Sweet Pea Summer

For a number of years, the author, now 64, has studied the mythological theme of the mother and daughter mysteries. An earlier memoir in Psychological Perspectives, entitled “Pictures of My Mother” (2010), explored a strained and often painful relationship. In that essay, the author uncovered a previously unfelt love for the “colorful, constrained, complicated, and courageous” woman her mother was. The generative process of writing “Pictures of My Mother” opened a new understanding. In this article the author receives a fresh visitation from Mnemosyne, the Greek goddess of memory. The goddess penetrates beneath images of illness and old age and travels into an earlier time. The author was five, and her mother, at the age of 44, was still vital and alive. The mother, a gifted gardener, taught her daughter how to grow sweet peas. The flowers blossom as an expression of the bond between mother and daughter.     

Self-pluralism: assessment and relations to adjustment, life changes, and age

Individuals differ in the degree to which they see themselves as behaving and feeling similarly or differently in different situations and at different times. This dimension of the self-concept, which is conceived to extend from strong constancy of the self-concept at one extreme to marked variability at the opposite pole, is designated as self-pluralism. An inventory for the assessment of degree of self-pluralism--the Self-Pluralism Scale (SPS)--is presented, and the correlations of this scale with other relevant personality measures are reported. Several studies utilizing the SPS are presented. The results indicate that self-pluralism is negatively related to psychological adjustment, positively related to long-term real-life variability, and negatively related to age.     

A procedure for increasing oral reading rate in hard-of-hearing children

This study investigated the effects of systematic training on the oral reading rate of four hard-of-hearing children. In training, systematic increases in pulsing rate of a vibrotactile stimulus were arranged. The children received points, exchangeable for money when their reading rate equalled the pulse rate of the stimulus. The training procedure was effective in increasing the oral reading rate in all children. Generalized increases in reading rate on untrained word lists, sentences, and paragraphs were also observed.     

Pine ridge places—Feral,liminal, sacred

Animal dreams can bring us into deeper relationship with our own instinctual nature. They seem to communicate something from the ancient vestiges of our functioning on earth—all the head knowledge in the world cannot match the sheer vibrancy and power of our own animal. In an age characterized by alienation from the rhythms of natural life, animal dreams can remind us that we still retain access to the deepest layers of instinctual wisdom. This is particularly relevant for women, as they tend to suffer the consequences of an overly technological society most keenly. Women's lives are anchored in natural rhythms, and the impact of living in a culture that ignores and denigrates nature is therefore especially wounding. This essay explores the ways in which dreams of animals can help guide women back toward a relationship with their embodied nature. The author researches and explores several examples of animals in women's dreams and the ways in which these dreams can support a return to what is most vital and “natural” in their lives.