December 23, 2020

If you’re like me, the magnitude of this year feels impossible to comprehend. It’s a year that has brought ups and downs for each of us that were literally unimaginable last December.

It was just this year—not several years ago, as my instinctual memory is certain must be the case—that we listened to days of impeachment hearings, obsessed over the Democratic primaries, grieved the murders of Breonna Tayler, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Elijah McClain, joined a revolutionary reckoning with racism, saw a near-collapse of the US Postal Service, experienced a federal military occupation of downtown Portland, endured devastating fires and natural disasters, fretted over a presidential election that pitted democracy against fascism, celebrated the election of our first female Vice President, and oh, suffered through a pandemic that has shuttered countless businesses and schools, killed over 300,000 Americans, and changed almost every aspect of life as we’ve known it.

And yes, that’s still just scratching the surface.

Meanwhile, at The Salome Institute, it has been a year filled with activity, community, and gratitude. Amidst the suffering and cataclysmic events, we have loved joining with so many of you week after week in salons on everything from Jung’s Red Book and its antidotes for a lopsided patriarchal world, to Kwame Scruggs’ reckoning with Being Black in the Jungian World, to Kayleen Asbo on re-elevating the female mystics in Christian history, to Hendrika de Vries on her childhood experiences in WWII Holland, to Carol Ferris on the potential for the Age of Aquarius, to Ayana Jamieson on Octavia E. Butler’s depth psychological prescience.

But that’s also just scratching the surface.

This year, we held over 60 live salons and we released a podcast with 29 episodes. We’ve worked to bring Jungian and depth psychological ideas into social relevance and to bring some of those social issues to the forefront of the Jungian world where they belong. Along the way, we’ve met some extraordinary scholars, thinkers, and world-changers and have been able to be in relationship with all of you from Portland to New York to London, Italy, Brazil, and beyond.

I can say that I feel very lucky to have been able to socially distance this year in such remarkable virtual company. It has been a gift.

I know, however, that for some of you, this year has brought the loss of homes to the fires, and loved ones, businesses, and livelihoods to Covid. You’re in our thoughts.

May these last days of 2020 bring you feelings of festivity, however small or simple, and an abundant sense of love and peace. You’ve survived this year. We’ve survived. That alone is a great deal to celebrate.

Happy Holidays to you and yours.

With love, Satya

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