Let's have the mouse score first: we added 3 more LIVE mice to the scoreboard this week and one dead mouse. Robin had the joy of receiving all of them, and in quick-thinking style he ditched them outside so fast that he didn’t get pictures. He also beheld Ozzie eating a dead mouse in its entirety—not great fun for a vegan (or anybody else, for that matter).
To escape the cats, one of the live mice scrambled up the drapes in front of the door, and we think he was so scared that he peed himself on his way up (or down), and even though Robin managed to scare him outside and save his life (if only temporarily), the scent of mouse urine lingers—both cats have attempted to scramble up the curtains in search of the mouse.
They became upset and remained convinced the mouse was still hiding up there atop the curtain rod.
They both sat there watchfully for hours, and berated us noisily for irresponsibly not sharing their concerns.
I did so much catch-up this week that I don't think I left the house. I finished working through a fat issue of Psychological Perspectives… and also got my virtual presentation together for the IAJS (International Association for Jungian Studies) Conference and presented it on Saturday via Zoom.
The IAJS Conference theme was “Jung and the Moment,” and I look forward to catching up with recordings of the sessions I missed due to difficult time zones or frantic preparation for my own session.
My topic was a repeat of the session I presented last summer at the Australia APT session on typology, and it was gratifying not to create the entire session starting from scratch for once!
My session title was (yet again) “The Trimorphic Ethoi of Psychological Types,” and the response to it was positive. Peter D. said my images enhanced my presentation and were timed perfectly to the words I was speaking. He mentioned how it kept him engaged throughout.
I was especially appreciative of his praise because I work extremely hard on my slide decks and strive to keep them visually interesting and ever-changing. As Robin observed, my slides are very “cinematic.” I think only one of my clicks was timed wrongly, and it wasn’t terribly far off—so I feel the whole event went quite smoothly (yaayyy!).
My next step is to convert the presentation into an article to submit for publication somewhere, because I think its message is important. So it will have an even longer shelf life as I take steps to make that happen.
Because so much time has been spent indoors, often involved in webinars and trainings and courses, I have little that’s interesting to report in the way of sightseeing, so this week’s communique will be shorter than they have been recently. (Perhaps that will make up for the extraordinary length of last week’s dispatch.)
I finished up my Jungian sandtray class, and also my creativity course, and the assemblage below was my final submission for the latter. It was a rapid collage intended to summarize what I gained from the course overall.
You can easily deduce how it got my creative juices flowing. The two elephants seen on the tapestry ribbon in the center are intended to remind myself to *remember* to use these powerful tools with my coaching clients—after all, an elephant never forgets! (Forgetfulness is an ongoing problem for me, sigh.)
I’ve “put up” my meager Christmas decorations so I can be in the proper holiday spirit.
The Christmas tree is on a USB cord with an LED light that rotates through a spectrum of colors (so festive!), and the star is a simple stuffed ornament made of violet colored velvet. I keep them on the table alongside the bed.
They aren’t much, but they are tiny touches that help me feel connected to the season while I’m house-sitting. If I want more festivity, I only need to drive through the village or find a shopping mall and there will be plenty of sparkle, so I never feel deprived.
With that in mind, we popped into the local St. Andrew’s Church in Isleham to take in their Festival of Light. The church is over a thousand years old, and even though the lighting was dimmed (to feature the many xmas trees and xmas lights), we found the misericords and barely made out the ancient roof with its 500 year-old angel carvings.
Pictures of all the roof angels can be viewed here: https://pbase.com/mediavets/angels&page=all
We enjoyed some mulled wine and Robin scarfed down a miniature mince pie. He also sprang for some fruitcake (eue!) and a couple of little jars of home-made jam: Rhubarb/Raspberry and Chilli Pepper flavors.
While looking for a guide book about the church, he sidled up to a fellow who offered to give us a tour of the place in a few weeks when all the decorations have been cleared out and we can see the church’s features more clearly. I look forward to reporting on that tour!
They were selling replicas of an angel head based on a carved angel situated in the rear of the church that had unfortunately fallen down. A clever person put the broken halves back together and made a mold from it before it was restored to its rightful home.
They were selling rapidly, and I managed to snag one before the stock was depleted (I love this kind of thing).
Robin has been making spiked hot chocolate for us to sip on, and his new vegan version of “Baileys” tastes like eggnog, so my tastebuds are getting samples of the holidays.
Robin has also been going through an Advent Calendar of hot sauces (remember how I said he was a flavor whore?) and has been reporting on his findings. That’s been a merry little distraction in the midst of our workload.
I am hoping to have some spare time in January so I can start offering some virtual sessioning online to try out some of these new coaching tools I’m playing with. Stay tuned!
This week's missive is so short that I recommend you spend the time you've saved to do some Christmas shopping instead of leaving it until the last minute.
If you do so, let it be festive and gay rather than stressed and hectic... and let me invite you to wear a face mask if you go someplace crowded. I've heard rumors that Covid is on the rise again, and it's better to prevent that from ruining your holidays.
warmly, -Dr. Vicky Jo