WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU COMBINE DEPTH PSYCHOLOGY WITH CREATIVITY?

In 2016, three scholars and creatives affiliated with Pacifica Graduate Institute came together to write a book exploring everyday ways to access and enhance creativity. After sending seven essays each back and forth across the world to each other, Deborah (in her 30s and a Pacifica alum), Jennifer (in her 50s and a Pacifica alum and adjunct faculty member), and Dennis (in his 70s and a Pacifica emeritus faculty member) stepped back and took a look at what they had produced. It was more than a series of individual essays, they realized. It was closer to a philosophy, it was closer to an ontology, it was a new worldview generated by the marriage of depth psychology and creativity. Doing a close reading of their own texts, they discerned 15 principles of what they began to call “deep creativity.”

Now, for the first time, Deborah, Jennifer, and Dennis return home to Pacifica to present their award-winning book Deep Creativity: Seven Ways to Spark Your Creative Spirit as a workshop, with an optional online intensive.

This dynamic, highly collaborative program invites:

• People who fully embrace their creativity, and are looking for ways to deepen their practice and perspective
• People who consider themselves creative but are facing some kind of block or inertia, and are looking for inspiration
• People who have yet to unlock and unleash their creative potential, and are looking for supportive strategies

WEEKEND WORKSHOP OVERVIEW

Session One: The Creation Myth (Deborah, with Jennifer and Dennis)

Deborah will kick off the program with the genesis story of Deep Creativity — her original impulse for the book, the journey of selecting co-authors, the unique process we followed while writing it, and the way the book eventually found its form. She’ll invite Jennifer and Dennis into a discussion on the benefits (and challenges) of creative collaboration, which is at the heart and soul of deep creativity—the way we breathe in inspiration from others, and breathe out our own creative response.

Session Two: The 15 Principles of Deep Creativity (Jennifer, with Deborah and Dennis)

The center of gravity of the book are the 15 principles of deep creativity. In the book’s design, text boxes call out those places where we are illustrating a principle—in Jennifer’s presentation, she’ll do the same. After naming and describing each principle, she’ll offer examples from a wide variety of artists and creators across time and culture, illustrating one of the book’s very principles—that deep creativity is archetypal. Deborah and Dennis will add stories from their own creative lives.

Session Three: The Hunger to Create (Dennis)

If the soul has a number of food groups it hungers after, then creativity is right at the top of the menu. We yearn for, hunger for creative ways to incarnate ourselves in the world in order to give further form to who we are and why we are. Dennis will explore many hungers to create that spiral around a common center—to craft a form of our life within and to express it to others in communal ways.

Session Four: Personifying and the Imagination of the Heart (Deborah)

In his pivotal work, Re-Visioning Psychology, James Hillman defined personifying as “imagining things in a personal form so that we can find access to them with our hearts.” Along the path to creativity, personifying “offers another avenue of loving”—placing attentiveness and relationship at the center of our work. In this session, we explore personifying as a practice that can be deeply awakening, and understand what the gifts of this practice can be in our process and expression in the world. We will then have allocated time to practice personifying in our own, unique way.

Session Five: One’s Life As a Canvas (Dennis)

We will explore the rich analogy that gathers around painting and the creation of our person. If we imagine the canvas as the container for our life, and the paint as giving it texture, then what are some of the most creative decisions/acts that have brought us to our own canvas’ multi-colored imagery? And since we’re all still artistic works in progress, then what myth is directing and influencing the brush strokes we anticipate making, revealing our own life’s coherence and originality?

Session Six: The Way of Practice (Jennifer, with Deborah and Jennifer)

One of the seven ways of deep creativity is the way of practice. Practice is explored several ways in the book. Practice can be literal, as in a musician practicing scales. Practice can be structural, as in the habits or rituals that maintain and sustain our creative lives. Practice can be a state of mind or heart or soul that we enter into that inspires our creativity. After Jennifer explores these three forms of practice, and invites Deborah and Dennis to share some of their practices, participants will be invited to write their own creative manifestos, a public declaration of the ways in which they will dedicate and devote themselves to new—or renewed—creative practices.

THE ADDITIONAL 3 MONTH ONLINE INTENSIVE

Continue the conversation with Deborah and Jennifer and Deep Creativity
Come together with a community of creatives ready to deepen and broaden their creative practice
Commit yourself to your creative life with supportive companions

The way of practice is explored during the workshop, but what about the other 6 ways? Join Deborah and Jennifer in this 3-month online intensive to delve into them all.

Weeks 1-2: The Way of the Muse

Weeks 3-4: The Way of Suffering

Weeks 5-6: The Way of Art

Weeks 7-8: The Way of the Sacred

Weeks 9-10: The Way of Nature

Weeks 11-12: The Way of Love

Each 2-week module traverses the following territory:

• A recorded presentation by Deborah and Jennifer on the way at hand
• Guided readings from Deep Creativity
• An open discussion board where participants post answers to reflection questions, and the community along with Deborah and Jennifer respond
• The introduction of several creative practices and processes, with the invitation to share on a discussion board the products which emerge

Everyone is welcome, from neophytes to the creative life, to long-time devotees with established practices. No particular skill level is needed; no particular art form must be declared. Enthusiasm, a willingness to play, a desire to support others, and a measure of devotion to your soul’s creative unfolding are all we ask.

Deborah Anne Quibell, Ph.D. has taught healing and meditation for over 14 years, on four of the seven continents and holds a PhD in Depth Psychology with emphasis in Jungian and Archetypal Studies from Pacifica. She released her debut collection of poetry Soul Bird : Poems for Flying in Spring 2019. She has published in academic journals and engaged with some of the top online and print publications, most recently Spirituality & Health magazine. She is a passionate creative, and believes in breathing grounded knowledge from scholarly pursuits into the fields of mysticism and spirituality, while staying accessible to a wide audience through humor, heart, poetics and grace. She is a senior instructor for the Institute for Inner Studies and teaches pranic healing, yoga, and meditation throughout Europe and the United States. She has been invited to speak at international conferences and festivals and has made both television and radio appearances. She now lives in Rome, Italy with her husband and son, and is constantly searching for magic and meaning amidst the beautiful mess of modern day life. Deborah has always believed in reaching for the stars, but never imagined two — Dennis and Jennifer — would join her on a crazy venture to co-author a volume on creativity. Standing amidst these two shining giants fueled her growth in unimaginable ways. (www.deborahannequibell.com)

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Jennifer Leigh Selig, Ph.D. spent over 30 years in education, where she was known for her innovative and cross-disciplinary approach to curriculum and program development in literature, humanities, and depth psychology. She currently travels the world teaching courses on deep creativity, including deep memoir and deep vocation. She is the author of dozens of newspaper articles, book reviews, journal articles, three screenplays, and is either the author, editor, contributor, or publisher of over twenty two books. She is a frequently invited speaker to national and international conferences, symposiums, and workshops. Besides writing, she is passionate about travel and photography. She considers collaborating with Deborah and Dennis to be among one of the most privileged and joyful experiences in her life. (www.jenniferleighselig.com)

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Dennis Patrick Slattery, Ph.D. has been teaching for 51 years, the last 26 in Mythological Studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Carpinteria, California. He has authored, co-authored, edited or co-edited 30 volumes, including one co-authored novel with Charles Asher and 7 volumes of poetry. He has also published over 200 articles in journals, books, magazines, newspapers and on-line venues. At one point he took pottery classes where he taught at a Catholic university in San Antonio, Texas. He has for the past 8 years taken painting classes in acrylic and watercolor with a former student, now a professional artist. In the last four years he has been writing regular Op-Ed pieces for newspapers in New Braunfels, Texas and San Antonio, Texas. He has also enjoyed immensely collaborating with both Deborah Anne Quibell and Jennifer Leigh Selig on Deep Creativity: Seven Ways to Spark Your Creative Spirit. He believes, with them, that the spirit of creativity lives deeply in all of us. Courage and coaxing are often enough to witness it flower in individuals. When not writing or teaching, he enjoys riding his Harley Davidson motorcycle with his sons, Matt and Steve, through the Texas Hill Country. (www.dennispslattery.com)

 

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