Tag: Natural World

Posted on

Mythologium 2021 welcomes Pegi Eyers

Pegi’s talk is called “The Life Force: Restoring Sacred Myth”

Our era calls out for a renewed recognition of the force that not only animates life, but is the spark itself: the essence that causes the seed to sprout season after season, and new beings to originate, germinate, or be born. In a world of materialism, and with the commodification of all that is alive and sentient, our society has come to take this spark for granted. But in times of looming extinction, a more grounded analysis is needed. How can we align with the “green fuse”? How have cultures across time and space paid tribute to the essence of life in perennial myths redolent with renewal and beauty?

Delving into mythologies both old and new will bring the originator force–the green mystery–back to the forefront of our consciousness where it belongs. Against all odds, the driver for the life spark continues to arise in Earth Community–including human fertility–even as Empire attacks and decimates the natural world. Through millennia, rising and fading away, the foundation of our unique planet has always been fecundity. Join Pegi Eyers for an empowering look, through the lens of mythology, at the sacredness of life itself.

About Pegi

Pegi Eyers is the author of the award-winning book Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community, a survey on social justice, nature spirituality, earth-emergent healing, and the holistic principles of sustainable living. Pegi self-identifies as a Celtic Animist, and is an advocate for the recovery of authentic ancestral wisdom and traditions for all people. She lives in the countryside on the outskirts of Nogojiwanong in Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg territory (Peterborough, Ontario, Canada), on a hilltop with views reaching for miles in all directions.

To hear Pegi’s talk and many others, join us at the Mythologium!

The Mythologium is a conference and retreat for mythologists and friends of myth, held July 30 – Aug 1 via Zoom. Register here!

Posted on

Mythologium 2021 welcomes Dr. Leon Aliski

Leon’s talk is called “Sensing the Landscape, Shifting the Lens: In Search of Wellness and Healing through Language, Story, and Perception”

Once in his life a man ought to concentrate his mind upon the remembered earth. He ought to give himself up to a particular landscape in his experience; to look at it from as many angles as he can, to wonder upon it, to dwell upon it.

— N. Scott Momaday

Our relationship with the natural world may be seen as essential to our well-being. Yet, perceived through the lens of Western culture, humans have often considered themselves as separate from the earth and other living beings. Does a felt sense of separation from the living earth affect our very breath, our cells, our essential well-being? Does our capacity to be fully human actually depend on our connections with the more-than-human world?

Through the voices and life experiences of David Abram, Thomas Berry, and Barry Lopez, we will explore ways of speaking, sensing, and understanding that enhance our capacities for healing and wellness. We will consider how shifting language, perception, and cultural assumptions may serve as a form of nourishment — a transformative balm while finding our way through the unprecedented crises we are now facing. Fair warning: this may change the way you experience a morning sunrise, a birdsong, or what the river says.

About Leon

Leon Aliski, Ph.D. holds a doctorate in cultural mythology and depth psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. His dissertation entitled, “Wild Bison and the Buffalo People: Reimagining ‘The Heart of Everything That Is’,” explores the cultural and historical significance of the buffalo for Plains Indian peoples as expressed through sacred narratives, songs, visions, and ceremonies. He is a supporter of Cloud Horse Art Institute, dedicated to Lakota traditional arts, performing arts, and culture camps, and the Reel Jobs Film School located on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

To hear Leon’s talk and many others, join us at the Mythologium!

The Mythologium is a conference and retreat for mythologists and friends of myth, held July 30 – Aug 1 via Zoom. Register here!

Posted on

Mythologium 2021 welcomes Dr. Andrea Slominski, aka Dr. A.

Dr. A.’s talk is called “The Steward Asks the Question”

Mythology offers intrinsic cyclic opportunities to reconnect, reassess, and recreate our personal, cultural, and global narratives. To accept this eternal invitation to re-creation and rebirth we must begin with the acknowledgement of our place in the natural world. If life as we know it is to survive, humanity must revision itself as one-of-the-many, as a steward, and not overlord of life on Earth. In 2020, increasing extreme weather events and the pandemic gave us a taste of where life out-of-balance is leading. It has also given us a chance to look within and realign our priorities. Mythology was born of human experience and our need for meaning-making amidst the eternal cycles of birth-life-death and rebirth. Myth can lead us into accord with universal principles of life. Myth can lead to the healing of the wasteland, if we ask the right questions. The first question must be, what is our place in the natural world?

About Dr. A.

Dr. A. is a cultural mythologist, women’s mentor and coach, speaker, and writer. Andrea received her Ph.D. from Pacifica Graduate Institute. She is the creator of The Midlife Re-Boot! Method, a program developed to guide women to recreate themselves and rediscover their true north at midlife. Her work engages with the current re-emergence of the archetypal feminine, at a time when nature and the earth, themselves symbols, metaphors, and embodiments of the sacred feminine, are under existential threat from climate change. Dr. A. has been a featured workshop facilitator and speaker at women’s events and the College of the Canyons Women’s Empowerment Conference and the Popular Culture, American Academy of Religions, Women in Mythology, and the Mythologium conferences. Dr. A’s mission is to guide, consult, and mentor women to fulfill their potential and become their most authentic selves in service to themselves and others.

To hear Andrea’s talk and many others, join us at the Mythologium!

The Mythologium is a conference and retreat for mythologists and friends of myth, held July 30 – Aug 1 via Zoom. Register here!