Wild Genius
AMBASSADORS World Zoom Stories
OVERTURE
Journeys | Ambassadors | Overture
Pay What You Can—zero to $25.00 —Zoom Calls
Join us to experience one of the old myths told with drumming and discuss with the group.
Two calls are done on the same day, approximately once a month, January to June 2025 to accommodate different time zones.
Please double check the zoom details for each call and time conversion at
https://www.timeanddate.com/ to ensure your arrival!
OCEANIA | WEST COAST NORTH AMERICA
UTC Sunday 03:00:00
Jan 12 • Feb 9 • Mar 9 • Apr 6 • May 18 • Jun 8
SATURDAY
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Honolulu Saturday 5:00pm
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Vancouver Saturday 7:00pm
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New York Saturday 10:00pm
SUNDAY
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Perth [ORIGIN] Sunday 11:00am
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Melbourne Sunday 2:00pm
EUROPE | OCEANIA
UTC Sunday 07:00:00
Jan 12 • Feb 9 • Mar 9 • Apr 6 • May 18 • Jun 8
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Perth [ORIGIN] Sunday 3:00pm
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London Sunday 7:00am
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Berlin Sunday 8:00am
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Melbourne Sunday 6:00pm
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Honolulu Saturday 9:00pm
Invitation
The modern world is orchestrated well to quiet the unique voices of people through industrial schooling, and the subtle and obvious paybacks for cooperating with the status quo and the subtle and obvious threats for not participating. Capitalism makes it possible for people to starve to death or freeze to death in the midst of wealth.
Yet creative contributions that are outside-of-the-box thinking are needed more than ever. Yet some of these impulses to contribute to making a better world also get co-opted into the status quo.
The most powerful fuel for creative contributions is a connection to a person's life purpose . . . in some indigenous traditions this is seen as a spirit that is born as the person is born. This is the very same spirit that is called to "reawaken " in traditional initiations.
These calls will make a focus of delving into the idea of life purpose, defined by the idea that, as Elder and shaman Malidoma Somé said, "there is no way that a person was sent to this Earth without a medicine to deliver.
Using work with myth, we will review the "Resumé of the Soul," as well as an affirmation of the more recognizable "Resumé of the Spirit" that people usually use for a job application to show their accomplishments.
It has been said that "the wound is close to the gift." In mythic language this points to the idea that the very things which wounded us did so because we may have already arrived with an extra dose of sensitivity to that particular issue. This points back to the Greek idea of the "daimon" or "guiding spirit" which James Hillman examined in detail in his book "The Soul's Code: In Search of Character and Calling."
Admission, tuition, protocols
These classes are open admission and pay what you can.
Bring a good zoom set up—check your lighting, sound, framing so that you can be seen, away from background noise. Show up at least 5 minutes early. Put your first name and your location in your name title.
Share the time (this means keeping track of it) during break out rooms. Take a breath before you speak and say your contribution as one point. There is never enough time for everyone to say everything.
Use your mic on and off button when you speak.
"Known and Unknown, and
in between,
the Doors of Perception"
Aldous Huxley
SYLLABUS
Journeys | Ambassadors | Syllabus
In Brief:
Here is some introduction to the context of the Zoom calls, not required reading, but it may be helpful as orientation.
In this section:
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Giants Along the Way
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The Guiding Spirit
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Resume of the Soul
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Resume of the Spirit
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The Elements Inventory
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Modern Tools
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Vocation, Mission, Purpose
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Creating as a Literacy
Giants Along the Way
Myth has been accoladed as a thing that "tells the truth without the use of facts." The giants we find in myth are not "real" in a 3 dimensional sense, yet the truth is that we humans encounter forces as big and unwieldly as "giants" in our daily lives. The old myths have interesting suggestions about the qualities of giants and how to work with them to survive, and even thrive.
The Guiding Spirit
James Hillman wrote in his book The Soul's Code: Character in Search of Calling the there was an idea in classical Greece of the "daimon." This was seen to be the "guiding genius" of a person, marking them as an individual with particular insights and interests. A person's response to myth can be a doorway to identifying the daimon more accurately.
Resume of the Soul
Rumi's poem, translated by Coleman Barks as Say Yes Quickly:
"Reach your long hands out to another door, beyond where you go
on the street, the street where everyone says "How are you?" and
no one says "How aren't you?"
Tomorrow you'll see what you've broken and torn tonight,
thrashing in the dark.
Inside you there's an artist you don't know about."
This is one way of looking at what might be the way past our "broken and torn" mistakes—through the practice of art. And it implies that there is a resume also of the mistakes that is essential to this evolution.
Resume of the Spirit
At the same time, it is important to catalogue what we have triumphed in. One of the understandings of the mythopoetic tradition is that there is sometimes a difference between the outward recognition of the mundane world and another kind of blessing which is the recognition of the wild genius. Both giving and receiving blessings are skills of culture that need revival.
Vocation, Mission, Purpose
These three terms, much popularized, perhaps overlook another related and interesting idea called the "Medicine Name." The unique angle from which the wild genius of a person views life is always a reflection of their deepest wound. Working through the wound, which is a sacrifice that has healed into a scar, and thereby becoming sacred means that the wound is not anymore at liberty to project on others. Then the medicine name can emerge as a functional description of what kind of quality, or "medicinal value" a person is reliable for to deliver to community.
Creating as a Literacy
A natural arc then, in initiation, is the outward expression of the gift, or genius, or purpose of a person after the inward exploration that identifies it. In the circumstance of modern industrial schooling, true abilities to create are only sporadically supported. It has been suggested that the skill of creating (not quite the same as "creativity") is a learnable and practicable one. Indeed, we can observe those who see the need for things to be done, and just go "make it up" s Robert Fritz suggested. I agree with Stephen Jenkinson's assertion that "Your insignificance has been vastly overstated."
“Tourists don't know where they've been,
Travellers don't know where they're going.”