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Bios
Your Editor
in-SPIRES: A Journal of Mythopoetic Inquiry was launched by in the fall of 2015 in hopes of providing a forum for concerns about the spiritual malaise of the country as well as offering a vehicle of expression for many whose wisdom cries out for amplification. It has no agenda other than a free and honest search for understanding in troubled times.
REBECCA ARMSTRONG is a graduate of the University of Chicago Divinity School and has been practicing as an interfaith minister for over 20 years. In that time she has created and officiated over 800 weddings and is working on a book with insights gleaned from that practice. Her freelance ministry also includes mediation, counseling, teaching, lecturing and workshops, and worldwide programs of myth, storytelling, poetry, music and creativity.
As a child she was part of a folk-singing family that traveled around the country performing at fairs and festivals with fiddles, banjos, bowed psaltry and bagpipes. Her family celebrated the old Celtic holidays like Beltane, Samhain, and the Solstices and it was this living tradition that attracted Joseph Campbell to their family home where he became a regular visitor and close friend.
She worked with the Joseph Campbell Foundation for 12 years as International OutReach Director, traveling around the globe to meet with groups interested in the mythological approach to life and supporting the network of Mythological RoundTables that sprang up around Campbell’s work.
After earning her doctorate in 2004 Rebecca began teaching courses in myth, religion, philosophy, ethics and women's studies at various midwestern schools including Benedictine, Purdue, DePaul and Indiana universities, where she created courses such as “Gods & Games: Theories of Play in the Humanities” - “Myth, Movie & the American Soul” - “Ethics After the Fall of Enron” - “Living Your Values: Define, Defend, Deliver.”
Rebecca is currently consulting on an exciting start-up venture with a company engaged in international travel with a mythological focus. She serves as a guest preacher for Unitarian-Universalist congregations, a speaker for Ethical Culture Societies, and a lecturer (online or face-to-face) for a variety of organizations including Jungian groups, interfaith associations, and libraries.
GUEST AUTHORS - We welcome guests to join our dialogues by sending essays of any length, and by commenting on the posts that are on this site. We look forward to hearing from you!
Recent Guest Authors:
BARABARA EZELL is a librarian and film enthusiast with an M.L.I.S. from Dominican University and an M.F.A. in film and video from Columbia College Chicago. I first met Barbara back in the 1970's when I was active in the Chicago Calligraphy Collective and took some classes with her husband, Reggie Ezell (one of the city's foremost calligraphers and teachers of the art.) What struck me at once about Barbara was her finely-tuned aesthetic sensibility and her feminine spirit of grace and interior wisdom. She reminds me very much of Anais Nin whose vision of the interior landscape was such a gift to so many. These dream landscapes of Barbara Ezell have that same quality of mesmerizing beauty. I am indeed honored to offer her lovely video of remembered landscapes from the soul's interior.
Barbara lives in Chicago with her husband, Reggie Ezell, and son Garrett.
IMMANUEL OTTO is a business development leader, media producer, publisher, global culture steward, and new paradigm relationships and human rights advocate who works on social profit initiatives related to creativity, emotional intelligence, mindful business, meditation, peaceful conflict resolution, conscious activism, and more. He has over 16 years of experience as a Social Programs Producer for various cultural institutions, developing membership communities and interactive platforms to mobilize social resources for non-profits, including 7 years as a key leadership team member of the Joseph Campbell Foundation. Visit his profile at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/immanuelotto
The logo for In-Spires is based on a sketch by the architect, Santiago Calatrava, for a building called The Chicago Spire, which is from the overhead perspective looking down on the spiraling infrastructure.
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What Does it Mean to Write "Mythopoetically?"
Both the method and the meaning of myth are deeply dependent on a view of the world called the mythopoetic, a term borrowed directly from the Greeks [muthopoiein, to relate a story : muthos, story + poiein, to make.]
It is related to the term 'imaginal' which was coined by French orientalist, Henri Corbin, to describe a particular state of consciousness sought by the mystics of ancient Persia, but later became a much-used term in the post-Jungian archetypal psychology movement.
It may be described as a way of viewing reality in which one continually looks beyond the visible realm into the invisible realm behind which informs and, some might say, breathes the very life into it, i.e. In-Spires it. The classic example is Joseph Campbell's tongue-in-cheek observation about life in New York City:
"The latest incarnation of Oedipus, the continued romance of Beauty and the Beast, stand this afternoon on the corner of 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, waiting for the traffic light to change."
In this comment Campbell alerts us to the fact that contemporary humanity still inhabits age-old archetypes that shape our behaviors and attitudes. Finding the mythopoetic moment, viewpoint or interpretation of some aspect of modern life is a significant aspect of Joseph Campbell's contribution. It is also the mission of In-Spires to continue that service to reading and thinking audience.
During the years that I worked with the Joseph Campbell Foundation* I often wrote "Myth Letters" to the worldwide associates. In 2003 I penned these lines which give greater articulation to the concept and purpose of the mythopoetic view:
And now, to bring this subject back to mythology and its mystical function, one must ask -- what are we doing to promote a mythopoetic response to literalism? Against the inebriating numbness of computerized, virtual reality, where the only eye looking at you is the reflection of your own intoxication in the flickering screen, what can we do to release the Thou, the soul in the world, so that our sense of mystery is restored? What can we do to teach sacred technologies that inspire the 'gazing and sighing' that unites our heart with the soul of the world, as the troubadours hearts were linked to their beloveds?
The new charge placed upon thinkers of this millennium is that we must use the tools of the mythopoetic imagination, within the limits of reason and modern, scientific cosmology, to make possible the feelings of awe and wonder that make it a "reasonable proposition" to overcome Nietzschean nihilism and get out of bed in the morning.
This is no small task, but it is clearly the one function of a living mythology which must be addressed by artists and poets and ‘cultural creatives,’ for no one else is capable of making sense of it. It is this challenge which must be taken up if the mythic dimension of the seen world is to become metaphorically capable of rendering spiritual life tangible – becoming transparent to transcendence in fulfillment of the first function of a living mythology.
(To read the full essay, see Reflections on the Mythopoetic in Journal)
*The Joseph Campbell Foundation is a nonprofit organization with an international outreach and mission. Please visit their website to learn more about the mission and projects: www.jcf.org
Rebecca Armstrong, Editor
I would love to hear from you and encourage you to submit essays in the mythopoetic modality for inclusion on this site. I am happy to include links back to your website or social media.