Tag: Mother Earth

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Mythologium 2022 welcomes Dr. Mary Murphy

Mary’s talk is called “Myth and Mother Earth: Exploring the Landscape of the Psyche Through the Eyes of Gaia”

Mother Earth and humans’ relationship to her have been revered and widely recognized throughout time and across cultures. However, she and our relationship with her gradually became shrouded by reductionistic thinking, patriarchal ideologies, and narrow mechanistic mindsets. C. G. Jung esteemed the natural world and was deeply convinced of the psyche–nature kinship and its essentiality to individuation, yet he withheld asserting his sentiments because he could not prove them empirically.

In an era when the planet and her people are imperiled, this presentation calls attention to the archetypal nature of the unconscious and its implicit interconnectedness with the natural world. Considering this relationship through the lens of depth psychology and feminist theory, the presentation also illuminates the reciprocal relationship between psyche and nature, and the critical need to cultivate it, and considers how the ill-treatment of the earth and women are connected. Consequently, it helps deepen our psychological and ecological sensibility, expands the idea of individuation, highlights our biased social structures, and elucidates how the treatment of the feminine is tied to the exploitation of the planet.

About Mary

Mary Murphy is a depth psychologist and life coach in Northeastern, MA, where she maintains a private practice focused on women’s issues that begins with building a relationship with the Self. Mary holds both a Ph.D. and an M.A. in Depth Psychology with emphasis in Jungian and Archetypal Studies from Pacifica Graduate Institute and an M.B.A from Northeastern University. She can be reached at mary@hercoach.com or via her website at www.hercoach.com.

2022 Mythologium program
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Mythologium 2022 welcomes Johanna Fisher

Johanna’s talk is called “Saving Mother Earth: Gaia’s Return”

One might consider the presence of Gaia and what she can teach us as a way into developing the ecological empathy that will ultimately save us and our beloved planet.

Tracing the Ur-Goddess and what her story can teach us, this talk examines her many aspects in Greek and other mythologies as her stories give us a window into the universe and a meditation on our relationship and treatment of her gift-earth itself. She has been present as Pachamapa in Andean culture, Prithui in Hindu culture, Kokyangwuti in the Hopi tradition and the Spider Grandmother who is with the Sun god, Tawa as creator of the Earth. I argue as well that she is present in the person of Hildegard von Bingen, a twelfth-century mystic who speaks of our need to care for the earth. Hildegard’s appeal is for us to be prophets and warriors in the defense and preservation of Mother Earth. We shall discover that it is in developing a sensitivity to this gift Gaia gives us, that we can find ways into a more reasoned and life sustaining practice of living in the world. Story and myths are powerful tools in which we can make this discovery.

About Johanna

Johanna Fisher is a professor at Canisius College, a Jesuit college in Buffalo, NY. She teaches medieval literature and German Language and Literature and is Co-Director of Women and Gender Studies. Her scholarly interests include twentieth century German literature and poetry as well as representations of gender in medieval literature. Johanna was born in Breitengussbach, Germany, and studied at the University of Erlangen- Nürnberg. When she is not teaching, she resides in Lübeck, Germany.

2022 Mythologium program
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Mythologium 2022 welcomes Sarah Drew

Sarah’s talk is called “Myths of Regenesis: Co-Creating a Fertile Earth”

How do we activate living myths for our times, vital stories that regenerate and inspire our cultural psyche and deepen our interrelationships with our living Mother Earth? Stories that unlock the teaching codes of old, and also allow us to collectively dream and create a future that nourishes and honors all sentient life?

This query and mandate have been central to my life’s work. I am the author of Gaia Codex, a globally popular eco-feminist novel which tells the tale of an ancient lineage of women, the Priestesses of Astera who through the rise and fall of cultures have held regeneration codes for the Earth. In this mythos, these women come together in times of cultural and environmental crises to help birth the world anew.

My presentation explores how we are each keepers of inter-generational wisdom and creators of new myths inspiring a vital future. Our collective mandate is to create, in multiple mediums, stories of regeneration and well-being and models of civilizations that live harmoniously with our Mother Earth. It is time to break the spells of inevitable dystopian collapse.

About Sarah

As the visionary author of the eco-feminist novel, Gaia Codex, Sarah Drew catalyzes powerful blueprints for the future deeply rooted in the gnosis of the past. Sarah has been a featured speaker at the graduate level and at organizations such as Google, ABC, Deepak Homebase, and Bioneers, and she is currently a popular teacher and mentor for women worldwide on topics such as Feminine Wisdom, Evolutionary Culture, and Regenerative Technologies. Learn more at www.SarahDrew.net and www.GaiaCodex.com.

2022 Mythologium program
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Mythologium 2021 welcomes Fee Mozeley

Fee’s talk is called “‘Being’ Emplaced: Restorying Earth-Felt Belonging”

Writer, psychologist and mythologist Sharon Blackie observes that for many people living in contemporary neoliberal societies, “our relationship with place has become demythologised—a fact which is both an explanation for and a consequence of our sense of alienation from the world around us” (2020, np). She argues that processes and practices that remythologize place are not only “an interesting intellectual exercise, but an act of radical belonging” (2020, np). Heeding Blackie’s (2020) call to remythologize place, I restory what I call Earth-felt belonging.

Drawing on Elspeth Probyn’s (1996) emphasis on the ontological ‘beingness’ of belonging and Donna Haraway’s (2003) theorising of ‘natureculture’, I situate Earth-felt belonging through embodied, relational and emplaced entanglements that nurture a sense of interconnectedness alongside recognition and respect for the agency and vitality of Mother Earth and her Earth-kin (Matthews, 2011). More specifically, this presentation examines longing and belonging through intimate engagement with storied meaning making processes. It draws from fieldwork undertaken on Darkinjung Country (Central Coast, New South Wales, Australia) with five women (myself included) living in Australia’s colonial and patriarchal present. Together, we restory what it is to belong, through inhabiting the mythic landscapes of a Selkie folktale from the Outer Hebrides.

About Fee

Fee Mozeley is an environmental feminist who lives in Mulubinba (Newcastle) on Awabakal Country. She designs and facilitates feminist-popular-education workshops and retreats for self-identifying women on story-making, transformative leadership, and intuitive approaches to social change. Her research brings together more-than-rational ways of knowing and being in the world, lived praxes that actively challenge and dismantle patriarchy, and the agency and social power of stories and storytelling.

2021 Mythologium program