[Image: "Mystery Wolf", 2006 © James Erickson and used with permission]

Animal Powers
Winter Solstice

Sparking Yule Logs
to
Spinning Dreydls

Solstice/Hanukkah Podcast

Award-winning fantasy author Ellen Kushner joins Mythic Imagination Institute Co-president Honora Foah to talk about midwinter traditions, welcoming new life into the world, Hanukkah and (we kid you not)
The Klezmer Nutcracker

Exciting News!

We're very happy to announce our new partnership with
The Open Center
in New York City
for the development of
a Certificate Program in
Mythological Studies
that will soon be available
to those who wish to make practical use of
myth and ritual in art, performance, therapy and education.
Watch here for more information as it becomes available!

• Digging in the Earth
  to Find the Light
  
  Many of us know the story of Chanukah, how one small vial of oil lit the Temple for eight days and nights. What most people did not know, however, is that this one small flask of oil was found buried in the ground. — Michael Karlin [more]
  
  

• The Eleventh Commandment
  
  Here we are in the heart of the darkness in the Northern hemisphere, the winter solstice. Some animals choose to sleep through it; some find snow hunting the best of the year. To have no fear at all of the cold and dark would be to have lost all racial memory. So, the solstice dark comes upon us, and Lo! to us a child of light is born. God is good. — Honora Foah [more]
  
  

• Animal Metamorphosis
  
  From Mythic Journeys '04, a discussion of Deer Woman, Red Riding Hood, animal brides and fantastic bridegrooms, Beauty and the Beast, Fox Woman, and wolf/man vs. the Wolfman.
  — Charles de Lint, Carolyn Dunn & Terri Windling [more]
  
  

• Chickie and the
  Path of Awakening
  
  "Chickie gave me metaphors for my later life's work, especially when it came to digging. Paws scratching away at apparently nothing soon revealed dark secrets hidden in the earth—old bones, ancient feathers, and things so mysterious as to be beyond human knowing."
  — Jean Houston [more]
  
  

• Myths and Tales in
  Big Fish
  
  "Few of the mythological hero myths and epics that I teach have nearly as many details or episodes as Homer's Odyssey or Big Fish, but most display the essential three parts of separation, initiation, and return."
  — William Doty [more]
  
  

• Excerpt from
  Ways of the Heart,
  Essays Toward an
  Imaginal Psychology
  
  
  "Standing in front of the cage of a large silver-back male, I felt the presence of the bars between us. The gorilla was sitting in the front corner of his cage, and I could see him only in profile. His deeply set dark black eyes seemed like pools of time, and in those few brief moments of exchange I felt dizzy, as if I could swim through his eyes into another world.""
  — Robert Romanyshyn [more]
  
  

• Winter Fool, Summer Queen:
  Shakespeare's Folklore and the English Holiday Cycle
  
  Many fantasy writers have tried to imagine how Will Shakespeare got his gift for turning mere stories into works of wonder...In truth, Shakespeare has almost become part of the folklore of the English-speaking world himself—his mysterious origins and awe-inspiring poetic gifts lead many to see him as a semi-divine figure; little wonder that we fantasize about where such genius came from."
  — Kristen McDermott [more]

• Where Christmas Falls
  
  "The date of Christmas is, as everybody knows, December 25th. This is all well and good. It is a dark, cold time of the year, and all of us could use some holiday cheer. It is not, however, the date of the birth of Christ. This too would be fine, but the date of the birth of Christ serves as the anchor point, reason and basis for our calendar, and it can be unsettling to realize that the clock we have imposed on our lives has, to put it gently, a checkered past." — Zachariah Hill [more]
  
  
  
• Midwinter Traditions
  
  Yule, Saturnalia, Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, Mitwinternacht, Christmas and Hanukkah — so many celebrations at this cold turn of the Wheel. — Dahna Barnett [more]
  
  

• The Landscape of
  the Great Hunt;
  
  Out of One, the Many;
  
  The Shamans of the Caves;
  
  The Hunter's Need to Kill
  
  — Joseph Campbell [more]
  
  
  
  
• Fairy Tale Forests
  
  The danger, mystery and power of the deep, dark forest are intertwined with the world story. Think on the symbols of Yggdrasil, the World Tree, sacred oak groves, and mistletoe that have worked their way into tales of Merlin's Broceliande Forest, Enkidu and Pan — both Lords of the Woods, Robin Hood, the Green Knight, Kulhwch and Owen, Perceval, Little Red Cap, Snow White, and Hansel and Gretel, just to name a few — Karen Elizabeth Guerin [more]
  
  

• I'Itoi's Cave, and
  Topawa, Arizona
  
  "I'Itoi, Elder brother, it is said, led the Tohono O'Odham into this world from the Underworld, and now resides in a cave just South of here. It is also said that you can enter the cave and visit with I'Itoi, but you must bring a gift. If you do not bring a gift, you may not find your way out of the cave." — Stu Jenks [more]
  
  
• Mythic Glossary
  
  Elementargedanken, "elementary ideas" and Völkergedanken, "ethnic ideas." — Joseph Campbell [more]
  
  

Poetry & Fiction


• I Have News for You...
  — 9th century Irish poet [more]
  
  
• Deer Hunter
  — Carolyn Dunn [more]
  
  
• Beauty and the Beast
  — Madame de Villeneuve [more]
  
  
• With Momentary Eyes:
  Thoughts on the
  Human Forum
  — Arsenio Rodriguez [more]
  
  
• A Woman Grown
  Beautifully Old
  — Cecilia Woloch [more]
  
  
• From Tsigan,
  The Gypsy Poem
  — Cecilia Woloch [more]
  
  

Filmmaker George Quasha will soon be releasing the Part II of the Myth Is DVD.

If you attended Mythic Journeys '06, you'll remember the documentary that played continuously outside the main programming room with marvelous thinkers like Michael Vannoy Adams, Rebecca Armstrong, Coleman Barks, Phil Cousineau, Meinrad Craighead, William Doty, Kristen Eckmann, James Flannery, Honora Foah, Matthew Fox, Ellen Hemphill, James Hillman, Sam Keen, Robin & Stephen Larsen, Margot McLean, Micheal Meade, Joyce Carol Oates, Ginette Paris, Laurie Patton, Huston Smith, Ulla Suokko and Robert Walter all speaking to the importance and understanding of myth in our modern world.

Part II includes interviews with 431 more amazing minds!

For the opportunity to view and order either one or both of these powerful documentaries, visit www.quasha.com.

If you haven't seen the
film trailer for the upcoming
documentary film project
on Mythic Journeys '06
by Imaginal Cells Inc...


...you should!

And we thought that you'd like to know!

There's a great cover story on Mythic Imagination Institute and one of our founders, Michael Karlin, in the premier edition of Motto, a magazine devoted to helping people work towards a meaningful life with meaningful work.

Also in this first issue is an interview with Deepak Chopra on "Careers With Soul."

A Great Offer From Motto!

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Buy a subscription and they give you another one for a friend or family member.
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(Offer good through January, 2007.)

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