Part One

Our first responsibility as mythological, archetypal thinkers is to take a step back from the dominant political and pop cultural issues to perceive the real stories that are being played out in our culture. The next step is to understand how we participate in those narratives through our own willing acceptance of their primary themes. How do we do this? One way is by being passive consumers of our national rituals. I’m not speaking about conscious, intentional, local, indigenous-based r

Cascadia’s Green Mythic Tea Tribe.
New Myth # 30 by Willi Paul

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Menku and Kay work in the basement of the Green Leaf Café, a localized tea plantation (a reclaimed cemetery) and sipping spot in northeast PDX, now a proud member of Cascadia. They work with several other researchers to discover how the mythic gene works and if they can turn it on for folks without its spark.

http://wp.me/p2JLqK-91

Suffering goddesses is a image that I have meditated on for over thirty years of treating women who have suffered bodily, often related to childhood neglect and abuse. When the mind is in pain, the body cries out goes the old adage in depth psychology. A woman's body takes in pain differently that a man's and the pain often lingers through adulthood when childhood trauma has been severe and chronic.

Building the Story of Cascadia: New Tools for the Transition

Workshop Video & Hand-out from 2012 NWP Convergence

by Willi Paul, newmythologist.com

I am working with archetypal psychologist Howard Teich, Ph.D. See his brilliant book, Solar Light, Lunar Light, perspectives in human consciousness (www.fisherkingpress.com). This is an abridged version of a dream Dr. Teich has interpreted. The long version will be posted at his website soon. Stay tuned:

A dog in a dream is a representation of the instinctual aspect of life that is emerging to guide us and wants to be paid attention. Just as a dream has many interpretations, the dog in a dream ha

Hurry sickness spins an awful spell. It whispers in our ear that doing just a little more will make everything better. Pretty soon we’re going fast to cram more into less time. When we listen to the titillating promise of more we inevitably end with a twisted gut and a fried brain.

Mind madness symptoms include irritability, quick temper, an empty pit in the center of the stomach. Worse, there’s a feeling of soul loss. Suffering soul loss can happen during the course of one day or less. This isn’

Nervous egos, a power-packed term in depth psychology, abound in contemporary society. Flitting from this to that, always spinning one emotional drama after another, might just be a way of concocting a false self that temporarily jettisons us into an artificial sense of being alive. Nervousness inevitably lets us down harder than a drop on our head to a concrete pavement.

Depth psychology inspires us into soulful living. Rather than engaging with hypomanic energy, being overtaken and perhaps poss

When I was 10 years old, I had already gained the reputation of inventor.  My mother’s boyfriend at the time was a pretty smart guy.  He’s the one that told me I could be wasting a lot of time on perpetual motion machines.  I guess I was still young enough to heed good advice.  I moved on to the next machine.

I presented my mentor with my latest design, bouncing with anticipation of what he might say next.  He told me it was a very good design; and that it just might work as well.

“But there’s

             As we enter the month of October, it is a marvelous time to reap the bounties of the harvest, in our outer world, and within.  As we head off to the pumpkin patch or the apple-pressing party, we can reflect on the approaching winter as an invitation to hibernate, to reflect, to stoke the fires of our inner being.

            A tool that can ignite this process is one that I call “Imaginal Meditation”. Paying homage to the meditation tradition of Buddhism and the Active Imagination of

Companions on our journey:
    Depth psychology offers many deep and engaging ways of looking at the many faceted jewel of the little self. Shadow, anima/animus, are key landmarks on this interior journey, but closer to our side rides a variety of companions who we may not acknowledge to ourself, but are more easily seen by those who are close to us.
    These are the complexes. Did you imagine, "little self, waking ego" to be of a different substance than a complex. Not really, "little self, wak

Listening at the door again
    To continue. There as many functions and types of dreams as there are people and commentaries, so any characterization, by me or others, is comparable to the parable of the blind men and the elephant, each only perceiving a small point of view, but fervently arguing it to be the truth. Recent research into the levels of norepinephrine during REM sleep suggest that as the stress hormone (one of it's functions) is decreased during REM, it allows more "relaxed" revi

VIDEO RITUAL

"Our Falling Rituals"
New Myth # 29
Video by Willi Paul
http://newmythologist.com/

Troubled sleep...restless gods conjures an image of restless, sleepless nights, twisting and turning late into the night and into the early hours of the morning. No relief in sight for those wrestling with demons within and unresolved conflicts without. Troubled sleep signals a need for willingness to make the descent into dark realms and listen to the voices of the gods!

When we resist hearing what we need to hear, typically not wanting to make critical life changes, then we may suffer from trou

"The Ostrich & the Flame Thrower: Crisis Storytelling in the Chaos Era", Willi Paul, Principle, newmythologist.com

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The big question here is how do non-profits, corporations and other organizations nurture and disseminate their stories in a global climate of chaos? Can Occupy protests, nightly corporate TV news and environmental justice web sites plant “non-GMO seeds” for new stories and new myths?

http://wp.me/p2JLqK-50

Listening at the door of the dreaming mind

Our mind "dreams" continuously with bursts of notable activity at intervals in the night, only a few of which we notice. Like ignorant children listening at the door to adults talking, we gather little from the conversation, declaring it so much foreign language babble. Oh the arrogance of the little "self" who rules the conversation in another language nonsense, reluctant to imagine there is knowledge transpiring to which we are not privy. Yet this acti

I have shared postings on Dreams and Consciousness, in a tucked away folder on my site, but it isn't a "blog" and doesn't allow questions and other's thoughts... so I thought to try posting it here to see what it stirs up.

Question about Identity in Dreams
For those who don't know me, I have maintained a Dream Journal, for "3+? decades" and have used this dialogue as a growth experience and knowledge training opportunity, seeing patterns in rapid evolution, sifting out the repeated motifs, notin

Dreams are the eyes of God states a central maxim of depth psychology. I've come to understand that when we see through the eyes of the Dreamer then we cut to the chase regarding situations, relationships, ourselves. Dreams don't lie. A man, some years ago, told me that he dreamt of climbing a staircase that ascended to the heavens. There he discovered that "going up happened as I went within. I listened to my dreams and they showed me the way forward in my life. It brought changes that were fri

Hello all,

Some food for thought harvested from different parts of the web about today's Autumn Equinox (September 22) and the coinciding (ie, synchronising!) first quarter moon: 

1. 'Also called Mabon or the late harvest festival, [the Autumn Equinox] is celebrated when day and night are of equal length. It is a time of balance before the descent into the darkness of winter and a time to take stock of the fruits of the harvest - whether they are real fruit and vegetables you have grown yourself,

"In every kind of dream I am a black wolf...." So goes the provocative poem by Tina Chang entitled The Future is an Animal. It was shared with me by my daughter, Katherine, also a poet. The effect of it has lingered as images of transition and transformation emanate from each verse, reminding me that destiny is ever unfolding and that "the path goes on and on." God as intimate soul, as dark goddess, black wolf, deep calling unto deep, we awaken each day to the mysteries that the day will bring a