Working with Dreams and Images
Many selves, many dreams, Rosemary Starace, colored pencil, 2021
“As a plant produces its flower, so the psyche creates its symbols.
Every dream is evidence of this process.” – Carl Jung
Offerings
I seek to help people find equanimity and self-acceptance, and to discover meaning in their past and present experience. Through dreams, and in attending to creativity, love, grief and loss, the issues of aging—whatever you may bring—I can help you identify what wants to be expressed more fully in your life and your work, art-related or otherwise. In our sessions together we engage in deep conversation, paying close, gentle attention to what your heart and soul want us to understand. I approach these conversations from a Jungian perspective.
A Jungian perspective means trusting the wisdom of dreams and the steady thrust towards “becoming” that animates us all. The Jungian approach sees symptoms and struggles as containing the seeds of renewal, pointing us towards exactly what is needed. It helps us cultivate a “symbolic attitude,” which is a way of seeing beneath the surface of ourselves and of events and relationships. This opens us to our own depths and to connectedness with others. We may also discover that something larger than ourselves is at work in our lives.
DREAMWORK
Jung said that dreams spring from an internal source the same way that a plant makes a flower: naturally. Dreams are messages that arrive without our help and know more than we do about ourselves and our lives. And we all dream; each of us has this extraordinary creative capacity and the opportunity to explore, deepen, and heal.
In dreamwork we together tend the dream blossoms you bring forth, examining them, being curious about the images and feelings they present, becoming more and more fluent in their strange, symbolic, and sometimes frightening language. We welcome their commentary and learn to apply their wisdom in our actual lives. Over and over people express surprise and delight when their previously opaque dreams begin to reveal themselves.
CREATIVE PROCESS MENTORING
The images we make in art spring from the same source as dreams, and are natural like dreams. Each person, no matter their skill, has innate ability to create art that has integrity and meaning. I help people recognize and trust their own creative nature.
I work with artists who want to go deeper into the meaning and essence of their work, to revivify their relationship with the things they make, and find pleasure and satisfaction in their life of art regardless of external success. I also love to work with those who are beginning or yearning to dip their toes in creative work and who seek guidance and the confidence to move forward.
We might look at artwork you’ve already made or consider new directions and how to begin. We would explore how the creative force reveals itself in your life and in the world. We would consider how to cultivate receptivity as well as take action. We might also discuss yearnings, obstacles, pleasures, and disappointments around creative work. I mentor you towards your own inherent creative playfulness and originality.
OTHER AREAS OF FOCUS AND EXPERIENCE
LOSS AND GRIEF
I help people name, acknowledge, and integrate all their losses and griefs.
We may have lost a loved one to death or abandonment, or lost our relationship, job, status, role, or identity. Perhaps we’ve lost our health or a long-held dream. Sometimes, we also lose hope. We grieve people, times that are gone, and things we never had. We grieve for nature in this age of climate catastrophe, and for people suffering from all manner of misfortune and injustice.
Together we consider the landscape of one’s grief and how to travel it meaningfully.
AGING
Aging brings both loss and opportunity. Taking a cue from Jung, we might mine the experience of age for its purpose and even its gifts, coming to more peaceful terms with our life and eventual death.
LOVE
Love runs through dreams, art, grief and all the ages of our lives. In talking together, we will make time to notice love’s presence and absence and consider how we want to love and be loved.
Structure and Fees, Contact Info
Sessions (all sessions via Zoom):
Free 15 minute introductory session.
One-hour sessions:$75
Contact me at: star @ rosemarystarace . com and I will email you back with my phone number. (The email address is written out so as to elude bots. Just run it together, leaving no spaces.)
Rosemary Starace, Bio
I have been a visual artist and writer all my life. Now in my 70s, I’ve experienced a lifetime of griefs and loves. I have a master’s degree in The Creative Process in the Arts (Lesley University, 1988) and have taught and guided artists towards their own artistic satisfaction for 40 years.
I hold certificates in individual counseling and group facilitation (The Interface Foundation, Graduate Program in Holistic Studies, 1984-86) and in dream work from a Jungian perspective (This Jungian Life Dream School, 2020-21). I currently work with dreams and dreamers using the wisdom and knowledge gleaned from all facets of my experience.
I’ve been a student of C.G. Jung for almost 15 years, as an analysand working with my own dreams and images, and completing the Introduction to Jungian Clinical Process program at the C.G. Jung Institute of New York (2023-24), as well as coursework in the Jungian approach to Tarot and Jungian symbology in art. I am currently a training candidate (training to become a Jungian analyst) at the C.G. Jung Institute of New England.