I did it! I presented yet another session on the topic of psychological types, this time for the British Association of Psychological Types, also known as BAPT. Its title was “Ambiversion: Fact or Fallacy?”
The BAPT conference is held every year (unlike bigger conferences that are held every other year). The turnout is never huge, so it feels more like a family reunion than a day at, say, Disneyland.
I have presented at this conference several times now, perhaps the most unforgettably in 2019 when my laptop cable fried less than a minute after completing my closing keynote. I won’t forget that moment!
Naturally they’ve gone online because of COVID… which is fine with me, because I doubt I could have gotten back there easily while we are in the midst of a house-sit in France.
What I did not take into account was how much work it was going to require on the heels of my APTi Conference session last week. I needed to recover from that occasion, which got me off to a slow start in developing my content for this event. Do I look like I didn’t get any sleep for 24 hours?! Gee, I wonder why!
Magically, it came together with Robin’s help. I wanted to do something a little different and a wee bit controversial… and I daresay I delivered what I wanted to deliver. Our terrific moderator said he truly enjoyed my session and planned to tell his fellow board members to be sure to catch the video recording—and I don’t think he was just flattering me! Several attendees complimented my slides, so perhaps losing sleep was worth it. (You can sleep when you’re dead!)
One attendee has even written on social media: >>Vicky Jo that was an awesome session. I loved listening to the history of the words [terms], and your exercise was powerful. Thank you!!! << Yaayyy! That sure makes it worthwhile.
The session got off to a rough start because my secondary computer froze up right as the session began, so Robin was ducking and bobbing all around me providing tech support and rebooting as I tried to make the show go on! And I’m proud that—in spite of our tech headache—it ran only a few minutes over time (and the session start was delayed to accommodate latecomers, so I daresay I was actually right on the money).
Before I got stuck into developing that session, we sneaked in an adventure! For this undertaking, we set out for the ancient church of Sainte-Marie in the ancient medieval village of Aragon, which Robin had identified as a registered historical monument worth seeing.
Traces of legal charters with the lords of Aragon, who owned large swaths of land, were found dating to the 12th century. They were deprived of said property by the Inquisition for supporting the Cathar cause (although they received financial compensation). But clandestine Catharism persisted in the area despite losing the protection of the lords.
When we arrived at the village, we had to locate someone’s home, knock on their door, and ask them for the key. All of that was easily accomplished—an elderly French lady opened the door of a quaint little home, and we gestured that we needed the key, which she promptly retrieved for us. Then merriment ensued as she tried to tell us (in French) how to use the key properly. After lots of sign language, we felt we could figure it out, and walked up the street to the church (how wrong can you go with a giant skeleton key?).
Then Robin struggled mightily with the key until he recalled some funny gestures the Frenchwoman had made—and suddenly he realized she meant he needed to turn the key twice in the lock. Bingo! The door opened easily after that.
And then we were inside!
The church had been erected in 1300, replacing a cemetery chapel, and it became the local village church.
Then, in 1988, the parishioners became concerned about the state of their roof and set out to make repairs. It turned out that—during a previous renovation—false cross-ribs had been installed, masking an even earlier wooden framework that had been painted and decorated during the 14th century.
The ridge boards and corbels featured the coats of arms of dignitaries intermixed with rinceaux (translates to “branch with foliage” and consists of a wavy, stemlike motif), patterns, flowers, religious symbols, a fantastic bestiary, and delightful figurals.
Aren’t they wonderful? They are fresh and almost new looking despite being covered for 600 years!
This is the sort of lovely church crawl that makes my heart go pitter-patter—so many magickal mysteries.
Earlier in the week, on one of our snowy days, Robin took our car in to have it serviced and correct some of its problems. They ordered a new solenoid for it, and Robin was given a temporary rental car. But—miracle of miracles—this mechanic scraped the corrosion off some wires and we didn’t need the solenoid after all! (How often does that happen!?)
The car starts up reliably now, and the mechanic replaced four lightbulbs altogether (yes, he replaced faulty lights we didn’t even know about! What a fabulous mechanic.) So all the lights are working properly now. It still has a few lingering issues, but nothing we can’t live with—pretty good for an old cheap car! (I for one am exceedingly grateful for that seat-warming feature when it snows.)
I have one more virtual APT presentation coming up soon: this will be “The Masks We Wear; The Masks We Hide” presented to the Bay Area Chapter of the Association for Psychological Type on Saturday, May 14. Once again I made a little YouTube promo video for it (3:13), and it’s available for viewing at https://youtu.be/cOzad259JVU
These past three APT sessions have been extremely rewarding—as was the presentation I did for the Australian APT conference last year. Unfortunately, AusAPT’s next conference will resume being held live and in person, which probably ruins my chances of presenting. It’s a long way and a lot of money for plane tickets. Robin and I toyed with the idea of arranging a sit in Australia so we could be assured of accommodation. But I don’t think it’s meant to be…
Scheming up plans to attend the conference down-under aside, I confess I’m grateful to have this BAPT session out of my hair, and now I can relax and even attend the other conference sessions I missed! I’ll be thrilled to make that happen—I love learning.
Years ago, I took the Gallup Strengthsfinder online assessment and my highest rated strength was something they termed “learning.” I thought then (and still think!) that a “learner” strength is pretty lame. I mean, who’s going to hire you to go and learn? Some coaches have even admonished me for learning too much. But there it is.
>> Gallup StrengthsFinder Learner definition: People exceptionally talented in the Learner theme have a great desire to learn and want to continuously improve. The process of learning, rather than the outcome, excites them. <<
In the name of learning, I have a zillion hours of video presentations stacked up just waiting for me to find time to watch them. And now that my two APT conference sessions have concluded, I will see whether I can eke out a viewing party.
Beware: if I trip over some fantastic new content, I may tell you about it. Last week I learned about the Drama Pyramid—an extension of the old Drama Triangle—and the Functional Fluency model. Plus I took a two-day class with Dick Schwarz on Internal Family Systems (IFS) that was dreamy. (Now I want to enroll in all the IFS certification programs.)
There I go again!
warmly,
-Dr. Vicky Jo
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