Tag: Forest

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Mythologium 2023 welcomes Dr. Karin Zirk

Dr. Zirk’s presentation is called “The Forest as Cultural Heart of Estonians”

In Estonian folklore, the forest forms an integral cultural theme that serves as an anchor for “Estonianness,” culture creation, and nation building as outlined by Atko Remmel and Tõnno Jonuks. However, due to historical and linguistic challenges, Estonian folklore has been underrepresented in mythology studies in the USA.

As the Estonian ecosystems are naturally forested, the lives of Estonians and the forest have been intertwined since time immemorial and thus the folktales reflect these complex social-environmental realities. This initial conversation between depth psychological approaches to mythology and Estonian forest folktales serves to illustrate the evolving reimagining of these relationships.

James Hillman argues for the importance of the heart’s imagination as beholding to the imagination that beholds us. In the folktales, those who enter the ensouled forest by seeing with their heart are rewarded, but those who enter with an anaesthetized heart suffer. Mary Watkins argues that the image seen by the heart leads to new potentialities, to which humans can experience emotional responses that can lead to love-based action.

Exploring three forest fairy tales collected during the nineteenth century, the forest reacts differently to human hunters as portrayed in “The Lucky Hunter” and “The Forest Elder.” In “Why Aspen Leaves Flutter” tension between human and forest consciousness unravel life between a mother and daughter.

Using the heart’s imaginal response to fairytales, Estonians are envisioning a cultural and physical forest by instantiating the mythic past in the Väike Väerada or Little Nature Energy Trail.

About Dr. Zirk

Karin Zirk, Ph.D. is a mythologist, writer and environmental activist who is currently living in Estonia. When she is not studying the Estonian language, she researches Estonian mythology from a social and cultural perspective. Her creative writing has been published in various small publications and she has presented her research at the American Academy of Regional annual and regional conferences as well as at the Mythologium. Her novel, Falling From The Moon (http://FallingFromTheMoon.com) the story of a wanderer finding her path and discovering her tribe, is an important piece of ethnofiction. Connect with her online on Instagram @mythcamper, LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/karin-zirk-phd/, and her website https://KarinZirk.com/.

2023 Mythologium program
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Mythologium 2022 welcomes Reise Eiseman-Sanchez Tanner

Reise’s talk is called “Baba Yaga and the Dark Forest: Engendering Truth and Wildness at the Thresholds”

Mythologist Martin Shaw has written that “myth is a wild way of telling the truth.” In these challenging times, both truth and the wild—in ourselves and the natural world—are endangered. Might the old stories be a way to preserve them and find our way forward? With their symbolic images and archetypal figures, myths are doorways to the collective unconscious. They are the voices of wild nature and the ancestors telling us who we are and how to be in the world even when we seem to have severed our connections to them.

Echoes of mythic figures are everywhere—embedded in pop culture, media and merchandise—reminding us that they are still present and can’t be silenced. One such figure that seems to be appearing is Baba Yaga, a wild witch of the woods in Slavic cultures. Depicted as an old woman or hag, her ambiguity, association with natural cycles, and status as a psychopomp inhabiting threshold locations suggest a connection with more ancient goddess traditions and an ecological consciousness. Perhaps her image shows up because it is time to listen rather than attempt to control and contain, to risk the unknown of apprenticeship with truth and wildness.

About Reise

Reise Eiseman-Sanchez Tanner is a PhD student focused on the practices of decolonial depth psychology, ecopsychology, and applied mythology at the crossroads of women’s spirituality, Indigenous traditions, and liberatory methods. Her research positions birthwork as sacred activism and mothering in feminist discourse while exploring archetypes of the Feminine, centering what has been marginalized, and finding ways to reconnect with the natural world. She is also a mother, storyteller, seasoned doula, perinatal educator, Certified Empowerment Coach, Maya Abdominal Therapy practitioner, and creator of multiple group programs who has attended hundreds of births and supported thousands of people through initiations and life cycle events.

2022 Mythologium program