Eva Rider Reclaiming Soul

✨ The Golden Thread: Fairy Tale and the Alchemical Wedding

How do fairy tales illuminate the mysteries of the psyche, relationship, and transformation?

On October 30th, Eva Rider, MA, LMFT, will present The Golden Thread: Fairy Tale and the Alchemical Wedding* at the C.G. Jung Institute Zürich in a virtual seminar exploring fairy tales through a Jungian and alchemical lens.

Together, we will follow the symbolic thread of the coniunctio—the Sacred Wedding, or union of opposites—and explore how ancient stories continue to speak to psychological transformation and individuation.

📅 October 30th, 2026
💻 Virtual presentation
📍 Hosted by the C.G. Jung Institute Zürich

For registration details and participation options, please visit the C.G. Jung Institute Zürich’s official website.

The Golden Thread: Fairy Tale and the Alchemical Wedding

C.G. Jung Institute Zürich
October 30, 2026

I am delighted to be returning to the C.G. Jung Institute Zürich for an online webinar this October 30th to present The Golden Thread: Fairy Tale and the Alchemical Wedding.

Fairy tales carry some of the oldest images of transformation within the collective psyche. In this seminar, we will enter their symbolic world through a Jungian and alchemical lens, exploring the journey of transformation and the coniunctio—the Sacred Wedding or union of opposites.

We follow the golden thread through fairy tale and alchemical imagery, exploring how these ancient stories continue to speak to the mysteries of psyche, relationship, transformation, and individuation.

“We have fallen out of belonging. Consequently, when we stand before crucial thresholds in our lives, we have no rituals to protect, encourage, and guide us as we cross over into the unknown.”
― John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

Art by Andrew Ferez

Mercurius, however, is not just the medium of conjunction but also that which is to be united, since he is the essence or "seminal matter" of both man and woman. Mercurius masculinus and Mercurius foemineus are united in and through Mercurius menstrualis, which is the "aqua."
Dorn gives the "philosophical" explanation of this in his "Physica Trismegisti": In the beginning God created one world (unus mundus).
This he divided into two—heaven and earth. "Beneath this spiritual and corporeal binarius lieth hid a third thing, which is the bond of
holy matrimony.
This same is the medium enduring until now in all things, partaking of both their extremes, without which it cannot be at all, nor they without this medium be what they are, one thing out of three."
The division into two was necessary in order to bring the "one" world out of the state of potentiality into reality. Reality consists of a multiplicity of things. But one is not a number; the first number is two, and with it multiplicity and reality begin.
~Carl Jung, CW 14,
Mysterium Coniunctionis - C.G. Jung

Life While-You-Wait

Life While-You-Wait.
Performance without rehearsal.
Body without alterations.
Head without premeditation.

I know nothing of the role I play.
I only know it's mine. I can't exchange it.

I have to guess on the spot
just what this play's all about.

Ill-prepared for the privilege of living,
I can barely keep up with the pace that the action demands.
I improvise, although I loathe improvisation.
I trip at every step over my own ignorance.
I can't conceal my hayseed manners.
My instincts are for happy histrionics.
Stage fright makes excuses for me, which humiliate me more.
Extenuating circumstances strike me as cruel.

Words and impulses you can't take back,
stars you'll never get counted,
your character like a raincoat you button on the run ?
the pitiful results of all this unexpectedness.

If only I could just rehearse one Wednesday in advance,
or repeat a single Thursday that has passed!
But here comes Friday with a script I haven't seen.
Is it fair, I ask
(my voice a little hoarse,
since I couldn't even clear my throat offstage).

You'd be wrong to think that it's just a slapdash quiz
taken in makeshift accommodations. Oh no.
I'm standing on the set and I see how strong it is.
The props are surprisingly precise.
The machine rotating the stage has been around even longer.
The farthest galaxies have been turned on.
Oh no, there's no question, this must be the premiere.
And whatever I do
will become forever what I've done.

~ Wislawa Szymborska ~

(Poems New and Collected 1957-1997,
trans. S. Baranczak and C. Cavanagh)