We live in a world of agonizing paradox: searching for happiness and finding emptiness; yearning for freedom yet increasingly caught in a web of regulations, hierarchies, and material expectations; striving for creativity and strangled by judgment; wanting intimacy, connectedness, and warmth but addicted to technology and virtual reality. Our world is the creation of the universal left brain -- a closed system that reflects only itself, like a hall of mirrors, or Narcissus gazing at his reflection, a world that refuses to accept anything it doesn't already know.

Story has always been the savior of worlds. The universal plot of the hero's journey -- orphaning, exile, and return -- has guided human evolution and elevated human consciousness for thousands of years. But we've lost the plot -- the dramatic arc of inner and outer transformation that is a metaphor for crossing the frontier between left brain and right, from conscious to the unconscious, and the resulting expansionfrom a blind, self-involved, and fragmented individual into an awakened, life-renewing presence.

This talk will take a look at the parallel landscapes of the brain and the hero's journey. It aims to explore the kinds of stories our world so desperately needs, and questions if there is time enough left to save ourselves. It will be low-tech, illustrated, and interactive.

Juliet Bruce is a writer, creatively oriented counselor, and story coach, with a very special practice. Since 1994, Juliet helped hundreds of people in Washington, DC and New York use expressive arts for healing and life transformation. In 2007, she won the National Storytelling Foundation Brimstone Award for a program to address the needs of New York City firefighters suffering continuing PTSD as a result of 9/11. Juliet is a fellow member of The NY Mythology Group, and came to us through the Joseph Campbell Foundation

Check out here blog: http://livingstory-ny.blogspot.com/