December 31, 2022

In preparing to write you this end-of-year missive, it was illuminating for me to reread the newsletter I sent you last year at this time. Somehow, fifty-two weeks move quickly, and with so many global, national, and personal events unfolding at any given time, I realize how easy it is to lose sight of everything we do together in a year!

This year at The Salome Institute, we gathered online fifty-five times, joining across continents and time zones to study, discuss, ask questions, learn active imagination and explore our dreams. In particular, we spent time learning ways to work with the unconscious, met for thirteen different new moons with Carol Ferris, learned Taoist thinking with Ann Carroll, worked dreams in two community dream groups, and explored the timeless search for stability in meaning in our lives and in fairy tales. In 2022, we also launched a new subscriber program and formalized our Socially Relevant Salon series, in which we heard remarkable stories of revolution in the US and Iran in our Democracy & Voting salon, and of gender and individuation in our recent Trans Ways of Knowing salon (about which more than a few people wrote me to say was “life-changing”). In April, we held a fundraiser for Ukraine in which Carol Ferris and I read aloud Jung’s 1938 interview titled “Diagnosing the Dictators,” and raised over $5,500 for refugees.

In 2022, we also provided over $22,000 in scholarships and discounts to anyone in financial need who made a request for our events. We have done the same since the start of our online programming, and we’re committed to continuing this practice next year in order to guarantee the accessibility of our seminars and salons.

Finally, I’d be remiss if I did not mention the publication of my first book in July of this year! There’s no question that the preparation for the launch of my book was both in the background and foreground of The Salome Institute throughout 2022. I’m so grateful for the ways this community has shown up to support me through buying my book, sharing it with your loved ones, leaving me online reviews, attending my Salome Institute book talk, or coming to one of my live book talks in Portland and LA. I loved seeing you in person! Thank you for all of the above.

Suffice it to say, I could go on! There are many things I have not mentioned (for instance, this series about abortion rights past, present, and future), but it would be impossible to name everything that happened this year!

I can only pray that 2023 feels more like a step in the right direction for all of us globally, and that we’ll each do our best to make gold out of the events in our own lives and in the collective that do not go (at all) as we’d hope. To that end, I truly hope that The Salome Institute will provide you with support in the alchemical work of life and world transformation.

I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching (so much…) around the direction of our work here at The Salome Institute and the charter of my own creativity, and feel pretty excited about what is to come in our Spring 2023 calendar, I really hope you’ll join me for some (or all!) of what we have in store.

Until then, sending you oodles of love, many blessings, and a very Happy New Year!

xo, Satya

Satya Doyle Byock, Director of The Salome Institute of Jungian Studies