Grand Opening Sessions
In May 2022, we held a number of free public sessions offering a taste of the School. You can still enjoy them all below.
Get notified of future public events and workshops.
Reclaiming Initiation: Rites of Passage in a Modern Era
Adulthood Initiation Rites were found throughout nearly every ancestral and indigenous culture across this planet – which is how the culture continued to stay healthy, generative and life-serving. In a modern world, shadow runs rampant while new-age spirituality only points us to love and light. What about a spirituality that brings us into the dark? How can we craft rites-of-passage containers that can support us to transform our wounds into gifts and bring our own unique medicine to life?
Join The School of Mythopoetics co-founders John Wolfstone and Ian MacKenzie (The Mythic Masculine podcast) as they unpack their own reclamation of initiatory rites and how modern humans may begin to approach this most ancient of mysteries.
From Hero To Trickster: Humanity's Initation
The reign of the Hero has come to an end. As humanity faces increasing crisis and collapse, we come to a threshold where the archetype of the Hero can no longer be our saviour. We have entered a liminal time – a space between stories – and so we must bend and instead look to, and learn from, the boundary-crossing, shape-shifting Trickster. Join Ben Murphy and John Wolfstone as they explore the significance of this cultural transition and how it applies to each of our lives.
The Camel Driver: A Storytelling with Jan Blake
A camel driver leading his camels through a village. On his way to Baghdad, he is gripped with jealousy when he encounters a walled orchard. What transpires changes the lives of those affected forever. Based on one of the Hadiths from the Q’uran, one of Europe’s leading storytellers Jan Blake shares a tale which explores the question of mercy, justice and redemption. After the story, Jan will unpack the tale with the audience and practice applying mythopoetics to your own life.
The Fall and the Underworld with Martin Shaw
In myth, the Underworld is a place of testing and initiation, but hopefully not a final destination. Within many stories the descent is the second element of a three stage process, leading to final grounding that is both redemptive and a gift to others.
Martin Shaw is suggesting in the West we have often made the Underworld so comfortable, so subtle, and in some case so chronic, we’ve become a two stage, not three stage culture. Without quite knowing it, the Underworld has become home. In this state we experience the liminoid not the liminal, the rupture but not the rapture. Nothing grows, expect cynicism. Come and join Martin as he speaks old world stories and ideas into the malaise of our times.
Introduction to The Way of Council
We live in shadowy times, and many of us have been denizens of these depths – but how do we integrate the medicine of the dark? Our ancestors knew that integration was bound up in community, in sharing, in listening and in the reflection of others on the path. One of the best practices for integration we have found is the Way of Council.
Council is an emergent space, bound through deep listening. An ancient practice of speaking truth in shared resonance with a group – this form has been revolutionizing conversations in organizations, schools, executive boards, and even prisons for the last 30 years. A cutting edge of renewed human collaboration so needed in otherwise troubling times.
Join the School of Mythopoetics triad as we explore the foundations of this beautiful form and put it into meaningful practice in our lives.