Stephanie Terre Blanche Clinical Psychologist and Psychotherapist

04/08/2026

At the link, James Baldwin (born 102 years ago today) on how to live through your darkest hour and happiness as a moral obligation to the universe: https://www.themarginalian.org/2020/04/23/james-baldwin-nothing-personal-4-am/

04/08/2026

03/08/2026

Our Quote of the Week.

“For until the demonic powers of the Dark goddess are claimed, there is no strength in the woman to grow from daughter to an adult who can stand against the patriarchy in its inhuman form.”

~ Sylvia Brinton Perera, 𝘋𝘦𝘴𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘎𝘰𝘥𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘴: 𝘈 𝘞𝘢𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘐𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘞𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯

03/08/2026

This is about the Soul...
It gets a bit more complicated when the Soil of who we are enters the conversation.

We are indeed Soul, Soil and Stardust...
We are Exquisite!

28/07/2026

Sometimes when I see this reminder I laugh, other times I cry, but boy oh boy, this is a lesson we just keep learning! Thank you to Hannah Fraser Moore

28/07/2026

Stunning

"Touch is what we desire in one form or another, even if we find it through being alone, through the agency of silence or through the felt need to walk at a distance: the meeting with something or someone other than ourselves, the light brush of grass on the skin, the ruffling breeze, the actual touch of another’s hand; even the gentle first touch of an understanding which until now, we were formally afraid to hold.

Whether we touch only what we see or the mystery of what lies beneath the veil of what we see, we are made for unending meeting and exchange, while having to hold a coherent mind and body, physically or imaginatively, which in turn can be found and touched itself. We are something for the world to run up against and rub up against: through the trials of love, through pain, through happiness, through our simple everyday movement through the world.
And the world touches us in many ways, some of which are violations of the body or our hopes for safety: through natural disaster, through heartbreak, through illness, through death itself. In the ancient world the touch of a God was seen as both a blessing and a violation - at one and the same time.

Being alive in the world means being found by the world and sometimes touched to the core in ways we would rather not experience. Growing with our bodies, all of us find ourselves at one time violated or wounded by this world in difficult ways, and still we live and breathe in this touchable, sensual world, and through trauma, through grief, through recovery, we heal in order to be touched again in the right way, as the physical consecration of a mutual, trusted invitation.

Nothing stops the body’s arrival in each new present, except death itself, which is intuited in all cultures as another, ultimate, intimate form of meeting. Nothing stops our ageing nor our witness to time, asking us again and again to be present to each different present, to be touchable and findable, to be one who is living up to the very fierce consequences of being bodily present in the world.

To forge an untouchable, invulnerable identity is actually a sign of retreat from this world; of weakness, a sign of fear rather than strength, and betrays a strange misunderstanding of an abiding, foundational and necessary reality: that untouched, we disappear."

David Whyte

26/07/2026

Yes, our bodies hold both:
Trauma and the Medicine to Heal it.

23/07/2026

Among the mythic figures embodying the Dark Feminine, Lilith remains one of the most provocative. According to the Alphabet of Ben Sira, Lilith and Adam were created from the earth. Insisting on equality, Lilith refused to accept a subordinate role. Choosing exile rather than submission, she left Eden. In later tradition, Lilith became a storm goddess and demon of the night, a dangerous temptress who preys on innocence and unsettles the line between what is safe and what is forbidden.

Janet Dallett describes Lilith as a buried archetype in every psyche, confronting us with the rage and vengefulness we would rather not acknowledge and filling us with horror and shame. She suggests that the independent feminine spirit was rejected early in the Judeo-Christian tradition and, as a result, became distorted. Symbolically, Eve and Lilith represent two complementary possibilities within the psyche: Eve embodies relatedness, receptivity and capacity for dependence, while Lilith embodies autonomy, equality and integrity within relationship. This latter possibility was driven into exile.

Lilith's refusal raises a developmental question: can we remain true to something essential in ourselves while also belonging to another? Relationships ask us to adapt and compromise, but the deeper question is whether what is surrendered is negotiable, or whether we feel compelled to betray a vital part of ourselves to remain loved. When autonomy is repeatedly denied a rightful place within relationship, it may harden into defensiveness. The repressed Lilith may then turn against what is still young, vulnerable and dependent, within ourselves and in others.

This dynamic may reveal itself in sarcasm that cuts down fragile beginnings before they can grow; in an inability to express love because dependence feels too dangerous; in the misuse of sexuality as a means of power rather than relationship; or in a detached indifference that denies the importance of feeling and connection.

Lilith's myth illuminates the cost of believing we must choose between autonomy and relationship. When they become divided, both our inner life and our engagement with the world are diminished.

~ Written by Charlotte Hoffman (.analyst), Clinical Psychologist and Jungian Analyst

Reference:
Dallett, Janet O. (1991). Saturday’s Child: Encounters with the Dark Gods. Inner City Books, pp. 21 – 32

Image Credit: Lady Lilith, Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1866 – 1873)

22/07/2026