Blind Minotaur, Picasso
Moy Mell: Coming Home to Mythic Ground
Essential Myths & Psychology of Self-Understanding
Moy Mell is a Gaelic name. It could be translated as Honeyed Plain or Sacred Field. It is one of the mythic grounds within Irish myth, a place to seek renewal.
On this journey, we will travel through story and myth, through philosophical and poetic dialogue, through study of the soul’s traumas and healings, through honoring of the body and the land…
This learning journey into myth welcomes everyone with an interest in the mythic. It will be fully participatory, holding you in well-designed scaffolds where you will explore the material’s meaning for your own life. It will draw on Laura’s 30 years of study in Jungian psychology, myth and culture, 15 years as an educator, and 7 years as a dream therapist.
MODULE 1
Strengthening our Soles: A Walk with the Persephone and the Handless Maiden
No change occurs in the arm-chair comfort of the culture-consumer, so we must begin by toughening our feet for the long walk ahead. Any casual glance at the world of myth reveals a world of underbellies and unknowns. What is this strange world?
We can’t sugar-coat the wilds ahead. This first module will be an encounter with the collective shadow through an encounter with a European fairy tale known as The Handless Maiden, but which we will rename The Woman Who Grew New Hands. This is an initiatory story with a ritual structure built in. We will follow its suggestions regarding how to approach collective trauma and unconscious shadow.
The story invites a re-imagining of redemption, in sacred kinship with Nature, beyond the boundaries of dogma or idealism. As we move through this story, we will lay the foundation for the Moy Mell's various themes: the nature of the Soul, our relationship to Nature, our culture’s patterns of imbalance and how we might heal from them.
Sundays January 26, February 2, 9, 16
Course Fee: $150-200, sliding scale
MODULE 2
Turning up the Flame: Eros and the Shadow Play of Soul
In the story of Psyche & Eros, the Soul is chosen by Love, guided by Love, tormented by Love, fails to Love and loses Love. And then finds Love again, changed.
Eros and Soul are bridge makers. Between what and what?
One of the saddest and most destructive aspects of modern Western culture is its belief that instincts are brute facts of life outside the boundaries of soul’s influence. This way of life separates instinct from intuition and blocks the path to wholeness.
In order to wrestle free of this cultural limitation, we will travel into a second story, that of the Cretan Minotaur. Then, we’ll bring in the assistance of Carl Jung’s concept of shadow and we’ll attend the dance school of the thrice-born Dionysus.
Dates TBD late March- April
MODULE 3
Return of the Outsiders: The Voiceless Body of Magic
Myths of return
MODULE 4
Will be announced here and on the Myth & Movement newsletter.