LITERATURE + LECTURES

Jung Center of Houston presents The Healing Wisdom of The Thousand and One Nights. Join us for this lecture and workshop with Jungian analyst Marga Speicher as she introduces us to Shahrazad, a storyteller and healer who embodies qualities of great value in tending to injury and conflict, day after day, step by step.

Humans are storytellers. Each culture has its treasure trove of stories that teach or heal or transmit generational wisdom; they make us laugh or weep or inspire us as they speak of human joy and misery, of dilemma and conflict, of gifts and poisons, of everything that is typically human.

In the Friday night presentation, we will explore The Thousand and One Nights, a collection of stories from Persia originating before 1000 CE. The storyteller is Shahrazad who finds a way—slowly and patiently, one night at a time—to heal the king's heart that was profoundly hurt by betrayal. Shahrazad's wisdom shows us how to be with a person in pain with relatedness, sensitivity, clarity, and steadiness. Healing occurs incrementally, one day at a time, and mind, heart, and soul can live, grow, and bloom again.

In the Saturday workshop, we will explore more deeply the process of development and healing in educational endeavors, in conflict resolution, in therapeutic engagements: the preparation of the would-be teacher-mediator-healer, the necessary attitudes and qualities, and especially the importance of patient step-by-step steadfastness. Discussion will alternate with reflection and short writing periods.

Marga Speicher, PhD, is a Jungian analyst in private practice in San Antonio. A lover of literature and folklore, she leads workshops on symbolic understanding of images in dreams, stories, and everyday life, seeing such images as doors to the core of our humanity, individually and culturally. Her lectures on symbols in Rumpelstiltskin, Cinderella, and The Thousand and One Nights have been released on CD and audiotape.