Interest Group Information
Interest Groups are small groups in which you can enrich your experience of the Plenaries either through discussing the material or by allowing different and creative processes to give you space to absorb the subject matter of the Plenaries.
Parsing the Plenary - Riley Robinson Let’s talk about what has come up for us during Marcelle’s plenaries. Please bring your insights. Let’s gather around our own “fireplace” as listening companions. Marcelle’s four sessions are titled:
—Finding the Center, the Refiner’s Fire, and Transformation
—The Felt Sense, Focusing, and the Gathered Meeting
—Divine Revelations and Using Focusing With Our Dreams
—What the Tender Heart Knows
Perhaps each of us can sit quietly with these before the conference to consider what these might mean to us now from our own experience. Do questions come up that we want to bring to the conference and the interest group?
Riley Robinson is a longtime Quaker WFCRP attender who, thanks in part to this conference, keeps finding out that he’s not the same as he used to be.
Quaker History - Walter Brown This group will center on discussions of first Friends going up until the present day. No prior knowledge of Quakerism is necessary.
Walter Brown is a retired psychotherapist and a lifelong Friend. He and his wife Carole are members of Langley Hill Friends Meeting in Virginia. He has been attending WFCRP and has been on the planning committee for many years. He has led workshops at Baltimore Yearly Meeting and other Quaker and professional organizations.
The Painting Room - Susan Fitch Brown Welcome to the Painting Room. This is a place where we can paint our dreams or allow our creative selves to record our current journeys. We will spend the first part of our time together in meditation and then discussion of a short poem or story. Then we will collect our drawing, painting, collage or other art materials and begin working silently with music in the background. At least once in the session the music will be changed. At that time you may start a new piece or continue with your current one. Toward the end of the session we will break to share our work and thoughts about how the reading, the music and/or the Plenary topics played a part in our art making. Art supplies can be varied based on what is available to you. Please have at least several sheets of paper for each session and a mix of art supplies that may include one or more markers, crayons, watercolors, inks, pencils, paste and collage materials or paints.
Susan Fitch Brown is an artist and also a retired information manager and archivist. She currently is on the Planning Committee for both FCRP and WFCRP and is also the Recorder/archivist for her Meeting, and an Honorary Archivist with the Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore College. Additionally she is webmaster for the Olney Art Association and curates a small gallery at her Meeting. She has both an MDiv and an MLS, and graduated from the Master Artists Program (MAP) of the Compass Atelier in 2023.
Symbolic Dream Interpretation - Jane Byerley “I can understand myself only in the light of inner happenings. It is these that make up the singularity of my life.” There is nothing more compelling than an “inner happening.” Did it happen? Should I take it seriously? Maybe I am making a lot out of nothing.” Our rational mind wants to say that this is not a “thing.” But what is more of an inner happening than a dream? Have you had a dream grab you and not let go? Maybe it is a dream from childhood. Maybe it is a dream that was frightening, or deeply meaningful, or maybe just a puzzle.
Jung called dreams “the royal road to the unconscious.” In this group, we will talk about ways to analyze a dream. We will NOT do any therapy, and you do NOT have to share a dream. We will each work with a dream (or dreams) that we bring and begin to parse it to find possible meanings. Of course, there are dreams we puzzle over for decades. We probably will not DECIDE anything—unless you do. And that will be just fine.
Bring a few dreams you want to work on, a curiosity about what they might be meaning, and a symbol dictionary if you have one. (If you don’t, use your phone). Come build some tools that Jungians use to examine a dream.
Jane Byerley is an LGSW therapist with a practice in Washington, D.C. She is a candidate to become a Jungian analyst, training with the Interregional Society of Jungian Analysts, and is the Executive Director of the Jung Society of Washington. She has an MSW and graduate work in English Literature. She worked for many years as a management consultant and is a member of the planning committee for WFCRP.
Introduction to Shamanism - Sundance Metelsky Sundance will share about shamanism, an ancient practice of engaging with nature and spirit helpers for guidance and healing. This will be an experiential interest group where we’ll learn about and practice shamanic journeying, dancing the animals, and connecting with the land. Sundance will provide guidance and instructions for each exercise. We will seek assistance from and connection with compassionate helping spirits. This assistance may include healing for an individual or group, divination and guidance, support for the land and community, and so on.
Wear comfortable clothing and bring a journal/pen and something to cover your eyes (scarf, bandana, eye mask). You may also wish to bring a candle, small animal figurine, rock/stone, picture, etc. Please be in a space where you won’t be interrupted.
Sundance Metelsky is a certified Jungian coach, dream explorer, and shamanic practitioner. She has been walking the shamanic path since 1992 and has studied with numerous shamanic teachers over the years, including Rena Yount, Tom Cowan, Nan Moss, and David Corbin. She completed the Foundation for Shamanic Studies’ 3-Year Program of Advanced Initiations and Shamanic Healing, as well as a 3-Year Weather Shamanism Apprenticeship program with Nan Moss. Her interests include dream and art explorations, deep diving in the psyche, research/study of various myths/stories/cultures, and tending to the Earth. https://www.sundanceheartsong.com/
Fairy Tales: The Inner Light and Inner Dark - Lorraine Kreahling Jungians have long been fascinated with fairy tales because they mirror the individuation process that is at the heart of Jungian analytic theory and practice. In simplest terms, Jungian individuation is an ongoing journey of self-discovery which involves bringing matters that are pressing on us from our unconscious—in the forms of dreams, neuroses (and compulsions) and projections—into the Light of consciousness to be integrated and made a part of who we are.
The archetype of the fairy tale is similar to the mythic hero’s journey—but with less detail. This leaves more open space for children and the child within us to fill it with material from our imagination. Fairy tales have held on through time, because like dreams, they can light up a hidden part of ourselves.
In this group we will use the skeleton of a fairy tale to exercise and exorcise parts of us that may be hidden. We will give space to the heroic qualities Jung believed each of us has. That like the hero’s journey, our fairy tale will begin at home and end there gives us safe boundaries to do both serious and playful exploration of the unconscious. We can bring back a little of that Refiner’s Fire to not only brighten our daily lives and daily bread—but to see the treasure inherent in the Dark and our Shadow.
You will need a notebook, black pen, and some form of adding color—e.g., markers, watercolors, colored pencils, etc. I recommend an attractive notebook for this project that suggests that what’s inside is valuable (like Jung’s Red Book). You will also need a willing suspension of disbelief.
Lorraine Kreahling is a writer and illustrator who wrote her graduate thesis on Jung and fairy tales and became a convinced Quaker in young adulthood. She has been a regular contributor to The New York Times, and has published on topics as diverse as geothermal technology and yoga, to metabolism and interior design. She was a long-time board member and also former clerk of the Friends Conference on Religion and Psychology.
On Your Own - not joining an Interest Group - use the time as you wish, with friends or alone.