The Spiritual Geek Podcast: Wisdom for Modern Times · Sheila Franzen

The Power of Fairy Tales with Laura Lewis-Barr

August 2, 2023·49 min·2 clips

I fell in love with stop motion, and when the pandemic hit, I had time and freedom to pursue this gift fully.

Host Sheila Franzen interviews filmmaker Laura Lewis-Barr about healing through fairy tales and stop motion art. Laura describes her midlife transition at 50—life falling apart, discovering Jungian analyst Marie Louise Von Franz's work on fairy tales, and beginning filmmaking using dolls as subjects. She taught herself camera work, fell in love with stop motion, and found that fairy tales' archetypal length and doll-as-archetype made them perfect medium. The pandemic provided time and freedom for full realization. Laura frames creative ideas as divine gifts (muse), larger than ego. Core insight: reconnecting to inner child playfulness through fairy tale engagement heals individuals and collective consciousness. Films designed as group viewing/discussion experiences, not solo watching. Emphasis on imagination as real and powerful realm—what Jung, Freud, and transpersonal psychology understand but culture has 'drilled out' through education systems.

As heard by us

A thoughtful case for reading fairy tales like dreams.

Laura Lewis-Barr and Sheila Franzen treat fairy tales as material for healing and for personal and collective transformation. The conversation is strongest when it resists turning these stories into problems to solve and instead lets them hold several meanings at once.

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Why you'd press play

Want fairy tales to feel more like mirrors than morals?

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