"Nurturing Vision" (original) (raw)

Reflections from Art and Psyche: The Illuminated Imagination

Jung journal, 2019

LAURA SOBLE I walk from the parking garage through the theater building, past the campus lagoon. I sit on a bench and listen to a sound collage: birds, skateboards, bike gears, a whirr of building machinery, footsteps-fast-paced as the time for class approaches. College students hurry by wearing heavy backpacks, earbuds in, and I am transported back forty years to when I was an undergraduate at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). I hear a bird call-who. .. who. .. whooooo, who. .. who. .. whooooo. I reflect on who I am, where I've been. .. This place brings back many sense memories-of riding my bike to and from classes, of the familiarity of the landscape, the smell of the lagoon-still the same-contrasted with changes and upgrades to the campus I notice. I am bathed in remembering-perhaps reclaiming sights, sounds, experiences that have been less conscious in the past forty years of launching into the world, pursuing an art, working, raising a family, changing paths, obtaining more education and training, going through a divorce and moving to a new city. .. and the last seven years of analytical training. I remember the advice of my directing professor in college: "You need to ask the hard questions, love. The hard questions." **** My aesthetic response to the fourth Art and Psyche conference in Santa Barbara was telling-a combination of awe, sensory overload, ambivalence, exhilaration, and exhaustion. Art and Psyche, Conference IV was a huge buffet, with more offerings than could possibly be consumed during the gathering. The schedule for each day was full, from morning through evening with keynote talks, plenary sessions, break-out offerings, and evening performances. Not only was there more than could be absorbed, but also the time given for presentations-sometimes just thirty minutes-felt compressed. It was a huge amuse-bouche-offering enticing tastes of many visual images, ideas, presentation styles, personalities, and work. On one level I was inspired by the embarrassment of riches; on another, I found that I longed for more space to connect with and discuss material with both presenters and other participants.