by Gabby Valdez, A Truly Beautiful Girl
My hat is off to Gabby for her courage in enhancing our consciousness about body types and the way cultural values can impact our entire lives.
PLEASE watch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRuLCttD5Ng…
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by Amy Hautman Bates
I just read Mindell’s The Shaman’s Body and it reminded me of how much I used to know– how much I have always known that has become deeply buried in the last 35 years. Carlos Castaneda’s Journey to Ixtlan was an important book during my college years. Now I look…
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Does Southwestern College really deliver on its mission, "Transforming Consciousness through Education"?
I am approaching the end of my first year at Southwestern College. Time has flown. This is not just because I decided on Option One for the program, but also because so much has happened in these last 8 months. As a graduate…
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I have been in a private practice setting with Urban Balance in Chicago since 2011, painting and blogging about my work.
Alicia Hoffman, LPC
Psychotherapist
Urban Balance, LLC
www.urbanbalance.com
Here is an excerpt from Alicia's blog:
I created this piece in 2004 as part of heuristic research project in my second year of grad school…
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by Megan Sturges, © 2012
My practice in the studio is about giving life to the unconscious image in specific form through my hands and eyes – bringing it into this world of color and form through the embodied sense of yes or no, here or there, connecting, separating, line, shape, object, pattern. Like dreams,…
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by Kat Dison
"Carl Jung realized that archetypes are not based on interactions and experiences between actual human beings, but on simplified characterizations. These simplified characters, or archetypes, perform roles that are essential to our understanding of the world. The magician archetype, for example, does not seek answers from external resources, but instead searches…
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by Lisa Marie Paradis
Where do you hail from?
You and yours snug tightly
In between the dream
Awaken to five year old father's soul inhabited by butcher's
Chicken floating gently across
the room- enter the
back of the neck- boulders
upon the fleeing road-where
do you hail from?
barbed wire divisions in size-fait-memory-Is the
…
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After learning my flight was detained 4 hours,
I heard the announcement:
If anyone in the vicinity of gate 4-A understands any Arabic,
Please come to the gate immediately.
Well -- one pauses these days. Gate 4-A was my own gate. I went there.
An older woman in full traditional Palestinian dress,
Just like my…
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Amy Hautman Bates
I like Robert Waterman's concept of “The Studio" – the sense that we are all one and share in one another's growth. I feel the transformation of my cohorts and feel as though I am in a way, falling in love with them! Not just in Archetypal Psychology class, which happens to…
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I am a 2005 alumni from the Art Therapy program. Since graduating from
SWC, I have been on many adventures as a therapist working in
home-based and outpatient settings as a youth & family therapist, and
with military populations as a traveling therapist in and outside of
the US.
I work part-time as a college…
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Jean graduated from SWC in 2012 with a Master's degree in Counseling with concentration in Grief, Loss, and Trauma.
She is currently working as a contract BH counselor at La Clinica del Pueblo in Tierra Amarilla, NM. She says, "I work in the Rio Arriba County Detention Center one half-day a week. I work in…
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Jaffa V. Frank, Ph.D.
After graduating with my M.A. in Grief, Loss, and Trauma Counseling at Southwestern College in 2008, I did hospice bereavement counseling in Albuquerque, which was cut short by serious personal health issues. Having come through surgery healthier than ever, I decided to pursue my long-time dream and in September of 2011,…
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In April 2013, I was privileged to hear Robert Waterman speak. The significance of this event is Robert Waterman founded Southwestern College, which I began attending as a Counseling student later that fall. Much of what he shared provided confirmation of that decision. I have known since I was 20 years old that becoming a…
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Addiction of any kind is a difficult path and can wreck havoc on loved ones as well as the person caught in the trap of addiction. It can be heart wrenching to be caught up in the grief process of a person in the midst of their addiction. Besides the vicarious grief of watching a…
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One primary theme in Dan Millman’s book, Way of the Peaceful Warrior is that the “time is now and you are here.”
For me, this message means you should avoid allowing your mind to get caught in the past and causing the present to fade into the shadows. Instead, you need to make an effort…
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--from Reverend Ted Wiard
Internal Boundaries Can Lead to an Easier Day
The Taos News has committed to implement a bi-weekly column to help educate our community about emotional healing through grief. You may write questions to Golden Willow Retreat and they will be answered privately to you and possibly as a future article for…
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by Brian Miller, M.A., LPCC
Hello dear friends and colleagues,
This has been a busy few years for me since graduating in 2008. I continue to live in Albuquerque, New Mexico with my wife and our two sons, Sebastian (age 4) and Liam (age 2), who encourage us lovingly to learn more and more about…
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The plant known as marijuana has long been known in the indigenous world to carry a seductive feminine energy that creates dependence, while at the same time appearing to enhance spiritual expansion. The energies of this plant, while perhaps occasionally useful in a limited ceremonial context, typically create weakness in the individual's medicine body (energy…
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Patricia L. Meek, LPC, MFA, NFT
Noah: A Supernatural Eco Thriller was published by All Things that Matter Press and was released December 1, 2011. I began the novel while living in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
My experiences at Southwestern College heavily influenced the creation of this work. Archetypes, Ancient Mysteries, and Vision Quest, were all…
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In the Spring of 2013, I finished up supervision for my ATR and LPC in Oklahoma. Even cooler, my supervisor is also a SWC grad! I work full-time for the Cavett Kids Foundation, the same foundation where I completed my internship in 2012. With the Cavett Kids Foundation my title is "Art Therapist, Director of…
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Kate Latimer, Santa Fe, NM
I took a hiatus from the counseling world after the birth of my daughter in April of 2011, leaving my much loved job as a counselor at Solace Crisis Treatment Center (formerly the Santa Fe Rape Crisis and Trauma Treatment Center). Becoming a mom has been an incredible initiation full…
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"Laura Lansrud-Lopez offers the most eloquent version of consciousness-centered practice I have ever read." President Jim Nolan…
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Luisa Kolker graduated from Southwestern College, where she studied Counseling. Interestingly, I met her through Social Media, where I became aware of this really funny, transparent, and seemingly wise woman who was doing Shamanic work in Santa Fe. I knew she was a graduate of the school and thought it would be great to meet…
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One of the last classes offered to students at SWC before they launch into internship and graduation is Career and Life Development, well placed as a stepping stone into life after school. I have been teaching one or more sections of this class for the last three years. Always in the first class, many students…
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Rosemary Eads, M.A. My private practice is now located in Northborough, Massachusetts. I moved here in April of 2011, and within nine months, began my first ever waiting list! I specialize in working with subconscious beliefs, behaviors and traumas, as well as guiding my clients to develop a fuller awareness of their higher self. I use…
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Southwestern College Santa Fe, NM