facultyexplore advaya’s teachers
Explore advaya's faculty of teachers, scientists, practitioners, philosophers and storytellers, who share multidimensional, local and diverse narratives from across the world.
Bayo Akomolafe
Sophie Strand
Satish Kumar
Vandana Shiva
Veronica Strang
Manda Scott
Beloved Sara Zaltash
David Abram
Dr Andreas Weber
David Whyte
Helena Norberg-Hodge
Dr. Predrag Slijepcevic
Charles Eisenstein
Aisha Paris Smith
Brontë Velez
Dr Sharon Blackie
Dr Sharon Blackie is an award-winning writer of fiction and nonfiction, a psychologist who has specialised both in neuroscience and narrative, and a mythologist with a specialisation in Celtic Studies. Her unique approach to working with myth, fairy tales and folklore highlights the insights these traditions can offer us into authentic and meaningful ways of being which are founded on a deep sense of belonging to place, a rootedness in the land we inhabit. In early 2017 she founded The Hedge School: both an online space and a physical location in Connemara, for teachings in myth, wild mind and enchantment.
Sharon was the founder and editor of EarthLines Magazine and is the author of The Long Delirious Burning Blue, If Women Rose Rooted and The Enchanted Life. She is now completing a collection of original fairy tales about shapeshifting women, Foxfire, Wolfskin, which will be published in autumn 2019. After several years as a crofter in the north-west of Scotland and the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, Sharon returned to Ireland in 2014 and has recently traded an old stone riverside cottage in Donegal for a house among the hills, lakes and seaweed-strewn tidal inlets of the Connemara Gaeltacht. Her experiences on the westernmost edges of the Celtic fringe give her a unique perspective on the psychology of belonging, and our relationship with place.
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Webinar: Fairytales of the Feminine
Join renowned author and mythologist Sharon Blackie for an enlightening webinar titled Fairytales of the Feminine. This webinar explores fairytales' rich connections to feminine archetypes and wisdom. Gain deeper understanding of fairytales' transformative potential, learn to harness their narratives for personal growth and empowerment. Whether you are a storyteller, a seeker of wisdom, or simply enchanted by myth, this webinar promises to inspire and illuminate the path to feminine self-discovery. Dr. Sharon Blackie's acclaimed books, lectures, and teaching programs focus on reimagining women’s stories and the relevance of myth, fairy tales, and folk traditions to today's personal, cultural, and environmental challenges.
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Listening to the land’s dreaming
This talk was given at the advaya event 'Mythic Imagination: The Power of Storytelling and Mythology'. Myth and story can help us to develop a sense of genuine belonging to the places we live in, and inform our relationship with the wider, animate earth. In this workshop, we’ll explore a profoundly embodied mythology, uncovering and working with the existing native myths and archetypes which inhabit our places, and delving into the ways in which we can weave our own personal stories into the land.