Writing Ourselves Through the Apocalypse with Octavia E. Butler

with Ayana Jamieson, Ph.D.

a Three Session Seminar

3 Sundays: September 26th, October 24th, & November 14th

10am - 12pm PDT / 1pm-3pm EDT

Sessions will be hosted online + Recordings will be provided for two-week access.

Certificate for Continued Education Credits available, issued by The Salome Institute

Dr. Ayana Jamieson returns to The Salome Institute for Writing Ourselves Through the Apocalypse, a three-session seminar focused on in-depth engagement with contemporary lived experience through writing and the works of Octavia E. Butler.

Parable of the Sower, one of Butler's most well-known books, takes place just a few years from now, in 2024. It features a protagonist named Lauren Oya Olamina who, born in 2009, would now be twelve.

Lauren suffers from hyper-empathy syndrome, which causes her to experience the pain, and less often the pleasure, of others. In Butler’s Parable, Lauren writes journal entries and verses that help her to articulate what she is observing. She documents herself and her loved ones. She writes what it’s like to live in a world full of drugs, disease, drought, and uncertainty.

In this seminar, we will revisit Butler's depictions of apocalypse, hope, and planning for a future in community, with short readings and highlights from Butler's own research.

Seminar participants will be encouraged, like Lauren Oya Olamina, to journal in response to writing prompts as we discuss how to document ourselves today toward more equitable and sustainable futures.

You need not have read Butler's books to participate. An accessible reading list will be provided, and there will be space for reading aloud in sessions as well.

A few important notes on the structure for this three-part seminar:

• Registrants will have access to a community page. In order to provide space for group engagement between sessions, we’ve created a password-protected community page for discussion and sharing.

• An accessible reading list will be provided to all who register.

• Recordings will last for two weeks. For maximum accessibility as well as confidentiality, we record all sessions but set the videos to expire after two weeks. Recordings can never be downloaded.

About Ayana Jamieson, Ph.D.

Ayana Jamieson, is an organizer, educator, and founder of The Octavia E. Butler Legacy Network, a global community committed to highlighting Octavia Butler’s life and work, as well as creating new works inspired by Butler’s legacy. The Legacy Network grew out of Ayana’s research for her doctoral research in Depth Psychology on Butler’s life. Her dissertation is entitled, “‘Certainty of the Flesh’: A Biomythographical Reading of Octavia E. Butler’s Fictions.” She teaches ethnic studies courses at California State University Polytechnic, Pomona.

Register:

Scholarships & Discounts: It is important to us that this material be accessible. If finances would prevent you from joining us, please send an email with a short note. We would love for you to be able to join.

Online Attendance: Links for Zoom sessions will be made available to all registrants via email at least one day prior to the first session.

CEU: Participants can earn 6 CEs — Continued Education Credit hours — for this seminar. Please review this page on Continued Education Credits.

Recordings: Sessions will be recorded for those registrants unable to attend live. In order to protect confidentiality, recordings will expire two weeks after each gathering.

September’s New Moon in Virgo

Thursday, September 9th

6-7:30 pm PDT

Event will be hosted online.

A link for the live event will be sent one day in advance & a recording will be sent within 24 hours .

In this installment of our monthly salons on the New Moon, Salome’s resident astrologer, Carol Ferris, will offer insights into the astrology of the month ahead.

In September, the New Moon is in Virgo:

“For I am the first and the last/I am the honoured one and the scorned one/I am the whore and the holy one/I am the wife and the virgin/I am the mother and the daughter.”

- “The Thunder, Perfect Mind” from The Nag Hammadi Library, translated by George W. MacRae

With the New Moon in Virgo, the days grow shorter and nature bends her attention, with some urgency, to the gathering up of all that has been generated in the season before.  Virgo, the only feminine zodiac sign in Western astrology, carries a sheaf of wheat (the star Spica) and shoulders a cluster of grapes (the star Vindemiatrix). She reminds humans of harvest and the need to prepare for winter.  What, in this new moon, anticipating the inward turn of time, shall we focus on? How can we ready ourselves for times of darkness?

Note: If you have a copy of your own horoscope, it will be possible to trace these currents to your own experiences.

For more information on reading your own natal chart, you can purchase the recording of How to Read Your Own Horoscope 101, recorded live on June 27th, 2021.

About Carol Ferris

Carol Ferris is a full-time consulting astrologer, teacher, and private tutor of astrology with four decades of experience. She completed her MA in Interdisciplinary Studies at Marylhurst University. The title of her thesis, The Sky's Body: Constellations and Medicine reflects her ongoing interest in nature-based medicine and governance thinking of the ancient Near East and Chinese philosophers and astrologers. Carol's work with the multivalent symbols of astrology is interwoven into work with dreams and active imagination. Over the years, Carol has seen these two frameworks —astrological mapping and Jungian imagery —as mutually beckoning guides to understand how all life, in its exquisite specificity, rises from a unified field.

Register:

Online Attendance: A link for this salon will be emailed to all registrants within 24 hours of the event. Household members are welcome to join for the single login.

Recordings: Recordings of events will be emailed to all registrants within 24 hours of event.

Scholarships & Discounts: If finances would prevent you from joining us, please send an email with a short note. No questions asked. We would love for you to be able to join.