What you will receive

• 1 Live Webinar Session with Q & A

Course Description

This event is part of the free Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month Celebration.

The celebration of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage month is a wonderful opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate the cultural diversity of the Pacific Islands and the contributions of Pacific Islander mythology to the emerging models of more diverse and globally representative narratives that shape not only our world, but the individual psyche.

In this complimentary webinar, Pacifica Online is thrilled to welcome the members of the Carl Jung Circle Center in the Philippines to our growing international community and to introduce Ruby Villavicencio Paurom, current president of the Carl Jung Circle Center (CJCC), and Rose Marie Yenko, CJCC chairman emeritus.  In this online learning session, Ruby shares and amplifies a unique Philippine myth that has surprising relevance for contemporary conversations on communities in diaspora, social media, ChatGPT technology, and the individuation process. 

Myth is regarded as a way of “finding a path back home” (Dennis Slattery, The Way of Myth: Stories’ Subtle Wisdom).  In the Philippines, there is a story told long, long ago on a mountain plateau in Bukidnon that offers an illustration of three symbolic characters who have a surprising relevance for some of the issues currently plaguing contemporary culture. In a time when there seems to be a collective sense of feeling somewhat lost, this myth may offer new perspectives towards a path forward or perhaps a path back home to our most authentic selves.

In this ancient myth, there is a figure with ten heads drooling with saliva, (Dadanhayan Ha Sugay) who is constantly in an argument with a single-headed being (Diwata na Magbabaya) along with a third important figure : a winged being which keeps flapping its wings to maintain balance with the unending movement inside the vessel containing the two beings which are constantly at loggerheads.  Looked at through a Jungian lens of symbols and amplification, this ancient myth offers some interesting insights to recent events within the Philippines as the texting capital of the world, and the wildfire spread in social media of the ‘Marites’ gossiper, and most recently, the honoring of the first Filipino Nobel Prize winner who emerges from, nowhere else, but the world of media, in addition to the global conversations around the emerging technology and ethical implications of ChatGPT.

In this learning session, Ruby Villavicencio will amplify this ancient myth to reveal the symbolic connections between the conscious and the unconscious and the necessary dynamics of psyche in balancing between these two, represented in the myth by the “winged being.” Citing examples of the internal dialogue that ensues when we embark on the journey of individuation, she will emphasize the lost art of listening as foundational to the alchemy of transformation. Given a deeper look, this Philippine myth stands not only as a creation story of the outside world, but a mirror of the workings of the self in search of soul.

At the conclusion of the presentation, participants are invited to talk with Ruby and Rose and share their thoughts or ask questions.