"Return"
[Image: "Phoenix" © Wendy Ellertson, and used with permission]

“The phoenix hope, can wing her way through the desert skies,
and still defying fortune's spite, revive from ashes and rise.”
— Miguel de Cervantes

• The Phoenix
  
  "What if you were the only one? We imagine her burning nest, the self-immolation of the great bird — but, she lives 100 years, so they say — some say 500. And only one. What is she doing all of that time before she builds her pyre?"
  
  — Honora Foah [read on...]
  
  
• Catching Up
  
  It's been a while since you've heard from us. We're still stretching after our hibernation, but we've got plans, friends... we've got plans.
  
  
  — Honora Foah [read on...]
  
  
• Have You Missed Us?
  
  We've missed you... Mythic Passages returning as a quarterly publication initially, with the hope that we can once again offer monthly issues. We need your help to do this!
  
  — Mary Davis [read on...]
  
  

• Coming of Age on the Street:
  Ritual Invention and the Sacred in American Gang Initiation Rituals
  
  Gang initiation rituals — have they arisen to effectively create a social and psychological state transition from boyhood to manhood for the initiate? To reinforce the social bond of the group? To identify and affirm what the group deems most sacred?
  
  Michael Karlin — [read on...]
  
  

• The Phoenix Rises in Art and Story
  
  
  Artist Wendy Ellertson dreamed about "a phoenix rising up through tall urban buildings. I called the dream back in those first waking moments, holding it to look more closely at the phoenix. I vividly saw it fly around the room, looked closely at its gold, red, and blue feathers. Then it disappeared. I searched more. A sudden warmth filled me... and I realized the phoenix had flown into me."— Wendy Ellertson [read on...]
  
  

• Our Mythical Planet
  
  "Just where is the center of the earth, when each culture claims this or that primal mountain as the axis mundi, and has its own world-tree/cross? How is a sacred place identified? A point of creation or resurrection or epiphany of wisdom?"
  
  William G Doty — [read on...]
  
  

• Parzival, Puer Aeternus, and Healing the Waste Land:
  Integrating Conscious and Unconscious
  
  
  As in the myth of Parzival, the "child within" becomes a critical agent for the health of human kind, the absolute necessary element of healthy and whole human existence. As necessary as the development of the ego is for a healthy and functioning human adult, it can also become the adult's, and indeed the world's, most obstinate obstacle.— Joe Good [read on...]
  
  

• Fantasy That Doesn't Fit
  
  A review of Interfictions, a cool collection of stories that fall between the cracks of commercial genres .
  
  Anya Martin — [read on...]
  
  

• Excerpt from Alex Escobar's
  Mythology for the New World
  
  "Reality is very different than what we perceive it to be. All of the things we have in our daily lives are not solid in the way we tend to think of solid and can be more completely understood as patterns of pure energy."— Alex Escobar [read on...]
  
  
• What Do We Really See?:
  Notes from a lecture by Alex Escobar
  
  "Our five senses evolved for survivability, and probably are the minimum necessary for our survival. There is so much of the universe which we cannot and do not see... We do now know from instrumentation developed just in the last fifty years more about some of what's out there in the universe."— Mary Davis [read on...]
  
  

STORIES & POETRY

• Palakainen
  
  "He came with raven feathers. He came to woo our daughter. Had the wind whispered her secrets into his ear? For she would not have become the wife of any ordinary man, Kommi stubbornness made sure of that."
  — K.A. Laity [read on...]
  
  

• Fragrant Offerings
  
  "Alle-looooooooooo-ia! To the Most Holy and Gracious and Super-fabulous Lord of Hosts, Eternal, Everlasting, and Totally Cooooooooool!" Angel-Strong-in-Capacity-for-Righteousness-and-Upholder-of-Perfection-in-Everything sang out while soaring wildly Heavenward. The overjoyed angel landed with a flourish, wings glistening with excitement. The Heavenly Host shared Scrupe's delight.
  — Sr. Diana Dorothea [read on...]
  
  

• "GODSPELL, OR
  DECEMBER TRIPTYCH"
  — Marly Youmans [read on...]
  
  

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The Mythic Imagination Institute creates experiences that explore
— through art, hands-on activity
and inter-disciplinary conversation —
the mystery and metaphor inherent in myth and story.