"The alchemy of a changing life is the only truth."

Course Descriptions

Psychological Approaches to Myth - Depth and Archetypal Concepts
This course is designed to provide a basic foundation and understanding of depth and archetypal psychology and their use in examining myth. We will discuss applicable works of Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and the post-Jungian approach of James Hillman, along with works by Ginette Paris, Christine Downing and Patricia Berry, James Hollis, Edward Edinger, and Marie-Louise von Franz.

Culture and Consciousness: Resilient Systems
This course looks at individual, natural and cultural systems - how they are created, shaped, influenced, and collapse. We will examine issues related to the influence of human beings on their environment, as well as the influence of the environment on human behavior. It is also the study of adaptive strategies used by individuals as they come to understand their interrelatedness with other systems. This course will further define resiliency as it pertains to our psychology. This foundation will help illustrate how creating a resilient psyche can enhance all other systems.

World Mythologies
These courses will examine some of the major stories and characters from cultural groupings of myth from around the world. There is a focus on how particular stories relate to mythic motifs and their significance to the struggle as well as the jubilations of the individual journey and to the culture at large. It is not an in-depth study of mythology, but rather an overview of many different significant cultural myths that affect modern consciousness.

Journaling the Interior: Processing personal, familial, & cultural mythologies (ongoing)
This course will provide guidance and processing tools throughout the course of the year. Personal journals are required for each student as a way to deepen one's experience with myth and engage with the processes involved for integration and application of the learning experience.

Myths for Change I: Alchemy: Reductio
The central metaphor of alchemy is the reduction of a molecular compound to its essential elements, which can then be recombined to create new and original compounds. Hence, alchemy is about changes that occur when any structure collapses into the primordial chaos of its origins. That structure may be social, political, or psychological. When things fall apart, the fundamental elements of their essential form are activated, so that new structures may emerge from the old.

In alchemy, the energies that effect the collapse and disintegration of the molecular compound were symbolized by operations similar to those happening in matter: such as calcination (which involves burning the compound into ashes), dissolution (immersing the compound in water), putrefaction and mortification (dismemberment and death).

All of these operations (calcinatio, solutio, mortificatio) move towards renewal and rebirth, as new compounds are created from the old. In alchemy, the emergence and creation of the philosopher's stone out of the elements of the old forms is symbolized by the marriage of male and female, sun and moon, gold and silver.

When a business collapses and the layoffs come, when a marriage fails and is on the rocks, when we get depressed and descend into the underworld of the psyche, when a loved one dies, when we get the diagnosis on that hell of a bad day-when all these changes occur, the images from alchemy are a rich repertoire of metaphors to understand that a process is at work. We begin to move towards radical change, and the creation of a new world that comes out of the ashes of the old.

Image & Symbols of the Imagination: How psyche communicates through imagery and symbolism
This course explores the psychological functions of the mythic imagination through image and symbol. Care of the soul asks that we pay close attention to the images and symbols we inhabit and the role they play in our dreams, fantasies, thought patterns, and our actions. It is how the psyche or soul communicates with us, educates us to question and communicate in return. Image and symbols provide deeper understanding of the life and death process, processes of the subtle body and guidance for following our passions and creative expression.

Myths for Change II: Apocalypse: Ricorso
The myth of apocalypse involves the destruction and recreation of the world. All the structures of the psyche, the social, political, and religious orders are destroyed by the blowing of the seven trumpets, and the breaking of the seven seals, which unleash the forces of chaos and death upon the world.

As devastating as all these images are-when the financial crisis destroys the world markets, when terrorism, war, and famine break out, and all the social systems we have come to take for granted collapse; when our egos and personas sicken, die, and rot in the grave-the creative energies of renewal begin to emerge, and a brave new world begins to be born.

In the myth, this renewal is made possible by the revelation of the fundamental forms of the created universe (of the spirit, the society, and the self), symbolized in the New Testament by John's vision of Christ seated on the rainbow, with the sword and lily from either side of his mouth, and surrounded by the four symbols of the Evangelists (Man, Lion, Ox, and Eagle).

Along with revelation comes ricorso-return to the origins, circling back to the beginning of time at the end of time, recovering the Paradise of a Thousand Years of Peace lost with the Fall. The recovery of Eden makes possible the creation of a new heaven and new earth, modeled on the revelation of the fundamental elements of the creation, into which the world has dissolved with the blowing of the trumps and breaking of the seals.

Animals in Myth: The Animal / Human Relationship
This course will explore the role of the animal helper and guide in mythology, literature, folklore, and popular culture. We will study the enduring influence and importance of the animal / human relationship, both to ancient peoples and cultures, and to twenty-first century life. We will discuss the role of the animal through the mythology and literary traditions of various cultures including: Greco-Roman, Celtic, Native American, Hindu, Buddhist, Judeo-Christian, and Islamic traditions; explore animals as guides in shamanic tradition; and study animals from a depth-psychological approach as archetypal images and reflections of our own inner nature.

Myths for Change III: Creation: Renovatio
In nearly all of the Creation myths we know, from all over the world, a cosmos emerges from a pre-existent chaos. Chaos, in that sense, is creative, the pre-condition of all worlds.

From the chaos of the beginnings pairs of opposites often become differentiated: of earth and sky, fire and water, male and female, fish and fowl, animal and human.

Various archetypal images of this process come down to us from diverse sources: images like a cosmic egg which gives birth to Eros, the god of love, from whose energies the creation then comes into being; or of a divine flow of water that divides into the four rivers of Paradise, and then radiates out to the four quarters; or the image of creator god who goes into battle with a monster of chaos, thus releasing energies that nourish and sustain the world.

Often, the world is brought into being by the word, as a god speaks the creation into existence. Sometimes a god shapes the world on a pottery wheel, or sings a song over two ears of corn, thus giving life to a first couple.

At moments of change and transition, we fall back into the chaos of beginnings, from which new worlds are then born, re-enacting the creation of the cosmos in an endless cycle of death and renewal, as one age turns to another.

Ritual & Initiation in Contemporary Culture
In cultures throughout history, individuals have found psychological support and orientation through the significance of ritual and initiatory experience. Ritual has an essential role in tending relationships, families, communities, and workplaces. The origins of art and religion are in ritual; to ritualize is to make sacred. Our ancestors have taught us that life without ritual is insufferable. This course explores the creative and transformative uses of ritual in our everyday lives. Potential themes for the course include ritual in times of transition, crisis, illness and death; ritual and sexual experience; and ritual in cultural context.

Online Webinar Course Descriptions:
Mythologies of the Underworld
Mythologies of the Great Goddesses
Mythologies of the Labyrinth
The Arthurian Romances of the Holy Grail
A Mythical Geometry of Postmodernism
Mythologies of Celestial Ascent

*Some courses may change from year to year.
*World Mythologies - some of the individual mythologies will change each year so that we can cover all the world's mythologies. All course will be archived and available as downloads.
* ICC reserves the right to change instructors.

Photo Credits:
Mask: Cheryle Van Scoy
Lady in Cretan costume, 1400 BC. Public Domain
Yangshao Cordmarked Amphora, Banpo Phase 4800 BCE. GNU Free Documentation License.
Aboriginal Mask, Public Domain
Egyptian art. Public Domain
Big Cat in tree. Cheryle Van Scoy
Heron, Open Source
Pasque, Science Library
Divination, Cheryle Van Scoy
Bhutan Community, Open Source