Mythologium 2023 welcomes Dr. Dori Koehler

Dr. Koehler’s presentation is called “Returning the Heart to Te Fiti: Moana’s Mythic Message”

“I have crossed the horizon to find you. I know your name. They have stolen the heart from inside you, but this does not define you. This is not who you are. You KNOW who you are…who you truly are”

Moana

Disney princesses are a global phenomenon. They are deeply imprinted on our global psyche. Love them or hate them, we can’t ignore them. They are often the targets of criticism, often with reasonable cause. But the truth is that they are far more complex and narratively significant than what the shallow critiques of them would have us believe. Disney princesses reflect what Jungian theorists call the anima consciousness, giving image to Walt Disney’s admonition that his stories gotta have heart, and calling audiences to consider the healing potential of the myth present in each one of Disney’s princess narratives. Princesses reflect the dynamic relationship between the attitudes of the artists at the studio and the people who engage them.

In my opinion, there is no greater archetypal image of the Disney princess as a healer than Moana. She journeys deep into the psyche returning the archetypal heart to Te Fiti and through that journey, she heals herself, her island, and her people. This presentation explores Moana as a character that enters directly into the traditional space of the wounded healer, the shaman, and a character who returns with deep wisdom for her community. I begin with a discussion of the connection between Disney Princesses and the goddess Persephone. Disney’s princesses all follow the same archetypal pattern of love and death, love and transformation.

Then I will examine Moana in the light of that archetypal tradition, arguing that the film is a call to healing through an attempt to use an intersectional lens of archetypal theory and the decolonization of Disney’s myth. Specifically, I will posit the following questions for consideration: what does it mean to return the heart of Te Fiti to Disney’s mythic message? In what ways does this message speak to the absolute necessity of connecting to the archetypal heart from an indigenous perspective to begin that process of decolonization? And how does healing the collective heart prepare the collective psyche for action in this time of cataclysmic climate change?

About Dr. Koehler

Dori Koehler, PhD is a cultural mythologist and scholar of American popular culture. She is a professor of Humanities at Southern New Hampshire University. Her research focuses on Disney, rituals, fandoms, and myths in the American cultural diaspora. Her book The Mouse and the Myth: Sacred Art and Secular Ritual is available through Amazon. She is a regular presenter at the Popular Culture Association’s regional and national conferences where she continues to ask questions about popular culture and American mythic identity in this time of enduring change. She lives in Santa Barbara, California, USA with her husband, Bruce, and their cocker spaniel, Sorcha.

Mythologium 2023 welcomes Helen Slater

Helen’s presentation is called “Images of Refuge and the Awakened Heart in the Demeter Myth”

There are four archetypal images of refuge laced throughout the Demeter narrative from the Demeter and Persephone myth. The path to Eleusis, the olive tree, the well, and the temple highlight how Demeter awakens to her calling as a custodian of the Mysteries.

Using a depth psychological lens, specifically James Hillman’s writings, to understand how refuge is linked with contemplative heart practice, this presentation seeks to bring insight into refuge as a necessary collective experience. The images of refuge that are discussed are then amplified in other sacred texts and myths.

About Helen

Helen Slater is currently a doctoral student in the Myth program at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Her dissertation, Taking a Seat in the Awakened Heart: The Archetypal Nature of Refuge, examines the collective need for refuge, which is found in myth, fairytales, and sacred texts. She is an actress who has worked in film, television, and stage for the last four decades. As a songwriter, she has composed six original albums, three of which are based on myths and fairytales. For more information, please visit www.helenslater.com.

Mythologium 2021 welcomes Patricia von Papstein and Kristina Dryža

Patricia and Kristina’s talk is called “Trickster Energy as a Healing Force?”

The Trickster is a beautifully iridescent archetypal character in mythology. In contrast to its liberating behavior qualities, it’s been much maligned and demonized throughout history. By decrypting the Trickster archetype in its multi-dimensional ability to peek behind the curtains, the two presenters will discuss how those in the business world can engage mythology and psychology to ensure that their products and services are ‘Trickster worthy.’

Drawing on the archetypes of the goddess queens Aphrodite and Persephone, Patricia and Kristina will illustrate how both, facing growing and decaying are essential for meeting the Trickster at the threshold. We live in a time where we experience ourselves and the world as fragmented – outside perhaps solid, but on the inside atomising. Travelling between the upper world and the under world like a trickster, not like a charlatan, is a fresh approach to healing.

About Patricia and Kristina

Patricia von Papstein is a business woman, a clinical and organizational psychologist and a lover of technology and the arts. Following through to her credo “Bliss to Business!” she challenges business and capital owners to refine their unconventional talents and to market products that keep a secret, spread self-irony and celebrate the spirit of contradiction. Currently she has accepted to become a jury member of the Berlin science fiction festival. You can visit her website at www.blisstobusiness.com.

Kristina Dryža is recognized as one of the world’s top female futurists and is also an archetypal consultant and author. She has always been fascinated by patterns and feels we are patterned beings in a patterned universe. Her work focuses on archetypal and mythic patterns and the patterning of nature’s rhythms and their influence on creativity, innovation and leadership.

Mythologium 2020 welcomes Kristina Dryža

Kristina’s talk is called, “The Archetypal Necessity for Descending into Hades”

Exploring the myth of Demeter and Persephone, Kristina will ask: How does the soul come to love Hades and that which lives in the underworld? How are we even acquainted with and initiated into this subterranean realm? Why is it necessary to be abducted from our intense identification with Demeter’s life lived on the surface to encounter Hades, and all that lies below? And how, like Persephone, can we belong to, and partner with, both the upper and underworld?

About Kristina

Kristina Dryža is recognized as one of the world’s top female futurists and is also an archetypal consultant and author. Kristina has always been fascinated by patterns and feels we are patterned beings in a patterned universe. She writes and speaks about the patterning of seasonal, tidal, lunar, and circadian rhythms and their influence on creativity, innovation, and leadership. She also explores archetypes and mythology to perceive the patterns in the collective unconscious and their expression within our psyches, society and media. You can view her TEDx talk on ‘Archetypes and Mythology. Why They Matter Even More So Today’ here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o4PYNroZBY&t=8s