the necessary sacrifices and persevere, then we too can become
• 42:27
  Speaker 5: the hero in our own story and find a place.
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: Where we do belong and secure the water of life.
• 42:38
  Speaker 5: And once we secure it, make certain that we've come
• 42:42
  Speaker 5: back to the community.
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: To help those who themselves feel as if they do
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: not belong.
• 43:02
  Speaker 5: So there you go off the top of my head.
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: Beautiful and brave. There you go off the top of
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: my head.
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: I find myself thinking about the death of hope.
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: The death of hope.
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: What that might mean in a child's psyche, in an
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: adult's psyche.
• 43:26
  Speaker 5: That is, wow, when we had our youth, and like
• 43:31
  Speaker 5: I said, it's 20-some years, but we.
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: Had the youth.
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: Identify different common themes in the myths, okay? So we
• 43:39
  Speaker 5: probably got about 50, 100-something different common themes that they
• 43:43
  Speaker 5: saw in the myths. And for me, For me, the first,
• 43:48
  Speaker 5: I remember the first one when I did it was sacrifice.
• 43:51
  Speaker 5: That was the thing that really stood out. But what
• 43:55
  Speaker 5: stands out to me now is hope. Myths provide us
• 43:59
  Speaker 5: with hope. And you just, you can't give up. You
• 44:05
  Speaker 5: can't give up.
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: So the death of hope may be the death of
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: the mythologic, the death of that layer of the deep unconscious.
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: Of course, it's a metaphor.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: But when life interferes with the child's ability to access
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: the mythic level, something in them at least appears to
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: die in as much as it slips out of their hand.
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: And then the culture tells them and their friends tell
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: them who to be and their teachers tell them who
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: to be. Poverty and pain and misunderstandings and fighting and
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: struggling and deprivation all replace that that is not a myth.
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: There are these fragments of suffering layer over that mythic level.
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: Yes. Yeah. Well said. Well said. Yeah. You can't give
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: up hope.
• 44:59
  Speaker 5: And so many, you know, just like you said, and
• 45:02
  Speaker 5: it seems to happen. It might be happening sooner now,
• 45:06
  Speaker 5: but it seems like about fourth grade, you know, that's
• 45:10
  Speaker 5: when you, that's when you, you know, the world, life
• 45:13
  Speaker 5: gets in the way of living.
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: Wow. Okay.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: Well, and you lose access to the water of life.
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: Yes, you do. Yes, you do.
• 45:21
  Speaker 5: And that magical thinking, that magical thinking that you grow up,
• 45:27
  Speaker 5: you grow up for boys.
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: I'm just speaking for boys. You grow up thinking that
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: you could be Superman. Okay.
• 45:35
  Speaker 5: And then you find out society tells you, no, you can't.
• 45:38
  Speaker 5: And then that's the whole thing about, you know, with
• 45:40
  Speaker 5: Jung and that second period of life. Hey, uh, refinding,
• 45:46
  Speaker 5: refinding that, that, that secret that yes, I can be Superman.
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: So, so that brings me to something. I want you
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: to go back to your story, which, which I've heard before.
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: It's so extraordinary that there you are 36, 37, presumably
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: maybe a little older and you're reading Joseph Campbell. And
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: first you ask yourself the question, what is my bliss?
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: Most of us don't ask ourselves that question. But you
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: asked the question, you let the answer come. And the
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: answer was, I want to play my drum and tell
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: mythological stories. And then you did something extraordinary. You took
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: it seriously.
• 46:27
  Speaker 5: Yeah, like I say, yeah, so it was like 37,
• 46:30
  Speaker 5: I got induced to write a passage, but it was
• 46:33
  Speaker 5: 38 years old. Like I say, I'm staring out my window,
• 46:36
  Speaker 5: University of Akron, and ask myself, what did I want
• 46:40
  Speaker 5: to do? Not what could I do? What did I
• 46:43
  Speaker 5: want to do? My exact words.
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: Such a big difference.
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: The desire. Yeah. Yeah.
• 46:49
  Speaker 5: And so then the internet had just come out. And
• 46:52
  Speaker 5: I asked the secretary, could she find me a school
• 46:54
  Speaker 5: that offered a PhD in mythology?
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: And she couldn't. She couldn't.
• 46:58
  Speaker 5: Ohio State came up with folklore. And then she found
• 47:01
  Speaker 5: some other school. And I just said, forget it. And
• 47:03
  Speaker 5: I can't remember the time span. But a friend of
• 47:05
  Speaker 5: mine came in, threw a magazine on my desk. I
• 47:07
  Speaker 5: still have it in my office. Common Boundaries, his exact words. Kwame,
• 47:11
  Speaker 5: they have some interesting ads and articles in here. I'm
• 47:15
  Speaker 5: flipping through it to see Pacifica Graduates too. Long story,
• 47:19
  Speaker 5: long story. And wow, one thing led to another. And
• 47:24
  Speaker 5: like I say, I've just been in the right place.
• 47:26
  Speaker 5: I've been at the right place at the right time.
• 47:28
  Speaker 5: Here again, folks thought I was out of my mind
• 47:30
  Speaker 5: because I quit my job at Akron Youth to still go.
• 47:33
  Speaker 5: But they say those, the birds that fly the highest
• 47:36
  Speaker 5: don't fly with the flock. Those who were seen dancing
• 47:40
  Speaker 5: were thought to be crazy by those of whom could
• 47:42
  Speaker 5: not hear the music.
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: Well, in some sense, you had this, you did find
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: this water of life and you trusted it.
• 47:53
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: You trusted it against, really against the odds.
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: So many more questions to ask, but I do, we
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: brought you on because we wanted to hear about alchemy
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: in New York. So tell us about Alchemy in New York.
• 48:08
  Speaker 4: Okay. Thanks. Thanks. I forgot about it. Wow.
• 48:14
  Speaker 5: So I've been trying to get to New York for
• 48:17
  Speaker 5: some time. I would get to New York, wow, six,
• 48:21
  Speaker 5: eight times a year because of the Jung Center, you know,
• 48:25
  Speaker 5: on East 39th, 37th.
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: Anyway, it's 20, anyway, anyway.
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: I'm having the same thought.
• 48:34
  Speaker 4: Which one is it?
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: But yeah, right around there.
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: Anyway, 39th, 39th.
• 48:38
  Speaker 5: So I would get here six, eight times a year. And,
• 48:41
  Speaker 5: you know, just the energy in New York. So I
• 48:44
  Speaker 5: was just seeing how could I get alchemy here? So
• 48:47
  Speaker 5: ended up here again, right place at the right time.
• 48:50
  Speaker 5: Filed two independent schools that let me, had me come
• 48:55
  Speaker 5: in to run groups. Okay, one George Jackson Academy in
• 48:58
  Speaker 5: the East Village, the other, De La Salle Academy up
• 49:02
  Speaker 5: on West 43rd Street. You know, here again, the youth,
• 49:07
  Speaker 5: the youth loving it. You know, the youth, primarily the
• 49:10
  Speaker 5: sixth graders. OK, the eighth graders, they come and go.
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: They come and go. okay?
• 49:16
  Speaker 5: But from just meeting the youth at George Jackson, and
• 49:20
  Speaker 5: because I had them in sixth grade, and that's what
• 49:22
  Speaker 5: I wanted to do was start with sixth graders in
• 49:24
  Speaker 5: both schools, but I couldn't at De La.
• 49:26
  Speaker 4: Salle, the eighth graders.
• 49:27
  Speaker 5: So plan now is to stay with those sixth graders
• 49:32
  Speaker 5: two more years, seventh and eighth grade year, on a
• 49:35
  Speaker 5: monthly basis, okay?
• 49:37
  Speaker 4: Meet with them monthly. for two more years.
• 49:40
  Speaker 5: And then also here again through Silverman School of Social Work,
• 49:45
  Speaker 5: Hunter College, starting the training program to train people in
• 49:49
  Speaker 5: our method. So that should start In January, we're looking
• 49:52
  Speaker 5: to start that in January. We have an information session
• 49:55
  Speaker 5: coming up June the 22nd. Saturday, June 22nd at Silverman
• 50:00
  Speaker 5: School of Social Work.
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: And is information about that on your website?
• 50:04
  Speaker 4: Yes, it is. On Alchemy's website. Alchemyinc.net. Yeah, that's where
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: you'll find the information.
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: Okay, so I'm just going to push you just for
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: a couple minutes here. So just hang with me. So,
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: you know, we're believers, obviously. We're really into this. And
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: we live in a data-driven society. So, is there data
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: on your method? Tell us about it.
• 50:31
  Speaker 4: Please, please.
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 50:36
  Speaker 4: So, hey, our.
• 50:40
  Speaker 5: For us to win that National Arts and Humanities Youth
• 50:42
  Speaker 5: Program Award, I mean, that's the nation's highest honor, after-school
• 50:45
  Speaker 5: and out-of-school programs. So, I mean, you have to provide
• 50:48
  Speaker 5: all sort of data, okay, for them, for you to
• 50:51
  Speaker 5: be considered, okay? And so, I mean, with the grants,
• 50:54
  Speaker 5: we have to provide data. Let me give you some
• 50:58
  Speaker 5: data off the top of my head. Our first core group,
• 51:01
  Speaker 5: 28 of those youth, 26 of 28 graduated high school
• 51:04
  Speaker 5: on time. 24 of those 26 enrolled in college. Now
• 51:14
  Speaker 5: this was back in 2011. So they're 29 and 30
• 51:19
  Speaker 5: years old now. To date, 15 had their bachelor's degrees.
• 51:24
  Speaker 5: Five have master's degrees. One has a dual MBA in
• 51:28
  Speaker 5: Jewish doctors. He serves on our board. Now I think
• 51:33
  Speaker 5: a lot of those youth would have been okay with
• 51:35
  Speaker 5: or without alchemy. But the one thing that you find
• 51:38
  Speaker 5: in But our youth, if you sit down and have
• 51:41
  Speaker 5: conversations with youth who've been in alchemy for a while,
• 51:45
  Speaker 5: you can see their critical thinking is on another level
• 51:48
  Speaker 5: because of their exposure to the myths. So like our data,
• 51:53
  Speaker 5: so we have plenty of data. For me, I'm more
• 51:59
  Speaker 5: so into the qualitative data that I.
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: Am, the quantitative data.
• 52:05
  Speaker 5: I have plenty of stories to show, plenty of stories, okay,
• 52:09
  Speaker 5: to show and testimonials from the youth of how these
• 52:12
  Speaker 5: myths have just helped them. You know, just about a
• 52:14
  Speaker 5: month ago I had, I'm always getting the youth who
• 52:18
  Speaker 5: are now 21, 30 years old.
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: Oh, I'm a, you know.
• 52:21
  Speaker 5: Wow, do you know that I'm still learning from these myths.
• 52:24
  Speaker 5: I still got my journal. So what they learn from
• 52:28
  Speaker 5: the myths, it's here again. You know, if it's a
• 52:31
  Speaker 5: common theme in myth, chances are it's a common theme
• 52:33
  Speaker 5: in life. So the thing is to take the things
• 52:36
  Speaker 5: that you've learned in the myths and apply them to
• 52:39
  Speaker 5: your life. Okay, so I got all kinds of testimonials.
• 52:43
  Speaker 5: If you need data, you know, to show the impact,
• 52:47
  Speaker 5: you know, the impact. And I say this in all modesty.
• 52:51
  Speaker 5: This is in all modesty.
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: I've yet to see another method that works.
• 53:00
  Speaker 5: In such a quick fashion, okay? Our method is unique, engaging,
• 53:04
  Speaker 5: and like I say, most.
• 53:05
  Speaker 4: Importantly, it works.
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: So that doesn't surprise me. I don't have any trouble
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: believing that. And here's another thing. This is the way
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: we used to teach and initiate children and young people
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: with mythological stories. But we don't do that anymore. but
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: you're bringing it back. You've gone back and found the
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: water of life and are bringing it to the culture, Kwame.
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: And now through your program, training people in your method
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: and in bringing it to more schools in New York,
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: you're helping to distribute the water of life. You're helping
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: this reach more people.
• 53:49
  Speaker 4: I'm doing my best.
• 53:51
  Speaker 5: You know, it's like, Joseph Campbell said, you go into
• 53:54
  Speaker 5: the forest and you, you know, you find gold.
• 53:57
  Speaker 4: And when you bring it out, it turns to dust. Okay.
• 54:00
  Speaker 5: So it's just a matter of, you know, trying to convince,
• 54:04
  Speaker 5: you know, it's kind of, it gets frustrating.
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: What's frustrating?
• 54:11
  Speaker 5: When you know you have something that works and you
• 54:15
  Speaker 5: got to keep, you got to keep trying to convince
• 54:19
  Speaker 5: people that it works. And I mean, it's like, it's
• 54:21
  Speaker 5: so obvious that it works. Okay, so that's the frustrating part.
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: And specifically, you've got to convince funders, presumably.
• 54:29
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes, yeah.
• 54:31
  Speaker 5: And, you know, we've never had a fundraising campaign in
• 54:35
  Speaker 5: 20 years. Never had a fundraising campaign in 20 years.
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: We're in our 20th year.
• 54:40
  Speaker 5: So we're just now, this is our first year having
• 54:44
  Speaker 5: a major campaign. I have never asked anybody for money, okay?
• 54:54
  Speaker 5: I'm like, you know, in the water of life, wow,
• 54:56
  Speaker 5: going back to that water of life myth, I was
• 54:59
  Speaker 5: sitting on the castle steps acting like everything.
• 55:01
  Speaker 4: Was cool when it wasn't. So the old man, the
• 55:04
  Speaker 4: old man walked by. Okay.
• 55:06
  Speaker 5: And so also in that water of life myth, the
• 55:09
  Speaker 5: two older sons, you know, they don't get off their
• 55:12
  Speaker 5: horse when the dwarf asks them, you know, where are
• 55:14
  Speaker 5: you going in such a hurry? The youngest son, he
• 55:18
  Speaker 5: gets off his horse.
• 55:19
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 55:20
  Speaker 5: So matter of fact, when we're doing the myth, I
• 55:22
  Speaker 5: keep playing the drum, but then When it comes to
• 55:24
  Speaker 5: the youngest son, the two older sons, they're thinking that
• 55:27
  Speaker 5: if they secure the water of life, they become their
• 55:29
  Speaker 5: father's favorite, inherit their father's kingdom. The youngest son, like
• 55:32
  Speaker 5: I tell the youth, who's just about your age, just
• 55:35
  Speaker 5: about your age, he doesn't care about becoming his father's
• 55:38
  Speaker 5: favorite or inheriting the father's kingdom.
• 55:41
  Speaker 4: He just wants his father to be well.
• 55:43
  Speaker 5: So when he mounts his horse, you know, the father
• 55:45
  Speaker 5: asks him, well, you know.
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: He asks, can he go in search of the water
• 55:48
  Speaker 4: of life? Father says, no.
• 55:49
  Speaker 5: He said, besides, the two brothers couldn't bring him back.
• 55:52
  Speaker 5: What makes you think you can't? So the father relinquished,
• 55:55
  Speaker 5: finally let him go. When the youngest son runs into
• 55:58
  Speaker 5: the dwarf and the dwarf asks him, where are you
• 56:00
  Speaker 5: going in such a hurry? The youngest son gets off
• 56:03
  Speaker 5: his horse and admits that he does not know where
• 56:05
  Speaker 5: he is going. Okay, so that's one of that, you know,
• 56:09
  Speaker 5: that's two.
• 56:11
  Speaker 4: Quote unquote mistakes I made.
• 56:13
  Speaker 5: I was sitting on the castle steps acting like everything
• 56:16
  Speaker 5: was cool when it wasn't. And I didn't get off
• 56:19
  Speaker 5: my horse, you know, to admit that I didn't know
• 56:25
  Speaker 5: where I was going. Okay, so hey, that's what I'm
• 56:27
  Speaker 5: doing now.
• 56:28
  Speaker 4: I need help. Okay.
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: And, you know, this is an age-old story that those
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: of us who are gifted in certain areas, like in
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: developing programs or creative ideas, are usually not good nonprofit administrators.
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: So you didn't know about fundraising.
• 56:49
  Speaker 4: I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know.
• 56:53
  Speaker 5: Alchemy has been successful in spite of me, not because
• 56:56
  Speaker 5: of me.
• 56:57
  Speaker 4: Seriously. Okay.
• 56:58
  Speaker 5: Which shows you how powerful. A friend of mine was
• 57:01
  Speaker 5: telling me that. He said that shows you how powerful
• 57:03
  Speaker 5: the method is. that it can, you know, overcome me.
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: You don't have a big fundraising engine behind you, but
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: you've done all of this remarkable work. And, you know,
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: another thing that strikes me about it is that this
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: is essentially not an expensive model.
• 57:23
  Speaker 4: No, no, it's not. It's been interesting, Lisa. Okay, and
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: so then it gets back.
• 57:30
  Speaker 5: I go back to, wow, who's the common denominator in
• 57:33
  Speaker 5: all this?
• 57:33
  Speaker 4: I am.
• 57:34
  Speaker 5: Okay, and then I get to blame it myself for
• 57:37
  Speaker 5: alchemy not being further along of what we are.
• 57:41
  Speaker 4: So, yeah.
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: I mean, this idea of scaling the project, I mean,
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: that takes help. And so those of you out there
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: that are listening that are experts in how to scale
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: beautiful programs, you know, Kwame is the guy to reach
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: out to because there are people for whom that is
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: exactly what they do and exactly what they know how
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: to do.
• 58:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, appreciate that, Joseph and Lisa.
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: And you do have a fundraising effort now.
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes, yes.
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: And we have a link to that. So those of
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: you who are incredibly moved by this, as I know
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: I am, what is the goal? What is the fundraising goal?
• 58:22
  Speaker 5: For George Jackson, okay, we have Akron and we have
• 58:27
  Speaker 5: New York.
• 58:28
  Speaker 4: Okay. Okay.
• 58:28
  Speaker 5: We have Akron in New York. So Akron, I believe
• 58:32
  Speaker 5: that Akron, okay. We're still in the, in the stages of, yeah.
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 58:37
  Speaker 4: So Akron, I think it's like around 300,000. Okay. For
• 58:41
  Speaker 4: us to continue. Cause we're like in eight, eight schools
• 58:43
  Speaker 4: in Akron. Okay.
• 58:44
  Speaker 5: So in Akron, it's like about 250, 300,000 in New York,
• 58:49
  Speaker 5: George Jackson Academy for us to continue at George Jackson Academy.
• 58:52
  Speaker 4: It's only going to be like around 30,000. Okay. Okay. Okay.
• 58:57
  Speaker 4: For like one year. Okay. 30,000.
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: There are entrepreneurs that are listening to this right now.
• 59:02
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: This is no joke.
• 59:04
  Speaker 4: No, I know.
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: Because it takes boldness just to ask for what you need. need.
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: The 300,000 there, the 30,000 in New York, there are
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: people for whom that wouldn't even cause them to blush
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: to write a check like that.
• 59:19
  Speaker 4: That's true.
• 59:21
  Speaker 5: Yes, and so for the training program, it would probably
• 59:25
  Speaker 5: be about another, I'm certain it seems like we're going
• 59:29
  Speaker 5: to get this one grant through another entity, but through
• 59:34
  Speaker 5: the training might be another 40,000, maybe.
• 59:39
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 59:39
  Speaker 5: But right now I'm trying to focus on George Jackson
• 59:43
  Speaker 5: so that I can stay with these 22 youth for
• 59:46
  Speaker 5: another two years.
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 59:49
  Speaker 5: So that'd be 30 grand. That would be 30 grand,
• 59:52
  Speaker 5: you know, September, then another 30 grand next September.
• 59:57
  Speaker 4: Okay. If, if that, okay. If that, okay.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 5: So yes, we'll have a link coming out for specifically
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 5: for the George Jackson. Cause, cause I can say that
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 5: is my focus. I believe we'll raise some money in Akron.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 5: That's another thing that the myth of Parsifal, it took
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 5: him 20 years. It took him 20 years to ask
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 5: what else the Fisher King.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 5: And, hey, it's been 20 years. When I was first
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 5: in the village, I didn't ask, what else, the Fisher King?
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 5: So it took me 20 years, and now, hey, I'm asking,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 5: what else, the Fisher King?
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: We're hearing an amplifier voice. I want to switch tracks
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: for just a second. As you know, I'm a big fan.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: I love your work. And I'll share, too, that You know,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: Kwame came to Philadelphia and we did a public program
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: that I attended. And so I got to be part
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: of the process with the hunter and the boa constrictor.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: And it was so, something happened in that room. Something
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: happened to the group. Something happened to me. It was
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: that little bit of magic happening. that doesn't happen all
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: the time, but it's really powerful when it does. It
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: was a remarkable experience. So I know firsthand how wonderful
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: the work you do is. And I'm wondering, can we
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: just think together about what's happening in the psyche of
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: these young men when they hear these stories? What happened
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: for me when you shared that story? How does this work?
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: I think.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 4: Thanks, Lisa.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 5: I think what happens is they come to see, they
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 5: say the best way to train a wild elephant is
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 5: to yoke it to one that's already been through the process.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 5: This way, the wild one comes to see, though startlingly different,
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 5: it is still viable, okay?
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 4: So like, and these are urban youth for the most
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 4: part I'm working with, okay? If you're told on.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 5: A daily basis that you know, you'll never be this,
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 5: you'll never be that, you'll never be this, you'll never
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 5: be that. You told that on a daily basis, that's
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 5: kind of going to sink in.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 5: But if that's the case, Jung's concept of anacodromia, that
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 5: means the opposite holds true. So if you keep telling
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 5: them that they can be this, they can be that,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 5: you can do this, you.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 4: Can, they will believe it. Okay.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 5: So with those myths, with those myths, you just keep
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 5: pounding into them that, hey, You're just like the hero
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 5: in the.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 4: Story, okay?
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 5: You come from the same background, all right? If he
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 5: did it, you can do it, all right? So it's
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 5: like in the myth. You just do a little bit
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 5: of something every day, like in the myth of the
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 5: killing virtue. This cub puts his paw print in the
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 5: paw print of his mother's every day and say, someday
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 5: I will be big enough. One day I will be
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 5: strong enough, okay? And so it's about pounding away every day.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 4: Every day. You just do a little something every day. Okay.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 5: And so like 10 years from now, you're going to
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 5: be 10 years old anyway. So you might as well
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 5: be 10 years older doing what you want to do.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 5: So it's about living those myths. It's about actually incorporating
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 5: the character traits of those heroes.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 4: Into your own life. All right. So that's what it's doing.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 5: It's telling them, you know, unconsciously that, hey, I can
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 5: do this.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 4: Is it going to happen overnight? No, it's not going
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 4: to happen overnight. All right.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 5: But hey, you just keep persevering. Like you say, Josephine,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 5: you don't give up hope.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that reminds me of that lovely Neil Gaiman quote.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: Neil Gaiman, of course, who kind of seems to have
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: access to that mythological world, that quote, fairy tales are
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: more than true, not because they tell us that dragons exist,
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 4: There you go. There you go. There you go.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 5: So like when the myths, say myths are stories that
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 5: have never been but will always be. Myths are false
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 5: on the outside but true on the inside. Myths are
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 5: lies which tell the truth. Myths are not just for
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 5: putting children to sleep but for waking adults up.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: That's great.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 4: That's really great.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: I hear the lullaby of Manhattan behind you, Kwame.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 4: There you go.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 5: I love this city, and perhaps more importantly, the city
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 5: loves me.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: Kwame, there is something of a national crisis right now
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: for boys, boys and very young men, where they're being
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: asked to reconceptualize their relationship to women.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: Hmm.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 3: There's a powerful confrontation, there's a powerful demand that consciousness
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: be brought.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 4: One of the.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: Difficulties, of course, is that leaves boys and men staring
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 3: at women because they want things to work better, and
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: because women are bringing the complaints, then they're looking to
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 3: women to tell them who to be, to resolve the tension.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: But that actually alienates somebody from themselves. So whether a
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 3: girl is asking a boy who she should be, or
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: a boy is asking a girl who he should be,
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 3: that as a source of transformation is so problematic. So
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: what I hear you doing is not so much trying
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: to get in the middle of that line of tension,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 3: but actually dropping back down to that archetypal layer. And
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: as Jungians, we think of that as archetypal healing, that
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: all of the masculine behaviors of all kinds rise up
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 3: from an archetypal substrata. And as that energy rises up,
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 3: it encounters cultural images. And so by dropping back down
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: to the archetypal layer to be revitalized, there's an opportunity
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: to re-image that same energy in any number of new ways.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 3: So that's one way that I understand the power of
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: myth to reissue forces in new images. So one, I'm
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 3: wondering if this is something that you're tracking with the
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: young men that you're working with. And I'm wondering if
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: these young men's relationships with young women and with women
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: in general is also changing as they go back to
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: the wellspring and reimagine what it means to be a man.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 5: Thank you so much. Thank you so much. So, and
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 5: I didn't even know I was doing this.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 4: Okay. I didn't even know I was doing this. Okay. Yeah.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 5: But I realized years ago, years ago, We're through the myths,
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 5: through the myths. As I said, with the golden age,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 5: with the golden age, it was a beautiful time. It
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 5: was a glorious time. It was a time when everything
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 5: was great with a sense of enchantment. And that's what
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 5: we're attempting to do. I'm 66 years old, so I
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 5: was growing up. Boys don't cry and all this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 5: But through the myths, it's okay for boys to cry. Okay,
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 5: so what I didn't know I was doing was we're
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 5: bringing the masculine and the feminine together, okay, so where
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 5: there's a balance, there's a balance. And so, you know,
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 5: like I said, wow, the one thing that was a
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 5: ticket when those high school dropouts went around that circle,
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 5: you know, and said when the last time they cried, okay,
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 5: that's not something that you're going to find a lot of,
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 5: quote unquote, tough urban men doing, young men doing.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 4: So, yeah, so to me, we're bringing in that more.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 3: Soulful.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 4: Compassion, empathy, understanding of others. Okay.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 5: And understanding of others. What I was going to say
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 5: earlier in here again, thanks so much, Joseph. So many
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 5: of the myths we deal with parent child relationships.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 5: So then when I talked about that first core group,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 5: and I've given you those stats, you know, how many
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 5: have graduated, blah, blah, blah. What I'm most, what I'm
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 5: most proud of to date about six of them are parents, nine,
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 5: Eighty-five percent of those.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 4: Youth I work with didn't have their fathers in their lives.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 5: What I'm most proud of, about six of them are
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 5: parents now, and to see the love they have for
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 5: their children, okay? I'll see it on Facebook. And them
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 5: being in their children's lives, okay? And like a friend
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 5: told me, we're making generational changes, okay? Because through these myths,
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 5: through these myths and them talking about things, they understand
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 5: the importance, okay, of how to treat your child, how
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 5: to treat your wife or your girlfriend, So yeah, so
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 5: it's about going back to that golden age and treat,
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 5: it's the golden rule, do unto others as you.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 4: Do unto yourself.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 3: It's also that the energy of the masculine comes up
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: from the substrata and it invests the available images. And
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 3: let's just say that somebody only has, you know, mythologically,
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 3: there's only six images in my mind of what that
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 3: looks like, and all that archetypal energy is trying to
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 3: force itself through just six options. So by returning to
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 3: the myth and helping them imagine options that they wouldn't
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: have conceived of, and then the other men that are
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 3: facilitating sharing some of their stories, which give them, through
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 3: the imagination, images which are ways of embodying the myth that,
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 3: of course, they weren't necessarily exposed to for whatever reason.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 3: then returns to them as options that they didn't know
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 3: that they had, which are also full of life force,
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 3: because that archetypal level is barreling dynamism into these possibilities.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 3: And the discovery of possibilities is another way of saying hope.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 4: There you go, there you go, there you go.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 3: The death of hope is the death of possibilities, and
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 3: the resurrection of hope is the discovery of legitimate possibilities.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 4: Couldn't have said it better. And that's what we provide.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 5: That's what we provide all through mythological stories and fairy tales.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 5: And then like you said, and that's one of the
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 5: things too that's important about our process is that the adults,
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 5: they have to be comfortable enough within themselves.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 4: To share, to share our halfness or incompleteness.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 5: So that our sacrifices will not be in vain.
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 3: And Freud had a word for that.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 4: The stakes we've made.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 3: He said the first step for any change to happen
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 3: is to puncture the neurotic isolation. And so to invite
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 3: these boys out of their isolation. Because the reason some
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 3: of these excruciating behaviors, feelings, and beliefs sustain is that
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 3: they're caught in a closed system, an uroboric system, and
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 3: inviting these boys to puncture their isolation, to punch through
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 3: that membrane, to enter into even just that room, that
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 3: that step is essential for anything else to then change
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 3: or be exposed to other forces, which is what you're
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 3: then doing alchemically.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 3: Because the stuff that's in that isolated container is the
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 3: prima materia. That's the troublesome substance that is causing so
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 3: much pain. And that has to break open so it
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: can then be exposed to these archetypal medicines and substances.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 3: And then my sense is that you are there full
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 3: of delight and wonder watching how the archetypal medicine changes
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 3: this prima materia. And thus it's alchemy.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes. Thank you here again. Well said. And it is, as.
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 5: I mentioned earlier, the frustration. But the opposite of that
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 5: is the elation. The elation and the gratitude that I
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 5: get from seeing that, seeing that transformation take place. And
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 5: the one thing too, Joseph, as you were saying, you know,
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 5: So all that is fine and dandy. All that is
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 5: fine and dandy. But then once they secure the water
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 5: of life, they got to come back. They got to
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 5: come back and bring it back to the village. And
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 5: so like I tell the youth, you know, when we're
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 5: in Akron, they don't have to come back into Akron, Ohio, okay,
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 5: and do it. And they don't even have to do
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 5: it for a living.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 4: But at some.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 5: Point or another, you have to give back to those
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 5: who have less than, okay, at some point, at some point. But, yeah,
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 5: it's about becoming a hero within your own story.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was going to pick up on that because, Joseph,
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 2: I'm so glad you took it there because, you know,
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 2: in some sense we probably don't talk about, I want
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 2: to say like almost the crisis of masculinity enough. And
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: it's something I can't speak to from a first-person perspective,
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 2: but it does matter to me. And Kwame, I think
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 2: the work you're doing is so important. so relevant uh
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 2: in that area and and one way to think about
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 2: it is you are constellating the hero archetype in these
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 2: boys lives so so.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 5: It's interesting uh Lisa because uh about six years ago
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 5: we we trained like four women running groups in Akron
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 5: and so like for the training it's not just for
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 5: men okay so you know we're also training women so
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 5: that we have separate myths We have separate myths for.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 4: The girls, okay, to work on.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 5: So here again, I love working with the youth, love
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 5: working with the youth, but I love working with the
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 5: adults because they have so much more life to reflect upon.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 4: So their responses are just so.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 5: Just coming with a lot more life experience. But like
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 5: I say, now those sixth graders at George Jackson Academy
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 5: remind me of adults, okay, with the responses there, with
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 5: the responses that they have, yes.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 4: And I think- I've been blessed.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 3: Men that are- facilitating this work, you and the other
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 3: male facilitators, and of course the women that you're now training,
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 3: that one of the things that we're drawn to in
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 3: this work, I think, is that there's a part of
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 3: our own inner boy that shows up in the stories
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 3: of struggle and suffering in all of the boys, which
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 3: of course they feel. So you are with them, and
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 3: when they tell their story of pain, something inside of
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 3: you cracks and a tear rolls down and the boys
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 3: feel that. And that's something that may never be said
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 3: but doesn't need to be said. And that's part of
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 3: helping them contain the suffering of having their pain emerge
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 3: as well as demonstrating this can be met at that
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 3: mythic level. And there is something in the shared pain.
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 3: So When you were saying the frustrations that you are
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 3: experiencing in scaling the programs, getting them adequately funded, there
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 3: is an entire field of frustration and pain that you
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 3: are in because the boys constellate that, that you are
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 3: metabolizing not only your personal process, but metabolizing the stories,
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 3: the general field of energy that these young men and
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 3: boys are carrying.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 4: No doubt. No doubt.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 5: You had mentioned about the tears, when the tears roll down.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 5: And so whenever the youth tear up or the adults
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 5: tear up, we'll take the tear, we'll rub it on
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 5: the drum.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 4: We'll rub it on the drum. Oh, gosh.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 5: So that way their tears are not in vain. And
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 5: when you hit the drum, their tears will reverberate. That
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 5: is extraordinary. That is extraordinary, Kwame. But then, like you
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 5: also said, you know, it's so important. to me, as
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 5: far as youth, because when you're going through a social
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 5: worker counseling, they're telling you not to divulge personal information.
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 4: Well, and I.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 5: Get that, but how can we ask the youth to
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 5: share their story if we're not going to share it ourselves?
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 5: So in alchemy, you're throwing that to the side of
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 5: the road.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: It's a different container.
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 4: Different container. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 5: So here again, the things that we share in that circle,
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 5: as adults, it amazes me. But here again, it just
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 5: shows the trust that we have in the youth. And
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 5: in turn, it shows the trust that the youth have
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 5: in us. Because yeah, I mean, some deep things have
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 5: been shared in that circle.
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much for coming on today. I'm
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 2: so glad that you brought your drum and you gave
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 2: us a little taste of it because it's just really magical.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 2: And And you're, you're going to hang with us for
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 2: the awesome. Yes.
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 4: Thank you both so much. Okay. I really appreciate it.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 4: It's just a pleasure. Thank you.
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 2: Jung said that dreams are the guiding words of the soul.
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 2: Dream school is our 12 month self-paced online program that
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 2: teaches you how to understand these important messages from the unconscious.
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 2: We break down the essential skills, teach you how to
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 2: apply them and offer opportunities for practice. You can become
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 2: part of a vibrant community, join a dream group, or
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 2: share your dream with other students. There are monthly live
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 2: Q & As with Joseph, a chance for one-on-one time
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 2: with Deb in her office hours, and monthly dream seminars
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 2: with me, Lisa. Visit our website, thisunionlife.com, to learn more
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 2: or sign up.
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 3: Let's jump into the mythic level as we look at
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 3: a dream. This was submitted by a listener. She is
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 3: a 19-year-old female. Currently she is unemployed and The title
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 3: of her dream is Killing the Snake Self. I'm inside
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 3: a one-room barn with a dirt floor. A deep ditch
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 3: dug next to the inner walls like a moat and
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 3: two planks of wood placed over the ditch that makes
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 3: exiting possible. It's mid-afternoon. I'm only in my underclothes. In
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 3: the room with me is a pile of clothing, a dog,
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 3: and a rattlesnake. The snake can talk, but the dog can't,
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 3: and I'm aware that they are both me, or a
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 3: version of me. It begins very calmly with the snake,
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 3: and I make polite small talk as we lay in
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 3: the sun, coming through the windows. However, the snake turns
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 3: on me once I start putting on clothes to leave.
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 3: The sun is beginning to set. The dog and I
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 3: are locked in a battle with the snake. although the
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 3: dog is mostly too scared to help, so I am
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 3: left trying to stop the snake from hurting either of
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 3: us while putting on my clothes. When I fall into
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 3: the ditch, I discover the sides are lined with barbed wire,
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 3: and I severely injure my hands, climbing out of it
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 3: to save the dog. Eventually, I notice a pile of
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 3: rusty tools and used a shovel to cut off the
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 3: snake's head, but by then night had fallen and I
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 3: had been bitten by the snake five times, losing the
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 3: ability to move my left leg. The dog is frightened,
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 3: but completely fine. I am suddenly aware that I have
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 3: a curfew and only have a short amount of time
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 3: to return to the house nearby before I'm locked out.
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 3: I also know that if I get locked out, things
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 3: are waiting in the night that will kill me if
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 3: the poison from the snake bite doesn't. While I limp
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 3: out of the barn, red emergency lights begin to flash.
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 3: and a strange combination of an alarm and the same
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 3: four high-pitched notes on a violin play. As I start
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 3: going up the road to reach the house, an ashamed-looking
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 3: male friend drives past me, making eye contact with me
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 3: but refusing to listen to my pleas for help. The
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 3: dream ends with the dog and I staring at the
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 3: locked gates of the house. Now, for context, she shares,
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 3: I am facing a major unknown chronic illness that prevents
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 3: me from doing many of the things I like to do,
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 3: like moving out of my parents' house or getting a job. Additionally,
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 3: I injured my left leg or injure my left leg
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 3: in almost every dream I have. The main feelings in
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 3: the dream, she writes in the first half, it was
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 3: very serene. with a bit of distrust towards the snake,
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 3: and as the sun went down it transitioned into fear
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 3: and grim determination. By the end it was mostly grief
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 3: and dread. And she adds a few associations. I grew
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 3: up around the house and the barn in the dream,
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 3: although the real barn doesn't have a dirt floor or
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 3: a ditch, and remember them fondly. I've never seen that
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 3: particular dog or snake before, but I did used to
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 3: have fun rattlesnake hunting with my grandfather. The stretch of
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 3: road I had to walk up in the last part
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 3: of the dream is actually a very specific back road
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 3: that I spent a lot of time on when I
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 3: was younger. The male friend is less of a friend
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 3: and more of an acquaintance I was cordial with after
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 3: I refused to go on a date with him, but
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 3: no longer talked to after graduating high school. The violin
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 3: is to my memory from Rhodes by Portishead.
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 2: This is a really complex dream.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 3: It is a very complex dream.
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 3: Indeed.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 2: Just one thing I'm holding in mind is that I
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 2: feel like when there's something going on in the body,
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 2: sometimes the dreams speak to that. And she mentions a
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 2: chronic illness, but we don't know any more about that.
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 2: So it strikes me that the dream might be talking
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 2: about that. But without more information, I think I won't
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 2: try to go down that And I'll maybe just think
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 2: about it more psychologically, but certainly if I were working
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 2: with this person, I might be curious about that. I
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 2: think it's interesting that there's a dog and a rattlesnake,
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 2: and everything kind of seems copacetic. And the snake can talk,
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 2: is that right?
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 3: Yes, the snake talks, but the dog does not.
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 2: So talking snakes were clearly in the mythological realms. I'd
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 2: be so curious about what the snake was saying.
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 4: Exactly.
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 2: And, you know, one thing when there's animals in a dream,
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 2: you know, the animal's always sacred in a dream. But,
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 2: you know, if the animal represents an aspect of the divine,
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 2: sometimes you've got sort of competing qualities, competing gods that are...
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 2: They're in conflict somehow. They're both an aspect of the
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 2: divine principle. But these two particular principles in this dream
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 2: are in conflict with one another. And it's so interesting
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 2: that the snake only turns on her after she starts
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 2: putting on clothes.
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 3: Which, by the way, is the great sin in the
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 3: Garden of Eden. That Adam and Eve are naked. They're
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 3: having conversations with all the creatures, God and the serpent.
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 3: And then when the serpent, I suppose, when they get
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 3: a little bit too close to the serpent, suddenly they
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 3: want to put on clothes and hide themselves because they
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 3: feel shame. So she's fine, just as you said, and
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 3: she's in the garden and she's naked. But when she
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 3: puts the clothes on, something in the psyche appears to
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 3: not be happy. So from that standpoint, just for that
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 3: archetypal amplification, I'm curious about, although it's unspoken, shame. Has
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 3: shame entered into the garden? And then that changes her
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 3: relationship within her psyche and also to these archetypal figures.
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 2: And Joseph, you brought up this idea before about the
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 2: neurotic isolation. This image of a barn with a moat
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 2: around it. On the inside. It does have a way
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 2: to get out. There is like a little drawbridge that
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 2: goes over the moat. But it's a moat that also
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 2: has barbed wire in it. So somehow this image of
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 2: this barn, it feels almost womb-like.
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 3: But also.
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 2: No one's supposed to leave this, apparently, or it can
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 2: only be done with great difficulty and under duress. And
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 2: I wonder, too, if the putting on clothes, I mean,
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 2: I love your amplification of the Garden of Eden, but
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 2: it's almost like everything's kind of great here when I'm
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 2: in this barn and I'm not planning on leaving. But
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 2: if you were planning on leaving, the first thing you
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 2: might do would be to put on clothes.
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 2: So the tension or the conflict comes maybe when she
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 2: begins getting ready to leave somehow or go out into
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 2: the world.
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 3: And the way that she needs to or feels she
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 3: needs to put on a persona. So clothing is often,
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 3: as we have often said, this mediating symbolic layer that
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 3: we clothe our authentic self in. in order to negotiate
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 3: with the social environment. And it does seem that the snake,
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 3: which is often a symbol of feminine wisdom, is not
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 3: having it. And so it may very well be that
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 3: the persona that she is putting on is causing more
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 3: of a problem than she might realize. And the psyche
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 3: is really fighting with her about that and feels that
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 3: it's worth having this kind of life or death battle
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 3: with her. So I think at 19, I think of
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 3: myself at 19, we're still trying to figure out what
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 3: kind of a persona to have to enter into the
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 3: professional world or to begin a life. And it's very
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 3: easy for us to adopt a persona that doesn't fit
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 3: very well because we're just experimenting to figure out how
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 3: to make ourselves up as we come out. But it
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 3: does feel like the snake, which is often a symbol
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 3: of wisdom, that the snake of wisdom is really against this.
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 3: And while the dog may be companionable and anxious, the
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 3: snake is the one that's making demands on the ego.
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 3: And I like your tone, Lisa, of thinking of the
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 3: snake as something of a god, carrying an enormous archetypal valence.
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 2: Well, both the snake and the dog do in very
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 2: different ways. You know, It's interesting that she says that
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 2: the dog and the snake, she's aware they're both versions
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 2: of her. And I'm curious, you know, again, if she
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 2: were here, I'd say, well, in what way? Or, you know,
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 2: say more about that. So that's interesting. You know, I
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 2: realize that I'm putting something on it, which is my
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 2: idea that she's by putting on clothes, she's getting ready
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 2: to leave. But there is this reference earlier in the dream.
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 2: There are two planks so that it is possible to exit.
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 2: And somehow that's this key moment in the dream when
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 2: the kind of tone changes. And it goes from being
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 2: very kind of pleasant, there's polite small talk, they're lying
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 2: in the sun. But then when she puts on clothes,
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 2: the sun is setting, like something has really shifted. And
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 2: in that sense, I wonder, I'm thinking of, for those
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 2: of you familiar with Don Kalschut's work, a little bit
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 2: of like, the persecutor protector, like does the snake not
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 2: want her to leave? I mean, snakes can symbolize wisdom
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 2: and they can also symbolize death and regression. You know,
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 2: that the snake bite kind of pulls us into the unconscious.
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 2: Jung wrote about that quite a bit. It kind of
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 2: paralyzes us and, and is somehow the snake bite and,
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 2: or the snake attack and image of some wise ancient
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 2: part of the psyche that that for whatever reason doesn't
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 2: want to let her go out into life and is
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 2: going to attack her and the dog. I mean, she's
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 2: fighting to save the dog. And the dogs are, you know,
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 2: another very complex symbol, can mean lots of things, but
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 2: they are at least, you know, one version of what
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 2: a dog can represent is helpful instincts. You know, dogs
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 2: work with us. So they're sort of that, they're instincts
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 2: that are kind of, you know, in service to the ego.
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 2: They're companions and they, you know, they can help us
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 2: do things. Somehow the snake doesn't want the dog, I mean,
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 2: the girl, the dreamer, or the dog to leave, perhaps.
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 2: Doesn't want, you know, the other thing about clothes, let
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 2: me just say one more thing.
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 3: There's a pile of clothes she's digging through, by the way.
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 2: Yes. Persona, yes. But also we need clothes to be
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 2: adapted to the outer world. So I do wonder if there's,
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 2: you know, she's at this important threshold when she should
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 2: be leaving home, getting a job, but, you know, she
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 2: can't because of the illness. So, you know, she needs
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 2: to cross that threshold out of the barn and And
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 2: adapt to the outer world. And there may be a
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 2: very important inner snake that for reasons that are a
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 2: little mysterious, you know, no.
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 4: I wish she was here.
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 3: To just fill in details in the dream. Because when
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 3: she says, however, the snake turns on me once I
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 3: start putting on the clothes to leave, I would love
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 3: to know exactly what the image is that tells her that.
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 3: And then the dog and I are locked in a battle.
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 4: With the snake.
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 3: I would be so important to see the onset of
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 3: that because it's not uncommon for the dream ego to
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 3: attack an inner figure because it decides that it's a problem.
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 3: We don't know whether the snake instigated the attack or
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 3: whether the snake was just saying, hey, don't leave me alone.
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 3: And then she's going after the snake. So we're missing
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 3: so much information. Well, one question I would, of course,
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 3: have is, what made it seem like going to war
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 3: with the snake was the only option? Because the snake
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 3: is in dialogue with her. And I am kind of wondering,
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 3: couldn't the debate, the dialogue have continued, much in the
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 3: way that Jung in the black books and then in
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 3: the red books He's in dialogue with these inner figures
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 3: and sometimes he's agreeing or disagreeing, they're making demands, he
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 3: pushes back. But it's the maintaining of the dialogue that
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 3: creates the tension. But here, the dreaming was decided that
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 3: the tension with the snake has to end with the
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 3: snake being killed and pushed back into the unconscious. So
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 3: I just wish I had more. This person here to
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 3: ask a lot of questions to. And then in battling
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 3: with the snake, that's when she falls into the ditch
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 3: that she's lost track of the option of crossing the
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 3: bridge to just safely escape.
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and then there's this image of sort of desperately
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 2: trying to get to the house in time to save
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 2: her life. losing the ability to use her left leg,
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 2: which I think is interesting, and then finding herself locked out.
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 2: So it's sort of like somehow that encounter didn't go well.
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 3: It's also the Garden of Eden again. Once they're thrown
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 3: out of the garden, this flaming cherub is set at
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 3: the front door of the garden saying, you can't come back.
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 3: So something has happened in the barn where she's been
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 3: bitten by the serpent. Something is now in her. And
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 3: I'm not sure that she can go back. Can you
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 3: go back to the childhood home after the serpent of
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 3: wisdom has filled you with ideas which at first are venomous,
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 3: but if engaged in the right way, become a kind
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 3: of medicine. And the early analysts thought of the analytic interpretation,
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 3: which is so painful to the ego as a kind
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 3: of serpent venom, that the wisdom of what you're up
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 3: to infects you. You feel sick with the insight. And
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 3: then if you can metabolize the poison, which means I've
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 3: got to change. Now that I see myself, this is awful.
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 3: Then we come out wise but having gone through the
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 3: being made sick by the inside and so there's five
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 3: if we think about it that way five insights five
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 3: venomous insights have been delivered to her and she stands
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 3: there and can is not welcome to go back to
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 3: the child complex because she's 19 And she's worried about
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 3: a curfew. So the parental complexes are just totally in charge.
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 3: I'm going to get in trouble. If I don't obey
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 3: mom and dad, I'm going to get in trouble. And
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 3: you can't go home. The way is blocked, which is
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 3: upsetting to the ego. And what I would suspect is
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 3: something she needs to integrate. You can't go back to
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 3: being a child, even though you're sick. Even though you
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 3: feel you can't work and you feel sick with the
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 3: venom of truth, you can't really go back to being
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 3: a baby, but we do regress when we get sick.
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 2: I mean, yeah. Yeah. That's, that's really great, Joseph. I, I,
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 2: I think you really landed it. And I'm, I'm aware
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 2: that we're back into this idea of initiation and Kwame,
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 2: I don't want to put you on the spot, but
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 2: I just, do you have any thoughts?
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 4: What, what, what, came to mind for me was, wow,
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 4: like I said, the dog and the snake.
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 5: And so when I was thinking about the dog, I
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 5: was thinking about the lower animal nature.
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 4: But the snake, I.
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 5: Was thinking, wow, that's the higher, the higher, you know?
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 5: And so like they're in conflict with one another. And
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 5: then when she said that time limit, she had, there's
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 5: only so much time she has.
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 4: That's what resonated with me.
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 5: But then like I said, wow, also what resonated, she's
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 5: stuck in that trench with barbed wire.
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Okay. So, wow.
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 5: So, so yeah, that, that was the only thing that, that,
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 5: like I said, I feel like I'm so out of
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 5: my realm here.
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 4: Cause I don't read like I used to when I
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 4: used to read and I.
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 2: Was, you know, but you know, how to work with
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 2: symbolic material.
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 2: So that's all, it's all the same.
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 5: So it's a time to, but then also too, she
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 5: said something about her, the, the, Ex-boyfriend?
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 2: Oh, right, the guy in the car. We didn't even
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 2: talk about him.
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah. That resonated with me, too. That felt important. That
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 4: resonated with me, too. Felt important. Yeah.
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 5: But then, like Joseph said, wow, she can't go back
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 5: to that childlike nature, even though, you know, she might
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 5: want to.
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 2: Uh-huh. Yeah, it's interesting that she, this is someone she
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 2: turned down for a date, I guess, and then he
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 2: was kind of cold to her after that. Yeah, there's
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 2: something there about being, you know, that he drives past.
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 2: her and ignores her cries for help. So there's a
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 2: way where she feels very alone, I think.
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 3: And when I think of the lamentation for help, it
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 3: is part of the painful medicine from the psyche. is
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 3: that that stance, again, is kind of what a puppy
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 3: might do, or a baby might do, is this kind
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 3: of crying and helplessness. And I think that the animus
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 3: is not in support of that attitude. There may be
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 3: some other way that she could engage the animus in
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 3: order to get something she needs, but crying for help, again,
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 3: feels like that it's young and helpless, there must be
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 3: some other stance. And I don't know exactly what that
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 3: would be. Generally, when something's not rewarded in a dream
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 3: with a positive response, we're thrown back upon ourselves and asking,
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 3: how am I going to get this to change? How
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 3: am I going to solve this problem if crying out
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 3: for help isn't the way forward?
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 3: I also think that the idea that she's cut off
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 3: the snake's head, but a part of the snake now
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 3: lives in her, that yes, it's the venom of wisdom,
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 3: but also it's part of the snake. And the fantasy
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 3: I have is that she will now have to become
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 3: part snake. It's a little like Rappaccini's daughter. She becomes
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 3: a poisonous flower being exposed to poisonous flowers in that
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 3: she needs to be more like the serpent of wisdom
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 3: and less like an affable, voiceless puppy that just kind
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 3: of is companionably and anxiously next to someone much like
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 3: a child might be, a toddler, without words yet and
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 3: needing to be protected. that maybe it's the snake that
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 3: should have been prioritized, not the puppy and not getting
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 3: home for curfew. And I would have to say that
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 3: if any of us sitting in this room in a
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 3: naturalistic environment found a talking snake, I'd probably hang around
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 3: and say, nine o'clock, got to get home.
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 4: Like, this is wild.
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 3: I think I'm going to stay for, you know, until
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 3: the snake is done, you know. A god is talking
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 3: to you.
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's another thing. Because in the myth you say,
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 5: she's understanding the.
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 4: Language of animals.
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes.
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 4: Okay, so that's pretty cool.
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 3: Slytherin, she can understand snakes, right?
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's pretty cool.
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 2: You know, one more thing I'll say is that there's
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 2: a couple images of cutoff in the dream. Or surrounding
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 2: the dream, there's the cutting off of the snake's head.
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 2: And then also there's this young man who asked her
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 2: on a date. She refused him. They were cordial. But
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 2: after graduation, they no longer talk. So there's been a
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 2: cutoff with, you know, I'm not literalizing it to say
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 2: that person, but maybe a cutoff from her own kind
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 2: of masculine potential or something. And then, of course, she's
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 2: mostly cut off in the barn. So something's not gone well,
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 2: I think. And of course, there's always another chance in
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 2: the psyche.
• 1:42:13
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• 1:42:19
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