December 1 – 4 2009
Tchenka Sunderland and Jules Cashford
This course is part of our Winter Warmer Week at Schumacher College. We are therefore offering it to you at the special price of £395 for all teaching, workshops, food and accommodation. This is over £300 less than our normal short-course price. Click here to book your place online, now.
The other course taking place in our Winter Warmer Week: Bread Making for a New Food Culture with Andrew Whitley and Sheila Dillon. Click here for more details.
Download a flyer about our Winter Warmer Week
We live in a culture that, in a desire to understand and control chaotic Nature, has deified the Light at the expense of the Dark. The light of reason has banished the dark of superstition; the light of electricity has blotted out the dark of the night sky. The consequences are becoming clear for all to see and at this darkest time of the year, it seems appropriate to seek ways of redressing the balance.
It is vital that we renew our relationship with the Mysteries of Darkness so that we come to understand and appreciate its powers and gifts, not just as the tomb of death, but also as the womb of creation and source of renewal. It is arguably through our flight from it that we have become alienated from Soul and from a healthy relationship with our natural environment.
In early lunar and solar myths, the time of darkness was always the time of transformation when death was followed by rebirth as the new crescent of the Moon and the new disc of the Sun. This pattern of Nature has informed our mythological consciousness and offers us a way of understanding the mysteries of our own darkness. Jules Cashford will explore these ideas with the group through story, image and poetry.
During this short course, we will seek Wisdom by following a thread through the mysteries of the night sky and the ancient wisdom of astrology, in the alembic of Alchemy and through the serpentine coils of the labyrinth. Via teachings, discussion, meditation, creativity and labyrinthine ceremony we will search for an understanding, appreciation and connection with the true Source of all.
Day 1 Tuesday – Arrivals lunch time
Day 2 Wednesday
Day 3 – Thursday
Day 4 – Friday
Departures after lunch
Tchenka Jane Sunderland has been seeking Wisdom all her life. A degree in Philosophy preceded a career of some twenty years as a professional astrologer, during which she taught, wrote, lectured and broadcast in addition to running a successful private consultation practice.
Her endless fascination with all things esoteric lead through additional studies in sacred geometry, tarot, numerology and symbolism to her deepest passions of alchemy and the labyrinth. She has worked as labyrinth consultant to The Conservation Foundation, creating candlelit labyrinth installations in both Liverpool and Norwich Cathedrals and it is her design that is to be found installed permanently in the Cloisters of Norwich Cathedral.
Her path then lead to a withdrawal from public life, during which time she spent part of each year at Schumacher College in Devon where she fulfilled such diverse roles as volunteer helper, cook and teacher to students on the MSc in Holistic Science as well as continuing her alchemical studies and creating the College’s own labyrinth.
She sees this course as providing the opportunity to weave together the diverse threads of her knowledge, hoping through that synthesis to shed some light into the dark places of Wisdom.
Jules Cashford read philosophy at St. Andrews and did post-graduate research in literature at Cambridge, on a Carnegie Fellowship, studying for a Ph D on Tragedy in the novels of Joseph Conrad. She was a Supervisor in Tragedy at Trinity College, Cambridge for some years. She studied Psychology of Consciousness with Max Cade and lectured on Mythology at Birkbeck College of Extra-Mural Studies, University of London, in a course called ‘Before Philosophy.’
Jules trained as a Jungian Analyst with the Association of Jungian Analysts in London, and is a member of the International Association of Analytical Psychology. She is the co-author, with Anne Baring, of The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image (Penguin 1993) (still in print, translated into Spanish, and a Japanese translation forthcoming).
Jules is author of The Moon: Myth and Image (Cassell Illustrated, 2003), and translated The Homeric Hymns for Penguin Classics (2003). She wrote two books for children, The Myth of Isis and Osiris, and Theseus and the Minotaur (Barefoot and Shambhala, 1992 and 1994). She has contributed chapters and articles to various books, newspapers and journals including ‘Joseph Campbell and the Grail Myth,’ in John Matthews, ed., The Household of the Grail; ‘Homo Duplex: An Epilogue to Joseph Conrad’s “The Secret Sharer”’, Atalanta Ediciones, Girona, 2005; ‘Ímagining Eternity: Weaving “the heaven’s embroidered cloths,”’ in Cosmos and Psyche, ed., Nicholas Campion, Floris Books, 2006. With Kingfisher Art Productions she made a DVD exploring the symbolism of the Early Renaissance Painter Jan van Eyck, called The Mystery of Jan van Eyck. She now writes and lectures on Myth and Literature.
This course is part of our Winter Warmer Week at Schumacher College. We are therefore offering it to you at the special price of £395 for all teaching, workshops, food and accommodation. This is over £300 less than our normal short-course price. Click here to book your place online, now.
Book your place now! – click here to access our on-line booking system
Book by fax or mail! – click here to find out how
(only one discount applicable per booking)
For further information about Schumacher College please see About the College
To provisionally reserve a place for 5 days, email us your contact details and the name of the course admin@schumachercollege.org.uk
We will hold the place for five working days for reservations – three weeks before a course or earlier. After five days we will automatically offer your place to someone else if we have not received your application.
