One-Man Show 

Mythic Journeys guest Tom Key has negotiated rights with the estate of C.S. Lewis to be able to perform his one-man show based on the famous writer’s life at the Mythic Journeys conference.  Tom is one of Atlanta’s most well respected actors and directors, and the artistic director of the award winning and acclaimed Theatrical Outfit. He is perhaps best known for his unforgettable performances in The Cotton Patch Gospel (which he co-wrote with the late, great Harry Chapin), as Scrooge in the Alliance Theatre’s A Christmas Carol, and Athol Fugard’s The Blood Knot.

Guest Speakers

New this month to the Mythic Journeys already prestigious guest list are writers, teachers, filmmakers, comparative mythologists, shamanic drummers, dancers, and rock musician/entrepreneurs. All with a common connection: myth. Like Rapunzel’s hair, the locks of our list just keeps on lengthening:

Joyce Carol Oates told stories instinctively as a small child. After receiving the gift of a typewriter at age fourteen, she began consciously training herself, "writing novel after novel" throughout high school and college. Success came early: while attending Syracuse University on scholarship, she won the coveted Mademoiselle fiction contest. Between 1968 and 1978, Oates taught at the University of Windsor in Canada, where she published new books at the rate of two or three per year while maintaining a full-time academic career. Though still in her thirties, Oates had become one of the most respected and honored writers in the United States. In 1978, Oates moved to Princeton, New Jersey, where she continues to teach in Princeton University's creative writing program. Shortly after arriving in Princeton, Oates began writing Bellefleur, the first in a series of ambitious Gothic novels that simultaneously reworked established literary genres and re-imagined large swaths of American history. Oates returned powerfully to the realistic mode with ambitious family chronicles (You Must Remember This, Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart) and novels of female experience (Solstice, Marya: A Life). 

Guy Gavriel Kay is the author of the acclamimed mythic novels The Fionavar Tapestry trilogy, Tigana, A Song for Arbonne, The Lions of Al-Rassan and The Sarantine Mosaic duology. Guy also assisted Christopher Tolkien with the editing of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion.

Sobonfu Somé, author and teacher and one of the foremost voices in African spirituality to come to west, says that: "There is a deep longing among people in the West to connect with something bigger -- with community and spirit. People know there is something missing in there lives, and believe that the rituals and ancient ways of the village offer some answers." Sobonfu, whose name means "keeper of the rituals" travels the world on a healing mission sharing the rich spiritual life, ritual, and culture of her native land, Burkina Faso, which ranks as one of the world's poorest countries yet one of the richest in spiritual life and custom. Sobonfu has written two books, The Spirit of Intimacy and Welcoming Spirit Home, her newest offering, which draws on rituals and practices involving community, birth miscarriage, and children. Filled with grace and eloquence, Sobonfu possesses a charm and modesty that enables her to touch her audience deeply. Her message about the importance of spirit, community and ritual in our lives rings with an intuitive power and truth that Alice Walker has said "can help us put together so many things that our modern western world has broken."

Eric Saperston loaded up a 1971 VW bus, intending to follow the Grateful Dead. When the forever-missed Jerry Garcia passed away, Eric and his band of adventurers decided to travel the country, asking some of the most important people around out for a cup of coffee. For example? The gang met with former president Jimmy Carter, architect John Portman (who introduced them to the works of Joseph Campbell), Mythic Journeys guest Betty Sue Flowers, and many, many more. Eric and his friends even met an unexpected mentor: one Henry Winkler. That’s right, the Fonz himself was their Yoda. All in all, Eric and the others conducted some 376 interviews with everyone from college students to wise people. The result of their 1,825-day odyssey is an incredible hero’s journey of discovery—and an acclaimed independent film, The Journey. Eric will screen the film at Mythic Journeys, and tell us all about his adventures on the road. As Eric says, "Sometimes you take the journey, and sometimes the journey takes you."

Verlyn Flieger, Ph. D. is a Professor in the Department of English at the University of Maryland at College Park who specializes in myth studies and comparative mythology. She teaches a sequence of graduate and undergraduate myth courses that offer Celtic, Arthurian, Hindu, Native American, and Norse myth. Concentrating on modern fantasy with a special focus on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, Professor Flieger's publications include Question of Time: J. R. R. Tolkien's Road to Faerie, the winner of the 1998 Mythopoeic Award for Inklings Studies; Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien's World; Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle-earth co-edited with Carl Hostetter and winner of the 2002 Mythopoeic Award for Inklings Studies; and her fictional works, Pig Tale and The Doom of Camelot: "Avilion: A Romance of Voices". In addition, Professor Flieger is co-editor with Douglas A. Anderson and Michael Drout of Tolkien Studies, a  journal devoted to scholarly examination of the works of Tolkien.

Scarlet Kinney of the Standing Bear Center for Shamanic Studies, is an artist, writer and mythologist. She earned her BA in studio art at Goddard College, Plainfield, VT, and her MA in Mythological Studies with an Emphasis on Depth Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute, Carpinteria, CA. Scarlet studied the women’s shamanic ways of the Iroquois Nation with a Mohawk shaman woman for three years, and founded The Standing Bear Center for Shamanic Studies in 1994. The Center offers shamanic workshops, individual shamanic counseling, and a training program for apprentices leading to certification as a Shamanic Counselor, Kinney Method. Scarlet is presently working on two books that tell her story. The Stone Heart Turtle People, the last chapter in one of those books, is a shamanic healing myth that Scarlet tells to the accompaniment of shamanic drumming, singing and chanting. She and her women’s shamanic drumming group, The Turtle Mountain Drummers, will perform The Stone Heart Turtle People at Mythic Journeys.

Parker Johnson, investment banker turned rock musician, created the rock opera The Ladder, a musical odyssey that charts the agony and ecstasy of following the call of The Hero's Journey. He founded Foxfire Studio and The Ladder Foundation, an group which makes charitable contributions to individuals and non-profit organizations serving youth, leadership development, and cultural arts. Parker will stage The Ladder at Mythic Journeys, a spectacle you won't want to miss.

Debora Ott is a writer, editor, and arts management consultant whose abiding passion is to build community through a shared appreciation of the creative process. The founder of Just Buffalo Literary Center, Inc. in Buffalo, New York, she accepted the prestigious New York State Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts in 1997. She is the author of About Face: A Guide to Founder Transition that was published by the New York State Council on the Arts. Along with Susan Eldridge, Debora will use the hero’s journey as a template for a dance version of the tale of Little Red Riding Hood at Mythic Journeys. The two will lead a workshop addressing questions about the nature of Little Red Riding Hood as a cautionary tale, examining current and mythic roles for women, and exploring the crucial boundaries between self and progeny.

Susan Eldridge is a dancer, choreographer, and garden designer who embraces the joy of reality as a moving process. She in engaged in the ongoing discipline of creating and training new realities through dance and teaching. She full appreciates that reality isn’t a place; it’s a sliding scale of perspectives in which the individual is empowered by movement from one reality to another

Be sure to take a look at the Web site for a complete list of participants. We'll be updating it regularly!

Amaze your friends, demoralize your foes, and be the envy of all the other kids on your block and all the surrounding blocks in your new Mythic
Journeys or Mythic Imagination t-shirts.

That's right, you can make a powerful fashion statement and support the Mythic Imagination Institute at the same time. These high-quality garments, featuring our logos printed on 100% heavy cotton T-shirts, are available in small, medium, large, XL, and XXL, and feature our logos printed on The MythicJourneys shirts feature the logo (above) in hunter green on a beige parchment colored shirt. The Mythic Imagination shirt is available in white with a blue logo (below) or denim blue with a white logo.

The white Mythic Imagination shirt is also available in XXXL.

$15.00 (Includes shipping within the United States. For international shipping, please add $5.00).

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New Members of the Board

We are extraordinarily honored and proud to announce that Mr. Scott Livengood, CEO of the Krispy Kreme Doughnut Company, joined the Mythic Journeys Board of Directors the day after Hurricane Isabelle blew through his home state of North Carolina.  In addition to leading to astonishing success in business, Scott uses a degree in industrial relations and psychology to employ mythology as a strong foundation for his successful company and his personal philosophy. He developed the Krispy Kreme “mythodology” and runs the company based on the ideas in Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces.

Honora Foah has also joined the board. Honora, Creative Director at Visioneering International, was the chief producer and designer for the UN Pavilions featured in the 1992 World Expo in Genoa, Italy, and the 1993 World Expo held in Taejon, South Korea. As the artistic force behind Visioneering International, Inc., Honora brings extensive training and professional experience in the fine arts, including dance, music and theater.

Honora used her love for the arts as well as her flair for audio visual creativity as co-director of her own dance theater company from 1976 to 1986. Schene/Hill Dancing, one of the most innovative dance companies in New York City, was known for combining multimedia images, set design, dance, photography and voice. In 1982, she was awarded a prestigious grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

In 1987, Honora teamed up with her husband, Robert, to produce imaginative
high-tech audio visual projects that are on the cutting edge of the industry. Together, they serve as the principal multimedia consultants to the United Nations and several Fortune 500 companies.

Parabola and Mythic Journeys partner for Cinema of the Spirit Film Festival

The next Parabola Cinema of the Spirit  Film Festival begins Thursday, October 3, in Saratoga Springs, New York. 

The Cinema of the Spirit series honors the work of filmmakers and videographers who celebrate and illuminate the global range of spiritual experience.  Documentaries and new dramatic features, classics and animated shorts all have a part in this ambitious 30-film series.

Now, here’s our exciting news.  Even as you read this, Mythic Journeys is working with our partners at Parabola magazine to explore presenting a Cinema of the Spirit film festival in Atlanta the weekend before the conference in June, 2004.  We'll bring more details in future issues of this e-newsletter. Make sure you've subscribed!

That brings to three the number of events tied to Mythic Journeys - the main conference and performance festival, the Ancient Spirit, Modern Voice Art Exhibition, and the film festival.