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.

Mythologium 2021 welcomes Chanti Tacoronte-Perez

Chanti’s talk is called “Honoring Her Tongues: Art as the Language of the Liminal”

Women, marginalized populations, and “othered” cultures live hypnotized under Apollo’s overpowering spell of rigid rules and toxic masculinity. Unable to survive infinite amounts of persecution, oppression, and isolation, we might pack the little we have left and migrate away from the wisdom and sovereignty of the body. We can instead enter the psychodynamic portal of imagination and creativity, partnering with the mythic images of Dionysus and Olokun to express our wounds and explore the process of healing and integration through dismemberment, dance, and collaboration. Healing, a layered continuum central to soul-making, benefits from acknowledging those graven images—both numinous and grotesque.

This presentation invites you on a journey where the images—the art—share the psychic wound and the healing salve. It provides a space for art as a way of knowing, in and of itself. Perhaps we need new ways of presenting and sharing these images—which, too, is healing.

About Chanti

Chanti Tacoronte-Perez is a Cuban-American creatrix, ritualist, and author. She believes that images speak a profound language; her life’s work is as a translator of the unseen and advocate for the imaginal. She holds a Masters in Engaged Humanities and a Masters in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. She is currently working on her dissertation on the image of woundedness in relation to the imagination and the creative process as a portal to recovering the marginalized, forgotten, and silenced. Her work and teaching centers imagination, creativity, and deep rest. She teaches workshops and collaborative training focused on creativity, dreaming, intuitive movement, restorative yoga, and yoga nidra. Her passion and aim are to inspire all to rediscover their creative nature by weaving the blessings with the wounds while honoring the land and ancestors.

Mythologium 2021 welcomes Selena Madden

Selena’s talk is called “Reintegrating with Nature Through Our Body and Magickal Rituals”

Our connection with nature has been lost amidst the chaos and hustle of modern Westernized society. Not only has this disconnect separated us from our natural environment, it has created disharmony with our own bodies and our sense of peace and fulfillment, and weakened our ability to traverse life’s obstacles. To be estranged from nature creates discord within ourselves, for we are of nature and not separate entities. You cannot have a relationship with your body if you do not have a relationship with nature. Spiritual traditions from many cultures are rich with practices that foster coalescence with nature. One such tradition is witchcraft, and I will examine modern witchcraft rituals that can be utilized in today’s society by those who feel disconnected. Additionally, I will address specific deities who cultivate methods of connecting with our natural divinity. I will share insights from particular movement arts that foster intention, awareness, and mindfulness. Utilizing my extensive experience as a dancer, martial artist, and practitioner of traditional witchcraft I will offer tools to reintegrate mindful movement, reverence to nature, and reverence for ourselves into our lives.

About Selena

Selena Madden believes magic is a part of all of us and can guide us through life’s obstacles. She believes in fostering connection with one’s intuition, which to her, is akin to connecting with the divine. She carefully and respectfully works with deities from various pantheons, such as Hindu traditions, Celtic, Egyptian, Greek, and Yoruban.

As a trained dancer and martial artist, she has cultivated her learnings and passion into a shareable practice designed to help women (re)connect with their inner warrior, lover, and other archetypes. Her training stems from bellydance, snakedance, ballet, Capoeira, Filipino Lameco, Kung Fu, and Aikido. She is actively working on her dissertation for her PhD in Mythological Studies with an emphasis in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute, where she earned her M.A. Pacifica has provided her the academic foundation to support her array of spiritual practices and holistic approaches for cultivating a powerful, loving, and nurtured feminine. She is currently working with her partner, Orpheus Black, in his thriving coaching practice around sexuality, intimacy, kink, and interpersonal power dynamics.

Mythologium 2021 welcomes Arthur George

Arthur’s talk is called “The Many Levels of Jesus as a Healer”

Jesus was the greatest healer in the Judeo-Christian tradition, whose healings were performed in a mythical setting and described in a mythical text. The stories yield meanings at several levels, which are often as important today as when the stories were first told.

At one level, they are about compassion and love, where the “healer” acting out of such motivations is both developing his/her own spirituality, as well as contributing to social harmony within the community.

At a second level, the healings fit within early Christian theology and thus further the Christian myth. In particular, the stories of healings fit into Jewish and Christian apocalyptic/eschatological mythology whereby the healings, exorcisms, feedings of the multitudes, etc., by Jesus exhibit characteristics of the promised Kingdom of God (e.g., no hunger or disease), meaning that the Kingdom is beginning to appear (called “realized eschatology”).

A third level is that of spiritual healing where the figure of Jesus and his teachings and acts involve concepts of depth psychology that can stimulate individuation and lead to wholeness. In Jesus’s healings, the sick do much of the healing themselves, through faith in what the figure of Jesus represents.

About Arthur

Arthur George is a mythologist, cultural historian, blogger, and winemaker; formerly he was an international lawyer. He has written the award-winning The Mythology of Eden (2014) about the mythology of the biblical Eden story, and before that the leading and award-winning history of St. Petersburg, Russia, entitled St. Petersburg: the First Three Centuries. More recently he has written the peer-reviewed The Mythology of America’s Seasonal Holidays (2021) and The Mythology of Wine. (2021) He has a mythology blog, frequently speaks at scholarly conferences, institutes, JCF Roundtables, and other audiences on mythological topics, and authors articles on the same. You can find his blog and connect with him at www.mythologymatters.wordpress.com.

Mythologium 2021 welcomes Dr. Colleen Salomon

Colleen’s talk is called “Wedded to Death: Trauma and Healing within ‘The Robber Bridegroom'”

“Ach! My dear child, if I don’t rescue you, you will be lost!” cries the old woman in the Grimm Brothers’ story, “The Robber Bridegroom.” Yet the rescue does not occur until after the violence has taken place, and it is the young woman who must save herself.

The shadowy world of the fairy tale is one wherein evil fabricates traps, well hidden within societal mores and tradition. Here, the horrific happens with regularity and its victims often have little recourse but to be ensnared. This fate befalls the maiden in “The Robber Bridegroom.” Yet the occult information the tale harbors regarding trauma and its transformative powers has not been explored sufficiently by modern scholars. In this presentation, I analyze the story, employing the lens of shamanism, and shamanism clothed as witchcraft. Gathering in other German folktales, I glean clues that help explain the experience of shattering that the maiden undergoes, leading to a new kind of wholeness, one that empowers her to take a role of leadership within her clan.

About Colleen

After studying art history and languages at Purdue University, Colleen Salomon, Ph.D. continued her academic work at the Sorbonne in Paris and the University of Hamburg, Germany. During years of living and working in Germany, she had the privilege of hearing many stories of the trauma of World War II, told by the people who had lived through the events. She witnessed the healing that emerged through the telling of the stories. In a very concrete way, she learned about the fundamental necessity of myth to the individual. Returning to the US, and working as a curator at the Williamson Gallery of Scripps College, Colleen earned a master’s degree in psychology. Later, she was drawn to Pacifica Graduate Institute to study mythology with a particular emphasis on the role of myth in the healing of trauma. Colleen holds a doctorate in mythological studies and depth psychology. Her dissertation focuses on the ancient knowledge of trauma contained within the old stories still told in Germany.

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.

Mythologium 2021 welcomes Dr. Nicola Tannion

Nicola’s talk is called “To Heal a Selkie: Immerse in Ancestral Waters”

Irish mythology is often rooted in the ancestral realm either by name or form. The ancestors play a key role in identifying the protagonist’s lineage and the momentum of the journey. In the Celtic Selkie mythology, when her soul was drier than an old discarded bone, the Selkie seized a fortuitous moment and fled. She ran and did not stop until she was back with her clan. Healing began with her return to the ancestral waters. Mythologies provide the reader with a symbolic map, which can be used as a guide throughout different stages of our personal quest. The symbols and geographical textures provide the reader with clues to the type of balm or action that facilitate the healing process. This presentation will utilize depth psychology, somatic studies, and science to access the healing wisdom in this enduring Irish myth. Ever present, the ancestors offer guidance for personal and collective healing. Can we heed their call?

About Nicola

Nicola Tannion, Ph.D. is an academic and spiritual teacher, writer, and bridge-builder with national and international experience. She has an innate ability to draw upon wisdom from the deep wells of the ancient ancestral mysteries, world mythologies, and the collective unconscious. She has taught Individual and Collective Grief at the undergraduate level (Antioch Seattle), presented at national and international conferences, and is a popular corporate speaker. Nicola is currently working with Cluster Arts, Australia’s leading Performing Arts Management Company.

Mythologium 2021 welcomes Sara Lovett

Sara’s talk is called “Archetypal Voices Within the Body—Pre & Post Quarantine”

As a somatic practitioner during this unprecedented time of Covid, I have witnessed how the health of even my most extroverted clients has slowly shifted archetypally. In this time of imposed quarantine, psyche has taken the collective withdrawal and inhaled it into the bone and marrow of a quarantine that is self-imposed on a much deeper level. There has been a shift in the archetypes we were living pre-quarantine and those that have risen to the surface in an effort to save us within quarantine. We have been left unprepared for the forthcoming conditions of walking side by side and inhaling the breath and touch of another. This presentation explores how the archetypal lived experience has shifted and impacted the artist’s health during quarantine. Through the guidance of these archetypes I explore how we embrace them through open dialogue and consciously wash them through the body. In order to cross the threshold into a world post-quarantine the invitation is to greet who we were in order to understand who we are now. With our new boundaries consciously recognized we are better prepared to step into this new ecology of body/mind/spirit and earth.

About Sara

A somatic oriented educator, Sara Lovett is a writer, performer, and teacher whose work sits at the interface of depth psychology, somatics, and ritual. She holds a BFA in acting from The University of Texas at Austin, and an MA in Somatic Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute where she is pursuing her doctorate. Her research question explores the effects of embodied practices in the self-care of the actor.

Using the self-landscaping process (an art based body-mapping modality), authentic movement and embodied writing, Sara works with artists on deepening their mind/body connection towards healthier physical and mental well-being. In preparation to cross over the threshold from Covid-19 seclusion into eventual emergence, her current classes explore the body in quarantine and its impact on our well-being and shifting perspectives. Sara’s lectures and workshops focus on the connection between mind, body, psyche, the relevance of dreams, the imagination, the power of image and the archetypal. She is the author of the memoir, The Invisible Bones, and the upcoming book, The Friendship Index.

Mythologium 2021 welcomes Rodrigo Ruiz

Rodrigo’s talk is called “Immortal Mirrors: Homeric Gods as Psychological Personifications”

It would seem the rift between the representation of Iliadic and Odyssean gods is too wide to be reconcilable. And although multiple attempts have been made to address the issue—mostly focused on attributing the divergence to different authorship, or to the time elapsed between their creation, or even to the degree of temporal proximity to pre-Olympic deities—none have been truly satisfactory. The question, then, remains unanswered: Why are Homeric immortals so at odds with themselves? Based on the textual evidence of the Iliad and the Odyssey, this paper aims to provide an answer, the key for which, I suggest, may lie in the parallels found between divine conduct and heroic character.

To test this hypothesis—and following a brief survey of the known quantitative and qualitative differences separating the gods of each epic—this paper focuses on Athene and her relation to Achilles and Odysseus as the focal heroes of the Iliad and the Odyssey, respectively. A few episodes involving other gods help evaluate the results of this case study; the light they bring further dispels the darkness enveloping this godly mystery. In addition, a careful evaluation of Homeric word usage in the Greek text provides further grounds to support our conclusions. The final analysis reveals the Olympians as the personified psychological traits of Achilles and Odysseus, and the heroes as the mirrors and reason for which the immortals appear so changed in the Odyssey, as compared to the Iliad. Divine action, as a corollary, is often the personified consequence of human choice; in other words, the gods being mirrors of the heroic psyche, their actions become reflections of the heroes’ lives. Thus, the weight of moral judgment, if judge we must, is transferred onto the hero whom the gods reflect. Far from judging, though, the aim is to understand the chain of causation that leads each hero to his destiny, which may just be what Homer wished to teach.

About Rodrigo

Rodrigo Ruiz was raised in Tijuana, Mexico, where he enjoyed playing, as all children do, but also loved music and literature. Although barely able to reach the keyboard, he was drawn to a small Steinway spinet at home as if by magic; and it was magic and the wonderful tales of literature and myth that kept him awake many a night.

Hailed as “an astonishing composing talent” (Apple Music), Rodrigo regularly receives commissions from world-class musicians and ensembles. Behold the Stars, his debut, Dante-inspired album for Signum Classics—which features chamber music, including a violin sonata and piano trio performed by Kerenza Peacock, Laura van der Heijden, and Huw Watkins— rose to no. 13 on the Billboard Classical charts.

As an avid reader of classics, he regularly engages with literary and mythical works. One of these intense periods focusing on Shakespeare’s works not only resulted in one of his most recent compositions—”Venus & Adonis,” a song cycle commissioned by Grace Davidson—but also in “Love & Lust,” an archetypal reading of the myth and an attempt to disentangle the hidden meanings behind them. Rodrigo firmly believes that myth is there to teach, and we are here to learn.

Rodrigo holds a Bachelor of Music cum laude from Lawrence University and a Master of Music from the University of Michigan. Thanks to the generous help of the Joseph Campbell Scholarship, he is now pursuing a PhD in Mythological Studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute, investigating novel ways to fuse music and myth through opera, programmatic music, and other genre-bending works.

Rodrigo is fluent in Spanish, English, Italian and French. In his spare time, he takes joy in the outdoors, reading, and cooking for family and friends.