#2020 raina

[tina-aumont]

Beautiful photo of Raïna Manuel-Paris with her horse Quincy pictured circa 2020. Here you can find more photos of this very same photoshot.

✨Very special thanks to @74paris for sharing this beautiful photo of Tina's cousin✨

[tina-aumont]

Raïna interview at VoyageLA page.

[Raïna and her horse Quincy]

Dr. Raïna Manuel-Paris has a multicultural background, born of a French father and a Dominican mother. She was raised in France and England until her early 20’s then moved to the US. Fairy tales and Legends were her refuges. They helped her understand the difficulties of her childhood. By the age of twelve, she had read most of the myths and legends of the world. From Ireland and Russia to Arabia. She holds a Ph.D. in Mythological Studies with emphasis in Depth Psychology from PGI.

She also holds a Masters Degree in Film from Columbia U. She taught Magic and Ritual and Myth and Symbol for 15 years at the Art Institute in Santa Monica, where she also offered guided meditations and somatic energy work. Her own spiritual seeking and evolution has taken her from Bali to the sacred shores of Lake Atitlan in the Guatemalan Highlands of the Sierra Madre… She is also adjunct faculty at PGI where she taught a course in Archetypal Patterns in Cinema. She assisted Dr. Lionel Corbett during his Psyche and the Sacred workshop with its ritual aspect. She has also taught at the Relativity School in Downtown LA. She is a published author of non-fiction and scholarly articles: Trauma War and Spiritual Transformation, Journal of Jungian Thought, 2017; The Mother- to-be Dream Book. Warner Books, 2002.) She is also a poet and published one book of poetry with Raven Books as well as several poems in various publications. Her documentary the Bridges of My Father was selected for the short film corner at the Cannes Film Festival in 2009.

[Raïna's husky mix Numen]

Currently, Raïna splits her time between Los Angeles and Ojai, CA. She works with individuals in a process she calls “The Cradle and the Crown,” assisting men and women in coming to alignment body mind and soul, developing deep aliveness as well as careful listening to the whisperings of their soul’s desire. She also uses the Tarot and other oracle tools to help her clients. She is a speaker /lecturer at the Joseph Campbell roundtable on the Tarot: the 22 universal patterns of transformation and on Love: Primal Agent of Change as well as the Myth Salon in LA. She has given numerous lectures at the Philosophical Research Society and taught workshops based on the Cradle and The Crown process. She practices Natural Horsemanship, with her horse Quincy, and also spends time exploring the Ojai valley with her husky mix, Numen. She also plays the ancient frame drum and sings. She is working to complete a novel with archetypal motifs. She also wrote a play with writing partner Susan Kacvinsky: “Seeking Sophia” which had a staged reading in Los Angeles in 2014.

Her work with students, including many veterans, always emphasizes the ways in which one reconnects the Soul of the World, Anima Mundi, with Corpus Mundi, the body of the world, and how to hold the tension between the inner world and the outer world in a way that engages curiosity and compassion. She worked on an online course “Awakening the Magician Within” as well as on her lecture “What Women Want”. Probably the one thing that has been at the core of her life is the understanding that we are all spiritual beings, whether we know it or not, magical beings with a desire for healing and love. And that archetypal stories, and the ancient mysteries of nature, provide a helpful direction towards an authentic relationship with the Self. Having a life with ritual and contemplation is very helpful as well. Soul, she believes, needs Mystery more than Meaning in order to feel the joy of its divinity.

[Raïna Paris]

Has it been a smooth road? A life is not a smooth ride, ever, if you want to actually live. What I learned as a child was so filled with confusion and misunderstanding, judgment, and rage, I became fear-based and so mixed up inside I had to learn to untangle all the different strands of my life and identify them, like the four impossible tasks given to Psyche, There has been many losses and deep grief along the way as well as health challenges. But always the deepest learning comes from all those challenges as well as the wisdom of the body, Re-learning to listen to the instincts and the intuition, trusting the inner guidance which has always been there but that took time to relearn to trust. I had to learn how to live from a place of inner authority as opposed to outer expectations. The mystical tools, like the Tarot, and the wisdom teachings of the ages, have always been beautiful signposts along the way.

We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know? I am not someone who likes to teach or talk about something for the sake of talking. I need to come from love in whatever I do. Specially because I was so fear-based, And I also need to know what I am talking about, what I am trying to convey, not only intellectually but in the body and in the heart. I am a scholar, a guide and a poet. And I do not ever talk about a subject however scholarly without implicating myself on a personal level. It’s not something I decided to do, it’s just how I am. I am always trying to live a life that is absolutely personal and authentic to me and at the same time, share my experience with others in the hopes that it might be helpful or useful.

So I go into the places of the In-Between, of liminality. It is the place of dreams, of imagination, and it is also the world of Nature, where the truth lives, at the threshold between this world and the archetypal world, I work with the tarot from an archetypal viewpoint because it is an ancient wisdom tool and I believe it helps give perspective to this crazy road trip called life, which often seems to spiral back to the same places we have experienced before. I also teach a seminar about the Cradle and the Crown process which helps people connect with the power and passion of childhood joy as well as the wisdom of inner authority. Once the weeds of false beliefs get rooted out, I find there is a beautiful way to live in tune with the Self and the world around us.

[Another photo of Raïna and her horse Quincy]

Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least? I love that the city is surrounded by Nature, so close by, from parks and mountains to ocean.

It is a challenging place with just as many opportunities to heal and transform, as there are opportunities to lose oneself.

Raïna Paris interview at VoyageLA on-line magazine published the 20th May 2020. The name of the person who wrote this article or conducted this interview is not listed.