“Any journey of significance will leave you changed. Even if you come back to the same place, you will no longer be the same person.” Roselle Angwin
The Hero Revisioned: Journey Without Goal
This workshop was developed out from the work of psycho-dramatist Paul Rebillot, who embraced the studies of the mythologist Joseph Campbell and developed a Jungian-oriented process that he called the Heros Journey. In keeping with an Archtypal perspective, we have revisioned the Jungian hero as a more Dionysian anti-heroic archetype. In this way, the usual heroic battle with the chthonic is transformed. We propose to be more soulful than spiritual, and to value and integrate our inferiorities, along with our more capable functions.
It is rare for a person to be only generous or always nasty. Most people experience a range of feelings and behaviours and this can create some conflict between different parts of their nature. The most frequent is between the ‘heroic’ aspect of themselves, who is usually considerate, responsible, modest, decent and reasonably courageous, and a more ‘demonic’ character, who is selfish, coarse and sexual, opinionated, amoral, mean and basically lazy.
The constellation of this dynamic tension is natural. How the experience is understood and engaged with varies. Creatively held, the awareness could be inspiring and energizing. Unresolved, the tension results in feelings of anxiety, inner alienation, indifference and emotional or physical pathology.
To serve soul would require respect and recognition for the full range of feelings, images, qualities and behaviours of our personality, the deformed with the elegant, the sensible alongside the irrational, the impulsive and regressive admitted together with the noble and thoughtful. None to be indulged or repressed and all to be acknowledged.
Then we would have a different meaning and experience of wholeness to the usual ideal suggested by sentiment, moralism and humanism. We would appreciate each character within and be interested in what they might want from us and offer to us. Our ego-self concerns would be less pressing and more proportionate. The angelic Daemon and primitive Demon would find their own voices and we might discover that the songs they sing would be both necessary and a delight.
The course guides participants through a series of creative challenges, encouraging them to discover, experience and embody the conflicts between their more refined and less adapted parts. The teaching encourages the integration of the imaginative, intellectual, emotional and somatic aspects within. The journey towards connecting instinctual and archetypal ground is demanding, insightful and most unexpected of all, full of passion and beauty.
Intuition training. Ritual. Guided Meditation. Active Imagination. Tarot . ConsciousBody work. Role play. Hero’s Banquet. Demon Dance. Mythology. Archetypes. Focused Breath. Fool’s Dance. Artwork. Laughter. 6 days. Residential. Preparation. Homework.