Morgan’s talk is called “A Revolting Voice: W.B. Yeats and the Renaissance of the Soul”
When W. B. Yeats published A Vision, he declared it would proclaim “a new divinity.” The new divinity that he foresaw was the revolt of the soul against the intellect — an apotheosis of all humanity through the reemergence of an ecological consciousness. Inspired by the theosophy of Madame Blavatsky, Yeats had long predicted humanity’s return to the golden age of the Goddess through a reinstatement of the chthonic and lunar tradition. Dionysious Psilopoulos, in The Prophets and the Goddess, investigates this quest that consumed Yeats’s being but skims past an integral component — the importance of Yeats’s hermetic training in his lifelong dedication, not only to the transient cycles of the Goddess, but to the restoration of unity and balance. Through a close analysis of A Vision, citing esoteric and scholarly sources, as well as Jungian theories of the unconscious, this presentation works to demonstrate how magic and mythology may serve as the foundation for both the renaissance and balancing of consciousness, ecology, and soul.
About Morgan
Morgan Azali dwells at the intersection of wellness, creativity, mythology, and magic. She recently completed a BA (Hons) in Creative Writing from Deakin University where her research focused on the influence of western esotericism in the life and work of W. B. Yeats. Weaving this together with her background in holistic health, she is interested in the ways that creative and spiritual practice can function as healing modalities on both the personal and the global scale.
To hear Morgan’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 29 – 31 via Zoom in the Pacific time zone. Join us to rekindle your mythic spark!
This panel is sponsored by iRewild. Thank you, iRewild!
In this panel, Dr. Renda Dionne Madrigal, Dr. Catherine Svehla, and Dr. Annalisa Derr address the question, how do myths and mythic images depict empathy as a critical ingredient for restoring a deeper relationship with the soul of the world?
Dr. Renda Dionne Madrigal will present on “Heart Story Medicine: Indigenous Wisdom for the Modern World”
Are you connected to the stories of the lands you live upon? Young and Saver note that once we lose our ability to construct narrative, we lose ourselves. According to the World Health Organization, loneliness and depression are epidemics today. People do not feel connected to themselves, others, or the natural world. We have to care about something to feel empathy, and to care we have to connect. Our ancestors were deeply connected to place and people. The foundation for this connection is in the old stories, the land-connected stories of the places we live. Stories enchant the world, and an enchanted world is a world in which we are connected to everything around us. Indigenous people have long known that stories carry medicine. Stories contain wisdom, resources, and archetypal energies. This workshop will focus on the Chippewa story of Skywoman, the manitou who created the North American continent. This is the story I worked with as part of my Capstone project at the Applied Compassion Training program at Stanford. This journey began with asking, Who are the ancient female peace keepers? My capstone was aimed at highlighting and revitalizing indigenous female heart medicine contained in traditional stories from around the world. My premise was that when indigenous women’s voices are seen as fiercely and gently compassionate, strength is reclaimed and useful archetypes are made visible once more. Come learn what an ancient manitou from this continent has to teach us about how to live well.
About Renda
Renda Dionne Madrigal, Ph.D., Registered Drama Therapist, Narradrama Trainer, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, was featured on the cover of the February 2018 edition of Mindful Magazine and will be featured as a 2022 Powerful Woman of Mindfulness (August edition). She is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist, TA/Advisor for the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, Mindfulness Awareness Research Center Teacher Training Program, UCLA Certified Mindfulness Facilitator, certified with the International Mindfulness Teachers Association and Stanford Certified Applied Compassion Educator/Consultant. She is also faculty at the Drama Therapy Institute of Los Angeles and California Indian Nations College, President of Mindful Practice Inc. and works with story medicine (embodied mindfulness, narrative and drama/creative arts).
Dr. Dionne Madrigal specializes in embodied mindfulness-based practices and has been a Licensed Clinical Psychologist for over twenty years. She combines mindfulness, somatic (body-based) therapies, and story in much of the work she does. She is Turtle Mountain Chippewa. Her heritage informs her work. She is involved in healing theater and has appeared in Indigenous plays written by her daughters. In her spare time, she enjoys writing fiction featuring Indigenous female protagonists who save the world. Her book The Mindful Family Guidebook is available through Parallax Press and Penguin Random House and was listed as a Best Book of Mindfulness 2021 by Mindful Magazine. She is currently working on her next book, Story Medicine.
Dr. Catherine Svehla will present on “More Than a Metaphor: ‘The Queen Bee'”
The importance of empathy for members of the more-than-human world is a common theme in fairy tales. In the fairy tale of "The Queen Bee," for example, the youngest brother is ridiculed for a sensitivity that is later rewarded. Stories like this one affirm the value of kindness and reciprocity that extend beyond human society. This is a valuable message and yet there is more to be found in such stories. Curiosity about the lives of our fellow beings in the material world can lead to insights that challenge cultural constructs and deepen awareness of the link between self and Other. This type of investigation makes a broader understanding of relationship and empathy possible.
About Catherine
Catherine Svehla is an independent scholar, storyteller, and teacher with a PhD in Mythological Studies and Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. She creates thought-provoking story circles, workshops, and other tools to help people use a mythic and archetypal lens to transform their lives. Catherine is the host of the Myth Matters podcast, an exploration of myth in contemporary life and a member of Joseph Campbell Foundation’s MythMaker℠ Podcast Network. A recognized innovator in the field of mythological studies, Catherine received a New Mythos grant from OPUS Archives and is a member of the Joseph Campbell Foundation Editorial Advisory Group. Learn more at http://www.mythicmojo.com.
Dr. Annalisa Derr will present on “Ecological Empathy: Grief in the Age of the Anthropocene”
Grief is a universal human experience. In many myths, even the gods and goddesses grieve. Not only do they teach us how to grieve, but some of these myths teach that celestial grief can itself cause catastrophic consequences in response to both human and divine folly and ignorance. In the age of the Anthropocene where human impact on climate change is ever more apparent, what can these myths teach us about grief that extends beyond our human-to-human bonds?
In this presentation, I will describe my personal experience with inter-species grief after a tragic encounter with a deceased bald eagle. Examining myths from the Ancient Greek, Hindu, and Mesopotamian traditions, I will also include how I believe mythic expressions of grief can model an ecological empathy for non-human animal life and death.
About Annalisa
Annalisa Derr, PhD completed her doctorate in Mythological Studies with an Emphasis in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. The title of her dissertation is Resacralizing Female Blood: Overcoming 'the Myth of Menstrual Danger.' Seeking an embodied approach to her research inquiry, Annalisa developed a site-specific, menstrual art performance series, “She Bleeds the World into Existence.” She also founded Journey to the Goddess TV—an online platform featuring interviews with scholars, artists, activists, and religious practitioners that explores the significance of goddess archetypes for modern women. Annalisa has been a professional actress for over 30 years with a BA in Theater Arts and specialized training in masked and physical theater from internationally renowned teachers in Italy, India, and New York. She is also a Mary Magdalene devotee, an Italophile, and an aspiring Flamenco dancer. You can visit her website at www.journeytothegoddess.voyage.
In this panel, Maile Kaku, Orpheus Black, and Marcene Gandolfo address the question, how does myth comment on the possibility of an ecological society where diverse voices and traditions all have space to flourish?
Maile Kaku will present on “Hawaiian Akua: Laka as Living Myth, Science and Ecological Awareness”
The Hawaiian word akua is usually translated by the English word “god.” This is misleading. It compels us to see the Hawaiian akua through Western eyes—that is, as supernatural or divine beings. However, in the Hawaiian cosmovision, the akua are not so much “beings” as “doings,” less nouns than verbs. They are the energies of the earth and sky, the active, ongoing processes of nature. Becoming aware of these akua and their (inter)actions is ecological consciousness par excellence.
Maile’s talk will focus on the akua Laka, known in modern terms as the “goddess of the forest.” Laka’s realm expresses the interconnective energies that sustain us all as living beings. Her divine powers are indeed the very stuff of science. Through the prism of this akua, we will see how the sacred, the mythological, the scientific and the ecological are all interwoven.
Indigenous ways of interbeing-with-the-world have always been deeply rooted in ecological knowledge and practice. Seeing the environment as an ecosphere of living myth and nature through non-Western eyes incites us to self-reflexively question our own ways of viewing and engaging with not only the world but mythology itself.
About Maile
Maile Kaku is on a twisting-turning never-ending learning journey and is grateful to all of the teachers who have nurtured and continue to nurture this wondrous journey. She has lived abroad most of her life, worked as a documentary translator and traveled the world. She holds a French postgraduate degree in Histoire et Sémiologie du Texte et de l'Image from the Université de Paris-Diderot and is currently a doctoral candidate in Mythological Studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Maile is also an ongoing learner in the Ulu Ka ‘Ōhiʻa Hula-Consciousness Seminar as well as a dancer and teacher of hula with Hālau Hula O Mānoa, the only traditional school of Hawaiian dance in France. She divides her time between Honolulu, Hawai’i, and Paris, France.
Orpheus Black will present on “The Missing Myth: The Abduction of the Afro Cultural Unconscious”
Myths and stories are soul-making and speak to cultures about origins and creation. Without mythology, a given group of people may be devoid of archetypes that model survival, familial narratives, and a cultural understanding of self and community, along with the roles that one may play in the wider global lens and the cosmos.
The culture of the African-American has been deprived of inclusion in the collective unconscious, namely with regards to the development and cultivation of culture-specific archetypes. Sustained exposure to the forces of colonization included an intentional archetypal erasure, and this played a major role in the disappearance of these narratives among the African-American population. The mythological and archetypal narratives most cultures adopt as their foundation were deleted from the indigenous African population enslaved into the Americas.
We may consider a multitude of other cultures, such as the Greeks, who have created identifiable archetypes and mythologies that give them reference to who they are as a people. The Greek archetypes are synonymous with who they believe themselves to be. These ancient narratives continue to inform a population and culture to the present day. This cultural isolation would become a type of imprisonment for groups such as African-Amerians who, through colonization, had their stories of who they were as a people ripped from their consciousness.
Joseph Campbell’s “Hero with a Thousand Faces” addresses the idea that many cultures share the same hero archetype. Juxtapose these cultures that share a mytho-poetic narrative with one devoid of the hero archetype. It is difficult for the average individual living in the U.S. to name a single hero from African-American history. Consequently, it is difficult for the communities in possession of a hero archetype representation to empathize with the community lacking this connection.
Without mythology, a group of people may be devoid of the cultural unconscious that seeks to produce archetypes. I will discuss the consequences of the African-American population deprived of its mythological inheritance. I aim to guide an exploration of a relevant contemporary phenomenon and propose practices to move forward into a cultural mythos unique to our time, our place, and our people.
About Orpheus
Orpheus Black is a Los Angeles-based public speaker, teacher, thought leader, and somatic visionary who specializes in the application of ancient wisdom in modern day settings. With a helpful practice steeped in spirituality and intimacy, Orpheus is a living bridge between healthy sex and enlightenment. Through a balanced integration of Afro-Buddhism, psycho-sensuality, and Taoist teachings inherent in his martial arts practice, his light-hearted lessons have become sought after internationally, even as counsel to the experts in his field.
Orpheus aims to propel the intellectual and sensual evolution of masculinity both by challenging men to reconnect with its roots and by inviting them to embrace manhood in its fullness, the way strong modern men wish it to be. In this role, he shares insights, offers tools, and speaks against societal norms of shame and repression. He does it all with the earnestness of a therapist, the knowledge of a guru, and the charisma of a stage performer.
Marcene Gandolfo will present on “Ecofeminism and Contemporary Native American Poetry: Linda Hogan’s Mythopoetic Vision”
Native American poet Linda Hogan asserts that mythical narratives depict “the deepest, innermost cultural stories of our human journeys toward spiritual and psychological growth.” Hogan’s poems manifest as contemporary myths, which derive images, themes, and narratives from traditional Native American mythologies and unite the quest for ecological sustainability to the desire for physical and emotional healing and balance. Inspired by ecofeminist theory, Hogan’s work recognizes the connection between the exploitation and degradation of the natural world and the subordination and oppression of women. Hence, Hogan’s poems seek to restore harmonies between the archetypal feminine and the earth.
This presentation explores ecofeminist themes in Hogan’s poetry and includes a close reading of Hogan’s poem “Hunger,” which maps the journey of European fishermen, as they hunt dolphins and sail toward a Native American settlement. Throughout the poem, Hogan creates a juxtaposition between the dolphins and the Native American women that the fishermen violate and subjugate. The poem explores the hunger that compels colonialism, misogyny, and brutality toward the natural world; however, it also explores mythic themes of forgiveness, restoration, and healing.
About Marcene
Marcene Gandolfo’s poems have been published widely in literary journals, including Poet Lore, Bellingham Review, december, and RHINO. In 2014, her debut book, Angles of Departure, won Foreword Reviews’ Silver Award for Poetry. She has taught writing and literature at several northern California colleges and universities. Marcene is currently a PhD candidate in Comparative Mythology at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Her dissertation explores mythological resonances in the poems of Brigit Pegeen Kelly.
This panel’s title is “Myths to Live (and Die) By: Hands-On Work at the Intersection of Myth and Ecology”
Mythic work often lives at the intersection of the individual and the collective. There is perhaps no place where this is more profound than in work that involves ecological consciousness. Joseph Campbell once said, “When you are in accord with nature, nature will yield its bounty. This is something that is coming up in our consciousness now, with the ecology movement, recognizing that by violating the environment in which we are living, we are really cutting off the energy and source of our own living.“
In what ways do we see the energies of our own living being cut off? What is the mythic relationship between the earth and human beings? What narratives have held warnings about violations of that relationship? What challenges exist when attempting to live from a place of both mythical and ecological health?
In this panel, Maria Souza, Dr. Lori Pye, and Robert Walter discuss their personal work with myth and ecological consciousness. Dr. John Bucher from the Joseph Campbell Foundation moderates.
About Maria
Maria Souza is a Brazilian mythologist, educator and writer. She holds a postgraduate degree in Ecology and Spirituality, and she worked for seven years in the Amazon with indigenous people. Maria fell in love with mythology during her studies in the UK in 2015, and since then she has begun a personal and academic exploration of the topic. Her book, Wild Daughters, draws from mythology and time-worn tales while illuminating the challenges, dangers, beauty, and reality of the first initiations of a woman’s life. Blending ancient wisdom with contemporary culture, Souza’s writings reflect a woman in search of depth in times of superficial ornaments. She runs a mentoring program based on Clarissa Pinkola-Estés' Women Who Run With The Wolves and is the creator and host of the Women and Mythology podcast, hosted as part of the Joseph Campbell Foundation's MythMaker℠ Podcast Network.
About Lori
Dr. Pye is the Founder and President of Viridis Graduate Institute and is a leading voice in the field of ecological psychology (ecopsychology) as an approach to the interconnected challenges of our times. As executive director for international marine organizations, Dr. Pye worked with numerous NGOs to co-develop the Eastern Tropical Pacific Biological Seascape Corridor with the Ministers of the Environment from Costa Rica, Colombia, Panama, and Ecuador. As an educator, Dr. Pye teaches internationally and at leading international conferences on diverse cultural issues such as Nature and Human Nature, The Mythology of Violence, and The Aesthetic Nature of Change. Dr. Pye has multiple publications in peer-reviewed journals and continues to contribute to the growing field of ecopsychology. She is a member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Commission on Education and Communication (CEC), European Ecopsychology Society (EES), International Society for Environmental Ethics (ISEE) and serves on the Editorial Board for Ecopsychology Journal. Dr. Pye serves on Harrison Middleton University's Humanities Advisory Council and is a board member of From the Heart Film Productions, and Project Satori that aims to provide mental health treatment services to sex trafficking survivors and their families. Dr. Pye serves as faculty at Viridis Graduate Institute and the University of Santa Barbara (UCSB). She formerly taught ecopsychology at Kaweah Delta Mental Health Hospital Psychiatric Residency Program. Her textbook Fundamentals of Ecopsychology is forthcoming from Routledge in 2022.
About Bob
In 1979, Robert Walter began work with Joseph Campbell on several projects, including Campbell's multivolume Historical Atlas of World Mythology, for which Bob became editorial director. As Campbell’s literary executor, following the famed mythologist’s death in 1987, Bob completed and supervised the posthumous publication of the Historical Atlas. In 1990, when Bob and Joseph Campbell’s widow, Jean Erdman, together with his family and close friends, founded the Joseph Campbell Foundation (JCF), Bob was named vice president and executive director. He was appointed JCF president in 1998. He has spoken internationally about the connections between myth and healing.
John Bucher, PhD, moderator
John Bucher is a mythologist and storyteller based out of Hollywood, California. He serves as Creative Director for the Joseph Campbell Foundation and is also an author, podcaster, and speaker. He has worked with companies including Atlas Obscura, HBO, DC Comics, The History Channel, A24 Films, The John Maxwell Leadership Foundation and served as a consultant and writer for numerous film, television, and Virtual Reality projects. He is the author of six books including the best-selling Storytelling for Virtual Reality, named by BookAuthority as one of the best storytelling books of all time. Disruptor named him one of the top 25 influencers in Virtual Reality. John teaches writing and story courses in the Los Angeles area and around the world. He holds a PhD in Mythology and Depth Psychology and has spoken on six continents about using the power of story and myth to reframe how individuals, organizations, cultures, and nations are viewed. For more about John’s work, visit tellingabetterstory.com.
To hear this panel and many others, join us at the Mythologium!
The Mythologium is a conference and retreat for mythologists and friends of myth, held July 29 – 31 via Zoom.
10. Ecological consciousness champions individuality
Rather than forcing conformity and control, ecosystems enable and even require every member to thrive as their authentic self.
9. Ecological consciousness makes room for possibility
There’s always room for something new and amazing to emerge in the niches betwixt and between members of an ecosystem.
8. Ecological consciousness fosters community
For an ecosystem to thrive, each member of it must balance individual thriving with support for the collective – and vice versa.
7. Eco-consciousness is fun!
Ecological consciousness enables the liminal space of play and games and laughter, from where we play only for the sake of playing.
6. Eco-consciousness is alive
Ecological consciousness is more about being than it is about thinking – it’s the being of a forest, the being of a city, a self, a living planet.
5. Eco-consciousness values beauty
The perfect fit between members of an ecosystem takes our breath away with its elegance and grace.
4. Eco-consciousness is diverse
The same way that a mythological pantheon gracefully holds many diverse inflections of divinity, ecological thinking gracefully holds diverse voices, cultures, and viewpoints.
3. Eco-consciousness is creative
Non-linear, multi-layered and generative, ecological thinking primes us for breakthrough insights and ideas.
2. Eco-consciousness taps into eco-intelligence
Imagine the individual intelligence of every member of the ecosystem, and the greater intelligence of the ecosystem as a whole. It’s much greater than the sum of its parts.
1. Eco-consciousness is our birthright
As members of the Earth ecosystem, ecological thinking is our first form of thinking. We’re born into it, and we can return to it anytime we want.
Bonus: Eco-consciousness is dynamic!
Ecological consciousness flows with the whole cycle of being, from potential to germination, birth, life, death, and then new life again.
In keeping with the 2022 theme of Myth and Ecological Consciousness, we are thrilled to announce that this year’s keynote speaker will be Dr. Craig Chalquist. Craig is a professor, author, storyteller, and consultant who writes and teaches at the intersection of psyche, story, ecology, and imagination. His Mythologium keynote is called “Terragnosis: Yesterday’s Folklore, Today’s Earthly Wisdom.” Welcome, Craig!
What do the old stories tell us about how to relate to nature, place, element, animals, and planet—and how not to? What are the warnings and wisdoms we discover in the ancient tales when retold for our time? Drawing on the framework of Hermeticism, an Earth-honoring wisdom path originating in Egypt and infusing alchemy, Islamic gnosticism, European Romanticism, depth psychology, spiritual ecology, and now terrapsychology, we will learn how the Way of the Mage can guide our understanding as tales once told around the world return to life in an ecologically troubled time.
Craig Chalquist, PhD is a depth psychologist and ecopsychologist whose teachings and books focus on the intersection of folklore, story, place, nature, and psyche. The former Associate Provost of Pacifica Graduate Institute, he is core faculty in the Department of East-West Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies. His most recent book is Terrapsychological Inquiry: Restorying Our Relations with Nature, Place, and Planet (Routledge, 2020). He is also author of Myths Among Us: When Timeless Tales Return to Life (World Soul Books, 2018). Visit his website chalquist.com.
The 2022 Mythologium will be held July 29-31, 2022, and the theme will be Myth and Ecological Consciousness.
Myth and Ecological Consciousness
Ecological consciousness involves an awareness of the intricate relationships among beings in an ecosystem: animals (including people), plants, places, and things. These connections allow ecosystems to flourish. Becoming aware of those connections brings us closer to awareness of what the Buddhist leader Thich Nhat Hanh calls our “interbeing.” But all too often, we experience what seems like the opposite: an over-focus on individualism and separation, an instinct to harm or be harmed, a fevered hunger for more-more-more.
How does mythology comment on ecological consciousness? What myths, images, and archetypes foster or subvert eco-consciousness? As mythologists, how can we think and work more ecologically? How can mythic eco-consciousness help us strengthen connections between each other and between groups? What does myth suggest about the balance between eco-consciousness and individual needs, desires, and agency?
#10 – Dr. Dennis Patrick Slattery’s keynote speech, “Healing into Wholeness: Healing as Myth and Method”
Here’s an excerpt from the abstract:
“This presentation will explore the power of a contagion as a large encompassing metaphor, to heal as it wounds. Such a pollution can be an occasion, even opportunity, for the gods to enter the arena to provoke us into a level of awareness that we could not have understood without an invasive infection that inflects our lives into a greater mytho-spiritual consciousness.”
If myth is your thing, this is your conference. The Mythologium is the perfect place to meet new mythologists and re-connect with old friends. Connections like those can lead to speaking, writing, and/or teaching opportunities, not to mention friendships and fantastic conversation.
When you gather with the community of mythologists, your ideas will meet new ideas, and everyone’s ideas will mingle together and lead to even more ideas that might never have emerged otherwise. It’s a creative playground for your mythic mind!
Your self-care has never been more important than it is right now. Yes, yours. And as we know, self-care means soul care. The conversation of mythologists is an oasis for the soul, where you can refresh yourself with wisdom, insight, and inspiration all having to do with this year’s theme of Myth and Healing.
At the Mythologium, everyone has something to teach everyone else, and everyone has something to learn from everyone else. That exchange happens when each of us opens up to giving and receiving. Then the flow of ideas is electric! If you love learning, you’ll love the Mythologium.
This year’s Myth Makers panel features the novelist Jamie Figueroa and the poet Dr. Raïna Manuel-Paris. Jamie and Raïna will share selections from their work, as well as reflections on myth, healing, and their creative process.
#4: Delve into the topic of “Confronting Colonialism and White Supremacy in Myth,” a panel sponsored by the Pacifica Graduate Institute Alumni Association.
On this panel:
Dr. Rosalie Nell Bouck will present on “’Held Embrujadas’: Reading Mesoamerican Myths of Femininity as a Radical Response to Contemporary Colonialism.”
Sea Gabriel will present a talk called, “Who’s Your Daddy? The Norse, The Nazis, and The World Stage.”
Dr. Brandon Williamscraig will address “The Myth of Peace and Conflict Done Well.”
#2 – Explore the ancient connection between the body and myth in the Joseph Campbell Foundation’s discussion of “The Myth of the Body and the Body of Myth.”
In this panel, leaders from the Joseph Campbell Foundation will be in conversation with each other and with Renda Dionne Madrigal, PhD, a Turtle Mountain Chippewa clinical psychologist, around Campbell’s ideas concerning myth and healing, as well as practices from the cultures and traditions he studied, including those of First Nations people.
This year’s Mythologium features 50 mythologists speaking on 18 different panels. Panel topics range from Mythic Healers to Healing Tales of Wonder, Healing Psyche and Soma, and many, many more.
The Fates and Graces Mythologium condemns the brutal murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and all our Black brothers and sisters who have died at the hands of racist systems, culture, behaviors, and beliefs. We mourn their lost lives, and we mourn for the trauma and denied opportunity that our culture has inflicted on all Black people.
Black lives matter. Black mythology matters. Black mythologists matter.
We commit to cultivating an inclusive community that celebrates diversity, amplifies the voices of marginalized mythologists, and honors sacred narratives of the whole human family. We call on all mythologists to join us in rooting out racism in our field, whatever it takes for as long as it takes. We commit our mythic imaginations to this work.
We join our voices to those who call for justice and a deep re-visioning of our collective values. Our sorrow is our call to action to address and redress racism. We also commit to our ongoing awakening as an organization, and to dismantling the structures and assumptions that hold us all back, especially in the field of mythological studies. Now more than ever, let us inspire each other, amplify each other’s voices, and cherish the alchemy of being together. As we lift each other, we all rise.
We’ll talk more about this at the Mythologium. Meanwhile, keep marching, keep raising your voice, and keep creating a more just, caring, compassionate world.
No doubt you’ve attended more webinars, video classes, and other online events by now than you ever thought possible. It’s inspiring to see how quickly and creatively everyone moved their jobs, lectures, doctor’s visits, church services, and school rooms online.
And now the virtual 2020 Mythologium is coming up fast. But the Mythologium is much more than just a webinar. This conference is a two-and-a-half day immersion into the latest research by dozens of mythologists, with live discussion sessions following each panel, plus poetry and writing exercises to help you process your own responses in real-time. We find this format deliciously rich for sharing ideas, sparking new ones, and coming together as a tribe.
But how will the Mythologium translate to cyberspace? Here’s a preview of what lies ahead.
Logistics
The Mythologium will run all day on Friday July 31st and Saturday August 1st, and half the day on Sunday August 2nd.
During some sessions the whole group will be together, during some sessions we’ll run two parallel tracks, and sometimes we’ll do smaller breakout groups so everyone can be on video. The good news is that we’ll record all panel sessions so you can catch up afterwards on any presentations you missed due to double booking.
For writing exercises, you’ll need your favorite writing supplies. We’re partial to paper and pens (Joanna loves Moleskine journals and Pilot Juice retractable gel), but you do you. Hammer and chisel, typewriter, finger-paints — whatever medium helps you express your ideas, make sure to have it handy.
We will build in coffee, snack, and meal breaks so you can stretch and rest your eyes from the computer screen, so assemble the snacks and drinks you’ll need to keep you going ahead of time.
Speaking of drinks, plan on a virtual happy hour. Lay in some of the gifts of Dionysus if you’d like to partake in a convivial beverage.
Make sure you’ll have a quiet place and/or headphones so you can hear well.
We’ll be streaming quite a bit of video and audio, which means network bandwidth. For the best experience, you might want to turn wifi off on any devices you don’t need that weekend — and sweet talk your housemates into using cell service while you’re online.
Between July 15 and July 31, you’ll receive printed conference materials in the mail, with some goodies thrown in for fun, and all the information you need to log in.
Spread the word to all your mythophilic friends! Share this post, follow us on social media, and if you haven’t already, join our email list at: myth2020.com
We couldn’t be more excited to present the Mythologium as a virtual conference and retreat. We are counting the days until we gather online!
