Description
This workshop is rooted in ancient, personal, and mythic stories. With permission from a traditional Coast Salish storyteller, pertinent teaching stories will be told that serve as touchstones and jumping-off places for reflecting on our place in the World Soul. The guiding tenants of stories from an indigenous matriarchy are equality, respect, acknowledgment, inter-being, and generosity. In a similar way, our personal stories of signs, dreams, initiations, and nature, guide and connect us. Indigenous stories engender reflection, questions, and fresh perspectives on individuation, the collective unconscious, archetypes, and the World Soul. For example, the Samish people embraced eight genders. Each gender became recognized by an archetypal pattern — the healer, the ceremonialist, etc., — and each contributed to the tribe. In this workshop we will delve deeper into the causes of despair and dismemberment, hyper-individualism, hierarchy, and disconnection from nature and we will seek ways to reclaim radiant interconnection through story.
Dr. Joanne Halverson grew up in the Pacific Northwest. In her early twenties, she and her small family moved to the woods of San Juan Island and lived off-grid for many years. Joanne earned a doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Antioch University and her master’s degree in Existential Phenomenology from Seattle University. For over 30 years, she practiced as a therapist, supervisor, writer/researcher, and part-time faculty at Seattle University in the Psychology department. Joanne has relished studying topics on envy, wisdom, aesthetics, and walking in two worlds. Several articles on these subjects appear in the Journal of Humanistic Psychology. Joanne treasures over twenty-five years of initiations, ceremonies, and in-depth training with traditional indigenous leaders. Her intimacy with nature, indigenous teachings, and mystical experiences inform her work as an artist and craftswoman. Currently, she practices as a psycho-spiritual mentor and leads soul renewal wilderness retreats.
