Lecture
Friday, September 18, 2026
7:00 – 9:00 p.m. PDT | Cost: $20 | Hybrid Event
Across centuries, these strange and enduring stories have carried the soul’s memory through times of collapse, exile, upheaval, and renewal. They emerge from the deep forests of the collective psyche bearing symbols, terrors, helpers, riddles, wolves, witches, impossible tasks, and hidden treasures—not merely to entertain us, but to orient us.
Fairy tales begin with disorientation: a lost child, a barren kingdom, a wanderer at the edge of the woods, a woman who no longer knows who she is. And yet, the tale insists: there is still a path.
In this richly layered and imaginal evening, we explore the profound psychological wisdom embedded within traditional fairy tales through the lens of Jungian psychology, symbolic life, and the modern crisis of meaning.
Together, we will explore:
Why fairy tales appear most urgently during periods of personal and collective uncertainty, and why symptoms, anxiety, and disorientation may signal the beginning of initiation rather than failure
The symbolic roles of the forest, the witch, the impossible task, and the hidden helper
How fairy tales speak to the lost instinctual life of modern people and continue to illuminate the soul’s path in difficult times
The archetypal journey home—and the difference between comfort and belonging
I invite participants into an evening that is intellectually nourishing, emotionally resonant, and spiritually alive. It is an invitation to remember something ancient within yourself.
Come if you are weary.
Come if you are wandering.
Come if you suspect the soul still knows the way home.
Workshop
Saturday, September 19, 2026
10:00 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. PDT | Cost: $125 | Hybrid Event
Building upon the Friday talk, this immersive and experiential workshop invites participants deeper into the symbolic landscape of the fairy tale as a living map of the psyche. If the Friday talk opened the forest path, Saturday enters the woods.
Together, we will explore why fairy tales endure—not as sentimental relics of childhood, but as profound psychological and spiritual containers capable of guiding the soul through periods of uncertainty, grief, transition, initiation, aging, collapse, and renewal.
Drawing from Jungian psychology, archetypal theory, dreams, myth, and lived experience, I will guide us into the imaginal and transformative world of traditional tales, where witches guard thresholds, forests disorient the ego, impossible tasks refine the soul, and hidden helpers emerge precisely when all seems lost.
Throughout the day, we will explore questions such as:
What happens psychologically when we lose the path home to ourselves?
Why do fairy tales so often begin in famine, exile, abandonment, or enchantment?
What is the symbolic function of Baba Yaga, the wolf, the dark forest, the bone house, or the impossible task?
Why does modern culture often pathologize experiences that older symbolic traditions understood as initiation?
How do fairy tales help restore instinct, imagination, meaning, and relationship to the deeper Self?
What does it mean to become an elder capable of carrying fire through dark times?
Particular attention will be given to tales such as “Vasilisa the Beautiful,” “The Hunter and Fox Woman,” and other stories that illuminate the soul’s journey through fear, fragmentation, and transformation toward wholeness.
Participants need not have prior Jungian training—only curiosity, openness, and a willingness to enter the forest.
This workshop is especially suited for people of all genders, including therapists, seekers, artists, caregivers, elders, educators, clergy, and anyone standing at the threshold of change.
Fairy tales remind us that the path is rarely straight. That wisdom often arrives disguised. That the soul speaks symbolically long before the ego understands.
And perhaps most importantly: what appears lost may not be gone.
It may simply be waiting in the woods for us to find it differently.