Category: Events

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Mythologium 2020 welcomes Dr. Andrea Slominski

Andrea’s talk is titled “Social Distancing and Our Return to Hestia: Our Collective Heroine’s Journey to the Underworld, to Heal, Liberate, and Reclaim the Archetypal Feminine”

Hestia’s realm and energies spring from the archetypal feminine. Attributes contained within the archetypal feminine include relationship, intuition, creativity, nurturance, compassion, the cycles of the natural world, nature itself, and the immanence of divinity.

The world has been driven back to Hestia when our lack of relationship and compassion are destroying the ecosystems that sustain our lives.

At home, in retreat from a deadly pandemic, we are face to face with our own mortality. We are terrified for those we love. Confronted with our frailties and personal faults, fear, panic, and uncertainty are forcing us into the mythic underworld of our worst nightmares.

Our collective Heroine’s Journey, launched from the realm of Hestia, is forcing us to evaluate our relationships with each other and the planet. We are being taken together, down, and within. Covid-19 forced us to see that we are all connected and dependent on one another for survival.

The conscious feminine must be honored and reestablished in our experience of life. We must embrace intuition, creativity, compassion, nurturance, relationship, and the ecological balance of nature if we are to survive.

About Andrea

Andrea M. Slominski, Ph.D. is a cultural mythologist, women’s midlife coach, author, teacher, and speaker. “Dr. A.” is the creator of The Midlife Re-Boot! Method, a program developed to guide women to recreate themselves and rediscover their True North at midlife. She has been a featured workshop facilitator and speaker at women’s events and conferences. “Dr. A.” also teaches women’s entrepreneurship for Women’s Economic Ventures in Santa Barbara, CA. Her most recent published work includes a guest blog, “The Rise of Regency,” for Dr. Carol Pearson, and “Bearing the Unbearable,” an essay in  If I Don’t Make It, I Love You: Survivors in the Aftermath of School Shootings, edited by Amye Archer and Loren Kleinman. You can find her via social media and her new website, www.drandreaslominski.com. Her podcast “ The Regent’s Room,” is launching soon.

2020 Mythologium program
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Mythologium 2020 welcomes Dr. John Bonaduce

John’s presentation is titled “Mythobiogenesis: The Cellular Origin of Myth, Religion, and Ritual”

Mythobiogenesis seeks the origin of myth, religion, and ritual not only in the vastness of human history, but in the confining nucleus of a human cell. This place of origin is by no means obvious and we refer to it simply as a “trysting place,” the secret rendezvous of mind and body. Data in support of the existence of such a trysting place abound. These data exist in the forms of our most transcendent myths, our most sacred scriptures, and even in our most cherished bedtime stories. Such is the production line of psyche and soma. It is a fruitful collaboration: Psyche (which is the totality of human consciousness) and soma (that is the human body as defined by its elements) are partners in a seamless division of labor. The human psyche donates lavishly from her store of culturally-conditioned imagery ranging from pretty portraits to terrifying monstrosities. But the story structure is lifted straight from the human body. Those step-outlines which govern the cell cycle turn out to be very fine narrative formats as well. Larger-scale cellular processes, like the struggle of male gametes to survive in their advance toward an egg, also make fine story templates, structurally complete with beginning, middle, and end.

Mythobiogenesis presupposes a powerful interpenetration of mind and body in an intimate collaboration of psyche and soma. Biological events too small for the unaided eye are translated into the greatest of epics and the most compelling of our rituals. The results include the sacrament you received at Mass last week and the fairy tale you will tell to your daughter this evening.

About John

For twenty years, John Bonaduce has served as choirmaster in several Los Angeles Parishes. His contemporary ensemble, Shantigarh, can be heard in various platforms including Spotify and iTunes. John graduated with a degree in history from UCLA, obtained his masters in conducting at CSULA and, realizing he needed something practical to fall back on, pursued mythological studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute, receiving his PhD this year.

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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Mythologium 2020 welcomes Dr. Nicola Tannion

Nicola’s presentation is titled, “Joaquin Phoenix: A Messenger for the Zeitgeist”

The two films Mary Magdalene and Joker are on the surface joined by one common element: American-born actor, director, and producer, Joaquin Phoenix. Both films are vastly different in the time period, costumes, make-up, and context. As the protagonist in each film, Phoenix’s ability to traverse the worlds through the characters of Jesus and Joker indicates the presence of the mythological figure Hermes. Film, in general, reveals the underlying concerns of the populous, and as such the polarity of the choices we in the zeitgeist face today. This presentation will use archetypal, mythological, and depth psychological perspectives to examine Phoenix as a conduit for the Divine Messenger archetype both on and off the screen, the messages themselves, and the possible future realities for America.

About Nicola:

Nicola Tannion holds a PhD in Mythological Studies with an emphasis in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute, Santa Barbara, CA (2017). As writer, teacher, and bridge-builder she is adept at creating an awareness of the connections between different cultures and worlds, ideas, and communities. Nicola has presented at national and international conferences: Popular Culture conference (United States 2018, 2019), Australasian Irish Studies Conference (Australia 2018), and as adjunct faculty at Antioch University Seattle.

Visit Nicola’s website at www.nicolatannion.com.

2020 Mythologium program
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Mythologium 2020 welcomes Dr. Jody Gentian Bower

Jody’s presentation is called, “Edenic Comedies—The Missing Fourth in Louise Cowan’s Theory of Comedy”

In The Terrain of Comedy, professor of English Louise Cowan proposed that all comedies can be categorized as Infernal, Purgatorial, or Paradisal, depending on how the plot plays out. Jody Gentian Bower argues in this presentation that many comedies—particularly those featuring women as the main protagonists—fall into a fourth category. Following Cowan’s naming scheme, Dr. Bower calls this the Edenic comedy. In addition to describing the unique characteristics of the Edenic comedy, Dr. Bower delineates how careful and deliberate use of costuming, lighting, props, secondary characters, and background contributes to the distinctive “archetypal field” of each type of comedy.

About Jody:

Jody Gentian Bower is a cultural mythologist who earned her PhD in Mythological Studies with a Depth Psychology Emphasis from Pacifica Graduate Institute in 2012. She is the author of Jane Eyre’s Sisters: How Women Live and Write the Heroine Story (Quest 2015), which examines the “wandering heroine” story that has been told for centuries, and The Princess Powers Up: Watching the Sleeping Beauties become Warrior Goddesses (Mandorla 2020), about the evolution of female agency in scifi and fantasy shows over the last 80 years. She writes and lectures about archetypal and mythological motifs in modern culture and blogs about movies at jodybower.com. She is currently at work on a historical romance, set during the War of 1812 and based on a family legend.

2020 Mythologium program
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Mythologium 2020 welcomes our keynote speaker, Glen Slater, PhD

We are thrilled to announce that, in keeping with our 2020 theme of myth and cinema, our keynote speaker at this year’s Mythologium will be Glen Slater, PhD.

Cinema Magic and the Cosmological Function of Myth

The mythic dimension of cinema is widely recognized. Heroes venture forth, soulmates search for each other, ordinary people are caught in battles between good and evil. The gods reappear in enduring themes like love and war, in the urging of spiritual quests and in the arrangement of underworld abductions. Whereas some find all this merely entertaining, others experience a form of immersion in divine drama. 

In this presentation, I will suggest that the mythic quality of a film is not only attributable to the themes and characters that comprise the screen story, but has to do with the way the story is conveyed. That is, what largely generates mythic quality is the art of filmmaking itself. 

I will focus on the way film portrays an ordered and meaningful cosmos. It does this by mixing several powerful elements that engage and guide our imagination. Four such elements—setting, cinematography, editing and music—and the role they play in conveying the more-than-human quality of existence will be highlighted. 

About Glen

Glen Slater teaches at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, California, where he is Associate Chair of the Jungian and Archetypal Studies Program. He has written for a number of Jungian publications, edited the third volume of James Hillman’s Uniform Edition, Senex and Puer, as well as the essay collection, Varieties of Mythic Experience. He regularly uses film in his classes to illustrate and explore archetypal patterns, teaches a course on mythology and cinema, has published many film reviews and is the past film review editor of Spring Journal.      

2020 Mythologium program
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Save the date for the 2020 Mythologium

When is it too soon to start filling in your myth calendar? Never! So get your myth-markers out and flip ahead to next summer, because plans are underway for the 2020 Mythologium:

Date: July 31 – Aug 2, 2020
Location: Inn at Morro Bay

Stay tuned for details about registration and submitting your abstracts. And in the meantime, spread the word. Tell your myth-minded friends they can sign up for email updates at myth2020.com.

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The Mythologium welcomes Stephanie Zajchowski

Stephanie’s presentation is called, “The Whore of Babylon: Mythemes in Contemporary Reproductive Politics”

The Whore of Babylon is a diabolical female figure in the Book of Revelation, the final book of the canonical Bible. Throughout history this image has been used metaphorically to communicate a threat. The focus on the Whore as a woman and mother infuses the female body with apocalyptic significance and reinforces stereotypical gender roles. This presentation traces how a fundamentalist mythological interpretation of the Whore of Babylon enters into current reproductive politics that aim to bolster moral codes of female procreation. Focusing on religious imagery associated with the Whore of Babylon in conversation with contemporary socio-political discourses, the project identifies three mythemes: False Religion and Deception, Empire, and Monstrous Births. Attentive to the reciprocating relationship between story and culture, this study shows how these mythemes form a mythological narrative important to meaning-making in contemporary American reproductive dialogues. A feminist critique exposes how the appearance of these themes in anti-abortion discourse influences cultural ideas about gender, sexuality, and reproduction manifesting in public policies that police female reproduction.

About Stephanie:

Stephanie Zajchowski, PhD(c) holds a MA in Mythological Studies from Pacifica Graduate Institute (PGI) and a certification in Spiritual Direction from Southern Methodist University’s Perkins School of Theology. Her doctoral dissertation, The Mythology of the Whore of Babylon in Contemporary Reproductive Politics, examines how religious narrative moves beneath the surface of current reproductive politics and emphasizes the importance of reclaiming the female power in the myth of the Whore placing the authority over procreation back within the domain of the procreative body. Stephanie has presented papers at the Association for Women in Mythology (2016), the American Academy of Religion Western Regional Conference (2017), and the Popular Culture Association National Conference (2017, 2019). Her publications appear in PGI’s Mythological Studies Journal (2014) and Between: Literary Journal (2015, 2016). Stephanie lives in Texas. She has worked in corporate marketing at Southwest Airlines, as a docent for the Dallas Museum of Art, and in communications and ministry assistance for the United Methodist Church. Her academic interests focus on the reciprocating relationship between culture and story.

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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.

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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.