Feeling particularly grateful for my soon to be official Dissertation Advisor/Reader,

Debra Knowles, Ph.D.

I finally shifted from emails to a simple phone call and now feel we are much more on the same team. A quote from her: "Everybody is living out their thoughts"
and from her work on Hannah Arendt: "All I ever tried to do with my writing is to explain it to myself."

further excellent advice...

Be clear about stating my unique hypothesis as though beginning (but not being obsessive about ) a scientific experiment. State the Process Arts shift as a given but be clear I don't intend to prove it unequivocally. It will substantiate itself as we go.
Don't stop mid sentence to comfort the reader re the vagaries of expression itself being indefinite. Just be clear what is meant.

On a different tangent, the dictionary definition of Empirical = 1. Relying on or derived from observation or experiment: empirical results that supported the hypothesis. 2. Verifiable or provable by means of observation or experiment: empirical laws. 3. Guided by practical experience and not theory, especially in medicine. James Hillman works Jung's "empirical event" such that he "refreshes a term that has shrunk into an encrusted cliche of scientism" (Healing Fiction p32). Does anybody know of any other specific places Hillman or Jung directly expand on the idea of non-scientistic empiricism?

Also in the news, I am grateful to Huston Smith for nominating me for membership in the Pacific Coast Theological Society. He called to inform me today that I am definitely accepted and expected at their Spring Meeting. They send out three papers from members and gather on a Friday from 2pm (2 papers) through dinner, and Saturday from 10-noon (1 paper). I'm looking forward to joining in and chewing on some lovely intellectual roughage.

Reminder to self: send dues to Secretary/Treasurer Sharon Burch