Mythic Journeys Conference & Performance Festival 2004

Rebecca Armstrong

Through his comprehensive study of world mythology, Joseph Campbell noted that there have been four great epochs of mythology: The Way of the Animal Powers; The Way of the Seeded Earth; The Way of the Celestial Lights; The Way of the Human.  These epochs, while historical, still live on in the human psyche... Read More

Package Includes:
Audio Recording of the Presentation, Illustrated Transcript featuring the artwork of Stu Jenks, "The Song of the Chorus" by T.S. Eliot

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Mythic Journeys Conference & Performance Festival 2004

Charles de Lint, Carolyn Dunn, and Terri Windling

“She’s a fox.” “He’s a wolf.”  Could it be true?  Folklore from around the world is full of shapeshifters who are both human and animal at the same time: "Was it a snake or was it a man, Uncle John?"  “He was a man who was a snake.”  Tales of the beastly bride or bridegroom, the initiatory encounters of Deer Woman and Little Red Riding Hood, and the shapeshifting Coyote and Fox tricksters tell of a time when animals were our cousins, before the rupture... Read More

Package Includes:
Audio Recording of the Conversation, Illustrated Transcript featuring the artwork of Terri Windling, "Part 1: Mythologies of the Primitive Hunters and Gatherers" by Joseph Campbell featuring Cave Art, Poem by Carolyn Dunn: "Deer Woman"

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Mythic Journeys Conference & Performance Festival 2006

William Doty, Kristen McDermott, Heinz Insu Fenkl, and Terri Windling

"Do not step off the path!" Transgression implies that there are borders, limits to behavior and social roles which cannot be crossed without penalty. Yet folk tales and fairy tales often encourage characters to challenge these limitations, to transgress heroically or outrageously as they undergo rites of passage or just kick the shins of authority... Read More

Package Includes:
Audio Recording of the Conversation, Illustrated Transcript featuring "grunge" art work, "Myth and Ritual" by Robert A. Segal featuring artwork by Picasso

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Mythic Journeys Conference & Performance Festival 2004

Robert Bly

“I am embarking on territory now, which we don’t understand and which we are probably not qualified to speak of.”  So begins Robert Bly’s telling of the White Bear King Valemon, a spectacularly beautiful Norwegian tale with many resemblances to the Amor and Psyche myth.  Here the divine groom is a white bear who roams the mountains by day and transforms into a man in the darkness of his lover’s bedroom at night... Read More

Package Includes:
Audio Recording of the Presentation, Illustrated Transcript featuring photography by John Bridges, Norwegian Story of the "White Bear King Valemon", Poem by Dennis Patrick Slattery: "Bear's Brown Study (For James Hillman)"

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Mythic Journeys Conference & Performance Festival 2004

Jean Shinoda Bolen

What did I come to do?  What is my purpose?  What did I come to learn?  Who did I come to love?  Whether by choice or by circumstance, major transitions are a time of opportunity for soul growth or soul loss—the chrysalis in which the psyche is transformed becomes either a womb or a tomb.  Living your personal myth is all about the crises, the transitions, and the suffering... Read More

Package Includes:
Audio Recording of the Presentation, Illustrated Transcript featuring photography of Martha Graham, "Martha Graham, A Dance of Death and Life" by Maggy Anthony

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Mythic Journeys Conference & Performance Festival 2004

Coleman Barks, Betty Sue Flowers (moderator), James Hillman, Huston Smith, and Jane Yolen

A poet, a psychologist, a theologian, an author and a teacher enter a hotel conference room…  What sounds like the beginning of a joke was the start of a jovial discussion on the changes we humans face in aging.  In a packed room with an audience of all ages, the conversationalists called upon poetry, folklore and their own experiences to discuss aging, physical and mental deterioration, death, depression, desire and the heart... Read More

Package Includes:
Audio Recording of the Conversation, Illustrated Transcript featuring Humorous Interpretations of Aging, "Huston Smith, Wise Elder" by Mary Davis with selections from The Way Things, Are: Conversations with Huston Smith on the Spiritual Life by Phil Cousineau, "Allegory of the Cave" by Plato featuring Mandelbrot sets by Wolfgang Beyer

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Mythic Journeys Conference & Performance Festival 2004

Huston Smith, Richard Smoley, Greg Stafford

"…Now I talk to rocks … and they talk back." Myth is our access to primordial consciousness. The wisdom traditions tell us that consciousness came first, before matter. This first consciousness can speak to us through our favorite myths and their heroes. How do we listen? Drawing on such wide-ranging traditions as Christianity, Kabbalah, Hinduism, shamanism, and the works of Plato, our conversationalists explore questions of higher consciousness and how we can know truth... Read More

Package Includes:
Audio Recording of the Conversation, Illustrated Transcript featuring the artwork of Dahna Lorrain Koth, “Allegory of the Cave” by Plato featuring Mandelbrot sets by Wolfgang Beyer, “Crossroads of Time and Desire” by Honora Foah

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Mythic Journeys Conference & Performance Festival 2006

Betty Sue Flowers, Bradd Shore (moderator), Richard Smoley, and Robert Walter

Within our images of what is good, wise and beautiful are also profound and awful tensions.  This brilliant conversation surrounds the question of what the potential purpose opposites serve.  As Bradd Shore remarks: “Creation is very frequently associated with its shadow side... Read More

Package Includes:
Audio Recording of the Conversation, Illustrated Transcript featuring the artwork of William Blake, "The Twin Towers" by Barry Spector featuring the artwork of Maxfield Parrish, Poems by Cecilia Woloch: "Sacrifice" & "The Integrity of Angels", Poems by William Blake: "A Divine Image" & "I Turn My Eyes"

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Mythic Journeys Conference & Performance Festival 2004

Ulla Suokko

The first day of the conference began with a Mohawk invocation from Chief Jake Swamp followed by James Hillman delivering his keynote address. Then the Big Story began with Ulla Suokko saying, "I have an urge, a longing, to start singing, to start reciting, the songs of my people, the poems of my kin."... Read More

Package Includes:
DVD of The Big Story: Creation from the Kalevala and Illustrated Transcript featuring the artwork of Sal Brownfield, “Watering the Jasmines” by Ulla Suokko featuring the artwork of Doreen Foster

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Mythic Journeys Conference & Performance Festival 2004

James Hillman and Chief Jake Swamp

The first day of the conference began with a Mohawk ritual for greeting the day from Chief Jake Swamp. Then Dr. James Hillman delivered his keynote address, which served as an introduction to his archetypal psychology... Read More

Package Includes:
DVD of the Invocation & Keynote Address and 2 Illustrated Transcripts featuring the artwork of Stu Jenks

AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD