What we as stewards understand as “mythopoetics” has been practiced in response to a trend over many centuries in western cultures that views the world on a purely material/empirical level. Traditional cultures have always recognized animate forces and the emergent architecture of creation that the modern materialist perspective fails to recognize. The movement to turn back to myth, symbol, and ritual in recent decades represents a reclamation of our birthright as human beings.

We acknowledge that those who began and shaped the modern mythopoetic movement - such as Marion Woodman, Robert Bly, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, James Hillman, Joanna Macy, Michael Meade, and Carl Jung - were mainly white, middle class, cis-hetero folk and therefore had limitations in their perspectives due to the cultural moment they existed within. For those of us not represented by this subset of the culture, we will be exploring the richness and nuance of the much wider lens informed by our current time that includes queer, post-colonial and non-ableist discourses. To this end we will draw upon the work of thinkers such as Sobonfu Somé, Malidoma Somé, Bayo Akomolafe, Pat McCabe, Sophie Strand, Kai Cheng Thom, and Zhenevere Sophia Dao, amongst others.

We will honor and welcome this new guard of contributors to the mythopoetics of our current time, alongside the old guard whose torch we’ve picked up and carry forward.

Mythopoetics in our Culture