Vanessa’s presentation is called “The Changing Myth of Jesus and Mary Magdalene”
The focus will be on the myth story of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. What stories do they share? What were their dark night of the soul experiences, both as partners and in their individuation? These questions challenge us to rethink our understanding of these two mythical characters, their relationship and their teachings with potential to restore humanity from separation to unity. Perhaps, their partnership and sense of equality could serve as an illustration for harmony between men & women in today’s world.
Dr. Lawson’s presentation is called “Not Just A Pump: Reclaiming the Heart from Science Back Into Soul”
My cardiology rotation during medical school taught me about the pathophysiology of the heart as a pump for blood. But before the Renaissance with its revolution in medical knowledge, the heart meant much more—the source of courage, of emotions, of vital heat, even the seat of the soul. In this presentation, we will explore the physiology of the heart using the poetic basis of mind and a mythic lens, discovering what hard science can show us when we view its knowledge symbolically. From the way the heart knows how often to beat through sensing pressure, to the vulnerable nature of the heart’s own blood supply, to the drastic circulatory changes that occur around the time of birth, there are important psychological lessons to be extrapolated from the wisdom of the body. Join me in an effort to reclaim a bit of the scientific heart back into the realm of soul.
About Dr. Lawson
Amy Lawson, MD, is a practicing pediatrician in San Francisco. She is also writing a PhD through Pacifica Graduate Institute on the intersection of mythology and medicine, exploring mythic narratives that help explain physician burnout and suffering. She is passionate about dream interpretation, reading tarot, and bridging the worlds of science and depth psychology.
Chanti and Tiffany will present “Ecology of Rest: A Decolonial Approach to Remembrance”
Academia plays a vital role in the co-construction and dissemination of knowledge on local and global fronts. Yet, all too often, within academic spaces, there is an over-separation from our soul and an instinct to reject the integration of our multiple layered selves, leaving an insatiable hunger for extrinsic outcomes that exhaust and breakdown.
To begin addressing this rejection of wholeness, we take a decolonial approach to work (broadly) and knowledge (specifically) by honoring “an ecology of rest.” We center the role of an integrated and whole internal inter-being — and we remain curious. Our session will reflect our desire to privilege embodied practice and non-ordinary ways of knowing by combining theory, practice, and collaboration. Our thesis is that connections with these embodied practices are natural and allow us all to tend a more steadfast and integrated internal ecosystem – so that we may be able to flourish within and throughout our ever-evolving external ecosystem.
In this workshop-style session, Participants will be invited and led through a rest practice. To prepare for this journey we ask you to find a comfortable, pleasurable, and protective space to receive. Imagine building a nest to rest in; bring pillows, blankets, cushions, an eye cover or scarf, and a journal; that said, come as you are.
About Chanti
Chanti Tacoronte-Perez is a Cuban-American creatrix, ritualist, and author. She believes that images speak a profound language; her life’s work is a translator of the unseen and advocates for the imaginal. She holds a Masters in Engaged Humanities, Masters in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute and is currently working on her dissertation on, navigating the liminal via a creative-divinatory journey as a map to recovering the marginalized, forgotten, and silenced. Her work and teaching centers, imagination, creativity, and deep rest. She teaches workshops and collaborative training focused on creativity, Yantra painting, dreaming, intuitive movement, restorative yoga, and yoga Nidra. Her passion and aim is to inspire all to rediscover their creative self by weaving the blessings with the wounds while honoring the land and the ancestors.
About Tiffany
Tiffany D Johnson is a researcher, educator, and lover of community. Her research focuses on how experiences of inequity and stigma in the workplace facilitate well-being (or a lack thereof). She works as an Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior at Georgia Tech and she is the creator of WHOLE, A community for Black and Brown women in Academia.
Morgan’s talk is called “A Revolting Voice: W.B. Yeats and the Renaissance of the Soul”
When W. B. Yeats published A Vision, he declared it would proclaim “a new divinity.” The new divinity that he foresaw was the revolt of the soul against the intellect — an apotheosis of all humanity through the reemergence of an ecological consciousness. Inspired by the theosophy of Madame Blavatsky, Yeats had long predicted humanity’s return to the golden age of the Goddess through a reinstatement of the chthonic and lunar tradition. Dionysious Psilopoulos, in The Prophets and the Goddess, investigates this quest that consumed Yeats’s being but skims past an integral component — the importance of Yeats’s hermetic training in his lifelong dedication, not only to the transient cycles of the Goddess, but to the restoration of unity and balance. Through a close analysis of A Vision, citing esoteric and scholarly sources, as well as Jungian theories of the unconscious, this presentation works to demonstrate how magic and mythology may serve as the foundation for both the renaissance and balancing of consciousness, ecology, and soul.
About Morgan
Morgan Azali dwells at the intersection of wellness, creativity, mythology, and magic. She recently completed a BA (Hons) in Creative Writing from Deakin University where her research focused on the influence of western esotericism in the life and work of W. B. Yeats. Weaving this together with her background in holistic health, she is interested in the ways that creative and spiritual practice can function as healing modalities on both the personal and the global scale.
