Welcome
Only three months left before Mythic Journeys 2004! We are all working feverishly to produce a truly unique experience. You can read about the general flow of the conference days in our Progress Report. Registration is going well for the both the conference and the pre-conference, Mythic Journeys In-Depth. Registration for both can be handled on-line. Also, Ancient Spirit, Modern Voice,: the Mythic Journeys Art Exhibition opens on May 1, running through June 12. Our curators, Charles Vess and Karen Shaffer, have assembled an amazing collection of museum quality paintings, sculpture, photographs, and more. Read all about it in this issue.
We are currently working with our guests and performers to construct the program of events. This process should be complete within the next 30 days. The next issue of Passages will contain all of the details. Our goal is to create an experience that will foster mythic imagination; that will encourage people to see their lives as a story and to see how the world’s stories can enrich their lives and provide guideposts for an inspired life. There are no easy answers in life, but there are clues.
We have three new exciting Mythic Journeys guest speakers to announce.
Plus, this issue offers you articles by author Jane Yolen, scholar Mark Levon Byrne, mythologist Maggie Macary, book reviews, and Sinikka Journeys North, a story of a real mythic journey that is based on the Kalevala and other pre-Christian mythology of Finland.
This issue also continues our Calendar of Events, listing events, workshops, performances, films, lectures, and more, all over the world. We update it regularly, even after the newsletter is published, so please check back often and let us know if you have anything to add.
If someone forwarded this issue to you, please join our mailing list. The next issue should be ready in April.
Comments?
If you have thoughts to share, or know of any mythic events we've missed, please let us know.
Mythic Journeys 2004
June 3-6 Atlanta, Georgia
ONLINE REGISTRATION IS AVAILABLE NOW!
 A story can change the world.
Like the famous Salons of Paris, we hope to spark a broad cultural movement for positive change. Won't you join us?
Visit our Web site to make your plans now!
The first Mythic Journeys conference, bringing together artists, mythologists, writers, performers, psychologists, media, theologians, and more; will be held at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta.
Mythic Journeys occurs as two events: a main conference and performance festival, and an intimate pre-conference. The main conference will be held on Saturday and Sunday, June 5 and 6, 2004, and we expect between 1,500 and 2,000 participants. The pre-conference, focusing on intimate gatherings, performances, and in-depth workshops, is limited to only 250 attendees, and will be held on Thursday and Friday, June 3 and 4, 2004. We hope you'll be a part of it.
"I believe that legends and myth are largely made of truth, and indeed present aspects of it that can only be perceived in this mode; and long ago certain truths and modes of this kind were discovered and must always reappear."
- J.R.R. Tolkien
"The lies we use to make our fictions reveal the truth with far more honesty than any history or herstory or life story."
- Charles de Lint
"Dream abides. It is the only thing that abides. Vision abides."
- Miguel de Unamuno
"I believe so strongly, so viscerally, in a wisdom and vast joy under the tangled weave of the world, under the tattered blanket of our evil and tragedy and illness and brokenness and sadness and loss, that I cannot speak it, cannot articulate it, but can only hold onto ritual and religion like a drowning man to a strudy ship."
- Brian Doyle
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Contents
Mythic Journeys: A Day In The Life...
“Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head. Found my way downstairs…” and shared a dream, did yoga, tai chi,
spontaneous dance…
The mornings start with an hour of small participatory activities, strenuous or quiet, physical, introspective or imaginative.
Then all of us will gather in one room to hear a story—The Big Story. One story for each morning; four mornings, four stories.
The tale sounds the tonic of the day, the first note, a group dream—one moment in real time when we all come together to share the same experience.
We will have stories from different food groups of Myth: A creation story, a hero’s journey, a myth of descent, a tale of metamorphosis. And all day music surrounds us. Then we go our separate ways to workshops and presentations, to lunch, to meditation.
In the early afternoon, we gather again for The Big Conversations. Mythic Journeys is centered on the idea of cross-disciplinary dialogue. Imagine James Hillman and Marina Warner, Elaine Pagels and Sam Keen, Joyce Carol Oates and Robert Bly, Marion Woodman and Coleman Barks, Charles de Lint, Jean Shinoda Bolen, Scott Livingood and Alan Lee. The combinations will be startling and revelatory.
Then we journey on to more workshops and presentations from our multitude of artists, psychologists, novelists, business people and scholars.
After dinner enjoy performances that go on until midnight—music and theatre, dance and drumming. Share a half hour of Bedtime Stories and Lullabies, a way to gather together one last time. Then the different stages light up again with Janis Ian, Carrie Newcomer, Emerald Rose, Michaela Foster Marsh, Heather Dale, Three Weird Sisters and more.
And so, "to bed, perchance to dream."
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