The staff and faculty of Pacifica Graduate Institute provided such a wonderful container for the work: especially John Rinaldi and Thomas Gottwald who keep Pacifica so beautiful; the administrative staff, especially Nina Falls, our program administrator, and Robyn Cass and Kim Brawn in the dissertation office who kept me on track and who handled all of the myriad of details with such grace.  I would also like to thank Teresa Potts from Financial Aid and Rob Case of the registrar’s office for assisting with these all important areas!

Ivan Leon, Mai Ho, and Santos Artiaga in the IT department helped keep things up and running and were always there to help out during the inevitable technological glitches that always seemed to occur during presentations.  David Laughlin, Hridaya Maling, and the bookstore staff, as well as Mark Kelly, Richard Buchen, Lesley Kent Kunkel, Erin Barta, Suzanne Amira, Diana Zakhour, and the other library staff all helped me to find and access innumerable resources.  Richard and Mark were especially helpful with my dissertation.  A discussion about the movie Chicago (Marshall, 2002) with Richard (keeper of the Campbell and Gimbutas archives) yielded information about Edward Bernays, which I would never have found otherwise.  Mark encouraged me to pursue my dream of a dissertation as website and was often took time to help me find different sources.

Toni D’Anca and the Public Programs staff provided many opportunities to delve deeper into this portal to the sacred that is depth psychology.  Pacifica's public programs are magical events where I have met many amazing people. Without Lionel Corbett’s Portals to the Sacred conference in the spring of 2001, the first Pacifica conference I ever attended, I would never have been enchanted by the work of Stan Grof and Rick Tarnas. Lionel also taught a course, Depth Psychology and the Sacred, which helped me to open to the more nonordinary realms.

Mike Reynolds has been a generous friend and fellow traveler on the journey of individuation, who I met at the Portals to the Sacred conference.  Mike inspired my dissertation defense booklet and the playful running conversation icons.  He also printed the dissertation defense booklet.

Fred Laughter, in addition to being a wonderful friend and advisor over the years, helped to structure my website and edited my dissertation and all along has helped me keep things in perspective when I would get mired in the sheer volume of the work. After reading my seemingly endless excursions, with his ironic wit, he reminded me: “not all who wander are lost!” 

When I did occasionally become overwhelmed and caught up in the “swirl,” my dear friend Laurel Valin and I would often go for long walks trying to shake off the swirl and other cares of the day. Nate Yellen, a friend of many years encouraged me along the way, too, especially during the dark times before the different dawns on my journey.

Pamela Wells, artist and friend, has been with me every step of my Pacifica journey.  Pam helped me with the execution of my first and last projects for Pacifica—the dragon and the website.  I couldn’t have done either as well without her.  Thanks to Pam and Adobe GoLive, when you point and click, you can go to and fro and experience my dissertation in any way you desire. [link]

I deeply appreciate the following friends and colleagues for being in my life, for their love and support and belief in me over the years:  Brita Martiny, Richard and Haley Zee, Sylvia and Danny Ghorbani, Jag Soni, Sofan Chan and Rochman Reese, Patty Manning, Gloria Sandvik, and three of my oldest friends from college: Ken Kristian, Dave Walters, and Patrick Stivers. 

The following friends, Gary Herlich, Manju Jois, Bob Meyer, Bob Endo, Nina Sugawara, Abdoulaye Camara, Victor Geberin, and Allison Swinderman have helped me to become more embodied, since regretfully, for most of my life, I lived in my head.  I have experienced much healing and transformation through their truly touching work! Additionally, I would like to thank my friend Michael Murphy introduced me to warrior/healer Balachandran Master, who hosted me on my first India trip. Balachandran taught me so much about his culture and treated me like a daughter. I got to experience the ancient arts of marma and kalaripayatt, the original martial art, as well as many beautiful rituals in my month-long stay.

Sandra Arender, Luis Rodriguez, Brent Becvar, as well as other colleagues and friends from my prior work in the self-development field, Mimi Peak, Joseph McClendon III, Greg Gibson, Harold Bemis, Ian Low, Paul Bauer, Carol Grove, Sam Georges, Vicki St. George, James Ray, Cynthia Ochs, Clifton Harrison, Tom Fredricksen and Betty Pope helped me to learn more about alternative methods of healing such as Ayurveda and Neuro-linguistic Programming.  With them I truly had a blast and these diverse endeavors later came together and found their way in my dissertation. 

I am also deeply grateful to Mary Pichetti my first grade teacher, whose class I still remember vividly. Her love of teaching inspired in me a love of learning that continues unabated to this day. John Hess, Michael Palmer, Michael Waggoner, Bob Dieter, David Hill, and Pat Furman, professors at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and Larry Pate at USC inspired me to one day become a teacher, too. And synchronistically, another CU friend, Richard Murphy, turns out to be the nephew of Ashley Montagu.

Esalen is a place of synchronicity, transformation, magic, and incredible beauty where I have met many people that have blessed and changed to course of my life, including Heyson Choi, Arthur Joseph, Donna Masada and John Cleese. Esalen figures prominently in my dissertation, because it is where I took my first astrology seminar with Stan and Rick, and where I met Lisa Dale Miller. 

Over the years, I have taken many wonderful seminars at Esalen.  At two of them, taught by virtuoso Tai Chi master Chungliang Huang, I met two very important friends Diane Dobson, who introduced me to Doug Engelbart, and Susan Brown, who introduced me to Stuart Brown.  Both women are talented, intelligent, and just plain fun!  Without these women, I never would have encountered Doug or Stuart, whose contributions to the world, as well as to my dissertation have been invaluable.

In addition to inventing the mouse, Doug’s vision inspired the personal computer and the Internet, and Stuart’s vision brought Joseph Campbell out of academia and into the world at large.  Stuart then founded The Institute for Play, and it is my hope that this dissertation will further his mission and show the importance of play to a wider audience in a playful way.  I am especially grateful to have been able to spend time with Doug Engelbart.  His genius and the brilliance of his ideas, which he patiently explained to me, had a profound effect and inspired me to boldly go where others had not.

Speaking of the Internet, I am also grateful to the guys at Google, for without them my play space would have been considerably smaller!  Thanks to Google, I met the following people:

While “googling” Hillman and bricolage I came across Robert de Marrais, whose “Ministrations on Silliness” I found on the Internet.  Robert’s proposed dissertation chapter inspired me to be “silly” and playful with my own dissertation, and another chapter “Plato’s Cave and Claude’s Kaleidoscope” helped me to understand Lévi-Strauss’s work more fully.  I am also thankful to Robert for his writing on kaleidoscopes.  Robert not only shared his writing with me but was very generous with his time.

Fred Alan Wolf was also very generous with his time, helping me to understand different aspects of quantum physics and cosmology, when I had questions regarding the sometimes whacky world of the quantum. Fred's Spiritual Universe provided additional inspiration and precedent for the running conversations, when he pointed out that ancient writers used imaginal characters to flesh out abstract concepts. Douglas Brode, author of From Walt to Woodstock and Multiculturalism and the Mouse is a fellow advocate in the depth of Disney.  His work enabled me to broaden my vision even further, and he shared portions of Multiculturalism with me before it was published. 

For years, the field of astrology intrigued me.  I was first introduced to astrology by my friend Kathy Poster in 1984. At the time, I couldn’t tell Jupiter from Saturn, and it all seemed too complicated.  Over the years, with the help of the following people, I have come to love and respect this ancient art: Cerena Childress [link], Lisa Dale Miller [link], Rick Tarnas [link], Laurence Hillman [link], Matthew Stelzner [link] and David Shephard.  I have also had the privilege of several readings with preeminent Vedic astrologer Chakrapani Ullal.  Chakrapani [link] brings a joy to his work that is rare.

I experienced one of my first conscious synchronicities with Cerena, [link] when I stopped by her office on the way back from my first trip to Esalen in 1992 and discovered a picture (which I had seen and loved only days earlier at Esalen) in her office.  It was appropriately entitled Synchronicity, and was inscribed by the photographer to her, and she was parting with it.  Needless to say, I bought the picture from Cerena, and ever since it has hung in my house, although I didn’t consciously realize the significance of this multiple synchronicity for another 10 years!

My eyes were opened to the true grandeur of astrology in 2002 at Esalen when I was attending Psyche and Cosmos with Richard Tarnas and Stanislav Grof.  It was there I met Lisa Dale Miller [link] and my close friendship with her, along with her patient astrological explanations kindled a love for the beauty and power of astrology.  Laurence Hillman, son of Archetypal Psychology founder James Hillman, also has been a wonderful resource.  Laurence’s website [link] contains many interesting articles, along with his chart which summarizes the meanings of the planets, signs, and houses. Matthew Stelzner, “court astrologer” [link]for Grof’s Holotropic Breathwork Training [link] has helped me to get a deeper understanding of the planetary archetypal complexes which his mentor Richard Tarnas writes about. Rick Tarnas [link] has also been very generous with his time. He allowed me to read sections of Cosmos and Psyche before it was published. Cosmos and Psyche was the inspiration an foundation for the astrological sections in the Kaleidescope of Culture.

I would also like to thank Mark Rylance and Laurence Hillman for their seminar Mercury at the Globe, which explored the astrological significance of the planetary archetype Mercury.  We attended one of Shakespeare’s comedies, Much Ado about Nothing at the Globe Theater in London, and had the rare privilege of spending the night on the stage underneath the heavens painted with the zodiac symbols above us.  Shakespeare came alive in that setting, and I realized the limitations of my previously largely left-brained studies, and gained a new appreciation for a liberal arts education. Many thanks also to Ursula Schwalb who shared this seminar with me as well as a pint or two. Her knowledge and love of Shakespeare enhanced the experience even more.

I am profoundly grateful that Jung’s Grandson, Dieter Baumann, permitted me to visit Jung’s stone at Bollingen.  Seeing the stone in its natural setting was an experience I will never forget.  It was also a rare privilege to have had Dieter as a tour guide, and my solitary pilgrimage to Bollingen was a dream come true.

The San Diego Friends of Jung has also been a place where I met many speakers who have been influential in one way or another, many of whom attended or have taught at Pacifica, including Connie Zweig, Phil Cousineau, and Diane Skafke. George and Suzanne Wagner, producers of the Remembering Jung series, along with astrologer David Shepard were also important influences. The C.G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles (bookstore and library) were also wonderful resources. Visits there would often result in wonderful synchronicities.

Additionally, I would like to acknowledge the following people who have shared this journey of self-discovery with me.

Many thanks to my fellow GTT friends with whom I have shared much laughter and many tears on our journey of transformation: Miyera Alejo, Dennis Archembault, Virginia Armstrong, Kitty Broadbent, Vaidas Butauskas, Stacia Butterfield, Raul Cabrera, Margaret Colvin, Doug Chancey, Thomas Dann, Virgie Demanski, Charles Hogatt, Arnon Kandel, June Katzen, Dave and Donna Misso, Patrick Moylan, Mischa Nerad, Maria Novak, Frances O’Regan, Dori Perry, Norman Pope, Mili Ricken, Kelle Sanders, Lincoln Scott, Mark Scown, Robert Stroup, Stefan Szöke, Shelly Weimert, Ashley Wile, Jean Wood, Alejandra Delarue Zuloaga, and Jeff Zydell.  The GTT Staff, led by Tav Sparks and Cary Sparks, and including Linda Grebinow, Diane Haug, Diana Medina, Matthew Stelzner, along with Juanho and Sitara from Spain, created a safe environment and warm friendships that enabled me to pursue my journey of self discovery through the technique of Holotropic Breathwork. [link] The experiences that I had and the insights which I gained in these nonordinary states have been truly transformative. 

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