Antonio Machado: The Poetry of Jung’s Thought with Carme Lemniscates & Debb Freedman

Saturday, April 27 from 9:30 - 11:30 am 

(This program will *not* be recorded)

Antonio Machado and Carl G. Jung were born the same day, July 26, 1875. Images, symbols and dreams emerge in their work with significant similarity. The aim of this workshop is to share and enjoy together the amazing correlations in Machado's poetry with Carl G. Jung's thoughts and their exquisite expression. Both seem to speak of the same principle, each through their own personal experience and suffering.

Machado was a Spanish poet and one of the leading figures of the Spanish literary movement known as the Generation of '98. 1898 was the year of the Spanish–American War, which ended with the Spanish colonial empire under the Bourbon monarchy. The Generation of '98 was a group of intellectuals and literary figures critical of the establishment and committed to cultural, social and political renewal. Machado died in exile, flying from the Spanish Civil War, on 22 February 1939. He died homeless, “almost naked”, as he presciently described in his poem Portrait, written in 1906. However, the last lines he wrote, found in his coat pocket after his death, were: "These blue days and this sun of childhood..."

It may be that Machado had discovered something very similar to what Jung did, something that allowed him to find these words, so independent of the difficult circumstances of his biography. Join Carme Lemniscates and Debb Freedman as they divulge their insights into this incredible juxtaposition.

Carme Lemniscates is a professional author and illustrator of children’s books. She trained as a visual artist and holds a BA (Hons) in Humanities and Art History from The Open University (UK). She discovered the work of Carl G. Jung in the early 1990s in a series of lectures on Rilke and Machado. She has continued to study Jung's work, especially in relation to the arts.

Deborah Eve Freedman has been creating fairy tales for others for over twenty-five years. This ancient language of home as place on the outside and heart on the inside arrived as a surprise. She has presented her process during two global conferences at Oxford University and continues to be awed by its relevance.