Demaris Snyder Wehr

     After graduating from Earlham, I moved to Philadelphia, where I worked for the AFSC off and on for nearly 10 years.  In the fall of 1963, I married Paul Wehr, and we both began graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania.  I graduated with an M.A. in French in 1964.  In 1965, we went to Algeria, where we were the AFSC representatives in Algiers, while Paul finished his Ph.D. there.  I translated family planning documents from English into French (a highly sensitive, and mostly  inappropriate, assignment, we later learned).  Our daughter, Kirsten, was born in 1966, on our return to Philadelphia.

     In 1970, Paul and I divorced.  Thus began a long journey toward self-discovery.  I entered a Ph.D. program at Temple University in 1972, and finished my Ph.D. in 1983.  My work was primarily on Jungian psychology and feminist theology.  Raising a daughter by myself during this period was challenging.  I remember feeling that each job was full-time (raising a child, and completing a Ph.D.).  Somehow, I managed.  I remarried in 1981, David Hart, a Jungian analyst who trained in Switzerland at the Jung Institute when Jung was there. 

     From 1981 until 1995, I taught at various institutions, including Harvard Divinity School, Swarthmore College, and Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, MA.  Like many, I loved the interaction with the students, but found the politics and the workaholism difficult.  I began training as a psychotherapist in 1991 at Pacifica Graduate Institute in California, and finished in 1994.  Since then, I have worked as a psychotherapist in private practice, and with my husband as a "Dialogue Therapist" with couples. 

     My all-time favorite thing I did was to work with a small team of trainers in post-war Bosnia, teaching conflict transformation skills to a group of Muslim and Serb educators.  We used the dynamics of the group itself, which were often tense, and we taught specific conflict transformation skills. The NGO with which I worked is the "Karuna Center for Peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation."  (Check it out on the web.)  The work was very moving, if difficult.  The participants were courageous beyond belief, moving into and beyond the recent trauma of war.

     David and I recently sold our house on Martha's Vineyard, where we have been living (not retired) for the past 6 years.  We are currently sojourning in Montana, and will return to the Vineyard in the middle of October, 2007 (just when you are having the reunion) to take possession of our new downsize there.  It is a small house in a co-housing community, completely "green," with a shared 25-acre meadow and trails and community decisions on most matters.  This is an out-of-the-way alternative community on the Vineyard, quietly hidden down some dirt roads, away from crowds.  We plan to keep working as psychotherapists as long as we are able, though the volume of work we do has diminished considerably.

     We enjoy travel.  Next summer, we will give workshops on Jungian topics in Edinburgh, London and Dublin.  We are greatly looking forward to this.  Hope to do some hiking in the Swiss Alps afterwards.

     One thing I must say before ending this shot at sharing is how grateful I am for my life.  Though this brief letter has discussed mostly what I "did," the real meaning of my life is found in the blessings of friends, family and beautiful places.  Like most everyone, I wish I could make a bigger difference in the current political scene.  We aim for small changes in our own lives (like the co-housing community), and we support environmental and peace-related causes.

     I'm sorry I cannot attend the reunion.  I realize that this rehearsal of activities does not accurately reflect the inner journey that accompanied it.  Those of you who attend the reunion will no doubt share your inner, as well as outward, journeys.  I look forward to reading about what you've done and who you've become. 

Blessings, everyone.

PS: New address:  12 Rock Pond Lane, West Tisbury, Ma.  02557   Cell:  508-274-6132.

PPS:   I kept "Wehr" as my last name because I had a professional reputation by the time I married David, a book published, articles, etc. 

demwehr@aol.com