Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Mythic Imagery and Embodied Storytelling for Psycho-Spiritual Development

Mythic Yoga Imagery and Embodied Storytelling for Psycho-Spiritual Development Sydney Solis
Gustav Klimt The Tree of Life 1905
I performed my version of a Jewish folktale from India I call "The Tree of Gold" on the main stage Sunday Morning Closing Concert at the Florida Storytelling Festival April 3.

It's part of my personal Mythic Yoga repertoire of stories that have a significant spiritual value for me personally as well as collectively that have themes of reconciliation and renewal.

The imagery in this story pertains to many psycho-spiritual elements contained in yoga and yoga philosophy. When we listen to this story, we connect via the metaphors and archetypical images that re-link us to ourselves via the mythic dimension of our beings, largely forgotten in favor of the intellect.

Listening and creating these images internally within with our imagination activates the neglected feeling and intuitive functions of our psyche that is found and felt in the body.  Healing and answers are thus provided to our questions and ailments. "...myths are also profound dramatic descriptions of our interior emotional and spiritual experience as human beings, says Jeremy Taylor, and these myths also show up in our sleeping and waking dream life.

We become the characters, images and elements of the story, as we progress in the narrative structure and through the ritual of listening have a conscious participation in the story. We live the myth. We are the foolish king, who sends his young queen away. We are the queen abandoned and sent to the forest to live with an old man. We are the old man, those feminine qualities in masculine psychology that are expelled from our patriarchal culture. We are the tree of gold, which is constantly flowing liquid gold but always holding its shape of a tree.

Mythic Yoga: Mythic Imagery and Embodied Storytelling For Psycho-Spiritual Development Sydney Solis
The Cottonwood trees of my youth
growing up in Boulder, County
 Colorado have strong meaning for me.
Native Americans saw the tree as
sacred and was at the heart of the Sun Dance Ritual
These images activate the yoga within and reminds us something about the ineffable. That's the purpose of a mythic image, Mythologist Joseph Campbell says. It has one foot in reality and one foot in the transcendent. That is the Mythic Yoga, as stories and myths have that ability to wake us up and help us reach the goal of yoga, union with the divine.

When we act the story out with out body or take a position of a tree, I can feel immediately the Shakti, the kundalini, the chakras, the tree of life. I am at the center point, the axis mundi. I am the whole world. Tat Tvam Asi. Thou Art That. I am at one with the cosmos, the divine. My body is the container, just as the tree is, for cosmic intelligence and consciousness. The body's intelligence knows the way, we just have to realize it by hearing the stories and participating in the myth via the ritual of yoga.

For that is the purpose of myth, to help us live in accord with nature. We become Solis, the Latin word for sun. I am the sun. That is my personal mythology. And I am always amazed at the images and opportunities that present themselves in my life all because I dared to take a risk and follow my bliss. Dared to extract myself of the commodified trap American yoga has become.

 I feel the image resonate within me and it grounds me when I think of it or move with it. The Cosmic Tree is a powerful archetype of cosmic renovation. The Asvattha is the chief of trees and typifies that tree of life which is rooted in God. Great reminders during our secular life to handle all that arises and be rooted in myth and yoga in a world flattened out with just economic and political concerns rather than ecstasy and spirit.

Yama while instructing Naciketa describes the eternal Asvattha tree with its root upwards and branches downwards, which is the pure immortal Brahman, in which all these world are situated, and beyond which there is nothing else (Katha Upanishad Verse II.vi.1). But Krishna tells us that the Asvattha tree having neither end nor beginning nor stationariness whatsoever has its roots upwards and branches downwards whose branches are nourished by the Gunas and whose infinite roots spread in the form of action in the human world which, though strong, are to be cut off by the forceful weapon of detachment to seek the celestial abode from which there is no return (Bhagavad Gita Chapter XV Verses 1-4).

This tree my father bought at an end of season
 sale at K-Mart in Boulder in 1981 for .25.
 It now grows and has an uncanny look of a woman!
Folklore says that when you cut down
 a tree, you cut down a woman. 
Powerful medicine. That's the power of the oral tradition. That's the power of storytelling and listening and the oral tradition, especially when you act out the myth as ritual with yoga and it becomes the yoga. Something reading won't get you (now will following a guru. Look within for your own sat guru. It's right here all the time, like a jewel in the middle of your forehead.

Forget expensive trainings and workshops by flying all over the world. America, always trying to make a buck. Simply sit down and mediate every day and get to know thy self!  For yogic wisdom for thousand of years has been passed down in such a manner, for the transmission is a psycho-spiritual knowing via the energy of the image that guides us to knowledge and liberation. It's perfect for modern times. Just to re-acquaint yourself with this silent aspect of your being.

For this is our yoga. Mythic Yoga, using images and symbols to find union. "To transcend profane time and re-enter into mythical Great Time is equivalent to a Revelation of Ultimate Reality. Reality that is strictly metaphysical and can be approached in no other way than through myths and symbols," Mircea Eliade says in his book Images and Symbols studies in religious symbolism.

Join me May 14 at Yoga Circle and Dance in Ormond Beach for a Mythic Yoga Workshop to discover your personal mythology. Or join me online starting September 12 for the Mythic Yoga Online Training and discover your myth through dreams and journaling, yoga and the global community. Amazingly we start dreaming together, experiencing the synchronicity that arises when we connect to our depths and share our hearts. We are all one!

OM SHANTI





Friday, April 15, 2016

Joseph Campbell Foundation Roundtable Meetings in DeLand, Florida Third Monday of Each Month

Durga and Kali have been guiding me with myth for decades,
helping me cut through tragedy, trauma and ego
and leading me to divine truth
Live your Myth! It's magic!
For years I hosted Joseph Campbell Foundation Roundtable meetings in my homes in Colorado. I had attended the Mythic Journey's Conference in Atlanta in 2004 and connected with the amazing people out there working in myth and was invited to attend the second conference in 2005 with JCF. I also attended the Esalen Mythological Toolbox in 2005. I missed the plane to Monterey, California the following year as it was excessively crazy airport traffic that following year as I had to put my little kids on a plane to San Antonio first to stay with grandparents for my ability to travel. SO........

I decided that needed to take time off for my kids and personal mythic journey, so I took a risk and followed my bliss. I left Colorado, my home state of 38 years, in 2010 to travel and live abroad with my kids, homeschooling them with yoga and story. I landed in DeLand, Florida and the wonderful storytellers there were excited to hear about myth and Joseph Campbell, which is really all yoga!

 I pointed them in the direction to start a Mythological Roundtable here. We have been meeting steadily at the home of a psychotherapist and includes my neighbors, Tony Foresta and Kaye Armstrong, who were the audio and video team that worked on Bill Moyer's PBS Series with Joseph Campbell The Power of Myth

The next meeting is this Monday April 18 at 7 pm in DeLand, Florida. Contact Bill at wbrennan8(at)cfl.rr.com.

As my kids are now older teens and the Storytime Yoga for Kids work coming to its fullness and all my creative projects completed, the Mythic Yoga realm I put off (took town my website in 2006, will be back soon!) just bubbles up even more powerful, as the body, yoga and stories link me more and more powerful to the inner world and the divine truth within everything connected.

Join us! Start a Joseph Campbell Foundation Roundtable in your area! Follow your myth! Connect with others, especially youth, and let's bring myth, peace and wellbeing back to the world via body and word! I will be presenting more Mythic Yoga programs in the future. Stay tuned! In the meantime, Read my E-book Mythic Yoga: Vishnu's Dream: Ancient Hindu Myth and Personal Story to get inspired by the myths and activate within you realization of your life's unique personal story and destiny.

Join me at Yoga Circle and Dance in Ormond Beach, Florida on May 14 for Mythic Yoga Workshop!
OM SHANTI



Friday, April 8, 2016

Mythic Yoga Workshop May 14 at Circle Yoga and Dance, Ormond Beach, FL





THE MYTHIC YOGA STUDIO PRESENTS
Sydney Solis, RYT

Mythic Yoga
Saturday May 14, 2016
1-3 pm $25
Circle Yoga and Dance
605 ½ S. Yonge St.
Ormond Beach, FL
  • Discover the power of ancient myth and yoga philosophy for modern times.
  • Plumb the depths of your being to develop your intuitive and feeling functions by listening to the body’s silent voice as you create a personal mythology for physical and mental wellness, and healing.
  • Use the tools of world mythology, the chakras, imagery and the oral tradition to gain insight to your life and inspiration for storytelling and creative writing for self-discovery, artistic expression and posterity.
  • Gentle yoga, dance, movement, yoga nidra and meditation round out the experience.  
  • Bring paper, a pen and a dream. Wear comfortable clothing. No yoga experience required.




Register today at YogaCircleandDance@gmail.com
Visit www.MythicYoga.com for more information
Sydney Solis, RYT, is the Queen of Bohemia. Since 2003 she has been enchanting, educating and entertaining people of every age all over the world with her pioneering Storytime Yoga® and Mythic Yoga performances, methods and trainings. An associate of the Joseph Campbell Foundation, she enjoys sharing the ancient Power of Myth to modern audiences.

Read Sydney Solis's personal mythology developed with yoga and ancient Hindu myth in Mythic Yoga: Vishnu's Dream: Ancient Hindu Myth and Personal Story.

Or join me online starting September 12 for the Mythic Yoga Online Training and discover your myth through dreams and journaling, yoga and the global community. Amazingly we start dreaming together, experiencing the synchronicity that arises when we connect to our depths and share our hearts. We are all one!

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Know Thy Self: Mythic Yoga Online Classes Start Sept. 12. Early-Bird Registration and Save

Mythic Yoga Online Classes Sydney Solis
A mythic image has one foot in reality and one
 foot in eternity, says
Mythologist Joseph Campbell.
"The Endless" Lord Vishnu sleeps enclosed in the coils of the serpent Ananda Sesa. Inside the god lies the cosmos, and outside the divine dreamer lies darkness.  Upon hearing ancient myths such as these from the Vishnu Purana, the mythic images awaken the world within us. The soul speaks in an image, and our body is the container to hold the cosmic ocean and the infinite within it as well as outside of us.

Working with myths and the body stops the rational, intellectual mind and kicks in the lost connection we have to the other parts of our psyches, such as the intuitive and feeling sides. Just as in the Grail Myth the King was wounded in the thigh, the feeling function, we must restore this connection to ourselves to provide wholeness not only for ourselves, but the entire world. Because the work we do in the silent depths of our meditation, yoga asana and Mythic Yoga practice is unfathonable in influence. For it is the depths were we meet all in undifferentiated consciousness.

Mythic Yoga classes start again this fall Mondays 8 pm EST. Started in 2006, The Storytime Yoga and Mythic Yoga online classes were the first yoga classes offered online. I took my mythic journey with my kids and lived my myth, and now I am back for the mythic return to share the gifts I have acquired from my journey.

Mythic Yoga is deep work that goes beyond yoga asana
and connects to your dreams, personal myth, imagery, and art
From the Personal Mythology Series of photo and mixed-media
collage by Sydney Solis
Myths and yoga are powerful combinations for self-growth and healing from trauma. Mythologist Joseph Campbell teaches us that myths guide us on how to live in the world, how to cope with duality but not just survive but to "joyfully participate in the sorrows of the world." Because we cannot judge what happens to us in life. The suffering obstacle is the path, he says.

"Life is pain; life is suffering; and life is horror -- but by god, you are alive," Campbell says.

Dreams, stories, myths and putting our bodies and selves into the center of the universe and aligning it with the cosmos takes us on a journey into the ineffable and toward liberation. It's raja yoga, direct.

The physical asanas are only one step, but the psycho-social and spiritual aspects of Mythic Yoga are just being known as the images from our personal mythology arise and point us into the direction of liberation and ecstatic union with the divine.

Listen deeply to the body and discover
your personal mythology! It won't be from the head! 
Join me for your Mythic Journey! 

• Four weeks of original Mythic Yoga online course work, group interaction in a forum to post your questions and comments, dream work, guided home work and exercises, plus a live class every week for feedback and coaching that will be recorded if you can't make it.

• I will be sharing my personal mythic journey, how I started Mythic Yoga and Storytime Yoga for Kids in Boulder, Colorado in 2003, went on a personal mythic journey in 2010 abroad with my kids after my husband's death, and losing everything three more times after that...... Loss is continual.... but what is it that lasts within? It's the Little Piece of Paradise I say. It's always with you. Use personal mythology and yoga to find it!  You don't survive, you thrive, prevail, triumph!

Contact us today to register!  Price is $250 and SAVE $50 if you register by May 15!

• Includes all coursework, online platforms as well as the e-book Mythic Yoga: Ancient Hindu Myth and Personal Myth by Sydney Solis and her childhood memoir of war Outside the Concentration Camp, all to get you inspired to share your story of healing with yoga and story.

• All you need is high-speed internet access and a webcam!

• Check out all the fun Mythic Yoga The Story in the Body participants had on our 5-day Retreats held in Boulder, Colorado 2008-2010. 

The original Mythic Yoga! Live your myth, don't just talk about it! Find the courage to go deep within. OM SHANTI

Align with your Divine. Follow your dream images and they
 will awaken you in all of your life and mythology.
If you are in DeLand, Florida, join me and others for the Joseph Campbell Foundation RoundTable meetings third Monday of the month! I ran one in Colorado for four years! YOU are the MYTH-ing link!


Suggested Reading

The Inner Reaches of Outer Space: Metaphor as Myth and as Religion (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell)  by Joseph Campbell

The Heroine's Journey by Maureen Murdock (I met her at the Mythic Journey's Conference in Atlanta in 2004)

The Heroine's Journey Workbook by Maureen Murdock