Tag: Healing

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Mythologium 2021 welcomes Dr. Nicole K. Miller

Dr. Miller’s talk is called “The Wisdom of Scheherazade: The Power of Narrative to Heal the Heart and Mind”

As her childhood friend, Sultan Shahryār, grows more and more unstable and deadly, Scheherazade knows that she alone has the knowledge of how to heal him. As a storyteller, she courageously embarks on a “fool’s journey” to employ her considerable narrative skills as she attempts to restore sanity and peace to his heart and mind. Scheherazade aims for the heart of his core stories, and each night in their marital bed, instead of lecturing him directly on the harmful and delusional ramifications of his current state of mind, she engages him mythically, slowly unraveling and addressing his pain through masterful storytelling, provoking a profound healing. This presentation will look at how Scheherazade the Storyteller from “One Thousand and One Nights” demonstrates a mythic understanding of the power of stories to heal. This faith in mythic narrative as healing device has implications in our modern world as well, as it has become more vividly evident how the potent use of narratives can be used to confuse, misdirect, and incite to violence, but can also be used to bring clarity of mind, healing of heart, empathy, and personal awareness.

About Dr. Miller

For the past 20 years, Dr. Miller has taught K-8 classes in the humanities, the performing arts, and social emotional learning, and classical and world mythology and general humanities at the university level. She has also presented papers and workshops on mythology, depth psychology, narrative thinking, mindfulness, and the arts at conferences nationally and internationally. Dr. Miller is the founder of The Unstoried Self, offering a systems-thinking, narrative-based process for personal and organizational transformational change aimed at breaking out of dysfunctional patterning in order to cultivate more meaningful and authentic interpersonal relationships and dynamics in groups, schools, and other organizations. Using a combination of influences, from mythological motifs, archetypal psychology, mindfulness, non-dual philosophy, systems-thinking, and storytelling, a Ph.D. in Mythology and Depth Psychology, and a Masters in Education, Dr. Miller strives to combine her love of teaching with her passion for the power of narratives.

2021 Mythologium program
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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.

2021 Mythologium program
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Mythologium 2020 welcomes Rev. Pamela Dawn Hancock

Pamela’s presentation is called, “Birth Trauma, Medusa & Me: Soul-Healing and the Poetics of Mind”

My revolutionary presentation will dream the Medusa myth onward, by examining, “On the Medusa of Leonardo Da Vinci in the Florentine Gallery” by Percy B. Shelley, through the lens of depth psychology.  My story starts in the Spring of 2018 when Medusa charted her course for me.  Although I had planned every detail of the birth of my son, his cesarean delivery abolished an old way of being.  From that moment on I became a new alchemical being—born in the nigredo of one of the darkest moments of my life.  Albeit feeling emotionally and psychically beheaded by the process, it was looking towards the works of James Hillman, C. G. Jung, and James Hollis that brought me back to life once again.  This presentation will examine my imaginal “dismemberment” by way of the poem in which I found a mirror to my pain.  By reflecting on the tragedies and following the synchronicities presented to me I was led to a cure for my aching heart.  I will show how following the archetypal thread that led me into the center of a serpentine goddess’ puzzle, provided me with soul-healing and the opportunity to illuminate the dark recesses of birth trauma through myth and metaphor. 

About Pamela

I was born and raised in Southern California where I currently reside with my husband and children. As a child I found the Sacred at the lake near my parents’ cabin. The big pine trees surrounding it were my sacred space—my church. It was there that I began to understand that we are all part of the Divine Web of All Creation. At the age of twelve I sought comprehension of that Web by starting my study of the World’s Religions. While obtaining my B.A. from the University of Redlands, Johnston Center, I delved into Feminist Spirituality, Hinduism, Taoism and Buddhism. I moved in and out of different spiritual practices after College, weaving together the energies of all of the Archetypal-Forces with whom I entwine. In 2011 in ritual with the group I led, I heard the call: Nourish others’ understanding of their connection to the Sacred in all things! So off I went to Starr King School for the Ministry (a Unitarian Universalist Seminary) where I received my Master of Divinity, and the Chaplaincy Institute for Ordination as an Interfaith Minister. Having battled a long-time kidney illness, I almost died of an infection after completing Seminary–but found solace in finding my true path of Alchemy and Depth Psychology during this difficult ordeal. After a full recovery I began the adventure to obtain my PhD. in Depth Psychology with a specialization in Jungian & Archetypal Studies, from Pacifica Graduate Institute—where I am now dedicating my dissertation work towards designing a program for Trauma Survivors to embark on an individuation quest. I am dedicated to building bridges between communities, bringing people together to honor the sacred in all things, supporting environmental advocacy, and helping women embody all parts of their true selves. 

Visit my website at www.revpameladawn.com.

2020 Mythologium program
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Mythologium 2020 welcomes Dr. Amy Lawson

Amy’s talk is called “Dorothy’s Dream Cure: The Asclepian Temple of Oz”

In ancient Greece, the incurably sick made pilgrimages to Asclepian temples in search of healing through dreams. Removing themselves from daily life, they traveled to these holistic healing centers where they utilized amenities such as exercise facilities, massage, healthy food, and arts-based practices to restore health and balance until they were ready for the culmination of their journey: a night of incubation in the temple during which Asclepios would gift them with a curative dream or vision.

In The Wizard of Oz, an orphaned and disconnected Dorothy Gale travels in dream to the land of Oz, accumulating friends along the way, in order to ask the Wizard to send her back home. Although he turns out to be simply a man, the Wizard helps Dorothy and friends realize that they possess within themselves what they have been searching for all along.

This paper examines the parallels between Dorothy’s journey and the pilgrimages of the ancient Greeks, arguing that Oz can be seen as a modern-day Asclepian temple and the container for Dorothy’s dream cure.

About Amy:

Amy Lawson, M.D., is a practicing pediatrician in the San Francisco Bay area. She is writing a dissertation combining medicine and mythology for 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.

2020 Mythologium program
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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.

Download Amy’s PresentationDownload

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.