Mythologium 2023 welcomes Dr. Andrea M. Slominski

Dr. Slominski’s presentation is called “Myth Illuminates the Heart of Humanity, and it is Eternally, Blessedly Feminine.”

Myth illuminates the heart of humanity. The heart is the noble seat of love, compassion, empathy, intuition, creativity, feeling, relationship, and nurturance. These are attributes of the archetypal feminine. The heart is held, nurtured, opened, protected, led, expanded, and emboldened by the eternal sacred feminine.

All of humanity, and many other beings on this planet, were born through an embodiment of the feminine, the mother. This is our first relationship. This is our first narrative, our first story.

As life progresses, we can turn to the stories of the goddesses to understand our expanding narratives and be reconciled to our hearts. Many of the goddesses’ stories exemplify all the pain and glory that a human heart can experience. These metaphoric narratives invite us to embrace the shadow and the light of love, the full and the empty heart. They call us to compassion and empathy for ourselves and each other. They invite us to embrace each other as we go through our personal experiences of life’s universal rites of passage. This is the relational energy of the heart, and it is eternally, blessedly feminine.

About Dr. Slominski

Andrea M. Slominski, Ph.D., is a women’s midlife coach, speaker, and author. In her Ph.D. research and study, she explored the new life stage for women that emerged over the past 120 years. She names this new life stage from ages 45-70—Regency—and identifies it as women’s new power years.

Her coaching addresses the deep work of Meaning, Purpose, and Belonging, which can shift during midlife. Women’s midlife includes the pre-programmed physical, psychological, and spiritual transformation of women’s lives.

Her work is rooted in the principles of depth and archetypal psychology. She leads Regent women to reclaim their passions, develop their purpose, and rediscover their “True North.” She inspires her clients to live their most authentic lives in service of the greater good.

She has shared her passion for mentoring midlife women at conferences, workshops, summits, and corporate events. She has published articles and given papers and addresses at international academic and cultural conferences.

Since starting her practice in 2015, Dr. A. has supported over three-thousand women through her coaching, mentorship, online gatherings, journals, and Covid-19 support programs.

Mythologium 2023 welcomes Dr. Jean Benedict Raffa

Dr. Raffa’s presentation is called “Remyth Your Story: Integrate Your Feminine and Masculine Archetypes with Heart”

Our family and social groups condition us from childhood to hold certain beliefs and attitudes about gender differences. Unawareness of the influence of archetypes traditionally associated with the feminine and masculine principles impedes our ability to live authentic, meaningful lives based on the truths of our hearts.

We can recognize the difference between archetypes and stereotypes, and between inherent archetypes and personal archetypal images, by reflecting on our dreams, emotions, instincts, attitudes, and numinous experiences. Evolving self-awareness leads us away from dependence on the collective and into our personal authority. Fortified by self-acceptance, self-love, and personal meaning, we are empowered to change our life story and follow our hearts to fulfilling work and loving relationships.

Dr. Jean Benedict Raffa explores the interface between psychology, mythology, spirituality, and your life’s myth in her newest, Nautilus Award-winning book, The Soul’s Twins: Emancipate Your Feminine and Masculine Archetypes.

About Dr. Raffa

After a lengthy and life-transforming spiritual descent, educator, Jungian scholar, and author Jean Benedict Raffa, Ed.D., began an in-depth study of Jungian psychology, mythology, and her dreams. Her books, The Bridge to Wholeness, Dream Theatres of the Soul, the Wilbur Award-winning Healing the Sacred Divide, and the Nautilus Award-winning The Soul’s Twins, are outgrowths of this ongoing inner work. A former teacher, television producer and college professor, Dr. Raffa continues to make presentations about her books. For more information, subscribe to Dr. Raffa’s blog, Matrignosis, and find her on Facebook.

Mythologium 2020 welcomes Dr. Andrea Slominski

Andrea’s talk is titled “Social Distancing and Our Return to Hestia: Our Collective Heroine’s Journey to the Underworld, to Heal, Liberate, and Reclaim the Archetypal Feminine”

Hestia’s realm and energies spring from the archetypal feminine. Attributes contained within the archetypal feminine include relationship, intuition, creativity, nurturance, compassion, the cycles of the natural world, nature itself, and the immanence of divinity.

The world has been driven back to Hestia when our lack of relationship and compassion are destroying the ecosystems that sustain our lives.

At home, in retreat from a deadly pandemic, we are face to face with our own mortality. We are terrified for those we love. Confronted with our frailties and personal faults, fear, panic, and uncertainty are forcing us into the mythic underworld of our worst nightmares.

Our collective Heroine’s Journey, launched from the realm of Hestia, is forcing us to evaluate our relationships with each other and the planet. We are being taken together, down, and within. Covid-19 forced us to see that we are all connected and dependent on one another for survival.

The conscious feminine must be honored and reestablished in our experience of life. We must embrace intuition, creativity, compassion, nurturance, relationship, and the ecological balance of nature if we are to survive.

About Andrea

Andrea M. Slominski, Ph.D. is a cultural mythologist, women’s midlife coach, author, teacher, and speaker. “Dr. A.” 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. She has been a featured workshop facilitator and speaker at women’s events and conferences. “Dr. A.” also teaches women’s entrepreneurship for Women’s Economic Ventures in Santa Barbara, CA. Her most recent published work includes a guest blog, “The Rise of Regency,” for Dr. Carol Pearson, and “Bearing the Unbearable,” an essay in  If I Don’t Make It, I Love You: Survivors in the Aftermath of School Shootings, edited by Amye Archer and Loren Kleinman. You can find her via social media and her new website, www.drandreaslominski.com. Her podcast “ The Regent’s Room,” is launching soon.

The Mythologium welcomes Dr. Amy Lawson

Amy’s presentation is called, “Embracing the Beauty of the Feminine: Lessons for Medicine and its Healers from the Myth of Psyche and Eros”

According to James Hillman, “Myths do not ground, they open . . . We may thereby see our ordinary lives embedded in and ennobled by the dramatic and world-creative life of mythical figures.” The myth of Psyche and Eros, a story about development of the feminine, has given new perspective to my journey as a burned-out physician, a wounded healer. Modern medicine has long repressed its more feminine attributes. But Psyche’s journey back to Eros, and especially her fourth labor—retrieving the beauty ointment from Persephone in the underworld—speaks to a healer’s maturation in the masculine field of medicine, regardless of that healer’s gender. This presentation examines the relationship of Psyche and Eros to the relationship between physician and medicine. We will also closely analyze Psyche’s fourth task, looking for lessons that can help medicine’s healers heal themselves. Perhaps the myth of Psyche and Eros can serve to re-ennoble the ordinary lives of today’s doctors by reinvigorating the hidden feminine in medicine, helping it to escape from the underworld and reclaim the healing balm for itself.

About Amy:

Amy Lawson, M.D., is a practicing pediatrician in the San Francisco Bay area. She is also a third-year graduate student pursuing a Ph.D. in Jungian and Archetypal Studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, California. She is interested in ways depth psychology can be used to reconnect modern medicine with its roots, improve patient experiences, and decrease physician burnout through creation of meaning.