Origin Stories
Winter Course Infowebinar
Tuesday, December 16, 1:00 – 2:15 pm ET
The session is recorded and sent out for anyone who signs up for the infowebinar.
How Christmas and New Year's are part of some of the larger Origin Stories for American culture and identity
Origin Stories and their relationship to Calendar systems (using circular calendar format)
Origin Stories as Dynamic: they are not fixed in stone
Diversity of Origin Stories within a given cultural context
How understanding the mythos at work within a given holiday framework can help explain and navigate what's going on during the holiday itself
How understanding how fake-stories, myths, history, and truth intersect and diverge around a particular holiday explains something
How Christmas and New Year's as Collective Origin Stories function at micro and macro dimensions
Ways that people can and do change their own personal/familial Origin Stories at different levels
Origin Stories as contested spaces of public debate and personal angst/transformation—exploring tensions between religious and secular meanings, commercialization, cultural appropriation, and competing narratives of renewal
Short review and basic information about our upcoming Origin Stories Course (starting in February)
Will this help you understand Origin Stories better? Yes!
Will it help you engage with these two holidays in different ways? Yes!
Might it help you better understand some familial and social dynamics? Maybe!
Will it be rich and interesting? Yes!
Will it be recorded so you can listen later? Yes!
Is this geared towards a Christian audience? Nope! But we are going to be talking about some histories around Christmas, which entails thinking about Christianity.
Previous participants highly recommend This Course.
About your Guide
This course arises from the study, experimentation, somatic training, experiential journey, and lineage carried by Sara Jolena Wolcott, M.Div. Wolcott is a descendent of some of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America. She tends to the soil of the soul and the spring waters of the spirit through select individual spiritual direction and teaching on ReMembering and ReEnchanting. An ecotheologian and unconventional minister, she is the founder of Sequoia Samanvaya, a healer, a ceremonialist, and a Legacy Advisor.
Sequoia Samanvaya emerged from Sara Jolena Wolcott's global odyssey to better understand both the causes of our current intersecting personal, social, and ecological crises and the truths and practices that can carry us through a climate-changed future. She has worked at the intersections of climate change, religion and spirituality in nine countries, including Kenya, India, Indonesia, England, and Canada, and is a much-appreciated speaker. Her formal education includes: Masters of Divinity in Worship and the Arts from Union Theological Seminary; MA in Science, Society and Development from the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, England; BA in Anthropology from Haverford College, PA. Her initial training as a healer was at the McKinnon Institute of Massage Therapy, where at 18, she was one of the youngest to graduate from their program. She lives with her partner in the Hudson Valley, alongside the Mohicanatuck, the River That Runs Both Ways, aka the Hudson River, and is involved in local efforts to support the return of the Mohican peoples to their traditional homeland.