This course is both an exploration of the factors that have given rise to modernity’s psychic “split” as well as an experiential, experimental celebration of the oft-neglected, wild and creative wellsprings of the psyche. We will stir the pot with the work of poets, artists, scientists, filmmakers, mythologists, depth psychologists, and indigenous writers as we live into the questions: what does it mean to feed and be fed by wild nature, inner and outer? And what might be our role in defending and championing it?

weekly topics:

Session 1:
Consciousness Slipped from its Foundations: Jung, Freud, and Perspectives on “the Split”

Session 2:
A Hidden Wholeness: Instincts, Archetypes, and Jung’s Ecological Understanding of the Psyche

Session 3:
From the Living Fountain of Instinct: Psyche, Nature, and Creativity

Session 4:
Thinking Like a Mountain: Defending and Championing the Wild

“Doesn’t everything die at last and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” – Mary Oliver

“In the psyche there is nothing that is just a dead relic. Everything is alive, and our upper story, consciousness, is continually influenced by its living and active foundations.” – C.G. Jung

Note:
While there will be a lecture component, this course is designed to be as participatory, experiential, and interactive as possible. Audio lectures and a curated collection of short readings will be provided before each live class so as to create more space for creative work, group discussions, and small group engagement.

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Re-Wilding
the Heart:

PSYCHE AND THE LIVING FOUNTAIN OF INSTINCT

with charles morse

Live-Video Jungian Psychology Seminar Series

FOUR SESSIONS: THURSDAYS

Starting Oct. 23, 2025

7-9pm Pacific
Live via Zoom
+ Video Recording will be available

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At the heart of C.G. Jung’s analytical psychology is a balancing act, a holding of dynamic tensions between conscious and unconscious, rational and irrational, civilized and wild. While his contemporaries took for granted the virtue of the West’s centuries-long project of “taming” the wild, instinctual depths of the psyche (“Where id was, there ego shall be.” – Sigmund Freud), Jung saw the one-sidedness of this prevailing attitude as fundamentally flawed and tragically life-denying. For Jung, to negate the irreducible wildness of the psyche was to lose sight of that which makes us fully human and to fall into an ever deeper sense of alienation from what anthropologist David Abram refers to as the “more-than-human world”.

Charles Morse

Charles Morse is an educator, writer, and artist. He holds a BA from Stanford University (History), an MSc from Schumacher College (Philosophy of Science), and an MA from the Pacifica Graduate Institute (Depth Psychology). As a faculty member at the Pacifica Graduate Institute, Charles explores the intersection of depth psychology, ecology, and creativity. His work is deeply informed by the psychologist and wilderness guide Bill Plotkin, the scholar and activist Joanna Macy, and his 15 years working as a farmer and educator in the field of sustainable agriculture.