It’s been almost a year and a half since I taught a large course online! I’ve really missed it. I’m excited to share that I’ll be offering a weekend version of my longer Rewilding Mythology course in November. Given my health I’m unclear how often I’ll be able to offer this course, but I’m so glad I’ll get a small chance to do it again and to learn from all the people who show up!
Myths as Maps: Ecological Storytelling
Saturday, and Sunday November 16th and 17th.
For most of human history, myth was a durable mode of knowledge transmission, kept alive and resilient by communal storytelling. Practical information about survival and sustenance was nested within compelling narratives that prized the epic stories of multi-species communities over the monologues of human individuals. In this weekend exploration we will reroot together several popular myths back into their ecosystems in order to recover their original wisdom.
We will then look to our own narrative ecologies, revitalizing myth as a way of keeping alive our map of relationships with place and with more-than-human community. Myths were once the maps of communities intimately dialoguing with their environment. But the rise of empire depended on the uprooting of these life-giving stories. Deracinated from their context and from the renewing respiration of communal storytelling, these stories ossified into abstraction and reinforced the anthropocentric hyper-individuality and colonial capitalism of today.
In three powerful, intimate sessions we will together:
*Resurrect myth as a way of honoring our ecological contexts and relationships.
*Compost the uprooted myths of domination and human supremacy.
*Create our own Mythic Maps of our personal ecologies.
Saturday November 16
11 a.m. – 12 pm EST
3:30 p.m. to 5 pm EST
Sunday November 17
Noon EST to 2 pm EST
Sessions will take place online on Zoom. Each session will be recorded and sent out to participants who cannot attend, although active participation is encouraged. Participants will be given a reading list and three written exercises with which to continue working on after the culmination of the workshop.
Workshop Fee: $225
Self-Selected Scholarship: $175
Pay-It Forward: $375
Sign up here and on my website www.sophiestrand.com
I can’t wait to see you all!
The course image features one of my favorite Hilma Af Klint paintings of The Tree of Knowledge.
It will be lovely to be in space with you again.