Tag: Inanna

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Mythologium 2023 welcomes Marialuisa Diaz de Leon Zuloaga

Marialuisa’s presentation is called “Embodying the Mythic Wisdom of the Heart by Reimagining and Amplifying Inanna’s Descent”

“Why has your heart led you on the road from which no traveler returns?” Neti, the gatekeeper of the Sumerian Underworld, asks Queen Inanna. From a physiological perspective, the human heart is an organ central to the circulatory system. From an archetypal perspective, the human heart is an organ central to our imagination, intellect, and aesthetic sensitivity. From a mythological perspective, the heart is at the core of an initiatory journey toward wholeness, central to the individuation process.

This presentation amplifies and reimagines Inanna’s Descent to the Underworld as a contemporary embodiment of the wisdom of the heart; that is, following the heart’s calling requires courage, demands an intention, and involves a descent. The mythical motif of the ‘descent’ is a metaphor that acts as the connective tissue between the realm of the body and the realm of imagination. An experiential practice drawing from somatic movement and expressive arts practices will support participants’ own quest into their heart and journey of becoming whole.

About Marialuisa

Marialuisa Diaz de Leon Zuloaga, MA, REAT, MSME, MSMT is a Mexican-American therapist, movement specialist, mythologist, educator, researcher, and performer. Marialuisa’s professional experience in psychology, somatics, and the arts spans twenty-five years and includes work in education, private practice, and community intervention. Marialuisa is the creator of Mythic Life: Embodying Wisdom, Beauty and Courage where she brings her expertise on facilitating meaningful and transformational experiences to women from all over the globe through a forward thinking integration of myth, arts, somatic movement and archetypal psychology (mythiclife.net). She is on faculty at Tamalpa Institute and at Southwestern College and holds the office of President for the ISMETA Board of Directors.

2023 Mythologium program
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The Mythologium welcomes Dr. Stacey Simmons

Stacey’s presentation is called, “Not a Heroine’s Journey”

For years we have been told about the Hero’s Journey. In 1988 when Bill Moyers interviewed Jospeh Campbell for The Power of Myth, Moyers asked him about a monomyth for women. Campbell replied that he was sure that there was one, but he had dedicated his life to the Hero’s Journey, so had not found it. The Hero’s Journey has been adapted for women, but it is not a woman’s story. There IS a monomyth for women, that has been discovered in every story with a female protagonist from the descent of Inanna to Wonder Woman. The core of this monomyth tells the story of a divided woman who traverses a path of difficulty, the way markers of this path depend on her separation. She is divided into one of two groups, and treated by family and culture dependent on this lane. As she faces the challenges ahead of her she is offered the end of the journey through symbolic death, either through a “Happily Ever After” life of marriage and children, or through the abjection and isolation of wielding power. If she doesn’t choose one of those terminal points, she has the option of becoming a “Queen” where she must overcome the divide, heal the disparate parts of herself rendered piecemeal in the divide, and then re-emerge, reunited with full self-sovereignty.  Put your ruby or glass slipper on the Path of the Queen.

View Stacey’s PresentationDownload

About Stacey:

Stacey Simmons, MA, PhD, LMFT is a writer, psychotherapist, and former entertainment executive. She studies social psychological phenomena through a mediated lens, and is particularly passionate about women’s stories and animation. Her current research focuses on the discovery of a monomyth for women that is an analog to the Hero’s Journey.  Stacey holds a PhD in Urban Studies with a focus in media psychology, from the University of New Orleans, and an MA in Counseling Psychology with a focus in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. 

You can connect with Stacey through Facebook or her website, www.writewomen.com.