LMLW registration & information

Daniel Deardorff is a "Singer" in the old sense of that word, which involves being a musician, a storyteller, and a maker of ritual. He has been a composer and a performing artist for more than three decades. As an independent scholar of myth Deardorff's emphasis is on mythopoesis [myth-making] and the performative aspects of mythic expression. Deardorff often teaches with poet Robert Bly at events such as the Minnesota Men’s Conference; Bly has said of Deardorff’s work: “ No one else writing today is able to follow these associative roads to the unconscious.”
As the founder of The Mythsinger Foundation, Deardorff creates programs devoted to “restoring the wisdom of myth to culture and community.” For more than a decade he has lead rites of passage camps for young men. He lives in Port Townsend, Washington and is the author of The Other Within: The Genius of Deformity in Myth, Culture, & Psyche ( second edition 2008 North Atlantic Books.

Living Myth, Living World: Course Description

The Living Myth Living World course is grounded in the understanding that myth is the language and wisdom of the earth—the more conversant we become with the image-laden syntax of myth, the more prepared we are for an encounter with the seen and unseen powers of the living world.

Together we will move toward the boundaries of social structure, where living signs speak to us, as in the words of Sean Kane: “Beyond this point is a zone where ordinary human thinking cannot go. You must make a shift to another kind of thinking….” Making ritual objects teaches us to think with our hands; welcoming the crises that make us human teaches us the thinking of the heart; carrying our offerings in heart and hands we will journey into the wilderness to forge deep and abiding bonds with Mountain Spirit, River Spirit, Ocean Spirit, and Grandfather Fire.

The group will be small, a pack of twelve; as our hunter-gatherer ancestors lived in a “band” of fifteen or so members. Thus ensuring a social matrix to foster our deepest memory of being human in “participation” with the world around us.

Western civilization has delivered the world as object: lower life forms, things and stuff, to be studied, explained, managed, used, manipulated, exploited, conquered and controlled. The result at best is alienation, at worst it is a kind of juvenile anger at the world for leaving us so orphaned.

Over the course of the year, seeking, relatedness, wildness, and identity, we will leap the restrictive boundaries of civilization and return to our long lost and original family.

Myth: When fully alive myth awakens us to the awe and wonder of creation; informs us of who and where we are; sweeps us up into the encompassing tempo of nature’s rhythm; and widens our heart’s understanding of what belongs in the territory of self.
World: when we are fully alive to the world it speaks to every sphere—body, heart, mind, and spirit—of our being. Umvelt (world-view) is a term used to describe the perceptual reality a species experiences based on their particular sensory physiology. Together we will work to remember the human umvelt.
Relatedness: When we are lost, or unsure of our place in the scheme of things, we need to "take measure" of our relations with the creatures and things which surround us. Relatedness has as much to do with distance as proximity, with incomprehensibility as intimacy.
Wildness: An innate and instinctual knowing how to live, survive, play, and be, is the hallmark of wildness. While the domesticated or tamed parts of self and soul are interested in conformity and approval, our wildness seeks a departure—a singular song, an unprecedented dance to contribute back into our community.
Identity: Unlike civil-society's "imposed identity" what we seek is an "implicate" identity which arises innately from within the web of relatedness. Finding and maintaining personal and cultural identity enables us to experience defeat and yet remain unconquered.