Applied Myth: Medusa as a Guide to our Times

The myth of Medusa was gifted to us from a moment of earth-shaking cultural change in ancient Greece, a time when a mixing of cultures, a plethora of conflict and ecological upheaval brought about an outpouring of soulful creativity as well as a devastation of many older traditions.

Her story maps shadowy terrain and philosophical conflicts that endure within the foundations of Western culture. That her image continues to speak powerfully to us means there is important material to consider within its history and its urgings to the soul.

At this moment in time, when many fierce energies threaten us with arresting shock, we go to Medusa’s myth for counsel and to discover new modes of healing. We go with the humility and inner silence of all who seek to be initiated into the limits of our knowing and to allow space for new birth.

If you are new to working with Laura, here’s some helpful background: We approach myth as an invitation into mystery. As did all ancient cultures, we work with myth holistically — through our sensory, intellectual, emotional and intuitive capacities. Our working with myth is a form of art and soul-making. As our ancestors before us, we attend the mythic feast in a cooperative, collaborative manner, knowing we cannot navigate such deep waters without assistance from the collective.

SCHEDULE: Please contact mythmovement@live.com to get on the list for our upcoming sessions. They take place via Zoom and are on a sliding scale fee structure with no one turned away.

“Nobody can afford to look around and to wait for somebody to do what he is loath to do himself. But since nobody seems to know what to do, it might be worthwhile for each of us to ask himself whether by any chance his or her unconscious may know something that will help us.”  — Carl Jung

“The Dark Feminine side of God does not act through the rule of law, nor through rigid control; rather it acts through… the profound ability to engage the unpredictable and the unknown.” — Cedrus Monte

“Where systems are dynamic, complex and nonlinear; where time itself is a variable of formal beauty; where, in time, turbulence and chaos produce gorgeous order… in which aberration, disorder, or monstrosity suddenly appear as a new locus of order and beauty. What once froze the mind, now excites it…In this new Medusean vision, the Muse, the animating figure of art, becomes, not the elusive ideal, but the inexhaustible and intractably real.”  — Eleanor Wilner

“There is a pain--so utter—

it swallows substance up—

Then covers the Abyss with Trance—

So Memory can step

Around - across - upon it-

As One within a Swoon-

Goes safely - where an open eye —

Would drop Him - Bone by Bone.’’ - Emily Dickinson

 “Without [the instinctual immobility response], a human being might not survive the intense activation of a serious inescapable situation…Indeed, even the symptoms that develop out of the freezing response can be viewed with a sense of appreciation if you consider what might happen if the system did not have this safety valve.” — Peter Levine

 “In the Greek myth, blood from Medusa’s slain body was taken in two vials; one vial had the power to kill, while the other had the power to resurrect….Trauma resolved is a gift from a great power.”— Peter Levine  

‘The return of God is one of the most ancient expectations of the human race…What we await …is the emergence of the feminine side of God, which has been taking shape for centuries in what we call the unconscious.’— Marion Woodman

“In order to arrive at what you do not know
 You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
 You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
 You must go through the way in which you are not…”  T.S. Eliot

“Whatever you experience outside of the body, in a dream for instance, is not experienced unless you take it into the body, because the body means the here and now.” — Carl Jung

“What is the soul’s response (to horror)?  It is the quality of stillness. The soul becomes quiet…It is a test.  The aim of this test is to find whether the force of love, no longer arising from attachment to things in the day-world, can be born out of the soul itself…”  Robert Sardello

“Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.” — Carl Jung

“The fish, Medusa, did not come to grief,

But swims still in a fluid mystery.

Forget the image: your silence is my ocean

And even now it teems with life.” -May Sarton