Meet Your Guide

I was raised on fairytales and folksongs, I ate ancestral wisdom for breakfast and dreamt the landscapes of ancient adventure at night. A host of fascinating characters streamed through our home as guests on my father’s radio program – balladeers, Irish fiddlers, sea-shanty singers, poets and bards, authors and storytellers. Joseph Campbell, the renowned mythologist, was a family friend and frequent guest.

A dream discussion group that started in my parent’s living room eventually seeded the Jung Institute of Chicago and I continue to be a student of the Jungian viewpoint on matters of soul.

During the 12 years that I worked for the Joseph Campbell Foundation and traveled around the world supporting local groups in many countries, I came to the deep realization that we are hungry for the wisdom and inspiration that are contained in the great stories of humanity. Reconnecting people with STORY is the surest path to connect them with Soul - the collective and personal strata of energy and archetype that dwells just below the surface of daily life.

Finding ways to recognize soul activity in your own life is a profound gift, and it is that contribution that I am passionate about making.

The mythologist, Joseph Campbell, whose program The Power of Myth became the most-watched series on public television, was a longtime family friend and I learned his unique interpretation of world mythology at my own dinner table.

His work and his personality inspired my degree in comparative religion and ethics at the University of Chicago, my training as a minister and my travels around the world in service to the high ideal of inter-religious understanding.

For 12 years I worked with the Joseph Campbell Foundation as the International OutReach Director; supporting the Mythological RoundTables, writing the monthly Myth Letter, planning the annual members’ meetings, being one of the co-leaders of the Joseph Campbell Week at Esalen, as well as organizing our contributions to the Parliament of World’s Religions.

You will find many of Campbell’s ideas woven into my method of soul counseling.

I have a doctorate in ministry from Chicago Theological Seminary and masters degrees from The University of Chicago Divinity School and Meadville-Lombard Theological School. I have my certification in Jungian Coaching from the International Association of Coaches, Therapists, and Mentors, as well as certification in Divorce Mediation from Northwestern University. I have been a member of Spiritual Directors International for over 20 years and advertise regularly in Psychology Today.

Since 1992 I’ve worked as a mediator and pastoral counselor, specializing in the kind of soul guidance described on this site.

After receiving my ministerial degree I worked as a wedding minister and counselor for over 800 couples – both joining together, taking asunder, and re-imagining relationships.

As a teacher I’ve worked at many colleges and universities including Mundelein, DePaul, and Purdue. Currently, I teach courses in philosophy, religion and ethics at Indiana University.

For the purposes of our work my definition of “Soul” is the ‘deep self’ or the ‘whole self’ which includes not just the conscious ego but the unconscious, inner self that dreams and imagines and connects with forces that are unseen or unacknowledged by so much of the modern West.

The Soul is that part of each individual that carries both the shadow - a Jungian term connoting the aspects of the personality rejected by the ego - as well as the heroic potentialities. Significantly it is also the part of the self that is mingled with the collective; drawing from and contributing to the larger story being played out in our own lives and on the world stage.

In Soul Work, the only way “out” is “through.”

This means that you must find methods of self-reflection where you can catch glimpses of the parts of yourself that your ego tries to prevent you from seeing.

The most famous path is through dreams and I love working with clients through their dream images until that “aha!” moment when some realization springs forth.

Any of the creative arts can be a doorway leading to introspection, as can the simple acts of reading, walking, daydreaming, conversing, or any hobby - when mindfully attended to. And, of course, writing.

Ten years ago I came across the research of James Pennebaker, Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas, who has spent over three decades exploring the role of self-expression and storytelling in personal health.

His studies have been confirmed countless times and the power of narrative to bring about transformative effects is foundational to my own methodology.

One of the first counseling tasks is to find some methods that are conducive to you for working with soul.

The kind of counseling I do is based on a somewhat different set of assumptions than many current methods.

In the West, there is a privileging of the personality, the ego and its desires. It is assumed that having strong personal preferences about the way that your life looks and feels is right and good and that every effort of will should be applied to bring your life into closer alignment with the life you imagine you want.

This method towards the pursuit of happiness is a standard, Western worldview and there is nothing wrong with approaching life that way…. at least for awhile.

By the time you reach 40 or 45, however, you begin to notice that Life has a will of its own and that all the best laid plans often go awry. You also notice – if you’ve honestly been paying attention – that some of your most important life lessons come during crisis and unexpected woes. And lessons not learned tend to manifest in repeating the same mistakes over and over again.

This may include choosing the wrong kind of person to marry, accepting the wrong job offers, prioritizing the wrong values, etc. In my counseling method a fundamental shift is made which dethrones the ego and its desires and instead, focuses attention on the Soul.

The soulfully attuned ear hears the murmurings of the deep Self trying to express itself through symptoms, synchronicities, dreams, depression, hungers, creativity, humor, and wild imaginings.

The most important skill I impart to you is the ability to read the symbol system of your own psyche.

The mythopoetic way of working with your life begins with acknowledging that the Soul has desires that are deeper and higher than what the ego has been struggling for and that by being attentive to the signs of the soul we can discern what the deeper rhythms of your life might be.

When you are truly in dialogue with your deepest inner self, you will no longer be confused by the surface of things. You will have discovered the Deep Law. Then you may truly “sit and feast on your life.”