Episode Details

Anadyomene is an ancient epithet connected to Aphrodite. It means ‘she who is rising up from the sea’ and refers to the moment in mythology, recorded for us by the shepherd, Hesiod, when the goddess of beauty is born from the ocean in the midst of unimaginable (yet thoroughly imagined) trauma. 

It felt an apt title for this episode. Somewhere in the dreaming ocean of this conversation with Toko-pa Turner Beauty emerges amongst stories of loss, pain, loneliness, isolation and disconnection. 

To quote Toko-pa, ‘Beauty is a metabolised grief.’

Toko-pa Turner is an award-winning author of The Dreaming Way and Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home. She is also a teacher and dreamworker whose work explores the relationship between psyche and nature. Blending animism with a Jungian approach to dreamwork, she reveals the kinship between the imaginal and material worlds.

In this episode, Toko-pa shares with us her love of wisdom (philo-sophia). We discuss dreams as a form of interior intelligence that we can build a relationship with rather than explain away or flatten out. Through the dream doors that open up we find ourselves lamenting the loss of the ‘edge’ of the village, or rather, that the edge has become a terrifying place in the current world. So where is the mystic to live?

The conversation then moves into the themes of Toko-pa’s first book, Belonging, and how exile and belonging are two sides of the same sphere. And from this place, as mentioned above, beauty seems to spontaneously emerge, which takes us into the idea of the ‘dream tent’ and ways of dreaming collectively. 

If you enjoy this conversation you might like to connect with Toko-pa’s work. To do so go to her website or get a hold of her wonderful books (links below).

Podcast Artwork: Moonrise on an Empty Shore , Caspar David Friedrich (1837/1839)

References

Toko-pa Turner — Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home and The Dreaming Way: Courting the Wisdom of Dreams. Toko-pa's website

Nikki Giovanni — poet; the source of the phrase about bearing pleasure that Toko-pa discusses. Poetry Foundation

James Hillman — depth psychologist, referenced in relation to self-betrayal. James Hillman Institute. His concept of the Acorn Theory is expanded upon in The Soul's Code.

Carl Jung — referenced in relation to dreamwork and depth psychology. Jung Institute

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