school of myth & movement arts

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The School of Myth & Movement was established in 2009.

We design artful ways of coming together for the sake of learning, celebration, healing and beauty.

Our programs — both therapeutic and creative — bring ancient approaches to social and personal wellness to life in new ways, generally defying modern categorization.

Festivity, myth, embodiment, nature-connection, cross-cultural psychology, and honoring of ancestral wisdom all play a role in our programs.

The purpose of our work is to support the emergence of a modern culture of creative sustainability, which we believe will begin through a restoration of the soul’s capacity to belong to the Earth.

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Director Laura Melling is a somatic Jungian trauma therapist, Cultural Anthropologist, Waldorf teacher, Dancer, Storyteller, Farmer, and Herbalist.

Laura grew up in New Jersey, and is of Irish, Quaker and Native American descent. As a teen, she was a near-Olympic athlete and received training in body-mind integration, sports psychology and yoga.   

Early on, she noticed that modern culture did not understand how athleticism expands consciousness. At 16, more exposure to ancient holistic culture led to her bold decision to leave behind opportunities in athletics in search of another path.

For her undergraduates studies, Laura pursued a self-developed program combining Comparative Religion, Native American and Western philosophy, Jungian psychology, and Cultural Anthropology.  Given a full fellowship for her doctoral studies at the age of 20, Laura studied in the Anthropology of Human Development. She prepared dissertation research comparing Western modes of education with non-Western forms of socialization and initiation. Within other cultures she noted a pervasive focus on the fulfillment of human nature through embodied and symbolic culture, a focus utterly rejected in the West.

Laura made another bold decision in leaving her prestigious doctoral fellowship to seek out anyone with holistic intelligence since she found this lacking in the highest ranks of academia. This led her to the Isadora Duncan International Institute. Isadora was the creator of the first holistic form of education in modern times. Her approach is based on coming into alignment with Nature by rewilding the mind and body. Aspects of her work were copied by Steiner to create Waldorf education. Laura is a fourth generation lineage holder in direct connection to Isadora and a certified teacher of the Institute.

In 2004, Laura began creating festivals celebrating nature through dance, music and drama for large groups of children in the Botanical Gardens of NYC.  During these New York years, she also co-directed a dance school, trained in Waldorf education, performed with Japanese Butoh artist Atsushi Takenouchi and created a very successful arts-based ESL-program for Catholic Charities NYC. 

Intersecting with her studies, Laura traveled extensively. At 18, she used her college scholarship to go to South Africa. There she worked in the Zulu community in KwaZulu-Natal during the rebuilding of civil society and the Reconciliation Commissions after apartheid. She was forever changed. Later, Laura was befriended by Quechua-speaking people of highland Ecuador who invited her to their community.  Acknowledged by local elders to be a medicine carrier, Laura spent six months creating nature-arts programs for indigenous children in collaboration with indigenous leaders. She has returned to work and live in this community several times.  

Laura's touring with the Duncan Institute took her to Europe where she spent several summers performing and immersing in ancient sites and art of Greece and Italy.  She then settled for several years in Connemara, Ireland, where she collaborated with local artists and poets and directed a dance troupe. 

Laura returned to the US and established the School of Myth and Movement in the Arapahoe land now called Boulder, Colorado.  For 9 years the Boulder School offered weekly events and programs for all ages combining learning, ritual, celebration, community and Nature-connection. Most popular among these was Fairy Tale Forest, which attracted children from all over the country to attend summer immersions. It also attracted scholars of Sustainability education who came to the school to study its unique methods of teaching a love of Nature through the arts of festivity.

In 2018, Laura moved out of Boulder and switched to teaching only online. Pursuing her lifelong interest in depth psychology, she became trained in Bodydreaming trauma therapy. Through her current one-on-one work with clients she is conceiving a new approach to healing deep trauma into community renewal, art-making and ecology.

Laura lives on 30 acres of ancestral Tewa land/ New Mexico where she grows food, makes herbal medicine, and lives in elemental simplicity.

FORMAL TRAINING: Laura carries a Masters in Anthropology of Human Development from New York University, a Bachelors in Cultural Psychology and Human Development from Rutgers Honors College, a post-graduate degree in Isadora Duncan Studies, and post-graduate training in Myth and Movement.  She was privately mentored for ten years by reknowned philosopher Bruce Wilshire. Laura is a trained and experienced Waldorf teacher and selected Waldorf teacher-trainer.  She has more than 15 years of training in Jungian psychology, Bioenergetic psychotherapy, the Body-soul Rhythms work of Marion Woodman and Bodydreaming somatic Jungian trauma therapy.  Laura trained with RJ Stewart and Anastacia Nutt in the pagan traditions of Europe. She was previously part of a Lakota ceremonial community and is now under the tutelage of Mohawk medicine woman Okhi Forest.

AWARDS/POSTS: Her studies and work have received generous support from the National Arts Council of Ireland, New York University, Isadora Duncan International Institute, Rutgers University, the state of New Jersey, Boulder Arts Council, Boulder County Arts Alliance, Galway North Beach Poetry, and a generous anonymous patron. Laura has held teaching and directing positions at National University of Ireland, Shining Mountain Waldorf School, Boulder Waldorf Kindergarten, NYC Botanical Garden, Galway Dance Centre, The Meadow Studio NY, Catholic Charities NYC, among others.