The Shape Of Things Unknown: Mythopoetic Study Group

Welcome to The Shape Of Things Unknown. A mythopoetic study group exploring how stories shape the way we see, think, and live.

Across five evenings in Fremantle, this program combines talks, discussions, and practical exercises to help you engage more deeply with wisdom of myth, imagination, and storytelling.

At the heart of this course is a guiding question:

• How can imaginal states elevate us towards mythical thought?

  What changes when we begin to experience the world symbolically, not just interpret it logically?

Module 1: The Poetics of Imagination

• Exploring the nature of the imagination, memory and poetic images

• An introduction to mythic and symbolic thinking

• And how language shapes our reality

Module 2: Song of the earth to itself

• What can be learnt from oral cultures

• How mythological thinking and imaginal states are tool for navigating our contemporary world and addressing global issues

Module 3: They went by every short way

• How we orient ourselves within a story, to uncover the underpinnings of a myth

• Understand how place, culture and language create meaning-making

Module 4: The Shape of Things Unknown

• The practical wisdom of myths, how to draw insight from stories and mythologies

• How to identify patterns, symbols and archetypes from within stories

Module 5: Is there wine in your ship

• The final module relates all we have learned into our lives in a meaningful and practical ways.

• To have wine in your ship is to hold the wisdom of yore, if you return with wine you are bringing something to your people. What is the wine you carry and how can you share this within your personal, professional and relational lives?

Throughout the course we will use as poet Alice Oswald describes a 'sidelong glance' to look at the indirect, unassuming and more than human undercurrents of a story.

These voices are often the ones overlooked in favour of the logical and rational arguments used to form decision making in western culture. We will unpack practices to listen to these voices and how this mythological way of being can be applied to all areas of our lives.

This invites us to notice what is subtle and often overlooked, and to work with imagination as a bridge between lived experience and deeper layers of meaning.

Why this matters?

Storytelling is more than just entertainment - it shapes how we understand and experience the world.

This course offers tools to:

• Recognise patterns and meaning within stories

• Engage the imagination as a tool for problem solving not just creativity

• Apply insights from myth to real-life situations, work, and personal practices

Sessions include guided reflection, small group discussion, simple practices such as mapping symbols from a story or tracing how a single image evolves across different mythologies.

The teacher

Will Wilson: lives in the tension and paradox that myths so eloquently hold, between: domestic and wild / land and sea / village and adventure / sacred and profane / silly and sincere.

Will has traveled and lived the stories he tells, from the wilds of Devon to the edges of Scotland, his MA in Poetics of Imagination gives his storytelling a grounding that takes you beyond the encounter into the wisdom of the old stories.

In this course he will draw on postgraduate study in Poetics of Imagination, training with the West Country School of Myth UK, and an ongoing practice in oral storytelling.

During his studies MA studies his research delved in into the origins of myth, memory and the imaginal culminating in a dissertation performance of oral stories from his ancestral mythology.

"Will’s Storytelling is so vivid and rich that you can’t help but hang on every word, and be transported across time and space. He has a precious gift for weaving narratives that will stay with you, in you, long after they are told."

- James “Fish” Gill - Author, Transformative Facilitator and Heart Coach.

The Details:

Schedule: 5 Thursday evenings in July and August.

July 2nd

July 9th

July 16th

July 23rd.

August 6th

**Please note no session on Thursday 30th July.

Timing: 18:15 - arrive and settle in get a cuppa, prompt 18:30 start sessions are 1.5 hours finishing at 20:00.

Location: TBC within close to Fremantle.

Format: Each session will take on its own shape and include: Engaging talk / Lecture - Practical discussions - Practices and activities.

Refreshments: Tea and Water will be available during the evenings, if you wish to bring treats to share know this is the only way to win a gold star!

Places are limited.

This group is for dedicated participants, while there is no performative elements to the program and you are not required to present work, however active participation in the activities and practices will enhance the collective experience.

Pre-course work:

All participants will be sent a recording of an oral story, it is vital that this is listened to and attention given to the reflective questions before the course begins.

Recordings:

• The talks and lectures will be recorded and provided to participants after each session for reference and further study. Note that any questions asked in the lecture part of the evenings will be on the recording.

What to Bring:

• A journal or notebook for reflections.

• An open mind and a willingness to journey into the unknown.