Podcast and Poetry – Practicing Symbolic Language
We are now in our second season of The Laughing Mystics podcast! (A dialogue between mystical Christianity and Depth Psychology – “The Laughing Mystics.” You can find more thoughts about our podcast here.)
I’m finding myself bolder now and am regularly exploring the readings as if they are dreams. This has blown open many of the texts for me and it is part of my goal to practice hearing (and even speaking) symbolic language. Join us! Here’s our description.
Good friends Marci Madary & Laura Lewis-Barr bring differing perspectives to the Sunday readings of the liturgical calendar. Each week Marci shares her mystical Christian insights & infectious laughter with Laura, who ponders what Carl Jung & Joseph Campbell might say about these scriptures. Unscripted & lively, Laura & Marci offer as many questions as answers as to how Depth Psychology & Christianity might come together. New episodes every Thursday! Write to us at Laughing.Mystics@gmail.com, Join our FB community!
Opening intro from our early episodes: I’m Marcy Madary and I am a church lady. I have worked in ministry of one kind or another in my entire professional life. I have my doctorate in theology and spirituality and I love connecting with people and working with them on their journey. I’m Laura Lewis-Barr and what I’m passionate about is studying symbolic language. I think that the Bible and sacred literature in general lends itself to this kind of reading, and it, for me brings the reading very alive and helps me apply it to my daily life. The mystery of my daily life.
Find us on your favorite podcast platform here!
I’m thrilled with this new podcast project. My history with the Catholic church is a central part of my individuation journey. I felt a calling to create this new art-work , especially when the brilliant and talented Marci Madary agreed to join me in the local sound booth. While we both do some preparation for our conversations on the Sunday’s scripture readings, neither of use know what we will say, and we both have no memory of what we’ve said! We are clearly “inspired by the Holy Spirit” (Marci) or “allowing the Unconscious to speak” (me).
For my part, there is great joy but also some fear as I share a symbolic view of the scripture. When I moved toward a symbolic viewpoint (after reading some biblical scholarship in a religion class) I was extremely disoriented and anxious. I know that some people may be angry at me for what I’m saying. And some won’t care about this subject at all. If you’re curious about a conversation that includes a symbolic reading of the Jesus story, check us out!
Metaphors carry us from one place to another, they enable us to cross boundaries that would otherwise be closed to us. Spiritual truths that transcend time and space can only be borne in metaphorical vessels whose meaning is found in their connotations—that is, in the cloud of witnesses to the many sides of truth that they spontaneously evoke—not in their denotations, the hard, factual, uni-dimensional casings of their historical reference.
From the introduction of Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell) (p. 33)
The Laughing Mystics: Jungian Psychology and the Christian Liturgical Year
“So thinking is prior to language. What language contributes is to firm up certain particular ways of seeing the world and give fixity to them. See more
The Laughing Mystics: Jungian Psychology and the Christian Liturgical Year
"The day will come when, after harnessing the ether, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on See more
The Laughing Mystics: Jungian Psychology and the Christian Liturgical Year
We are all born as animals and live the life that animals live: We sleep, eat, reproduce, and fight. There is, however, another order of See more
The Laughing Mystics: Jungian Psychology and the Christian Liturgical Year
There’s a rule, either you do spiritual practices, or the unconscious will force you to act them out in pseudo-ritual ways. I really believe that See more
The Laughing Mystics: Jungian Psychology and the Christian Liturgical Year
I love brain studies, esp. on spirituality. - "On a recent episode of the Hidden Brain podcast, hosted by Shankar Vedantam, Miller, author of The See more
The Laughing Mystics: Jungian Psychology and the Christian Liturgical Year
New episode Thursday! This week's scripture explores anger. How do I deal with my own anger? Join us!
The Laughing Mystics: Jungian Psychology, Christian Spirituality, and Laughter
Listen to The Laughing Mystics: Jungian Psychology, Christian Spirituality, and Laughter wherever you get your podcasts!
The Laughing Mystics: Jungian Psychology and the Christian Liturgical Year
Yes!
The Laughing Mystics: Jungian Psychology and the Christian Liturgical Year
This is a tough thought, impossible for many. Jung says this too and I know Bishop Spong has written about Jung. Posting this to not See more
The Laughing Mystics: Jungian Psychology and the Christian Liturgical Year
"Some men never discover the divine presence within because they can't bring themselves to face their demons. Don't try to engineer this process or manufacture See more
The Laughing Mystics: Jungian Psychology and the Christian Liturgical Year
Psychotherapist Mark Vernon speaking of William Blake: "The industrial age was booming, manifesting the insights of the scientific revolution. It was a tangibly, visibly changing See more
The Laughing Mystics: Jungian Psychology and the Christian Liturgical Year
"The only thing I know to do in this moment of Christian history is to enter this exile, to feel its anxiety and discomfort, but See more
The Laughing Mystics: Jungian Psychology and the Christian Liturgical Year
From Fr. Rohr's book, Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self. "Many Christians fervently believe in Jesus' bodily resurrection but never get to the See more
Imagine writing a poem every day? It is a profound spiritual practice that I’m beginning on Substack. Join me! You can add poems of your own or just use my daily poem as a divination tool toward your own daily reflections. Subscribing means a freshly written poem will be delivered straight to your email. So far, almost a week into this project, I’m feeling really excited by the vessel that is both a poem and the Substack platform. Thanks for checking it out!
Also, from last year’s newsletter here’s a link to some of Laura’s published poetry.