As Dennis Patrick Slattery's writing shows, the very stuff of the great traditions is life itself, and the hurly-burly of current culture is the ground in which tradition thrives. Slattery's analyses are keen and thoughtful, often scholarly, and always deeply spiritual. But they are better for being a bit pugnacious and intimate and virile. They give evidence of a life lived in earnest, one in which nothing is walled off into a category but all enters into the whole that is the mysterious grounding of the person. Foreword by Louise Cowan, Author of The Fugitive Group Series Editor: The Terrain of Comedy, The Epic Cosmos, And The Tragic Abyss. Founder: Institute of Philosophic Studies, The University of Dallas; the Teachers' Academy at the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture
This collection of essays, written over a period of years, entertains the shared place of psyche and poetics. Dr. Slattery has explored the manner in which the psyche is poetic and how poetry is deeply psycho-mythical. Influenced in part by the archetypal psychologist James Hillman's idea of the "poetic basis of mind" that comprises the soul's foundation, Slattery's writing moves into the interactive field in which myth is the ground for both psyche and poetry. The essays develop a further understanding of what has been called mythopoiesis, the fundamental myth-making and shaping capacity of the soul.
Dante has it right: we are on more than a journey; we are on a pilgrimage. Author Dennis Patrick Slattery, who has been teaching Dantes works for more than twenty years, believes that our life stories are embedded in the journey of this pilgrim. In Day-to-Day Dante, Slattery presents passages from Dante Alighieris fourteenth-century poem The Divine Comedy to assist you in searching for the core elements of your personal myth. Day-to-Day Dante is divided into 365 entries and reflections so you may explore and meditate on one page per day for a year. Each entry and reflection is followed by a writing meditation to help you arrive at your own insights about your personal travels and travails. This examination of Dantes pilgrimage will help you deepen the understanding of yourself and the larger political, social, and religious worlds. Through Day-to-Day Dante you can connect more deeply with your own narrative, following Dantes journey from out of a dark wood to a vision of the transcendent.
Riting Myth, Mythic Writing: Plotting Your Personal Story is a both a theoretical as well as interactive book on the nature of personal myth. Its intention is to offer participants who wish to explore further the terms and structure of their personal myth over 80 writing meditations that are spread throughout 9 chapters in order to guide the readers-writers on a pilgrimage into the deepest layers of their personal myth.
Explores the wounded body in literature from Homer to Toni Morrison, examining how it functions archetypally as both a cultural metaphor and a poetic image.
A glance at these 30 essays reveals Professor Slattery's astoundingly vast and varied range of scholarly interests....These disciplines function for Dennis as modes of knowing, modes of imagining." --Peter C. Phan, Ignacio Ellacuria Chair of Catholic Social Thought, Georgetown University. Elizabeth Fergus-Jean, Ph.D., is an artist and professor at Columbus College of Art and Design in Ohio and faculty in the Humanities Program, Pacifica Graduate Institute. Her artwork appears on numerous book and journal covers.
In his 30th published volume, The Way of Myth: Stories' Subtle Wisdom, Dennis Patrick Slattery reaches back in "Part I: Mining the Myths Anew," to some earlier essays on classic films and works of literature. He also includes extended meditations on the thought of mythologist Joseph Campbell; on creativity's hungers; on beliefs as mythic constructs; and on the joys of painting. Many of the essays explore the act of reading and the importance of stories as they relate to one's personal myth. In "Part II: The Social Fabric of Stories," Slattery includes a series of 19 short op-ed essays on a range of topics: the classroom as sacred space; uncertainty; the fact of myth; compassion; moral injury; peace; the gifts of conversation; gall-bladder surgery; the 'pan'-demic; and the poetics of myth, among others. Reflections on several of Joseph Campbell's volumes are also included in this section. The author's reflective interests are trans-disciplinary, analogical and depth-psychological. These essays stretch out over many years of writing. Now, in this volume they are gathered so they can speak and engage one another to reveal the subtle wisdom of stories. "In The Way of Myth, the culminating book of the prolific Dennis Patrick Slattery's career, I find an abundance of wonder and a plenitude of what the poet-astronomer Rebecca Elson called our 'responsibility to awe.' For him, mythology is everywhere if only we develop "the mythic slant," the ability to see its wild wisdom all around us. What vitalizes his writing is how he encourages the reader to venture beyond theory to experience one of the least appreciated aspects of mythology-the sheer joy that can come from identifying with its characters-to the point where we no longer feel alone in our own struggles. The sheer range here of essays, poems, reminiscences, reviews and retellings underscores Slattery's ardent belief that mythmaking is one of the constants in cultures throughout history. I especially value his uncanny awareness of what he calls the 'weathervanes of the soul, ' the cultural devices, if you will, found in art, literature, theater and cinema, as well as in sports, religion, psychiatry, nature and our romantic lives, which indicate the direction of our mythologically-inclined minds." From the Foreword by Phil Cousineau
Developed in the spirit of C.G. Jung, and extended by the work of James Hillman, Depth Psychology: Meditations in the Field grows directly from the soil of the Romantic Movement of the 19th century, itself a rebellion against the legacy of Enlightenment fundamentalism, which emphasized the literal reality of the world, and feasted on Measurement and the quantification of all knowledge.
Two volumes of poetry have been combined in this special edition il piccolo publication. "Brian Landis is a master storyteller; Dennis Patrick Slattery a master teacher in the art of writing myth. Both are skillful poets who have teamed to produce this refined volume of poetry. Feathered Ladder speaks brilliantly to me." —From the Foreword by Stephanie Pope, Cultural Mythologer and poet — mythopoetry.com
Nautilus Award Winner A deeply intimate exploration of the "7 Ways" to creativity led by three authors whose collaboration provides meditations on the creative process as well as practical and reflective exercises. Reignite your creative spark with accessible meditations and practices developed by three experts on creativity and collaboration across three generations. Whether you’re a filmmaker, writer, musician, artist, graphic designer, dabbler, or doodler, all creative people face the challenges of myriad distractions and pressure to produce. Devoting space for the creative spark has become increasingly difficult. Deep Creativity is a call for making that space and an invitation to intentionally and introspectively engage with the creative life through seven time-tested pathways, available to you right where you are. The authors’ novel approach includes fifteen principles of creativity that not only inspire but also set you up for a lifetime of self-expression. This highly resourceful book offers practical guidance as well as deep reflection on the creative process. For more information, visit www.deepcreativity.com.
Our Daily Breach: Exploring Your Personal Myth Through Herman Melville’s Moby-Dickoffers both a way of understanding what has generally been called the greatest novel of the American myth while simultaneously exploring one’s own personal myth. Its added feature is that it is an interactive book in allowing reader’s to meditate on one question per page for each day of the year and to undercover many facets of one’s personal myth through cursive writing. It has been long understood that classics of literature are their own form of therapy in that they frequently tap into some of the most shared concerns of being human. This book makes such a connection between our interior life and the plot of the story through the power of mythopoiesis, namely the imaginative act of giving a formative shape to the myth we are each living in and out through the power of analogy, correspondence or accord with the classic poem. Using Melville’s epic of America, the reader may enter the deepest seas of his/her own mythic waters to realize and give language to the myth that resides in our daily plot line.
Enter the biblically historic world of Simon of Cyrene, where a world of grief, revenge, and Dennis Patrick Slattery and tender devotion awaits. There, families are torn apart, marauding soldiers enact their violent ways, and random events suddenly disrupt life. Along this journey there will be encounters with Pontius Pilate, Veronica, Mary, and the sons of Simon, Rufus and Alexander, as they seek to grasp the mystery of a compassionate Nazarene, serenely putting into practice the kingdom of God. Forced to carry the cross of Jesus, Simon of Cyrene, a little known biblical figure, reluctantly yields to his task. At the same time, Simon struggles with personal loss and a fiery desire for revenge. In Simons story, the vulnerability of our own journeys is laid bare as we cross paths with a simple wooden cross and a redemptive twist of fate. In Simons Crossing, this ordinary man, from Cyrene, steps boldly out of the pages of the Bible. He senses that his own life depends on the Nazarene staggering just ahead of him. Persuaded by sacrificial love, we too discover what it is like to cross over into the imaginal power of a story well-told, where salvation lies close at hand. Simons story compels us to carry on as well.
From War to Wonder, Dennis Slattery's new book, not only explicates the beauty and power of the Odyssey, Homer's twenty-seven-hundred-year-old marvel-filled epic, it also offers a marvelous way to interact with it on a daily basis. Those who do so will be amply rewarded by finding access to the poem's myriad meanings, as well as their capacity for forging their own personal myths. Phil Cousineau, author of Once and Future Myths, and editor of The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work What a beautiful invitation this book proffers: to spend a year slowly savoring one of the great masterpieces of world literature and day-by-day discovering how it illumines and deepens your understanding of your own life. Christine Downing, author of The Goddess: Mythological Images of the Feminine and Mythopoetic Musings: 2007-2018
An education in the Humanities is under attack, defunded and depreciated in academic institutions ranging from primary school through doctoral degree programs both in the United States and abroad. The emphasis is on standardization and specialization, when in contrast, as the title of the volume suggests, the imagination does not standardize, and the soul does not specialize. This collection brings together essays by administration, faculty, and staff from Pacifica Graduate Institute, a small educational institution located on the coast of Central California which emphasizes the wisdom traditions in the depth psychology, mythology, and the humanities. Each essay is a personal manifesto, an impassioned argument for the importance of an education in the humanities which stimulates the mind, nourishes the soul, and gives wings to the imagination. Authors include Cynthia Anne Hale, Ginette Paris, Susan Rowland, Michael Sipiora, Robert Romanyshyn, Dara Marks, Kathryn LaFevers Evans, Paul Zolbrod, Gwyn Wood, Barbara Mossberg, Nancy Galindo, Safron Rossi, Jennifer Leigh Selig, Dennis Patrick Slattery, and Stephen A. Aizenstat.
A Pilgrimage Beyond Belief is a spiritual narrative of one man's calling to the life of monastic devotion. It is both an adventure story, in which the author travels into the world of monastic life, and a journey into his own interior geography, during which he struggles with his identity as well as the life and death of his alcoholic father.
The twenty chapters in this volume are divided into Formal Essays and Cultural Essays. Both, however, explore in varying degrees the place of consilience between literature, mythology and depth psychology. The essays seek that place of analogy, or correspondence and of accord between the three bridges, the three disciplines mentioned in its subtitle. Together they amplify and extend what might best be called a psycho-poetics of myth, where mythology is understood as the mucilage or glue that holds psyche and poiesis together in one form and shape. The intention in all the essays is to invite the reader into the discussion with his/her personal myth resonating with the ideas and images present and to remember and reimagine one's own narrative through the corridors of those presented in the volume. Bridge Work then carries two meanings: it wishes to span disciplines in order to increase one's range of awareness and it wishes to create a third thing, the bridge itself, as a medium of and for expressing new insights. The hope is that the reader will come away from these twenty expressions of the relational nature of literature to psychology and mythology with a renewed sense of how interdisciplinary studies can reveal other ways of knowing not afforded the specialist inhabiting one field of thought.
Now available with a contemporary look, a must-have collection of riveting short stories from the New York Times bestselling author of Mystic River and Shutter Island. “Locations are vivid and crisp, characters are memorable and, most importantly, the story lines dig into you and leave their mark.” —Boston Herald When it comes to contemporary crime fiction there’s no territory quite as dangerous and unpredictable as that of New York Times bestselling author Dennis Lehane. These five short stories and a play are Lehane at his visceral best. In “Running Out of Dog,” a vet returning from Vietnam is asked to redirect the violent skills he learned overseas to deal with his hometown’s rampant population of strays. “ICU” follows a hunted man who finds refuge in the oddest place imaginable. Surprises await a gang of Texas high-school football jocks who lay siege to a luxury home in the suburbs in “Gone Down to Corpus.” And in “Mushrooms,” a simple theft triggers a series of murders that forces a disillusioned young girl to consider her next move. This collection also includes “Until Gwen” and its stage adaptation, Coronado, which expands on the trenchant tale of a morally bankrupt conman father, his ill-fated son, and the woman they have in common. In Lehane’s capable hands, each story faces unflinchingly the darkest depths of the human experience—sin and redemption, loss and longing, flesh and blood—delivering a knockout punch that’ll have readers reeling.
When a former client jumps naked from a Boston landmark, Private Investigator Patrick Kenzie wants to know why. Once a perky young woman in love with life, her suicide is the final fall in a spiral of self-destruction. What Kenzie discovers is a sadistic stalker who targeted the woman and methodically drove her to her death – a monster that the law can’t touch. But Kenzie can. He and his former partner, Angela Gennaro, will fight a mind-twisting battle against the psychopath, even as he turns tricks on them… Prayers for Rain is another superior thriller from Dennis Lehane, the bestselling and acclaimed author of Mystic River, Shutter Island, and Gone, Baby, Gone.
For a limited time, read New York Times bestselling author Dennis Lehane’s Mystic River for a reduced price, and receive the first two chapters of his last bestseller, Moonlight Mile. In Mystic River, when they were children, Sean Devine, Jimmy Marcus, and Dave Boyle were friends. But then a strange car pulled up to their street. One boy got into the car, two did not, and something terrible happened—something that ended their friendship and changed all three boys forever. Now, years later, murder has tied their lives together again . . .
The "New York Times" bestselling tale by the acclaimed author of "Mystic River" is now in paperback. In 1954, a storm threatens to strand U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels on Shutter Island, home to a federal institution for the criminally insane.
Amanda McCready was four years old when she vanished from her blue-collar Boston neighborhood. Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro risked everything to find her—only to orchestrate her return to a neglectful mother and broken home. Twelve years later, Amanda, now sixteen, is gone again. The disappearance of little Amanda was the case that troubled Kenzie and Gennaro more than any other. Still haunted by their consciences, they must now revisit the nightmare that once tore them apart—following the trail of a lost teenager into a world of identity thieves, methamphetamine dealers, and Russian gangsters, right up to the doorstep of a dangerously unstable crime boss and his demented wife. Once again Patrick and Angie will be putting everything that matters to them on the line in pursuit of the answer to the burning question: Is it possible to do the right thing and still be dead wrong?
This New York Times bestseller from Dennis Lehane is a gripping, unnerving psychological thriller about the effects of a savage killing on three former friends in a tightly knit, blue-collar Boston neighborhood. When they were children, Sean Devine, Jimmy Marcus, and Dave Boyle were friends. But then a strange car pulled up to their street. One boy got into the car, two did not, and something terrible happened—something that ended their friendship and changed all three boys forever. Twenty-five years later, Sean is a homicide detective. Jimmy is an ex-con who owns a corner store. And Dave is trying to hold his marriage together and keep his demons at bay —demons that urge him to do terrible things. When Jimmy’s daughter is found murdered, Sean is assigned to the case. His investigation brings him into conflict with Jimmy, who finds his old criminal impulses tempt him to solve the crime with brutal justice. And then there is Dave, who came home the night Jimmy’s daughter died covered in someone else’s blood. A tense and unnerving psychological thriller, Mystic River is also an epic novel of love and loyalty, faith and family, in which people irrevocably marked by the past find themselves on a collision course with the darkest truths of their own hidden selves.
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