W2 - Wendy to the Second Power

My trip to Atlanta -- my first visit to this city, in fact -- came from something I stumbled on in the Fall of 2003 while looking through the website of Terri Windling to congratulate her and Ellen Datlow for winning a major award for one of their fantasy/horror anthologies. I never did quite determine Terri's email, but I did see that her group, Interstitial Arts, was very active in the first Mythic Journeys conference which was set for on/around the birthday of Joseph Campbell (JC) -- June 2004. When I checked the conference website, omigod! It was one person after another after another whom I'd read, admired, was fascinated by. Even at that early stage they had an impressive roster.

Authors: Terri herself; Delia Sherman who wrote THE PORCELAIN DOVE, which JenniferE had given to me one Christmas; Charles deLint and MaryAnn Harris, famous friends that I get to see only every few years; Alan Lee, who designed much of the look and many of the characters for Peter Jackson's LORD OF THE RINGS movie trilogy; Christopher Vogler, who turned the mythic structure in JC's writings into a book of fiction and screenwriting craft called THE WRITERS JOURNEY; poet Robert Bly, author of IRON JOHN and founder of the men's movement; Brian and Wendy Froud, who've designed and painted otherworldly creatures in movies and books, especially the wickedly funny LADY COTTINGTON'S PRESSED FAERY BOOK; Dr. Betty Sue Flowers, an brilliant Austin Jungian who'd studied with JC; and Jean Shinoda Bolen, a Jungian therapist and author who'd written THE GODDESS IN EVERY WOMAN, a fascinating academic book, and also the more personal, poetic CROSSING TO AVALON, which I loved for its detailing of Glastonbury as the Isle of Avalon. And so many more incredible people, all at one conference. It was like a Wendy dream come true!

( Read More... see the photos )

One of the weird things about actually getting from the MARTA station to the Atlanta Hyatt hotel was taking the escalators. All I can guess is that the Peachtree train station is about 3-4 stories below ground. You take one ordinary escalator just to get to a floor with elevators and more escalators. Then you take the mother of all up escalators to get to the Peachtree Mall level. Oh man, this thing soars up and up and up!

The Peachtree Mall itself is sort of cramped and dated. Except for the madding crowd which filled the food court this Friday, I never saw much traffic in it at all. Never could find many stores I wanted to shop in either, and at one point I really wanted to find a sweater or light jacket to buy because the conference rooms were so chilly. So before I checked in, I took advantage of the food court to grab a quick, inexpensive lunch.

Getting my spacious room was no problem, and the hotel people told me how to get to the 2 or 3 below ground levels in the hotel where the ballrooms and meeting rooms were for the conference. As I was down there picking up my registration packet and badge, I heard some familiar music. Turns out the dealers' room (which had awesome stuff, btw) was behind the registration desk. A musical couple had set up on the stage at one end of the dealers' room. The man was playing guitar and singing Celtic songs with a Canadian ("eh') accent. The woman was playing mandolin. She looked up and saw me, and smiled.

( Read More... who could they be? )

From all signs, the first Mythic Journeys conference, which was held on purpose on the 100th anniversary of the birth of Joseph Campbell (and will be held every 2 years now) was a rousing success. The organizers had projected a certain number of attendees to break even. Then so many awesome people had asked to be panelists and participants that they had to expand their plans. That created a funding shortage so the weekend was a gamble. And the good news? They went something like 50% over their expected registrants, so the whole thing paid for itself and paid off. And the energy for that weekend was terrific, man oh man.

I'd slipped away from folks, gotten my own dinner down in the Hyatt's cafe, and went to the big auditorium early to get a good seat for the opening ceremonies. While I was going through my program, a friendly woman from Alabama, Margaret, came over, introduced herself and sat with me. We chatted. She'd come to the conference because she'd read a lot of the non-fiction, self-empowerment and myth authors. She had several, like Marion Woodman, she wanted to meet. Margaret had driven herself to Atlanta and a few hours earlier had been involved in a fender-bender, so was frazzled but excited. She and I hooked up a few times throughout the weekend and would drag total strangers off to have meals with us.

The opening ceremonies were started by Michael Karlin, the President of the Mythic Imagination Institute. A neat guy, lots of charisma and humility, full of happy energy about the event and that it was already being so succesful. And young; maybe only 35-38 or so. Later I saw him chatting with Mary Ann so came up to introduce myself and praise him for the event. And close up, yep, he was young! But while Mike was describing some of the processes and challenges that led up to the conference, suddenly a voice boomed out from the back of the auditorium. People began gasping with shock. I looked back, and here came striding down the aisle an outrageous being ten feet tall!

( Read More... and see the God Pan )