The Mythic Imagination Institute was created to be a community resource connecting you to events and resources all over the world. We'll continue to update this page of Mythic Passages regularly to keep you up-to-date on performances, workshops, conventions, exhibitions, classes, films, conferences, and more.

If you know of any mythic events we've missed, please let us know. You may also call us at 404-832-4127. We'll continue to update this page reularly, even after each issue of the newsletter is published, so please check back often.
 

December, 2003

Celtic Christmas Celebration December 13 & 14, 2004 Schwartz Center for the Performiing Arts, Emory University Atlanta, Georgia Call 404-373-0448 for information. The annual Winter Holiday tradition returns. Dr. James Flannery,  Mythic Journeys guest speaker, produces. For the past ten years the Celtic Christmas Concert has played to enthusiastic full houses.  This engaging event explores the Christmas traditions of the Celtic lands and the Appalachian region in music, dance, poetry, story, and song. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution calls the Concert "a rollicking yet reverend experience" and regularly chooses it as one of the "Best Bets" of the Holiday season. Journey Into Wholeness  December 11 - 14, 2003 Kanuga Conference Center in Hendersonville, North Carolina Sacred Intuition - Exploring the uniqueness of our personal intuitive symbol system through our dreams and our symptoms. With Paula Reeves and Barry Williams. The Gathering of the Fellowship December 14 - 17, 2003 The Sheraton Centre, Toronto Canada Fans of the mythopoeic fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien will travel from all over the world to gather in Toronto, Canada for a masquerade banquet and ball with live music, various workshops, academic panels, galleries, and a vendor's room. This Gathering of the Fellowship will also feature the screening of the first two parts of New Line Cinema's The Lord of the Rings movie series, The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers , courtesy of New Line Cinema and Alliance Atlantis. Admission to the third movie in the series, The Return of the King , scheduled for release on December 17.

January, 2004

Pacifica Graduate Institute Six-Month Intensive Courses A number of topics and speakers are available, all beginning in early January. Please click the link above for topics, leaders, and other details. The Atlanta Jung Society presents John Martin January 17, 2004 Jung and Christianity: A Post-modern Understanding of Religion Saturday Lecture, 7:30 p.m.-10:00 p.m. Sheri Kling Performance Saturday, Jan. 17, 8:00 pm $10 in advance/$12 at door Sheri Kling in concert The Listening Room at Dreamcatcher Guitars 26 Webb St., Roswell, GA 770-640-7047 This warm and small setting allows for a very intimate evening of music and fellowship. Singer/songwriter Sheri Kling writes and performs powerful spiritually and mythically-charged contemporary acoustic songs that challenge the mind and stir the heart. She is a featured Mythic Journeys performer.

February, 2004

Sheri Kling Performances Saturday, Feb. 7, 8:00 pm Opening for Cindy Mangsen & Steve Gillette Golden Hill Concert Series Golden Hill Community Center, Hollingsworth, GA For directions visit: http://www.duskweaver.com/golden_hill/index.htm Sneak away to the country for a night of good music Sunday, Feb. 8, 10:30am & 1:00 pm North Point Church of Religious Science 100 Hannover Park Rd., Suite 160, Atlanta, GA (Just off Roswell Rd., north of Northridge) 770-552-5889  http://www.npcrs.org/ . Sheri will be guest musician at morning worship and will then lead a workshop entitled “Following the Voice of Spirit” that afternoon at 1:00 pm.  Tickets for the workshop are $30 per person. Thursday, Feb. 19, 6:30 pm The Bluebird Café Early Show with Shelley Jacobson, Mackenzie Grant and Donal Hinely 4104 Hillsboro Rd., Nashville, TN 615-383-1461 http://www.bluebirdcafe.com/ A night of writers in the round at one of the premier music venues in the country Singer/songwriter Sheri Kling writes and performs powerful spiritually and mythically-charged contemporary acoustic songs that challenge the mind and stir the heart. She is a featured Mythic Journeys performer. Discovering and Transforming the Myths by Which We Live February 6 - 8, 2004 Boca Raton, Florida Bob Walter, the Executive Director of the Joseph Campbell Foundation, will be kicking off the 2004 centennial celebrations by facilitating a week-end retreat, "Discovering and Transforming the Myths by Which We Live" with the southeast Florida Mythological RoundTable.  If you are interested in joining this mythological journey, contact the roundtable leader, Jan Johnson, at jjoh2911@hotmail.com  for details.  The Hero's Journey: Mythic Stories of the Heroic Quest February 10 - 15, 2004 Kennesaw State University Studio Theater, Atlanta, Georgia A theatre production based upon Joseph Campbell's The Hero's Journey and The Hero With a Thousand Faces. After the run, the play is available for touring to elementary, middle, high schools, and colleges. The Atlanta Jung Society presents Sylvia Perera February 13 - 14, 2004 Sacrifice to the Fire, Surrender in the Light Friday Lecture, 7:30 p.m.-10:00 p.m. Using an ancient Egyptian story of a shipwrecked traveler, we will look at the archetypal journey through terrorizing ordeals to suffer chaos, the loss of collective security, and the sacrificial defeats of ego that allow us "to die before we die." Such initiations, in our times again so necessary, can sometimes lead us beyond fear. Through opening the eye of the heart, they enable us to vision into and through the previously hidden light, just as they reorient our identities in the processes of the Self and the transcendent source that is the journey's goal. Saturday Workshop, 10:00 a.m.- 5:00 p.m. The Medieval tale of Sir Gawain's journey to his own beheading provides a map of some of the ordeals, emotions, and outcomes of initiation. Using story telling, private reflection, journaling, and discussion, we will imaginally retrace this hero's journey. We will explore where and how it applies to our own experiences and the fears that are inevitable on the path of individuation. For this workshop bring a journal. Sylvia Brinton Perera is a Jungian analyst who lives, practices, teaches, and writes in New York City and Burlington, VT. Originally trained as an art historian, she turned to psychology after working with disadvantaged children during the sixties. Earning her M.A. in psychology and graduating from the C.G. Jung Institute in New York, she worked in a city hospital and then at a university counseling center before opening her private practice. Her publications include Descent to the Goddess: A Way of Initiation for Women; The Scapegoat Complex: Towards a Mythology of Shadow and Guilt; Dreams, A Portal to the Source (with E. Christopher Whitmont); Celtic Queen Maeve and Addiction: An Archetypal Perspective; The Irish Bull God: Image of the Multiform and Integral Masculine; and many clinical articles. She teaches at the C.G Jung Institute in New York and lectures around the country and in Europe. She also coleads yearly study trips to Ireland.   Pacifica Graduate Institute Presents Marion Woodman February 20 - 21, 2004 A Lecture and Workshop with Mythic Journeys guest Marion Woodman Radisson Hotel, Santa Barbara, California THE AUGURY OF BRIGHID: Inspirations of the Sacred Earth February 27 - 29, 2004  With Caitlín Matthews This practical course teaches the traditional divinatory skills of the Celtic peoples, drawing upon the auguries of nature. We explore the prophetic skills of the Irish poets and discover how to use the Augury of Brighid. We will also perform a group ritual, the Oracle of the Awenyddion (the Inspired Ones) in which everyone will have the opportunity to ask questions of the divine oracle of Caer Sidi. The course will be under the protection of the Goddess, Brighid, who will help us over this leap-year day weekend. FíOS: £210 Non-FíOS £230 Non-returnable deposit of £100 payable to Caer, with booking slip to Jo May, Caer, Rosemerryn, Lamorna, Penzance, Cornwall TR19 6BN (01736 810530) Ellen Kushner of Public Radio's "Sound and Spirit" presents a special live performance of Esther February 29, 2004 Jewish Arts and Culture (formerly the Intown Jewish Life Center) Atlanta, Georgia Ellen Kushner is well known as the host of the show that Bill Moyers calls "the best program on public radio, bar none." She's also a respected author of mythic fantasy novels, including Swordspoint and Thomas the Rhymer. In Esther, she retails the famous Old Testament story, adding modern characters to reveal how our own lives mirror myth. This is an amazing performance. Don't miss it. Details are coming, but in the mean time, visit http://www.jacatlanta.org.

March, 2004

The Atlanta Jung Society presents Bud Harris, Ph.D. March 13, 2004 Sacred Selfishness: The Path of Love and Authenticity Saturday Lecture, 7:30 p.m.-10:00 p.m. In his seminars on Nietsche's "Zarathustra," Jung emphasizes that we must eat the gold in the world until we are made of gold and not of hunger. If we do not, we will become empty people who consume ourselves and feed on others. Sacred Selfishness is the path of filling ourselves with gold. Its path is based on the basic quest stories that reveal the path of renewed personal consciousness and help us examine all our assumptions about ourselves and help us uncover our hidden potentials. Filling ourselves with gold is more than an intellectual exercise. It engages us fully in life and through growing self-knowledge softens and strengthens us while helping us to love life and other people. This lecture will explain how this idea evolved with Dr. Harris in the context of individuation. Dr. Harris will provide an overview of how this path unfolds theoretically and in everyday life. Bud Harris, Ph.D., is a Zurich trained Jungian analyst practicing in Asheville, North Carolina. Formerly a businessman, he now has over thirty years experience as a practicing psychotherapist, psychologist and Jungian analyst. He has lectured widely and written a number of articles. His books include: Our Lost Manhood: How to reclaim the Deeper Dimensions of Your Masculinity; The Father Quest: Rediscovering an Elemental Psychic Force; Like Gold Through Fire: Understanding the Transforming Power of Suffering (co-author); and Sacred Selfishness: A Guide to Living a Life of Substance. Pacifica Graduate Institute Presents James Hillman March 19 - 20, 2004 On Paranoia Religion, Politics, Psychology A Seminar with Mythic Journeys guest and advisor James Hillman Radisson Hotel, Santa Barbara, California Sheri Kling Performance Saturday, March 20, 7:30 pm Strings n’ Things Coffeehouse Dahlonega United Methodist Church South Park St., Dahlonega. 706-864-4127 or 706-864-6439 Singer/songwriter Sheri Kling writes and performs powerful spiritually and mythically-charged contemporary acoustic songs that challenge the mind and stir the heart. She is a featured Mythic Journeys performer. Dancing with Joseph Campbell  March 21 - 26, 2004  Location: Esalen, California A Celebration of Joseph Campbell's Centennial International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts Here There Be Dragons:  The Global Fantastic March 24-28, 2004 Ft. Lauderdale Airport Hilton Guest of Honor: Daína Chaviano  *  Guest Scholar: Marcial Souto Special Guest Writer: Elizabeth Hand  * Permanent Special Guest: Brian Aldiss Presented by the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts (IAFA), a scholarly organization devoted to the study of the fantastic (broadly defined) as it appears in literature, film, and the other arts.

April, 2004

The Atlanta Jung Society presents James Hollis, Ph.D. April 16 - 17, 2004 Creating A Life Friday Lecture, 7:30 p.m.-10:00 p.m. Can we create our lives, or does life create us? How is it that we are free but choose such repetitive, self-defeating patterns? How does fate collide with destiny and catch us in between? What are the sources of those replications, and what the insights we need to maximize such freedom as we may have? These are the questions which haunt the modern who, wishing freedom, creates repetitions, yet longs for an authentic journey. Saturday Workshop, 10:00 a.m.- 5:00 p.m. We can never be free to create our lives if we are in service to fixed, internalized, and largely unconscious ideas. We will engage questions which stir, sift, and raise consciousness of those deeply ingrained ideas which create or repeat patterns in our lives, for with consciousness comes the power to choose more freely. James Hollis, Ph.D., is a Zurich-trained Jungian analyst, author of nine books, most recently Creating a Life and On This Journey We Call Our Life, and executive director of the Jung Educational Center of Houston, Texas. Note: Bring a note pad and pen for journalizing.   Pacifica Graduate Institute Spring Conference Celebrating Joseph Campbell April 16-18, 2004 Radisson Hotel, Santa Barbara, California

May, 2004

Ancient Spirit, Modern Voice: The Mythic Journeys 2004 Art Exhibition May 1 - June 12, 2004 The Defoor Centre Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia An art exhibition featuring artists whose work is influenced by myth and folklore, including Alan Lee, Terri Windling, Brian Froud, and many more. The exhibition, coordinated by Charles Vess and Karen Schaffer, is a part of the Mythic Journeys 2004 conference and performance festival. Pacifica Graduate Institute presents Jean Shinoda Bolen May 21-23, 2004 Goddesses and Gods in Everyone: Sources of Meaning and Causes of Conflict A Workshop with Mythic Journeys gues Jean Shinoda Bolen Radisson Hotel Santa Barbara

June, 2004

Mythic Journeys 2004 In-Depth Pre-Conference June 3 - 4, 2004 A conference and performance festival featuring more than 100 guest participants, including scholars, novelists, poets, psychologists, muscians, dancers, filmmakers, and more in celebration of the centennial of Joseph Campbell's birth. The pre-conference is strictly limited to 250 attendees. The Hyatt Regency Hotel Atlanta, Georgia Mythic Journeys 2004 June 5 - 6, 2004 A conference and performance festival featuring more than 100 guest participants, including scholars, novelists, poets, psychologists, muscians, dancers, filmmakers, and more in celebration of the centennial of Joseph Campbell's birth. The main conference, open to more attendees, also includes a special Friday evening opening performance featuring Coleman Barks, Robert Bly, and more. The Hyatt Regency Hotel Atlanta, Georgia SpiritFire Festival June 16-20, 2004 SpiritFire is a gathering dedicated to community and peace through exploring the unity of mind, body, spirit, and each other. Our tools are joyful community, openness, spontaneity, dance, song, rhythm, and ritual, enacted around the swirling mandala of the all-night fire. SpiritFire is a sacred space where all voices and paths are welcome, combined together in rhythmic ritual each night in the glow of firelight and torches. Workshops in music, dance, chant, and other spiritual practices are offered during the daytime, and wonderful meals are provided.

July, 2004

2004 Parliament of the World's Religions July 7-13, 2004 Barcelona, Spain MythCon 35 Bridges to Other Worlds: Thirty-Five Years of Mythopoeic Scholarship University of Michigan, Ann Arbor July 30-Aug. 2, 2004 Author Guest of Honor: Neil Gaiman Scholar Guest of Honor: Charles A. Huttar With Musical Guests: The Chelsea House Orchestra For thirty-five summers, the Mythopoeic Society has celebrated mythopoeic and fantasy scholarship at its annual conference. It has fostered the development of this discipline, and has encouraged many persons in their academic endeavors. This milestone conference will examine the quality, the depth and breadth of mythopoeic scholarship as it has developed since Mythcon I, both within the Society and in academia in general.

If you know of any mythic events (including conferences, classes, conventions, performances, signings, films, etc.) we've missed, please let us know. You may also call us at 404-832-4127.