Robin B. Zeiger & Tamar Shalit Barlev

‘Home’ is a powerful multi-faceted archetype of memory and longing. Homelessness, danger, and wandering stand in contrast to warmth and safety of home, hearth, and belonging. Sometimes, we leave in order to return transformed. Sometimes, our home is unsafe, destroyed or we are thrust out as refugees. Ultimately, we must create an inner voice of being ‘at home’.

Carl Jung valued art and the symbolic as a bridge to the transcendent function; a natural process of soul-work that enables connection between the unconscious and consciousness. We are two Jungian analysts with extensive experience in the symbolic, archetypal, and expressive arts (art therapy, sandplay, dream work). The aims of this workshop will be to create temenos (sacred space) to meet the personal and collective memory of ‘home’. Opening with a brief meditative exercise, an open-studio experience follows with various art mediums and inspirational materials (e.g., images, poetry) to allow for personal work.
In synchronicity, this conference occurs during the Jewish holiday of Tabernacles commemorating the Jews’ 40-year journey to a new homeland. Jews traditionally leave their home to dwell in colorful Sukkot (temporary huts) partially open to the heavens commemorating Divine Protection. We will provide images of Sukkot.

We revisit the house(s) we grew up in, we show our new lover the park where, as a kid, we had our first kiss, or where students were killed by the police in an anti- war demonstration… our lives and struggles, and those of our ancestors, are written into places, houses…., investing them with meaning and significance.

(Sandercock (2012), City of Memory, Beyond Memory, Museum on the Seam, Jerusalem).