Creating a hospitable community intent on raising consciousness by exploring Jungian Psychology in today’s evolving world.
The C.G. Jung Society of Saint Louis, a not-for-profit organization, serves to deepen understanding of the work of Carl Jung and Analytical Psychology in the wider St. Louis community. It is supported by subscribing Friends and by contributions.
To celebrate the life and memory of Shirley M. Fontenot, the Jung Society has created an honorary chair for Shirley in each of our study groups. What this means is that one person will be chosen by lot among all who have registered for a particular study group and will be refunded the amount paid.
Shirley was devoted to creating and facilitating study groups on many topics, including the Harry Potter books, sand play, and books by James Hollis. Her coffee table was always spread with mini-chocolate bars as defense against the presence of Dementors!
There will be a Shirley Fontenot Chair in both in-person and Zoom study groups, donated by the Jung Society. Thank you, Shirley!
Save the date! The first weekend in October (Thursday, October 3 to Sunday, October 6), the C.G. Jung Society of St. Louis invites you to participate in our eighth biennial Jung in the Heartland Conference, Earth Speaks, Psyche Dreams: Jungian Perspectives on Our Shared Ecologies.
This year marks the Society’s return to an in-person conference offering and our first year at Mercy Conference and Retreat Center off Geyer Road in St. Louis County. Meaning will unfold through presentations, workshops, music, dialogue, art, dream work, poetry, massage, yoga, and ritual.
Jung in the Heartland Faculty: Jungian Analysts Lori Pye and Stephen Foster
The Society will welcome Lori Pye and Stephen Foster as its 2024 conference faculty.
LORI PYE is a Founder and President of Viridis Graduate Institute (Ecological Psychology and Environmental Humanities – viridis.edu). As an executive director for international marine nonprofits, Lori worked with numerous NGOs to co-develop the Eastern Tropical Pacific Biological Seascape Corridor with the Ministers of the Environment from Costa Rica, Colombia, Panama, and Ecuador. Lori received her B.S. at Texas A&M and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Mythological Studies and Depth Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute.
Lori has multiple publications in peer-reviewed journals and serves on the Editorial Board for Ecopsychology Journal. Lori lectures at Viridis Graduate Institute and the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB). She formerly taught at Pacifica Graduate Institute (clinical psychology, counseling psychology, depth psychology, and mythological studies programs), and at Kaweah Delta Mental Health Hospital Psychiatric Residency Program. Forthcoming textbook: Fundamentals of Ecological Psychology, Routledge.
STEPHEN FOSTER is Senior Training Analyst with the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts (IRSJA) teaching with their Memphis-Atlanta Seminar. He is a Licensed Professional Counselor and a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis, with a private practice in Boulder, Colorado. Stephen teaches on a wide range of subjects including nature and the environment, alchemy, Norse mythology, Fairy Tales, and the Tarot (See his website: www.BoulderJungianAnalyst.com).
Before becoming a Jungian Analyst, Stephen worked as an environmental scientist studying the risks and impacts associated with hazardous chemicals in the environment. The combination of these experiences results in his book Risky Business: A Jungian view of environmental disasters and the Nature Archetype, which expands on his interests in the psychology of environmental problems, nature, and archetypes related to humanity’s interactions with nature.
Conference Program Highlights
Jung on the Human Psyche’s Split with Nature
There are forces at work in the human psyche that treat the earth as an object and deny the obvious: that we also mature in our relationship with the earth. Jung discussed this split from the Nature Archetype, which has become activated on personal and collective levels due to climate crisis. It is often through literature and art that our psyches are enlivened, re-animated, and re-connected with the natural world.
Attendees will explore nature in their dreams. By paying close attention to the natural setting of dreams and using Jung’s synthetic method of associative and amplification techniques, participants will search for transcendent symbols that might provide both personal and collective insights.
Our externalization of human wastes into the environment is causing a wide range of problems for humanity, which are forcing us to adapt. Although the earth and humanity are adaptable, the accelerated time scale for adaptation is untenable. Our conference closing will examine Jung’s thoughts on adaptation and consider what this may mean for nature and ourselves as we search for the Lumen Naturae (the Light of Nature).
Earth-Human: Climates in Crisis
Over the course of the weekend, a few ideas will be shared from ecological psychology and the examination of one of the planet’s overarching processes, the necessity of change, to offer ways of sensing and responding differently to a suffering planet.
The Conference sessions will include intra-active workshops and outdoor walks to deepen our ecopsychological (an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary field that focuses on the synthesis of ecology and psychology) understanding of change.
We will convene in a beautiful retreat center with trails, gardens, and a labyrinth. It is only 25 minutes from the St. Louis airport; the food is delicious and locally sourced when possible. Vegetarians, vegans, those requiring gluten-free options, and those with food allergies are easily accommodated. All rooms are individually thermostat controlled and have private baths. An exercise room is available. Rooms and buildings are non-smoking. See Mercy Center’s website for more details and driving directions.
Accommodations at Mercy Conference and Retreat Center are limited and filled on a first-come, first-served basis. If all rooms are filled when your registration with a room request is received, nearby hotels are available.
Open Art Studio
An area will be set aside and materials provided for creating mandalas using paint, collage, markers and found objects. When we create mandalas, we are making a personal symbol that represents who we are in the moment.
Conference Schedule
On Thursday, October 3, check-in opens at 3:00 PM and dinner is served from 5:30 to 6:45 PM. The Opening Session of the conference starts at 7:00 PM. The program continues all day and evening on Friday and Saturday. Sunday’s session on October 6 closes the conference at noon, followed by lunch. A detailed schedule will be distributed to attendees on opening day.
“We should not rise above the earth with the aid of ‘spiritual’ intuitions and run away from hard reality…”
Refund Policy: Full refund of conference fees if canceled by September 1, 2024. Fifty percent refund of conference fees (less $50 registration fee) if canceled by September 12, 2024. No refunds of conference fees after September 1, 2024. Membership fees are non-refundable.
All rights are reserved by the Conference Directors to make faculty substitutions and/or request that disruptive participants leave without a refund. All content of presentations and events represents the views of the speakers only and may not represent views of The C.G. Jung Society of St. Louis.
CEs: A total of 12 CEs are available to LCSW, LPC, LCPC, and General Studies applicants for the conference proper through the Chicago Jung Center. Additional details will be available as soon as registration opens.
This year marks 30 years of The C. G. Jung Society of St. Louis!
During this Friday night event, Lou Galloway-Zapiain led attendees in an in-person program designed for mythologists in general, those with specific interest in the Persephone / Demeter myth, those students of Jung seeking to understand more fully the workings of archetypes, and those who work with populations dealing with trauma as a result of displacement or sudden upheaval in life.
The presentation focused on how the 3,000-year-old myth manifested itself to touch the lives of immigrants and refugees in 2022. It revolved around two intertwined, present-day stories. One story tells of Persephone’s calling upon an English as a Second Language teacher, guiding him to present her myth to his class of immigrants and refugees. The second story told the challenges he met to present this complex story to his students of limited English proficiency.
Society Vice President Francesca “Cheska” Ferrentelli noted that “Lou’s presentation was fantastic, particularly as he discussed his process in creating the program. The dramatic reading was very effective, the audience was really engaged,” and attendees called the program heartfelt, inspiring, and healing.
A lifelong student of mythology and intercultural connections, Lou Galloway-Zapiain has lived in and traveled to over 40 countries on six continents. His travels have focused on exploring indigenous people’s spirituality and mythology, cultural similarities, and “off the beaten path” adventure. He has 45 years experience as a classroom teacher of world history, world cultures, and English as a Second Language.
Lou is a founding member of the ManKind Project – St. Louis. Over the past 30 years, he has led and assisted with workshops, trainings, and retreats based on the fundamentals of Depth Psychology and personal growth development.
During this Friday night event, Dr. Francesca “Cheska” Ferrentelli told the story The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane — one of Kate DiCamillo’s rich, powerful, and moving middle-grade reader books whose highly archetypal themes are akin to modern-day fairy tales — and discussed it from a Jungian and archetypal perspective. She then presented participants with study questions before they moved to breakout rooms to discuss their findings.
Later, everyone came back together in the larger group, where individuals were welcomed to share their thoughts.
By the end of the evening’s event, participants were able to
Understand the concepts of archetypes, persona, shadow, and individuation.
Discuss their ideas about these concepts and how they are alive in the story.
Name some of the characters and demonstrate how they fit into these concepts.
Francesca “Cheska” Ferrentelli, Ph.D., is a Jungian-influenced psychotherapist, mythologist, author, and storyteller in St. Louis, Missouri. In her private practice, she specializes in trauma, eating disorders, addictions, adult children of alcoholics, and EMDR therapy. She received her doctorate in Mythological Studies from Pacifica Graduate Institute in 2003, and her M.A. in Professional Psychology from Lindenwood University in 1993. Dr. Ferrentelli has served on the board of the C. G. Jung Society of St. Louis since 2007 and currently serves as Vice President. She has led multiple study groups for the St. Louis Jung Society. Her children’s book, The Zebra and the Black Pony, was released in 2020.
