Ecologies of the Imagination

A 3-year Research Training starting September 2024

“Amor Mundi: What is most difficult, writes Arendt, is to love the world as it is. Loving the world means neither uncritical acceptance nor contemptuous rejection, but the unwavering facing up to and comprehension of that which is.” —Hannah Arendt Association

This multi-layered program is designed to build capacities for immersion into the collective imagination and to impart skills that are needed for personal and community-based resilience work.

Join the Open Call for this training on April 14th, 7PM CET.

In the ancient traditions, there was an intimate relationship between humans and the more-than-human world, which included the realm of the imagination, dreams and myths. This primary relationship helped humans relate to nature and each other as a community, as well as cultivate a relationship with the different levels of reality and the cosmos. Over time, this relationship was severed and this primal belonging to the World Soul was lost throughout many different parts of the world. Is there is a way to remember and embody this primal belonging? The founder of depth-psychology, Carl G. Jung, as well as scholars of orality and oral cultures speak about doing the work of remembering Her language; the language of images, dreams and symbols and to learn to speak this language in a time as crucial as ours. This will be the first pillar of the training.

As we remember what we have lost, we have to learn ways to face what is ahead of us at this specific time of transition. With this remembering can come a song of sorrow and the uncomfortable feelings of uncertainty and unknowing. How do we live this ancient reciprocity with the World Soul at a time where she Herself is going through a destruction-creation process? How can we learn to love the world as it is and be of service in the ways we are called? This will be the second pillar of our training.

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Corpus Imaginalis

Year 1 — The first year of the training will be about building the theory and understanding of the imaginal and embodied practices in relationship to the natural world. In Semester 1, we will explore dreamwork with an emphasis the Jungian (as well as the post-Jungian James Hillman) approach to dreams. For collective dreaming we will explore the anthropology of dreaming in different traditions around the world. The second pillar of the semester will be to familiarize the student with the voice of the collective imagination through understanding and differentiating fairy tales, folktales and myths. In Semester 2, we will dive extensively into the tradition of alchemy and look at the practices of working and listening to the more-than-human worlds.

Year 2 — The second year of the training is about understanding and diving deeper into the mythic narratives that are relevant to our time, this transitionary period from living in an anthropocentric patriarchal narrative towards a more feminine rooted relationship of reciprocity with the Anima Mundi, the World Soul. We will first start with exploring archetypal patterns in creation and destruction myths and how they are relevant for our time. A second course will be on the theories of the material imagination: geo-mythology, natural philosophies, eco-psychology and the contemporary ecological storytelling which is rooted in the intersection of science and the mythopoetic. During the second semester we stretch the field of material imagination with faculty guest-teacher Kate Genevieve and her new work “Cosmo Imaginaries”. The second semester also takes us into embodied work as we will focus on resilience work; radical acceptance, grief-work and inquiring on existential questions of our time; what does it mean to midwife (collective) change? How can we learn the art of amor mundi—to learn to love the world as it is? In what ways can the imagination help us face up to the reality of our present time without dissociating from the gravitas of it? We will toil with these most important questions during our amor mundi work, spread over Year 2 and 3.

Year 3 — The third year we continue our amor mundi work with more in-depth training: the cohort will be split in two branches to choose to specialize in; one where you will be taught the collective dreamwork practice specific to the Anima Mundi School known as Anima Mundi Dreaming. Here you will learn to facilitate collective dreamwork sessions for groups. This is a different form of dreamwork than you do individually and it requires an adjusted mindset and guidelines. It is a specific fusion between indigenous dreamwork and the Hillman tradition of working with images: this form of dreamwork that we teach is specific to the Anima Mundi School and has developed in our research center over the years by Faranak Mirjalili and her colleagues. Some of the students will be able to also be trained in individual dreamwork and how to weave that with their current work with clients. (Please note that this option is not open to all applicants.)

The second branch is practicing and fine-tuning your relationship to the oral arts - Storying the Anima Mundi This is a refined way to work from the roots within the tradition of storytelling. What does it mean to reclaim a relationship to stories, myths and fairytales as an embodied practice? How do you honour the ‘bones of the myth’ and yet allow new emerging motifs and images to grow in your work with stories? This work has been developed by Gauri Raje through her work of Remembering and Forgetting which she will be teaching in this year.

Both Anima Mundi Dreaming and Storying the Anima Mundi will focus on how to craft a solid vehicle for groups and individuals facing climate-grief, socio-political breakdown and the general uncertainties of our modern era while being grounded in the creative feminine.

Faculty: Gauri Raje, Faranak Mirjalili, Alexis Durgee, Kate Genevieve + more TBA guest-teachers.
Study-load: four blocks of 7-8 weeks / year. Each block contains 1 or 2 courses.
Exams: all courses will be examined in the form of written essays. The final examination is in the form of a written thesis or an equivalence with other creative mediums.

Note that this is not a training to become a therapist. You will be taught some of the core methodology of the work of C. G. Jung which will be blended with feminine mythopoetics. Any previous or later training and education you (will) have in psychology, bodywork, astrology, herbalism or creative arts therapy is of great benefit and strongly recommended.
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The trajectory of teaching offered through the 3 years is hybrid. The course-work is done online and we will have a Summer School every year where we come together for embodied work. You have to attend at least 2 Summer Schools, of which Year 3 is compulsory. We recommend to attend all three but if this is not realistic for you, then you can choose between Year 1 and Year 2. The dates of Year 1 Summer School are September 8- 14th in Chartres, France. The entire training is taught in English.

This training starts September 2024 and is only given once every 3 years.

Contact us for more info on this trajectory. Or sign up to receive more information on the application process.